Rembrandt van Rijn The artist’s son Titus 1657
Brilliant analysis.
Israel is kinda fucked. Last year I said it wouldn't exist in 10 years. Now I think it won't be here in 5 years. pic.twitter.com/5DG2t9J1g1— Kerry Burgess (@KerryBurgess) June 22, 2025
Money
.@DougAMacgregor and I are friends and while we don’t always agree on everything, this interview regarding THE TRUTH must be listened to by every American who cares about America’s Future. The American people CAN handle THE TRUTH and ARE willing to sacrifice IF they are told THE… https://t.co/jksFlWPQP8
— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) June 23, 2025
MTG
Gaetz Explains It All to You pic.twitter.com/YJApgoC0Eq
— Grace Chong, MBI (@gc22gc) June 22, 2025
And therein lies the problem….. The next move is not Trump's to make, it's the Iranians' choice.
If Iran attacks U.S. military bases, Trump is pulled into a regional conflict beyond what most have contemplated, and that would be a fundamental break in his prior promises.… https://t.co/7QjQxZI9u3
— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) June 23, 2025
Who is hurt the most by closing the Strait of Hormuz? pic.twitter.com/rURORR36Jr
— Ryan Dawson (@RyLiberty) June 23, 2025
Alex
President Trump has publicly endorsed REGIME CHANGE in Iran, breaking his promised to the American people and pushing the planet to the edge of a NUCLEAR WORLD WAR!!! pic.twitter.com/equnZi7tNc
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) June 23, 2025
Poso
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1937165649899602062
The first hours of the Trump-induced ceasefire have been confusing. But expect Trump to put his foot down, until he can’t. And then if he can blame Iran.
• If Israel Holds Fire, So Will Iran: Fighting ‘Until The Very Last Minute’ (ZH)
Update(2200ET): The ceasefire is going to be shaky and likely difficult to maintain given that right up until the very moment it is to go into effect Tehran was on the receiving end of very intense Israeli warplane attacks. And Iran’s Foreign Minister too said Iran hit back overnight: “The military operations of our powerful Armed Forces to punish Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute, at 4am. Together with all Iranians, I thank our brave Armed Forces who remain ready to defend our dear country until their last drop of blood, and who responded to any attack by the enemy until the very last minute,” said FM Araghchi on X. IRANIAN TELEVISION: ISRAEL ASSASSINATED NUCLEAR SCIENTIST MOHAMMAD REZA SIDDIQI IN ITS RECENT ATTACKS But shortly before that above latest statement, there was this by the top Iranian diplomat:
It’s anything but certain whether it will hold, but likely the White House is putting pressure on Tel Aviv to at least play nice for now, so Trump can take his ‘victory lap’ and declare mission accomplished. And yet, the status of Iran’s uranium enrichment stockpile is unknown. The status of the ceasefire itself may not become clear until the daylight hours…
Update: Fox is reporting, “President Trump spoke with Qatar’s Emir and informed him the U.S. got Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Iran. The President asked Qatar to help persuade Iran to do the same, following that Vice President Vance coordinated with Qatar’s Prime Minister on the details. This effort proved successful and, following discussions with the Qatari PM, the Iranians agreed. The deal was coordinated at the highest level by the President and Vice President and the Qatari Emir and Prime minister directly.” “Despite having been attacked just hours earlier, the Qataris set aside their grievances and prioritized regional security to get the deal done,” this source added. Reuters is reporting that Iran has agreed to the ceasefire, which at the very least will provide a respite to the tit-for-tat missiles. More from Reuters:
• Qatar Brokered Iran’s Ceasefire Deal After U.S. Request
• Qatari PM secured Tehran’s approval following Trump’s outreach to Emir after Iran’s strike on U.S. base.
• Doha played key role in halting Israel-Iran conflict
* * *Update: Shortly after 6pm, futures jumped and oil slumped even more in one of its biggest intraday reversals on record, after Trump announced on his Truth Social account that Iran and Israel had “fully agreed” to a “Complete and Total ceasefire” which will takes place at approximately midnight ET, “when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions”, and will last for 12 hours, at which time Trump says that “War will be considered, ENDED!”
The president adds that “on the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, “THE 12 DAY WAR.” This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!”
“We may forget the words of our enemies, but never the silence of our friends..”
• Rope-a-Dope Warfighting Strategy (Helmer)
When Muhammad Ali famously demonstrated the rope-a-dope strategy in the Zaire title bout against George Forman in October 1974, he allowed Foreman to start attacking him against the ropes in Round 3. By Round 7 Foreman had exhausted his punching strength. In Round 8, Foreman dropped his guard, and Ali counterattacked with a combination of punches which knocked Foreman out. Watch carefully how it was done in seven punches, eight seconds. According to General Daniel Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US has knocked out Iran’s nuclear enrichment and nuclear weapon preparation plants with “extremely severe destruction”; “completely and totally”, according to President Donald Trump.
The punches were delivered by “tactical surprise”, Caine has announced, with a “deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington.” He said the “strike packages” comprised more than 125 aircraft and one submarine. They fired 16 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs, more than 24 Tomahawk missiles, and a total of 75 precision-guided weapons at three land targets – Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. According to Caine’s report, no Iranian shot was fired against the US attackers as they flew on to these targets nor “on the way out.” Instead, “decoys” and “preemptive suppressing fires” were launched. “Iran’s fighters did not fly,” Caine claims, “and it appears that Iran’s surface-to-air missile systems did not see us. Throughout the mission we retained the element of surprise.”
