On January 16 I lambasted a New York Times piece which claimed (archived) that:

[A] ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers pierced Iran’s digital barricades. Using thousands of Starlink satellite internet systems that they had quietly smuggled into the country, they got online and spread images of troops firing into the streets and families searching for bodies.

The NYT went on to listen a number of Iranian expat groups allegedly involved in the endeavor.  In the end all of them seemed to be in one or another way financed and organized by the U.S. of A.:

We are now down at the 18th paragraph of NY Times piece on a ‘ragtag network of activists’ which finally hints to who is organizing and financing it:

The State Department coordinated with SpaceX on the sanctions exemption for digital communication tools in Iran. It also provided support to civil society groups about how to hide the systems from government detection, according to a Biden administration official involved in the plans.

It is the U.S. government which provided the various regime change groups with the money to smuggle some 50,000 Starlink terminals into Iran.

A recent Wall Street Journal report on the issue is more explicit in making the case that whole Starlink operation in Iran was directly run by the Trump administration (archived):

Cont. reading: WSJ Debunks NYT’s “Ragtag Network Of Activist” Propaganda

The reports about Russia’s ‘collapsing’ economy seem to come in somewhat periodic batches.

• Russia economy: What is the risk of meltdown? – BBC, Dec 17 2014
• Russia’s Looming Economic Collapse – Atlantic, Mar 2 2022
• What’s awaiting Russia may be much worse than the chaos of 1990s – Aljazeerah, Mar 4 2022
• The Russian economy is headed for collapse – The Conversation, Mar 10 2022
• Russia admits it faces economic collapse over Putin’s war – Telegraph, May 9 2022
• ‘Slower burn.’ Russia dodges economic collapse but the decline has started – CNN, Aug 29 2022
• Russia admits it was on the verge of economic collapse – Business Insider, Nov 20 2023
• Why the Russian Economy’s Luck is Running Out – Moscow Times, Nov 21 2023
• Putin under pressure as Russian economy on verge of freefall after US ‘ultimatum’ – Express, May 4 2024
• Russian Economy Faces ‘Creeping Crisis’, Economists Warn – Newsweek, Jul 8 2024
• Russia’s weakened energy trade and lost access to the dollar will spark a severe recession within a year – Business Insider, Jul 13 2024
• An economic catastrophe is lurking beneath Russia’s GDP growth as Putin ‘throws everything into the fireplace’ – Fortune, Aug 19 2024
• The war in Ukraine is straining Russia’s economy and society – Economist, Nov 28 2024
• Russia’s War Economy Shows New Cracks After the Ruble Plunges – WSJ, Nov 29 2024
• How Russia’s economy reached breaking point – Telegraph, Dec 7 2024
• Russia’s economy is entering a year of pain in 2025 – Business Insider, Dec 25 2024
• Russian Economy is on the Brink of Collapse – Modern Diplomacy, Jan 3 2025
• Russian Economy Time Bomb: Putin Warned of ‘Seismically Disruptive’ War Debt – Newsweek, Jan 13 2025
• Addicted to War: Undermining Russia’s Economy – CEPA.org, Feb 5 2025
• Russia’s economy is stagnating – but that won’t force it to end the war – The Conservation, Mar 10 2025
• Russia needs monetary policy changes to avert a recession, says economy minister – Reuters, Jun 19 2025
• The Russian economy is finally stagnating. What does it mean for the war – and for Putin? – Guardian, Feb 6 2026
• Russia economy in meltdown as oil and gas revenues plummet to five-year low – Daily Express, Feb 6 2026
• Putin’s war economy is on the verge of implosion – Telegraph, Feb 9 2026

Each batch smells of a covered Mighty Wurlitzer campaign. A batch is issued whenever it is politically ‘necessary’ to depict Russia as falling down.

There is rather weird new report about Ukraine in the New York Times depicting Russian progress but based on front line movements that have happened months ago.

Russia Nears Capture of Key Ukrainian Towns After Year of Grinding Assaults (archived) – NY Times, Feb. 10, 2026
Russian troops have advanced at a glacial pace in recent months, but gains in southern and eastern Ukraine could give Moscow an edge in U.S.-mediated peace talks.

