Matein Khalid
The deployment of 30 US air-fueling tankers to the Middle East strongly suggests that Trump has decided to escalate the war with Iran with an American led strike on the underground nuclear site at Fordo. Since the B-2 Spirit super bombers would need tankers to refuel their fighter escort.
Ali Khamenei’s tweet threatening America was precisely the wrong message to send to Trump at a time when the IDF’s initial airstrikes have killed almost every general in the Pasdaran, Basij, Ballistic Missile Strike Force, Land Forces and Air Defense Command.
While the Islamic Republic has used low tech weapons like truck bombs to commit terrorist atrocities against its enemies worldwide since the 1980’s horror parade in West Beirut, it would be literally suicidal for the Ayatollah to order attacks against American embassies, bases and troops as long as Donald Trump is President and thus Commander in Chief of the most high tech and lethal military machine the world has ever seen.
Trump has asked for unconditional surrender from Iran and this is not an American President who will back down from such a stark public policy stance. Crude oil prices have not traded above $76 because OPEC+ has ample spare capacity, Saudi Arabia has pivoted to force down prices in the past three months and Iran has dared not mine the Straits of Hormuz or attack oil tankers in the Gulf.
If Israel bombs Kharg Island, the platform for 90% of Iran’s oil exports, all bets are off and Brent crude could easily soar to 95-$100 in a classic oil supply shock that followed the fall of the Shah in 1979, Saddam’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. Another indicator that Trump will escalate is that the US Navy’s nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Chester Nimitz with 5 missile destroyers has been deployed to the Gulf to join the USS Carl Vinson’s carrier battle strike force with its squadrons of missile destroyers. This scale of fire power suggests that the Iran war is set to enter a new and ominous chapter. While the IDF attack on Iran last Friday sent shockwaves through the oil market, any escalation will trigger a global oil panic and inflation shock that means certain recession or worse for the global economy.
After all, it is no coincidence that the oil shocks of 1979, 1980 and 1990 triggered three of the most draconian economic slumps since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
The allies killed 2-million German civilians in nightly terra bombing raids by the US AAF and the RAF to force FDR and Churchill’s unconditional surrender clause on a defeated Third Reich in 1944 and 1945. This prevented a successful military coup against Hitler though the Valkyrie plot of July 20, 1944 almost overthrew the bloodiest regime in human history. I only hope that countless Iranian civilians, the victims of the oppressive Mullah regime for the past 46 years, do not become a victim of Khamenei’s promise to never surrender. The beautiful people of Iran do not deserve this horrible fate. Zan, zindagi, azadi!
Also published on Medium.
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