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War On Iran: Economic Reality Will Force Trump To Defy The Lobby’s Pressure
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.
b’s scenario here is reasonable but strikes one as, er, optimistic.
A more realistic/pessimist/catastrophist scenario might have these elements:
* the 15% of missing oil supply resembles ever more, as we approach and eventually blow through JP Morgan’s operational floor level of reserves, an embolus or air bubble in the global blood stream.
* below that operational floor outcomes are ever more path dependent, localized & situation specific.
* With each passing day/week/month/year until domestic economic pressures (might!) force Trump’s hand in the direction of settlement the size of that embolus continues to grow at the rate of 7 to 12 million bbls per DAY.
* We seem to be miscategorizing a compounding flow problem for an ON/OFF switch problem. A “deal” does not switch Hormuz on, and does not switch the broader emergency off. KPLER estimates ~700,000 bdp more or less permanently lost due to damage to reserves or the economic viability of their rehabilitation. That number may grow over time as paraffin/sedimentation is a problem that also grows over time. Repair to production infrastructure, such as a major natural-gas train in Qatar, is by them estimated to take 3-5 YEARS, and this is under normal circumstances, when virtually every oil field manufacturing and repair facility in the world will be working at max capacity. Art Berman estimates that if a stable “deal” is signed today, by mid 2027, at best 45% of old-normal traffic will be transiting Hormuz. Again with that embolus of cumulative delayed / lost energy delivery growing by millions of bbls / day. So, say, 3 to 5 BILLION bbls by mid 2027. Think of the embolus lodged in the brain and millions of neurons dying per minute. Some of that much diminished hypoxic brain can be rewired, but a lot is not coming back.
* Though economists typically like to model aggregates such as these, media is almost entirely silent on models that attempt to track effects of price and scarcity cascades through the economy in the guise of supply-chain shocks, loss of efficiency, drops in ROI, increasing debt-service stress, rising re-financing costs, lay-offs, bankruptcies, interest rate hikes, bank bail outs, loss of tax revenues, increases in government support outlays, labour and civil unrest, policing & internment costs, global famine, widening wars, etc.
* Much more difficult to model are interactions among multiple supply-chain crises–diesel / urea for planting; diesel for farm & fish harvesting, refrigeration, distribution vs. diesel for data centers; helium precision manufacturing & oil/gas pressure equipment testing; helium/diesel/gas to power ultra-low temperature manufacturing; graphite for electric motors and chips; diesel & sulphur for mining refining–copper, nickel, uranium, cobalt; jet fuel for distribution of perishable fish & foodstuffs; aluminum / helium for pressure vessels; aluminum, plastics & sulphur for vast range manufacture, package, pharmaceutical precursors–each with their price spikes, unexpected shortages & production shut downs, & fixed debt-service & labour stresses.
* At any time, more or less forever, hostilities may resume & escalate on any given day–worsening damage to production facilities, desalination plants, air-conditioning and food storage, and compounding insurance and staffing crises for gulf shipping.
Posted by: Paul Damascene | Jun 2 2026 19:48 utc | 38
Journalist Suhaib Al-Masalma
“Statement issued by the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps:
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
“Fight them; God will punish them at your hands and disgrace them, and grant you victory over them, and heal the breasts of a believing people.”
(God Almighty has spoken the truth)
O free sons of the Islamic nation, and our proud and steadfast Iranian people:
In response to the arrogance and blatant aggression committed by the American terrorist forces by targeting the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the dear island of Qeshm, the aerospace force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with God’s grace and assistance, and in fulfillment of its pledge to protect the homeland’s soil, bombarded the military bases of the American occupation in the State of Kuwait with precise and intense missile strikes, which resulted in the successful destruction of their targets and setting fire to the aggressors’ fortresses.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as it announces this initial response to bring back the conflict, issues a stern warning with the highest level of decisiveness to the American administration, the head of global arrogance, and all who allow their lands or airspace to be used as a premise for aggression against Iran:
Any new foolishness, another aggression, or movement that affects a single inch of our borders and sovereignty will be met with a seismic, decisive, and decisive response that goes beyond the established rules and limits, and our valiant forces will not hesitate to turn all the aggressors’ headquarters and interests in the region into ashes.
The time of “hit and run” has passed, and the forces of oppression must bear the dire consequences of their ignorance and ill-advised adventures.
“And victory is only from Allah, the Mighty, the Wise.”
17 Dhu al-Hijjah 1447 AH
June 3, 2026 AD.”
Posted by: Ornot | Jun 2 2026 23:01 utc | 86
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