News & views related to the war on Iran …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Iran …

The war on Iran continues to escalate.

Yesterday a U.S. Apache helicopter went down in the Strait of Hormuz near the coast of Oman. The pilots were saved. The U.S. at first did not claim any external influence for the incident. Only hours after it happened it claimed that an Iranian Shahid drone had hit the helicopter.

That claim is not plausible at all.

Shahid are point to point kamikaze drones. They get their target coordinates before they are launched. They are not radio controlled. They do not have the capability to maneuver against a moving target. They explode when they hit something.

Whatever happened to the downed helicopter it wasn’t a hit by a Shahid drone that took it down.

After the U.S. had suddenly claimed that Iran had caused the incident it announced to strike on Iran. Some 10 targets were bombed including radar, communication equipment and, in the port of Sirik, a desalination station.

Iran responded by firing some 20 missiles and drones against U.S. installations in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain.

Neither side has claimed casualties so far.

Today the U.S. hit an Indian vessel near the coast of Oman. One sailor was killed. India condemned the attack.

About an hour ago U.S. President Donald Trump announced more strikes against Iran.

In unconfirmed news Israel just mobilized some 280,000 reservists. Together with already mobilized forces that sums up to be near its full potential.

The situation is going to escalate. Tomorrow the region may well again be in a full fledged war.

by English Outsider 

lifted from a comment

Such a lot of nonsense being talked at the moment.  Sorry, Gentlemen, (the Ladies, fortunately, are immune) but there’s any amount of it I’ve been reading here too.

I’d guess that a good half here are Ritter acolytes.  Lay waste Europe.  Bomb them to hell.  Don’t let’s pussyfoot around any more.

On Martyanov’s site I saw the video of Ritter delivering that message in Russia.   At the St Petersburg conference.   Has Ritter  lost his mind?  I wrote in to reply to Larch on the subject.  Many of “b’s” commenters will know Larch because he’s a fund of information on the ins and outs of the Ukrainian war since 2014.  Great bloke.

Larch – Ritter’s way off in that video clip. Karaganov plus. They’ll be listening to him at SPIEF and thinking, is that sort of rabid nonsense all Ritter has to offer us? It’s Curtis LeMay thinking, make the rubble bounce, no use at all when working out how to defuse a confrontation the Russians aren’t looking to extend.

Ritter’s Intel and arms control background, plus his ability to marshal a whole lot of information he has at his fingertips and that most of us don’t, make him a valuable analyst – when he’s not going off the deep end which he does far too often. And for all his undoubted analytical ability he doesn’t seem to grasp the underlying reality.

That is, that the Americans, for all Trump’s increasingly lame PR, are still key players in the conflict in Ukraine. Those drone and missile attacks into Russia would not be possible but for American ISR and planning assistance to go with it. Same for the sabotage and assassination missions being run into Russia. Much of the supply of arms is also still down to the US. Indirectly, again in spite of Trump’s PR, financial support too. The logistics are still being run from Wiesbaden and we’re fools if we think that the Americans, whose expertise in logistics is far superior to the European’s, aren’t key in that too.

So the full scale attack Ritter is calling for would be an attack on American assets too. What’s Ritter up to, going to a big conference in St Petersburg and calling for that?

All Ritter’s doing is showing the Russians that the Americans, whether it’s hawks like Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham or dissidents like Ritter, are in an advanced state of hysteria all round and need to be handled very carefully if they’re not to harm themselves and others. But I think the Russians know that already.

I should add that there are plenty of good people in Europe who have the gravest reservations about EU foreign policy. Believe it or not, that goes for Britain too. Responsible voices in England are calling for our UK foreign policy to be changed. Ian Proud, Commodore Jermy, the late Lord Skidelsky, the invaluable Mercouris, Dr Rob Campbell, many others.

Far as I can see they’re not making much headway but they’re all in their various ways working at getting a more accurate and rational view of the Ukrainian conflict through to the public here and abroad. Ritter can do that when he’s not losing it but when he does lose it as he does in that video, he discredits all those attempts and his own too.