The entire operation took 25 minutes. That’s the equivalent in the boxing ring of seven rounds. Iran reports the US had telegraphed its punches with advance notice that the bombing raid would be restricted to the three land targets. Knocking out the Iranian leadership, including military and civilian leaders, plus Ayatollah Ali Kamenei, has been denied by Vice President JD Vance, then reasserted by Trump. “No other military in the world,” said Caine, “could have done this.”
Iran has not acknowledged that rope-a-dope is its warfighting strategy. As Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi prepares for his meetings on Monday with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has issued a warning to Russia and China that they are failing to do enough to meet longstanding assistance promises and treaty obligations. “We may forget the words of our enemies, but never the silence of our friends,” the IRGC media platform Sepahi News has announced just after midnight on Monday morning (June 23). “After going through this sensitive situation, there will undoubtedly be a serious review of relations with some countries.” The text was accompanied by a picture of Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping together at a ceremony shaking hands.
The former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, spokesman for the Security Council, has issued a personal declaration supporting Iran’s war against both the US and Israel, and implying not only that Israel is losing the war, but also there is Kremlin backing for the Iranian nuclear weapons programme. “The critical infrastructure of the nuclear cycle appears not to have been damaged or even slightly affected. The enrichment of nuclear materials, and now we can say it, the future production of nuclear weapons, will continue. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their nuclear ammunition. Israel is under attack — thundering explosions, people in panic. The United States is drawn into a new conflict with the prospect of a ground operation. The Iranian political regime has been preserved, and with a high degree of probability it has become stronger.”
“With such successes,” added Medvedev for the General Staff and intelligence services, “[we don’t see] Trump [winning] the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the utter venality of this nomination. Good start — congratulations, Mr. President!” This is Russian for rope-a-dope.
“..was coaxed from a Palantir counter-intelligence algorithm..”
• The Key Nuclear Allegation That Started The War (Alastair Crooke)
The sudden claim of Iran being very close to a bomb (that seemingly jumped out of ‘nowhere’ to leave Americans puzzling how could it happen that – in the blink of eye, we are going to war – was subsequently refuted by IAEA Chief Grossi to CNN on 17 June (but only after the abrupt attack on Iran already had taken place): “We did not have any evidence of a systematic effort [by Iran] to move to a nuclear weapon”, Grossi confirmed on CNN. This statement drew the following riposte from Iran by its Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei on 19 June: “This is too late, Mr. Grossi – you obscured this truth in your absolutely biased report that was instrumentalized by E3/U.S. to craft a resolution with baseless allegation of [Iranian] ‘non-compliance’; the same resolution was then utilized, as a final pretext, by a genocidal warmongering regime to wage a war of aggression on Iran and to launch an unlawful attack on our peaceful nuclear facilities. Do you know how many innocent Iranians have been killed/maimed as a result of this criminal war? You turned IAEA into a tool of convenience for non-NPT members to deprive NPT members of their basic right under Article 4. Any clear conscience?!”.
To which Dr Ali Larijani, Advisor to the Supreme Leader, added: “When the war ends, we will hold the director of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, accountable”. What they are saying: The Russian Foreign Ministry’s Statement, in relation to the escalation of the Iranian-Israeli conflict – “It was precisely these “sympathisers” [EU3] who exerted pressure on the leadership of the [IAEA] Agency to prepare a controversial “comprehensive assessment” of Iran’s nuclear programme, the flaws of which were subsequently exploited to push through a biased anti-Iran resolution at the IAEA Board of Governors on 12 June [2025]. This resolution effectively provided a green light to actions by West Jerusalem, leading to tragedy” [i.e. to the sneak attack on the immediate day after, 13 June].
Behind the scenes: The underpinnings to the 12 June 2025 IAEA Resolution – giving pretext for Israel to strike Iran (and crafted to sway President Trump to dismiss his own Director of National Intelligence’s warnings that there was no evidence of Iran moving towards weaponisation) – reportedly were drawn not from Mossad or other western intelligence services, but from IAEA software. As DD Geo-politics outlines, since 2015, the IAEA has relied on Palantir’s Mosaic platform, a $50-million AI system that sifts through millions of data points – satellite imagery, social media, personnel logs – to predict nuclear threats:
“Iran’s stockpile [of enriched uranium] had been growing steadily for months—yet the narrative of an imminent breakthrough surged only after the IAEA’s censure on June 6, 2025. That resolution, adopted 19–3, provided Israel the diplomatic cover it needed. Palantir’s Mosaic platform played a critical role in this pivot. Its data shaped the May 31 report, flagging anomalies at Fordow and Lavisan-Shian, and recycling prior allegations from Turquzabad—despite years-old Iranian denials and sabotage … Mosaic was conceived originally to identify insurgent activity in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
Its algorithm looks to identify and infer ‘hostile intent’ from indirect indicators – metadata, behavioral patterns, signal traffic – not from confirmed evidence. In other words, it postulates what suspects may be thinking, or planning. On 12 June, Iran leaked documents, which it claimed showed IAEA chief Rafael Grossi sharing Mosaic outputs with Israel. By 2018, Mosaic had processed more than 400 million discrete data objects and had helped impute suspicion to over 60 Iranian sites such as to justify unannounced IAEA inspections of those sites, under the JCPOA. These outputs, though dependent largely on the algorithmic equations, were incorporated into formal IAEA safeguard reports and were widely accepted by UN member states and non-proliferation regimes as credible, evidence-based assessments. Mosaic however is not a passive system. It is trained to infer from its algorithm hostile intent, but when repurposed for nuclear oversight, its equations risk translating simple correlation into malicious intent.
