KO retweeted
Publication of this 25 March 2003 photo, or one very like it, finally stopped me from reading any Australian newspapers.
This caption reads:
"A British Royal Marine from Taunton, England, gives out sweets to Iraqi children" in Umm Qasr, southern Iraq.
Photographer: Jon Mills, Associated Press.
KO retweeted
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
"There are a lot of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
What sense of offering a mere billion after working with the US to bomb Iran?
BREAKING: Saudi Arabia offers Yemen's Houthis $1 billion through Tehran to halt their attacks as part of a ceasefire, with Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman flying to Iran to negotiate it and even bringing the money with him aboard the C-130 aircraft he arrived on, per diplomatic Gulf sources to Israel Hayom.
Iran offered to mediate between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. It was represented by President Pezeshkian, SNSC chief Mohsen Rezaei and senior IRGC officials. Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin and Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir were also taking part.
This is one of the biggest concessions from the Saudis yet.
KO retweeted
So this is on top of the Mecca Agreement partners? Looks like the same as in 1979 - first Pak army called and then eventually the French solved the problem then
Breaking news: The UK will deploy fighter jets to defend Saudi Arabia from attacks from the Houthis, stepping up defence of its ally after the kingdom has been pummelled by strikes from the militant group in recent weeks. ft.trib.al/WmgxlLO
What a day, the Pakistan Army under Munir is officially partnered with Israel at the behest of Epstein's pal, MBS.
What next, invading Iran for Saudi Arabia+Israel+UAE?
Gaza needs more bombs too surely.
KO retweeted
But the parliament is not even involved in running the country
As Munir's military takes on Gulf role, Pakistan's parliament is not involved reut.rs/4yKpkOU reut.rs/4yKpkOU
Once upon a time Europeans wanted to reduce oil use, they finally found a great way, though I'm not sure this is that the greens originally intended.
I guess you can't have a future ecocide if you do it today...
This chart is crazy, especially the trend line for Australia.
What happens in France? Interesting trend there.
KO retweeted
It took almost half a century and a series of catastrophic wars in the Middle East for the Gulf states to realize that their security should primarily be based on a security architecture together with countries in the region - through dialogue, trust building and cooperation- and not to rely on foreign powers which invariably work in their own self interest…
and more importantly that Iran is -and will remain- their neighbor and a necessary component of any sustainable regional security arrangement.
I Hope - as I have been calling for decades- that the rest of the Arab countries also recognize - unfortunately through bitter experience- that a credible regional security regime among all countries of the region, including Turkey, is the best way for peace and stability in the Middle East (subject of course to the end of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the establishment of a Middle East nuclear weapons free zone.
🇦🇪 🇶🇦 🇸🇦 🇮🇷 🇺🇸 “Gulf states have called for a reset on Iran, with the United Arab Emirates urging a “new mindset” and Qatar advocating for a regional “security framework” with Tehran after the war exposed their vulnerability to Iranian attack and tarnished the US’s credibility in the Middle East.”
(…)
“Saudi Arabia has also discussed the idea of a non-aggression pact between Middle East states and Iran since the war erupted, diplomats and analysts said, as part of talks with allies on how to manage regional tensions once the conflict ends.”
ft.com/content/2a0d724d-b2be… via @AliVaez via @FT
There is this genre of western outrage which is solely concerned about the feelings of the Israeli committing crimes against humanity, the feelings of the children picking flowers or drinking water or going to school are never considered.
Ces images sont terribles pour Israël. Et ce ne sont pas juste des images : derrière elles, il y a une réalité humaine.
Des enfants palestiniens arrêtés par des militaires israéliens pour avoir cueilli des légumes et des fleurs sauvages à proximité d’une colonie. Comment ne pas voir, dans de telles scènes, l’impasse d’une réalité fondée sur l’occupation, le contrôle et la force ?
Toute personne lucide devrait pouvoir comprendre que la voie de la guerre et de l’occupation ne pourra jamais être une solution durable.
The future is here, it looks just like the failing era of the Roman empire or the glory days of the British Royal Navy in the 17th-19th century.
A Ukrainian serviceman describes how mobilized men are taken to the front: locked in a cage on the truck, delivered like cargo, forced to fight. That is a human-rights violation in plain sight. Everyone knows the quiet truth: many Ukrainian men would run if they could. The country has been turned into a cage — an autocracy where life is reduced to survival, speech is punished, and corruption kills any will to fight. Listen to how people are being driven to the line. This war has to be stopped.
