#Iran’s oil exports

[imperialchem]

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[thequickfl]

How High Could War In The Middle East Drive Oil Prices?

[metamatar]

In 1975, civilian nuclear technology was part of a worldwide strategy to bring the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) to heel. That body’s power seemed unprecedented, given that most of its countries were historically impoverished or “backward” peoples. [...]

Many developing countries did adopt nuclear technologies, often with crucial parts of their national infrastructures relying on American and European expertise, equipment, and fuel. Rather than seeing liberation from nature, such countries faced renewed forms of dependence. Iran certainly never gained reliable access to uranium and did not become the economic miracle envisioned by Ansari back in 1975. Instead of lifting up the poorer nations of the world, the global nuclear order seemed structured in ways reminiscent of the colonial era. The most heated debates within the IAEA pitted the nuclear weapons states against the so-called LDCs—less developed countries. The agency never became a storehouse for fission products. Instead, one of its primary functions was to monitor an arms control treaty—the Treaty 4 on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. By the end of the century, the IAEA was referred to as a “watchdog,” known for its cadre of inspectors. In 2003, IAEA inspections were crucial talking points in public debates about the invasion of Iraq by the United States [...] evidence gathered over the years by the agency created for the peaceful atom was being interpreted by the United States government as justification for military intervention. [...]

Focusing only on arms control glosses over the domestic politics of nuclear programs, particularly the role of high technology as symbols of state power and legitimacy. But it also does not square with what scholars of the Cold War have been pointing out for decades—that governments, especially the United States, deployed science and technology as diplomatic tools, to achieve feats of prestige, to shape business arrangements, to conduct clandestine surveillance, or to bind countries together with technical assistance programs. Poorer countries’ dreams of modernization, of using advanced technology to escape hunger, poverty, and the constraints of nature—these were the stock-in-trade of US diplomacy. Why, then, should we imagine that the promises connected to peaceful uses of atomic energy were any less saturated with geopolitical maneuvers and manipulation? [...]

American officials in the late 1940s and early 1950s were very worried that commercial nuclear power would siphon off supplies of uranium and monazite needed for the weapons arsenal. So they explicitly played down the possibility of electricity generation from atomic energy and instead played up the importance of radioisotopes for medicine and agriculture—because such radioisotopes were byproducts of the US weapons arsenal and did not compete with it. The kinds of technologies promoted in the developing world by the United States, the USSR, and Europeans thus seemed neocolonial, keeping the former colonies as sites of resource extraction—a fact noticed, and resented, by government officials in India, Brazil, and elsewhere. Mutation plant breeding, irradiation for insect control or food sterilization, and radioisotope studies in fertilizer—these were oriented toward food and export commodities and public health, problems indistinguishable from those of the colonial era. These were not the same kinds of technologies embraced by the global North, which focused on electricity generation through nuclear reactors, often as a hedge against the rising political power of petroleum-producing states in the Middle East. By the mid-1960s and 1970s, the United States and Europe did offer nuclear reactors even to some of the most politically volatile nations, as part of an effort to ensure access to oil. Convincing petroleum suppliers of their dire future need for nuclear reactors was part of a strategy to regain geopolitical leverage. Despite the moniker “peaceful atom,” these technologies were often bundled in trade deals with fighter jets, tanks, and other military hardware [...]

By the close of the century, two competing environmental narratives were plainly in use. One was critical of atomic energy, drawing on scientific disputes about the public health effects of radiation, the experience of nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), or the egregious stories of public health injustice—including negligence in protecting uranium miners or the wanton destruction and contamination of indigenous peoples’ homelands. In contrast was the narrative favored by most governments, depicting nuclear technology in a messianic role, promising not only abundant food, water, and electricity, but also an end to atmospheric pollution and climate change. [...]

As other scholars have noted, the IAEA tried to maintain a reputation of being primarily a technical body, devoid of politics. But it had numerous political uses. For example, it was a forum for intelligence gathering, as routinely noted by American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents. It also outmaneuvered the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization in the early 1960s and was able to assert an authoritative voice playing down public health dangers from atomic energy. Further, it provided a vehicle for countries to stay engaged in atomic energy affairs even if they did not sign on to the non-proliferation treaty—India, Pakistan, and Israel most notably. It provided apartheid-era South Africa with a means of participating in international affairs when other bodies ousted it because of its blatantly racist policies. By the same token, it gave the Americans and Europeans political cover for continuing to engage with South Africa, an important uranium supplier.

Introduction to The Wretched Atom, Jacob Hamlin

[mightyflamethrower]

“Name me a single objective we’ve ever set out to accomplish that we’ve failed on. Name me one, in all of our history. Not one!”

-President Joe Biden, August 16, 2023 

Joe Biden in one of his now accustomed angry “get off my grass” moods dared the press to find just one of his policies/objectives that has not worked. Silence followed.

Perhaps it was polite to say nothing, given even the media knows almost every enacted Biden policy has failed.

Here is a summation of what he should instead apologize for.

Biden in late summer 2021 sought a 20th anniversary celebration of 9/11 and the 2001 subsequent invasion of Afghanistan. He wished to be the landmark president that yanked everyone out of Afghanistan after 20 years in country. But the result was the greatest military humiliation of the United States since the flight from Vietnam in 1975.

