Middle East conflict

[facthunter]

Threatened the Country where the Peace prize giving Body is located EVEN though that Country has No Authority  on who Gets the Award. How Embarrassing.  Nev

[old man emu]

Just a bit of history about Iran in the 20th Century.

 

 

[old man emu]

This is an interesting telling of the story of Iran post-WWII.

 

 

[Marty_d]

I believe "shah mat" was anglicised to "Checkmate" for chess.

[randomx]

Fancy sending Vance for negotiations , the blokes hated all over the world.

At any rate yeppa, so much for that.

Where to from here ladies and gents eh ?

[rgmwa]

I think he sent Vance as punishment because Vance was against the war. That puts him neatly in the hot seat. Trump has already said publicly in a meeting that if Vance pulls a deal off, Trump will take all the credit, but if he fails Vance will own it. 

 

[facthunter]

That's how it always is with TRUMP. Nothing is ever  HIS fault. Nev

[randomx]

Not only but Vance also has no damn clue either. He couldn't even understand why Zelensky wore wartime clothes in respect for his countrymen fighting Russia .

There's Vance's depth  for you , as disgusting as Chumps. 

Wasn't it him that didn't even know the population of Iran.

At any rate, the man's an absolute tool.

Edited 13 hours ago by randomx

[nomadpete]

But .....

The circus needs a better script writer.

 

"I'm going to solve the blockade and reopen the strait by imposing a blockade and closing the strait."

 

And then what?

 

"My blockade is bigger than yours!"

 

The strait didn't need to Re open until.... Donny blocked it.

 

 

[rgmwa]

Trump to Iran; “That’s not a blockade, THIS is a BLOCKADE!”

[Jerry_Atrick]

A cynic may say this is going to script - albeit a bit slower and with a bit more resistance. 

 

US takes control of the largest oil reserves in the world - Venezuela; one that supplies a lot to China at favourable terms to the Chinese. 

 

Who else sells oil cheap to China? Russia and Iran; both because of embargoes and sanctions. 

 

China is a key economic competitor to the USA.. and is able to do so with the help of cheap oil. And, although it is weaning itself off oil, it is still the second largest consumer of oil at 16.4 million barrells a day according to Google AI. 

 

Notice how even the rest of the world has unoffically cooled from embargoes and sanctions of Russian oil? Yes, Russia will continue to sell China its oil, but as there is now more demand for it, the price will rise. China  will have to pay more. 

 

That will cause a rise of input costs to Chinese industry and inflation at home. Not a great outcome, for China, but it will put the brakes on its economy and level up the playing field in global trade. 

 

According to Google AI, China has about 28bn barrells of oil in proven domestic reserves. That would give it around 1,800 days of oil at current consumption if it exhausted its current proven reserves. Of course, there will be more, but it will want to keep as much as possible for national security. 

 

Israel is increasingly looking like a side show in this - a distraction from what is the real intention. Anyway, they are now off in Lebanon, apparently targeting Hezbollah. Interesting how they are not involved in the peace talks with Iran nor featuring in any news with respect to at least tabling with the US what would be necessary for peace with Iran. 

 

As, Roosevelt said, "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."

 

Sincerely,

Cynic and Conspiracy Theorist

Edited 5 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[facthunter]

Israel has been the driving force. It's clear they don't want the war to stop. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Given both you and I are not privy to the communications between the main players, I respect, but don't necessarily agree with your opinion. 

 

I will accept they don't want the war to stop - unitl there is realregime change in Iran that will help bring peace to the region.

 

But I am not sure Chump really cares what Israel think beyind them being a useful pawn in whatever game he is playing at. 

 

Why would he treat Net any different to anyone else?

Edited 4 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[rgmwa]

I think Netanyahu sees Trump as the useful pawn.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yes, I would agree with that, too. 

 

But I would suggest that is also how most of these relationships work.

 

The question is, when Chump achieves his aims, will be still be distracted into being Netanyahu's pawn? And vice versa?

