Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation

What is understood now is that ‘we’re no longer playing chess’. There are no rules anymore.

Trump’s ultimatum to Iran? Colonel Doug Macgregor compares the Trump ultimatum to Iran to that which Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia in 1914: An offer, in short, that ‘could not be refused’. Serbia accepted nine out of the ten demands. But it refused one – and Austria-Hungary immediately declared war.

On 4 February, shortly after his Inauguration, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM); that is to say, a legally binding directive requiring government agencies to carry out the specified actions precisely.

The demands are that Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon; denied inter-continental missiles, and denied too other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities. All these demands go beyond the NPT and the existing JCPOA. To this end, the NSPM directs maximum economic pressure be imposed; that the U.S. Treasury act to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero; that the U.S. work to trigger JCPOA Snapback of sanctions; and that Iran’s “malign influence abroad” – its “proxies” – be neutralised. The UN sanctions snapback expires in October, so time is short to fulfil the procedural requirements to Snapback. All this suggests why Trump and Israeli officials give Spring as the deadline to a negotiated agreement. Trump’s ultimatum to Iran appears to be moving the U.S. down a path to where war is the only outcome, as occurred in 1914 – an outcome which ultimately triggered WW1.

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation

We see clearly the collapse of the manipulation that has confined discourse to within the various Washington villages.

The Editor at Large for the Wall Street Journal, Gerry Baker, says: ‘We’ve been “gaslit’ and deceived” – for years – “all in the name of ‘democracy’”. That deceit “collapsed” with the Presidential debate, Thursday’.

💬 “Until the world saw the truth … [against] the ‘misinformation’ … the fiction of Mr. Biden’s competence … suggests they [the Democrats] evidently thought they could get away with promoting it. [Yet] by perpetuating that fiction they were also revealing their contempt for the voters and for democracy itself”.

Baker continues:

💬 “Biden succeeded because he made toeing the party line his life’s work. Like all politicians whose egos dwarf their talents, he ascended the greasy pole by slavishly following his party wherever it led … Finally—in the ultimate act of partisan servility, he became Barack Obama’s vice president, the summit of achievement for those incapable, yet loyal: the apex position for the consummate ‘yes man’”.

💬 “But then, just as he was ready to drift into a comfortable and well-deserved obscurity, his party needed a front man … They sought a loyal and reliable figurehead, a flag of convenience, under which they could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life — on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery. There was no more loyal and convenient vehicle than Joe”.

If so, then who actually has been ‘pulling America’s strings’ these past years?

Alastair Crooke
Al Mayadeen English

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
— William Butler Yeats

Issues such as immigration, falling living standards, and anger at the Green Agenda played a big part in the election ‘mutiny’, but the Ukraine war is central (though its centrality is never explicitly admitted).

The dismay, confusion, and shock emanate from Europe as first the UK, then the French Establishments fall, and the German too is humiliated. What we are experiencing is the ‘noise’ from the outer defensive lines of the European Establishment folding, whilst -- for now -- the Centre stands defiant and unyielding.

Apart from the political mayhem that the Euro-elections wreaked across Europe, the key point is that Brussels’ first ‘defensive fortification lines’ were breached.

This defensive ‘line’ (known colloquially as the ‘Cordon Sanitare’) represents the understanding that the political Right -- invariably denigrated as the ‘Far Right’ -- must be ‘walled off’ from mainstream politics. It has been a forbidden act to allow any coalition, or partnership, to cohabit with non-Centrist parties of the Right. All contrarian parties were to be ostracised.

In Italy, the Cordon ‘trenches and tank traps’ were already being breached by Georgia Meloni. In France, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National drove a tank across the Cordon lines. And the AfD and Sara Wagenkecht’s party punched another hole, too, in Germany. However, ‘the Centre’ -- a bloc of Left-Centrist Brussels-linked MEPs -- may still (just) have the majority in the European parliament. Their narrative is that the ‘Centre has held’.

Translated: they are saying, ‘no compromise’; we’re still on top. Brussels will try to ignore these recent events -- ‘nothing changes’; but a ‘window has opened’ nonetheless in Brussels, and fresh air is pouring in upon the fusty habitual fug. Coalitions across a wider political spectrum will happen. New parliamentary ‘blocs’ are already emerging, and settled institutional EU politics will be challenged.

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation

(This paper [was] the basis of a talk [...] given at the 25th
Yasin (April) International Academic Event on Economic and
Social Development, HSE University, Moscow, April 2024)

Israel's strategy from past decades will continue with its hope of achieving some Chimeric transformative "de-radicalization" of Palestinians that will make 'Israel safe'.

In the summer following Israel’s 2006 (unsuccessful) war on Hizbullah, Dick Cheney sat in his office loudly bemoaning Hizbullah’s continuing strength; and worse still, that it seemed to him that Iran had been the primary beneficiary from the U.S. 2003 Iraq war.

Cheney’s guest – the then Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Bandar – vigorously concurred (as chronicled by John Hannah, who participated in the meeting) and, to general surprise, Prince Bandar proclaimed that Iran yet could be cut to size: Syria was the 'weak' link between Iran and Hizbullah that could be collapsed via an Islamist insurgency, Bandar proposed. Cheney's initial skepticism turned to [enthusiasm], as Bandar said that U.S. involvement would be unnecessary: He, Prince Bandar, would orchestrate and manage the project. 'Leave it to me', he said.