Consider the ripples of Biden’s disaster. U.S. deterrence was crippled worldwide. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea almost immediately began to bluster or return to their chronic harassment of U.S. and allied ships and planes. We left thousands of allied Afghans to face Taliban retribution, along with some Western contractors.

Biden abandoned a $1 billion embassy, and a $300 million remodeled Bagram airbase strategically located not far from China and Russia, and easily defensible. Perhaps $50 billion in U.S. weaponry and supplies were abandoned and now find their way into the international terrorist mart.

All our pride flags, our multimillion gender studies programs at Kabul University, and our George Floyd murals did not just come to naught, but were replaced by the Taliban’s anti-homosexual campaigns, burkas, and detestation of any trace of American popular culture.

Vladimir Putin sized up the skedaddle. He collated it with Biden’s unhinged quip that he would not get too excited if Putin just staged a “minor” invasion of Ukraine. He remembered Biden’s earlier request to Putin to modulate Russian hacking to exempt a few humanitarian American institutions. Then Russia concluded of our shaky Commander-in-Chief that he either did not care or could do nothing about another Russian invasion.

The result so far is more than 500,000 dead and wounded in the war, a Verdun-stand-off along with fortified lines, the steady depletion of our munitions and weapon stocks, and a new China/Russia/Iran/North Korean axis, with wink and nod assistance from NATO Turkey.

Biden blew up the Abraham accords, nudged Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States over to the dark side of Iran, China, and Russia. He humiliated the U.S. on the eve of the midterms by callously begging the likes of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to pump more oil that he had damned as unclean at home and cut back its production. In Bidenomics, instead of producing oil, the president begs autocracies to export it to us at high prices while he drains the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for short-term political advantage.

Biden deliberately alienated Israel by openly interfering in its domestic politics. He pursued the crackpot Iran Deal while his special Iranian envoy was removed for disclosing classified information.

No one can explain why Biden ignored the Chinese balloon espionage caper, kept mum about the engineered Covid virus that escaped the Wuhan lab, said not a word about a Chinese biolab discovered in rural California, and had his envoys either bow before Chinese leaders or take their insults in silence—other than he is either cognitively challenged or leveraged by his decade-long grifting partnership with his son Hunter.

Yet another Biden’s legacy will be erasing the southern border and with it, U.S. immigration law. Over seven million aliens simply crossed into the U.S. illegally with Biden’s tacit sanction—without audits, background checks, vaccinations, and COVID testing, much less English fluency, skills, or high-school diplomas.

Biden’s only immigration accomplishment was to render the entire illegal sanctuary city movement a cruel joke. Given the flood, mostly rich urban and vacation home dwellers made it very clear that while they fully support millions swarming into poor Latino communities of southern Texas and Arizona, they do not want any illegal aliens fouling their carefully cultivated nests.

Biden is mum about the 100,000 fentanyl deaths from cartel-imported and Chinese-supplied drugs across his open border. He seems to like the idea that Mexican President Obrador periodically mouths off, ordering his vast expatriate community to vote Democratic and against Trump.

Despite all the pseudo-blue collar dissimulation about Old Joe Biden from Scranton, he has little empathy for the working classes. Indeed, he derides them as chumps and dregs, urges miners to learn coding as the world covets their coal, and studiously avoids getting anywhere near the toxic mess in East Palestine, Ohio, or so far the moonscape on Maui.

Bidenomics is a synonym for printing up to $6 billion dollars at precisely the time post-Covid consumer demand was soaring, while previously dormant supply chains were months behind rebooting production and transportation. Biden is on track to increase the national debt more than any one-term president.

In Biden’s weird logic, if he raised the price of energy, gasoline, and key food staples 20-30 percent since his inauguration without a commensurate rise in wages, and then saw the worst inflation in 40 years occasionally decline from record highs one month to the next, then he “beat inflation.”

But the reason why more than 60 percent of the nation has no confidence in Bidenomics is because it destroyed their household budgets. Gas is nearly twice what it was in January 2021. Interest rates have about tripled. Key staple foods are often twice as costly—meat, vegetables, and fruits especially.

Biden has ended through his weaponized Attorney General Merrick Garland the age-old American commitment to equal justice under the law. The FBI, DOJ, CIA, and IRS are hopelessly politically compromised. Many of their bureaucrats serve as retrieval agents for lost Biden family incriminating laptops, diaries, and guns. In sum, Biden criminalized opposing political views.

Biden has unleashed the administrative state for the first time in history to destroy the Republican primary front runner and his likely opponent. His legacy will be the corruption of U.S. jurisprudence and the obliteration of the American reputation for transparent permanent government that should be always above politics, bribery, and corruption.

If in the future, an on-the-make conservative prosecutor in West Virginia, Utah, or Mississippi wishes to make a national name, then he has ample precedent to indict a Democrat President for receiving bad legal advice, questioning the integrity of an election, or using social media to express doubt that the new non-Election-Day balloting was on the up-and-up, or supposedly overvaluing his real estate.