The opener:

For over a year, Russian forces have slogged through battlefields in Ukraine without seizing a single urban stronghold.

Now, these attritional advances are on the verge of paying off. Russia appears poised to complete the capture of three strategic areas in the coming weeks or months, according to military experts and independent battlefield monitors.

Capturing all three areas — the town of Huliaipole in the southeast and the cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, about 60 miles northeast — would give Russia an urban foothold to base troops and organize logistics for future offensives, as well as new leverage in U.S.-mediated peace talks.

Ooops. Was there a time machine involved in writing that piece?

For starters: Russia has captured Siversk, a Ukrainian city, on December 24 2025. To claim that Russia did not seize “a single urban stronghold” for over a year is obviously nonsense.

As for Pokrovsk the Kyiv Independent, unsuspicious of being a Russian propaganda outlet, headlined more than two months ago:

As Russia takes Pokrovsk, sister city Myrnohrad stares down encirclement – Kyiv Independent, Dec 4, 2025

Cont. reading: NY Times Reports Russian Capture of Ukrainian Cities Months After It Happened

I confess to have often linked to Alan Macleod’s pieces a MintPressNews. He seemed to know a lot about South America politics and general media manipulation. It is thus sad to see him take part that practice.

In one of his latest pieces Macleod is smearing Noam Chomsky and his wife for their years-long relation with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Chomsky-Epstein Files: Unravelling a Web of Connections Between a Star Leftist Academic & a Notorious Pedophile

It is a smear piece and a disgrace.

Macleod falls for the media manipulation or manufactured consent which claims that Epstein was some extraordinary monstrous beast.

Just look at the attributes he uses to describe him. It starts with the headline which calls Epstein a ‘notorious pedophile’.

Merriam-Webster defines pedophilia as

a psychiatric disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child

Jeffrey Epstein was notoriously involved in sexual activities (not intercourse) with female teenagers. In the known cases the youngest was fourteen at the time of her first encounter with Epstein (but had been told to lie to Epstein about her age before meeting him). There is no suspicion and no credible allegation that Epstein did ever do anything sexual with prepubescent children.

The girls were paid by Epstein to perform massages on him while being bare breasted or naked. While they were doing so he tended to masturbate. These contacts were consensual. No force was applied. The girls received $200 to $300 for each session. That’s a lot of money for an hour long effort for someone at that age.

It is certainly a weird habit for Epstein to have but it had nothing to do with pedophilia.

Macleod writes that Chomsky:

Cont. reading: Smearing Chomsky For His Friendship With Epstein Is A Disgrace

The U.S. is trying to dominate the control global energy sector and to control the routes through which energy is delivered to global customer.

That accusation is made by Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov in an interview to the TV BRICS media network. The interview also touches on other aspects. The excerpts from the interview posted below are only the ones which regard to energy issues (emphasis added):

Multiple centres of rapid economic growth, power, and financial and political influence have thus emerged. The world is being reshaped through competition. The West is reluctant to relinquish its formerly dominant positions.

Moreover, with the arrival of the Trump administration, this struggle to constrain competitors has become particularly obvious and explicit. Indeed, the Trump administration openly asserts its ambition to dominate in the energy sector and harness their competitors.

Blatantly unfair methods are being used against us: the operations of Russian oil companies such as Lukoil and Rosneft are being banned, and there are attempts to dictate and restrict Russia’s trade, investment cooperation, and military-technical ties with our major strategic partners, including India as well as other BRICS states.
…
All of these geopolitical confrontations, along with the attempts to derail the objective course of history, inevitably affect bilateral relations. I am not going to mention them all; those include sanctions, the so-called “shadow fleet” invented by the West, attempts to detain vessels by military force in the open sea in blatant violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and much more. Tariffs imposed for purchasing oil or gas from certain suppliers have now become commonplace.
…
They tell us that the Ukraine problem should be resolved. In Anchorage, we accepted the US proposal. If we regard it “as men,” it means that they proposed it and we agreed, so the problem must be resolved. …

So far, the reality is quite the opposite: new sanctions are imposed, a ‘war’ against tankers in the open sea is being waged in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. They are trying to ban India and our other partners from buying cheap, affordable Russian energy resources (Europe has long been banned) and are forcing them to buy US LNG at exorbitant prices. This means that the Americans have set themselves the task of achieving economic domination.

