Mid-East Oil

It Was Saudi Arabia That Broke Iran, Not the US
Maxinomics

It's always good to learn a little more about how we got where we are.

Strait of Hormuz

Far Side 1987

This whole business about the Strait of Hormuz isn't making a lot of sense. Supposedly, we (the USA) launched a devastating attack on Iran. That should have knocked out all their offensive capability but evidently it didn't. An empty oil tanker can be worth $100 million so I can understand why people would not want to send their ships through the strait if there are still hostile forces operating in the area. 

Strait of Hormuz

Anyway, I'm hearing a lot of noise, but no good explanations, so I asked Google and this is what I got back:

Based on reports as of April 2026, Iranian forces around the Strait of Hormuz have not been fully destroyed despite significant damage from U.S. and Israeli strikes because of the asymmetrical, dispersed, and unconventional nature of Iran's maritime capabilities, which are designed specifically to withstand such an onslaught. 

While U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have destroyed key Iranian missile launchers, ships, and infrastructure, several factors prevent complete neutralization: 

• Asymmetric "Mosquito Fleet": Iran's primary threat comes from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, which relies on a massive, dispersed network of fast attack boats, drones, and uncrewed vessels. These small assets are hard to target compared to large, conventional naval vessels. 
• Geographical Advantages & Hiding Spots: Iran uses its rugged coastline, small islands, and underground naval facilities to hide launchers, making them hard to completely wipe out. 
• Mobile and Low-Cost Drones: Many of Iran's disruptive weapons, such as sea drones and missiles, are launched from mobile platforms on land, making them difficult for intelligence to track and destroy in their entirety. 
• Persistent Naval Mines: Iran has deployed acoustic mines that are challenging to detect. Clearing these would require an extensive and slow-moving mine clearance operation, even while IRGC forces are hunted. 
• The "Human Shield" of Shipping: The Strait is extremely narrow, with shipping lanes running close to Iran's coast. Full-scale destruction of all Iranian capabilities risks civilian collateral damage or catastrophic, immediate oil market shocks. 
• "Destroyed" vs. "Deterred": While US officials aimed to destroy the Iranian navy to remove the threat, the IRGC continues to operate in a guerrilla-like fashion. 

As of mid-April 2026, despite a US naval blockade, Iran still maintains a "strict control" posture over the waterway, using the threat of its remaining capabilities to disrupt traffic. 

War

United States Air Force /  Royal Air Force - Middle East Activity 7 February 2026 - 1700z

I seem to recall that we sent a bunch on warships, like an armada, over to the Persian Gulf recently. They might still be there.

Now we have this little bit of news from ZeroHedge:

At Least 112 USAF C-17 Aircraft Headed To Middle East: 'Desert Storm Levels'

C-17 is a big aircraft. 112 is like half of our fleet.

Seems like there are wars being fought all over the world. Everyday we hear about people being killed in all kinds of places. War seems to have become business as usual. Not surprising since people seem to be naturally disagreeable. Looks like we might be getting involved in another mid-east cluster fuck. I can only hope that this one turns out better than the last eleventy-zillion.

Old Man Of The Mountain

Betty Boop - The Old Man Of The Mountain - 1933 HD
Betty Boop HD

JMSmith is talking about the Old Man of the Mountain, and that sparks a vague memory of old cartoons and YouTube delivers this one featuring Betty Boop. Here's the intro to JMSmith's post:

Notes on Assassination
 

“The extirpation of the Assassins or Ismaelians of Persia may be considered as a service to mankind.” - Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776)

Ismaleans are the largest branch of Shia Islam.  Shia Islam itself is in some respects comparable to Catholic Christianity, at least insofar as it grants great authority to Imams, who are honored as successors to Mohammed, the Prophet, much as Catholic Christians grant great authority to Popes, who are honored as successors to Jesus, the Christ.   Sunni Islam on the other hand is in some respects comparable to Protestant Christianity because it is grounded on the scripture of the Koran and hadith.