The Biden family’s decade-long family grifting will likely expose Joe Biden as the first president in U.S. history who fitted precisely the Constitution’s definition of impeachment and removal—given his “high crimes and misdemeanors” appear “bribery”-related. If further evidence shows he altered U.S. foreign policy in accordance with the wishes from his benefactors in Ukraine, China, or Romania, then he committed constitutionally-defined “treason” as well.

Defunding the police, and pandemics of exempted looting, shoplifting, smashing, and grabbing, and carjacking merit no administrative attention. Nor does the ongoing systematic destruction of our blue bicoastal cities, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. All that, along with the disasters in East Palestine or Maui are out of sight, out of mind from a day at the beach at Biden’s mysteriously purchased nearly 6,000 square-foot beachfront mansion.

Biden ran on Barack Obama-like 2004 rhetoric (“Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America).”

And like Obama, he used that ecumenical sophistry to gain office only to divide further the U.S. No sooner than he was elected, we began hearing from the great unifier eerie screaming harangues about “semi-fascists” and “ultra-MAGA” dangerous zealots, replete with red-and black Phantom of the Opera backdrops.

What followed the unifying rhetoric was often amnesties and exemptions for violent offenders during the 120 days of rioting, looting, killing, and attacks on police officers in summer 2020.  In contrast, his administration lied when it alleged that numerous officers had died at the hands of the January 6 rioters. In addition, the Biden administration mandated long-term incarceration of many who committed no illegal act other than acting like buffoons and “illegally parading.”

The message was exemptions for torching a federal courthouse, a police precinct, or historic church or attempting to break into the White House grounds to get a president and his family—but long prison terms for wearing cow horns, a fur vest, and trespassing peacefully like a lost fool in the Capitol.

Finally, Biden’s most glaring failure was simply being unpresidential. He snaps at reporters, and shouts at importune times. He can no longer read off a big-print teleprompter. Even before a global audience, he cannot kick his lifelong creepy habit of turkey-gobbling on children necks, blowing into their ears and hair of young girls, and squeezing women far too long and far too hard.

His frailty redefined American presidential campaigning as basement seclusion and outsourcing propaganda to the media. And his disabilities only intensified during his presidency. Biden begins his day late and quits early. He has recalibrated the presidency as a 5-hour, 3-day a week job.

If Trump was the great exaggerator, Biden is our foremost liar. Little in his biography can be fully believed. He lies about everything from his train rides to the death of his son to his relationship with Biden-family foreign collaborators, to vaccinations to the economy. Anytime Biden mentions places visited, miles flown, or rails ridden, he is likely lying.

Biden continues with impunity because the media feels that a mentally challenged fabulist is preferable to Donald Trump and so contextualizes or ignores his falsehoods. Never has a U.S. president fallen and stumbled or gotten lost on stage so frequently—or been a single small trip away from incapacity.

So, yes, Biden’s initiatives have succeeded only in the sense of becoming successfully enacted—and therefore nearly destroying the country.

[argumate]

It's embarrassing to ask this so late in the game, but: can someone explain to me, as if I'm a particularly dumb space alien, what exactly the USA gains from supporting Israel? I thought it was "something something oil", but the USA went from being an importer to an exporter, and that didn't change anything.

we (that is to say, pseudo-intellectual tumblr) have talked about this a few times, and I think it came down to a few reasons like:

there used to be a strategic interest (oil, Cold War)

countries change course very very slowly

vested interests still support current approach

US antagonism with Iran practically demands it

gotta support someone 🤷

"the US" is not a coherent singular entity of course, and you can ask the same question for how it benefits from the embargo of Cuba or the war on drugs or many other policies.

[mariacallous]

Now that Donald Trump is returning to a second term as U.S. president, ascertaining the true state of Russia’s war economy is more important than ever. Trump’s advisors believe that Ukraine must settle for peace by whatever means necessary “to stop the killing.” Implicit in this argument is the view that Russia has the ability to sustain the war for many years to come. On close examination of the evidence, however, the narrative that Russia has the resources to prevail if it so chooses does not hold.

The apparent resilience of the Russian economy has confounded many strategists who expected Western sanctions to paralyze Moscow’s war effort against Ukraine. Russia continues to export vast quantities of oil, gas, and other commodities—the result of sanctions evasion and loopholes deliberately designed by Western policymakers to keep Russian resources on world markets. So far, clever macroeconomic management, particularly by Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, has enabled the Kremlin to keep the Russian financial system in relative health.

At first glance, the numbers look surprisingly strong. In 2023, GDP grew by 3.6 percent and is expected to rise by 3.9 percent in 2024. Unemployment has fallen from around 4.4 percent before the war to 2.4 percent in September. Moscow has expanded its armed forces and defense production, adding more than 500,000 workers to the defense industry, approximately 180,000 to the armed forces, and many thousands more to paramilitary and private military organizations. Russia has reportedly tripled its production of artillery shells to 3 million per year and is manufacturing glide bombs and drones at scale.

Despite these accomplishments, Russia’s war economy is heading toward an impasse. Signs that the official data masks severe economic strains brought on by both war and sanctions have become increasingly apparent. No matter how many workers it tries to shift to the defense industry, the Kremlin cannot expand production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are being lost on the battlefield. Already, about around half of all artillery shells used by Russia in Ukraine are from North Korean stocks. At some point in the second half of 2025, Russia will face severe shortages in several categories of weapons.

