'Open the Gates of Hell'

The child could stand down. Or not. Let's look at the 'not'

Things are heating up in the Gulf. Again. We could see the big one this time, a major explosion, or Trump could TACO. Again.

But Iran has decided, because the U.S. has violated the previous agreement so often and shown no consistency since, they will offer no slack, no give, in their next response. If Trump carries through on his bluster and launches a major attack, a really major attack, West Asia will be altered for years, perhaps till we die.

It’s possible we could wake in a week and nothing has changed; the misery we feel today will not be much worse. But let’s take a stroll to that second future, the bad one, the one where Trump fails to mentally sober himself and pulls the Strangelovian trigger. That could happen too.

If Trump Decides to Launch a Major Attack

If Trump decides to launch a major strike, a rage of revenge or even a landing of troops, there aren’t many pathways ahead. Either:

• The U.S. security state, in its wisdom, will raise its head above water and get in his way; or

• All hell will break loose.

If Trump really makes up his mind, those are the roads.

If the State Were to Try to Stop Trump…

Let’s look at the first — the State attempts to stop Trump. I wrote about that earlier. I think this is the least likely path, but if it occurs, here are all the State’s choices:

1. Persuasion

2. The 25th Amendment

3. Impeachment

4. His illness, death, or some kind of quiet removal

5. A public, forced removal (a coup)

The first choice is feasible, given the number of feints Trump has already made. But I wouldn’t count on it working; Trump’s frustration, the trap he’s now in and his sheer bloody mindedness could tip the balance at last. If so, he’ll insist the Pentagon act, and now. So what’s left?

We can discount the next two choices. They’re not going to happen and they’re both impractical.

The fourth choice — remember, the man is not well — requires a compliant VP aligned with the State. Does that describe Vance? Probably, given that Trump will no longer be around.

And the fifth? I think an open coup would look wrong to far too many people. The forms, at least, of self-rule must be preserved.

So the State may step aside, and it probably will. But given the alternative — the fiery pit — the odds of an intervention are not quite none.

The Fiery Pit…

Which brings us to the other path. The hell of a hot new war and what it will bring has been often described, though not in the corporate press. Marandi laid it out here and others agree. Mainstreamers have talked about some of this, but not all; the focus on what damages Trump. Here’s the full shot.

• Iran, if Trump hits it “gates of hell” hard, will respond by devastating all attacking nations except Israel, especially those in the Gulf. Refineries, ports, energy generating stations, desalinization plants, all could be hit. Depending on which countries chose to host U.S. attackers, this could include all of the regional family dictatorships — Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and possibly Oman.

Jordan may get better treatment in terms of its infrastructure, but it will still be hit hard, given its role as Israel’s last shield in the region and host to the best surviving U.S. Gulf base. It’s worth noting that His Majesty King Abdullah II has already left for the UK, on business of course.

Gulf nations, all sand, no water, no food at all, will be unlivable for quite some time and gone from the map as states. That’s the first change.

• Unless they launch their own weapons, I think Israel will be spared, at least for a while. They’re close to a civil war, and Iran may not want to block that. But I do think their day will come. The immediate Iranian goals are control of the Strait and elimination of U.S. capacity throughout in the region. Israel is far weaker than anyone is letting on, so Iran may wait and finish its other goals first.

• At some point though, Israel will probably launch. They’ve wanted Iran gone since almost the day they were born. For them, it’s a fight for existence, so expect them to go to war and attack to the end, or perhaps to the last mushroom cloud. I don’t see them ever surrendering their genocide, hubris, ambition, or Zionist dreams without a major last stand.

• If Israel does fight Iran, they will lose badly. How could they not? Israel’s a postage stamp, and Iran’s as big as Alaska with nine times the people. Iran can rebuild; Israelis, what’s left of them, can’t. They will likely expatriate and the land becomes Palestine. The regional road will be rough from that point on, but it won’t be what it was. (For my own thoughts on how Israel ends, see here.)

• The region’s oil-producing capacity will be lost for years, not just because of constriction (the Strait, the Red Sea), but destruction of infrastructure, which will take years to rebuild. This puts the world in a global energy deficit for a decade or more.

• The outcome of that you can guess — the D-word in spades. The 1930s were bad, but this could be quite a bit worse. Tucker Carlson is right — in the world as presently built, fuel is wealth and the lack of it, poverty. To maintain our modern life takes access to energy, in particular, access to oil, since our rulers have deliberately constrained most other choices. Without that access, the globe has to live on less, quite a bit less.

• The political consequences of that I’ll leave to the novelist in you. The range of outcomes is wide. There will be political outcomes. What they are is a guess.

A Child At the Wheel

We could avoid all this. Those odds are still high. The child could stand down, just as he’s done before. So none of this is predictive.

But if the child does not stand down, the above might be relevant.