Daily reminder to everyone that followed the analysis from the start: To master modern strategy, you must expand your toolkit beyond the basics. Invest time in learning 4D Chess, Game Theory, Behavioral Economics, and Complexity & ABMs.

Who was behind October 7th attack and why did it happen? This is the question I'm asked almost every day on here. I’ll address it in this post, but first, a disclaimer. I form my opinion across multiple tools. Through my work, I look at annual reports and track economic trends. I sift through news, filter it with my regional experience of the Middle East, and apply a game theory framework to understand state actors and their moves. My theory on October 7 is weak on evidence. On the empirical curve, it’s probably two standard deviations away from hard facts. That's because state soft power plays are usually hard to track with evidence. And the October 7 story is already dipped in propaganda, and the full truth might not surface for five or ten years. So, consider this a hypothesis of mine stitched from evidence-based patterns I’ve watched unfold. ___ If you’ve followed me long enough, you know my stance on Israel. They’re not zeroing in on Hamas or Hezbollah; their dominant strategy as a colonial state prioritizes leveling women, children, and entire buildings in Gaza. The evidence, to me, is very clear and their operation from a colony standpoint makes perfect sense: erase Gaza, forge a “pure” Jewish state, shed the global apartheid label, and lock in America’s second regional hegemon in the Middle East. That’s the primary payoff in their game. And it's their only dominant strategy. I have said many times that Gaza is the Stalingrad of Palestine, and it will undo Israel if Israel fails to achieve ethnic cleansing or total displacement of the population. Israel knows this. It’s why they sabotage normalization with regional Arab states. It's why they eliminate ministers who are partial to the Palestinian cause. And it's why they prop up Hamas as Gaza’s rulers. The Israeli cabinet isn’t calling the shots. It’s a conduit for US foreign policy, aiming for dual hegemony: one in the Atlantic, another in Palestine, the continental map of the World. Success would’ve handed the US global hegemonic status. That’s my lens. And it shapes what I think went down on October 7. Some of you might call this overblown. And that's fair. But I judge actions, not guessed intentions. Israel claims it’s crushing the Axis, but their moves and all their allocation of resources point to wiping out Palestinians as fast as possible. You might argue against this by using the West’s defense of “If Israel wanted all Palestinians killed, they could’ve done it already.” That kind of rhetoric is just designed to water down their genocidal behavior. It’s like saying, “We could kill you quicker, but we’re pacing ourselves because we’re noble.” It sidesteps the reality: Palestinians are dying and vanishing at a staggering rate under Israeli bombardment, far beyond any military necessity and far beyond what the numbers suggest. ___ Within the context of this understanding, I’ve made a case and argued that Netanyahu was racing against time to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. This is the first fundamental point to understand. There was a clock on Netanyahu's operation. This is why he ordered 1.1 million northern Gazans to flee south in 24 hours just days after the attack, to head start the displacement and clear land. It's why he rejected a ceasefire deal in May 24' identical to the one he was coerced to accept in January by Trump. And this is also why he conducted a starvation blockade choking all aid flows. So if the bombs didn't kill the Palestinians, the starvation would. His “total victory” rhetoric, paired with flattening homes, hospitals, and schools, was a systematic sprint to render Gaza unlivable. From a game theory angle, Netanyahu has played a perfect strategy; maximizing cleansing and displacement by any means possible while treating global outrage as background noise. But the question is, why was he racing against time? Why the rush? Why ditch the 70-year “mowing the lawn” strategy that has always worked for them in the past? We have to rewind to the years before October 7 to answer the element of urgency in Netanyahu's actions. ___ The Middle East was shifting under everyone’s feet long before October 7. In 2019, the UAE, tired of bleeding $5 billion in Yemen’s war, quietly approached Iran despite Houthi tensions. By 2022, they had diplomatic ties, a major crack in the US’s Iran-containment wall. UAE and