Iran holds firm; US-Israel cracks appear

As indicated in yesterday’s post, Tehran is in no mood to allow Washington an easy way out after its catastrophic miscalculation. Blitzkreig and decapitation having failed, the US faces a stark choice of either a protracted war inflicting astronomic damage on its global standing, or finding the exit of least humiliation.

Meanwhile a Hormuz Strait through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes is closed, and Iran has given every Arab autocracy its own stark choice: you have seen our missile capability; now close your US bases or consider your regime our enemy and your economy our legitimate target. ¹

Lest we forget, in the face of media opinion shaping – one of whose services to power is that of inducing mass amnesia – that “we” are not the good guys, Caitlin’s post today sets the record straight. We are the villains in this story.

I say this almost in passing. The focus of my writing on Iran has for the foreseeable shifted from the culpability of the Epstein class to likely outcomes. This is the big one. More than any of the empire’s other regime change wars across the region, its impact will shape the global order for the rest of this century and beyond.

Today’s video is short, under eleven minutes. While its caption implies yet another exercise in rumour mill speculation – is Bibi dead? – that question serves as launch point for an elegant setting out of the widening gulf between US and Israeli agendas. While Washington seeks a face-saving off ramp, Tehran and Tel Aviv are on the same page in this respect if no other: for both it is now or never.

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1. On the subject of Iran’s missile capability, see this sixteen minute video on the Mach 15 Fattah 2, capable of reaching Tel Aviv four minutes and twenty seconds after leaving Tehran.