Furthermore, while they ostensibly made a proposal regarding Ukraine and we were ready to accept it (now they are not), we do not see any bright future in the economic sphere either. The Americans want to take control of all the routes for providing the world’s leading countries and all continents with energy resources. On the European continent, they are eyeing the Nord Streams, which were blown up three years ago, the Ukrainian gas transportation system and the TurkStream.

This illustrates that the US objective – to dominate the world economy – is being realised using a fairly large number of coercive measures that are incompatible with fair competition. Tariffs, sanctions, direct prohibitions, forbidding some from engaging with others – we have to take all of this into account.

A NY Times piece published today on Trump’s oil grab in Venezuela makes, in part, a similar point (archived):

Cont. reading: ‘Trump Administration Asserts Ambition To Dominate Energy Sector’

Last night another large Russian missile and drone strike further degraded the already severely damaged electrical energy system of Ukraine.

The main targets were around Kiev and in western Ukraine. The attack, especially in western Ukraine, was mostly by drones and subsonic cruise missiles. Except for Kiev air defense seems to have been absent or out of munitions.

biggerThe consequences are countrywide blackouts for a prolonged period of time (machine translation):

Ukrenergo reported that due to strikes on the power system, emergency blackouts are introduced in most regions of Ukraine.

Ukrainian publics write that substations connected with the Rivne [Nuclear Power Plant] were attacked.

It is also stated that drones and missiles attacked the Burshtyn, Ladyzhyn, Dobrotvorskaya and Trypillya thermal power plants.

Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the target of today’s strike was substations and overhead power lines with a voltage of 750 and 330 kV — the basis of the Ukrainian energy system.

According to him, the power units of Ukrainian nuclear power plants were unloaded (that is, urgently stopped – Ed. ).

The nuclear power plants (NPP) create the base load of the Ukrainian energy system. The thermal power plants and other sources usually balance the peak loads. But after several substations which connect the NPPs to the wider network were being hit the NPPs were forced to reduce power (machine translation):

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Long-term Countrywide Blackouts – U.S. Presses For Peace Agreement

The first round of new talks between Iran and the United States in Muscat, Oman, has ended with satisfying results.

U.S. President Donald Trump very much needs the talks to chicken out from his threats to again attack Iran. Any attack on Iran would be retaliated for with missile which would cause massive damage to U.S. and Israeli assets.

There had been a little drama about the location, configuration and content of the meeting.

The U.S. at first insisted on talks in Turkey. It wanted the foreign ministers of other Middle Eastern countries to take part in them. It demanded to negotiate about nuclear issues, ballistic missiles, Iranian support for local militia and about the recognizance of Israel by Iran.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the talks needed to include ballistic missiles, Iran’s aligned militias and its treatment of its own people “in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful.”

Iran rejected all of the conditions Rubio tried to make.

It wanted to limit the talks to the nuclear issue and sanctions relief. It did not like Turkey, which is neither neutral nor a friend of Iran, as the host of the talks and preferred Oman as it traditionally following a neutral foreign policy. Iran also rejected the participation of other Middle Eastern countries as these would likely be under U.S. pressure to gang up against Iran.

Some Middle East countries, interested in preventing another war in their region, intervened with President Trump:

Fearing that talks about Iran’s missiles and regional proxies could cause an immediate impasse, other countries in the region have been pushing for the session to focus on Iran’s nuclear program, two Middle Eastern diplomats said.

They urged to accept Iran’s conditions and the U.S. conceded to them.

The talks held today were indirect. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi shuffled between the rooms to convey each parties position.

Cont. reading: U.S.-Iran Talks Up To A ‘Good Start’

Today the last nuclear treaty between the the United States and the Russian Federation expired. It is the first time in 64 years that there will be no limits on each side’s nuclear forces.

The New START Treaty had been limiting the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons and weapon carriers. Other nuclear related treaties like the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty have previously been ended by various U.S. presidents.

