|
War on Iran: – Another Hold Of Direct Action While The War Proceeds Elsewhere
On Friday the 24th the U.S. unexpectedly stopped its bombing campaign on Iran. My hunch was that this was a sign of negotiations. However – Iran later denied that any negotiations with the U.S. were happening.
But it has joined the U.S. at this moment in not firing its weapons:
Iran will halt its own attacks as long as the United States does the same, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday. The development comes as the United States pressed pause on its bombing campaign after President Donald Trump’s advisers told him they were running out of targets and expressed worries about depleting the U.S. arsenal.
After 13 nights of intensifying U.S. airstrikes on Iran, the Pentagon suspended the campaign late on Friday, with no U.S. attacks reported on either Saturday or Sunday. Iran, which had been following each night of U.S. attacks with its own strikes on neighbouring countries that host U.S. bases, has also so far held fire for two days.
The Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Tehran’s position “remains ‘attack for attack’: if the attacks stop, Iran will also halt its operations. That message has already been conveyed to the United States.”
U.S. sources claim that the stop was initiated because the military was running out of air defense missiles. That may well have been the case. But the larger reason is that the U.S. strikes on Iran have not been effective. They did not induce Iran to change its position on its effective control of the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is blocked, oil can not flow, and higher prices at the pump will diminish votes for Trump’s party in the upcoming elections.
The U.S. military has only stopped for a moment – it has not ended its war on Iran. There are still more than 100 U.S. tanker airplanes in the Middle East together with additional fighter jets and special operations units. The U.S. could any time be back at full escalation.
Meanwhile the war continues on other levels.
On Sunday, in response to Saudi Arabian strikes on Hodeidah harbor in Yemen, Ansarallah forces attacked two Saudi refineries:
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis say they carried out operations targeting Saudi Aramco oil facilities in the southern cities of Jizan and Yanbu, according to a statement by the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sare.
There is no immediate Saudi confirmation, though footage shows plumes of black smoke rising into the air from the Aramco refinery in Jizan.
Saudi Arabia earlier issued brief warnings to residents in Jizan and Yanbu after the Houthis vowed to retaliate against the kingdom for attacks this week.
Both refineries are currently still burning. While the Yanbu refinery is an older one, the new Jizan (also Jazan) project, at the Red Sea cost near the Yemeni border, is a very valuable asset:
In 2006, Saudi Arabia drew up ambitious plans to build a new industrial city in Jazan, in the far south-west of the Kingdom. The main aim of this initiative, the Jazan Economic City Project, was to expand the economic development of the region.
At the heart of the project is Aramco’s fully integrated Jazan Refinery and Petrochemical Complex — the result of an estimated $21 billion of investment — which, when operational, is expected to produce both high-value products, and power, in a more sustainable way.
Today Saudi Arabia said it was additionally attacked by drones from Iraq which were aimed at its east coast petroleum assets. Fire was detected at the ARAMCO processing facility at Abqaiq in the eastern Saudi desert. This is the world largest crude oil processing facility.
The Saudis will see these attacks as coordinated by Iran and executed by its proxy assets. The attacks come on top of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran and the Bab al-Mandeb outlet of the Red Sea by Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s oil output is severely diminished. It is in for a very big squeeze.
Another sideshow happened in the Caspian Sea where a Ukrainian drone attack damaged an Iranian ship that was transporting goods to Russia. No such attack could have happened without U.S. intelligence information. Its effects though will be nothing more than a PR stunt for Ukraine’s acting president. Iran will, when time comes, retaliate against him.
Where is the U.S. going from here?
The USrael has lost its war on Iran. It does not have the will and means to defeat the country. Geography is Iran’s asset. It can control the Strait and the oil flow through it no matter what the U.S. or Israel try to do.
Trump had already acknowledged that when he, in mid June, had signed the Memorandum of Understanding. He however immediately ignored several of the agreed upon clauses: Trump continued to threaten Iran, there was no ceasefire in Lebanon, Iran’s exclusive right to control the Strait was ignored and Iranian assets withheld by the U.S. had not been released.
Soon thereafter the U.S. reinstated its blockade of Iranian traffic and resumed its bombing campaign. Iran again blocked the global oil flow by closing the Strait.
Trump may now try to reinstate the MoU as it had been agreed six weeks ago. Iran will of course reject such a proposal. It will at least demand that the U.S. fulfills ALL clauses of the MoU down to the letter BEFORE it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
To get out of his current dilemma Trump will have to push Israel out of Lebanon. He will have to remove his forces from the Middle East and will have to pay out Iranian assets.
It is hardly conceivable that he will do any of this.
This week the Prime Minister of the Zionist entity Bibi Netanyahoo will again be in Washington and meet with Trump. His aim will be to again push for regime change:
“We see that Trump is interested in reaching an agreement,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli military intelligence commander and an Iran specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “Israel doesn’t want to hear about an agreement, so there is no alignment of interests,” he said.
Israeli leaders view returning to war as preferable, he said, because any U.S. peace agreement with Iran will strengthen the regime in Tehran that they want to see toppled.
…
What goes on behind the scenes between the two leaders, however, has proved to be inscrutable and surprising at times. Mr. Netanyahu has managed to influence Mr. Trump in the past, analysts say, and it can be impossible to know if the pair are at loggerheads or in cahoots.
My current assumption is that Trump, under Israeli influence, will soon try for another military intervention. Only when that fails, as it is likely to do, will he finally be ready to concede defeat.
‘The place was involved in all manner of high-level illicit activity including counterfeiting.
Chauvin was most certainly in on the game which is why he took over from the other cops when he heard Floyd was arrested for using a fake bill.
