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EXCLUSIVE: The real story behind nuclear Iran and the Islamabad Accord
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
MOSCOW and ST. PETERSBURG – On Monday, June 1st, on Power Shift, a new independent geopolitical platform, Zulfiqar Ali, Larry Johnson and myself revealed what for all practical purposes is an uber-bombshell piece of information: if long dark clouds keep coming down, Tehran is ready to pivot from nuclear ambiguity to actually detonating a nuclear device on Iranian soil.
Less than a week later, the Power Shift page was censored on YouTube – with no explanation and no appeal. Yet what we revealed had already been detailed in several podcasts and interviews throughout last week, as in here and here (with myself and Larry); here; and at the St. Petersburg forum, here.
I published a detailed background preceding the release of the information, written just before Iran’s negotiating team suspended the exchange of all (italics mine) texts and messages with the U.S. via mediator Pakistan.
When it comes to the redaction of perhaps the final draft of an endlessly debated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Iran and the U.S., it suddenly became crystal clear that it’s all about Lebanon.
Iran repeatedly reiterated it was ready to ditch the already comatose “ceasefire” if the death cult in West Asia proceeded with its threat of bombing Dahiyeh, the Shi’ite-majority suburb of southern Beirut.
Confronted by Trump, the leader of the death cult was forced to back down. For only a few days. Trump desperately needs an MoU and an extended ceasefire to be marketed as “Victory”. His (italics mine) Victory.
All that was happening, fast and furious, on the trail of a fateful, extremely sensitive, 105-minute phone call on Thursday, May 28, between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Islamabad is the sole functioning and trusted head-of-government back-channel between Tehran and Washington. Our sources revealed that during the phone call, Pezeshkian delivered a formally structured, three-step ultimatum to be communicated to the White House with absolute clarity:
1. No more nuclear talks. As in the priority is the end of all wars, against Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
2. No more prospective nuclear treaty framework. As in no discussions leading to a possible, diluted JCPOA 2.0; only after settling the end of the wars and the status of the Strait of Hormuz.
3. If U.S. threats persist, Pezeshkian said, that would lead to the “detonation of a nuclear device on Iranian soil” – executed not as an act of war, but as an irreversible, sovereign demonstration of capability to control escalation dominance.
What is particularly stunning is none of the above is about diplomatic posturing. What we had is the President of Iran relaying what is essentialy a decision by Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, signaling that if Washington crosses the next threshold, Tehran would pivot instantly from nuclear ambiguity to undeniable demonstration.
And that would imply a permanent rupture of the global non-proliferation system – with unforeseen consequences.
The China-Iran-Pakistan strategic alignment
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif obviously did the math on the scale of such intelligence. He immediately told Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar – who was in New York for UN Security Council sessions – to deliver the information to Washington.
Dar bypassed the whole bureaucratic apparatus, directly calling U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York. The message, from Tehran to the Trump administration, was stark: the escalation ladder now features a terminal rung.
Rubio “may” (and that’s the operative word) have recognized the supreme gravity of what is in fact a formal nuclear ultimatum. He briefed Trump. The day after, May 29, Trump abruptly stopped any further kinetic action. And his incendiary rhetoric was instantly toned down.
This had nothing to do with a sudden fit of strategic restraint in the War-a-Lago/Oval Office axis. It was the direct, downstream result of the Sharif-Dar-Rubio back-channel.
On the morning of May 29, Dar arrived in Washington for a one-day official visit.
Sitting across from Rubio, he delivered the detailed briefing that the New York phone call had only previewed.
He placed two massive bombshells on the negotiating table:
1. Iran will not surrender any of its Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Nothing. Zero. And that’s final.
It’s all about sovereign independence (two concepts at the center of the recent Russia-China joint declaration signed in Beijing during Putin’s official visit to Xi Jinping).
So Tehran will not surrender its stockpile, whatever the terms, temporarily or not, just to comply with a face-saving mechanism designed for a U.S. domestic audience. From the point of view of Iran’s leadership – with Mojtaba at the helm – HEU goes way beyond a technical asset; it’s the ultimate fusion of sovereignty, deterrence, leverage, and political survival.