The Order of Assassins to whom Gibbon refers was an Ismaelian sect that flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth century.  Although dispersed throughout Syria and Persia (Iran), the Order of Assassins operated with the discipline and policy of an organized state.  Its capital was a mountaintop fortress known as Alamut Castle, located north of Tehran, wherein dwelt a dictator known to West as the Old Man of the Mountain.  This Old Man did not, however, give law to a large territory, but rather to  a large network that spread through neighboring states, much as veins of blue mold spread through cheese.  There were “knots” in this network—minor fortresses subordinate to Alamut—and the whole might be likened without originality to a spider’s web.

The Order of Assassins (or Nizari Ismaili state) is of course best remembered for eschewing open battle and employing the stealthy strategy of targeted assassination, a word that is derived either from the first Old Man of the Mountain, Hassan-I Sabbah, or from their rumored use of hashish.  So, as Gibbon goes on to say,

“Among the hills south of the Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with impunity above an hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or imam, established his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of mount Libanus [that is to say Mount Lebanon, on the Syrian coast] . . . . With the fanaticism of the Koran, the Ishmaelians had blended the Indian transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets: and it was their first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind obedience to the vicar of God.  The daggers of his missionaries were felt both in the East and West: the Christians and the Moslems enumerate, and perhaps multiply, the illustrious victims that were sacrificed to the zeal, avarice, or resentment, of the old man (as he was corruptly styled) of the mountain.”

He goes on to talk about assassination and Israel's recent targeting of Iran's nuclear scientists. 

Which reminds me of an old story about a man going to visit a scientist at his home. The scientist is working on building some fearsome new weapon. The man tries to dissuade the scientist from completing his weapon, as the leader to whom the new weapon will be entrusted is seriously deranged. The scientist refuses on the basis that he is not responsible for what fearless leader does. While the scientist is distracted, the man slips into the scientist's imbecile child's room and places a loaded revolver in the kids bed. He then leaves. The scientist discovers the gun and asks 'what kind of lunatic would give a loaded gun to a imbecile?'

Meanwhile, France denied Israel permission to participate in their air show, and here's Israel's response:

Israel Defense Industries

Iran has been stirring up shit in the mideast ever since their last revolution. It's time somebody smacked them down.

Special Ops: Lioness - Amazon Series

Special Ops: Lioness Season 1 Trailer
Rotten Tomatoes TV

This show is just insane. Tough girl joins the Marines, gets recruited by the CIA, goes undercover in Kuwait to infiltrate filthy rich family in order to get close to the patriarch, a terrorist for hire. Black Ops, helicopters, operators dispensing death and destruction left, right and center.

Unlike many of the shows we watch, the soldiers here are competent. They're also cowboys. They know what they are, they know their jobs and how to work together and that's all that counts.

It's weird how the amount of money you have available can completely change your view of what's important. Poor people squabble over a dollar. When daddy has a zillion dollars you don't flinch at paying a thousand dollars for a T-shirt because it's 'cute'. Actors have to mimic both kinds of attitudes and the entire range in between.

Why Arabs Lose Wars

Detailed Analysis: Why Arabs Lose Wars?
Magical History

The value of this video is found in the audio. The video is just a sequence of very short clips of military scenes. They don't seem to have anything to do with the audio. 

I kind of suspected that Arab culture is as paranoid and self-serving as described, so it's nice to have someone reinforce my beliefs.

Will they ever change? I dunno, the Soviet Union went on for a long time before they finally collapsed due to lack of money. The Arabian oil states don't show any sign of running out of oil anytime soon, but there are several Arab states that don't have any oil to speak of. What's propping them up?

P. S. An older post about Shame, Guilt and Arab Culture.

Mideast

Mideast

The Ayatollah is a dirty commie. He may not proclaim himself a commie, but by his actions you may know him. Doesn't it say something like that in the Bible, the Christian Bible? According to the Ayatollah, it's either his way or prison, which is the modus operandi of ever good, er, dirty commie. It doesn't matter whether his way makes any sense or not, which is why they have a hard time putting together a military force that is powerful enough for anyone to consider it a threat. Anyone who has a brain is going to be insulted by the Ayatollah's bullshit. The only way anything gets done is if you have slimey weasels to run interference, people who can takes the Ayatollah's blabber and translate it, transform it, or possibly even deflect it before it reaches the ears of those who are actually capable of doing the work. That would be a tough job, I don't think I could do it, and I certainly don't want to be in a position where I would be compelled to.