 

My guess is Chump would be the first to drop Net rather than the other way around. 

[facthunter]

It's clear to see that Netanyahu went out of his way to not Join the Peace talks. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

How did you draw that conclusion?

[rgmwa]

Trump's aims are all over the place so at best, he might have a concept of achievement, but no idea of how to get there. However, he will drop Netanyahu like a hot coal if he sees some face-saving way out of the mess that he's created.

 

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Yes, I would agree with that, too. 

 

But I would suggest that is also how most of these relationships work.

 

The question is, when Chump achieves his aims, will be still be distracted into being Netanyahu's pawn? And vice versa?

 

My guess is Chump would be the first to drop Net rather than the other way around. 

Trump was fooled into this war by Netanyahu's hard sell. He's a useful idiot for both Netanyahu and Putin.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I disagree. I think he is using Netanyahu and the Israel conflict as a means to an end. The way I see it is that he wants to be able to control the oil from Iran in the same way as Venzuela.. and control the supply to China..

 

Israel, to me, is a smokescreen to his objectives. 

 

[rgmwa]

4 minutes ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I disagree. I think he is using Netanyahu and the Israel conflict as a means to an end. The way I see it is that he wants to be able to control the oil from Iran in the same way as Venzuela.. and control the supply to China..

 

Israel, to me, is a smokescreen to his objectives. 

 

You're giving him far too much credit for forward planning. Trump is an opportunist, not a thinker. He's had it in for Iran for years and Netanyahu gave him the hard sell a couple of weeks before the war. Hegseth was for it, Vance was against it, and Rubio was on-board but only for getting rid of their missiles, while John Ratcliffe told him straight out that Netanyahu was pulling the wool over his eyes. Trump went for it anyway. Now that he's created this mess, he's latched onto the idea of going into partnership with the Iranians to charge a toll on ships using the strait. I don't think the Iranians will be very interested in that, nor in handing over their oil. If Trump did somehow try to grab the oil, Xi would be on the phone to the White House. 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Maybe I am giving Chump too much credit - but I seriously doubt if there was enough internal opposition, he would have pursued. He as chickened out well before it got to implementation (of tariffs) before.

 

Maybe Net gave him the oil idea; maybe there was some other US internal people driving it. 

 

I juyst don't think Chump would have gone in purely with Israel's interests at heart.

[rgmwa]

I agree with that. He certainly didn't go into it for Netanyahu or Israel. He went into it for himself because he thought the Iranian leadership would fold in a couple of days and he'd be famous as the President who had the nerve to take on the Iranians and show the world how weak his predecessors were. He wanted the world to applaud how smart and amazing he is. All he's managed to do is demonstrate how vain and stupid he is.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by rgmwa

[randomx]

Don't think much of anything he's done was planned , well not until he just woke up next morng aweeee, we might do blah blah. Man's an idiot. 

But crikey then jezuz, how are China reserves then eh, bloody hell. God they're smart buggers.

As for Pootin , they reckon he might not even be able to get any oil outa there to cash in anyway. Ukr's doing such a magnificent job of blowing the place to hell oil wise and Pootin's ran out of workers and money to repair anything, getting them all killed in Ukr.

 

l'll say one thing for Pootin though. At first he's Nato thing became a laughing stock because he actually forced them even closer not further away. But now his offsider Chump is so busy destroying Nato for him things might turn back in his favor anyway soon.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by randomx

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, rgmwa said:

ou're giving him far too much credit for forward planning.

Is it really Trump's idea? The idea just came to me that the USA has been planning moves to control oil producing nations for a long time. Can you remember the old riddle:

 

Q: Why doesn't the USA invade (insert name of country)?

A: Because it doesn't have any oil.

 

I reckon the US military has been planning these actions for decades, however previous Presidents have been relatively reluctant to implement those plans. I think that we can all agree the Trump is unlike any previous President. Theodre Roosevelt once said, "Speak softly, but carry a big stick". Trump's versoion is, "Yell loudly and thump with your big strick".