Saturday Roundup 4/26/25
Among other things I want to follow up on some items from yesterday, but let’s start with a major news story:
Several dead and over 700 injured in massive blast in Iran (VIDEOS)
At least five people were killed and more than 700 injured in a massive explosion at the Port of Shahid Rajaee in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran on Saturday, local media reported, citing local officials.
The port is located around 23km west of Bandar Abbas and immediately to the north of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which around a fifth of global oil output flows. The facility is Iran’s largest commercial port.
Videos circulating online suggest the blast was preceded by a smaller explosion that sparked a fire at the port. They show a large column of smoke and dust towering above the port.
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The cause of the blast was not immediately known, with Iranian media providing conflicting accounts of the incident from local officials. Some reports suggest the initial blast occurred at an administrative building, while others indicate that a gas tanker may have exploded at the port. Some, however, suggest that the epicenter was located at the freight container stockpile.
“The source of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area. We are currently evacuating and transferring the injured to medical centers,” a local crisis management official said.
As Iranian negotiators opened talks with the US in Oman, a massive explosion rocked Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port — which handles over 55% of Iran’s exports & imports, 70% of its port transit & 90% of its container cargo. Many are comparing it to the 2020 Beirut blast.
12/ To grasp how vital Shahid Rajaee Port in Bandar Abbas is: it’s the 2nd-largest container port in the Middle East.
Measured by TEU (the size of a standard shipping container), the UAE’s Jebel Ali Port ranks first with 14M containers, while Iran’s Rajaee Port handles 6M.
Yesterday we pointed to the assassination of a Russian general in Moscow, apparently timed to coincide with Witkoff’s latest negotiating trip. Trump has made a statement about that, which could be significant—Trump implies the obvious, that the killing was designed to derail or hinder a settlement:
Trump responds to Moscow car bombing that killed Russian general
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump, who apparently had not known about the incident until he was asked, said, “That’s hitting close to home, right? That’s a big one.” He added: “I’ll look at it. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
We also highlighted the high degree of Indo-Pakistan military tension in the wake of the terrorist attack in Kashmir. That sparked a series of comments regarding the US backed removal (and subsequent jailing) of the Pakistan president, Imran Khan. Khan’s removal—at the instigation of the US—was due to US displeasure at Khan’s stance of neutrality towards Russia. Jeffrey Sachs, at the time, explained that the US Deep State interest—which has always backed the Pakistan Deep State against the neutral Indians—is concerned to maneuver other countries into actively taking “our” side. Sachs’ account serves as a useful reminder of the way that the US Deep State—for decades—has sown instability and conflict around the world, but never seems to learn any lessons from repeated blowback:
A principal instrument of U.S. foreign policy is covert regime change, meaning a secret action by the U.S. government to bring down the government of another country. There are strong reasons to believe that U.S. actions led to the removal from power of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022, followed by his arrest on trumped-up charges of corruption and espionage, and sentencing this week to 10 years imprisonment on the espionage charge. The political objective is to block Pakistan’s most popular politician from returning to power in the elections on February 8.
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Covert regime change by the U.S. is shockingly routine. ...
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Imran Khan’s “sin” was to be too cooperative with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, while also seeking normal relations with the United States. The great mantra of U.S. foreign policy, and the activating principle of the CIA, is that a foreign leader is “either with us or against us.” Leaders who try to be neutral amongst the great powers are at dire risk of losing their positions, or even their lives, at U.S. instigation, since the U.S. does not accept neutrality. ...
Like many leaders in the developing world, Khan does not want to break relations with either the U.S. or Russia over the Ukraine War. ...
Khan probably sealed his fate on March 6 when he held a large rally in northern Pakistan. At the rally, he berated the West, and especially 22 EU ambassadors, for pressuring him to condemn Russia at a vote in the United Nations. He also excoriated NATO’s war against terror in next-door Afghanistan as having been utterly devastating to Pakistan, with no acknowledgment, respect, or appreciation for Pakistan’s suffering.
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From the U.S. perspective, “neutral” is a fighting word. The grim follow-up for Khan was revealed in August 2023 by investigative reporters at The Intercept. Just one day after Khan’s rally, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu met in Washington with Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan. Following the meeting, Ambassador Khan sent a secret cable (a “cypher”) back to Islamabad, which was then leaked to The Intercept by a Pakistani military official.
The cable recounts how Assistant Secretary Lu berated Prime Minister Khan for his neutral stance. The cable quotes Lu as saying that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.”
Lu then conveyed the bottom line to Ambassador Khan. “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.”
