Craig Murray: “Trump is no clown”

In my previous post – Why are America’s rulers allowing this? – I sketched out four possible reasons why the Trump administration is being permitted to prosecute a dangerous war which “many say is unwinnable”, and is already proving catastrophic for the global economy:

1. A POTUS freely and fairly elected really does at all times wield power checked only by Congress, Senate, Constitution and laws of physics.
2. Times of crisis, in this case the multipolar threat to America’s triple hegemony of armed supremacy, fiat dollar and narrative control via soft power, ¹ can sow such disarray in its elites as to allow a president, “even one as stupid as Mr Trump”, unusual latitude.
3. America’s ruling class desperately needs to recapture Iran – by anointing a figurehead, Venezuela style, or by Syria style Balkanisation – after its 1979 loss to empire, and is in this for the long haul. ²
4. The oligarchs may be mobilising to remove Trump.

I argued that the first can be ruled out on empirical ground of a striking continuity of US foreign policy, both generally ³ and in respect of Iran, under five successive presidencies: ⁴

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While I say none of the other three explanations can be ruled out, most readers expressing a view, in private messages to me or below the line, said Reason 3 is the truth. Whether or not this war is winnable for the USA, they say, its ruling class believes it to be so. ⁵

In that previous post I cited in support of Reason 3 a detailed account of why that ruling class, “the planet’s most powerful”, may be prepared to risk so much. Translated from Italian here, it’s a more technical version of an argument aired often on this site: that America is ruled by rentier  elites for whom what Valery Giscard d’Estaing famously called the dollar’s exorbitant privilege – and I call “Bretton Woods with the gold standard removed by Nixon, and demand artificially boosted by the petrodollar” – is mortally threatened by multipolarity, in particular by BRICS, BRI and the attendant challenges of a shift from the dollar as global reserve currency, and from the petrodollar as mandatory for oil transactions. ⁶

An equally detailed analysis of the known facts argues that Trump is obeying orders; the more easily done given the ‘carrot’ of him, his kin and cronies racking up fortunes through insider foreknowledge, while on the ‘stick’ side there’s a near certainty of Epstein kompromat. ⁷ This analysis has been flagged up by two readers: Ed Curtin and Jams O’Donnell.

I read it last night. The work of Craig Murray, ⁸ it’s replicated here in full and without further comment.

Seeing Trump Clearly

What if Trump’s apparently chaotic thought processes and intuitive decision making are all a blind, a charade? What if we are really witnessing, in the Middle East and more widely, a carefully constructed plan with very definite objectives? Has Trump in fact “planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway”, while flinging the chaff of apparent chaos? I realise that this is not intuitive, but bear with me…

What kicked off my thinking was the revelation by Lockheed Martin that they had been instructed by Trump, months in advance of the attack on Iran, to massively increase production of interceptor missiles, with a short term goal of quadrupling capacity of THAAD. In January, before the start of the current conflict, Fox News was already reporting on various deals, including a trebling of PAC3 MSE interceptor deliveries, having been finalised between Lockheed and the Department of War.

While obviously there are supply chain and production line constraints on the ability to ramp up production within months, the urgency of this activity – almost entirely focused on interceptor missiles – that started in 2025 is in hindsight a clear indication that early war with Iran was expected. It is plain evidence of premeditation. ⁹

The second thing that triggered my thought that this is all carefully planned, is the nature of the breakdown of the nuclear deal talks. It appears there was a broad consensus that Iran offered concessions which made a deal very practical, in particular giving up its stocks of enriched uranium into trust (a proposal Iran had historically rejected when Putin offered to hold the material). Both the hosts, Oman and the British thought a deal was there.

The failure of the talks is being spun as due to the incompetence and lack of technical knowledge of Witkoff and Kushner. But I just don’t buy this. The sending of unqualified negotiators was part of a ploy to use the negotiations as cover for an attack – the second time in a year that the United States had pulled the same trick.

They didn’t need competent negotiators, because they had never intended a good faith negotiation.

The attack on Iran was always planned by Trump. He was not “bounced into it” by Israel. It had been in gestation for months. That fact had been held within a very tight circle to avoid both political opposition and institutional opposition from the US military and intelligence community.

