Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Israel and/or Palestine Page 2 of 14

Khamenei Is Responsible For Every Single Iranian Death

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On March 3, 2026

40 Comments

There’s a lot to admire about Khameini. He was personally brave (fought in the Iran/Iraq war on the front lines), he was well educated, and within the limits of his religious beliefs quite humane. He was entirely opposed to nuclear weapons.

And that last bit was his greatest failure. North Korea is fine. No North Koreans are dead because of American attacks.

Iran could have had nuclear weapons any time in the last twenty years, at least. Iran was attacked, twice, because it didn’t have nukes, not because it did.

The lesson of Israeli and American actions makes it clear that every nation in the world needs nukes. Every single one.

This is what the NPT regime and the taboo against using nukes was meant to make unnecessary. But every time. Every time I talk about the possibility of Iran winning the war someone says “well then Israel or America will nuke them.”

If this is true, it means that Iran needs and needed nukes and so does everyone else.

If nukes aren’t “off the table” for pre-emptive use, everyone needs to have them.

This is what America has wrought.

(Secondary note: as a Canadian it is in my self interest for the US to take the largest losses possible. Every hit America takes makes me and my country safer. There is only one country in the world which has threatened to annex Canada, after all, and unfortunately, no one paid attention to me over the last 30 years when I said the US wasn’t trustworthy and we needed a deterrent.)

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Short Take on Iran, Russia and the Ukraine: Cui Bono?

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On March 3, 2026

41 Comments

~by Sean Paul Kelley

Cui bono? (From the Latin, who stands to gain?) Who benefits from our war on Iran, internationally speaking? And who loses?

First, the Ukraine loses bad the longer the attack on Iran continues, as all the oxygen is sucked into a vortext surrounding the Persian Gulf. All the weapon systems the Ukraine desperately needs are being consumed rapidly over the skies of Iran and the Gulf States. This will undoubtedly hasten the Ukrainian Armed Forces collapse as a meaningful battlefield foe. Score one for Russia.

Second, energy prices will rise, and if the Straits of Hormuz get shut the Europeans will have to re-evaluate their energy supplies vis-a-vis Russia. Score two for Russia. Also, score one for Texas oilmen, who have watched WTI rise from $58 a barrel a month ago to $73.78. Royalty checks be getting phat!

Third, diplomatic pressure will decrease on Pootie-poot and Lavrov due to European energy desperation and all the diplo-oxygen being sucked out of the UN and other multi-lateral forumns, as if a thermobaric bomb went off. This widens Putin’s and Lavrov’s room to manuever even more. It also increases the chance Russia delivers a devastating denouement to the ‘Rules Based Order’ with an unmistakable battlefield victory. As my teachers said about school-yard fights when I was growing up (I went to an all boys school most of my life): you get your ass whooped, you probably deserved it. Score three for Russia.

Fourth, with the US murder/assassination of Iran’s Surpreme leader the precedent has been set, nay, locked the fuck in, for Russia to lob an Oreshnik or two Zelensky’s way and damn the consequences. The US could hardly protest. Not with a straight face. Score four for the Russkis.

Not to beat a frog at the bottom of a well, as the Chinese proverb goes, but the Ukraine is the biggest loser thus far and Russia the biggest winner as of today. The Euros are losing as well, but seem determined to snatch fantasy from the maw of reality. Israel is also on the losing end. Have you seen some of the explosions in Tel Aviv? This Iranian strike is positively surreal. Looks like that Israeli Iron Dome has turned into an Iranian Golden Shower.

Then again, if Bibi pops off a nuke or two, all bets are off.

Commentary On The Iran War, March 2, 2026

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On March 2, 2026

24 Comments

If you didn’t read my two previous piece, the second is about the math of missiles/drones vs. Interceptors. (Spoiler: Iran, if it keeps going, will run the US/Israel and Gulf States out of interceptors long before it runs out of missiles and drones.) The first was a general overview from day one.

I’m going to hit a bunch of different points in this post. First, Trump and Hegseth have said they are considering a ground invasion. This is beyond stupid. First, where will they stage the troops? There’s nowhere near that Iran can’t hit.