Russia had offered and asked for prolonging the New START Treaty but the U.S. had, until today, not responded to that request.

Most of these treaties were designed to limit the number of weapon system on both sides to roughly equal numbers. They prevented arms races where one side would produce an overwhelming amount of weapons to destroy the other side in a surprise attack. They guaranteed Mutual Assured Destruction as both sides would be destroyed in an all out nuclear war.

But the real value of these treaties were in their verification elements. Verification allowed to build trust between both sides:

To enforce the [New START] treaty, each side had to notify the other of any activity involving its strategic weapons, including missile test launches and heavy bomber movements, share data about the numbers of deployed missiles and delivery systems, and allow on-site inspections.

One example is that under the treaty all strategic bombers of each side had to be parked in the open, not in shelters, so that the other side could see them in satellite pictures. It guaranteed that there were no ‘secret forces’ hidden somewhere. (Ukraine abused this feature when it launched drone attacks against Russia’s strategic bombers.)

The U.S. has never given any good reason why it wanted the treaties to end.

Cont. reading: How Arms Control Went Out The Window

Back in December I wrote about the Flim Flam Theater Of Peace Talks On Ukraine:

The negotiations over the weekend between the U.S., Ukraine and Europe about the parameters of a ceasefire or peace agreement with Russia were surreal. The three sides are fighting each other over detailed points that Russia is sure to reject. They also left out important points which Russia had named as its priority items.

There is no way that any of this will lead to peace. Which may well be the point of the whole theater.

One point of those one-sided negotiations were some vague ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine.

Today’s Financial Times is first to discuss these in more detail (archived):

Ukraine has agreed with western partners that persistent Russian violations of any future ceasefire agreement would be met by a co-ordinated military response from Europe and the US, according to people briefed on the discussions.
…
Under the plan, three people familiar with the matter said, a Russian ceasefire violation would trigger a response within 24 hours, beginning with a diplomatic warning and any action required from the Ukrainian army to halt the infraction.

If hostilities continued beyond that, a second phase of intervention would be initiated using forces from the so-called coalition of the willing, which includes many EU members plus the UK, Norway, Iceland and Turkey.

If the violation turned into an expanded attack, 72 hours after the initial breach, a co-ordinated military response by a western-backed force involving the US military would take effect, the officials said.

NATO Secretary Rutte has confirmed the three stage theme. I wonder if it has he who came up with that fantasy.

What exactly does ‘intervention’ mean? Sending a battalion of British grenadiers from west-Ukraine towards the east to cover three miles of a who knows how long frontline? How many Iskander missile and KAB bomb strikes strikes would it survive?

The UK and France have pledged to deploy troops and weaponry to Ukraine, as part of security guarantees supported by the US to underpin a 20-point peace deal aimed at ending Russia’s almost four-year-long invasion.

A European-led “deterrence” force would provide “reassurance measures in the air, at sea and on land” after a ceasefire, with the intelligence and logistical support of the US, leaders of Kyiv’s key allies said following the Paris meeting.

How a ceasefire would be monitored and enforced will be critical to its durability. The US has offered to provide high-tech monitoring capabilities along the 1,400km front line.

Luckily none of this nonsense will come to pass. As the FT notes correctly:

Russia has [..] dismissed the security guarantees discussed by the US and Ukraine out of hand. Dmitry Medvedev, a former stand-in president for Putin, said in comments published on Monday that “these guarantees can’t be one-sided”, according to Tass. “These aren’t guarantees for Ukraine. These are guarantees for both sides: Russia and Ukraine. Otherwise the guarantees don’t work.”

Moscow has also said it will not agree to any ceasefire before a comprehensive deal to end the war is reached or accept any western troop deployments to Ukraine.

Meanwhile Politico is falsely accusing Russia of breaking a Trump-brokered energy ceasefire:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – ‘Security Guarantee’ Details – Why The Energy Ceasefire Ended

The weekend has passed without a U.S. attack on Iran.

Trump would have probably liked to strike if there had been a decent chance of a short, successful war. But there was and is none. Iran would retaliate sharply for any attack and set the region on fire.

