- How the Ukraine war mirrors the Iran war…
- Holding a Persian tiger by the tail…
- Did you realize that there’s a legal “cheat code” that lets you anticipate the stock market’s next big move? There is. It’s because insiders MUST report their biggest trades. Based on what we saw, we cracked the code.
Dear reader,
Day 16… and counting.
How many more days, or weeks, or months, remain?
I do not know. Yet my thoughts wander to February 2022. About which:
Mr. Putin trespassed into Ukraine at that time. Yet he did not intend to stay.
He calculated that a rapid “shock and awe” campaign would bring a shocked and awed Mr. Zelensky quickly to terms — to the Russian’s terms.
Mr. Putin’s gambit in fact “worked.”
Within weeks the warring parties congregated in the Turkish city of Istanbul to negotiate peace.
The two parties were — reportedly — very near peaceful resolution, until diplomacy collapsed.
Why did diplomacy collapse?
We’ll Pay You to Fight Russia
It is widely believed that Great Britain’s Boris Yeltsin, with United States endorsement, convinced Mr. Zelensky to turn away from the negotiating table.
He promised that the United States and its NATO understrappers would hand Ukraine limitless arms and non-material assistance.
That is because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was determined to soften and weaken the Russian Federation… regardless of devastating Ukrainian casualties.
Mr. Zelensky took up the “kindly” offer.
The Russian strongman was therefore compelled to mobilize men, order industry to beat plowshares into swords… and hunker in for a protracted conflict.
Thus his gambit ultimately turned up snake eyes. He had intended a lightning campaign — yet became bogged in the Ukrainian steppe’s impossible mud.
Four years and many, many lives later… there he remains.
Now come home.
The Dream of “Regime Change”
I believe President Trump — like President Putin in 2022 — expected immediate results.
He believed Israel’s “decapitation” strike on Iran would end the show as soon as it commenced.
The assault sent Iran’s Supreme Leader over the rainbow. With him went several head of senior governmental and military grandees assembled at the same location.
Leaderless and directionless, the despised regime would collapse in a top-down heap.
Iran’s liberated masses would invest the streets in fevered jubilation. Some sort of sane government would emerge from the barbaric and theocratic corpse, now dead after 47 long years.
Thus the president addressed Iranian society at conflict’s onset:
- To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity. Or in the alternative, face certain death… You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death.
- To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand… When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.
- For many years, you have asked for America’s help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want…
- America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny, and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.
Hard to Kill
Yet the Revolutionary Guard has evidently remained at its post. The Iranian people have in fact taken to the streets — though not to topple the regime — but to stand behind it.
Meantime, Iran has replaced its Supreme Leader with another leader equally supreme… the former Supreme Leader’s son.
This fellow is plenty sore, and understandably. That is because the strike that slew his father also slew his mother, his wife and his 14-month old infant.
Would you, confronted with such intense personal loss, knuckle to their slayers? Or would you shake your fists at them… and pledge eternal revenge?
United States War Secretary Hegseth claims the assault that murdered his family disfigured him terribly.
Rumors swirl that he himself has succumbed to his injuries.
My spies have been unable to authenticate the rumors. Regardless, should they prove accurate, another Supreme Leader will succeed him.
And should the United States and Israel separate that soul from that body?
Then another Supreme Leader will replace him. And another would replace him and another would replace him.
Leadership change does not equal regime change.
No Negotiations
I note that Tehran has plugged its ears against all pleas for negotiated settlement.
At the same time, the regime has deployed its nuclear option.
Its nuclear option?
I refer not to Iran’s nuclear weapons — which it likely lacks at present.
I refer instead to Iran’s effective sealing of the Hormuz Strait.
Iran only lifts the gate for oil tankers of amiable nations such as China.
How long will Iran kink the world’s oil flow, upon which much of the world relies?
I do not know the answer. Yet I wager high that Iran will not let go anytime soon.
The Hormuz Strait is, after all, Iran’s most formidable instrument of leverage.
It cannot repel the hellacious aerial bombardments of its American and Israeli nemeses.
Yet it can inflict, potentially, vast economic injury upon their interests.
And despite the president’s gloats, the United States Navy cannot easily pry open the Strait.
It is a highly fraught and risky proposition.
Send in the Marines!
Meantime, the Marines have taken ship!
Some 2,500 Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit are presently en route from Japanese waters, presumably to the Gulf region.
Word has it that their ultimate destination is Kharg Island — Iran’s main oil export terminal.
Iran’s primary economic engine, oil exports, would cease to function should Kharg Island fall into American hands.
Yet the island is situated some 300 miles north of the Hormuz Strait. Would the United States sail an amphibious armada through the gauntlet of Hormuz… where peril may lurk behind every corner?
And how easily could the Marines seize and hold the island? A mere 15 miles from the Iranian mainland, it squats within easy range of shore-based missiles, rockets, artillery and drones.
Many of these can be concealed within the abundant caves and crevices of Iran’s coast.
Perhaps the Marines’ dispatching is a mere diversion.
Perhaps it is intended to coerce China — whose highly needed oil flows from Kharg Island — to persuade Iran to quit before being rendered an economic cripple.
I do not know.
Parallels
Yet I revisit the parallel between Mr. Putin’s war and Mr. Trump’s war. Both conflicts endured longer than envisioned.
Each being different, I have not sketched a perfect parallel between the two. And yet:
Iran is not the mirror of Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, for example, Iran does not have the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standing tall in back of it.
Instead, Iran has Russia and China standing in back of it. Neither has proved a dependable backstop.
I can only conclude that a ground-based attrition war against Iran is not in prospect.
What is more, the Iranian conflict will not endure four years… or anywhere near it… so far as I can discern.
Yet the Pentagon claims that the conflict may endure until September, or possibly beyond.
It does not specify September of which year — though I hazard that year is this year — 2026.
Trump Didn’t Know What He Was Getting Himself Into
Gasoline prices may go skyshooting in the meantime. The global economy, including the United States economy, may well lapse into recession.
That recession may prove destructive. And so I raise this question:
If a crystal-gazer told President Trump on Feb. 27 that the looming conflict would witness the protracted closure of the Hormuz Strait… with its attendant recessionary consequences… in an election year… the results of which would likely eventuate in his party’s trouncing… and his subsequent impeachment and potential eviction from office… forever shaming his presidential legacy…
Would he have proceeded with the anti-Iranian warfare?
I cannot imagine that he would have, no.
And any advisor who urged him on despite the political consequence?
I am convinced the president would have seized this fellow by the collar.
He would have proceeded to heave him from the Oval Office with all the strength he could summon… to land upon his ear.
Holding a Persian Tiger by the Tail
Yet now the president is “in.” He demands of Iran “unconditional surrender.”
Iran’s unconditional surrender is not likely forthcoming. Thus the protracted conflict, with all the risk it entails, will likely prolong.
And so the president truly has the tiger by the tail — the Persian tiger by the tail.
Have you ever held a tiger by the tail, much less a Persian tiger by the tail?
I hazard the president has not. And at age 78… it is extremely unlikely that he can outrun the thing once it is loose.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