Second, have they looked at a topographical map of Iran?

Notice the mountains? Imagine trying to invade that.

The sheer stupid is beyond comprehension by anyone with a room temperature IQ. There is a hangover of people thinking this is 1991 and Iran is Iraq. Iran has better missiles than the US does. It’s larger than Iraq was, it has more people, it has allies. (China appears to be sharing real time satellite intelligence with Iran and has a land route which lets it ship in whatever Iran needs to build more missiles and drones.)

Americans seem to think they still have all the advantages they had in 1991: a military which is more advanced than anyone else’s (no), a much larger military than now, NATO allies who still have their Cold War sized armies, an enemy who will sit still for 6 months while they build up forces, etc… America then and America now are not the same, America is FAR weaker than it was and its allies are virtually disarmed. Only France is at all credible, and even they have a very small military.

A good summary of this is provided by Lee Slusher, writing before the war.

The Gulf States and Saudi Arabia are all being hit hard and the US is not protecting them. The UAE claims a 100% shootdown rate and Qatar over 80%. I believe neither, but even if true, irrelevant, because they will soon run out of interceptor missiles.

BREAKING: The UAE is projected to exhaust its interceptor missile stock within one week at the current rate of fire, and Qatar within four days; both are urgently seeking additional military support from the United States – Bloomberg

(Spoiler: no additional interceptors will be arriving. If there are any extra, they go to Israel.)

A Saudi analyst sums up what I suspect all of them are thinking:

America has abandoned us, and focused its defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones

Lie down with the devil, get up buggered, as the saying goes.

What the Gulf States, especially, are recognizing is that US bases don’t protect them, they make them a target and that the US doesn’t actually care about them and won’t bother to defend them. They’ve gone from satrapies under US protection (which they were, remember that Gulf 1 was to save Kuwait) to expendable meat shields for the Empire. They have to be thinking they’d be better off without the bases.

There have been hits on energy infrastructure. Iran says they didn’t do it, America says they did. My feeling is that Iran is telling the truth, not because I believe they wouldn’t lie, but because attacking oil infrastructure means their infrastructure becomes a target as well and that’s not in their self-interest. I suspect this is a false flag attack to try and get Saudi Arabia, in particular, to join fully in the war.

Germany, France and Britain have said that they will help America militarily. I think the best response to this is Alemanno’s:

The most baffling thing about Europe’s support for regime change in Iran is that it contradicts its own interests. American war leads to: – higher energy price – influx of refugees – ensuing far-right surge – further damage rule-based order

Note also that Germany has almost no interceptors left (they went to Ukraine) and are within range of Iranian missiles. I doubt Iran will attack them, but they can. Germany might want to think hard about that.

Many people are saying this is 12 dimensional chess. The idea is to hurt China’s oil imports. Maybe (no), but it won’t matter much in the middle term:

Around 90% of Iran’s crude exports go to China, but the country is well prepared for disruption. Small independent refineries hold ample near-term supply, while Iranian oil already in transit could cover roughly five months of demand. China has also built large reserves—about 200 days of import cover—helped by discounted crude from Iran and Russia. Bottom line: even if Iranian flows are disrupted, the impact on China is likely manageable.

This also doesn’t make sense because the war with Iran, if goes on even another few days, means war with China is impossible. The interceptor stockpiles will take years to replenish, and China has way more missiles and drones (and the ability to manufacture them at scale) than Iran. By the time they are replenished, China will be so much stronger than the US that even American supremacists will not be able to pretend there is the least chance America could win.

The war, in the end, comes down to math. The US/Israel and whatever pathetic forces European allies commit are in a race: they have to take out launchers and missile suppliers faster than Iran depletes interceptor stocks. My bet is they lose that race, but that’s the race and if you think it comes down to anything else, you are mistaken, leaving aside the possibility of using nukes.

If the US loses this war it is America’s last great hurrah. Everyone will move away from them: they can’t defend their allies, they can’t be trusted to negotiate or keep agreements, and their military will be defenseless for years against the signature weapons of modern warfare: drones and missiles.

Empires die ugly. But America’s empire is dying.