2. China has delivered state-of-the-art strategic defense systems to Iran – including shoulder-fired MANPADs – routed covertly through third countries (and that’s why I could not get any official confirmation two weeks before in Shanghai).
The breakdown: a total, operationally active China-Iran-Pakistan strategic alignment is in effect.
Is an Islamabad Accord still possible?
As it stands, none of us – including our sources – know whether a nuclear weapon detonated on Iranian soil would have been developed exclusively by Iran [they do have the scientific capability]; or with possible Russian, Pakistani or North Korean help. All options are plausible.
According to Prof. Ted Postol at MIT, Iran could easily convert 450 kg of 65% uranium hexafluoride into approximately 85% weapons grade: all that is needed for a low yield weapon, to be mounted into at least 10 missile delivery systems capable of reaching Israel. That means, at a minimum, 10 nuclear bombs.
Technically this sort of low yield weapon can be designed, Postol explains, with the use of a neutron reflector made of depleted uranium – or beryllium/tungsten carbide – and positioned immediately around the fissile core. It reflects escaping neutrons back into the nuclear material to increase fission efficiency, and reduces the required critical mass. In a nutshell: less material and more bombs.
Very important: a draft of this column was submitted earlier last week to a top Iranian official, part of the extremely tight circle around Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. His reaction: “I won’t comment on this matter”.
Beyond this no-response response, what became instantly clear is the verified transmission of the most consequential back-channel communication of the no war/no peace crisis.
It goes like this: Pezeshkian talks to Sharif; Sharif talks to Dar; Dar talks to Rubio; Rubio talks to Trump; Dar talks to Rubio face to face (during his Washington briefing).
All that throws new light over the – subsequently broken – 60-day ceasefire, the fragile off-ramp desperately needed by Trump. This framework has been organized by Pakistan and structurally backed by China – as I confirmed in Shanghai.
Tehran has insisted on the order of the proceedings, over and over again. First, all wars must stop, especially the offensive by the death cult over Lebanon. Then enter the modalities to restore trade traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The third and last stage is to resume some sort of meaningful nuclear dialogue.
On The Big Picture, a serious structural rewrite is already on – whatever nasty ceasefire-breaking surprises may lie ahead.
As it stands: the Abraham Accords are for all practical purposes dead; Saudi Arabia has frozen all back-channel Israel “normalization” discussions; Qatar and Oman are quietly drafting military transition timelines to phase out the U.S. from West Asia. And most crucially, a new West Asia security architecture is rapidly coalescing outside the American “protective” umbrella, driven by The Four Sunnis: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt.
Last Thursday, again on Power Shift (our YouTube page was still active), Zulfiqar Ali, Larry Johnson and I identified a possible Islamabad Accord as the emerging framework for ending the U.S.-Iran war – way before Western MSM had recognized it as the organizing architecture.
We also identified the mechanism driving it: non-stop Pakistani shuttle diplomacy, quietly but decisively backed by China.
We laid out the two-phase roadmap: first, an immediate ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (Iran agrees with both); second, a short negotiating window to finalize the broader political and financial settlement.
We reported that the extremely contentious release of Iran’s frozen assets was not a speculative talking point, but an active lever in the process. That asset release and possible sanctions relief were being treated as concrete confidence-building measures.
We also reported that a high-level Iranian delegation – including Parliament leader Ghalibaf, FM Abbas Araghchi, and Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati – would travel to Doha in connection with the frozen-funds track.
That was later confirmed across the spectrum, including the fact that the central-bank component was tied directly to frozen assets.
We also advanced that Islamabad could become the stage for the final political act, including a possible Trump visit, alongside Pezeshkian: yet now that possibility seems as remote as ever.
China is just watching the river flow
These are the facts, as it stands:
Iran is far from isolated and is positioned for a prolonged war, with meaningful material and strategic backing from China, Pakistan, and North Korea, and carefully calculated support from Russia, as I confirmed during the St. Petersburg forum.
The U.S. is paralyzed. The Trump administration may appear to want an off-ramp; but it is totally constrained by pressure from the death cult in West Asia – as we’ve seen this weekend; exhausted escalation pathways; and the absence of a decisive military option that can alter the chessboard without creating an infinitely more unmanageable crisis.