And I’m going to guess that many of the commenters on “b’s” site bellowing “nuke everything” are just shooting a line.  They’re just thoroughly fed up with the mess their various countries have got themselves into and are expressing that dissatisfaction through hyperbole.

—
b here:

I agree with the above. Ritter is talking nonsense (with Larry Johnson and Pepe Escobar not far behind).

The current ‘Ukraine is wining’ propaganda coming from all NATO channels seems to have influenced quite a few of these people. It is bullshit.

Professor Mearsheimer has studied at West Point and was an air-force officer for some ten years before becoming an academic expert in international relations. His assessments of military realities are sound and grounded in facts.

In his latest talk with Judge Napolitano just hours ago, he agrees with my view that the situation in Ukraine has not changed:

Cont. reading: No Need To Waste Europe – by English Outsider

President Trump and his partner in crime Netanyahoo have tried to draw Iran into a ceasefire trap.

It was hoped for that a bit by bit escalation, like Israeli bombing in Lebanon, would be left without a response by Iran.

Iran however did not fall for that scheme. It had been agreed that the ceasefire in the war on Iran  includes Lebanon and other fronts between the imperialist and resistance parties. It is either a ceasefire for all or a ceasefire for none.

A week ago, when Netanyahoo threatened to bomb the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut Iran stopped all further peace negotiations and threatened to response in kind.

Trump then allegedly shouted and cursed Netanyahoo for his Beirut bombing plans. But such alleged divergences of views between Washington and Tel Aviv have long be proven to be scams.

Yesterday, on Sunday afternoon local time, Israel dropped at least 10 bombs on Dahiyeh.

Iran’s response followed shortly thereafter. Five waves of missiles were launched against air bases and other targets in northern Israel.

Trump, in an interview (archived) with the Financial Times and FOXnews, asked Israel to stay down. He claimed to “call the shots” on the issue:

“He won’t have any choice,” Trump told the FT in a telephone interview. “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.”

A bit later Israel aircraft bombed targets in Iran with stand of missiles. Among the targets were oil installations at the Karun petrochemical complex. Other targets were radar stations.

Iran responded by launching missiles against two additional air bases in central Israel while missiles from Lebanon hit at Israeli oil installations in Haifa.

Ansarullah in Yemen joined in. It announced that all Israel related shipping will be blocked from the Red Sea and fired some of its own missiles against Israel proper.

Both sides of the conflict then concluded the fight. The skirmish is, for now, over.

Trump has several times claimed to restrict Netanyahoo, to hold him back or to order him to stand down. Israel has bombe anyway and, at least in its attacks on Iran, continued to rely on U.S. controlled air defenses and U.S. flight refueling tankers.

Trump’s claims about ordering Israel to do this or that are obviously fake.

The strong cooperation between the U.S. and Israel continues and it is indeed Netanyahoo who is calling the shots while Trump is either agreeing with him or decided to stay silent whenever Israel ignores his ‘order’:

Cont. reading: War On Iran: – Iran Will Respond To Ceasefire Breaches Wherever Those Are

News & views related to the war on Iran …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Jun 1 – War On Iran: After Israel Threatened Beirut Iran Announced To Further Reduce Global Oil Supplies
• Jun 2 – War On Iran: Economic Reality Will Force Trump To Defy The Lobby’s Pressure
• Jun 5 – War On Iran: – Iran Needs Escalation To Avoid The Ceasefire Trap
  Related:
  – Oil industry warns Trump administration of price spikes within weeks – Politico
  – Trump Dreads an Iran Deal Worse than Obama’s (archived – Atlantic
  Talks have stalled in part because the president keeps aiming for a grand finale.
  – Iran Severely Damaged US Air Ops Center in Qatar Soon After War Began – Air and Space Forces
  – Exclusive: Israel sent troops to Azerbaijan during Iran war as part of secret network across region, sources say – CNN
  – A new defence champion is rising from the Gulf (archived) (UAE) – Economist

