Recommended Reads: Russia, China, Middle East

Today there are some excellent analyses available to help navigate the complexities of the geopolitical sea around us. Let’s start with Larry Johnson’s post today, which draws attention to a policy paper that LJ believes was highly influential in shaping the US war on Russia. The first paragraph provides the short version:

Russia Ain’t a Chinese Sidecar

I want to draw your attention to an article by A. Wess Mitchell that appeared in the National Interest in August 2021. The article, A Strategy for Avoiding Two-Front War, is an excellent summary of how the US foreign policy elite view the world — i.e., the United States faces two formidable enemies, Russia and China, and we need to figure out a way to screw them over and maintain our hegemony. But Mitchell is not engaged in an academic exercise… he prepared a version of this paper for the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment in fall 2020. This was a road map for the war in Ukraine — i.e., provoke Russia into attacking Ukraine and then, with Western help, beat the hell out of them.

I highly recommend the entire article. Much of the delusional Russo-phobic policy urged by Mitchell will not be news to regular readers. However, two points stand out. The first, quoted above, is that the Anglo-Zionists fully intended to provoke Russia into attacking a Ukraine that the Anglo-Zionists had armed to the teeth. Provoking the Russian Special Military Operation was an Anglo-Zionist plan. The second point explains the foaming at the mouth opposition to Trump. Trump believed—and still does—that he could do a deal, reach a detente, with Russia before pivoting to the Main Enemy, China. This was heresy to the Anglo-Zionists, as Mitchell explains—detente with Russia, he asserts, can only work if Russia is first defeated:

Russia only takes détente with an adversary seriously after it has been forced to do so by a defeat or serious setback. This was as much a precondition for Ronald Reagan’s success at Reykjavík after the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan as it was for the English statesmen who brokered the Anglo-Russian entente after Russia’s defeat at Port Arthur in 1905. Attempts to reach détente before Russia has suffered such a setback are not only likely to fail, they are also likely to be counterproductive insofar as they implicitly concede territory and validate the wager of Russia’s current leaders that renewed empire in the west is achievable by force of arms.

The equivalent of Port Arthur or Afghanistan today is Ukraine.

In short, war with Russia has long been baked into Anglo-Zionist strategic thinking. This has been policy for the past 30 years—the end of the Cold War was viewed simply as the prelude to a pivot to a hot (but preferably a proxy) war with Russia. Trump’s ideas about doing deals had to be thwarted.

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Next up, China. In our first post today we briefly referred to the new US economic war on China. The Trump Tariffs were a bit of a fiasco, but Bessent at Treasury (whose advice is currently ascendant) has come up with an alternative plan—to be deployed in conjunction with the modified tariff regime—that has captured the support of the White House. The idea, as we saw, is to use US trade leverage to coerce other countries into cutting their trade ties with China. This looks like a smarter strategy and may account for China’s feelers in the direction of negotiation. Negotiation is almost certainly Trump’s real preference, because he’s under pressure to defuse the Yellen imposed short term debt inflation/recession nuke before the 2026 midterms. Raising large amounts of money from tariffs remains part of that strategy.

China's 'Surprise' New Trade Rep A Likely Effort At Backchanneling 'Breakthrough' With Trump

We reported earlier in the day that China has opened the door for reengaging President Trump in trade talks, which has involved Beijing laying out a set of preconditions for resuming negotiations before the tariff war spirals further.

Key to this last-minute attempt at a reset and rare bright spot of late, as we highlighted, is that China has just appointed a new top trade negotiator in a likely sign Beijing is seeking a final breakthrough moment with Washington.

In fact, China’s “preconditions” are totally reasonable, not at all deal breakers for the US—if Trump is willing to follow Bessent’s advice.

• Demand for Respect: China wants a more respectful tone from the U.S., particularly reducing disparaging remarks from U.S. cabinet members. Beijing was especially angered by Vice President JD Vance's recent "Chinese peasants" comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman called Vance's remarks "ignorant and disrespectful."

