Catastrophe in the Gulf: Trump’s War on Iran

So Donald Trump finally did it: he started a major war on Iran at the behest of the Israel lobby. Already U.S. bases in the Gulf states have gone up in flames, with confirmation from Bahrain that every building in the U.S. navy fifth fleet (near Manama) has been destroyed, U.S. servicemen are dead, the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier hastily retreated, Iraqis have risen up against their American occupiers, Israel is getting bombed to smithereens, Iranian ballistic missiles have hit the U.K. airbase in Cyprus, Hezbollah has entered the chat by targeting northern Israel with its cruise missiles, and that’s just for starters. Trump already asked the Iranians for a ceasefire, but they said no dice. They know damn well they were too nice back in June, that consenting to the ceasefire Israel begged for was taken as a sign of weakness rather than what it was, namely decency and restraint. They will not make the same mistake twice.

The U.S. and Israel were imbecilic enough to start this war, but Iran will finish it. Iran is not interested in a truce, especially after the assassination of the ayatollah and other war crimes, among them the U.S. bombing of a girls’ school. Tehran aims to keep firing its many hypersonic missiles – for which U.S. air defense is useless and so is any U.S. or Israeli counterattack, since we in the west have zero hypersonic missiles and have been incapable of developing them, despite deceitful pentagon hype – and Iran will keep firing those missiles until the entire security architecture of West Asia is permanently altered: in other words, Iran aims to smash the base of U.S. power in the Gulf, basically to evict the U.S., which, with all the alerts for Americans to leave every country in the region, is already well underway. Iran will wage this war on its own terms and will conclude it, when it’s darn ready to, on its own terms.

As if this weren’t enough of a debacle for the U.S., Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz – as it threatened to do if attacked. The only ships getting through are Russian and Chinese, Iran’s allies, as I predicted on this site weeks ago. As of March 2, first day of business since the Strait closed February 28, the price of oil shot up to $82 a barrel. Expect it to go higher. Goldman Sachs analysis March 2 predicted a one-month disruption would drive European natural gas prices up 130 percent. That was the same day Iran said it was ready for a six-month war. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and 30 percent of its LNG. It was not secret that Iran could and would close the Strait. That alone made attacking the Persian nation stupendous madness.

But Israel wanted to attack. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed it for the next election, and Tehran’s support for allies like Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi fighters and the Palestinians was regarded by Jerusalem as intolerable. As are Iran’s hypersonic missiles, not its non-existent nuclear program. These were what spurred Israel to attack and indeed, as soon as Iran struck back, Israel proclaimed a total siege of Gaza and tightened its grip on the West Bank. Gaza was pretty much already under siege, despite Trump’s so-called truce, overseen by his ghastly Board of Empire, a truce that mendaciously proclaimed 600 aid trucks per day would enter the enclave – ho! Ho! More like 100, so the Gazans became very dependent on programs like the World Central Kitchen, which was serving 1 million hot meals daily when Israel struck Iran. Now, with this new siege, WCK head chef Jose Andres says it will run out of supplies in a week. What will Gazans eat then? Grass? That seems to be the barbaric Israeli plan, because as far as Jerusalem is concerned, Palestinians are there to be ethnically cleansed and, worse, are allied with Iran, and therefore, in the current struggle, anything goes. Israel has also counterattacked in Lebanon (where, despite the supposed truce, it never stopped bombing). Hezbollah is of course a more formidable opponent than starved, traumatized, homeless and destitute Gazans. Expect to see more of Hezbollah’s missiles landing on northern Israel in the weeks to come.

As of March 2, the U.S. acknowledged the deaths of four soldiers – if you believe that low number, I have a bridge to sell you – and general Dan Caine told the New York Times, “We expect to take additional losses.” Well, duh. What about the CIA outpost in Dubai that Iran blasted or all those hotels to which U.S. troops were told to flee, sans uniforms, and which Iran attacked with drones? Also in the color-me-dubious bucket, the three F-15s that supposedly got shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait March 2. Friendly fire? Really? More likely, as military expert William Schryver noted on X, “the Iranians are launching MANPAD missiles from loitering drones, and they set up an ambush for these F-15s.” Meanwhile, general Caine told the Times that more troops would soon head to the Persian Gulf. This is profoundly stupid. It amounts to throwing good money after bad.

Trump predicted on March 2 that U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran could continued for “four to five weeks.” Uh, sure. That means retaliation will last even longer. It means U.S. air defense interceptors will be down to nada, zip and Iranian hypersonic missiles will freely hit and obliterate their targets – namely U.S. bases, Israel, and U.S. navy ships. All the while Israel claims only 10 Israelis have been killed – again, take a look at that bridge I’m selling.

The soi-disant thinking, I guess, was that by assassinating the ayatollah, the U.S. and Israel would somehow “decapitate” the Iranian government. This was arrant nonsense.  The 86-year-old ayatollah delegated his powers to the military weeks ago in anticipation of his welcomed martyrdom, and other religious leaders – far more hardline than ayatollah Khamenei – are ready to step into his shoes when asked. Basically the U.S. and Israel bumped off a moderate religious leader, who will be quickly replaced by someone much less moderate, while insuring that the military fights ferociously to the finish. All as the price of oil skyrockets. Quite the genius strategy.

Most market observers agree that oil prices could top $100 per barrel if the Strait remains closed a long time, “or if the war spills over,” per NPR March 2, “into neighboring countries and destroys oil infrastructure,” which it is already doing. “Saudi Arabia says it has shot down drones targeting an oil refinery, while Qatar Energy says two natural gas facilities have been attacked.” However, the Iranian news agency Tasmin blames Israel for trying to frame Iran for the attack on the Saudi Aramco oil refinery. This is credible. Israel would like nothing better, as journalist Mark Ames noted on X, than to bust up the Saudi/Iranian rapprochement brokered by China in 2023.

If Trump now concedes that the war will last weeks – his attempt at a speedy ceasefire having encountered an Iranian rebuff, as Iran announces it’s hunkering down for a six-month war – then expect the price of oil to shoot through the roof. That means real pain for Americans at the pump. How much pain? Five dollars, 10 dollars a gallon? Who knows? The sky’s the limit. And the stock market is already sagging. That’s what happens when you start a stupid, lousy war with a significant regional power armed to the teeth with hypersonic missiles that you can’t block and that can freely turn off the world’s energy spigot. On March 2, meathead secretary of war Pete Hegseth had the brazen nerve to claim that Iran started the war but the U.S. would finish it. Hello? Does he think we’re all morons? Like him? He’s just making shit up outta thin air. If the U.S. didn’t start the Iran War, who did? Santy Claus?

It is frankly very disturbing that highly placed U.S. officials are of such low caliber that, like Hegseth, they believe they can utter such lying inanities and no one will challenge them. Do they honestly believe we are all as demented as they are? Do they believe the hogwash regurgitated out of their mouths? The answer is yes. They do. And that’s how we got into this unspeakable disaster in the first place. So you better buckle up. Iran ain’t backing down and the price of oil ain’t dropping. You and I have to live with this. It’s gonna be a long war.

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