A early sharp strike would have been Trump’s best chance of success. The longer he is deterred from a strike the smaller the likelihood that any attack will occur at all.

Trump now needs to find a way to chicken out from his grandiose threats to Iran. He has sent out feelers for negotiations:

The Trump administration has told Iran through multiple channels that it’s open to meeting to negotiate a deal, a senior U.S. official tells Axios.
…
Turkey, Egypt and Qatar are working to organize a meeting between White House envoy Steve Witkoff and senior Iranian officials in Ankara later this week, two regional sources tell Axios.

Yves Smith concludes that:

Trump Will TACO With Intent to Strike Later

The most likely course is for some sort of sham negotiations to allow the US to climb down for now and for Trump to depict the mere fact of talks as a win and a proof of US domination. But don’t expect the US to relent. As Greg Stoker pointed out, the Israeli minister of defense was in Washington last week to hand over the strike packages. Israel has not given up on Project Iran. The hawks most assuredly have not.
…
Israel can be expected to do the obvious, which is to continue to engage in what is too politely called asymmetric warfare or more accurately called terrorism, both to try to destabilize Iran and to preserve credibility among the warmongers in the Beltway. How far that gets in the next few months will be an indicator of how much Iran has been able to ferret out and destroy Mossad networks in Iran after its 12 Day War decapitation attacks and its recent protest escalations.

Trump is admittedly becoming more and more erratic every day. He might wind up concluding he has too much manhood at stake to back down now or any time very soon with Iran. But as you can see, he has many many reasons to try to find a way to retreat, even if he tells himself it is only temporary.

Just after Yves had published her piece we learned that Iran has agreed to negotiations:

Cont. reading: Trump TACOs on Iran Through Negotiations

U.S. President Donald Trump made a big mistake when he threatened war on Iran.

He was doing that to get concessions from Iran which the country is unable to make.

Trump asks for:

1. a complete de-nuclearization of Iran,
2. strong limits on its missile programs,
3. the abolishment of Iranian support for regional allies like Hizbullah, Hamas and Shia militia in Iraq and Yemen and
4. the recognition by Iran of Israel as a legitimate country.

Under the current system of Iran any politician who would argue for or agree to making any such concessions would immediately lose legitimacy.

Trump has made threats. He then set out conditions that guarantee that he will not get what he wants. He now has two choices:

• To attack Iran until it concedes something.
• To chicken out and recall his fleet from Iran.

Neither is a good choice:

Iran has announced to retaliate for any attack by massive missile launches against Israel and U.S. positions in the Middle East. Iran has also stated that it would close the Strait of Hormuz and thereby cause sky high global oil prices. This would likely lead to heavy losses for the Republicans in the mid term elections and would eventually end up with new impeachment procedures against Trump.

To chicken out would is also not be a good choice. By resisting a threat from Trump to then see the threat retracted without having made concessions Iran would have set an example that future targets of Trump’s extortion schemes would surely follow. It would make Iran look stronger and Trump look weaker.

I am by far not the only one who makes these points.

As Axios reports:

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman (KBS) said in a private briefing on Friday in Washington that if President Trump doesn’t follow through on his threats against Iran, the regime will end up stronger, four sources in the room tell Axios.
…
“At this point, if this doesn’t happen, it will only embolden the regime,” KBS said, according to the sources in the room.
…
In a separate briefing on Friday, a Gulf official said the region was “stuck” in a position where the U.S. striking Iran risked “bad outcomes,” but not doing so would mean “Iran will come out of this stronger.”

Prince Khalid bin Salman has a realist’s view and is right with this analysis.

The Axios reporter though, Barak Ravid, – well known to be a Zionist asset -, is trying to turn that realist view KBS uttered into a Saudi argument for bombing Iran:
Cont. reading: Zionist Distorts Arab Analysis As Arguing For Attack On Iran

Anatol Lieven and Mark Episkopos are historians with expertise on Russia who work for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. They just published a Policy Note which attempts to answer:

Frequently Asked Questions About the Russia–Ukraine Negotiations.

