On the Path to War with Iran
Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
I had a conversation with Alastair Crooke and Alexander Mercouris about the growing possibility of a US/Israeli war with Iran. Trump threatened with war unless Iran accepts his conditions, yet these conditions are near impossible to be met by Iran. A war would be an unpredictable disaster without any clear exit, although the anti-Iran hawks in the Trump administration have seemingly convinced themselves that a powerful decapitation attack would be successful.
Here are two excellent companion pieces to this video which cover different aspects of what events this week really mean providing clues as to how things will develop from this point on. It's kind of ironic that Trump's 'Liberation Day' actually turned out to be dollar, bond and equities hostage day, revealing that Trump does not have the power to rule the world simply by signing executive orders in public with a great flourish of his pen: all of which is pure theatre.
The first by the Sirius Report details how all Trump's tariff fiasco has really done it to expose to China where all the web of US economic and financial weaknesses and vulnerabilities exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MAvhBcrp3U
The second with Peter Schiff explains the reasons why gold is likely to become the reserve backing currencies again. I would provide an additional observation that there is no reason why for large transactions physical gold could not be used in preference to the dollar or any other paper or digital proxy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQG01DRxHk
In terms of economics and another financial crisis I think things are a lot worse with the issues arising from the failure of this tariff policy than people think for a number of reasons. I will just bring up one of them and that is a general breakdown in counter-party trust.
As much as the GFC was called a liquidity crisis it was mostly a breakdown in counter-party trust between banks and other financial institutions when they looked at the state of their own books and then suspected that everyone else’s in that industry looked the same. There have been significant rises in the BoE’s Short Term Open Market Operations [STOMO] lately which indicates a rise in anonymous liquidity starved entities who have been going to the BoE and trading toxic or worthless assets for cash or yield bearing treasuries because they couldn't raise funds from other banks etc. as that would reveal the perilous state of their finances. The BoE also lowered the standard or bar as to what could be traded with it in terms of acceptable collateral.
This is probably where we are now in both the UK and the USA in terms of increasing central bank STOMO and LTRO operations and much of it takes place in secret in terms of maintaining national financial security. However what makes the current situation so much worse is that in 2008 despite the breakdown in counter-party trust between banks there was trust between nations in the world and indeed the Chinese helped bail out the Western financial system at the time. Following the GFC we found the world’s central banks working together in a highly orchestrated manner. This included the BoE, FED, ECB, BoJ, PBoC, Swiss National Bank etc. They would each take it in turns and sometimes act in concert to inject liquidity into global markets passing the baton from one to the other and this has largely gone in an unbroken manner ever since.
What makes a financial crisis so much worse this time is that whilst there is another breakdown in counter-party trust taking place between banks etc. then Trump's tariffs have ensured that there is also an international breakdown in trust between nation states. This means that because of Trump's attacking and alienating them, then central banks in China, Japan and the ECB etc. are unlikely to step up to bail out the US like they did in 2008
You can't do a deal with the Neoconservatives because they are Machiavellians who lie and deceive about every deal you think you might have made with them like Russia found out with Minsk 2 & 3. Trump is no different but for different reasons in that he doesn't set out to deceive but simply because you cannot trust or take a single thing he says at face value. It doesn't matter if you are dealing with the Neocons or Trump you cannot trust any supposed deal you think you have made with them. I don't see how we can fix this abolition of trust which is occurring on every level.
The notion that Trump is going to go to War with Iran on top of all this dangerous chaos shows how totally delusional and ignorant he really is.
Trump Can't Go to War in Iran For many reasons
One he is not able to
2 Article 51 UN
I had done a quick background review in case anyone thought interesting
Bombing Iran and historical US requirements v Iraq (which US claims was such a great success)
Population in Iran ~85 million vs. Iraq’s ~18 million in 1991
Land Size Iran’s land area is approximately 1.65 million square kilometers vs. Iraq: ~438,317 sq km. Iran is about 3.8 times larger.
Iraq in 1991 had a demoralized, poorly led army post-Iran-Iraq War; estimated 300,000 to 400,000 combat effective troops v US coalitions 700,000
In 1991, the U.S.-led coalition deployed around 670,000–700,000 troops for Operation Desert Storm --- US Participation ~540,000 U.S. personnel (not all ground troops; many were air, naval, or support) [[ Effectively the US could never muster that coalition or US forces today ]].
Currrently The U.S. Army has ~450,000 active soldiers, with said and estimated 100,000–150,000 deployable for a single theater after rotations and commitments elsewhere - they could probably muster more deployable but at great effort [ Iran military is of course already there ].
... Logistics always matter - brutal vulnerability and expense for the US
Iran’s active forces number ~580,000, with ~350,000 reservists, plus IRGC units skilled in asymmetric warfare.
Allies: not just Russia and China but Hezbollah, Iraq and Houthis may assist Iran among others
- Iraq was pretty much alone
Weapons and Air Defenses: goes without saying, Iran has them
- This ain't no Iraq - this may be a brutal loss for the US the old pyrrhic victory even if a victory can somehow be claimed [[ after oil and other resources destroyed and perhaps a trillion $ expenditure ]]