Sorry for posting only four pieces this week. There was family visiting here who deserved a bit of attention.
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
- June 13 – Today's Attacks On Ships In The Gulf Of Oman Are Not In Iran's Interest – Or Are They? (Updated)
- June 14 – Iran Decided To Put Maximum Pressure On Trump – Here Is How It Will Do It
- June 16 – How Trump's "Maximum Pressure" Campaign Against Iran Now Works Against Him
Your host is quite proud about the above scoop on Iran's new strategy. I developed the idea that Iran runs a "strategy of tension" by putting myself into Iran's role. What were my options?
After I wrote that up in the update of the first post, I became convinced that it was the right idea. Iran had gained escalation dominance. I contacted Elijah Magnier on Twitter and asked what he thought about it. He rejected the idea. He thought, like I earlier did, that Friday's attack would hurt Iran.
A few hours later Elijah came along with my idea. He later contacted his sources in Tehran who confirmed that it is indeed Iran's current strategy. Each tanker incident in the Middle East will now become, as Bernd writes, another version of the "Murder on the Orient Express". Everyone will ask "Who's done it?" No one believes the U.S. when it points towards Iran. Such U.S. claims are only good for silly jokes:
John Bolton: ‘An Attack On Two Saudi Oil Tankers Is An Attack On All Americans’ – The Onion
Chief of Naval Operations lauds return to tradition of ‘false flag’ operations – Duffelblog
Even the otherwise docile Japan is mightily pissed that the attack on a Japanese tanker during Prime Minister Abe's visit in Tehran is blamed on Iran. Its government officially demands an explanation:
Japan demands more proof from U.S. that Iran attacked tankers
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Other issues
Venezuela:
Enviados de Guaidó se apropian de fondos para ayuda humanitaria en Colombia – PANAM Post (Spanish)
Shocking expose of Juan Guaido's envoys in Colombia, who are accused of embezzling "humanitarian aid" funds, inflating figures, fraud & threats in order to surround themselves with luxury. There are even copies of receipts.
and
Associates of Venezuelan coup frontman Juan Guaidó embezzled funds raised in Cúcuta, Colombia for humanitarian aid and lavishly spent it on hotels, nightclubs and expensive clothes. This is a monumental scandal! – more
Guaido's people in Colombia collected aid and money for 1,400 soldiers they claimed had come to their side. There were in fact less than 700 most of whom were not even deserters. The Colombian government paid the hotel costs for most of them. They were soon evicted because Guaido's envoys just kept the money. They spend it on whores and bad drugs. One ended up dead, another ended up hospitalized. The government of Colombia is not amused about this. It is really no wonder that the coup attempt failed.
Cyberattacks:
Remember how electricity in Venezuela failed during the U.S. coup attempt? The Maduro government claimed that U.S. cyberattack caused the damage. The U.S. blamed the "incompetence" of the Maduro government and said it would never do such a thing. Except when its does:
U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid – NYT
The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said.
…
[T]he American strategy has shifted more toward offense, officials say, with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before. It is intended partly as a warning, and partly to be poised to conduct cyberstrikes if a major conflict broke out between Washington and Moscow.
I do not have time to pick the piece apart, but I believe that it is mostly scaremongering and psychological warfare against Russia. Endangering the electrical network of a nuclear power is an immensely stupid idea. This piece from January 2018 explains why:
Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms – NYT
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.
Does anyone expect that Russia would react differently? President Putin offered several times to sign a binding agreement that would prohibit such cyberattacks. The U.S. under Bush and Obama rejected that. It will now have to live with the consequences.
How good are the cyberwar folks at targeting their weapons anyway?
Parts of Latin American hit by massive power outage
Buenos Aires (dpa) – Large parts of Latin America have been hit by a massive power outage, local media and an Argentinian energy company said. Argentinian energy company Edesur confirmed on Twitter that all of Argentina and Uruguay had been affected by the outage. Argentinian newspaper La Nacion reported that Brazil and Chile had also been affected, while the BBC flagged outages in Paraguay.
That also must have been caused by the "incompetence" of the Maduro government in Venezuela …
Use as open thread …