Perhaps foremost among Russia’s arms bottlenecks is its inability to replace large-caliber cannons. According to open-source researchers using video documentation, Russia has been losing more than 100 tanks and roughly 220 artillery pieces per month on average. Producing tank and artillery barrels requires rotary forges—massive pieces of engineering weighing 20 to 30 tons each—that can each produce only about 10 barrels a month. Russia only possesses two such forges.

In other words, Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20. The Russian engineering industry lacks the skills to build rotary forges; in fact, the world market is dominated by a single Austrian company, GFM. Russia is unlikely to acquire more forges and increase its production rate, and neither North Korea nor Iran have significant stockpiles of suitable replacement barrels. Only a decision by China to provide barrels from its own stockpiles could stave off Russia’s barrel crisis.

To resupply its forces, Russia has been stripping tank and artillery barrels from the vast stockpiles it inherited from the Soviet Union. But these stockpiles have withered since the start of the war. Combining current rates of battlefield loss, recycling from stockpiles, and production, Russia looks set to run out of cannon barrels some time in 2025.

Russia is consuming other weapons, too, at rates far faster than its ability to produce them. Open-source researchers have counted the loss of at least 4,955 infantry fighting vehicles since the war’s onset, which comes out to an average of 155 per month. Russian defense contractors can produce an estimated 200 per year, or about 17 per month, to offset these losses. Likewise, even Russia’s expanded production of 3 million artillery shells per year pales in comparison to the various estimates for current consumption at the front. While those estimates are lower than the 12 million rounds Russian forces fired in 2022, they are much higher than what Russian industry can produce.

We do not know when Russia will hit the end of the road with each equipment type. But there is little the Kremlin can do little to stave off that day. With the Russian economy essentially at full employment, Russian defense companies now struggle to attract workers. To make matters worse, these companies are competing for the same personnel as the Russian armed forces, which need to recruit 30,000 fresh troops each month to replace casualties. To this end, the military is offering lavish signing bonuses and greatly increased pay. Defense producers, in turn, have had to increase wages fivefold, contributing to an inflation rate that reached 8.68 percent in October.

Paradoxically, the same factors that are converging to restrict Russia’s ability to wage war also mean that it cannot easily make peace.

Russia’s economic performance—marked by low unemployment and rising wages—is a product of military Keynesianism. In other words: Vast military expenditures, which are unsustainable in the long term, are artificially boosting employment and growth. Almost all the new jobs are related to the military and produce little of value to the civilian economy, where most sectors have great difficulty finding workers.

Defense spending has officially jumped to 7 percent of Russia’s GDP and is projected to consume more than 41 percent of the state budget next year. The true magnitude of military expenditures is significantly higher. Russia’s nearly 560,000 armed internal security troops, many of which have been deployed to occupied Ukraine, are funded outside the defense budget—as are the private military companies that have sprouted across Russia.

Paring back these massive defense expenditures, however, will inevitably produce an economic downturn. If the Kremlin draws down the armed forces to a sustainable level, large numbers of traumatized veterans and well-paid defense workers will find themselves redundant. The experience of other societies—in particular, European states after World War I—suggests that hordes of demobilized soldiers and jobless defense workers are a recipe for political instability.

The magnitude of the post-war Russian recession will be all the worse because Russia’s civilian economy—particularly small- and medium-sized firms—has shrunk due to the war. In a phenomenon familiar to economists, high defense expenditures have bid up salaries and attracted labor away from nondefense firms. The Russian Central Bank’s policy of raising interest rates, which currently stand at 21 percent, has made it much more difficult for nondefense companies to raise capital through loans. In post-war Russia, a shrunken civilian sector will not be able to absorb the soldiers and workers cast off by the military and defense sector.

Therefore, Russia’s leaders face an unenviable set of dilemmas entirely of their own making. Russia cannot continue waging the current war beyond late 2025, when it will begin running out of key weapons systems.

Concluding a peace agreement, however, poses a different set of problems, as the Kremlin needs to choose between three unpalatable options. If it draws down the armed forces and defense industries, it will spark a recession that could threaten the regime. If Russian policymakers instead maintain high levels of defense spending and a bloated peacetime military, it will asphyxiate the Russian economy, crowding out civilian industry, and stifle growth. Having experienced the Soviet Union’s decline and fall for similar economic reasons, Russian leaders will probably seek to avoid this fate.

A third option, however, is available and likely beguiling: Rather than demobilizing or bankrupting themselves, Russian leaders could instead use their military to obtain the economic resources needed to sustain it—in other words, using conquest and the threat thereof to pay for the military.

Plenty of precedents exist. In 1803, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ended 14 months of peace in Europe because he could not afford to fund his military based on French revenues alone—and he also refused to demobilize it. In 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein similarly invaded oil-rich Kuwait because he could not afford to pay the million-man army that he refused to downsize. In both cases, the mirage of conquest seemed attractive for sustaining overly large defense establishments without having to pay for them.