The Gulf petro-monarchies are terrified about a possible resumption of the war – with the principal exception of the UAE.
The leaves Islamabad as the only exit route in town, with Field Marshal Asim Munir positioned as the indispensable intermediary; and Beijing and Moscow following everything closely, in some respects actively shaping the outer frame.
The bombing of southern Beirut on June 6 was perpetrated once again at a critical moment in the negotiations, as pointed out by Mohammad Mokhber, a top advisor to Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and a member of Iran’s Expediency Council:
“By bombing Lebanon during the presence of the mediator in Iran [he was referring to Asim Munir], the enemy set the negotiating table on fire for the third time to shout about the repeated violations of the ceasefire in all areas. We speak to the violators with the language of ‘power’; the axis of resistance is a unified body, and they will definitely receive a heavy and painful price for this aggression in the field.”
The death cult bombing of southern Beirut led to a frankly surrealist spectacle: the Trump administration scrambling after the Pakistani mediator in Tehran, begging him to intercede with the Iranians for de-escalation. The Emperor who wanted to destroy Iranian civilization had to ask Pakistan to salvage what could still be salvaged.
That means, as we reported, that with Iran setting the terms of escalation and raising its deterrence potential, and with Trump left with no cards at all, the only possible solution lies with diplomacy via Islamabad.
This week on Power Shift, in three consecutive shows from Monday to Wednesday, we will dig deeper into the intel and the diplomacy beneath these tectonic twists.
And then, of course, there’s the intriguing Chinese angle.
U.S. Think Tankland will become totally paralyzed when they finally realize that by injecting advanced military hardware into the Iranian theater of war, Beijing is actively road-testing the limits of American hegemonic coercion.
And if push comes to shove, and Iran is forced into a nuclear demonstration for all the world to see, China will acquire an inexorable proof-of-concept that U.S. deterrence is hollow.
One has to marvel at the engineering of such a massive strategic masterclass – without firing a single shot.EXCLUSIVE: The real story behind nuclear Iran and the Islamabad Accord
The Guideline Messages
The core feature of the stones was a ten-part message directed at rebuilding society following a potential nuclear, economic, or social apocalypse.
The primary directives included:
Maintain humanity under 500 million in perpetual balance with nature.Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity.Unite humanity with a living new language.Rule passion, faith, tradition, and all things with tempered reason.Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court.Avoid petty laws and useless officials.Balance personal rights with social duties.Prize truth, beauty, and love, seeking harmony with the infinite.Be not a cancer on the earth—leave room for nature.
D,
How can you trade fairly if what you are trading is stolen goods you have taken from criminal activity?The criminal U.S. and its criminal elites and criminal president
Long Live Criminal America
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduce and motivate his amendment nullifying Section 224 of the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA); Section 224, if passed, will fuse together the military-industrial complexes of the United States and Israel, into a single war preparation machine.
https://eir.news/2026/06/news/lessons-of-the-hubris-of-the-colonial-powers/Iran takes its chances with war
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.suThe U.S. war with Iran has moved beyond its initial phase to an emerging new one — one in which Iran implicitly stakes its chances on the next phase being war. Most likely this will be in abbreviated episodes of limited war, but possessing nevertheless a potential to widen regionally, should the U.S. (and Israel) elect to sharply escalate.
The new phase involves risk of course, yet Iran holds the high cards of an ability to impose disproportionately heavier damage upon Gulf infrastructure as retaliation for any hurt inflicted upon it — and the awareness that the West is edging ever closer to dropping off the energy ‘cliff’.
The three pillars underlying this shift are firstly, confidence that Iran will not (and cannot) be shifted from its hold over Hormuz, and that in consolidating its administrative structures there, the reality of Iran’s hold over Hormuz will increasingly be assimilated by states, and reflected in their coming to terms with Iranian-Omani control.
Associated with this core principle is Iran’s implementation of escalated deterrence vis á vis the American naval blockade. Any attempt to intercept or attack Iranian vessels or interfere with the Strait’s administration will be met with increasingly harsher ripostes. Ultimately this policy may lead to Iran imposing increasing levels of damage to U.S. naval vessels – another friction point.