Israel, you may have heard, has killed two top terrorists in the last few days. One was a leader of Hamas and the other was a big shot in Hezbollah. I couldn't be happier, especially when I read the nonsense coming out of Al Jazeera.

I've been wondering why someone doesn't quash some of these tin-pot dictators and set up a new system of government, like we did with Japan and Germany in WW2. Then I realized doing something like this generally means war, and wars are expensive. These days it has become a question of economics. If you invade and take over some country, are you going to be able to extract enough money to make it worth while? I mean the chief-jerks-in-charge would be fine with it as long as it doesn't impact their whores, toot and private jets, but with inflation the cost of whores, toot and private jets ranks right up there with funding a small army. So as long as North Korea and Iran are just spouting off and aren't seriously bothering anybody, it's easier and cheaper to just let them go along their merry way.

Hamas went over the line and Israel is angry, they are going to continue their war against Hamas and Hezbollah until they are eliminated from the face of the earth. At least I hope they are. It certainly doesn't make any sense to stop now. Iran might get involved, but I think they are just going to continue  doing what they are doing, which is spouting nonsense and funding terrorists. They are unlikely to do anything serious, even assuming they are cabable of launching a competent attack, given that the USA might take offense. But that's all idle speculation and I'm not going to worry about it. It would be a shame if someone carpet bombed Tehran, but it's no more than they deserve. It could be an opportunity to create a new society in Iran, one that wasn't hell bent on picking fights with its neighbors.

Biden and Hamas, two of a kind

LNG tanker © Getty Images / nikkytok

Qatar is sheltering Hamas leadership. In my book that means they are supporting Hamas. Israel is currently engaged in destroying Hamas. Meanwhile the Houthis in Yemen are attacking shipping in the Red Sea, ostensibly in support of Hamas. Qatar is a big exporter of LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) and now they are worried that the Houthis are going to attack their ships. RT has the story. These guys have too much money and not enough brains.

Meanwhile fucking Joe Biden blows up the Nord Stream pipeline so now Europe needs another source of natural gas. They can buy it from the USA, which gets Joe some support, or they can buy it from other places, like Qatar, who is supporting terrorism. You can argue that blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline was an act of terrorism, so fucking Joe Biden has made the USA another terrorist organization, just like Hamas. What a piece of shit.

Gaza

Troops from the IDF’s Golani Brigade inside Gaza’s parliament building in Gaza City,  November 13, 2023

From The Times of Israel comes this story about hostage negotiations:

Hostage deal, even if it fails, shows Hamas’s desperation by Haviv Rettig Gur

This line caught my eye:

As any aspiring gangster knows, there’s a tipping point to extortion when the cost of avoiding violence rises past the cost of the violence itself, when the victim’s incentives flip from payment to vengeful defiance.

I hope Israel follows through with their plan to eliminate Hamas.

Links

Zerohedge is ranting about the Federal Government again. No surprise there, but this line in the linked article got my attention:

US To Borrow $1.5 Trillion In Debt This & Next Quarter, After Borrowing A Massive $1 Trillion Last Quarter. 

The linked article itself is full of . . . something . . . but this line pretty much sums it up. Remember when a billion used to be something? Now the government is borrowing a billion dollars every two hours. And then they send it to Ukraine and our own locally owned and operated defense industry.

Hamas Loves Dead Palestinians by Ben Shapiro on The Daily Wire. I don't particularly like Ben Shapiro, though I do agree with many of his views. I got my negative impression from several brief videos I've seen of him confronting someone opposed to him. He's kind of forceful and abrasive. I dunno, maybe that's what it takes to confront some of these idiots. Actually, he's probably a lot more civil than I would be. Of course, you'd be hard pressed to get me to confront an idiot. I mean, they're idiots, why waste your time? As to the article, I said something similar earlier.

