Iran's growing incentive to escalate leaves Trump with no easy way out

Iran's growing incentive to escalate leaves Trump with no easy way out

Danny Citrinowicz

Reports of discussions in Iran about adopting an "offensive approach," meaning a deliberate return to escalation, shed light on several assumptions underlying the thinking of Tehran's current leadership: It does not want an endless war, it refuses to capitulate to the president's demands, and it is determined to preserve what it regards as its achievements in the conflict. If forced to choose, and this appears to be a question on which it has already made up its mind, Iran will opt for escalation rather than surrender.

Economic pressure is indeed hurting Iran, but the pain does not flow in only one direction. US sanctions and pressure are inflicting significant damage on the Iranian economy, but Tehran believes it can shift part of the cost onto the global economy, first and foremost by disrupting energy flows and undermining regional stability. The United States has continued tightening sanctions on Iranian oil, shipping and financial networks in recent months, while also enforcing a naval blockade.

Iran will not indefinitely accept a status quo that allows the US to reap the benefits of "maximum pressure" at little cost. Current Iranian thinking places greater emphasis on initiative and offensive action, and the longer the economic siege continues, the stronger Tehran's incentive will become to initiate friction and create new sources of leverage.

Contrary to US President Donald Trump's hopes, there is not necessarily a stable middle ground.

Washington cannot assume that it can continue applying maximum pressure, avoid reaching an agreement and at the same time pay no price. In a scenario of prolonged escalation, even freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz cannot be taken for granted, as illustrated by the delayed agreement with Oman that is ostensibly intended to facilitate it.

There is no quick knockout blow against Iran. Additional pressure on China, an attempt to tighten the land blockade or another round of sanctions are not magic solutions. They can make life extremely difficult for Iran, but they will not necessarily force it to capitulate. As Iran's distress deepens, Tehran's default response will be to try to raise the price paid by its adversaries and, in this case, by the global economy as well.

The US administration still appears to have difficulty understanding how the Iranian system thinks. The regime can compromise, make tactical retreats and even change policy, but publicly surrendering under pressure runs almost directly counter to the ethos on which it is built.

That is why frustration in Washington, and especially for Trump, is likely to mount. He appears increasingly unable to avoid deciding between the two options that have confronted him for months: costly and unpredictable escalation, or the humiliating acceptance of Iran's terms.

For Washington, the choice is between bad and worse.

State Of Fear vs State Of Joy

State of Joy

Tom Gilbreath

Most people regard Michael Crichton’s 2004 novel, State of Fear, as an attack on the prevailing view of global warming. While the book has a lot to say on that topic, its real target is even bigger — the increasing use of fear to manipulate people. For big business, especially the media, fear generates money. For academics, fear gains grants. For governments, fear is the control wire running between the manipulators and their marionettes. 

 

The public can be influenced by happiness or peace, but only briefly. And corporations rarely profit from your serenity. Even if it is only “the fear of missing out,” they need to make you afraid. Fear grabs you and motivates you. It’s the crackle of the whip scorching the air above the cattle’s heads. Fear motivates spending — by individuals and governments. Fear manipulates people into doing things they would otherwise not do.

 

In the late 1960s, communications professor George Gerbner studied the effects of television. He concluded that those who watched a good deal of TV tended to see the world as more violent and more dangerous than it really was. He described it as “mean world syndrome.” Testifying before Congress in 1981, he said, “The most general and prevalent association with television viewing is a heightened sense of living in a ‘mean world’ of violence and danger.”

 

With social media, video games, and 24-hour news, the problem has grown exponentially. That’s why what he said next is so important. “Fearful people,” he testified, “are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled…. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.”

 

Sometimes, an alarm needs to sound. But greedy, power-hungry people never stop sounding alarms. We can start to live in fight or flight mode. Hundreds of fear-based messages bombard us every day from advertising alone. It rewires minds — and changes the world. Manipulators induce fear because it works. And because it works, they use it more and more.

 

A meme swept social media platforms a few years ago that expressed the result of the ever-increasing fearmongering. “Basically nobody under 40 right now expects good things to happen ever again.” Some versions lament the difficulty of explaining this sad truth to parents.

 

Speaking generally, young adults born since the mid-1990s have little confidence in the future. It was fashionable a few years earlier for the young to chase extreme wealth. That dream fell apart in countless ways. Uncertain what will become of them, many now pin their hopes on some form of socialism. They long to believe they will somehow be taken care of. 

 

For millions, hope, optimism, and joy have given way to despair. Such despair is an invitation to Antichrist.