Unfortunately the answers given miss the mark. They are not founded in reality and do not reflect the positions of the negotiating parties.

The first question the policy note tries to answer is:

Has Russia made concessions in the negotiation process?

Its answer:

Yes. Russia has made significant concessions.

Russia has agreed to lift all objections to Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, marking a major shift from its position before and after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution.

Before the Euromaidan putsch the EU was offering an association agreement, not accession or membership, to Ukraine. This would have opened Ukrainian markets to tariff free EU products. At the same time Ukraine had a Free Trade agreement with the Commonwealth of Independent States, i.e. nine former Soviet republics including Russia. At that time some 60% of Ukraine’s foreign trade was with Russia and other CIS countries.

Russia opposed the EU Association Agreement for Ukraine because it would have exposed Russia to EU products without any tariff or custom barrier. It stated that it would have to close the open border with Ukraine if the agreement with the EU were signed. In consequence President Yanukovich of Ukraine had to reject the agreement:

[A] Ukrainian government decree suspended preparations for signing of the association agreement; instead it proposed the creation of a three-way trade commission between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia that would resolve trade issues between the sides. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov issued the decree in order to “ensure the national security of Ukraine” and in consideration of the possible ramifications of trade with Russia (and other CIS countries) if the agreement was signed on a 28–29 November summit in Vilnius. According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Boyko Ukraine will resume preparing the agreement “when the drop in industrial production and our relations with CIS countries are compensated by the European market, otherwise our country’s economy will sustain serious damage”.

After the Ukraine government had paused the Association Agreement, the U.S. and EU activated their proxy forces to launch the Maidan coup to then impose the trade agreement. The violent putsch was successful. Russia closed its open border to Ukraine, the Ukrainian economy, especially its heavy industry, suffered immensely, but the association agreement was signed.

Russia thus did not make a “major shift from its position before and after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution.”

The circumstances on which the position was based have changed. Russia has adopted accordingly. A membership of Ukraine in the EU is by the way still not on offer. It will take a decade or longer after the war for Ukraine to even be marginally qualified.

Lieven and Episkopos continue:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Quincy Paper Praises A Peace Agreement Which Isn’t On Offer

Mr. Crazy just issued another of his by now typical threats:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – Jan 28, 2026, 12:12 UTC

A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela. Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary. Hopefully Iran will quickly “Come to the Table” and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence! As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

It is well know Iran does not want to have nuclear weapons. There is even a religious edict that says so. Iran had negotiated a nuclear deal with the U.S. that made sure that Iran would not have the means to build nuclear weapons. It was Trump who killed that deal during his first administration.

We therefore know that anything nuclear is not the real issue that this is about. The issue is Iran’s general anti-colonial position and especially its steady resistance to the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

Any attempt to change that long held ideological position of Iran by force is likely to fail.

Over the last months the U.S. military has increased its forces in the Middle East. An aircraft carrier fleet is in position (archived), several squadrons of U.S. and British fighters have been deployed to Jordan and Qatar, THAAD and Patriot air defenses have been deployed to provide additional layers of air defenses.  U.S. destroyers are in the Mediterranean to support Israel’s air defenses. An attack on Iran will mostly be by cruise missiles fired from outside Iran’s air space. It would also involve long range bombers flown from the U.S.

U.S. war exercises are ongoing.

Iran however is also ready. It has increased its missile forces. It has promised to use it against U.S. positions in the Middle East and against Israel in retaliation to any attack. It has also promised to close the Strait of Hormuz. A large part of the global oil supply is flowing through it. A selective closure, which would for example allow tankers destined for China to pass, is also a possibility. But even a partial prolonged closure would suddenly increase oil and gas prices all over the world. Republican chances to win in the mid-term elections would decrease.

Major Arab U.S. allies in the Middle East have rejected to take part in any adventure against Iran. Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar have explicitly stated that they will not allow U.S. operations against Iran from or through their territory.

The last U.S. attack on Iran came as a surprise while negotiations were still ongoing. It was accompanied by an assassination campaign and local teams on the ground who sabotaged Iranian air defense equipment.

It is unlikely that such a surprise can be again achieved.