January’s protests in Iran found ordinary people genuinely ready to protest, motivated by economic hardship caused by sanctions. But they were guided and abused by Mossad and CIA agents among the Iranian people, who committed and encouraged violence and initiated pro-Shah chanting.

There was never the slightest possibility the protests would bring regime change, but that was not the intention. The purpose was to incite an over-reaction by the Iranian government that could “justify” the planned attack on Iran. The dead protestors have been great martyrs for Trump’s – and Israel’s – wider cause.

The planting by Western state-sponsored individuals and organisations of ludicrous claims throughout Western state and corporate media of thirty to forty thousand killed, was a deliberate and considered plan to reduce domestic opposition in the West to the forthcoming war against Iran.

Now factor in another apparently random act by Trump – the astonishing kidnapping of President Maduro of Venezuela on 3 January, a month before the attack on Iran.

Trump’s naval blockade of Venezuela’s oil has secured a US monopoly of its sale and distribution. As with Iraq, only US-approved contractors can buy the oil and payments are made to a Trump-controlled account in Qatar, from which revenue is given to the Venezuelan government entirely at Trump’s discretion.

This audacious imperialist grab of the world’s largest oil reserve further insulated the USA against the effects of the forthcoming closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Again, the narrative is being spun that Trump did not foresee the closure of the Strait by Iran. That is plainly a nonsense – every commentary on a potential Iran war for half a century has focused on the Strait of Hormuz. The only possible explanation is that Trump does not mind the closure.

While, as Trump says, the United States does not need the oil that comes through the Strait, the apparent weakness in his case is that higher oil prices are universal and hit Trump’s support, particularly as Americans fill their gas tanks. But to concentrate on this is to make the fundamental error of imagining that Trump cares about what is good for the American people. He does not. He cares about what is good for Donald J. Trump and his immediate circle.

Here is the Chevron share price over the last month:

And here is Lockheed Martin. Note that the start of the 40% leap in share price coincides with those instructions last year on massively ramping up interceptor production.

Not to mention, of course, that the really big fortunes will have been made in oil and derivative commodity futures by those who knew this war was coming (acting through proxies).

The $200 billion Trump is requesting from Congress to continue the war is going to make an awful lot of well-connected people even richer.

So the plan is the making of fortunes, the strengthening of the military-industrial complex and the ratcheting up under cover of national cohesion in war of the authoritarianism that has reduced freedom of speech and outlawed dissent against Israel across the Western world.

To benefit Israel is the other predominant motive.

Trump’s thrashing about to articulate objectives for the war in Iran is performative, a blind to cover his true and steadfast objective – simply the annihilation of Iran as a functioning state, the infliction of the maximum amount of death and infrastructural damage, the reduction of Iran to the condition of Libya.

It goes without saying that the seizure of control of Iran’s hydrocarbons by the US is the ultimate endgame of this destruction, exactly as in Libya and in Iraq. But a linked and crucial objective is the elimination of the source of the only physical resistance to the expansion of Israel. Iran and its allies in Yemen and Lebanon have been the sole support of the Palestinians for years.

The colonial settler state of Israel is central to the projection of imperialist power in the Middle East. Its expansion is an essential part of the plan.

Destruction of Iran on the scale envisaged will take years of hard pounding. Again, it is planned – you don’t ask Congress for an instalment of $200 billion for a war you plan to wrap up in a month. Again, Trump’s taunts about having already won, objectives being achieved and about possibly finishing soon, are all just smoke and mirrors. The scale and horror of what is planned for Iran has to be obfuscated to limit a public revulsion that would be echoed in parts of the state apparatus.

Netanyahu yesterday revealed an interesting part of the endgame – construction of an oil pipeline that brings Iran’s oil out to be shipped from a Mediterranean terminal in Israel. That is a breathtakingly audacious plan, but absolutely aligns with Netanyahu’s and Trump’s actions.

Which brings us to the Greater Israel side of the project. Israel is not going to put any of its ships or soldiers in harm’s way in Iran – that is the American contribution. But while the world is primarily watching Iran, Israel is starting a large-scale invasion of Lebanon with the aim of annexing all of Southern Lebanon permanently, even beyond the Litani River and including the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh, both currently under Israeli evacuation orders.

This land of course adjoins the annexed Golan Heights and the much larger area of Southern Syria that Israel has annexed in the past year with the acquiescence of Zionist puppet “President” al-Jolani.