 

Jesus offers something infinitely better — Himself. In Him we find “the fruit of the Spirit… love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). And it’s not just any joy, but “joy unspeakable” (1 Peter 1:8). It’s not just any love, but “perfect love.” “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

 

Yes, good things still happen because “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and His grace abounds toward you.  2 Corinthians 9:8 says, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”

The World Is Running A Huge Oil Deficit, The SPR Hits A 4 Decade Low,

The World Is Running A Huge Oil Deficit, The SPR Hits A 4 Decade Low, And Diesel Shortages Are Looming

Michael Snyder

The world is barreling toward a historic energy crunch that will be unlike anything that we have ever seen before. When fighting with Iran erupted earlier this year, the global economy was absolutely swimming in oil. We literally had far more oil than we needed, but now commercial inventories have gotten extremely tight and national reserves are alarmingly low. If the Strait of Hormuz does not get reopened soon, we will quickly enter an immensely painful chapter of the global energy crisis. Energy prices will shoot way up and shortages will start to become a major issue.  In fact, a global scramble for supplies of diesel fuel has already begun.

Right now the world is consuming far more oil than it is producing.

We have been running an enormous oil deficit for months, and the amount of oil that is coming out of the Persian Gulf is running at about half of pre-war levels…Wall Street analysts – who use ship tracking services like Kpler and Windward Intelligence, among many other data points, to provide estimates about oil flows – have said oil tankers have been getting roughly 4 million barrels of oil out of the Persian Gulf each day.

In addition to the roughly 7 million barrels per day that Middle Eastern countries have rerouted around the strait through pipelines and other methods, about 11 or 12 million barrels have been flowing out, according to the tracking services. That’s significantly lower than the 20 million barrels per day that the region had exported before the Iran war started.

We have been able to operate normally all this time because there was a tremendous amount of excess oil sitting around.

But now somewhere between 1.5 and 1.9 billion barrels of excess oil have disappeared…

Global inventories are between 1.5 billion and 1.9 billion barrels lower now than they were at the start of the war, depending on who’s estimating. Massive crude stockpiles before the war helped prevent catastrophe when supply dried up.

Commercial oil inventories are exceedingly tight at this stage.

The good news is that there is still some extra oil remaining in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The bad news is that the amount of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now so low that we risk doing permanent damage if we continue to drain the salt caverns where the oil is stored…

The caverns that hold the U.S. strategic oil reserve could get damaged by the rapid release of stockpiles in response to the Iran war, experts warned this week as inventories hit a four-decade low.

Damage to the caverns would make it more difficult to respond to future energy emergencies, the experts said. The oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, is stored at 60 salt caverns thousands of feet underground at four major sites along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas.

300 million barrels is considered to be a danger point by many industry insiders.

We have now gone beyond that level…

The SPR has tumbled below 300 million barrels for the first time since it was filled in the early 1980s, according to Department of Energy data released Monday. Inventories are depleting as the U.S. releases 172 million barrels in response to the supply disruption caused by the Iran war. The SPR will sit at around 243 million barrels after the drawdown is finished.

To extract oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, operators pump water into the bottom of the underground caverns.

This pushes the crude oil to the surface and into the pipelines.

However, the caverns must always maintain a strict minimum of 70 million barrels.

This cushion keeps the extraction pipes safely submerged in oil instead of drawing up water.

Officials in Washington are insisting that we can safely keep removing oil out of the SPR until we reach the 70 million barrel mark.

But one expert is warning that such a claim is “nonsense”…

“Don’t believe the people out of the government that are saying the SPR can go to 70 million barrels. It’s nonsense,” Hochstein told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. At that level, the reserve would be depleted to “the point of never resurrecting it,” he said.

We have now gone under the 300 million barrel mark.

And I think that we will continue to draw down the SPR because there is no much pressure to do so.

But the clock is ticking.

Eventually we won’t be able to get any more oil out of the SPR.

What will we do then?

Will we start seeing lines at gasoline stations?

That is precisely what we are witnessing in Russia right now.

In fact, another wave of fuel shortages has just hit that nation…

Russia is normally the second largest exporter of diesel fuel in the world.

But now they are being forced to hoard what they have.

So this is starting to make things very difficult in Europe and Asia.

In fact, European countries are now scrambling to find sufficient supplies of diesel fuel…

Here in the United States, diesel prices are really starting to spike…

In the United States, the report said, diesel futures booked their sharpest rise since July on Monday, adding 7.4% to $4.19 per gallon. The average retail price for a gallon of diesel was $5.32 on Tuesday, according to AAA data. That was up from $4.88 per gallon a month ago and $3.71 per gallon a year ago. To put it mildly, this is problematic.

