Alas, all good things must come to an end. The bad things? They seem to keep chasing us around like columns of mad zombies.
You remember the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), right? Oh, you poor, sweet summer child. You forgot, didn’t you?
Well, all those “on again,” “off again” ceasefires during the Strait of Hormuz Insider Trading War, those wonderful “We’re about to bomb, oh, wait, no we’re not,” market manipulation statements coming out every few days from the ruins of the White House, were actually related to a theoretical and mostly fictional Memorandum of Understanding that expired today.
The MOU was allegedly a document signed by the U.S. and Iran last June stating that the two countries were committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement. It was “negotiated” by ace diplomats/real estate tycoons Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who probably envisioned turning Tehran into the capital of the 55th state (after Canada, Venezuela, Greenland, and Cuba were happily in the fold of the big, new, beautiful, bountiful United States).
Nobody really remembers why TrumpleSickSkin bombed Iran all those months ago in the first place. Especially Democrats, most of whom are still sitting around with their butts on their hands while Rome burns.
Hot take: There’s a reason Democratic Socialists are having a moment, but the mainstream media isn’t in on this secret because they’re mired in the wealth acquisition institutions that maintain the status quo.
It doesn’t matter why he let loose the bombs, because trying to assign logic to anything the orange puffaroon does is like trying to understand why an enraged chimp just bit off your face.
The damage is done, and here we are, trying to prognosticate a madman’s next move. This is an impossible task.
Anyhoo, Iranian Republican Guards, fresh off slaughtering tens of thousands of their own people protesting a crappy economy and the theocratic regime responsible for it, used those two months to consolidate power in the wake of the idiot killing the nation’s “Supreme Leader” (that’s Iran’s name for the ayatollah in charge of things).
So, yeah. He died, and so did the family of his son, who replaced him. The word is that the son, who is now the Supreme Leader (name not important), is alive but possibly lying in multiple pieces on a hospital bed somewhere, so he makes no public appearances, since it’s hard to travel when you have to reattach parts of your body before standing before crowds of people lecturing them on how women suck and should remain mostly uneducated and hidden from view.
Quick history lesson!
I hate to do this to you again, but we need to backtrack a little for some historical perspective.
To understand what Iran has been doing during these two months of dithering by the TrumpleManiacs who run the U.S. war machine these days, we need to explore how the government of Iran works. Don’t worry, I can do this in a paragraph or three.
Way back in the 1970s, Iran had a little revolution to overthrow the Shah of Iran, who was a nasty dictator installed by the U.S. and Britain because they were mad about a socialist prime minister who had won an Iranian election fair and square (mostly).
So, you know, watch out, AOC, Zohran, and El-Sayed. Please watch your backs. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
At first, the government that replaced the Shah was sort of semi-democratic in nature. They had a parliament (called the Majlis) and everything! But it didn’t take long for the top cleric in the nation, a truly nasty fella named Ruhollah Khomeini, to consolidate power and become Iran’s “Supreme Leader.”
Take a look at this guy and tell me that’s the face of someone you want knocking on your door surrounded by a cadre of well-armed misogynists.
He then began a pogrom against women, of all people. Imagine an American Christo-nationalist taking power as supreme dictator in the United States, but without all the publicly known sex stuff.
One way he consolidated power was through a militia group of hardened misogynists called the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). These were, and are, basically army guys who think that women who don’t do everything they are told and hide their faces properly should be sent directly to a grave.
Khomeini bolstered the IRGC with a huge voluntary force of men called the Basij, who did things like run around Iranian cities on motorcycles chasing women who dared to show more than an eyebrow. Seriously, that’s what these men were tasked with. Jump on a motorcycle and look for bare ankles.
Khomeini turned Iran into a pretty crazy place. Lots of people went to prison for just being human beings. Iranians can thank American foreign policy for the gift later, maybe after we bomb the crap out of them again, if we can find the bombs to do it with (Hegseth pretty much ran the inventory down to nothing, so that’s a big if).
When Khomeini died, he was replaced by a guy named Khameini. As we say in America these days, you can’t make this shit up.
Well, Khameini was just as nasty as Khomeini.
They’re both dead now. Khameini (the one with the “a”) was killed when Trump got a hair up his ass and decided to bomb Iran for reasons.
So he was replaced by another Khameini.
But, as I said, the newer Khameini was apparently blown up some, too.
Remember that Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of which I spoketh (spaketh?) earlier?
Well, my friends, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I’m gonna just call them the IRGC from now on) were very happy that the Trumpanzees in charge of things negotiated with themselves and finally came up with the MOU.
The Iranian diplomats took a look at what the real estate guys came up with and said, “Yeah, sure, whatever buys us some time.”
One important small but salient fact about the real estate guys’ MOU is that the little sheikdom of Oman played a central role in the “negotiations,” which was, from the beginning, a farce.
This matters because today Trump threatened to bomb Oman. For reasons.
The IRGC knew, of course, that the MOU was a sham, even if our orange clusterbomb of diseased flesh did not. (He probably did not.)
So, the IRGC scrambled to consolidate power, since Khameini 2.0 was still in multiple pieces in a hospital. This is what you call a power gap, and the IRGC seized the opportunity to snatch power away from the clerics so they could simultaneously crank out a crash drone buildout and keep chasing women back into their homes.
One might think that this should turn Khameini 2.0 westward ho. But no. That will not happen, because the Trump bombs killed the following members of his family:
Zahra Haddad-Adel: (wife of Khamenei 2.0).