“Assange recalled that the opening scene depicts Iranian scientists in Tehran assembling a bomb, with one character stating that the device could be operational within six months. “How is it that such a lie got into a script about Wikileaks?” Assange asked..”
• Hollywood Seeded Iran War Narrative For Years – Wikileaks (RT)
Screenwriters in Hollywood who “say they are Jewish” have been planting pro-war narratives about Iran in mainstream entertainment for more than a decade, Wikileaks has claimed. Israel launched airstrikes on Iran earlier this month, claiming Tehran was close to creating a nuclear weapon. Over the weekend, the US also directly joined the conflict by bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.In a post on X on Sunday, Wikileaks stated that Hollywood writers “who say they are Jewish” have been “planting the mental seeds for war with Iran for years,” citing productions such as Top Gun: Maverick, Homeland, 24, and The Fifth Estate. The group shared a clip of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s speech at Oxford Union from 2013. In the video, he discussed The Fifth Estate – a biographical drama about Wikileaks – which opens with a side plot about a fictional Iranian nuclear bomb project.
Assange recalled that the opening scene depicts Iranian scientists in Tehran assembling a bomb, with one character stating that the device could be operational within six months. “How is it that such a lie got into a script about Wikileaks?” Assange asked, noting that at the time, 16 US intelligence agencies had already found that Tehran did not have a nuclear weapons program. “It is an attack against Iran,” Assange said, claiming that the scene “fans the flames to start a war with Iran” and served the interests of the “people in the system that want the war.” Prior to Israel’s latest strikes, both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and US intelligence agencies stated there was no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Nevertheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to insist that Tehran was on the brink of creating a bomb – a claim he has repeated for decades.
Hollywood script writers who say they are 'Jewish' have been planting the mental seeds for war with Iran for years, including in Top Gun Maverick, Homeland, 24, and in the DreamWorks film on Julian Assange 'The Fifth Estate'. Excerpt from Oxford Union speech, 30 January 2013.… pic.twitter.com/mVfsTQKW5e
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 22, 2025
At the UN General Assembly in 2012, he infamously used a cartoon bomb illustration to warn that Iran was “months away” from a nuclear weapon, and made comparable statements throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Israel’s attack has drawn international condemnation, including from Russia, which has said the strikes were illegal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the operation “an unprovoked aggression.”US involvement in Israel’s campaign has also drawn criticism, with Moscow comparing it to the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, which was started over false claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.US President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran has also met pushback from inside the White House. According to Reuters, Vice President J.D. Vance – an Iraq War veteran – opposed joining the Israeli offensive and warned during internal discussions that Israel was dragging the US into another war.
“Most of what we see on Sky News and BBC is packaged by the IDF’s media department whose main job is to distort the realities on the ground.”
• The West’s Four Main Lies About Iran and Israel (Jay)
The Iran talks in Geneva with EU foreign ministers started and yet few, if any, Middle East pundits could have predicted the outcome of Trump’s bunker buster bombs on nuclear sites in Iran. Until he did this, one could argue, that was is scope still for a deal with the Iranians which would either completely stop their enriched uranium program or, at the very least, have it run by weapons inspectors of the UN and perhaps even a western company reporting directly to the Americans. That at least must have been the thinking. And yet this is the biggest miscalculation as it is impossible now for the Iranians to ever think about a deal. Was the deal genuine in the first place, many will ask.
This may seem far-fetched but so far it’s important to remember that most of what we read in western media is absolute garbage cultivated by Israel’s fake news operation which more or less provides all the data and so-called victories each day to Sky News, leaving the man in the street misinformed at best. Trump’s two-week deadline was of course stupid and was never going to be respected and was just a ruse to trick the Iranians. Yet here are the four main lies which western media pump out on a daily basis to support Israel and the Americans.Israel has made huge progress with its military campaign at controlling Iran. This is really not true at all. If they had and we are to believe Trump’s claims of having total air dominancy why pause at this point for peace talks?
Most of what we see on Sky News and BBC is packaged by the IDF’s media department whose main job is to distort the realities on the ground. While the F35 jets Israel used made great progress in their campaign they have lost at least three with the pilots held by Iran. Little is reported of this by western media. In addition, there is no credible reporting whatsoever on Iran’s victories inside Israel as many outlets simply miss it out entirely when giving their big screen presentations. It is inconceivable that Iran has not hit some military installations which would explain why all of Israel’s aircraft are out of the country. While it is true that the first strike by Israel had a huge impact, especially by killing top commanders, Iran soon recovered and got on with the job at hand.
It would take a massive operation of perhaps up to 2 million soldiers on the ground to even contemplate taking over the country. Iran is not Iraq. While Israeli jets continue to destroy a number of installations, some of whom were decoys mocked up by the Iranians, the destruction by Iran in Israel can’t go on at its present rate, which explains why Israel agreed to the talks as they hope it might lead to Iran pulling back. Iran doesn’t need to win the war. It just needs to bleed Israel of its resources.