Russia could likewise exploit its expanded military to extract rents from other states. Even though Russia is running out of key weapons systems for its all-out war on Ukraine, its forces will still be capable of punctual acts of aggression. Indeed, it’s easy to imagine how Russia might pursue such a policy.

Substantial offshore gas reserves have been discovered in the Black Sea within Ukraine’s and Georgia’s internationally recognized exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Whenever Western states are distracted by other priorities, Russia could also renew its aggression against Ukraine in order to gain control of its agricultural, gas, and rare-earth resources. Finally, Russia might use threats of force rather than actually fighting in order to coerce European states to withdraw sanctions, unfreeze Russian assets, or reopen gas and oil pipelines.

Some important lessons emerge. First, Russia’s economy cannot indefinitely sustain its war against Ukraine. Labor and production bottlenecks will condemn Russia to defeat as long as Ukraine’s allies sustain it beyond the second half of 2025. Contrary to the myth of infinite Russian resources, the Kremlin’s armies are far from unbeatable. But Russia’s defeat demands a level of Western patience and commitment that a combination of vacillating Western leaders and volatile domestic politics renders questionable.

Second, the cessation of full-scale fighting in Ukraine will not end the West’s problems with Russia. Russia’s supersized military sector incentivizes the Kremlin to use its military to extract rents from neighboring states. The alternatives—demobilizing and incurring a recession or indefinitely funding a bloated military and defense industry—pose existential threats to Putin’s regime.

However Russia ends its current war, the country’s economic realities alone will generate new forms of insecurity for Europe. Far-sighted policymakers should focus on mitigating these future threats, even as they focus on how the current round of fighting in Ukraine will end.

[eretzyisrael]

Mike Doran’s assessment of why Israel attacked the Houthis (July 21, 2024 on X)

====================

The Biden Doctrine shaped today’s strike by Israel on the Houthis. What is the Biden Doctrine? The principle that Iran is free, either directly or indirectly through its proxies, to attack Israel, but Israel must not attack Iran. “Take the win,” Biden told Netanyahu after Iran, on April 12-13, attacked Israel with the largest ballistic missile barrage in history.

In deference to Biden and his team of Obama staffers, the Israelis restrained themselves in response to Iran. The IDF made due with a demonstration of capabilities rather than launching a counterattack that would have taken from the Iranians something they hold dear.

Supreme Leader Khamenei thanked Team Obama-Biden in its characteristic fashion, namely, by green lighting escalations against Israel by Hezbollah and the Houthis.

The last two weeks on Israel’s northern border have been tough ones for Israel, and then came the Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv yesterday. The attack killed only one man, but it had a massive psychological impact. It showed the world that Tel Aviv was in range, and that the drones that Iran supplies to the Houthis and Hezbollah can pass through Israeli defenses undetected.

Judging by the size of the massive crowd in Sana’a yesterday, braying for Jewish and American blood, the psychological impact was as big there as it was in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his military advisors therefore decided today to launch a significant counterattack.

They chose their target not just to deter the Houthis but also to send messages to Nasrallah, Khamenei, and Obama — pardon me, Biden. The Israeli targeteers selected the Houthis' oil facilities. Why?

First, psychology. The flames are huge. Everyone in the world will see that the Israelis mean business. This isn’t a quiet signal to decision makers: it’s a message to the world.

Second, it causes the Houthis real pain. They are poor. They have few exports besides terrorism and a relatively limited oil production. The Americans and British, until now, have limited their counterattacks to pinprick strikes against missile launchers, etc. That is to say that the American-British counterattacks have been just big enough to allow officials in Washjngton and London to answer critics by saying that they aren’t taking the Houthi attacks on shipping sitting down, but not actually big enough to deter the Houthis, let alone Iran.

Third, this attack tells Nasrallah and all his Lebanese enablers: “Those Iranian missile Hezbollah stores next to the duty free cognac at the Beirut airport, the Lebanon’s electric grid, its oil storage depots — they and all other elements of critical national infrastructure are all fair game.

Fourth, the operation tells the Iranians not to get too comfortable under the shelter of the Biden Doctrine. “Yes, Mr. Khamanei, Biden did restrain us in April, but we do not intend to let the Americans turn us into your punching bag. Today the Houthis’ oil; tomorrow, yours.” The distance the planes flew between Israel and Yemen is similar to the distance to Iran.

Fifth, the attack tells Team Obama-Biden this is not, at root, an Israeli-Palestinian war. Properly understood it is an asymmetric war against the U.S. launched by Iran. This message sets the stage nicely for Netanyahu’s speech before both houses of Congress on Wednesday.