Moon of Alabama

What is the reason for the 'Al-Aqsa Deluge', as Hamas had named its terror operation against the Zionists? On October 8 Alastair Crooke, one of most experienced Middle East hands, wrote in AlMahadeen:

💬 "Israel" has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of "Israel’s" future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish.

The fissure could not be more complete. Except it is. One faction, which holds a majority in parliament, is broadly Mizrahi -- a former underclass in Israeli society; and the other, largely well-to-do liberal Ashkenazi.

Mizrahi are mostly the original Middle Eastern Jews and often on the religious far right, Ashkenazi are mostly liberal European ones. The current Netanyahoo government is the first which includes far-right Mizrahi ministers. Most Mizrahi follow the Sephardi religious rites. They want a religious state based on Jewish law. They are as radical as ISIS.

The High Court of Israel has 14 Ashkenazi judges and one Mizrahi one. It is one of the reasons why the Netanyahoo government wants the parliament to be able to vote down high court judgments. There have been large, U.S. sponsored 'regime change' protests in Israel against that move. The leaders of the military and security services, mostly Ashkenazi, have also opposed the government's move against the court. I therefore think that it is quite possible that there was intelligence pointing to the Hamas attack, but that it was not revealed to let Netanyahoo fall into a trap. We have however no evidence that there were reasonably precise intelligence warnings, or that they were held up.

James Howard Kunstler
kunstler.com

“…the Permanent State lacks the courage to take hard decisions – to say to Moscow, ‘Let us put this unfortunate episode (Ukraine) behind us. Dig out those draft treaties you wrote in December 2021, and let’s see how we can work together, to restore some functionality again to Europe’.” — Alastair Crooke

When you deny what is self-evident, you are at war with reality, and that never ends well. This is the ultimate disposition of our country’s years-long misadventure in maximum dishonesty. The American administrative Blob has not just lied about everything it does, but used the government machinery at hand to destroy everything it touches in a terminal-hysterical effort to cover up its misdeeds — including especially its crimes against its own people.

Get this: there is no way that Ukraine can avoid defeat in its US-provoked struggle with Russia. Russia has every advantage. It is next door to Ukraine. It has robust arms production capacity. The terrain of the war is its own historic “borderland,” which it has controlled since the 18th century, except for the past thirty years when Ukraine functioned as Grift Central for US military contractors and their political enablers. Despite massive arms assistance from the US and grudging contributions from the NATO contingent in Europe, there is almost nothing left of the Ukrainian military in troops, equipment, and munitions. Ukraine will return eventually to demilitarized “borderland” status.

Alastair Crooke

Putin means what he says: Russia's back is to the wall, and there is nowhere to which Russia can now retreat – for them it is existential.

The collective West was already angry. And it is apoplectic after President Putin shocked Western leaders by ordering a special military operation in Ukraine, which is being widely described (and perceived in the West) as a declaration of war: 'a shock and awe assault affecting cities widely across Ukraine'. So angry is the West that the information space has bifurcated into two: It is all black and white, with no greys. For the West, Putin has comprehensively defied Biden; he has unilaterally and illegally 'changed the borders' of Europe and acted as a 'revisionist power', attempting to change not just the borders of Ukraine, but the current world order. "Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, we are facing a determined effort to redefine the multilateral order," the EU High Representative, Josep Borell, warned. "It's an act of defiance. It's a revisionist manifesto, the manifesto to review the world order".

Putin is characterized as a new Hitler, and his acts are asserted to be 'illegal'. It is claimed that it was he who tore up the Minsk II Accord (yet the Republics declared their independence in 2014, signed Minsk in 2015, and it was Russia who never signed the accord – and therefore cannot be in breach of it). Indeed, it is the US effectively that has vetoed the Minsk process since 2014, and Russia's publication of diplomatic correspondence in November 2021 exposed that France and Germany too had little intention of pressurizing Kyiv on any meaningful implementation. And so, having concluded that a negotiated settlement – as stipulated in the Minsk Accords – would simply not happen, Putin determined that there was no point in waiting any longer before implementing Russia's red line.

Stephen Lendman

America, key NATO partners, and Israel target both countries.

Israel wants regional rivals removed. Washington and key NATO partners want independent regimes ousted, replaced with subservient ones.

At issue is establishing regional dominance. New targets can then confronted politically, economically, and/or belligerently.

Fabricated IAEA Iranian documents escalated tensions. Rhetorical saber rattling followed. Stiffer sanctions are threatened and perhaps war.

Syria's been targeted for months. Libya's insurgency was replicated. Street battles rage daily. Violence engulfs the country. Assad's government is unfairly blamed. Washington's dirty hands are at fault. So are Israel's and other conspiratorial allies.

The Arab League's decision to suspend Syria makes Western intervention more likely. The League's constitution requires unanimity. Lebanon, Yemen and Syria voted "no." Iraq abstained.

Suspension's thus illegitimate. Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem condemned it. America was blamed for demanding it. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman attended the League session to assure things went Washington's way.