Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Middle East Is Hastening Ukraine’s Fall & The End of the European Era

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On June 25, 2025

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The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

Rarely spoken of is the effects of the Middle Eastern wars on Ukraine. For a long time, Ukraine got everything it wanted, but since Oct 7th, it has been , or worse, on America’s priority list. Mossad has a great deal of influence in America, just short of control, almost certainly due to a sickening collection of videos and pictures, and Israel has received the first cut off everything it needed: most especially of interceptor missiles.

Even so, the reason that Israel and the US called for a ceasefire and Iran did not (though it accepted one) is that Israel was less than a week from running out of air defense missiles, and as best I can tell, the US could only have supplied about another 7-10 days worth.

What this means for Ukraine is simple enough, they’re being absolutely hammered by Russian missiles and bombs. They don’t have enough air defense, they don’t have enough missiles for the air defense, and there is no reasonable prospect of re-stocking. The West’s larder is empty.

The tempo of Russia advances continues to increase. It’s still slow, but it’s at least eight times as fast as it was a year ago, and as Ukraine runs out of men, weapons and ammunition (Western shortages go far beyond air defense), plus as morale continues to plummet in Ukrainian armed forces, the prospect of “big arrow” warfare grows closer.

As I’ve said before I expect that period will arrive next year. The fighting age male population is decimated, those willing to fight are or will be mostly dead, and Russia will win the war decisively, taking whatever they want to. The only danger of this not happening is Putin accepting a peace offer before that: like Khameini, he is very cautious, doesn’t like war and wants it over. If Zelensky ever gets his head on straight, or is replaced, he’s likely to accept a peace deal much short of what can be accomplished by arms and an unconditional surrender.

This will be a HUGE loss for the West. The first war they have decisively lost on the battlefield in generations. There will be no concealing it, and the inability to ramp up production of weapon systems and munitions will leave the collective West so weak that no one will be able to believe they could win a conventional war against China, or even Russia.

It will, psychologically, be the end of Western hegemony. For almost 400 years the West has been dominant, and since Industrial Revolution, overwhelmingly dominant.

That era is almost over. The economic aftershocks will be huge: the end of American dollar hegemony is likely within five years, tend at the most and the entire world except, perhaps, Canada, the US and Europe, will re-orient to China. The US will even lose South Korea and Japan as reliable allies, indeed, it arguably already has (more on that another time.)

This is a literal epochal period. The “nothing ever happens” fools are missing that this is the end of a literal era: the era of European supremacy (the US is just a European settler state and Britain’s successor.)

The new era will be multipolar only if China wants it to be. They are approaching “America after WWII” levels of industrial and technological power. However, for at time, they will probably allow a multipolar world, as they are smart enough not to want to be a superpower or “world cop.”

Normally this would cycle to a superpower period, but environmental issues are likely to short-circuit normal macro-geopolitical cycles. Everyone will wind up in survival mode, and the question will be who manages this best. Whoever does will lead the next cycle, which will occur long after most or all of us are dead.

So, as best you can, you may as well be interested. You are living in truly interesting times, which come around only every half millenia or so.

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Iran Screws Up & Gaza Death Toll

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On June 24, 2025

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So, Iran has accepted the ceasefire offer. Iran was, as best I can tell, winning. The Iron Dome could not stop their more advanced missiles and was days from running out of interceptor missiles. Two weeks if the US sent its entire stockpile. The US attack on Iran’s nuclear facility was a dud, the enriched uranium has been moved, etc…

I said that Iran had finally gotten over its caution, but feared it would revert, and so it has. It’s clear that the sooner Khameini dies and is replaced the safer Iran will be, also because that will be the end of the non-nuclear fatwa. (It should be noted that 60% enriched is enough to create a dirty bomb which would render Israel uninhabitable, and Iran should inform Israel that it has created a number, read for missile deployment.)

Iran could have kept going and insisted that Israel withdraw from Gaza and Lebanon (confirmed by the Russian and Chinese satellites.) Once again, it has abandoned its proxies. It is clear that they were only disposable proxies, not allies.