[collapsedsquid]

So Israel and — tacitly — its allies may view the widening of the war as an opportunity to deal the nettlesome Iran a decisive blow that damages or destroys its nuclear weapons program, targets elements of its leadership, or goes after major military infrastructure. Israel could also attack Iranian oil facilities, which would imperil the country’s most important source of hard currency and kneecap its economy. But it probably won’t. Here are three reasons why. First, Israel’s most important ally, the United States, is assuredly pressuring Israel’s leadership to leave Iran’s oil facilities alone. Israel obviously doesn’t always listen to its No. 1 patron, but it will on this. In a direct confrontation with Iran, Israel will need US assistance more than ever, including intelligence, defensive military assistance, war materiel, and diplomatic solidarity. Israel, at a minimum, can keep Iranian oil facilities off the target list in exchange. Iran supplies about 1.5% of the world’s oil, which may not sound like a lot. But oil prices can move sharply on marginal changes in supply, and if Iran’s oil disappeared from the market, prices would jump way more than that puny 2.5% bump, which is based on fears of disruption, not actual disruption. If Iran could no longer export oil, it would have a much more powerful incentive to strike at other producers by trying to close the Strait of Hormuz, which its navy could probably do for a period of time. About 21% of the world’s oil flows through the strait, and anything that threatened that supply would send oil prices well above $100 per barrel, and maybe above $150. US gasoline prices would hit $5 per gallon, and maybe $6 or $7. It should go without saying that the Biden administration would do just about anything to prevent that from happening in the home stretch of a tight presidential election in which Harris is basically running on the incumbent party’s record.

Don't worry Biden's not going to let it happen.

[teecupangel]

I suddenly remembered that one line from Desmond as Al Mualims daughter ask where Desmond was craving a cheese burger and Al Mualim sent Assassins to find it and it got me thinking so I searched up if it was possible but all I got were from the middle ages so I wanna know your take if a cheese burger can be made during that time

The Desmond is reborn as Al Mualim’s daughter post, the “I misunderstood the ask so now Al Mualim has a wife oops” follow up idea and its sequel, the “Eli POV”, for those curious.

Okay, so there’s a lot of variations of the cheeseburger. For the sake of analyzing if it’s possible to recreate a cheeseburger in 12th century Levant, let’s go for the ‘basics’:

Bun

Cheese that can be melted

Patty (ground beef)

Lettuce

Tomato

Onion

Pickles

Sauce

Let’s start with the parts that needs to be 'prepared':

Buns can easily be recreated with flour, yeast, milk, egg, sugar, salt and butter or oil. Sesame seed that will sprinkled on top is optional but can be gotten in Egypt since they seemed to have it during Ptolemaic period as ‘sesemt’.

Patty can be prepared using ground beef (I’m sure Al Mualim would have no problem getting novices/recruits to chop the beef enough for it to be grounded, good luck, you poor boys), salt, ground black pepper, egg and dry bread crumbs. The lost ancient port city of Muziris is said to have exported black pepper to Levant.

Salt for both the buns and patty is possible to get during that time as well. It’s gonna be expensive though XD

Now, for the other ingredients:

Lettuce – it’s originally farmed in ancient Egyptians so they can find this easily.

An onion variation/ancestor has been noted in Iran so they can contact Alamut for this.

Cucumber for the pickles is available in India and other East Asian countries so their best bet would be the Silk Road. Pickling would need vinegar which should be available already by that time (vinegar has been available since alcohol brewing has been a thing… maybe…) (this needs salt as well)

Tomato – They’d need to sail to America for this one. Time to get into contact with Ratonhnhaké:ton’s tribe, I guess. XD

The sauce though is a bit complicated. Cheeseburger usually use thousand island for the sauce but that would mean ketchup and mayonnaise. Ketchup needs tomato as well so… yeah. (of course, the sauce can be something else but then… it won’t be a classic cheeseburger if it’s not at least mayonnaise and homemade mayonnaise is… uuuhh… good luck, novices and recruits)

Now… the cheese…

American cheese is… well… sorta maybe impossible? XD

It would be too much to try and create even a Swiss or Cheddar cheese for this one so what will make or break this cheeseburger endeavor will be the cheese.

It needs to be a type of cheese that can be melted…

Or…

Well…

They do have the Apple so they can cheat it to learn how to make that kind of cheese themselves XD

(all information taken from wikipedia)

[workersolidarity]

Interesting new graph from Visual Capitalist on the BRICS expansion.

BRICS has agreed to accept the following six new Members States:

Egypt

Ethiopia

Argentina

Iran

UAE

Saudi Arabia

Together, BRICS will now encompass 46% of the Global population, representing 29% of Global GDP, 25% of Global Exports, and 43% of Global Oil Production.

[longwindedbore]

Progressives bleating ‘Elon Musk is acting like he’s POTUS doing this and that domestically and in foreign countries blah, blah, blah’

Are we still not yet understanding that the true shot-callers in our ‘Democracy’ are the oligarchs who control the financial sector in conjunction with oligarchs who control natural resources and the major economic hegemonies which utilize those resources?

Do we still believe that POTUS and the Legislature run domestic or foreign policy?

Even after -

Vietnam (rubber takeover attempt #4** Couldn’t get it out of a combat zone after 10 years of occupation so EVERY domestic tire company closed up shop in the 1970s and we pull out)

Iraq 1 and 2 (oil competitor UNDERCUTTING USA export prices)

Afghanistan (the effing Taliban was going to eradicate opium just as pharmaceuticals got it approved! Oops…decades later opioid addiction crises and big lawsuit…pull out! Pull out! Pull out!),

Panama in any decade (raising prices on the oligarchs without giving them a chance to raise prices on us first!)