• Unified U.S. Messaging: Chinese officials are confused by conflicting signals from Washington. While Trump's tone on Chinese President Xi Jinping has been moderate, hawkish comments from other high-ranking White House officials have conflicted. Without a clear and consistent U.S. position, China sees little value in engagement.

• Point Person: Beijing wants the Trump administration to designate a point person to oversee trade talks.

Now, pivoting back to the Bessent hardball strategy—presumably only if negotiations can’t be put into play—this article is an essential read:

Bessent's Grand Strategy: Use Tariff Negotiations To Isolate China From The Rest Of The World

You need to read this closely. Success is not guaranteed—indeed, analysts credit China with playing a savvy game.

Beijing is scrambling to inflict as much financial damage on the US as possible - up to and including dumping US Treasuries in hopes of sending the dollar tumbling and prompting narratives about "the end of the US dollar reserve status" while maintaining the impression that all is well domestically as discussed here.

China “isn’t going to replace the U.S. as a source of demand for the products that a bunch of these developing countries…make,” Harrell said. “So the economics of this are going to prove challenging for China, but I think we see them playing the politics of this reasonably savvily.”

On the other hand, while China holds some important cards and is reaching out to other countries to thwart US ideas of a global anti-China coalition, many of those countries have large export sectors focused on the US and will be loath to anger the US:

Attention Homeowners: Here's Where Your Imported Home Goods Are Actually Made

China’s strongest card is probably Trump’s need to restore sanity to US fiscal policy ASAP. The challenge in negotiations will likely be finding a way to fix the looming US fiscal crisis while also accommodating China’s need for domestic stability. Both countries have strong incentives to reach an agreement.

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Last but not least, the Middle East.

Recently I maintained that the big question with regard to Iran is actually—What does Trump have in mind for the next big scheme? It’s long been evident that Trump has big plans. RT today has an article that pretty much addresses exactly that question. I’ll simply quote the concluding paragraphs of a very thorough article:

Can Trump reshape the Middle East?

All of these diplomatic, strategic, and economic goals are interlinked. The Trump administration, heavily composed of business-minded figures, sees the strengthening of economic ties with the Gulf not only as a way to attract investment into the US but also as a tool for influencing the regional agenda. Mutual interest in stable energy markets, high-tech cooperation, and shared approaches to regional security creates a foundation for deep, long-term cooperation.

In this light, Trump is heading to the Middle East with a comprehensive agenda: countering Iran, promoting a new model of Middle East peace, forging economic partnerships, and reinforcing his own political standing both internationally and domestically. His bet on the Gulf leadership reflects a broader reassessment of US foreign policy priorities: as the EU today loses trust and strategic relevance, the countries of the Persian Gulf are not merely emerging as alternatives, but as a new center of gravity for American policy in the East.

On the economic front, the Trump administration expects tangible outcomes from the visit: the signing of new trade deals, expansion of American corporate presence in the region, and stimulation of investment flows into key sectors of the US economy – from energy to advanced technologies and the defense industry. For Trump, whose political instincts are deeply rooted in business, foreign policy is closely tied to commercial interests, and the Middle East, in this model, is viewed as a market of opportunity, a resource partner, and a source of financial liquidity.

Politically, the visit serves a dual purpose. First, it is meant to demonstrate to the international community that the US remains capable of setting the agenda in one of the world’s most volatile and strategically important regions. Second, it sends a message to the domestic electorate: Trump is positioning himself as a strong leader who knows how to negotiate, expand American influence abroad, and secure the country’s economic interests through a diplomacy of strength and strategic deals. Altogether, this trip is far more than a symbolic diplomatic gesture – it is a multilayered initiative aimed at reinforcing US influence in a new global order defined by calculation, pragmatism, and control over key resources.

Perhaps the first fruits of this initiative will be to get two terrorist regimes to mutually recognize each other:

Syria to recognise Israel by end 2026

But then there’s the Turks.