On 3 June, for example, the U.S. fired a hellfire missile at an Iranian oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz. In response, a U.S.-owned (or partly-owned) ship, The Panaya, was struck with missiles. Additionally Iran launched three waves of cruise missiles at the U.S. air and helicopter base in Kuwait from where the attack had originated. Images have emerged of serious damage at Kuwait international airport too (although the cause of the damage remains disputed).
The second underlying principle affecting this shift simply reflects Iranian disdain for Trump’s continuous inflating of demands, exaggerated threats (which palpably fall short of U.S. capacities), together with his continual zigzagging and contemptuous rhetoric towards Iran.
The Iranian leadership has concluded, it seems, that compromise will likely not be forthcoming, and that it is better to cut the ‘negotiations’ rather “than continue the pointless bad-faith negotiations with a deceitful and decrepit American regime”, as the New York Times has termed the Iran ‘negotiations’ — suggesting that the ‘deal chaos’ is not a singular glitch by Trump confined to the Iran issue, but rather is a consistent pattern of dysfunctionality repeating itself across virtually all of Trump’s ‘peace’ initiatives.
Behind Iran’s decision to suspend talks however, likely lies the gradually dawning clarity, seeping out from Israeli and American statements and analysis, that the true objective of the 28 February U.S.-Israeli sneak attack was never regime change per se — aiming to swap out Iranian ‘hardliners’ for a ‘Delcy Rodrigues’-style more moderate leader; but was intended rather, to bring about Iran’s complete destruction and fracturing — an insight that was bound to shift Iran’s calculus.
This insight has consolidated public support for the Islamic Republic hugely, and at the same time has turned the war into an existential struggle to preserve the ethical values of the Revolution. Seen from this optic, there is little for Iran to discuss with Trump, bar some future modus vivendi — as and when, Washington understands that it is boxed in, and that new realism takes a hold.
The third principle undergirding this new phase of conflict is the one enunciated by Iran from the outset of the Islamabad talks: ‘Ceasefire for all; or ceasefire for no one’. This was again re-emphasised in Iran’s latest ultimatum to Trump: ‘If the Israeli threats from last week to flatten the Beirut southern suburb of Dahiyeh had been executed, then Iran would have stricken northern Israel hard with its missiles. ‘It was a ceasefire for all – or no ceasefire’.
Trump chose the ceasefire, and subsequent to his call with Netanyahu, announced that it was in effect. He told Netanyahu to cancel his planned bombing of Dahiyeh in south Beirut. In Israel, a massive wave of anger from all sides of the political spectrum attacked Netanyahu at the very notion of curbing any Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Former PM Naftali Bennett accused Netanyahu of ‘losing control over Israeli sovereignty’. And former PM Yair Lapid said Israel had been reduced to a “vassal state” after the strikes were called off.
The U.S. and Israel for some months have been attempting to bring a segment of leaders in Lebanon to accept the task of disarming Hizbullah, as Rubio explained, “so Israel doesn’t have to do it” — something Lebanese leaders clearly cannot do.
Israel has no coherent Lebanon strategy. Former senior Israeli military intelligence officer, Danny Citrinowicz, outlines a new strategic “Iranian achievement”:
“Tehran has effectively succeeded in linking the Lebanese front to the broader Iranian-Israeli arena. Any escalation in Lebanon is now increasingly viewed through the prism of the U.S.-Iran dynamic”.
Nevertheless, he observes:
“The situation in Lebanon remains highly unstable. Israel and Hezbollah continue to interpret the current understandings in fundamentally different ways. [Whilst] Israel maintains that it retains freedom of action across Lebanon except Beirut, Hezbollah [on the other hand] insists that any Israeli military activity – at all – violates the ceasefire framework. These competing interpretations create significant potential for renewed friction and escalation on the ground”.
In Israel, the situation in northern towns remains neuralgic for nearly all Israelis. Many towns along the Lebanon border and down into the Galilee are half-empty — “entire swaths of land abandoned by [the] government”, writes Ben Caspit. Local politicians claim that they ‘are Israelis too’ and that the government must respond.