• Jun 4 – Can Russia Refrain From Hitting Back? – by English Outsider
  Related:
  – The attritional war in Ukraine: a brief update – Warwick Powell
  – Is Ukraine-Russia War Entering the End Game? – A Model of Attritional Warfare Suggests Yes – Peter Turchin
  – Ukraine’s plot to force Putin to sue for peace – Telegraph
  – AI drones – Ukrainian mid-range drone war: effects, statistics, Russian counter-measures. – Events in Ukraine

• Jun 6 – Israel Asks For A Guaranteed Share Of U.S. Weapon Purchases
  Related:
  – Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel (archived) – NY Times
  – How to Understand the Israeli Bid to Forego US Military Aid (“its a shell game”) – Jewish Current
  – Revealed: Israel’s curriculum for ‘influencing public consciousness’ – 972mag

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2026-118

The colonial expansion of Israel is openly subsidized by the U.S. with currently $3.5 billion per year. Most of that money is bound to Israel’s purchase of U.S. made weapons. The stipend is controlled by Congress and must pass the yearly budget review.

The Israeli government is trying to change the stipend into a more lucrative racket.

It has suggested to replace the yearly subsidy by a ‘deeper military cooperation’ which is code for the guaranteed U.S. purchases of Israeli made weapons and continuous profits for Israel’s weapon manufacturers. To institute the new scheme Congress will pass a law that will integrate Israel’s military-industrial complex into U.S. procurement and production lines.

Following that there will be no more yearly reviews:

Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.”
…
Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.
…
It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber.

and:

If enacted, the provision could mark a major change in one of the world’s closest military relationships, shifting the two countries from a partnership centred largely on American military aid towards one in which their defence industries are more deeply intertwined.

Section 224 would require the US defence secretary to appoint an “executive agent”: a single official to coordinate military cooperation between the US and Israel.

That work would cover joint research and development, the shared production of weapons, and the linking of military systems and data.

In future the Pentagon will have to spend, by law, a part of its budget on purchases from Israel. Given the $1.5 trillion war budget proposed by Trump the profits from such an alliance for Israel will be a multiple of its current stipend.

Congress is currently in the process of passing the proposal.

The U.S. military is not happy about the prospect of having Israel involved its technology and data systems. A subtile hint of that can be seen in this current news item:

Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say – NBCnews
The counterintelligence threat level was raised by the Defense Intelligence Agency in recent weeks after growing concerns that Israeli espionage had become more aggressive than usual, sources say.

Cont. reading: Israel Asks For A Guaranteed Share Of U.S. Weapon Purchases

A typical U.S. tactic against a strategic target is to ‘boil the frog’ by slowly increasing the temperature of the water it is sitting it. The conflict in Ukraine is an good example for this. Hits against Russia, directed by the CIA, are escalated bit by bit while Russia is reluctant to more severe deterrence measures.

The current war on Iran is another example. The U.S. is insisting on a ceasefire while trying to erode Iran’s leverage with economic strangulation.

Iran’s major weapon, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, will need another month or two to fully unfold its intended effect on the U.S. and global economy. Meanwhile the U.S. is trying to tire Iran with fake diplomacy, economic measures (its blockade) and pinpoint strikes.

But Iran is well aware of this tactic. It has decided to avoid this ceasefire trap by continuous escalation:

The United States and Israel are using this [ceasefire] period to reshape realities on the ground, weaken Iran’s leverage, and arrive at a negotiating table where Tehran’s position has already been quietly eroded. This perception is strengthening those within the Islamic Republic who argue that diplomatic restraint, under current conditions, carries its own strategic costs.
…
The delay in finalizing the memorandum of understanding is increasingly interpreted as purposive rather than procedural and as a U.S. attempt to use the passage of time as a strategic instrument. The concern is that each week of ceasefire, with American military and economic pressure continuing unabated and Iranian restraint producing no reciprocal concessions, represents a net erosion of the position Tehran believes it secured during the forty days of active fighting.