Mohammad Bagher: Khamenei 1.0’s teenage grandson (son of Khameini 2.0).
Khamenei 1.0’s Daughter: Khameini 2.0’s sister.
Khamenei 1.0’s Son-in-law: The husband of 2.0’s deceased sister.
Khamenei 1.0’s Grandchild / Granddaughter: The young child of his deceased daughter and 2.0’s sister.
Let’s pause and summarize the results of the Hormuz Insider Trading War so far:
Trump/Hegseth Crazytown has turned a thorn in its side into a mortal enemy.
Trump/Hegseth Crazytown has closed the Strait of Hormuz, which only a few months ago saw hundreds of ships passing through per day on open sea lanes and now is lucky if three slip through.
A strengthened Iranian government, which had been badly weakened by protests and the general unhappy mood of its people, who are now mostly rallying around the flag thanks to the blathering antics of the American president.
More than 100 children killed when an American missile was erroneously programmed by a hallucinating AI system to strike a girl’s school.
Lots of newly rich folks, many of whom, according to evidence that I’m not going to back up with sources here because I believe you’re fully capable of researching it on your own, are getting insider tips about the various pronouncements that issue every few days from the Oval Office (“we’re bombing someone,” “No, we’re not!”).
Significantly higher oil prices and gas prices. The mainstream media, of course, is flooding the zone with headlines like, “Why gas prices aren’t worse,” because half the corporate media is owned by Trumpanzees, and the other half is too afraid to challenge the hegemony. Most economists seem to agree the sleight of hand that has kept oil prices under $100 per barrel are about to run their course.1
Trump/Hegseth Crazytown’s primary accomplishment has been turning the Strait of Hormuz into a gauntlet, a sort of shooting gallery for armed mariners. Every few days, we read about how Iran has smoked another tanker or barge at sea. It’s a narrow shipping lane. Just imagine how much insurance rates on oil tankers have skyrocketed.
If the Strait of Hormuz ever does open for business again, Iran will pretty much be in charge of it, and might even collect tolls. This is completely different than it was before the Trump/Hegseth attacks against Iran.
The Wall Street Journal, where a few intrepid journalists still manage to occasionally sneak out a good story, reports on what the IRGC has done with its MOU window:2
After President Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran in mid-June, administration officials fanned out to build support for an agreement they hoped would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and start winding down the war.
Iran’s hard-line leaders huddled in Tehran and came up with a different plan, according to Iranian and Arab officials. In their view the pact was likely just an attempt by the U.S. and Israel to take pressure off the global economy and buy time for a bigger attack down the road. Instead of putting faith in talks, they took the past two months to prepare for a bigger fight.
Their efforts include giving the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps more control of the country’s regular army, appointing hardened veterans of the war with Iraq and past internal crackdowns to key posts, expanding domestic counterintelligence operations and ramping up production of missiles and drones. The leadership quickly seized the initiative, attacking ships to tighten Iran’s grip on Hormuz and expanding the battlefield to the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has used to get around Iran’s chokehold on the Persian Gulf.
The Iranian government is preparing to raise havoc to levels Americans might become so uncomfortable with they won’t wait for the midterms to demand a change in government.
I don’t expect you to believe my hyperbole. But the messaging is coming directly out of Iran:3
“There is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun.”
That’s Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, an Iranian defense analyst, who goes on to say, “What we have seen so far is increasingly interpreted through the lens of ‘salami-slicing’ tactics—limited, incremental escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation.”
In war, we can never know if such bellicosity is posturing or what they really have in mind. But one thing we do know is that the IRGC spent these two months not only rebuilding their forces, but making important improvements to their missile systems’ targeting capabilities.
Their missiles can now change course in mid-flight, making it easier to find their targets. This comes at a bad time, because American air defenses in the region have been depleted.4 American military bases are vulnerable, while Navy personnel are jumping off ships because they’re malnourished, unwashed, and miserable.
And it’s not like the IRGC has been quiet during the MOU. The little red dots are Iranian strikes against American bases and the oil infrastructure of U.S. allies.
That’s one hell of a misunderstanding, isn’t it? What, exactly, is a Memorandum of Understanding good for? It’s simple: It was always intended as a device for manipulating the stock market. This is what you get when you have a crooked president who appoints billionaire real estate tycoons to “negotiate” peace treaties.
Meanwhile, Khameini 2.0 has recovered enough to announce that the armed forces have been restocked and stacked. Within the scope of that announcement, Khameini added that the repression of women will enjoy a fresh round.
To accomplish this, he named Hossein Taeb, who made a name for himself by leading a punishing assault against protesters in 2009, to head the Basij, that volunteer force I told you about.
The Iranian people, therefore, are now getting assaulted by both sides in this war. Their future is as bleak as it’s been in a century.
The American people don’t much care, because the mainstream media has flooded the U.S. with “Death to America” imagery for the last forty years. This, even though most young Iranians would kill to live in America.
Notes
Speaking of shelf lives we’d like to see shortened, I wrote this last August. Not much has changed:
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Footnotes
Benoit Faucon and Summer Said, The Wall Street Journal, “Iran’s Secret Plan to Escalate the War”
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-plan-escalate-war-cc657664?mod=hp_lead_pos1
Wall Street Journal, ibid
Wall Street Journal, ibid
Thank you for the update on Iran and the illegal war. I enjoyed reading it because of your sarcastic humor. trump and Hegseth are idiots. I had hoped that our military would stage a bloodless coup; however, Hegseth, probably fearing that would happen, had been firing all of our best generals. So, no coup.