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by Alastair Crooke
July 28, 2026
from
Strategic-Culture Website
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The U.S.
ultimately
will have to
capitulate,
with the result
that
Iran becomes a
regional power...
Trump ordered the U.S. military
not to carry out new strikes on Iran Friday night, despite approving
earlier a "Gates of Hell massive attack"
on Iran.
The U.S. has now
requested a new temporary ceasefire
with Iran and is seeking a return to the collapsed and suspended MoU,
with discussions to include Yemen, and with Trump seeking to make
Ansar Allah a party to the
negotiations.
Clearly Trump is angry, and
fears that that the war is
consuming his Presidency (and his legacy).
Iran comprehensively rejected all negotiations
throughout this last week and confirmed it will not start
negotiations under any circumstances.
Put simply,
why would Iran consent to give the U.S. time
to regroup and rearm before launching another round of strikes
on Iran when it has the U.S. 'on the run'.
A return to the MoU whose credibility Trump
repeatedly has shredded? Unlikely...
Will Schryver
notes that rumors are swirling that
the Pentagon is pressuring Trump to
call off the war with Iran
because the U.S. has nearly exhausted its stockpiles of air-defence
interceptors and stand-off strike missiles.
The President's top aides are also uneasy about
the prospect of,
"Few if any in Mr. Trump's inner circle
believed the plan to escalate was wise, said the two people
briefed", the New York Times
reports.
It seems too that jiggery-pokery over the exact
fuel supply situation in the U.S. may have played a part in Trump's
backtrack.
Larry Johnson
reports that,
"[A] brief prepared by Karl Miller
investigates how the U.S. military's covert fuel procurement and
export operations are depleting the nation's diesel and jet fuel
reserves, particularly during a period when domestic stocks are
already critically low".
In gist, Miller says that,
"much of this (covert) fuel export is routed
through opaque channels, such as the Rotterdam trans-shipment
hub, where the final military or foreign allocation is not
publicly reconciled, leaving the American economy exposed to
shortage risks - whilst military and foreign operations -
"notably Israel" - receive priority access".
This report by Miller seems to connect to the
U.S. authorities' open manipulation of oil benchmarks designed to
convince markets that there is no danger of fuel shortages arising
from the ongoing emergency release from the
SPR (Strategic Petroleum
Reserves) of 172 million barrels that was initiated to counter
supply shocks from the conflict with Iran.
Whilst the statuary security floor is 250 million barrels (the
current level is around 300), nonetheless the narrative is being
promoted that the drawdown can go even further (to 70 mbpd).
But can it?
What is the minimum level the strategic oil
reserves can go to?
It is more complicated than just one big vat of
crude that has a specific level.
The SPR is composed of many caverns, and contains
different types of crude oil, that are being drawn down at different
rates, with some caverns likely to collapse if drained too far.
In short,
nobody knows how far is too far.
It's all guesswork...
With the back broken to Trump's military
assault, the only path back to negotiations would be to
offer front-loaded real concessions.
But even were Trump to do this, would he be
believed?
And can Trump's mental state sustain such
implied humiliation?
The main obstacle on the path back to
negotiations with Iran is that he and his inner circle
understand Iran back-to-front.
They aver to believe that they are dealing
with an intransigent and hardline leadership, whilst Iranians as
a whole long for an exit...
This is wrong:
It is the other way around.
It is the leadership that is pragmatic
It is 'the street' that is overall more
hard-line and demands vengeance.
And demands to know why there should be
negotiations at all...
Then again, Team Trump and his Fox News
cheerleaders have slipped from the earlier U.S. vision of itself
as a redeemer nation into a radical Manichaean 'characterization of
itself', Professor Michael Vlahos
writes, in which,
"American "good news" has been replaced by
the ever-present specter of Evil and the threat of force. The
holy words, Freedom and Democracy, while still
chanted, have become a hollow mantra.
The American "gospel" no longer preaches
about bringing redemption and expiation:
it is now concerned with enforcement and
punishment.
The volte-face came in an instant, on
9/11 and with Guantanamo".
The problem then centers on attitude:
How is it possible to negotiate or talk to
the
embodiment of 'evil'
(as Trump terms the Iranians)...?
It isn't possible, of course.
That was the point to casting enemies in such
dark terms.
It precludes true mediation.
It precludes a solution that can be viewed as
the elevation to power for "one of the most evil people in
history", leading a "gang of bloodthirsty thugs".
It distils policy to the search for dominance
over the 'otherness'.
The West exhibits one particular way of thinking
that it deems to represent the essence of that which is Human.
This mode of thinking (often termed Apollonian)
links to,
Patriarchy, law, and vertical top-to-bottom
secular, rational, mechanistic thinking.
It offers little room for 'betweenness'.
Things are either 'A' or 'non-A'...
However, another sphere (often termed the
Dionysian) expresses the energetic duality in both nature and in
the human:
male and female, order and exuberant
transgression, and of rectitude and degeneracy.
They form the poles within consciousness that
both co-inhere in us, and that co-constitute each other. (Dionysian
logos may be viewed perhaps as the shadow, or even of the
revolt against Apollo).
And then there is Persephone (the underside to the Dionysian
'shadow') expressing the chthonic, feminine existence.
Here there is no male pole, but only a goddess
radiating earthiness and the female principle of reproduction, the
process of growth and of caring, and of underworld knowledge (called
intuition), symbolizing the cyclical Life of Aphrodite:
decay, death and ultimate renewal...
Consciousness however,
mostly expresses the human quality from one particular orientation.
Nonetheless, all civilizations draw from the full
diversity of such components to consciousness that - one way or
another - respond to a particular civilization.
To think in one culture is to think in one
way.
However to belong to a different culture, a
different ethnic group, a different religion - means that
thinking will differ.
Yet we all remain human...
So the imperial hubris of Trump is beginning to face
the fact that he will find it hard - possibly impossible - to find a
solution to the Middle East, because to see the world from the
purely Apollonian perspective is essentially male and
exclusivist and fails to understand 'otherness', but rather relies
on exceptional privilege.
It simply does not - and cannot - recognize a
plurality of minds...
The U.S. has lost
the war...!
By adopting such uncompromising Manichaean
language, Trump effectively has severed himself from
any prospective diplomatic solution.
By widening the war (Lebanon, Yemen, Syria
and Iraq) he has severely complicated any diplomatic track.
All elements are interrelated, yet they also
have separate agendas.
Thus a solution involves a complex matrix of
issues, rather than a binary dispute between the U.S. and Iran
alone.
The U.S. ultimately will have to capitulate,
with the result that Iran becomes a regional power (strengthening
Russia and
China), whilst the Region slowly
will come to terms with this new West Asian reality...
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