All that’s for the future, but a highly recommended AmCon article today addresses the present, beginning with the pushback that’s gaining traction with some RINOs:

A U.S.-Iran Deal Would Be Good for Israel

President Donald Trump’s efforts to get a nuclear deal with Iran have met a formidable obstacle: the Israel lobby.

Pro-Israel think tanks, lobbying groups, and analysts are urging Trump to ramp up sanctions on Tehran, make unreasonable demands, and issue more threats of war, rather than secure a landmark accord. They have also sought to delegitimize Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, ...

The author then addresses the issue of the JCPOA that Trump foolishly sabotaged, at the behest of the Jewish Nationalists, led by Netanyahu. That so-called “weak Obama agreement” was actually highly effective—producing effects that should have been welcomed in both Tel Aviv on the Med as well as in Tel Aviv on the Potomac:

Tehran, in exchange for sanctions relief, dismantled most of its centrifuges, shipped much of its enriched uranium out of the country, and granted inspectors broad access to verify that it wasn’t building the bomb. The Iranian government was still complying with the accord in May 2018, when Trump withdrew from it, and continued to comply for another year in hopes of keeping the deal on life support. In 2019, however, Tehran’s patience wore out, and it resumed enriching uranium beyond the limits set by the defunct agreement.

The nuclear deal, while it lasted, not only lengthened the “breakout time” needed for Tehran to build a nuclear weapon, but had a salutary influence on Iranian politics. Thanks to reduced sanctions and Iran’s improved diplomatic relations, the moderate president Hassan Rouhani won reelection in 2017 despite opposition from hardliners. Rouhani favored not only diplomacy with the U.S.-led West but also civil rights for women and minorities. But when the nuclear deal broke down, the political standing of Rouhani and other reformists diminished, and in 2021 the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi became president.

In actual fact, as the author then documents, top Israeli officials did welcome the agreement, and strongly criticized the sociopathic Netanyahu’s actions:

These figures were frustrated when the deal collapsed, and many blamed Netanyahu. In 2021 Ben-Israel [chair of the Israeli Space Agency,] said, “Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the Trump administration to quit the nuclear agreement have turned out to be the worst strategic mistake in Israel’s history.”

Other Israeli figures, even more prescient, warned that Netanyahu was jeopardizing the entire US-Israel relationship—a warning that is now coming true, as a majority of Americans now hold a negative view of Israel:

Other Israeli officials … questioned the wisdom of flagrantly obstructing U.S. foreign policy. The former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned in 2014 that such actions could turn Israel’s superpower patron against it.

The article concludes by addressing Jewish Nationalist efforts to neuter the First Amendment—an effort that will inevitably prove to be self defeating:

Israel would be prudent to try reversing the sharp decline in favorability, but its opposition to U.S.-Iran diplomacy risks accelerating the trend. If Trump makes a war rather than a deal with Iran—and he seems to believe those are the only two options—many Americans will blame Israel for dragging the U.S. into yet another conflict in the Middle East. The Democrats, in that case, could very well become a monolithically anti-Israel party, while the Republican establishment would need to avoid alienating conservative millennials and zoomers who do not share their grandparents’ affection for the Jewish state.

The Israel lobby increasingly responds to declining favorability not with smart public relations, but by pushing the U.S. government to suppress criticism of Israel on university campuses. Many commentators have argued that the crackdowns on free speech are not just unconstitutional, but politically inexpedient. …

Conservatives are also becoming fed up with the influence of Israel and the Israel lobby on the Trump administration. After podcast host Thaddeus Russell wrote on X that “Israel will be the rock on which MAGA breaks apart,” he revealed that “prominent members of MAGA” had liked the post.

Now seems a good time for Israel and its American supporters to reassess political tactics. They should start by recognizing the benefits of American-Iranian diplomacy for Israel—and the political risks of sabotaging a top geopolitical priority of a U.S. president who can quickly turn against friends and allies who challenge him. For Israel, acquiescing to a preemptive nuclear disarmament deal with Iran would hardly be a sacrifice. As Biden once told Netanyahu, and as Trump should tell him now, Israel would be wise to take the win.