Since Pakistan is thinking of defending Saudi Arabia for Islamic reasons, this article seems strangely relevant
nytimes.com/2026/04/29/world…
@KhawajaMAsif @OfficialDGISPR does the Mecca defense pact include the mini Mecca at Epstein island too?
Would be interesting to know who many items from Mecca did MBS gift to Epstein vs to Pakistan?
The ppl signing the Mecca Defence pact should know
US/Israel/EU are looking for a country stupid enough to fight for them in the middle east.
Enter Pakistan?
polymarket.com/event/pakista…
Interesting analysis of the House of Saud - I think it doesn't go far enough with how rotten the whole edifice is, but will be interesting to see how this impacts countries like Pakistan who rely heavily on Saudi Arabia for crumbs for its elite and remittances for the rest.
Alastair Crooke (@AWCrooke): Saudi Arabia is a pillar for one family. If it is no longer oil wealth for Wall Street and the petrodollar, there is nothing there. MBS had Trump as his security. That is gone. The reserves went into NEOM. He cannot deal with Ansar Allah because Washington runs the state.
“Saudi is a pillar that rests on one person, one family—one family that gerrymandered the succession so that they can become king. Don’t forget Salman changed the succession. It’s supposed to go from brother to brother to brother, and he changed all of that. He has alienated most of the family. It rests on a very fragile pillar. Unless they are seen as the source of oil wealth for Wall Street, for the petrodollar, for Washington—if that cannot be sustained—then what is there to Saudi Arabia? Nothing. There’s nothing there beyond that.
This is a huge humiliation in terms of Saudi culture. MBS had Trump on his side. This was his security. This was his basis for going ahead. And suddenly it’s clear to all the rivals, all those people in his own family. You recall the Ritz-Carlton episode, where he literally imprisoned them in a hotel and hung them upside down until all the money came out of their pockets. They were just literally humiliated. Some of them have disappeared. Some of them have been humiliated. And there are the tribes that have been largely dispossessed of their income. So what’s going to happen?
Well, there’s no money. The reserves that were built up. No one’s getting paid at the moment. Contracts, building sites—nothing is being paid. There is no money to pay anything. There’s no money to buy people out. There was a big reserve built up of cash, but most of that has gone on these big projects like the NEOM hotel and these other projects, and there’s none of that left.
So bin Salman is on his own there, with everyone looking and wondering. This is the end of a colonial structure. The colonial structure is collapsing in the Gulf, and the Saudis are the lynchpin of that. Why doesn’t he just do a deal with the Yemenis? The answer is he’s just too embedded in the United States structures. He can’t do it. He’s always been wholly embedded with US presidents, with the US military structures, down to the last element. They run the state for him, and he just cannot do it. He cannot make a deal with the Houthis.
The consequences are huge. Saudi Arabia is not selling oil. It doesn’t have money. It’s not allowed to sell its treasuries. It’s been trying to sell shares, but even its allies in the Gulf don’t want to buy them except at a huge discount, because they’re not sure that Saudi will be there as we know it tomorrow or the next day, or next month. There’s a great reluctance, even from Gulf allies, to come and help him out.
We’re seeing a huge shift. All of these post-colonial states are hanging by a thread, because Saudi Arabia and its connections with Israel—and its use by Israel as an Israeli platform over many, many years—have been the pivot for the whole Gulf region. Everyone is watching that.
At the same time, Iran is mobilizing a million people into these self-sacrifice battalions of a thousand people each. A million! This isn’t to defend against some expeditionary force from the United States coming and landing on the other side of the Hormuz. I don’t think that’s even possible. I don’t think it’s likely to happen. I don’t think they can go; where would they launch from? How would they arrive? What would be the transport? Who would supply them? How would they fight? What would be the purpose of it? I think in Washington and the Pentagon, everyone came to the conclusion to pursue this, to go on with war against the Houthis, who have effectively won against Saudi Arabia. It seems pointless and would end badly, end much worse, because it might widen and become a much wider regional war involving Iraq. If I were Bahrain or Kuwait seeing the Iranians mobilizing a million men, I would be very frightened indeed. I’m sure they are.
This was the bedrock of Israeli policy, the big gamble: to isolate, defame and undermine Iran and to base everything on the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia as the means to assimilate itself into the Middle East—into the region. Now that is visibly shaking before their eyes.
Inflation is everywhere. It has gone global. The crisis that was coming has come. It’s arrived. Inflation everywhere is going up because everything moves by diesel in Europe and in America. That’s the delivery system. The trains, often the boats, survive on diesel. So everything is going up. Prices are going up everywhere. Airfares are going up.”
The City built the Gulf on oil, garrisons, and a dollar ledger. The physical economy is sending the bill.