Nasrallah & the Future of the War by As`ad AbuKhalil on Consortium News. Kind of a strange story, he's looking at the political forces at work in Lebanon. Evidently Nasrallah is the head of Hizbollah (Hezbollah?) so he gets to deal with Iran, Lebanon, Hamas and the Gulf States (by which I think the author means Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates).

Where are all these places? Here they are:

The Mideast
Area shown is approzimately 1,500 miles east to west and a thousand miles north to south

Every time I look at this area it's like a whole new experience - nothing is where I imagined it would be. Probably should try drawing it a few times.

War Dead

Hamas Chairman Ismail Haniyeh (left) meets with Syrian President Bashar Assad 
(AP Photo/Sana)

Richard Fernandez has a post up talking about siege warfare and how it applies to Gaza. Not particularly edifying, but it does contain this bit of information:

The standard metric for estimating collateral damage is the civilian casualty ratio, defined as the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties. For WWI, it was 3:5, WWII 1:2, Korea 2:1, Vietnam 1:1, Chechen Wars 7:1, Afghanistan 2:5, Iraq War 1:2, WOT [War On Terror] drone strikes brought the number as low as 1:50, Israeli airstrikes Gaza dipped to 1:30. But in Israel’s last incursion into Gaza in 2014, it rose again between 1:1 to 5:2, depending on whose figures are cited.

 

Mideast

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah meets Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ziad al-Nakhala and deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri [Hezbollah Media Office/Handout via Reuters]

In the past Aljazeera's take on world events has been fairly rational but since Hamas attacked Israel their stories have been very one-sided, being mostly about the 'poor Palestinians' and the 'evil Israelis'. Then today we have this headline:

Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad chiefs discuss route to ‘victory’ on Israel

The story doesn't really say any more than that. However, I don't think they really want victory. I think their fight with Israel is very much like the Jihad the Democrats have been running against Trump. Both the Democrats and the Arad Jihadis like the publicity they get from their campaigns. If they won, their Jihad would be over and their inherent evil would come front and center, and that could threaten their hold on power, which is all they really want.

Mostly I just wanted to post this picture so we would know just who the shitbags are.

The Middle East is Complicated

Several places posted stories, but they don't show much more light on the matter than what's in the video clip:

• The National - Egypt-Russia relations reach new heights in Ukraine war aftermath
• DW - Egypt's difficult balancing act between the West and Russia
• The Atlantic Council -Egypt is cozying up to Russia. It’s time for the US to step in.
• Arab Center Washington DC - The Fallout of Sisi’s Gambit with Russia

But I did find this pic:

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El Sisi in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. Reuters

Palestine

Gaza Strip

Aljazeera has a short history of Israel and Palestine, along with several graphics, one of which is shown above. You might expect Aljazeera, being Arabic, to lean towards the Palestinians, but the story pretty much sticks to the historical facts. Well, near as I can tell, I haven't checked any of it. I have heard rumors of horror stories from Israel's early years, so it rings true.

Near as I can tell, Iran is the source of all the trouble. I don't think the situation will ever be resolved until the Saudis and Iran go to war, but Arabs don't seem to be able to wage a competent war. Every time Egypt went up against Israel, they got their ass kicked. Iran and Iraq fought a war for like ten years and all they accomplished was to kill a bunch of their people. Neither country was conquered and the leadership on both sides remained entrenched. So maybe Saudi Arabia is hoping Israel will be provoked into stomping on Tehran.

Defeating your enemy in combat is one thing, but what do you do then? We basically took over and rebuilt Germany and Japan after WW2 and I think we did a pretty good job. Iraq was another story. We had a chance to rebuild that country but we didn't and now it's just another shithole.

I dunno, maybe the Arab world is too alien to be amenable to Western ways. But Japan and the Nazis in Germany were pretty far out there and those countries were civilized. Perhaps the amount of destruction necessary to ensure obedience is more than we are willing to inflict. In that case this shit will just continue indefinitely.

On the other hand, maybe the Ayatollahs are right, their version of Islam is the correct one and all us infidels are doomed to an eternity in hell. I suspect that they don't really want to win, they just want to stay on the front page of their local media.