Lebanon is certain to remain a point of contention. It is not a matter of if, but when, the next crisis will strike. Israel will not let the matter stand — even Liberal opposition leaders demand Hizbullah’s destruction and protest Trump’s tying of Netanyahu’s hands in Lebanon.
Iran will not let matters stand either. Mediators have informed the Americans that Iran considers an end to the war on Lebanon, withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a withdrawal from Hormuz, to be binding conditions — before discussing other issues.
So, here we are. The military skirmishes — effectively an abbreviated series of strikes by U.S. forces on Iranian shipping and Strait infrastructure, arising from Trump’s desire to assert its naval blockade to U.S. public opinion — continue. This situation is clearly flammable – just as is the Lebanon context.
Iran effectively is acknowledging the reality that in this new phase — with so many inherent flash points to it — American military escalation at some point likely will become a political necessity for Trump’s domestic and Jewish financers’ needs.
And the negotiations? They will go nowhere so long as Israel and the U.S. Jewish billionaire donors reject any Iran outcome that leaves Iran both intact and stronger and — pari passu in this binary thinking — the ‘Israel First’ project within the U.S. and the region correspondingly weakened.
A deal that doesn’t see Iran irretrievably weakened will be condemned by these latter forces as a ‘treasonous dereliction’ by Trump. He will be attacked mercilessly. Yet, he must see that Iran is anyway on the cusp of throwing off the U.S. shackles.
This phase of the Iranian conflict likely will only end when the West falls off the approaching economic cliff …
The PENTAGON acknowledged the Destruction of an ELITE group of British and German soldiers by RUSSIA
In the Land of Thucydides
By John J. Mearsheimer
John’s Substack
June 8, 2026I gave a lecture in Athens on 2 June 2026 that was hosted by two prestigious Greek organizations: the Council for International Relations and the Institute of International Relations. I was asked to speak about why I think Realism explains contemporary geopolitical developments better than any other theory. I was fully aware that I was speaking in the home of Thucydides, the first great realist thinker.
Iran: The art of controlling escalation dominance
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
MOSCOW – Iran holds an insurmountable escalation dominance in contrast with the U.S. And that’s driving the vociferating Emperor of Barbaria absolutely nuts.
Let’s quickly recap the highlights of the past week. In direct retaliation for a CENTCOM air attack on the outskirts of Bandar Abbas airport – a direct break of the “ceasefire” fiction – on the very same day the IRGC launched a targeted strike against a U.S. base in Kuwait. The IRGC was unambiguous: “If repeated, our response will be more decisive.”
The extremely calibrated IRGC response was framed as a deliberate warning, signaling in no uncertain terms that any U.S. provocation will be met with a response, yet short of triggering the return of all-out war.
At the start of last week, two U.S. military vessels attempted a “dark transit” through the Strait of Hormuz: transponders off, evading IRGC Navy monitoring, and ignoring repeated navigational warnings.
Yet Omani signals intelligence flagged the vessels, and after warnings were explicitly disregarded, the IRGC Navy went for a targeted drone strike.
Translation: that was the strict enforcement of the new laws regulating the Iran-controlled navigation corridor at the world’s top sensitive maritime choke point.
The Zionist axis did not fail to frame Iran’s enforcement action as a direct assault on “American supremacy”. Hence, predictably, the White House authorized strikes against Iranian drone installations.
Washington, once again predictably, presented the kinetic response as a proportionate reassertion of deterrence. Tehran for its part interpreted it as a blatant U.S. attack during an active ceasefire.
So the IRGC’s retaliatory strike on the Kuwaiti base delivered, once again, an unmistakable message: American forward bases in the Gulf – the ones not yet destroyed – continue to be legitimate targets, and never again will regain the status of sanctuaries.
CENTCOM, predictably, did not back down. There were more strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that was coupled on Thursday with sanctions targeting Iran’s new Strait oversight agency, the PGSA.
CENTCOM framed attacks on Iranian radar and command sites in Goruk and Qeshm Island as “self‑defense strikes”. The IRGC Aerospace Force targeted the Kuwaiti airbase from which the U.S. strikes originated – and stated that the “predicted targets were destroyed”, adding that responsibility “lies with the U.S. regime.”
