Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and the entire modern civilization!
Today in the release:
- War with Iran
▶ Just yesterday, I was going to make the review quite long – consisting of a translation of almost a half-hour speech by Senator Adam Schiff at the Senate plenary session on Tuesday, shortly before the President addressed Congress.
I will definitely translate Schiff’s speech, who, a few hours before the President’s address on the state of the country, assessed the real state of affairs in the country.
But today’s news forces us to talk about it. The US and Israel attacked Iran. In response, Iran struck Israel, many Arab countries, and American military bases in the region.
There is no point in retelling what is happening, especially since the news comes in continuously, changing each other.
However, analyzing what is happening is certainly necessary.
Last summer, after the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, in which the US participated on the penultimate day by striking Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, the 47th President stated that Iran’s nuclear program was destroyed completely and forever.
When US military intelligence presented a report, the content of which leaked to the press, indicating this was not the case, that the program was damaged but Iran would be able to resume it within months, Trump fired the director of military intelligence.
However, the intelligence was obviously correct. Otherwise, the de facto collective Secretary of State, Vitkoff-Kushner, wouldn’t be negotiating with Iran about its nuclear and missile programs.
But the attack carried out by Israel and the US on Saturday clearly aims not at destroying Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. They may suffer even greater damage than in the summer, but there is no doubt the Iranian theocratic regime will do everything possible to resume them. If this regime remains in power.
And therefore, the war that began on Saturday has a different goal – regime change in Iran. In fact, Trump directly stated this in his video address.
This video address was not broadcast live on television, not from the White House, nor from the Congress podium. The 47th president published it on his social network Truth Social at 2:30 AM Eastern Time. Either he was addressing only his supporters and subscribers. To them primarily. And this video address was not recorded in the White House, but in Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Florida, from where he now leads the war.
As officially confirmed by the Iranian state propaganda channel, the Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khamenei, who had been the supreme leader of Iran since 1989 when he succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini, has been killed.
There are unconfirmed reports that the Iranian defense minister and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have also been killed.
Does this mean that the theocratic dictatorial regime has fallen?
No, it does not.
The Soviet regime did not fall after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, after the toppling and removal of Khrushchev, after the deaths of Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko.
The Soviet regime fell after it was led by Gorbachev, a close friend of Zdenek Mlynar, the main ideologist of the Prague Spring of 1968, from his student years. The reformers of 1968 in Czechoslovakia were building “socialism with a human face”. Just as the dictatorial communist regime of the absolute Soviet type was rapidly dismantled by the reforms carried out by Alexander Dubcek, Zdenek Mlynar, and their associates (and if not for the Soviet invasion and occupation, the Velvet Revolution would have occurred in Czechoslovakia not in 1989, but 20 years earlier), the Soviet regime was dismantled along with the monster called the USSR. Simply because a human face is fundamentally incompatible with inhumane regimes. Either-or.
So, the Iranian regime cannot be dismantled as a result of the death of its ruling dictator. Khamenei was a dictator. But Stalin was also a dictator. The death of a dictator under such a regime does not mean the death of the regime. Because the regime quickly produces a new leader from its midst, from the “politburo” that surrounds the dictator.
Such regimes fall as a result of one of four conditions:
1) Occupation of the country from outside and dismantling of the regime by external forces. This is how the Nazi regime in Germany was dismantled. This is how Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was dismantled.
2) A people’s revolution accompanied by a split among the “elites” and the refusal of the regime’s security structures to defend it. This is exactly what happened in Russia in February 1917 (though it’s important to remember what happened just a little later, only eight months after). The same happened with the fall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania. The rapid dismantling of the communist regime in the GDR happened almost in the same way.
3) Dismantling the regime from above as a result of a split among the “elites” and the rise to power of those who want to reform the regime and give it a “human face.” This always leads to the contradiction we just discussed.
4) A military coup followed by elections and transfer of power. This is how the dictatorial regime in Portugal was dismantled in 1975.
The situation in Iran at the moment does not correspond to any of these four conditions. The US, at least currently, is not planning to conduct a ground operation in Iran. Missile strikes and bombings can cause various and significant damage, but they cannot dismantle the regime. The US and the UK mercilessly bombed Germany from 1942-1945, but this did not lead to a regime change until the entire country was occupied by allied forces.
In Iran, a massive popular uprising against the regime was just suppressed. It is impossible to accurately estimate the number of casualties, but according to many reports published by Western media, regime enforcers could have killed tens of thousands of people. Will people rise again, risking their lives, to fight the regime? There is no answer to this question. Is Trump’s social media address to them enough? But the internet does not work in Iran, and Trump’s address was likely not heard at all. Meanwhile, the Voice of America’s broadcasting in Farsi and all other languages was eliminated by the 47th US president last year.
The split among the “elites” as a possible development and the rise to power of someone who will reform the regime cannot be ruled out. However, after listening to and reading comments on Saturday evening by former American diplomats, retired military personnel, and Iran specialists well-versed in the situation in Iran, it seems that the likelihood of such a development is less than that of the “politburo” nominating a new supreme leader who will follow the same course.
A military coup also does not seem likely. The Iranian army, at this very moment on a Saturday evening American time, continues missile strikes and drone attacks on Israel and the Arab countries – US allies in the region. This means that the regime functions even without Ayatollah Khamenei. And the army continues to serve the regime.
Therefore, there are many questions about what the ongoing major war in the Middle East will lead to. There are no answers yet.
Did American intelligence work in some way with anyone within the Iranian “elites” to promote regime change? We do not know.
Does the 47th president have any long-term strategy for what the ongoing military actions should achieve? It is not evident at this moment.
The president started the war without seeking permission from Congress. This angers the Democrats in Congress – the Constitution clearly states that only Congress can declare war. But the Republicans in Congress seem to be okay with it.
The president clearly has domestic political goals. His approval rating, as they say in the US, is “underwater.” With a 36% rating, he and the Republican Party are doomed to defeat in the November congressional elections. A “small victorious war” might boost the rating. The president is literally mired in the Epstein files, which have received a lot of attention in the American media until Saturday. But on Saturday, there was no mention in the media about the Epstein files.
However, there is another side to all of this. By Monday, the price of oil will inevitably skyrocket. Subsequently, within a few days, gasoline, other fuels, and electricity will inevitably become more expensive in the US. If the war lasts a few weeks, a large wave of inflation will begin to build up, and prices will rise on literally everything. And the rating, which might rise among Trump supporters due to pride in a “strong leader,” will fall again.
Weakening Iran as part of the axis of evil, as an ally of Russia, is good. But the rise in oil prices is a full-flowing river of money into Putin’s pockets – money on which he wages war. And on Monday, when trading opens on the exchanges, oil will significantly increase in price, it’s inevitable.
It is impossible to predict what will happen next. But it is necessary to analyze what is happening.
There are 1,057 days left until the end of the story titled “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (the title of Bob Woodward’s book published in 2018).
Thank you to everyone who read this. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help each other. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight evil, do Good, remain mere observers, passively wait, and believe that someone somewhere will decide something for us, or we fight evil and do everything possible to ensure Good triumphs.
We must prevent evil from winning. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world in which we live. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian friends, I embrace and love you all. Take care of each other, I ask you very much.
Ukraine is and always will be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. And it certainly will be.