Iran has decided to respond to this ‘boiling-the-frog’ tactic by increasing the cost for even the slightest U.S. attack. It is no longer responding in kind. Each U.S. strike is answered by hitting back stronger and against more targets. As Rob Campbell provides of the skirmish of June 2:

Late at night, the Americans hit an Iranian oil tanker and the Iranians retaliated with an attack on an USraeli vessel. The Americans also targeted the control tower on Qeshm Island and the Iranians responded with attacks on US Kuwaiti bases at Ali Al- Salem and Arifjan and the Fifth Fleet base. Bahrain also came under attack and it airspace closed to all traffic. It is claimed that 136 Shahed drones were seen above Kuwait while heavy damage was inflicted on Kuwait’s only international airport which has been closed.
…
Satellite images indicate damage to a hanger which housed drones and aircraft at Ali al-Salem airbase in Kuwait

The Iranians also attacked the Kurdish Separatist group at their HG in Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan).

Iran has warned the Americans that they will respond to future attacks with increased intensity. which they appear to be doing.

The increased intensity is designed to avoid the trap:

As economic pressure mounts, Israel continues its campaign against Hezbollah, and Washington works to reduce the strategic significance of Hormuz before any deal is concluded, more voices within the Islamic Republic are arriving at the conclusion that leverage must be actively defended before it can be usefully negotiated.

Iran wants an agreement with the U.S. but is also expecting and prepared for a new round of war. For political reason President Trump is, for now, trying to avoid both, an agreement with Iran and renewed fighting. He continues to ignore Iran’s escalation. But he will have to respond (archived) if it ends up killing U.S. soldiers:

Cont. reading: War On Iran: – Iran Needs Escalation To Avoid The Ceasefire Trap

by English Outsider 

lifted from a comment

“The fact that Russia has lasted this long is a miracle.  How much longer can it hold on is another story.”

Posted by: bored | May 31 2026 15:23 utc | 7

The main thing is that we’ve all got this far without going nuclear.  It was getting just a little edgy toward the end of the Biden Presidency.

Not that anyone would be fool enough to press the button deliberately.   But when tensions are running high, and in spite of what seem to be some comprehensive deconfliction arrangements, the chances of accident are just that little bit higher.  I’m guessing, though it can’t be an informed guess, that the chances of accidental Armageddon have receded since President Biden left office.

So the question now is not so much one of straight survival.  It’s whether the Russians can keep plodding along as they are,  which keeps costs fairly low for them, or whether they’re going to have allow the conflict to spill out into Europe.

That seems on the face of it to be a simple calculation.  What is the cost of the damage the West is currently doing?.  What is the cost of stopping them doing it?   Not just the cost of the missiles it’d take to prevent the Western powers shipping drones and missiles to Ukraine, but the diplomatic and political backlash long term if the Russians were to extend the war to the European theatre as a whole.  Remembering they’d have to strike American assets in Europe too because the Americans are still key players when it comes to supplying materiel and ISR assistance and helping plan the various attacks into Russia.

But it’s not that simple a calculation.  It’s not just a matter of balancing relative costs.  War has its own momentum.  Emotional response matters too.  I remember the Falklands war.  In terms of scale that’s a ridiculous comparison.  In terms of emotional response of the general public, not.

At that time the risk and cost of countering the Argentinian invasion looked to be greater than the loss incurred by just letting the Argentinians have the islands.  No question.  But the public mood was nothing to do with relative costs.  “We’re not having that!” was the public response in the UK.  The politicians of the time, though fully aware that the risk and cost of responding outweighed the benefits, would almost certainly have lost power had they not acted in accordance with that public mood.

So here.  Striking supply depots, logistics facilities and military HQ’s in Europe goes dead against the policy that the Russian administration has been pursuing for the last four years.  They want to put the Ukrainian conflict to bed without letting the conflict spill out into open war in Europe and they’ve been doing OK on that so far.  But then the public mood enters the equation.

If someone were sending missiles and mounting sabotage and assassination attacks into England we in the general public wouldn’t be doing cost benefit analyses.  We’d be jumping up and down and insisting our politicians did something about it.  Turn that obvious truth around.  We in the West are sending missiles and mounting sabotage and assassination attacks into Russia and we can be dead sure the Russian general public is jumping up and down about that right now.