A dangerous escalation cycle is back. Trump and CENTCOM may see it as tactical deterrence. Tehran sees it as strategic bad faith.
What they don’t want you to know
Iran’s response to the American provocation made it crystal clear that the current incarnation of the proposed 60-day ceasefire framework does not hold. China, officially, happens to support a 60-day ceasefire. Yet the U.S. for all practical purposes continues to violate the current, wobbly ceasefire.
Conversations last week in Shanghai revealed that China maintains very close communication with Iran and constantly adapts the facts on the ground – and in the air – into its much broader, long-term strategic calculations, especially concerning energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Additionally, what really matters in the grand strategic chessboard is that China and Pakistan, on the forefront, plus in the background Russia and the DPRK, continue to provide material and strategic support to Iran across several levels of deliberate ambiguity and plausible deniability. The intensity of the coordination has been on the rise, non-stop.
The strikes last week on Iran only serve one player: the death cult in West Asia, which strategically wants to degrade Iranian military infrastructure and keep Tehran perpetually on the defensive – irrespective to the enormous risks to real U.S. interests and West Asia stability.
The outlook is self-evident: Pentagon generals, in thesis, may want to explore off-ramps, but the political leadership of what may be described as the Epstein Syndicate wants war.
None of the Gulf petro-monarchies – with the exception of the UAE, shorthand for “Arab Zionists” – want the U.S. to resume war. Their concern is obviously existential. They know the IRGC, and the possible entrance in the war theater of Ansarallah in Yemen, would lead to a major retaliation disaster – with attacks on their ports and energy assets. The GCC players still live in perpetual fear.
Iran’s response to what is now on the public domain – direct UAE attacks during the war – will come in due time. What’s more pressing is the actual collapse of the UAE’s semi-monopoly of navigation in West Asia.
Iran and Pakistan have closely interconnected their regional transit hubs in just a matter of weeks, with the opening of seven layers of land corridors, directly linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
After all both Iran and Pakistan are New Silk Road partners, and that also apply to ports: Chabahar in Sistan-Balochistan and Gwadar in the Arabian Sea, separated by only 80 km, are enjoying a new, unforeseen symbiosis. The UAE’s maritime semi-monopoly in West Asia has become meaningless.
When it comes to the heart of the action – the Strait of Hormuz – we have crossed yet another threshold. If CENTCOM decides to go for more provocations, up the escalation ladder, the next IRGC response will go for the jugular, destroying U.S. air assets outright.
So it’s up to the actors which want restraint – China, Pakistan, Gulf petro-monarchies, Iran pragmatists – to exercise the necessary leverage to stop the road back to war.
The facts are stark. Trump effectively holds less than zero leverage with Iran. And Iran holds insurmountable escalation dominance.
What has happened this past week goes way beyond a temporary flare-up in the Strait of Hormuz; this is all about a serious, ongoing structural rupture in West Asia, a much deeper, more volatile architecture beneath the whole drama.
And it is this volatile context – illustrated by the disclosure of exclusive information – that will start to be analyzed in a new independent platform, Power Shift.
Power Shift debuts globally this Monday, June 1st, at 5:30 PM EST, with a special first episode titled “Iran: What They Don’t Want You to Know”. Global viewers fed up with managed narratives and ready for the real read-out may join it live. I will be joining from Moscow. Exclusive. Unfiltered. Uncensored.Iran war effect marks the resetting of world geo-politics
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.suSeemingly, every day brings breathless new claims that an U.S.-Iran ‘deal’ awaits only a signature. As so often happens, the mediators (Pakistanis and Qataris) hope to manage both sides by telling one side that the other party is at the brink of agreement when it is not so, especially in an atmosphere of total mistrust. By these means the mediators hope to push matters towards a final agreement. It is a familiar tactic, but one that quite often results in confusion and distrust – rather than the hoped-for settlement.