And finally, Iran is in the right here, morally. We all know it.

Update:

Update 2: I forgot to factor in that hits on US airbases reduce the US ability to sortie planes. The number of US attacks on Iran is also dropping.

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The Second Iran War Is On

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On February 28, 2026

37 Comments

The US and Israel claim to have killed Khameini. Iran says they missed. Either way it doesn’t matter much, the Iranian response of hitting US bases and Israel hasn’t been effected. They’ve also declared the Straits of Hormuz closed. If Khameini was killed, he is far more likely to be replaced by hawk than a dove. It’s his refusal to fight, over and over again, and his willingness to let Iranian proxies like Syria and Hezbollah be defeated in detail that lead to Israel and the US thinking they could keep attacking whenever they wanted because Iran was run by people who weren’t really willing to fight.

That and his refusal to get nuclear weapons, which Iran could have had years ago. If Iran had nukes, a lot of Iranians would still be alive.

That said, Iran seems (seems) to have learned their lesson. Before this war they said that if attacked they would hit everywhere the US attacked from, and not let up. They’ve started doing that.

They have hit radars, military bases and even some Trump associated businesses.

This is going to be a long slog, especially if Iran has finally learned its lesson. They should not quit until they’ve destroyed every US and Israeli base in the region. During the 12 day war they quit when Israel was about a week to ten days from running out of interceptors. Iran has more missiles and drones than the US and Israel have interceptor missiles. Keep attacking till they run out, then pound them into the dirt.

It is also good to see that collaborating regimes like the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait getting hit. Hosting a US base in your country should come with risks.

If the Iranians don’t wimp out, my prediction is they’ll win this war, and do so decisively. The main risk is when Israel starts losing decisively they may wish to use nukes. I don’t think even Trump would allow that, and if Israel does anyway, remember that even with nukes Iran can create a dirty nuclear missile. One hit on Israel (which is postage stamp sized) and the country becomes uninhabitable.

We’ll keep an eye on this as it goes on. If the US loses decisively here, the America Empire takes a huge hit to its ability to inspire terror and compliance. Oh sure, they can still strangle weak nearby countries, but genuine middle powers with real militaries will know they can fight the US and win.

Update: Iran has confirmed Khameini is dead. Absolutely stupid of the US and Israel. He is most likely to be replaced by someone more hardline than him, and his fatwa against nuclear weapons can be revoked by his successor. Notice that his death had zero effect on the Iranian military command. Assassination doesn’t matter to real states.

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Genocide & Brown Shirts Are Being Normalized

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On February 19, 2026

31 Comments

So we have an ongoing genocide in Gaza. The death toll, as estimated by scientists, is probably north of half a million. (The official toll is laughable and obviously wrong, growth slowing over time.)

Trump was able to use oil piracy and a kidnapping to bend Venezuela to his will.

Now he’s cut off oil to Cuba, and because of how modern economies work, that means famine.

Deliberately causing a famine is genocidal.

This genocide creep. America could have done this to Cuba any time after the fall of the USSR. Sanctions were nasty and caused a lot of suffering and even deaths, but they didn’t rise to the level of “let’s just starve them to death. They’ll give in.”

Mind you, they tried to do this to Yemen, engineering a low-grade famine. Deaths were in the low to mid hundreds of thousands. Genocide. It was intentional, everyone knew that’s what was the intention.

In Israel a lot were killed by arms, but the cutting off of medical supplies, fuel and food I’m sure will have killed even more people.

Multiple times the US and/or its allies has engineered a famine. In Yemen with Saudi Arabian help. Israel with Israelis taking the lead, but the US supporting it all along the way, as when it cut funding to the primary aid agency, UNWRA.

Now Cuba.

This is the way it works. Whenever something evil is done by the powerful to the weak, they look to see if there were consequences. If not, they expand, moving inwards. Yemen is a place no one cares about in the West: there wasn’t a lot of coverage. Palestine got tons of coverage and even law cases, but in the end no one powerful suffered, and the genocide was and is pushed thru. Opponents lost their jobs, went to prison and were deported or lost their banking access (Albanese, for example.)

Since those responsible for the genocide got away with it twice, they’re now doing it a third time.

