The war which has just begun between Israel, the US and Iran is a war of choice which didn't have to happen. (or maybe it did as we will see below.)
This is what you can expect from a president, Donald Trump, who believes he can outsmart anyone, but having no strategy is conversely outsmarted by everybody.
Sadly, the war is based on premises which are wrong. That Iran as a state is unstable and will crumble if pushed hard enough. But then, if this doesn't happen, what is the back-up option? Is there one?
The Plan of Israel is clear: Dismantle any power in the Middle East which can resist the expansionist Zionist ideology. In its goals, it partly overlap the Neo-con objective to weaken China, by disrupting the Silk Road project and Russia by attacking an ally which is providing drone technology.
But beyond the initial salvo, what could happen?
The Hormuz Strait is now closed which will have a major impact on oil in the short term and inflation later.
The last war with Israel in 2025 lasted 12 days after which Israel ended up short of anti-missile defenses having exhausted its stockpile. This time, it is the US which may end up short of ammunition.
Iran is a huge country, with close to 90 million people and a land which is extremely diverse unlike Iraq. Strategists in Washington know this, so could there be another reason for the war?
Since the 1971 Nixon's fiat currency revolution, our financial system has been working on the fume of fake money. The system is now geriatric. It had a sudden heart attack in 2008 during which the doctors at the Fed were obliged to inject massive transfusions of fresh cash (euphemistically called Quantitative Easing, QE) to prevent the system's cardiac arrest. It happened again at the end of 2019 with the Repo crisis which necessitated a new massive transfusion of money under the guise of the Covid-19 pseudo-pandemic. And it's happening once more.
This was predictable and one of the main reason Europe has been so adamant about the continuation of the Ukraine war. Trump came to power believing, probably genuinely, that he was going to end "wars" in general, thanks to his famous, and mostly illusory "Art of the Deal". He didn't understand the constraints of money beyond interest rates nor had he the patience to listen to the right people or learn, to become wiser about this complex subject. He was consequently ensnared in contradictions and in the end entrapped by smarter people with a better grasp of key issues.
Now he is trapped and he knows it. Without quick results, the mid-term election is lost and his presidency over. As the player he is, the only move left is to double down. But he will now bump into real, material constraints. His Generals told him, not to go to war. Not out of fear of the war itself or because they believe the US was at risk, but because they understand that by not folding, Iran although it may lose every single battle, will eventually win the war.
The coming days will be shrouded in the fog of war. Iran will be pounded but being almost 3 times larger than Ukraine with more than twice the population, which has been resisting Russia for over 4 years now, what is the chance that the country will fold suddenly? Almost none? It is actually likely that the exact opposite will happen and that the population will support the Government regardless of ideology. Conversely, the micro Arab states around the Gulf may be more at risk with their large Shia populations and weak social unity.
This is day one of a conflict which unlike what Trump believes may be a long lingering one.
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