That said, this is an Iranian victory, just a very limited one. Israel and the US were the ones who begged for a ceasefire, not Iran.

Meanwhile, we have further confirmation that Gaza casualties are likely at least 377K.

A year ago I estimated Gazan casualties at 500K. A new estimate has come out based on fairly conservative metrics, which puts them at a million.

(Source)

I find this estimate plausible, unfortunately, especially given the starvation campaign which is ongoing. (Regular reports now come in that the few aid stations Israel has permitted are used to draw civilians in, then murder them.)

I reiterate that the only moral nation in the world appears to Ansar-Allah’s Yemen. In a few years everyone is going to be scrambling to pretend they were against this genocide or “didn’t know”, but we have the receipts.

There is no statute of limitations for genocide.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to donate or subscribe. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

A Deluge of Metanarrative Bullshit

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On June 24, 2025

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Anytime anyone anywhere begins an argument or uses the word “narrative” my bullshit detector goes off. Because it’s a nonsense construct.

My suggestion is to follow French philosopher Jean-François Lyotards definition of “narrative.” He said: “Simplifying to the extreme , I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”

So, if you hear someone use the term in a conversation, one of three things can happen: you can choose to remain willfully ignorant (I doubt many in this crowd would pursue this course), two, your bullshit detector can go off, like mine and you can begin an argument or three you can simply sit with a Cheshire cat grin and be skeptical.

But chose one, please.

TACO Trump Bombs Iran

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On June 23, 2025

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If you’re getting a bit tired of Iran all the time, so am I. We’ll see if we can slip in an article on something else.

In the meantime, Trump hit Iran’s nuclear enrichment site. As best as I can tell, the attack was ineffective and did essentially no damage. Even if it had, Iran’s highly enriched, 60 percent stockpile had already been moved. I’ve seen Israel claims they know where it was moved, but there’s a good chance they’re lying. If the Iranians are smart, they’ve split it up, and made sure that only a few people know where each package is, and further that no one knows where all the packages are, which doubles as, “If you hit it, you lose your spy.”

Iran’s parliament has passed a motion asking to close the Straits of Hormuz; it’s waiting for Khameini’s approval. Some ships appear to be already turning away. Parliament is also planning to vote to end Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Agency, which is exactly the right thing to do, as they’re both politicized and almost certainly spy for the Israelis and Americans. At least make your enemies work to get data on your secure nuclear sites and scientists.

Given the US couldn’t even stop the Houthi blockade, there is zero chance they can re-open the Straits of Hormuz with military force. It will stay closed as long as Iran wants it to. Among other things, very few civilian shipping companies are going to take the chance. One missile or mine is all it takes.

It should go without saying that Trump’s strike is a direct violation of international law, which requires the approval of the U.N. Security Council to declare war. Honored more often in the breach, etc. This is yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that anyone should pay even the least attention to international law, as the countries that created it sure don’t.

Meanwhile, the missiles keep raining down on Israel. While firm data is hard to get, I’m almost certain the “Iron” Dome” is not stopping most of them. Indeed, the WSJ reports that Israel is interested in peace.

Iran shouldn’t give it to them without conditions. They have the upper hand. At the least, they should demand a withdrawal from Lebanon, an end to the bombing there, and an end to the food and supplies blockade in Gaza, with immediate retaliation when they break the deal, which they always do.

A lot of my predictions about the Middle East have been wrong since October 7th. There are two reasons: I didn’t realize how cripplingly cautious the “Resistance” was (other than Hamas and Ansar-Allah), and I underestimated Mossad’s and American’s intelligence penetration of both — especially of Hezbollah. Fortunately, Israel has been at pains to teach everyone a lesson, and a lot of the overly-cautious Hezbollah and Iranian leaders are now dead.

There were a number of reasons for the intelligence penetration. One was that India’s intelligence was working with Mossad and had (has?) a huge network of spies in both the Indian tech diaspora and guest workers. The second is that Iran, in particular, has used Western tech — especially Western phones. (Admittedly, everyone runs Android or IOS, so it’s hard to avoid.)