Iran has a nuclear bomb or is in the process of making one. This is perhaps the biggest lie of all and has even been debunked by America’s own director of national intelligence, which of course Trump refuses to accept. We’re now repeating history of U.S. wars started by total bullshit – Iraq, Afghanistan going right back to the Vietnam war where a missile strike against a U.S. warship was faked to justify going in. The U.S. even claimed that Gadaffi had WMDs all proved to be wrong. Trump will go ahead with bombing if he doesn’t get a deal. In the event, this is what happened, or so it would seem by western media accounts. But we should not rush to conclusions as there is a distinct possibility that Trump has bluffed the Israelis, the Iranians and even the American people.
Did he really go ahead with the bunker buster strikes as it is presented to us by media? Did he get informed by his own intel people that the Iranians were about to shift the centrifuges out of those sites? Or had already done so. In this scenario, the hasty bombing scores a number of points for him as he comes out a winner in the short term on all sides even though he was forced to do it to save face. The pressure is now on him and Netanyahu who could both end up with egg on their faces in the coming days as Iran chokes the Persian Gulf shipping and looks for soft targets in the region. Trump does not like to take big decisions which he knows he can’t change at the drop of a hat so the bombing of the nuclear sites should be interpreted not as an easy decision but more of a last resort.
His own Pentagon goons must have told him “it’s damn easy to start a war with Iran, but getting out of one will be tough”. Also, the strategy of bombing the underground nuclear facilities may well come with some blowback which he has miscalculated. What does Israel and the U.S. do after they have done this? Will Iran wheel out the bigger, heavier rockets which they have been saving until now and obliterate Israel? Will they strike U.S. allies in the region and even U.S. forces? Pushed to this extreme it is likely they will do all this and block the Straits of Hormuz. Does Trump want a full on war with Iran? Netanyahu would certainly welcome it with the U.S. involved at the highest level, but Trump does not.
“..the visit was needed for “closer, more precise, and more serious consultations” with Russia..”
• No Justification For Attack On Iran – Putin (RT)
Israeli and US hostilities against Iran are groundless and unjustifiable, Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in an expression of support. Araghchi, who landed in Moscow on Monday, said earlier that the visit was needed for “closer, more precise, and more serious consultations” with Russia in the wake of the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend. During the meeting at the Kremlin, Putin described the attacks on Iran as “an unprovoked aggression,” for which “there can be no justification.” The actions of Israel and the US are “illegitimate” and violate international norms, he added.
The Russian leader noted that he was glad to see Araghchi in Moscow, saying that his visit would allow Russia and Iran “to discuss these pressing issues and jointly think about a way out of the current situation.” Araghchi agreed with Putin’s assessment, saying that “Russia today stands on the right side of history and international law.” By striking targets in Israel, Iran is defending its sovereignty in a legitimate way, the diplomat stressed. Israel and the US explained their attacks on Iran by claiming that Tehran was on the brink of obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Iranian authorities have repeatedly insisted that that they are not working on a bomb, while defending their right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program.
Jim likes Trump’s original story.
“In eight days, the United States and Israel eliminated Iran’s nuclear capabilities with minimal civilian casualties. One of the greatest military achievements ever.” — Bill Ackman
• Boom (James Howard Kunstler)
Of course, you must expect a whole lot of deranged thinking after the USA’s Saturday night “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” (MOP) attack on Iran’s three nuke sites — because derangement drives the spirit of our time in Western Civ. France, Germany, the UK, Sweden still can’t wrap their brains around the jihad they have fecklessly invited inside their countries — and they prosecute anyone who suggests as much. Over here, the Oregon state legislature brought in drag-queens to entertain members in the chamber . . .California taxpayers subsidize the riots in LA . . . a federal judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from custody . . . AOC endorses a Muslim lunatic for mayor in New York. . . . So it goes. For all that, often the simplest explanation is the correct one. Of the MOP attack on Iran, Secretary of State Rubio said, “They had all the pieces in place to have a nuclear weapon. . . now, not so much.”
Mr. Rubio’s Sunday chat with Maria Bartiromo is well worth a listen for clarity. He also succinctly stated, “They [Iran] are the sole source of instability in the entire Middle East, and the world has been paying a price for this for forty-something years.” Yet, the American hive-mind is aflame with histrionic hypotheticals over Iran, driven by the same prevailing anxiety that infects the illegal alien issue, lawfare, sexual insanity, our role in the Ukraine fiasco. The leitmotif lately is the popular idea that Israel controls the US like a puppeteer and that the Jews are out to rule the world. Yes, the shrill charge of “Zionism” boils down to that. (Just look at the comment section of this blog.) There is, necessarily, uncertainty about the result of our MOP strikes. We will not be sending troops in to inspect Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Iran had time, while jerking-around American diplomats, to move its stockpile of 60-percent enriched uranium (if that’s what it was). But they no longer have the facilities to do anything with it, or the top scientists to run the program, and if they attempt to restart all of that, the US will have the option to take them out again. So, you can stop the handwringing over that. Another popular rumor in circulation is that the MOAB mission was a charade, just a show that Mr. Trump put on to satisfy his ego. That assumes everybody in the chain-of-command was duped, a low-percentage supposition. How is it unclear that the president is not messing around? The main message is “No nukes for Iran.”
