Roundup: Our Terrorists, Iran, Israel, Russia
We’ll start with an item that’s worth keeping in mind any time you hear American or Brit officials condemning terrorism. The video that’s linked is only four minutes long and is well worth that amount of time:
OSINTWarfare @OSINTWarfare
Former U.S. Special Representative for Syria Engagement, James Jeffrey, disclosed the existence of a covert project aimed at rebranding Al-Qaeda leaders as political figures, during a confidential seminar held on May 10, 2025.
According to Jeffrey, a UK-based organization, operating under direct supervision of the British government and with approval from Washington, had been working for years to reshape the public image of Al-Qaeda members, training them in civil discourse and political engagement.
As part of this secret initiative, individuals previously listed as terrorists were reportedly retrained and reintroduced into the public sphere as emerging political actors, with Abu Mohammad al-Jolani cited as a prominent example.
7:40 AM · May 21, 2025
Count on it, Israel—itself a terrorist entity—was fully participating in this project. That’s why Israeli hospitals treated al Qaeda types who were wounded in battle with the Syrian government.
The news for the past nearly a week has been full of rumors of war—of supposed Israeli attacks planned against Iranian nuclear facilities. Of course, Israel is incapable of such an attack on its own—it would require high level US assistance (just as Ukraine does). That is presumably why US and UK intel operations along Iran’s borders have been operating at an increased intensity. My own view remains—call me an optimist—that this is just one more of Trump’s daft “negotiating” ploys, to coerce Iran into surrendering its sovereignty for a bad deal that the US would renounce at its own discretion—just like the last time. The problem with this is the one that Doug Macgregor outlined earlier in the week. When you keep the other guy guessing as to just how crazy you may be, they just might decide to act first, before you do. In any event, Iran is sending a message:
Iran Will Hold US Responsible For Any Israeli Attack On Nuclear Sites: Foreign Minister
Again, the question arises: Is Trump in full control of US interests? If you’re Gilbert Doctorow you laugh and say that Trump is keeping his opponents—the Israel Lobby and most of the US government—off balance until he springs his big peace surprise deal. If you’re Doug Macgregor or John Mearsheimer (see below) you’re not so sure at all.
Speaking of John Mearsheimer, the mild mannered professor, he and Judge Nap had a stimulating conversation today. The Prof reminds us of the realities of Ukraine and Israel—and of Trump. Check out my partial transcript:
Prof. John Mearsheimer: Ukraine’s Last Chance for Peace.
Judge: Do you believe the Western press about the rift between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu? Do you think this is some sort of a deception forced upon us by either the White House or the Israelis?
Prof: I don't think there's a serious rift. I think there's no question that Trump wants to do a number of things in the Middle East that Netanyahu does not want him to do, but the question is whether Trump is willing to get tough enough with Netanyahu to create a real rift, and there's no evidence that's the case. Of course, the two issues here are, number one, Iran--where Trump wants to cut a deal and Netanyahu is basically making it impossible for him to cut a deal--and then of course the other issue is Gaza, where I believe that the Trump administration would like to put an end to what's going on in terms of the genocide in Gaza, but Netanyahu and The Lobby won't let him.
Judge: Witkoff told ABC News last weekend that Trump is a humanitarian--isn't that laughable?
Prof: It's laughable. I mean, you make much on the show regarding the question of whether the war in Ukraine is now Trump's war. I would argue the same question can be applied to the genocide in Gaza. As I've said before, I believe that Trump not only owns the war in Ukraine now, he owns the genocide in Gaza as well. To argue that he's a humanitarian is preposterous.
That’s refreshing plain speaking. I’m getting tired even of people like Doug Macgregor who still want to say that—all appearances to the contrary—Trump is actually a peace monger. Trump does what he can get away with—I think that explains just about everything that seems so puzzling.
I would just say to you it's not just these particular leaders who support this policy. Inside Israel you don't see hardly any protests among the Israeli public regarding this genocidal policy. It's truly shocking, and when you look at what the Western elites are doing, they're hardly doing anything to prevent it. It's just truly amazing--it's sick! I don't know what else to say. I didn't think anything like this would ever happen, but it is happening.
The conversation now turns to the Jewish Nationalist war on Russia, so naturally the prime driver is mentioned up front. Refreshingly, Mearsheimer argues that the US sought this war with Russia—because the likes of Nuland believed we would win and would destroy Russia as a power. As Mearsheimer points out, the top military guys knew better but they were overruled by the amateurs and ideologues.
Judge: Whence came this attitude that we could use Ukraine as a battering ram with which to drive Vladimir Putin from office?
Prof: This Victoria Nuland theory--where did it come from?
Judge: Yes.
Prof: I think that we believed that once the war started we could defeat the Russians. If you look at the runup to the war, the three months before the war started--this is December 2021, January 2022, and most of February of 2022--it's very clear that the Russians were trying to cut a deal with us and to avoid war. We did virtually nothing to avoid a war. It's really quite remarkable.
Judge: Were we communicating with the Russians in that era, unlike the last two years of Biden's presidency?
My personal view regarding this next passage is that, yes, the Russians wanted to win by negotiating, without a major war—but they were determined one way or another to get the results that they needed. They knew they could win but, naturally, preferred to do it the easy way. If possible. Mearsheimer keeps saying things like “the Russians want to end it,” but that gives a misleading impression. The Russians were determined to win, because the Russians knew that the Nulands were out to crush Russia. One more reminder. When Mearsheimer talks about how we armed and trained the Ukrainians for the coming war, yes, he’s talking about Trump.
