The Gulf monarchies are unsustainable as anything other than vassal states. If they play nice with the biggest bullies, they get paid handsomely and a small fraction of them can be rich beyond reason and fly around in luxury jets with their personal organ donors.

Except now Iran is calling the bluff of the big bully, demonstrating that America and Israel won’t protect them.

https://youtu.be/5dGY0_pgkv8

They’ve made several of these, but my fave is the CGTN video with Bald Eagles versus Persian Cats.

Yes, Iran understands this. Iran is in full, single-minded cancer removal mode. You beat cancer or you die.

Greece has one of the largest commercial fleets in the world. Likely the companies connected to these ships made a deal to be able to pass. It could depend on their destination (let’s say it’s Japan) as well.

Sweden is not about to produce a 5th or 6th gen fighter. Gripen is most likely the end of the line. The next step for Sweden is drone warfare.

Gripen can also sneak up on, out-manoveur and take down F35s btw.

That Europe is the big loser here is a given. Which is why Europe really should get involved, today. But I don’t think that the US is able to protect the rest of OPEC, at least not short-term. They are incredibly fragile and their infrastructure is exposed.

I think that the point for the US is to disrupt China. So that’s the point, mess up the Middle East so that China has no reliable source of oil. Next, make a move on Taiwan. I think that China understands this and will get involved.

I’m not saying I’m right here, but I used to feel that way too. I think what changed for me was when ISIL started running amok in Iraq, knowing that this was the plan for Iran as well. Now my family home, and my family, is getting bombed by an empire in its death throes.

I don’t want to die on the front lines and I certainly don’t want to kill anyone, but I will oppose with my life and my body those who victimize others, if I must.

I get it. You’re not wrong. The problem is that there are violent people out there who will take advantage of and victimize entire cities, countries or civilizations if they can. If not another state, then a straight up mercenary army of the rich.

The fact that the entire world is suddenly feeling the need to arm themselves is of course super disturbing, counter-productive and is coming at the worst time ever given that all of this effort needs to go into climate disaster mitigations. And yet, if one party feels they can just pick up territory with their superior capacity for violence, the rest of us are kind of forced to try to deter that.

Honestly I believe Iran would accept:

• Full sanctions relief
• Return to IAEA inspections
• Pinky-promise not to attack again
• Fake reparations program spread out over 30 years

The alternative is:

• The US is evicted from the Persian Gulf
• The US fucks off from Iraq, and Iraq gets an Iran-friendly government
• Bahrain gets regime change
• All goods through the strait are now controlled by Iran

The worse/better alternative is:

• Pipelines and refineries in the Arabian nations go boom
• All US/Israel trade through the Red Sea is blocked
• US is starved out of Djibouti
• Iran gets a nuclear weapon and says they’re going to “test it” on Tel Aviv unless Netanyahu sucks a donkey dick on OnlyFans

Choose wisely, pedophile scum

What I worry about is that Germany has a pathetic military doctrine and no comprehensive strategy for sustaining its economy beyond “rules-based world order, multilateral cooperation”

Mines, USVs (the suicide kind and the mine-laying kind), UUVs, Speedboats, drones, rockets, missiles. Before you shit-talk speedboats Iran has already tried and succeeded at attaching limpet mines onto the hulls of US ships (kinda as a joke/exercise) before this.

Oh and all of this is in tunnels, not sitting around on the water surface waiting to get blown up.

If they want to protect European interests they need to kick the US the fuck out of the Gulf.

All of Europe is pretty bad on the global stage right now, but Germany is the worst.

Love to Germany from Sweden

Last time, they bombed Evin (notorious prison holding political prisoners), murdering the elite opposition figures. This time too they have directly targeted Reformists and opposition leaders, anyone who’s not a hardliner and who’s been working on normalizing the relationship with the West.

From their actions, we can derive their intent. Anyone listening to their words should recluse themselves from society so the rest of us can advance free of the burden that they are.

I mean, they did commit arson with a deadly outcome, but Basij are not cops. They’re a junta.

That being said, I strongly oppose the death penalty, I oppose war (fuck the US and fuck Israel), and also fuck the “protestors” that destroyed people’s cars, shops, mosques and homes. I’m an anarchist and a revolutionary, they’re mindless thugs. We are not the same.

I guess because it’s difficult to detect.

No kompromat needed for Elon, he just reads the general vibe of the powerful and then parrots it in an edgy package for personal financial gain.

Well, the internet is opening up in Iran now, so I guess the need for speculation will be reduced in the coming weeks.