There was, apparently, some part of that simple proposition the mullahs did not understand. Perhaps the Iranian people understand that the mullahs are not fit to govern their country. It looks like we’ll find out soon enough. Meanwhile propaganda-central keeps trying to steer the hive-mind back onto RussiaRussiaRussia, and onto Mr. Putin especially. CBS’s 60 Minutes re-worked an old segment last night on Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last year at 47 under curious circumstances. I doubt we know the whole story, and CBS surely did not try to present it. But the main purpose was to call Mr. Putin names — thief, murderer, tyrant — and the reason for that was also clear and simple: to derail Mr. Trump’s efforts to normalize relations with Russia.
That effort is a cornerstone of Mr. Trump’s campaign to re-arrange trade relations in such a way that our country can become productive again, employing its citizens in a purposeful way. It happens to imply an end to the Ukraine war, which the Obama State Department and the CIA set the groundwork for in 2014. Ending this war is not in the interest of a certain Beltway blob that thrives on creaming-off the weapons industry. Their schemes require Russia to remain an enemy of the US, a wholly engineered idiocy that media outfits like CBS promote. Viewed through a wider lens, the MOP mission was also intended as a message to China. It is a simple and straightforward message: Expect that Mr. Trump means what he says when he says it. He is not messing around.
China has been messing around with us to a stunning degree, especially during the past four years of the phantom president “Joe Biden.” China has infiltrated every critical corner of American life: our government, our universities, our medical research, our computer tech sector, our finances, Hollywood, our news media, our critical infrastructure, you name it. China has been waging war on us in every way except troops and kinetics. Mr. Trump seeks to end all these operations, without coming to blows. That is, he is trying to find a path to what used to be quaintly called peaceful coexistence. If there’s a reason that the political Left in America can’t get behind that simple idea, it might be because the CCP is too deeply mixed up in Democratic Party politics. Their intentions intersect: to bring chaos to America.
“..the war in Iran likewise has as an aim blocking trade with China and Russia and countering moves away from the U.S.-centered neoliberal order..”
• War On Iran Is Fight For US Unipolar Control Of World (Michael Hudson)
Opponents of the war with Iran say that the war is not in American interests, seeing that Iran does not pose any visible threat to the United States. This appeal to reason misses the neoconservative logic that has guided U.S. foreign policy for more than a half century, and which is now threatening to engulf the Middle East in the most violent war since Korea. That logic is so aggressive, so repugnant to most people, so much in violation of the basic principles of international law, the United Nations, and the U.S. Constitution, that there is an understandable shyness in the authors of this strategy to spell out what is at stake. What is at stake is the U.S. attempt to control the Middle East and its oil as a buttress of U.S. economic power, and to prevent other countries from moving to create their own autonomy from the U.S.-centered neoliberal order administered by the IMF, World Bank, and other institutions to reinforce U.S. unipolar power.
The 1970s saw much discussion about creating a New International Economic Order (NIEO). U.S. strategists saw this as a threat, and since my book Super Imperialism ironically was used as something like a textbook by the government, I was invited to comment on how I thought countries would break away from U.S. control. I was working at the Hudson Institute with Herman Kahn, and in 1974 or 1975, he brought me to sit in on a military strategy discussion of plans being made already at that time to possibly overthrow Iran and break it up into ethnic parts. Herman found the weakest spot to be Baluchistan, on Iran’s border with Pakistan. The Kurds, Tajiks, and Turkic Azeris were others whose ethnicities were to be played off against each other, giving U.S. diplomacy a key potential client dictatorship to reshape both Iranian and Pakistani political orientation if need be.
Three decades later, in 2003, General Wesley Clark pointed to Iran as being the capstone of seven countries that the United States needed to control in order to dominate the Middle East, starting with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan, culminating in Iran. Most of today’s discussion of the geopolitical dynamics of how the international economy is changing is understandably (and rightly) focusing on the attempt by BRICS and other countries to escape from U.S. control by de-dollarizing their trade and investment. But the most active dynamic presently reshaping the international economy has been the attempts of Donald Trump’s whirlwind presidency since January to lock other countries into a U.S.-centered economy, by agreeing not to focus their trade and investment on China and other states seeking autonomy from U.S. control. (Trade with Russia is already heavily sanctioned.)
As will be described below, the war in Iran likewise has as an aim blocking trade with China and Russia and countering moves away from the U.S.-centered neoliberal order. Trump, hoping in his own self-defeating way to rebuild U.S. industry, expected that countries would respond to his threat to create tariff chaos by reaching an agreement with America not to trade with China, and indeed to accept U.S. trade and financial sanctions against it, Russia, Iran, and other countries deemed to be a threat to the unipolar U.S. global order. Maintaining that order is the U.S. objective in its current fight with Iran, as well as its fights with Russia and China – and Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries seeking to restructure their economic policies to recover their independence.
“..El-Sisi urged the parties to prevent the cycle of violence from expanding..”
• ‘No Military Solutions’ to Israel–Iran Crisis – Egypt (RT)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has called for a diplomatic resolution of the Israel-Iran conflict. Speaking during a phone call on Saturday with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, El-Sisi urged the parties to prevent the cycle of violence from expanding. “There are no military solutions to this crisis,” the Egyptian leader stressed. According to a presidential spokesman, El-Sisi reaffirmed Cairo’s categorical rejection of Israel’s continuing military escalation, describing it as “a threat to the security and stability of the Middle East at a critical time when the region is experiencing multiple crises.” In an earlier statement on Saturday, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “deep concern” over the situation in Iran and condemned the rapid military escalation. It also reaffirmed Egypt’s opposition to any violations of the UN Charter and international law, calling for full respect of state sovereignty.