Prof: The answer is hardly at all and then the war starts and the Russians immediately reach out to the Ukrainians to talk about negotiations to end the war-- this is right after it starts. The Russians want to end it the Ukrainians agree and the famous negotiations in Istanbul start, and as you well know who ends those negotiations--it's not the Ukrainians it's not the Russians. It's the Americans and the British in the form of Boris Johnson who come in and tell the Ukrainians that they should walk away from the negotiations. Now you want to ask yourself, what's going on here? What's going on is, we thought that we could defeat the Russians. This is why we didn't try to prevent the war and why, once it started, we didn't go along with Putin's efforts to stop the war. We thought we had the Russians and Putin right where we wanted them. We thought that we had armed and trained the Ukrainians to the point where they could hold their own on the battlefield and, furthermore, economic sanctions would deliver a really staggering blow to the Russians. That combination of economic sanctions plus defeat on the battlefield would knock the Russians out of the ranks of the great powers and it would end up with Putin falling from power.
This next passage explains who was really running the war. It wasn’t the professional military, it was the ideologues.
That was the basic mindset that we had and, again, as I've said a long time ago on this show, you want to remember that General Millie, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the fall of 2022 said that Ukraine after successes on the battlefield had reached the high water mark and it was time to negotiate an end to the war. This is what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says in the fall of 2022. The Biden administration tells him to close his mouth and continues to push forward with the war. And the question is, why? Because we thought that it was not the high water mark for the Ukrainians, that things would only improve over time and we would in effect finish the Russians off as a great power. Of course we were categorically wrong--one could say catastrophically wrong--and the people who are paying the price for our foolishness are the Ukrainians.
In the following exchange the Judge is confused about what war was going on in 2014. Mearsheimer explains. I don’t know how you feel about senators going overseas to monger for war on nuclear powers. I don’t think it’s any of their business.
Judge: In 2014 two Republican senators visited Ukraine John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Here's what they said
Lindsey!: Your fight is our fight! 2017 will be the year of offense! All of us will go back to Washington and we will push the case against Russia. Enough of Russian aggression! It is time for them to pay a heavier price!
McCain: I believe you will win! I am convinced you will win, and we will do everything we can to provide you with what you need to win.
Judge: There was no war going on, or was there in 2017? Donald Trump was relatively new in the White House. McCain, whom he hated, was making these statements. Graham—who repeated everything McCain said—said what he said. Who was calling the shots?
Indeed.
Again, I disagree with Mearsheimer. Yes, in a way Trump wanted to “improve relations with Russia,” but that was all about detaching Russia from China and using Russia against China. Trump had been very clear about that in the past. It wasn’t about “improving relations” per se—it was about doing a deal and using Russia. On the other hand, note that Mearsheimer—who is typically cautious with his choice of words—states that Trump was forced to adopt policies that were directly opposed to his supposed goals. Never mind that Trump later repeatedly bragged about how he armed Ukraine and sanctioned Russia in ways that Obama wouldn’t do. If we judge from what we’re seeing of Trump now, might it not be the case that Trump—having been stiffed by Putin, who refused to backstab China—was trying to threaten, scare, and coerce Putin into changing his mind?
Prof: Well, the thing is that you want to remember that when Donald Trump came into office he tried to improve relations with Russia and he had no interest in starting a war in Ukraine. But he was unable to improve relations with Russia and in fact the blob--the foreign policy establishment--forced him to start arming Ukraine. It was Donald Trump, not Barack Obama who started arming Ukraine, and of course we were training Ukraine units at the same time.
The conversation turns to the prospects for a negotiated “peace.” If you read between the lines a bit, you’ll see that Mearsheimer is actually saying that Trump isn’t interested in peace as such—because a formal peace would entail America acknowledging defeat. Instead, he believes Trump will simply “walk away”. Mearsheimer doesn’t say so, but I presume Trump will continue the mantra that it was never his war—so just walk away. But what Trump actually wanted was a ceasefire in place—a Biden idea, a Russian admission of defeat. Not gonna happen.
Prof: The negotiations are going to go nowhere—that's what Monday's telephone conversation between Putin and Trump shows us. And it basically looks like Trump is now going to walk away from the problem. I mean, what else is he going to do? He has two choices here. He can either accept Russia's demands or he can walk away. I mean there is a third option which, I think is untenable and he's made it clear it's untenable, which is that he can become Joe Biden number two and he can continue to try to support the Ukrainians. But he said he's not going to do that, so he has two choices. He can concede to the Russians their major demands—which he's not going to do—or he can walk away and I think he's going to walk away. This one's going to be settled on the battlefield and the Russians are going to win
Judge: Can the Europeans replace the Americans if and when Trump walks away?
Prof: Absolutely not
Great post as usual. Thank you, Mark. A few points:
1) I don't think the Bidenites necessarily believed that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield (although they certainly would have hoped for that). As I recall they actually argued in public that between the war and the Western sanctions on Russia there would be enough popular discontent and political pressure to topple Putin (a la color revolution). I believe getting rid of him, who they saw as their greatest obstacle to control of Russia, was their fervent hope.
2) The great frustration with analyzing Trump's actions (to which you have often recently alluded) is not knowing to what extent he is under the influence of others who hold views opposed to his native inclinations or desires. Or if what he is doing is the "real him." Sadly, given the "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax we perhaps never will know what his true intentions were toward Russia during that period. I do think the fact that he just had a two hour call with Putin is significant. Putin is no idiot and would not have put up with deception or blather from Trump. Also, the Euros and their press reacted furiously to the meeting. So is Trump perhaps becoming sympathetic to the Russian point of view? Or is he simply looking for an escape hatch and Putin is willing to give it to him? I kind of think both but probably more the second.
Join the ranks of history on fighting Russia.
Napoleon and Hitler learned the Hard Way.
Before that, the British found out with the Charge of the Light Brigade.