Diesel is often referred to as the workhorse of any economy. Indeed, economies run on diesel, which is used for everything from freight transportation to farming, to heating during the winter. If diesel prices are consistently higher for an extended period of time, they will inevitably be passed on to consumers, fueling a more generalized inflation trend.

And if the Strait of Hormuz does not get reopened, things will get a lot worse.

For now, the Iranians are insisting that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until President Trump agrees to every single one of their outrageous demands.

President Trump can never do that, because giving in to every single one of their outrageous demands would make him look like an all-time loser.

So it appears that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the global energy crisis is poised to greatly accelerate in the months ahead.

Russia warns UK will ‘pay the price’ over drones used in Ukrainian strikes

Russia warns UK will ‘pay the price’ over drones used in Ukrainian strikes

RT

The UK is deliberately escalating the Ukraine conflict and acting as an accomplice to Kiev’s terrorist attacks, Russia’s embassy in London has said, warning that Britain will be held accountable for its actions.

The statement comes after a Sunday Times report claiming that Ukrainian forces have used drones supplied by two British manufacturers for long-range attacks inside Russia over the past six months.

Multiple Ukrainian military sources told the newspaper that British UAVs had been deployed against industrial and military targets, including oil refineries in Volgograd and Yaroslavl.

The Russian Embassy responded on Monday, saying that the report confirms that “London is deliberately opting for an escalation of the Ukraine crisis, while hypocritically professing a desire for peace.”

“In doing so, the United Kingdom is acting as an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, seeking to contain Russia and inflict maximum damage on it by proxy,” the embassy wrote, warning that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences for which it will have to answer.”

“The deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay,” the statement concluded.

Britain has been one of Kiev’s most active military backers since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. In June, London pledged to provide Ukraine with 150,000 drones by the end of the year and has already supplied long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which have also been used for attacks inside Russia. Several Ukraine-linked drone production facilities are also operating on British soil.

Kiev has sharply intensified its long-range attacks in recent months, launching hundreds of UAVs at a time against Russian territory. Moscow says the strikes have increasingly hit energy infrastructure, residential areas and other civilian sites, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, including children.

Russia has responded by stepping up its own missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities, logistics centers and infrastructure supporting its armed forces.

Moscow has repeatedly argued that Western weapons deliveries, intelligence sharing and targeting assistance make NATO countries direct participants in the conflict. Last week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia would continue to adopt “much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine.”

Russian officials have also warned that Ukraine-linked weapons manufacturing facilities scattered across Europe could be regarded as legitimate military targets.

Russian strike cripples Ukraine’s largest steel plant

Russian strike cripples Ukraine’s largest steel plant

RT

Ukraine’s largest steel plant has partially suspended production after a Russian missile strike damaged key facilities.

Located in Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk Region, ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog is an integrated steelworks that produces rolled products, including steel used in Ukrainian weapons and military equipment, according to the Russian military.

In a Telegram post on Sunday, the company said the overnight attack had damaged “the main energy and blast-furnace production facilities” and partially halted operations. It added that specialists were assessing the extent of the destruction and the prospects and timeframe for recovery.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed striking workshops at the metallurgical complex, saying the site was targeted in a combined attack involving ground- and air-launched precision weapons and long-range drones.

The overnight operation also targeted an oil refinery in Kremenchug, Poltava Region. In Kiev, Russian forces struck Fire Point, which produces components, warheads, and solid-fuel boosters for Flamingo cruise missiles.

Another target was Kiev-111, a facility operated by Ukrdefense Company that manufactures components for attack drones, Khrushch interceptor UAVs, and Harpia anti-aircraft drones.

Russia has intensified strikes on Ukrainian defense-related facilities and logistics following a 40-day “operation of influence” announced by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in late June. Kiev portrayed the campaign of long-range drone attacks as an effort to force Moscow into negotiations on its terms.

Over the following weeks, Ukraine targeted Russian oil refineries, logistics warehouses operated by retailer Wildberries – often described as “Russia’s Amazon” – and sites far from the front line.

Moscow described the attacks on energy infrastructure, residential buildings, and logistics hubs as terrorism, saying they killed dozens of civilians.

As the deadline expired in early August without the campaign achieving its objectives, the head of Zelensky’s office, Kirill Budanov, dismissed the significance of the timeframe, claiming that “what matters is the result.”

The ensuing Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defense industry have depleted Kiev's stock of Patriot interceptor missiles, leaving air-defense crews “helpless” against the barrages, according to the Financial Times. Moscow maintains it never targets civilians.