The latest conflict began on June 13, when Israeli fighter jets carried out a wave of strikes on Iranian strategic sites, including the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Israeli spies also targeted senior military officials and nuclear scientists in and around Tehran. Iran retaliated by launching dozens of ballistic missiles into Israeli territory. The conflict has continued to escalate since then, with both sides exchanging waves of missiles strikes, forcing populations underground and into hiding. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced that American forces had conducted a large-scale bombing campaign on three Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan—claiming the facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.”
The developments have sparked condemnation from several African governments. In a statement on Sunday, the South African Presidency pointed out Pretoria’s “sincerest hope that President Donald Trump would use his influence and that of the US government to prevail on the parties to pursue a dialogue path in resolving their issues of dispute.” The African state called on the US, Israel, and Iran to allow the UN to lead efforts toward a peaceful resolution. Earlier in June, Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf held a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, during which he reiterated Algeria’s unwavering condemnation of the Israeli strikes. Attaf characterized the attacks as an act of aggression and called on the UN Security Council to intervene and uphold international legal frameworks.
Deepfake Informational Barbarism. That’s quite the term.
• Moscow Warns of Deepfake ‘Informational Barbarism’ (RT)
The increasing availability of deepfake technology is pushing the world into “informational barbarism,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned, urging news agencies to increase investment in fact-checking and video verification. Zakharova identified deepfakes as global concern during a workshop at the 19th General Assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA), which Russia hosted last week. Malicious actors are using every opportunity to deploy “poison pills of lies” against their targets, and are turning to generative content to achieve their aims, the diplomat said.
”Just a couple of years ago deepfake was a novelty that could only confuse people, but now the quality and quantity of deepfake videos raises the question whether humanity is equipped to deal with such attacks,” Zakharova said. “I don’t have a definitive answer.” The Russian Foreign Ministry works to disprove falsified content involving its staff, including Minister Sergey Lavrov and Zakharova herself. But as mount of fake content increases, so does the time required to counter them, she said. The problem is multifaceted, as seen in the growing use of deepfakes by scammers, and demands a “systemic and comprehensive” international response.
”It is self-evident that news agencies and leading media outlets need entire sections dedicated to fact-checking that are trained to detect technological tricks, which are used to present non-credible information as credible,” she said. News agencies are naturally at the forefront of the fight against falsified imagery, since they handle the largest flow of raw information in the media ecosystem, Zakharova pointed out. The Foreign Ministry launched a dedicated campaign against “fake news” in 2017 and has since released more than 5,000 regular rebuttals and 350 in-depth exposés of what it considers informational attacks against Russia’s national interests, the official said.
“..it is very difficult to remove a president without the support of the vice president and most of the Cabinet, meaning, little can be done without a virtual mutiny within the White House..”
• Why the Public Needs Answers on Biden’s Alleged Incapacity (Turley)
“Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?” When then-President Joe Biden asked in September 2022 if House Rep. Jackie Walorski, an Indiana Republican who had died weeks earlier in a car accident, was in a meeting, observers were shocked. Biden had not only issued a statement of condolence; he had attended the congresswoman’s memorial service to lower the flags at the White House in her honor. As Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple noted last week, that moment should have been a wake-up call. In Washington parlance, it left no room for “plausible deniability” about whether Biden was still fit to hold the office of president. And it wasn’t just Democratic politicians who were willfully blind to Biden’s obvious deterioration; it was the media, too.
That’s why the country should fully support President Donald Trump’s June 4 order for his administration to investigate Biden’s competence and answer some of these questions, including the possible abuse of an autopen to sign legislation, pardons and other documents while he was president, instead of looking for political motivations. Similarly, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee is also investigating. The New York Times called it part of Trump’s “campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies” and “the latest effort by President Trump to stoke conspiracy theories about his predecessor.”
There is a weird dissonance when journalists blame Biden’s White House for a coverup, but then criticize efforts to investigate that coverup. While criminal charges are unlikely to stem from the investigation, if the White House autopen, for instance, was used without Biden’s consent, that would amount to forgery, obstruction of justice, fraud or other serious crimes. The complicity of politicians, staff and even the press in deception is nothing new in Washington. A century ago, after President Woodrow Wilson experienced a severe stroke in September 1919, his wife, Edith, and his staff covered up the severity of his condition, which made him incapable of fulfilling his duties till the end of his term and affected the race for a Democratic successor. To end such abuses, we must demand accountability and greater transparency on matters of presidential health and competence.
The 25th Amendment of the Constitution was intended to address succession issues, including the incapacity of a president, but it is very difficult to remove a president without the support of the vice president and most of the Cabinet, meaning, little can be done without a virtual mutiny within the White House. That is particularly true when staff have an interest in maintaining the illusion to keep the president and themselves in power. With Biden, according to the reporting in the book “Original Sin” by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the staff regularly cut off the access of Cabinet secretaries on down to Biden, limited public events and scripted short remarks for the president to read from teleprompters. Allegations that Biden’s staff misused the autopen are exceptionally difficult to prove, and Biden has issued a statement that he had full knowledge of everything that was signed.