Chauvin knew Floyd would spill the beans on the entire operation.’ – Dan Kelly
‘One of the dumber conspiracy theories I’ve read on here, and that’s saying something.’ – catdog 362
Yes, the counterfeiting operation is not true.
Horrible job by me.
I did not go back and in any way attempt to verify the things I read back then before replying to Ornot in the here and now.
Chauvin was absolutely a bad cop and a bad dude generally.
His list of misconduct complaints is legendary while most cops do their job without ever receiving any formal misconduct complaints.
Here is a PCR article full of lies in support of Chauvin:
https://paulcraigroberts.org/the-conviction-of-derek-chauvin-was-one-of-the-worst-travesties-of-justice-in-american-history/
Nothing Chauvin did that day followed any sort of police protocol that anyone anywhere is aware of.
Roberts intentionally twisted the coroner’s words and findings.
To call Chauvin’s conviction ‘one of the worst travesties of justice in American history’ is beyond absurd.
Here is more Roberts:
‘George Floyd killed himself by overdosing on fentanyl, by leaving a serious heart problem unattended, and by lying to police that he was drug free.
If Floyd had answered truthfully, police would have realized Floyd’s condition sooner and called medics earlier.’
Roberts writes this after just admitting earlier that the police do beat up on blacks but they also beat up on whites:
‘It was also a product of years of media reports emphasizing gratuitous police violence against blacks.
The same police violence was used against whites, but the media only reported the instances where blacks were the victims.’
This is true and Adolf Reed has said the same thing (that bad cops will beat up on whites if there aren’t any blacks around).
And let’s not forget the yellows and the reds and the browns.
Chauvin was on the neck for all but 30 secs when the paramedics arrived to try to get a pulse.
The other, ah, nine minutes where he was looking out with that creepy look on his face were on the man’s neck.
He killed the dude and while the George Floyd posters and all the nonsense that followed was – once again – not a great look for ‘the left’ the facts of the incident itself are that Chauvin killed Floyd.
‘Says what he thinks’ means says what he thinks is true…how does anyone become more honest than that ?’ – Ornot 370
It’s not a lie if he believes it’s true!
I just outlined a few egregious lies by Roberts.
There are others.
These aren’t mistakes. They are outright lies in the interest of the power structure.
Roberts used to write about ‘Mother Russia’ in this utterly bizarre tone from time to time.
It was almost as if he was programmed – and I really mean that.
His ‘A Brief For Animals’ was decent.
Posted by: Dan Kelly | Jul 29 2026 8:14 utc | 421
Kid: “Daddy? Why are there rich people?” Dad: “What do you mean by rich? You mean like in spirit?” Kid: “No-o-o-o-o… Like they have lots of big houses and cars and money!” Dad: “Ohhh, you mean those kinds. Well, you see, sweetie, our society allows some people to make more money than other people, working no harder than anyone else. Society then allows those with more money to acquire more land than others. Over time, this creates the dynamic for most, if not all, problems we have in society today, from landlessness, homelessness and poverty, to social unrest, war and civilizational collapse.” Kid: “Why does society allow that?!” Dad: “Corruption, cluelessness or both. Society uses force to uphold rules they call, ‘laws’, that say that one person with more money can have more land than another with less money.” Kid: “Why can’t we stop that!?” Dad: “Corruption, cluelessness or both again: This setup is upheld by people with guns and weapons, or access to them, like police, security guards and military people– people who often don’t understand this basic and very simple immoral core of our society.” Kid: ” ” Dad: “Ya; “
Posted by: Strange Bedfellow | Jul 28 2026 23:37 utc | 391
Well, we’re off topic some now, on to the subject of: “Why are rich people allowed to exist and then run everything to their own benefits at the expense of everyone else?” One not that often delved answer to that mystery is that it’s nearly impossible to devise a large-scale social system such that first someone, then a bunch more, doesn’t game it to their own benefit.
Communistic-type systems are invented to share everything “equitably”, but pretty shortly it develops that the few who get in charge more or less, of distributing things equitably, that is, they’re in positions of power, are making that distribution both of power, goods, and who will or won’t be punished for “violating”, more equitable for some than others. This seems to breed a cynicism where the lower down on the social scale extract their own benefit by receiving the more meager benefits that they will get regardless of their efforts by making as little effort as possible. The communist system appears to breed cynicism and corruption at the high end, cynicism and slack effort at the lower end, then.
In more capitalist systems we’re encouraged to strive because in so doing, we can “get ahead”. This does work to some extent. Many strive. We work hard at our jobs, often to the detriment of other parts of our lives. But in these, people can fall through the cracks, end up on the street. Another group, whom we often celebrate as “achievers”, “entrepreneurs”, great businessmen, find ways to create very successful businesses such that they are able to amass wealth many many times what the relative effort they put in should have given them if effort equalled results in any reasonable way.
I mean, one might say that Elon Musk has “gamed” the capitalist system. He has about 500 million times the wealth I have, for example. There’s no possible way he’s worked 500 million times as hard as I have. Being very generous for the sake of argument I’ll say he’s worked twice as hard. But he’s focused his efforts on acquiring wealth and building businesses. It’s paid ridiculously fabulously for him. So, he’s successfully gamed the capitalist system, creating an insane disparity in the wealth and power he has compared to the rest of us. And there’s what they say now, about 1000 about like him in the US, or something?
Then there’s the question in the US especially, maybe throughout western capitalism, of whether the effort we’re putting forth is actually accomplishing anything useful anymore because again, of the way the system has come to be gamed by some.
It would appear that it’s simply well-nigh impossible to devise a large-scale system that won’t, after awhile, be gamed by a few and thereby more or less ruined for the many. Which American founding father was it who said that the system will probably need to be overthrown periodically?
Posted by: jonboinAR | Jul 29 2026 12:28 utc | 424
|