Everything the powerful do to someone else is something they are willing to do to you if they think it’s in their interest, or just fun.

In the US we have the ICE crackdowns. I wrote for years that if Trump went wild, ICE would be his brown shirts, and here we are. Substantially we have masked men in unmarked cars without badges or in most cases judicial warrants, terrorizing Americans. Not as bad as what Israelis do to Palestinians or America and NATO did in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the same sort of thing. Just call everyone an immigrant or a terrorist and do what you want to them. Refuse to obey the law, ignore judges (what can they do) and on your way.

Start internally with “immigrants” but sweep up lots of citizens and treat them abusively, without reference to their rights.

Set those precedents. And if you get away with it: if no one important winds up punished, then you can expand it. Go after the citizens next. Kick out native Americans. Keep people locked up for months on end without any real judge even knowing about it. Ignore health care problems, let them suffer and die.

Every time the elites of any country get away with abusing regular people, whether foreign or domestic, the line moves on what is acceptable.

We fight for other people to be treated well not just because we aren’t monsters, but because we know that it could be us. Every time we fail to make sure other people are treated fairly and well, we make ourselves less secure. What was done to them can now be done to us. It is for this reasons that even people accused of the worst crimes, like pedophilia and rape have rights, because an accusation isn’t proof and the government and police often get things wrong or lie.

The precedents are now firm that anyone who isn’t in the elite has limited rights: no free speech, no right to see an attorney, no right to security against search and seizure, and so on.

Genocide and ignoring the rule of law, even ignoring judicial rulings, are now the norm.

And the goal isn’t genocide of foreigners. The goal is to get to the point where they can lock up or kill anyone they want domestically.

That’s what American elites want. If an election is going to be lost, fix it. If a person is against a genocide, lock them up or deport them or de-bank them. Anyone who is inconvenient because they oppose what the elite group in power find the rule of law is increasingly no shield. It’s been broken too often, elites know they can mass murder, rape and traffic children and teens with few or no consequences.

What has been done to outsiders will increasingly be done to us, core Western citizens. By failing to protect others, we set the precedents that we were no longer protected.

Never think “it’s OK to do monstrous things to outsiders” because everyone who isn’t an elite eventually becomes an outsider.

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Epstein Occupied A Structural Position, So Who Has Replaced Him?

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On February 2, 2026

22 Comments

As sometime contributor DanfromTo points out, Epstein performed “necessary” tasks for the elite: control thru blackmail and the provision of experiences many of them genuinely want to have. Power is allowed to people who can be trusted with it by other members of the elite, who will do what the elites want: whether that be bailing out rich people or committing genocide.

Some people, like Biden, will do these things because they are true believers, but it’s always best to have them collared, in case they have an attack of conscience or just decide that the bread is better butter on another side.

Epstein wasn’t the first pimp to rich people and he won’t be the last. Almost no one who fucked under-age women (or performed worse acts, there are indications of murder and cannibalism in the files) has actually suffered any consequences. There’s no real reason for American elites to stop and Israel, certainly, needs collars on new members of the elite.

So who replaced him?

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Iran Can’t Afford To Keep Fucking Up

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On January 9, 2026

38 Comments

This will offend some people because supposedly outsiders aren’t supposed to do anything but cheer Resistance actors or something.

  • Russia offered them a formal military alliance and they refused;
  • They have and had sufficient missiles and drones to overwhelm Israeli defenses;
  • During the Gaza war they did not attack Israel which allowed Israel to defeat Hamas (note that if they had, Hezbollah would have gone all in if they encouraged it, so it would have been absolutely massive, 80% of Hezbollah’s missile stockpile had not been destroyed at that point.)
  • They did not send troops to save Assad and keep Syria in their sphere,
  • During the brief Israeli/Iran war, they were winning and Israel was a week or so from running out of interceptors. Israel asked for a ceasefire and they agreed;, and,
  • They keep refusing to get nukes despite having the capability.

These are deeply foolish people and if they keep refusing to actually fight or make alliance, and keep letting Israel and the US take swings at Iran at times and places of their choosing they are eventually going to lose.