Israel’s signals intelligence division (SIGINT), called Unit 8200 had been monitoring these targets for over a decade, compiling detailed itineraries — homes, workplaces, travel routes, and even bedroom locations. The precision of Operation Namiya (June, 2024) relied on a triple-layered surveillance ecosystem: Apple devices and unencrypted iPhones provided real-time GPS tracking.

General Soleimani’s 2020 assassination had already proven this vulnerability, yet Iranian officials continued using them. They also used Google/Microsoft Services: Gmail accounts, Cloud backups, and Android devices leaked metadata, revealing behavioral patterns and social graphs.

Telecom Backdoors: Iran’s telecom infrastructure, built on Ericsson (which exited in 2012 under sanctions) and Nokia hardware, remained vulnerable. Huawei and ZTE briefly replaced Western vendors between 2012 and 2016, but by 2018, Iran resumed purchases from European suppliers—a fatal regression.

It’s clear that any country which doesn’t want similar issues has to rely on entirely non-Western tech from a trusted supplier and even then, as the Hezbollah pager attack (which is really what defeated Hezbollah, along with knowledge of their missile stockpile locations) you have to secure the entire supply chain, including delivery, then check like a paranoid, because you have enemies.

Best is to own your entire own tech stack, and a LOT of countries are going to be working feverishly towards it. Using Western tech this way is a great way to destroy markets for Western tech.

It should go without saying that every Western country is fatally compromised. The US knows everything they do. Even as a Canadian I would want to get to a domestic stack, and Europe are fools if they don’t, unless they intend to remain American satrapies for the rest of time.

Iran has finally thrown off its caution. I prey they don’t revert. They’re winning this war, and they shouldn’t let up until Israel is publicly humiliated and forced to actually stop their constant provocations and their genocide.

As for TACO Trump, he wants the war over, and his attack was a PR stunt so he could declare victory and flex America’s muscles worthlessly. I don’t think he has the guts for a real war, which is a good thing. (I could, of course, be wrong. The problem with Trump is that even he doesn’t know what he’s actually going to do most of the time. It is also amusing to watch Vance doing everything he can to distance himself from the attack, in preparation for running in 2028.)

Update: Iran says it has bombed Iraq, Qatar, Bahrein and Kuwait US military bases.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to donate or subscribe. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 22, 2025

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On June 22, 2025

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 22, 2025

by Tony Wikrent

 

War

[TW: This is what the “globalist” elites centered on the City of London and Wall Street have been scheming for ever since Franklin Roosevelt told Winston Churchill at the 1943 Casablanca Conference that there would be no restoration of the British empire.

[Now that Trump has fully thrown in with the pro-war faction, we will learn if those who supported Trump because they believed Trump would be a foil against the “globalist” elites, accept the chastening of a hard lesson learned. More importantly, now that Trump has allowed the globalists to steer us into a war against Iran, will those who supported Trump be vigilant against Trump using the war to exercise his “war powers” and impose authoritarian measures on the USA population? What will they do if Trump responds to protests against this new war by declaring martial law?

[Building opposition to Trump and a newly energized militarized security state will be difficult and increasingly dangerous. One source of hope is to remember that while Trump and the security state consolidate police state rule in USA, reality continues. The massive misuse of citizens’ lives and national treasures will occur while climate change imposes rapidly escalating costs on “business as usual.” [See The $1 Trillion Climate Problem​ Republicans Are Ignoring, Kate Aronoff, June 19, 2025, in The New Republic] As entire regions are forced to cope with weather risks without any insurance and entire cities struggle to obtain enough water, there will come a time when reality can no longer be ignored. Reality itself will compel the restoration of systems of governance that protect and nurture all human lives, and the General Welfare of all citizens, and justice for all. ]

 

Clash of Civilizations

[Wikipedia]

Kit Klarenberg, June 18, 2025

Trump official to The Grayzone: CIA’s Ratcliffe acts as ‘Mossad stenographer’ on Iran

Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil, June 21, 2025 [The Grayzone]

A Trump official tells The Grayzone that Israel’s Mossad is using CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US CENTCOM’s Gen. Michael Kurilla to influence Trump with cooked intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. Inside the White House, dissenters have been isolated, setting the stage for a regime change war that could cost American lives.