So that’s the question they’ll be pondering in the Russian Security Council.   How much more rope can we give the West, they’ll be saying,  before the Russian public gets fed up with just passively taking the knocks.  You and I, “bored”,  have no way of guessing what they’ll decide on that.   And it’s not as if you and I were players ourselves.  We’ll just have to wait and see what their decision is.

News & views related to the war on Iran …

Of interest:

Iran’s New Grand Strategy – How a Remade Islamic Republic Will Reshape the Middle East (archived) –
Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr / Foreign Affairs

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Iran …

This graphic explains why Trump is under stress and why Iran believes it is winning the conflict.

biggerThe Zionist lobby is vehemently against any peace deal with Iran. Israel will do its best to sabotage any resolution of the matter by continuing its war in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. It wants the war on Iran to continue until that country is destroyed as a viable competitor.

So far the Zionists hold the upper hand. They can and do defy Trump at every corner. The Lobby has the upper hand. He does not yet dare to take it down.

Existing oil inventories, commercial ones as well as state owned strategic reserves, were used as a buffer to paper over the lack of some 15% of crude oil in the global markets. Gas prices at the pump have risen, but only moderately.

From now on the situation can only, and will, get worse.

During June and July Prices will rise further. Distribution problems will lead to temporary closure of this or that gas station. Selected oil derived products will become rare.

By August western governments will start to introduce rationing measures. Smaller refineries will shut down. Political pressure will increase to a point where it can no longer be ignored. The voices of the (non-oil) industry, financial circles, and the public will become louder than the Lobby’s.

Only then will Trump be able to show Netanyahoo the finger. He will have to order Israel to stand down.

At some point Iran and the U.S. will come to an agreement. No one will trust that will hold. From there on it will still take many more months for sufficient oil supplies to come back to the market.

The Israeli government, pushed by its Zionazis and with the support of the White House, has announced that it will attack the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut. Dahiyeh is normal civil neighborhood which is claimed to have a Shia majority with sympathies for Hizbullah.

Israel says it will renew strikes on Hezbollah in Beirut after lobbying for US green light – Times of Israel

Israel announced Monday morning that it would renew strikes on Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, after significantly curtailing attacks on the Lebanese capital for weeks at the request of US President Donald Trump’s administration, …

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that they had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
…
Reports had earlier said Israel was lobbying the US to grant permission to resume massive strikes on the terror group’s stronghold, and that an American official had hinted that such a green light could be coming.

Lebanon is part of the crumbling ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran’s foreign minister warned of the consequences of such a severe breach of the ceasefire:

Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi – 11:04 UTC · Jun 1, 2026

For immediate attention:

The ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon.

Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.

The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation.

In reaction to the Israeli announcement Iran has stopped all negotiations and threatened to respond in kind.

Hamidreza Azizi @HamidRezaAz – 13:28 UTC · Jun 1, 2026

Tasnim News Agency – affiliated with the IRGC – reports that #Iran’s negotiating team is suspending the exchange of texts and messages with the US through mediator Pakistan, citing ongoing Israeli military operations in #Lebanon.

Tehran’s stated ground is that Lebanon was a precondition for any ceasefire arrangement, and that arrangement has now been violated. Iranian negotiators say talks will not resume until Israeli operations Lebanon stop and Israeli forces withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory.

The announcement also carries a threat: full closure of the Strait of Hormuz – after some incremental ease of transit over the past couple of weeks – and “activation of the Bab al-Mandab front” as punitive measures against Israel and its allies.

Lebanon matters inside Iran. The Iranian leadership can not ignore what is happening there.

Currently some 15% of the regular global oil supplies are blocked in the Strait of Hormuz. Circumventing that blockade through its east-west pipeline Saudi Arabia is currently exporting some 4-5 million barrels per day through its Red Sea harbor Yanbu and Bab el-Mandab.

biggerI had earlier describe how the closure of Bab el Mandab would hurt shipping and oil supplies:Cont. reading: War On Iran: After Israel Threatened Beirut Iran Announced To Further Reduce Global Oil Supplies