This week: two audio essays, on one big Iran cluster-frig.
In the Collingwood corner:
Donald Trump has become an unreadable politician. His credibility has burst through various levels of ‘madman theory’ negotiating prowess, into a place where it may not even be clear to his most intimate subordinates where his true intent begins and ends. The result is that US policy is now a broken sail, flapping in the wind.
Originally, America had four aims: dismantle Iran's nuclear programme, cap its missiles and drones, cut off its proxies, and change the regime. With nil-for-four, the window to credibly settle this beef is getting farther away – not closer.
Meanwhile, chez Pilkington:
The US now believes it can ‘print oil’. That the present attempt to jigger the markets by making use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and various ‘Whale of Hormuz’ attempts to rig the options market are long-term sustainable. They are not, as Phil points out. What goes up must come down, and the slip-slide will not be pretty. Rather than a war of attrition, Pilko suggests, the oil price war has become the totality of conflict – a Baudrillardian quarrel over supremacy of a number – only secondarily underpinned by the drones and bombs of the Arabian Gulf.
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