 

War With Iran 

Craig Murray, June 20, 2025

For 18 years, the Iranian nuclear programme has been one of the top 10 targeting objectives of the US intelligence services….

It is worth noting – and a prime example of how the neoliberal world works – that the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, is now an executive of British Petroleum. That company controlled Iran for decades, installed the fake Pahlavi “Shah” in 1921 and engineered and financed the coup that ended democracy in Iran in 1953. The appalling dictatorship of the Shah after that led directly to the theocratic revolution.

BP desperately want Iran’s oil back, so ex MI6 Head Sawers has been all over the airwaves advocating war on Iran. Meanwhile it is not an accident that two days ago, a new Head of MI6 was chosen and installed. Starmer has found his Dearlove.

The appointment was made by David Lammy. Blaise Metreweli was chosen ahead of more obvious candidates, who had served longer in MI6, had more operational experience, and were better analysts or better managers. However Metreweli – who spent much of her career in the Middle East – is a fanatical Zionist. She worked closely with Israel on technologies for surveillance and assassination….

 

Iran halts 20% of global oil flow with Strait of Hormuz shutdown after U.S. strikes

 

The AI That Triggered a War: How Palantir and the IAEA Fueled Israel’s Strike on Iran

Sarah B., June 19, 2025 [DD Geo-politics, via Alastair Crooke]

Since 2015, the IAEA has relied on Palantir’s Mosaic platform, a $50-million AI system that sifts 400 million data points—satellite imagery, social media, personnel logs—to predict nuclear threats. On June 12, Iran leaked documents it claimed showed IAEA chief Rafael Grossi shared Mosaic outputs with Israel, effectively turning the agency into a “tool for aggression.” The charge echoes a pattern: prior to 2025, Mosaic data helped shape sanctions and even UN aid decisions despite risks of bias.

Palantir, co-founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel, powers IDF targeting in Gaza and Ukraine’s battlefield AI. Its IAEA role, meant to ensure compliance, now teeters toward militarization. As Iran halts monitoring and threatens to expose Israel’s nuclear secrets at Soreq, the stakes are apocalyptic. This investigation asks how Mosaic became a war pretext, why Israel needed a cover story, and whether privatized AI now threatens global peace.

 

Friday Video Tsunami… It’s All About Israel, Iran and Trump

Larry Johnson, 20 June 2025 [Sonar 21]

From my contacts within the US military, all signs indicate that we’re on-the-luge (a fast snow sled) at this point and there’s no way to get off. We are hurtling downhill… too much is already in motion. Even if Trump decides tomorrow to call everything off, we’ve already set up and committed enough support assets so that the Israeli Defense Force has everything it needs. Reversing course seems very unlikely now because of bureaucratic momentum.

 

Trump Reportedly Greenlights Plan for US Attack on Iran Without Congressional Approval

Yves Smith, June 19, 2025 [Naked Capitalism]
Jim Stewartson, June 17, 2025 [MindWar]

WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD IS COMING IN IRAN

Seymour Hersh, June 19, 2025 [www.defenddemocracy.press/]

This is a report on what is most likely to happen in Iran, as early as this weekend, according to Israeli insiders and American officials I’ve relied upon for decades. It will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report with a longtime US official in Washington, who told me that all will be “under control” if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “departs.” Just how that might happen, short of his assassination, is not known. There has been a great deal of talk about American firepower and targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious leader with an enormous following.

I have reported from afar on the nuclear and foreign policy of Israel for decades. My 1991 book The Samson Option told the story of the making of the Israeli nuclear bomb and America’s willingness to keep the project secret. The most important unanswered question about the current situation will be the response of the world, including that of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who has been an ally of Iran’s leaders….