It is essential not to lose sight of the bipartisan nature of the United States’ long term plan. In a very real sense Trump is continuing – if greatly accelerating – the policy under Biden, who protected and enabled the Genocide in Gaza. The success of this US policy is phenomenal. Just consider that only 18 months ago the Zionist “Presidents” al-Jolani of Syria and Aoun of Lebanon were not in power. Both were brought to power as a result of US-aligned military action, by Israel against Hezbollah and by the CIA- and MI6-sponsored HTS forces. Put in place by Biden, they are now central to Trump’s strategy.

Aoun and al-Jolani are now united in threatening Hezbollah in the rear as it fights a desperate action against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Meanwhile Israel officially occupies over 60% of the Gaza Strip – under cover of Trump’s “Board of Peace”, and continues to murder, blockade and starve the inhabitants of the remnant, while the de facto expansion of Israel into the West Bank and the levels of settler violence are escalating to levels of the utmost barbarity.

Iranian resistance is noble and Iran’s resilience has surprised many. It will be able to make any ground invasion, or even limited incursion, extremely costly for the United States. But as in Gaza or Lebanon, if the US and Israel are content simply to pound from the air for years with devastating force, and with no concern whatsoever for civilian casualties, ultimately all Iran can do is hang on and try to survive.

Given another year of destruction at the current levels of intensity, I do not believe that Iran would effectively be sending many missiles and drones back in self-defence. In a week or two we will hit the period of maximum Iranian effectiveness, where depletion of US-supplied interceptor missiles coincides with Iran retaining significant strike power. Israel’s fragile civilian morale will then be tested severely for a few weeks.

Iran’s capacity to defend against massive, years-sustained aerial bombardment is limited. We should not blind ourselves to that fact out of current joy at the Americans and Israelis getting a bloody nose.

It is comforting to see Trump as a buffoon, to accept the facade he presents of a blustering and ill-educated ignoramus, who swings wildly between policy options, and who does not understand the world of geopolitics.

But that is nonsense.

I have no hesitation in characterising Trump’s genius as evil, focused on personal gain and willing to inflict any amount of death, maiming and deprivation on innocent civilians to attain his goals. But he is indeed attaining his goals on the world stage.

Trump has forced the Security Council to underwrite his Board of Peace. This was a quite astonishing diplomatic triumph over a helpless Russia and China, both of which decided that other negotiations with Trump were more important. Trump has presided over Israel expanding on the ground by the day. Trump has taken Venezuela’s oil, the largest reserves in the world. Trump is currently killing the people of Iran and destroying their infrastructure, while feigning indecision.

You should hate Trump: but he is no clown.

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1. In a rare foray into non news media I discussed one aspect of US soft power two months ago in How fiction advances empire agendas. I did not assume censorship by the state, or those who long ago captured it, but a strong Jonathan Cook piece yesterday – Replay: How the Pentagon dictates Hollywood storylines – throws a spotlight on the military’s crudely propagandist say in Hollywood ‘action’ movies which reach global audiences.
2. See in this regard General Wesley Clark’s 2007 revelation that just weeks after 9/11 the US had regime change plans for seven Middle East states, starting with Iraq and ending with the crown jewel, Iran. Stations along the way were Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Somalia; each sold to credulous Western publics as isolated cases.
3. This from Caitlin Johnstone’s post today:

   Donald Trump is a US president doing US president things. US presidents consistently murder people with unforgivable acts of mass military violence, mistreat immigrants and marginalized communities, and promote tyranny for the benefit of corrupting special interests in defense of the US empire and the capitalist status quo. That’s what their job is. If they weren’t willing to do these things, they wouldn’t get the job.

   Trump is not some freakish aberration; he is the product of the same American political status quo as his predecessors.