The ‘plan’ at this stage has only two central pillars: Iran’s ‘reopening’ of the Strait of Hormuz (on Iran’s terms) in return for the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, and – at a later date – an understanding that the dilution of Iran’s 60% enriched uranium would be tackled in return for an end to sanctions.
To say the devil is in the detail would be the understatement of the year. Iran understands that Trump’s headliners of an ‘imminent deal’ are firstly, intended to keep the U.S. stock market up and oil futures trading well below that of the delivery price of physical oil. And secondly, to obfuscate that Trump may be seeking a plausible way to end the war via striking a quick, incomplete deal that would, in all likelihood, be largely on Iran’s terms.
All other issues – including the crucial detail of any nuclear agreement – would be deferred.
Trump wants from Iran an initial concession that he can hail as a visible win – and one that will please markets, too. But Iran will not trade its military leverage, and certainly not the strategic dominance that it achieved in the war, nor Hormuz, for fuzzy assurances from the mediators. Iran does not trust the U.S. one iota.
Ali Akbar Velayati, Senior Adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader observes,
“History bears witness that everyone who came seeking domination, from Alexander to Genghis Khan and Trump, ultimately ended up dissolving into the heart of ancient Iranian civilization. This time, Iran’s red line is clear: papers and signatures alone are no guarantee. The tangible guarantor of the agreement’s survival is the Strait of Hormuz”.
“For geography does not lie, and it is the final judge over every covenant written on paper”.
The mediators naturally are desperate to avoid another round of war. Iran however, demands hard detail. This is Trump’s dilemma. He wants a quick win, but the mere hint of a fudged, incomplete deal – mainly on Iran’s terms – brought the wrath of the pro-Israel billionaire class down upon his head (the pushback was intense), and Israel (likely with encouragement from that same class) then blew up Trump’s ceasefire by launching ascorched-earth military assault on Lebanon, and on Gaza and its citizens, so breaching the ceasefire precondition for any deal.
Trump is in zugzwang. (Any move he makes, potentially only worsens his position, whether strategically or domestically).
We saw this same zig-zagging, back of an envelope, non-strategy perfectly illustrated in the iconic imaging from Trump’s Beijing visit – Trump ‘winged it’; no prior preparation; a ‘seat of the pants’ summit.
That image may perhaps come to define this era – today’s iconic moment was of a U.S. President wearing the air of defeat whilst a confident President Xi’s comportment demonstrated who was in control.
Why, one may ask, would the pro-Israel class risk the West being wrecked by the economic consequences of a prolonged closure of Hormuz that would be entailed by their angry veto of Trump’s mooted ‘deal’? Possibly because Jewish ‘Big Money’ – since the 2008 crisis and the subsequent structural transfer of wealth from the real economy to the financialised ‘trader élite’ – may lead them to feel immune to economic downturn. They may even see it as an ‘opportunity’ (leading to assets going cheap).
The Iran effect, if not the direct cause, nonetheless marks a point of a significant reshuffling of global geo-politics. For, Israel it is bad news. The current Israel narrative is that no deal is better than a bad deal, because Israel could always return to war with Iran in a year or two’s time.
No one believes that, of course. Israel cannot mount war on Iran without full assistance from the U.S. And tomorrow’s America – in its relations with Israel – likely will be different from today’s.
Nahum Barnea in Yediot Ahoronot has written,
“We [Israel] are sliding into a never-ending war on three, perhaps four fronts, holding territories that are not ours, with soldiers we do not have, in a bloody war against enemies we do not know how to deter – and all without giving real security to our citizens. Israel must break out of the Iranian trap. [Yet] Netanyahu is the last person who has the ability to extract us from it”.
Russia is changing too (partly under the effect of Iran). Strategic patience is over, and the recent deadly Ukrainian drone attack on a college dormitory in the Russian town of Starobelsk which killed at least 21 people, mainly teenage girls, was described Moscow as “the last straw”. The Russian public is justly furious.
Moscow holds European capitals and Kiev responsible for the recent Ukrainian barrage of drones and missiles fired deep into Russia, taking advantage of NATO airspace in the attempt to sidestep Russian air defences. Additionally, Russia has issued formal notification to Washington (via a telecon with Maro Rubio in India) that it holds European capitals and Kyiv responsible for the collapse of the Anchorage framework as well.