P. S. David Warren has a different take on this situation.

Arabs and Budweiser

QATAR vs OMAN || FIFA ARAB CUP 2021
(link goes to auto-start video)

I played a few games of soccer twenty odd years ago. Like most sports, it's great fun, especially if you are competing against players of comparable talent. But I don't watch soccer games, and the few times I have caught a bit of a game, there didn't seem to be much in the way of strategy. It was more like guys trying to finesse their way through a cloud of chaos.

Anyway, the reason we have this photo if because I Want A New Left noticed the ads for Budweiser in the stadium (red sign just left of center in the above photo). 

Another oddity was seeing Budweiser advertised in the stadium. Was that meant for the fans? Surely not, since most were Muslims, and Muslims generally don’t drink. I guess, then, that it was meant for the viewing audience, though it’s hard to know how many outsiders were watching.

P.S. According to Wikipedia, Tunisia (which is where this game was played) is 98% Muslim, but supposedly the government is secular. So maybe not all died-in-the-wool ragheads.

Disneyland for Divers

World’s deepest pool with a ‘sunken city’ opens in Dubai
South China Morning Post

Dubai is has got to be the strangest city in the world. Tiny, rich, popular with tourists in spite of being a freaking steam bath in the summertime. (Okay, it's probably very nice the rest of the year.) It's in the mideast but only gets a small fraction of their income from oil and gas. It's been run by the same family for pert near 200 years. 

Dubai has appeared here before. Also here. And don't forget about Abu Dhabi which is just down the road a bit.

Gaza: Morality and Reality

Palestine & Israel

George Friedman has a short history of Palestine since WW2. 

George Friedman, where have I heard that name before? I ran a search on my blog and I was surprised by the number of times the name Friedman showed up. That might explain why I thought his name was familiar. However, most of them were not George. There was one post that mentioned George back in 2013. Other Friedmans I found were:

• C. S. Friedman - Science Fiction Author
• Daniel Friedman - author, blogger and law professor
• George Friedman - geopolitical forecaster
• Milton Friedman - Economist
• Richard A. Friedman - Psychiatrist
• Thomas Friedman - New York Times columnist

Via Richard Fernandez

Rockets Red Glare

 

Rockets over Gaza
Israeli interceptors on the left, Hamas attackers on the right

What we have here is a bunch of 14th century religious fanatics attacking a 21st century, technologically proficient bunch of infidels. Never underestimate the power of fanaticism. Or bit twiddling.

Is it better to have continuous, small scale conflicts, or intermediate major conflagrations followed by periods of peace? Human beings evidently require a certain amount of violent conflict in their lives. You can have it in big doses like World Wars 1 & 2, or you can have it at a low level, every day, forever, in every place that has a couple of zillion people.

Happy Hanukkah

Hannukah menorah at Burj al-Khalifa, world’s tallest building in Dubai

This is a nice surprise. I've been hearing that the entire Arab world chanting 'Death to Israel' since forever, and now we have several Arab nations singing a different tune. I wonder how this is going to play out. I imagine numerous Imams are going to have a problem with it.

Via Head Noises

Dubai

Expo 2020 Airbus 380, LAX

The decoration on this aircraft got my attention, so I did a little checking. Expo 2020 is going to be held in Dubai next year. Looking at the website, I notice this little blurb: 

How can we build more inclusive societies?

I thought that was a little odd considering that regimes in the Mideast are among the most draconian in the world. From Wikipedia:

Companies in Dubai have in the past been criticised for human rights violations against labourers. Some of the 250,000 foreign labourers in the city have been alleged to live in conditions described by Human Rights Watch as "less than humane".

Okay, that's not news. As I recall most of those laborers are from India and/or Pakistan. I suspect conditions in those countries are what prompted those laborers to come to Dubai. Could it be that working for as a wage-slave in Dubai is better than their life back home?

Okay, enough about the downtrodden masses, how about a little real-life James Bond type adventure?

Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum in January 2018

Seems Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, daughter of the Prime Minister of the UAE (United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is one), tried to 'escape' with the help of a former French intelligence officer via jet-ski and sailing yacht but was forcibly brought back.

Sailing yacht Nostromo

Could it be Latifa doesn't care for Dubai's brand of inclusiveness?