4. See the Brookings Institute’s 2009 paper, Which Path to Persia?
5. “Whether or not this war is winnable for the USA … its ruling class believes it to be so.”  The distinction matters. Many experts are upbeat on Iran’s ability to defeat the US. While these include such as Pepe Escobar and Scott Ritter, both wrongfooted by Syria’s fall, they also include a normally cautious Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, whose daily war briefings I consult without fail.
6. I used to dismiss as far-fetched and reductive those who say Gaddafi was murdered for advocating, as head of its richest country, a gold-backed dinar as Africa’s currency for oil transactions. I do so no longer. Since my own belated retraction over 9/11, I have come to a view of conspiracy and false flag as long established instruments of empire rule.
7. For my purposes it matters little whether dirt on Donald is held by the US oligarchy or the Israelis, though I’m mindful that a promise made in the previous post, that this one will address whether and to what degree Israel shapes US foreign policy, is now on hold.
8. Craig is long known to this site as the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan sacked by Tony Blair for going public on Uzbek leader Islam Karimov being a kleptocrat who boiled political opponents alive. This irked war criminal Blair since Karimov was at the time allowing his fiefdom’s former Soviet air bases to be used to hit Iraq in the first of this century’s string of regime change projects in the region. Asleep at the time, I failed to register this until the dirty war on Syria (which also saw Craig on the right side of history) finally awoke me to the sickening extent of empire evil sold in Orwellian terms of humanitarianism. Later he distinguished himself by superb coverage of the witch hunt on history’s greatest ever journalist – going by the metric of state crimes exposed and personal price paid – one Julian Assange. Also by being jailed for ‘jigsaw contempt’ in his reports on Scotland’s politically motivated trial of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s predecessor and mentor turned nemesis, Alex Salmond.
9. In a December post, Why China beat the USA on rare earths, I noted for the umpteenth time how its proxy war in Ukraine exposed the flaws in America’s profit-driven military industrial complex, as compared to the state oversight of Russia’s arms sector:

   … on top of the West confusing GDP with manufacturing capacity to wage a war of attrition, the dirigisme of post-Yeltsin Russia’s arms sector has in the Ukraine shone a terawatt beam on the Milo Minderbinderism of America’s military industrial complex. Take the ability to swiftly raise mass production of ordnance and other materiel:

   Surge capacity means maintaining slack – plant standing idle – to enable a near instant stepping up of arms production when needed. Such wastefulness from a profit-centric standpoint requires levels of state oversight which are anathema to the neoliberal mind. Add to this the fact of Raytheon et al having every incentive – costs + 10%  – to make eye-wateringly expensive weaponry which can wow arms fairs, and may do lethally well in seven-day wars on the global south, but whose shortcomings – inability to produce at scale, and unreliability in the heavy use of protracted war as opposed to quick-win conditions of “shock and awe” – stand exposed in Ukraine. Ditto a revolving door between government and the military industrial complex.

   But might a USA alerted, and aware of the stakes, put its own arms sector on war notice with an element of state control? In my January 15 post, From Minnesota to Middle East by way of UK, Venezuela and China, I reported on Trump’s directive of January 7:

   Prioritising the Warfighter in Defense Contracting

   By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

   Section 1.  Purpose.  As Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, I am committed to ensuring that the United States military possesses the most lethal warfighting capabilities in the world.  Our Nation can only be at peace if we maintain strength.  The performance of America’s defense industrial base is critical to this capacity.  After years of misplaced priorities, traditional defense contractors have been incentivized to prioritize investor returns over the Nation’s warfighters.

   While the United States produces the best military equipment in the world, we do not make enough of it quickly enough to meet the needs of our military and our partners.  As a result, in these dangerous times, it is imperative that our defense contractors be held to the highest standards intended to ensure the advancement of core national interests, including with respect to the timeliness and quality of the defense items that they deliver.

   Although some contractors have made critical investments in increased production capacity and been responsive to our Nation’s vital interests, far more have not.  Many large contractors — while underperforming on existing contracts — pursue newer, more lucrative contracts, stock buy-backs, and excessive dividends to shareholders at the cost of production capacity, innovation, and on-time delivery.

   Effective immediately, they are not permitted in any way, shape, or form to pay dividends or buy back stock, until such time as they are able to produce a superior product, on time and on budget.

   Every firm across our economy has a right to profit from prudent investment and hard work, but the American defense industrial base also has the responsibility to ensure that America’s warfighters have the best possible equipment and weapons.  These two objectives are not mutually exclusive …

   Prompting me to remark:

   Whether Trump’s advisers on this matter realise the enormity – as with ‘bringing American jobs home’ –  of what stands in their way, and whether they have the chops to push through a project decades in the making, there’s honesty here, albeit that of an empire recognising that so violent a reassertion of its waning dominance over the planet will require extreme measures at home.