Iran retaliated for the attack by launching drones and missiles towards Israel. The first few salvos did little damage but during the last of the 12 days of war Iranian missile were steadily hitting sensitive targets within Israel. The U.S. and Israel were low on air defenses and needed to cease the conflict.

The Iranian response to another attack will be immediately, precise and effective. During the first few days U.S. air defense will help to avoid the biggest damage. But after a week or two concerns about ammunition availability will likely lead to a decrease of missile interceptions. Israel’s vulnerabilities – harbor installations, chemical industry etc – are well know and easy to hit. U.S. ships within range of Iran are likewise endangered.

The arising conflict is unlikely to be as short as the recent 12 day campaign. It could easily escalate into attritional warfare.  Unlike Iran Israel has nukes and may be willing to use them. But given Iran’s size and large population it is likely to end up severely damaged, but as a winner.

What Trump wants is another symbolic victory. He has started, like usual, with a gigantic threat in the hope to receive a minor concession that will allow him to chicken out. I doubt that Iran is in the mood to give him whatever he is asking for.

That leaves him the choice to chicken out without winning or to bet the house and his presidency on escalation.

May he chose wisely.

Remember that crazy Venezuelan guy Nicolás Maduro?

He was the elected president with the somewhat crazy belief that the CIA was out to remove him.

As CNN writes:

It remains to be seen how the Venezuelan people will respond to a more overt CIA presence in the country post-Maduro. For years, Maduro cast the CIA as a convenient boogey man, repeatedly accusing the agency – without evidence – of attempting to topple his regime as he clung to power despite US opposition.

As CNN‘s language implies – the guy really was a bit crazy – unless that is you read the followup sentence of the CNN‘s report:

Now, the CIA has helped supplant Maduro and is poised to help actively manage the Trump administration’s dealings with Venezuela’s new leadership.

So the ‘boogeyman’, which was ‘accused’ ‘without evidence’. did what it was ‘cast’ as doing.

biggerDo these propagandist ever even notice what they write?

After the Immigration and Custom Enforcement goons executed an unarmed man in the streets of Minnesota the Trump administration did a full court press to claim the man was a terrorist, had intended to kill officers and had been illegally carrying a weapon.

Vice President Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Trump policy leader for immigration Stephen Miller, FBI chief Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others all made false claims about the case.

Their words were an attack on constitutional rights under the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendment.

Multiple videos of the incident were out in the public and everyone was able to see that what really had happened were crimes committed by multiple ICE agents. Every newspaper and channel which discussed the video called out the lies by the Trump administration.

The false narrative coming from the White House turned out be a huge own-goal. It has become a complete unnecessary public relation disaster for the Trump administration.

It was why I asked Why Is Trump Causing His Own Downfall?

Republican representatives started to oppose the ICE operation. The National Rifle Association, and other pro-Trump gun lobbies, protested against the administration’s position:

“The FBI director needs to brush off that thing called the Constitution, because he clearly hasn’t read it,” National Association for Gun Rights President Dudley Brown told POLITICO. “I know of no more crucial place to carry a firearm for self defense than a protest.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday on Fox News that “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that she didn’t “know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that “any gun owner knows” that carrying a gun raises “the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you,” during interactions with law enforcement.

Gun-rights groups rushed to push back on an administration that was breaking with conservative orthodoxy on the right to bear arms in public places.

Seasoned Homeland Security officers vented their frustration.

Alex Pretti, the victim of the ICE assault, was killed on Saturday. It took until noon of Monday for Trump to acknowledge the mess and to attempt to chicken out.

The FT headlines: Donald Trump signals shift on immigration crackdown as ICE backlash intensifies (archived):

Cont. reading: Immigration Enforcement – Trump Is Losing And Chickens Out

The White House seems to do everything possible to help the Republicans to lose their majorities in the midterm elections.

Trump’s tariff policies have guaranteed that prices for $3 Trillion in U.S. imports will rise by at least 10%. His energy policies have caused 6% price rises for electricity and gas.

His move against allies to grab Greenland is unpopular. Bombing Iran and abducting the President of Venezuela was not welcome.