Absent a confession of incapacity, we need someone Congress would need someone like John Dean, the White House counsel during the Nixon administration who was willing to break from the ranks and implicate his former associates. So far, there do not appear to be any Deans on the Biden staff, who are likely eager to avoid being implicated in potential improper use of the autopen or other actions that may have circumvented the president or covered up his decline. But that doesn’t mean that the Trump administration and Congress shouldn’t be trying to get to the bottom of what happened. The worst thing for the American people would be a collective shrug and a resumption of business as usual.
“..at least some Western experts and even mainstream media were well aware that Ukraine had a rapidly growing, increasingly powerful, and extremely subversive (domestically and internationally) far-right movement.“
• Zelensky Has A Nazi Problem. He Can’t Lie His Way Out Of It (Amar)
Anniversaries can be opportunities. For better or worse. In the case of the recent anniversary of Nazi Germany’s massive attack on the Soviet Union of 22 June 1941 – code-named Operation Barbarossa by the Germans – Ukraine’s beyond best-by-date president Vladimir Zelensky went for the worst. Using his own Telegram channel, Zelensky shared his bizarre view of why that anniversary mattered. In short, because it can serve in the information war against Russia. “Eighty years ago,” the Kiev regime leader wrote, “the world overcame Nazism and swore ‘Never again.’ But today Russia is repeating the crimes of the Nazis […] Now Ukrainians are fighting against rashism [a pejorative term fusing the words “Russia” and “fascism”] with the same courage with which our ancestors defeated Nazism…”
Where to begin? Why not with the obvious: IF Russia were following Nazi examples, then much of Ukraine would now look like, for instance, Gaza. And while every death is a tragedy, the numbers of Ukrainian civilians killed in the Ukraine War would be of an entirely different order of magnitude. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact that can be quantified and proven: As of the end of May, the UN counted about 13,279 Ukrainian civilians killed, since the beginning of the large-scale fighting in February 2022. It is true that the UN also warns that these are conservative, minimum figures. Yet consider some figures for Gaza under Israeli genocidal assault since October 2023. As of early June, the enclave’s health ministry – generally acknowledged as reliable and also conservative with its numbers, notwithstanding Israeli and Western propaganda – has counted over 55,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza alone (Israel’s victims in the West bank and elsewhere should, of course, not be forgotten.)
The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between resistance fighters and civilians, but there is a virtual expert consensus that the share of the latter is unusually high, as you would expect during a genocide. A peer-reviewed study in the prestigious and unbiased medical journal The Lancet, for instance, has estimated that 59.1% of deaths between October 2023 and June 2024 were women, children, and the elderly. Other equally reputable organizations have even estimated around 90% of civilian casualties in Gaza. Keep in mind that the above is deliberately restricted to minimum estimates. As The Lancet has also shown, the real death toll in Gaza is likely to be far higher. Let’s also not even dwell here on “details,” such as that Gaza now has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world.
For even the bare figures cited suffice to gain a sense of proportion and perspective: Gaza, before the Israeli mass murder attack had a total population of between 2.2 and 2.4 million. Ukraine’s total population on the eve of the large-scale escalation of February 2022 was just over 41 million, according to Ukrainian official sources. And now compare the numbers of civilian casualties and the total populations. It is obvious: If Vladimir Zelensky is looking for a state that uses methods – if that is the word – of Nazi warfare, then that would be Israel, not Russia. But he cannot say that because Israel is aligned with the US and the West, just like his own regime. Figures can help expose blatant lies, especially when they are as stunningly unambiguous as in this case.
But the quantitative isn’t everything, obviously. What about what social scientists and historians – such as me – call the qualitative dimension? In other words, what about what makes people tick? In that regard, the West’s proxy war against Russia and via Ukraine has seen one of the most successful operations of political whitewashing in recent memory. Before Kiev, first under Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko and then under Zelensky himself, turned Ukraine into a Western tool and battering ram against Russia, at least some Western experts and even mainstream media were well aware that Ukraine had a rapidly growing, increasingly powerful, and extremely subversive (domestically and internationally) far-right movement.
As of 2014, even the BBC was still admitting that Ukrainian media and politicians were deliberately “underplaying” the potency and significance of their far-right. But then, as if on command, Western mainstream media united to belittle this malevolent force, pretending that it was either hardly there (and any impressions to the contrary were, of course, “Russian disinformation”), really harmless (a handful of misunderstood “patriots” with a few tattoos that look Nazi but are really just Tolkien), or on the mend, undergoing a steady and, of course, totally honest conversion to mainstream politics.
What happened in reality was that instead of adjusting to the Western “value” mainstream or Center – wherever that supposedly might be – the Ukrainian far right succeeded in making that mainstream adjust to its will. Probably because real-existing Western “values” have a genuine affinity to fascism anyhow. Now with the West’s war going badly, as even Western media have to recognize, even French paper of record Le Monde – as russophobic and rarara-proxy war as its worst peers in the US – has noticed that far-right, indeed strictly Neo-Nazi tendencies – polite expression – are alive and kicking in key units of Ukraine’s armed forces. Dear colleagues from France: Congratulations! And you should see the politics.
“Words like “net zero,” “decarbonization,” and “climate justice” sound pure and benevolent, yet behind them stands an apparatus of control.”