Jake Johnson, June 20, 2025 [CommonDreams]
[Military Watch, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]
[The Intercept, via Naked Capitalism 06-20-2025]
[Intercept, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]

Trump must help Israel finish the job to dismantle Khamenei’s regime – editorial 

[Jerusalem Postv, via Naked Capitalism 06-19-2025]

[Conor Gallagher: Provides a blueprint for regime change, in case there were any doubts, including:]

Forge a Middle East coalition for Iran’s partition. Encourage long-term plans for a federalized or partitioned Iran, recognizing that Khamenei’s theocratic regime cannot be reformed. Offer security guarantees to Sunni, Kurdish, and Balochi minority regions willing to break away.

Glenn Diesen [via Naked Capitalism 06-20-2025]
“The only path forward now is reckless escalation.”

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: From Perpetual Peace to World War 

Glenn Diesen, via Naked Capitalism 06-17-2025]

[Yves Smith: “Trust me, you must listen starting at 39:00.”]

 

True Promise 3: Iran Responds With Long-Awaited Hypersonic Retaliation 

[Simplicius, via Naked Capitalism 06-15-2025]

 

Israel Buckles as Iran War Shifts to New Drag-Out Phase 

[Simplicius, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]

 

“behavioral signature of a missile defense interceptor entering logic collapse”

[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 06-18-2025]

 

Iran Shoots Down Third F-35 Fighter, Captures Second Pilot: What Are the Implications?

[Military Watch Magazine, June-14th-2025]

Israel is running out of interceptor missiles. China’s export bans mean they can’t be replaced 

Kevin Walmsley [via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2025]

Gaza / Palestine / Israel

Israel’s attack on Iran: The violent new world being born is going to horrify you

Jonathan Cook, June 19, 2025

…With the Palestinians feeling increasingly isolated, choked by Israel’s siege and abandoned by the Arab regimes, Hamas staged a show of force, breaking out for one day from the concentration camp of Gaza.

Israel seized the opportunity to complete two related tasks: destroying the Palestinians as a people once and for all, and with it their ambitions for a state in their homeland; and rolling back the Shia crescent, just as the Pentagon had planned more than 20 years earlier.

Israel started by levelling Gaza – slaughtering and starving its people. Then it moved to destroy Hezbollah’s southern heartlands in Lebanon. And with the collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Israel was able to occupy parts of Syria, smash what remained of its military infastructure, and clear a flight path to Iran.

These were the preconditions for launching the current war of aggression on Iran…..

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Wars Metastisize

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On June 22, 2025

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The title says it all. So did Clausewitz.

We committed an act of war against a sovereign state that had every right to peaceful nuclear power.

Tulsi Gabbard told Donald Trump in March that Iran had NO nuclear weapons program.

There is a huge difference between radio medcine and nuclear power, and a nuclear weapons program. Iran has the former by legal right under the NNPT and does not, nor has plans for the latter.

This war will spiral out of control, just like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in July 1914.

Prepare yourselves. We will all suffer before this is over.

Open Thread

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On June 20, 2025

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts (no Iran/Israel war).

The Next Big One

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On June 19, 2025

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Several months ago, I wrote two essays on Russian grand strategy. (My apologies on never completing the nuclear one, an extremely necessary but far too grim subject for my taste.) In that series of essays, I made a few assertions I want to bring to your attention again in a more contemporary context. First, that wars’ result tends to confirm the strengths of the coalition arrayed against the main combatants before the war has even started. This is, in fact, not an assertion, but an iron law of warfare that still exists in chimpanzee warfare. See Strategy: A History, Chapter One, by Freedman if you disagree.

Second, that big global dustups tend to run in about 100 year cycles these days.

So, take a look around — got a big, hot war in the Ukraine slightly analogous to the Sino-Japanese war of the 1930s. Next, you got weird, unresolved shenanigans in the Middle East that have a weird reverse-appeasement type feel.

We’re quite possibly looking at the two opening battles of WWIII, right now.

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