Iran mended tensions. In January 2021, the Al-Ula Summit saw Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt mend fences with Qatar after the 2017 rift. Qatar’s Iran-Turkey flirtations had irked the GCC, but with $200 billion in rail and trade at stake, they reconciled. Russia and China cheered. Putin with Saudi oil talks, China with $10 billion UAE deals. Qatar, the KSA, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt normalized. From April 2021 to 2022, Saudi Arabia and Iran held five Iraq-hosted talks, Oman mediating, GCC cash flowing. By 2022, MBS told Biden in Jeddah he’d rather bet on China than the US to manage Iran. A $1 billion flex. Iran and the KSA mended tensions. That July, Iran and Kuwait swapped ambassadors, healing a 2016 rift with $5 billion in trade and Iran’s $100 million regional take. In March 2022, Syria’s Assad visited the UAE; his first GCC trip since 2011, defying US sanctions with $1 billion in talks, backed by Iran, Russia, and China. Iran, Kuwait, Syria and the UAE normalized. By December 2022, China hosted GCC leaders in Riyadh, securing $10 billion for refineries and ports. Xi pitched a “security architecture,” and $5 billion in trade kicked off. Iran sat out, but Xi’s Tehran visit two months later kept them looped in. Then, in March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran shook hands in Beijing, a $1 billion Chinese deal reopening embassies and silencing anti-Iran noise. Iran and the KSA normalized. Four months later, Russia backed the GCC over Iran’s islands in a Moscow meet-up. Iran was fuming but cooperated. This was the FIRST sign of Iran conceding to stay in the game and remain a team player. And a new question started to emerge. What else was Iran willing to concede to maintain cooperation? In May 2023, the UAE dumped the US-led Maritime Security Alliance; a billions-in-trade blow to Washington. Days later, Iran floated a naval pact with GCC states, while China’s $10.7 billion Oman port deal and Russia’s $5 billion oil exports knit the Gulf against the US naval force. The UAE was slowly forming its own regional MIC. ___ Over at the US, the MIC was systematically being outmaneuvered, and its foreign policy of keeping the region fractured was collapsing. The FIC, no longer saw eye to eye with the MIC, and ensured they would seek economic partnerships with the GCC rather than risk missing out on the new emerging opportunities. The Middle East was unifying. While the US was fracturing. ___ Meanwhile, Gaza faced a desperate game. Israeli police stormed Al-Aqsa during Ramadan, unleashing stun grenades and tear gas. The blockade, tightening since 2007, left 47% unemployed, 80% of 2.3 million on aid. Power was reduced down to four hours daily after Israel cut fuel. Water was 97% undrinkable, 40% of freshwater gone by 2022, kids dying from dehydration. 63% of 20 year olds jobless, permits blocked 98% of the time. Settlements encroached with 300 evicted in Jarrah in 2021, 3,500 new units by 2023, a $500 million land grab with Smotrich pushing “voluntary migration.” A slow chokehold on 2.3 million lives. ___ With the Middle East unifying, Gaza suffocating and the US fracturing, a perfect storm brewed for Israel, and it wasn’t subtle. October 7 was the manifestation of Middle Eastern powers unifying just enough to devastatingly cripple Israel once and for all. So, who orchestrated October 7? At minimal examination, both the GCC and the Axis powers. Who knew about it beforehand? Almost everyone. Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Axis states like Iran and Syria, the GCC, Israel, (and by extension the US), Russia and China. I still recall the videos of Hamas fighters in Gaza’s streets, urging Palestinians to stay safe and survive, repeatedly promising Oct 7 to be the final war. Everyone tracked the board. For the first time in 70 years, I believe the Axis and Sunni economic powers allied to break Israel. A grinding attrition war led by Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis wearing Israel down, followed by a GCC economic takeover, turning Israel into a dominion state under new rulers. The region acted as one bloc, with Iran agreeing to ditch the Axis when expedient. This manifested when Hezbollah and Hamas leaders fell to decapitation strikes. And Iran stood passive, with the Houthis and Hamas taking instructions from the GCC thereafter. Israel knew October 7 was coming, and there's strong evidence that suggests they did. But it played right into their dominant strategy. So they let it unfold, to seize the chance for a genocidal war to erase Palestinians