• Green Agenda Is Killing Europe’s Ancestry (Constantin Von Hoffmeister)
Western Europe’s new green regime reorders the continent through policies of territorial cleansing and restriction, replacing the lifeways of rooted peoples with a managed wilderness shaped by remote technocrats and mandated compliance. What arrives with the language of environmental deliverance advances as a mechanism of control, engineered to dissolve ancestral bonds.In the soft light of the northern dawn, when the fog rests over fields once furrowed by hands and prayers, a quiet force spreads, cloaked in green, speaking in the language of “sustainability,” offered with the glow of planetary care. Across Europe, policymakers, consultants, and unelected “visionaries” enforce a grand design of regulation and restraint.
The new dogma wears the trappings of salvation. It promises healing, stability, and ecological redemption. Yet beneath the surface lies a different pattern: one of compression, centralization, and engineered transformation. This green wave comes through offices aglow with LED light and carbon dashboards, distant from the oak groves and shepherd chants that once shaped Europe through destiny and devotion. Traditional Europe lived through the pulse of the land, its customs drawn from meadows, its laws mirrored in trees, its faith carried by the wind over tilled soil and cathedral towers. The terms arrive prepackaged: “rewilding,” “net zero,” “decarbonization,” and “climate justice.” These sound pure, ringing with the cadence of science and morality. Their syllables shimmer with precision, yet behind their clarity stands an apparatus of control, drawn from abstract algorithms rather than ancestral experience.
They conceal a deeper impulse: to dissolve density, to steer the population from the scattered villages of memory into the smart cities of control. The forest returns, yet the shepherd departs. The wolves are celebrated, while the farmer disappears from policy. Across the hills of France, the valleys of Italy, and the plains of Germany, the primordial cadence falls silent. Where once rose smoke from chimneys, now rise sensors tracking deer. Where once stood barns, now appear habitats for reintroduced apex predators. Rural life, the fundament of Europe’s civilizational ascent, receives accolades in speeches, even as its arteries are quietly severed.
The continent reshapes itself according to new models, conceived in simulation and consecrated in policy. Entire regions are earmarked for rewilding, which means exclusion, which means transformation through absence. The human imprint recedes, and in its place rises a curated silence: measured, observed, and sanctified by distance. The bond between man and land, established over centuries of cultivation, ritual, and kinship, gives way to managed wilderness. Yet this wilderness unfolds without its own rhythm, shaped and maintained through remote observation and coded intention. It remains indexed and administered. Every creature bears a tracking chip. Every tree falls under statistical oversight. Drones scan the canopies. Bureaucrats speak of ecosystems the way accountants speak of balance sheets. The sacred space, once alive with sacrifice and harvest, turns into a green exhibit in the managerial museum of Europe.
The minority opinion is a tad disturbing.
• Supreme Court Hands Trump Huge Win On Deporting ‘Worst’ Illegals (ZH)
The US Supreme Court just lifted a lower court’s order that required the Trump administration to give people 10 days’ notice and a chance to object before deporting them to a third country. “The United States is facing a crisis of illegal immigration, in no small part because many aliens most deserving of removal are often the hardest to remove,” Solicitor General John Saur wrote in an emergency application to the court in May. “When illegal aliens commit crimes in this country, they are typically ordered removed. But when those crimes are especially heinous, their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back. As a result, criminal aliens are often allowed to stay in the United States for years on end, victimizing law-abiding Americans in the meantime.”
The brief unsigned order came in the case known as Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. with (surprise, surprise) Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan dissenting from the decision, who said they “cannot join so gross an abuse” of the high court’s authority. “Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” Sotomayor wrote. “That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.”
The government has tried to speed up the deportation process “by removing aliens to third countries that have agreed to accept them.” “Convincing third countries to accept some of the most undesirable aliens requires sensitive diplomacy, which involves negotiation and the balancing of other foreign-policy interests,” it stated. Now, the administration can proceed with fast-track deportations of “some of the worst of the worst illegal aliens” to countries it has made deals with, such as South Sudan. Of course, not everyone is happy. “The ramifications of the Supreme Court’s order will be horrifying,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. “It strips away critical due process protections…”
Pardon the Iranian interruption. We now return you to your regularly scheduled episode of "Egg Prices and Tariffs"… pic.twitter.com/J2epFIH4j0
— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) June 23, 2025
Soon-Shiong
Big Pharma spends billions on cancer drugs that may weaken our body’s natural defenses, but Dr. Soon-Shiong reveals a $10 test could hold the key to longevity—keeping your natural killer cells above 1,000 to fight cancer, infections, and more!
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong unveils a… pic.twitter.com/IBEqts7zoq
— Camus (@newstart_2024) June 22, 2025
Train
🇮🇷🇨🇳 You wanna know why they want a war right now?
Look at this railway line map.
The China-Iran rail corridor has been put into operation.
The first freight train from China arrived in Iran in 15 days, compared to 40 days by sea pic.twitter.com/kwM3hMioce
— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) June 23, 2025
Elon
Elon Musk says Tesla’s fleet will be part Uber, part Airbnb
Tesla owners can easily add their vehicles to the autonomous fleet through the app when not using them.
They’ll earn money—often more than their monthly payment, while Tesla takes a small cut pic.twitter.com/j0tD7V3Onl
— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) June 22, 2025
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