Niger (who knew we had troops doing security for lithium mining?)

Etc

Etc

Etc

Consider that that the current foreign ‘threats’ are…coincidentally…the last two oil producing countries - Iran and Venezuela - who are willing to undercut our export prices?

At best our voting putting Dems in power can result in some limited actual trickle-down for the 99.9%. I used to think the Dems could ameliorate foreign hardships but then there was Gaza 2024.

=====================

Skip the following if you thought the foregoing was tedious.

**All wars are for Plunder. The US made plays for French rubber in

#1. 1917-1919.

Wilson brought the US into WW1 (a war to seize colonies) immediately after the Bolsheviks concluded a peace treaty with the Central Powers.

The British and French debt for munitions and materials was so high it would have collapsed the US economy. Handing over the British/French rubber concessions in SE Asia would have gone a long way to paying the debts. (I suspect but have no evidence that Pershing kept most US soldiers off the battlefields for a year not for training as the history books state. Some contrivance over the debt and possibly seizing colonies by having the only unexhausted army in the field?)

The Brits and the French instead violated the terms of the Armistice Cease-fire (no victors) and, with Wilson’s contrivance, shifted the debt to newly declared ‘surrendered’ Germany which was stripped of its colonies and trade concessions.

The reparations forced on the Weimar German Republic, of course, created the conditions fueling the Fascist takeover.

#2. 1941.

FDR assumed it was likely that the Japanese would honor their Defense agreement with Germany and attack the Soviet Union in 1941.

At which point the US and Britain were going to seize Indonesia oil and French rubber before the Nazi occupation governments in Europe could assert control over the colonies.

The fleet sunk at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th was the Pacific Coast Home Fleet and should have been at its home bases in San Diego, San Francisco and Puget Sound Washington (see Major General Smedly Butler’s ‘War is a Racket’)

Instead the PCHF had been shifted to Pearl to provide support for the Asian Pacific Fleet whose home base was Subic Bay.

As soon as the Japanese fleet sailed from their home bases in November 1941 the US APF left Subic Bay steaming for SE Asia.

HOWEVER, the Japanese viewed their mutual defense obligation to Hitler voided because he attacked the USSR rather than being attacked.

So the superior Japanese battleships steamed to to SE Asia while their aircraft carriers steamed in complete radio silence toward Pearl.

In SE Asia the Japanese sunk the British Indian Ocean fleet as well as a joint Dutch/British/US APC fleet.

In the Philippines, MacArthur moved the US colonial forces to Bataan Penisula for the same reason Cornwallis moved his forces to Yorktown Pennisula and n 1781 - to prepare for forces to be evacuated.

Both Generals were unaware of where their respective fleets were. Ironically, both fleets were sent to plunder Dutch island colonies. Neither fleet was successful. Neither fleet returned for the abandoned soldiers.

Successful defense of the Philippines with both US fleets intact and a U.S./Phillipine army against a Japanese invasion had been considered a ‘fantasy’ as far back as the 1920s. The Navy and Marines in the 20s began preparing for the island-hopping retake that eventually occurred.

Accordingly, MacArthur grounded his obsolete aircraft to preserve the skilled pilots who’d have been sitting ducks for the Japanese Zeros.

[So much of US ‘history’ is rigorously factual with dates but uses whitewashing mythology as interpretation of events. I spent a long afternoon with Wikipedia’s entry ‘United States Asiatic Fleet’ which has a horrendous list of loses for late 1941 to early 1942. I did a spread sheet of when they sailed and where they were sunk to reinterpret all the texts I’d ever read on the War in the Pacific ]

#3. 1950s

[Haven’t studied this cluster-F in depth]. For whatever reason at the end of WW2 the US decided to back the French and Dutch in reclaiming their colonies (probably a white vs brown issue?). So we supported the French against US trained in WW2 Vietnamese revolutionaries The French lost.

The nation was partitioned in two.

I suspect we could have gotten the rubber cheaper from the Vietnamese than the French.

#4. 1965-1975

Neither Detroit nor the domestic tire manufacturers wanted to invest in the massive cost to change over to radial tires from the rubber tires we’d been using.

Nixon sunk the tire manufacturer’s hope for getting rubber by committing treason. To secure the 1968 election Nixon got the President/Dictator of South Vietnam to reject the Johnson Admin peace treaty. The 1968 Democratic Party was split between factions for/against the War in the same way the Democratic Party was split in 2024 for/against the Palestinians in Gaza

As the war dragged on foreign vehicles with radial tires made inroads in the US market. The tire manufacturers decided not to invest, closed their factories and sold their brand names. Detroit retooled for imported radials.

And NO, the obsolete factory machinery wasnt disassembled, packed up, and shipped to foreign countries. The machinery was disassembled, different metals and alloys separated, and shipped to scrapyards or junkyards.

[imperialchem]

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[barbiegirldream]

Libs are going to be like yes Biden just approved the largest oil export terminal in the entire history of the country and yes his unrepentant support for Israel and its genocidal fascist bloodthirst drew us into a war with Iran because Biden is also a genocidal fascist but vote for him to save democracy. Like democracy bro you're delusional

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Explosions over skies of Israel as barrage of Iranian missiles and drones are intercepted

CNN's Nic Robertson reports hearing explosions and sirens in Jerusalem as a barrage of Iranian weapons have been shot down over Israel. Meanwhile, CNN's Clarissa Ward reports people in Tel Aviv are bracing for what's next...