Russia has said that it intends to put an end to Ukraine’s ability to carry out further such attacks, and to liquidate the decision centres that plan and direct the attacks on Russians – even if it means killing U.S. and European personnel. On 15 April, Russia’s Defence Ministry published lists containing the names and addresses of over 20 European companies and joint ventures allegedly supplying drones and components to Ukraine. Senior Russian officials, including Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, explicitly designated these international facilities as “potential targets” for Russia’s armed forces.
Europe has been warned.
Again, it seems that the Trump-Xi and the Putin-Xi summits in Beijing serve to mark the transition into a more hard-nosed geo-political era.
The two summits, one after the other, seem to have incentivised China into loosening its customary caution in order to put a brake on U.S. attempts to widen dollar use, at the expense of the Yuan. The U.S. Treasury’s ‘grand strategy’ is to ‘contain’ China’s current competitive advantage by raising its capital and energy costs. The U.S. Treasury first tried imposing tariffs on China, but after failing with that ploy, turned to trying to squeeze China’s competitive advantage by blockading Chinese oil imports (naval blockades of Iran and Venezuela) to raise China’s energy costs.
However, if Trump wants all out trade competition, it seems to be ‘game on’ now for China – No more Mr (Xi) nice guy.
China is responding to Trump not with sanctions, nor with missiles. It is doing something far more precise: They are exerting counter pressures back at the U.S. economy, and are doing this by cutting money flows into the dollar sphere in reaction to the U.S. attempt to grossly widen global dollar use.
Both the U.S. Genius and the Clarity Acts are contrived to suck out retail holders of local overseas currencies from their positions through inducing them to switch into crypto tokens denominated in dollars and backed by U.S. Treasuries. If successful, this would both widen the U.S. dollar reach and provide a new source of demand for U.S. debt. Similarly (under the Clarity Act), investors looking to hold assets could be swapped out of regular U.S. stocks and bonds into digital tokens, via a digitised distributed ledger system.
In short, the U.S. aims to scoop up as much overseas currency as it can to insert into U.S. markets via crypto – (effectively swapping the declining Petro-dollar for a substitute Crypto dollar hegemony that would then generate the dollar demand necessary to keep the U.S. bond market from failing).
So, China is countering by going after something more sensitive – the flow of Chinese retail money going into American stocks and bonds. Chinese authorities have cracked down hard on Hong Kong brokerages that were helping Chinese mainland money flow into U.S. markets. As matters stand, Wall Street depends on foreign buyers of stocks to a significant extent, but Chinese savings dwarf those of all other countries. These will no longer be available.
Secondly, China, the largest holder of gold in the world, will open a new gold trading centre in Hong Kong in July. This is a major move to break the western hold over precious metal trading – it strengthens the role of the Yuan and enables oil sales to be settled in gold (Saudi Arabia, in a roundabout way, is reportedly already selling oil to China via gold).
Thirdly, Euroclear, one of the world’s largest financial companies and the backbone of international settlements, is planning to accept Chinese bonds traded in Hong Kong – as ‘good collateral’.
Sean Foo explains:
“When Euroclear accepts Chinese bonds as collateral, that means those bonds are treated as equivalent to liquid cash. It means they are good enough to back all international transactions – meaning that the global financial plumbing will be incorporating Chinese debt into the core infrastructure”.
“Now there’s a reason why Chinese bonds are becoming attractive to global investors, and this goes beyond just geopolitics or trade flows. It comes down to one fundamental reason. China is sitting on over $50 trillion in bank deposits. That’s more than the combined bank holdings of the EU, U.S. and Japan. And that creates something every bond market, such as China’s needs in order to function well – a deep, reliable base of domestic buyers – your own local people buying”.
In sum, as more money flows into Chinese bonds, and the Yuan bond market deepens, Chinese borrowing costs stay low. So Beijing can fund itself cheaply and almost indefinitely – and thus can outlast the U.S. grand strategy to contain China by squeezing both its capital costs and its energy costs.
For those in the west considering the future
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2026/06/i-think-larry-and-pepe.html