from Gaza, backed by billions in propaganda to smear Hamas and blur the truth. Both players were aware of October 7. Both players were confident that their side was going to win. Hamas initiated, Israel went to work. And the rules of the game were simple: Palestinians had to resist ethnic cleansing and total displacement while Israel had to conduct it in totality. Israel lost. Meanwhile, the US MIC and FIC cooperated and watched from the sidelines, hedged their positions, betting on the outcome, tying it to the election cycle. If Netanyahu cleansed and annexed Gaza pre-election, Biden would’ve won. The MIC would have cashed in. The war would have dragged on until Palestinians were extinct, redrawing the map of Israel. Then the MIC would have cashed out, paving the way for the FIC to cash in and seek substantial leverage on its own terms. Just like Ukraine. But by late 2024, Netanyahu’s timeline faltered. Decapitation strikes ended the Axis, and effectively, placing Zionism on its deathbed. The FIC finalized the deals that require stabilization across the Middle East, chasing the GCC's economic spoils rather than dictating them. The MIC already locked into Europe, will not deviate back into the Middle East. That region is finished for them. And because Netanyahu missed the deadline, Trump won the election. The cleanup guy, ready to cement the new order. ___ No player was static. Geopolitics never is. They watched, hedged, ready to switch sides. October 7 was a coordinated, carefully crafted attack after years of pressure and diplomatic progress; Gaza suffocating, Arab states uniting, and Israel racing to legitimize its colonial roots. Hamas lit the match, but every regional player held the fuse, betting on Palestinian resilience against Israel’s onslaught. Critics on here often call my geopolitics a 5D chess. I call it standard geopolitics that's embedded in reality, not emotions, and that which factors in finance, not just militancy. But if you want to know what 5D chess looks like, It's October 7. A tactical masterclass. And a Palestinian victory.

This is not America negotiating with Venezuela. It is America negotiating with its own private sector. Delcy Rodriguez is not an independent counterpart. She is the lady the US kept in place to sign. Across the table sit the State Department, the Pentagon, Chevron, and the firms coming in behind them. The announcement calls this a deal between countries. It's not. It is the US assigning Venezuelan oil to US agencies and US companies. Maduro’s backers were China and Russia. China was the main buyer and the main creditor. It took cheap crude against loans and held claims on Venezuelan fields through its state oil companies. Russia sold weapons, sat in joint ventures, and used Caracas as a foothold in the US hemisphere. They did not back Maduro out of friendship. They backed him because he was the man who kept those claims alive. As long as he held the presidency, US could sanction Venezuela and still not take the oil. There was no public three way contract that handed the fields to American companies. What there was, and what mattered, was acceptance. Russia had floated that kind of trade before: US free in Venezuela, Russia free where it cares more. When Maduro was taken, Putin said almost nothing. Ukraine came first. Some in Moscow treated the raid as the US acting in its own backyard, the same logic Russia claims for itself. China condemned the raid in hard language. A Chinese envoy had been in Caracas hours earlier. Beijing still did not move. Venezuela was not worth a clash with the US. That silence is the understanding. A decision not to defend the man who blocked the transfer. Lavrov called it discrimination. China called it bullying. Neither reversed Maduro's removal. Rubio told the new authorities that China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba had to go if production was to rise. Now terms indicate a private company gets 100 year rights over 17 fields said to hold more than 65 billion barrels. US officials say Washington takes 55% of the output, including oil at cost for the strategic reserve and the US military. Chevron expands. China may still buy barrels later. But it will buy them through channels US controls, at prices closer to the market, not as the privileged creditor sitting behind Maduro. Venezuela is now inside the American private sector’s orbit because China and Russia allowed the blocker to fall. They did not join the new company. They accepted a world in which the US takes the hemisphere in front of it, and they keep their fights elsewhere.