P.S. The "successes" of passive defense and the "enthusiasm" of Western politicians once again mislead the public - in fact, Iran and its backer Russia are encouraged to continue their attacks: Iran's drone factories are intact, Western technology is still going to Iran and Russia, Iran and Russia's oil exports are intact, the leaders of both regimes live well and are getting richer every day and all this is only thanks to the empty blah, blah of the corrupt and hypocritic politicians of the West...

In the West, so many are ready to play the role of useful idiots serving the wishes of dictatorial regimes... Most likely, we will once again hear worthless "concerns", "great concerns" and endless empty "diplomatic efforts" and "sanctions", which the West itself does not really observe and which are neither strict nor comprehensive at all!!!...! Bullshit!!!!

[mightyflamethrower]

Shortly after the terror attacks of October 7, the United States’ position initially appeared to be very clear. This was Israel’s war to fight and we would provide material and vocal support, but allow them to handle it as they saw fit. That lasted for about two weeks. By this past weekend, the situation had shifted noticeably, with threats of escalation showing up to the north of Israel from Hezbollah and rocket attacks on American posts in various places, including Iraq. And now both the Secretary of State and the Defense Secretary are clearly preparing the country for the possibility that the entire situation may blow up and our military is “ready” to go to war if we must. That’s a lot to soak in on a Monday morning, but a wider war may turn out to be inevitable unless Iran can be convinced to back down. (Associated Press)

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday that the United States expects the Israel-Hamas war to escalate through involvement by proxies of Iran, and they asserted that the Biden administration is prepared to respond if American personnel or armed forces become the target of any such hostilities. “This is not what we want, not what we’re looking for. We don’t want escalation,” Blinken said. “We don’t want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we’re ready for it.” Austin, echoing Blinken, said “what we’re seeing is a prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region.”

I’m not going to criticize Blinken, Austin, or the Biden administration for facing reality and saying that we are “prepared” for war. It’s a crazy world, and we should always be prepared to go to war if we must. But we must also keep in mind the fact that war is and always must be the course of last resort. (Did we learn nothing from Iraq?) Diplomacy is always the preferred option if possible.

Sadly, diplomacy with Iran may not even be possible. They remain the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism and they are already at war with us, Israel, and the West in general. They just fight their wars in an unconventional fashion. If Hezbollah opens up a full attack on Israel from the north and attempts to move into Israeli territory, we will know immediately that it was Iran that equipped the terrorists and gave them the green light to go in.

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In this regard, Joe Biden does bear a significant amount of the blame. It’s difficult to argue that we didn’t see this level of unrest and fighting in the Middle East during the Trump administration because we were cracking down on Iran, enforcing the sanctions on their oil exports, and taking out leading terrorist figures with missiles when they misbehaved. That all changed as soon as Joe Biden took office and began begging Iran to restart Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal. Iran has grown fat with cash under Biden’s watch, shipping massive volumes of oil to China and other destinations, all of which should have been blocked under the existing sanctions.

Biden’s timid and conciliatory approach to Iran was not rewarded with cooperation or better behavior. The Mullahs simply pocketed our cash and used it to ramp up the capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah. And now they have launched a full-fledged war on Israel that threatens to embroil the entire region if not the world. (Russia has already been threatening Israel and China is now making similar noises and they have dispatched warships into the region. This could still go global.)

It didn’t have to be this way. These bad actors, particularly Iran, do not respect tokens of friendship or efforts to bargain. They only understand and respect strength. When America fails to lead with strength, our adversaries take note and have shown that they are willing to seize the opportunity, potentially to horrific effect. It may be too late to dial this back at this point, but unless Biden shows a significantly stiffer spine, the entire world may wind up changing significantly, leaving America’s days as a global power and thought leader in the dust.

Whatever Happened to "Give Peace a Chance"

[ultrajaphunter]

Summary of the Israeli strike according to what is known so far: - Approximately 25 F-15 and F-35 aircraft, accompanied by refueling planes, flew about 2000 kilometers toward the city of Hodeidah in Yemen. - The strike was carried out in 8 waves. - The attack destroyed fuel depots, inflicted damage on the port, and destroyed a power station north of the port. - The fire is still burning and is expected to continue for several more days. - There is a power outage across the entire region. - The message of the strike is clear: this is not a strike on military targets (which has been done by the coalition over the past 9 months) but an attack on the already struggling Yemeni economy, causing significant economic damage. - The attack on the port is a direct response to the damage Yemenis have caused to the port of Eilat. - The message to the rest of the Middle East is also clear: the Bandar Abbas port and the Kharg Island, from where most of Iran's oil is exported, are in Israel's sights, as well as the port of Beirut. - Israel has decided to take off the gloves; this is not a minor strike like those in Iran. - The Houthis are threatening to retaliate, but it is unclear what the threat entails, as they have already attacked Israel 200 times. @orfialkov