They should also get that formal alliance with Russia and make whatever agreements are necessary to get full economic support from China, which could end their inflation problems in half a year

The counter-argument is that winning the missile war might lead to nuking. I don’t think Israel would do that unless it was existential, nuking Iran would cost them extremely. But Israel having nukes is precisely why Iran either needs to get their own or to get under a nuclear powers umbrella. (Ideally you first make an alliance with Russia, then you get the nukes.)

I don’t know what the dysfunction is, exactly, but if they don’t fix it, it’s likely to be terminal. I suspect a lot comes from Khameini, certainly the nuclear ban does.

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Palestine’s Last Hope

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On October 23, 2025

12 Comments

We’re about 3 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $9,010 from 79 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

It is now over 20 years ago that I first wrote that Israel would either become a single, secular state, or it would ethnically cleanse or genocide the Palestinian. There were no other solution sets: the land is not actually large enough, nor does it have enough water to divide it into two states and in any case, it was obvious Israelis would never go for that.

Even at the time I figured genocide and ethnic cleansing was more likely, there’s a point where the depravity of a people becomes so pronounced (as it was for colonial North Americans) that no other solution is likely, given the means.

I don’t know how many of you have read bin Laden’s writings. (I don’t endorse him, but he was a smart man.) His fundamental point was that America must be defeated before various local evils, because America was propping them all up.

As retired IDF general Yitzak Brick said:

“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

The only way the Palestinians don’t get genocided and ethnically cleansed out of Palestine (the ceasefire/peace will be temporary, and has been violated multiple times by Israel even as they ramp up attacks on the West Bank), is if Israel can’t. And the only way Israel can’t is its economy collapses and takes the country with it, possibly with its neighbours opportunistically jumping in.

Fortunately Trump, with his escalating trade war, is working on it.

First we have the rare-earth export controls from China. Most weapons need rare earths, the West is ten to twenty years from being able to produce enough (always bet the under on China, and over on the West), and China’s controls include any use of rare-earths for weapons. If Trump doesn’t make peace with China, on their terms, the weapon flow to Israel will slow to a trickle. (It will be even worse for Ukraine.)

But there’s far more that China could do. A cursory search shows that it controls the majority of production of the following:

  • Graphite. US is 100 import dependent. China controls 90% of the processing. Used in batteries, EVs, lubricants and steelmaking.
  • Gallium. China does 98% of this. and the US is 100% import reliant. A lot seems to come in from 3rd parties, but China could shut that down. Used for semiconductors, LEDs, solar panels and radar.
  • Solar panels and wafers are about 80% China manufactured. 95% for polysilicon wafers.
  • Lithium ion battery cells and packs. China has about 80% of the manufacturing, and these things go in everything, including almost all consumer electronics.
  • Refined graphite anodes. China produces 90% and you need them for Lithium-ionC batteries.
  • Consumer drones. (Important for agriculture and the parts often used for military drones.) China controls about 80% of production. More, I’d guess.
  • About 80% of generic drugs are produced in China.
  • Legacy semiconductors (28nm+). As Europe is finding out, since China will no longer let Nexperia import them, and auto assembly is having to shut down as a result, China controls a lot of the manufacture of these items. Taiwan, etc… have moved on, but these are used in consumer electronics and autos in vast quantities and mostly supplied by China.
  • High Capacity transformers and inverters. (Can’t transmit electricity without them, and China has at least 70% of the manufacturing, probably more.)

Imagine if China put export controls on all of this?

The US economy would collapse. Nothing of significance can be manufactured in the US or Europe without Chinese components. It’s that simple. China would take a big hit, but they can tank it if they have to.

And, almost overnight, Israel would be without its suppliers. Plus, of course, they are reliant on US subsidies, and America wouldn’t be able to afford them. Europe wouldn’t be able to make up the difference, even assuming they didn’t get hit hard too.

Now I don’t necessarily expect this, it’s not a prediction, but it’s the only route I see left for any sort of relief for Palestinians.  And if it does happen, I doubt Israel would survive.

It’s also worth running thru to understand just how precarious a position the West has put itself in with regard to China. More on that later.

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