Sending heavily armed Brownshirts into U.S. neighborhoods to apprehend or assassinate random people is likewise disliked.

Trump’s approval rating is sinking.

biggerOne would assume that Trump would notice the upcoming ballot disaster and change course. But instead of calming the waves he is pouring oil onto fire:

Cont. reading: Why Is Trump Causing His Own Downfall?

Today’s daily Links page at Yves’ Naked Capitalism pointed to a piece about Iran published by Sidecar, the blog-site of the New Left Review.

Neither NLR nor Sidecar are on my daily reading list though I have linked to several Sidecar piece in my Week-In-Review collection.

According to its About page:

The criteria for publication on Sidecar will be saying something – about persons, processes, events, structures – that is not being said elsewhere, but deserves to be.

The Sidecar piece linked via Naked Capitalism, Scylla and Charybdis by Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, certainly does NOT match that criteria.

The piece is about the recent regime change protest in Iran and the government reaction to it. Its take on the course of action by either side reads like a direct copy from a CIA controlled main stream outlet.

There is little mentioning of rioters or violent protesting in it:

Cont. reading: A ‘Left’ Cover-Up Of Regime Change Failure

Yesterday Mark Carney, a former central banker and now Prime Minister of Canada, gave a remarkable speech (video, transcript) at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

It is an attack on the ‘international rules-based order’, the concept that the imperial Western nations have promoted and used to justify their myriad deviations from, and abuses of international law:

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

The concept of the rules based order, a lie in itself, was useful for the proxy forces and vassals of the global hegemon as long as they themselves were not threatened by its consequences.

But as that hegemon has turned on those vassals who supported it, the concept has become dangerous and must be discarded:

Cont. reading: Carney Declares Death Of The ‘Rules-Based Order’

There are first signs that the people of Ukraine are changing their attitude towards the war.

In Winter Strikes Kiev I explored how Russian strikes against infrastructure in Ukraine would change the mood of the population:

During the war the parts of the Ukrainian population that were not directly involved in fighting seemed to have little interest in what was happening. There was still a lot of nightlife in Kiev, all goods were available and even the few short interruptions of electricity were not much to bother with.

This will now change. Electricity is off for most of the time. Shops are closing because running business on generators is unprofitable. Local public transport is mostly down. Longer range tail transport is interrupted. Apartments are unlivable. The consequences of the war have become personal.

This will change the mood even of those who want to prolong the war. The numbers of those willing to accept the loss of territory in exchange for peace will rise.

After a while a change of policies will follow from this.

Last night another wave of missile and drone strikes hit electricity and heating infrastructure in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities. It caused sever additional damage:

The strike on energy infrastructure left consumers in Kyiv and the surrounding region, as well as in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Rivne, and Kharkiv oblasts, without power, the Energy Ministry said.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said that more than 335,000 people lost electricity in Kyiv. At around 10 a.m. local time, power had been restored to 162,000 homes, while about 173,000 remained without service.

In Kyiv, 5,635 buildings remain without heating, or about 46% of the city’s housing stock.
…
The right bank of Kyiv, the western part of the city, is receiving water at reduced pressure, while about 3,500 homes on the left bank remain completely without water, according to the deputy minister.

Heat has been restored to about 1,600 buildings. The other 4,000 will have to freeze at least through the night.

The people in Ukraine are now changing their mood and attitude towards the war. Until recently many were still optimistic hoping that the war would have some positive outcome. It was patriotic (and did not cost anything) to have a positive attitude. Ukrainian media, largely under censorship, and Ukrainian artist supported this.

One such artist is the famous pop singer Tina Karol (Wiki, website, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter).

Cont. reading: Ukraine – The Mood Is Changing – Pep Songs Are No Longer Welcome

U.S. President Donald Trump wrote a letter the Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre. Staff at the National Security Council delivered copies of the letter to European ambassadors in Washington DC.

A copy was provided to a Newshour journalist:

Dear Ambassador:

President Trump has asked that the following message, shared with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, be forwarded to your [named head of government/state]

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”

Trump will continue to demand Greenland until something is done by Europe to decisively stop him.

Cont. reading: Trump Will Take Greenland … And Then Go For More