Five weeks later on April 10, with the U.S. blunt threat hanging over the powerful Pakistani military, and with the military’s hold over the Pakistani parliament, the Parliament ousted Khan in a no-confidence vote. Within weeks, the new government followed with brazenly manufactured charges of corruption against Khan, to put him under arrest and prevent his return to power. In utterly Orwellian turn, when Khan made known the existence of the diplomatic cable that revealed America’s role in his ouster, the new government charged Khan with espionage. He has now been convicted on these charges to an unconscionable 10 years, with the U.S. government remaining silent on this outrage.…
We also referred to Trump’s contradictory statements regarding the trade war with China. To my mind, it seems clear that Trump is trying to find an exit strategy, having miscalculated. Simplicius today takes a harsh view of Trump’s failure:
Trump Blinks, Signaling Pivotal Shift of Global Power Toward Defiant East
In many respect’s Trump’s theater is easy to see through: he has repeatedly claimed that he’s spoken to Xi personally, and that members of Trump’s team are in ‘constant contact’ with Chinese counterparts, which the Chinese themselves have denied. When grilled on this, Trump immediately retreats into deflection: rehearsed tangents on how America used to be great under tariffs, and now the world is taking advantage. What the performances appear to be hiding is Trump’s improvisational approach, wherein no real strategy is employed—rather the simple end goal of subjugating the world to US’ will …
While I certainly agree that Trump deliberately engages in “theater” for the benefit of the American public, I tend to disagree with Simplicius regarding the idea that Trump lacks a “real strategy.” The Chinese also appear to disagree—they see a coherent but misguided strategy, a miscalculation. Rather than “improvisational”, the proper word might be “impulsive.” But even that word may not do justice to Trump’s need to quickly resolve America’s fiscal woes—its mounting debt payment problem—which may be driving Trump’s hurried tariff strategy. In any event, with claims of imminent empty shelves at major retailers, Trump is clearly trying to mollify the Chinese without appearing to climb down. According to Bloomberg, the Chinese see this trade war—now that it’s started—as too important for the long run to simply pretend that nothing has happened. The likelihood is for the trade war to continue, with harm to both countries based on the Chinese calculation that they can handle the damage because time is on their side, not Trump’s side:
President Donald Trump misjudged Beijing by calculating that it would cave into economic pressure, leaving the US unprepared to handle the current tariff standoff, according to an adviser to China’s Foreign Ministry.
“The mainstream narrative within the Trump team is that because the Chinese economy is bad, if the US plays the tariff card, then China will have no choice but to surrender,” said Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai, ...
“But surprisingly to them China didn’t collapse and surrender,” Wu said during a panel discussion in Shanghai on Friday. “The US side misjudged the situation and also is not well-prepared for the confrontation with China.”
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Trump has repeatedly tried to get President Xi Jinping on the phone since he began piling tariffs on China, and claimed this week that talks between the two sides were taking place, while refusing to specify at what level. China has denied any trade negotiations are underway, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Friday that the US “should not mislead the public.”
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It’s clear that the realization that the Tariff Shock and Awe cum insults was backfiring—at least with regard to China—quickly dawned on Trump. He almost immediately offered to be “gracious” if Xi would only call. Then, when that fell flat, trotted out the standard “they really want a deal but don’t know how to do it” gag. The Chinese responded with sarcastic memes. The fundamental problem, as it seems to me, is that Trump and his team view international relations as governed almost exclusively by libertarian type considerations—all nations can be forced to cave when their economic or military interests are at stake. Cultural pride and nationalism are regarded as side issues if they enter into the calculus at all. It’s not working.
Unfortunately for Trump and his Zionist advisers, this trade war with China couldn’t come at a worse time. The Russians and Iranians are proving to be tough negotiators who are well aware that they hold strong hands against Trump—according to Trump, on Saturday, they may simply be “tapping me along”. Even worse, Trump’s very ill advised war on Yemen is going poorly, with no obvious face saving exit on offer. The Israelis are helpfully advising that the only alternative for Trump is to escalate. Meanwhile, the Houthis’ ability to down American high tech drones is proving costly to the US and is preventing any progress:
The US was hoping to achieve air superiority over Yemen within 30 days, officials said and degrade Houthi air defense systems enough to begin a new phase focusing on ramping up intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance of senior Houthi leaders in order to target and kill them, the officials said.
But the platforms best suited to conduct that persistent effort, the MQ9 Reaper drones, keep getting shot down, the officials explained. In fact, the Houthis are only getting better at targeting them, the officials said. The US does not have boots on the ground in Yemen, so it relies on overhead surveillance — much of it from the MQ9s—to conduct battlefield damage assessments and track terrorists.
CNN reported earlier this month that the US had killed several Houthi officials considered to be mid-level, akin to “middle management,” rather than senior political leadership.
These early paragraphs illustrate how poorly thought through this war was in the first place. The strategy of “decapitation” has largely been a signal failure in the past, with every reason to doubt its success in Yemen.
But the consistent loss of the drones has made it more difficult for the US to determine precisely how much the US has degraded the Houthis’ weapons stockpiles.
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The intelligence community has also assessed in recent days that over nearly six weeks of US bombing, the Houthis’ ability and intent to keep lobbing missiles at US and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and at Israel is little changed, as is their command-and-control structure, according to two other people familiar with the intelligence. These assessments were largely based on signals intelligence, one of the people said.
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But the Houthis have long proven to be extremely resilient, burying their equipment deep underground and continuing to receive supplies from Iran. They withstood a years long campaign by Saudi Arabia to eliminate them, and the Biden administration attacked them for over a year with limited impact.
Despite internal assessments raising questions about the efficacy of the campaign, the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that it has been wildly successful so far. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it “devastatingly effective” in March. Trump posted on X in March that the Houthis “have been decimated” and their capabilities “are rapidly being destroyed.”
A refusal to level with the American public is a sure losing political strategy.
The costs of the campaign, meanwhile, are only rising. The operation cost the US nearly $1 billion in just the first three weeks, and the US has continued striking Houthi targets daily for over a month.
The large-scale operation has also rattled some officials at US Indo-Pacific Command, who CNN has reported had complained in recent weeks about the large number of long-range weapons being expended by CENTCOM that would be critical in the event of a war with China.
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Lastly, an eye opening article about the US-UK special relationship. This is a highly detailed article, but here’s an excerpt:
Outsourcing war: British mercenaries now run America’s front lines
The British-American private military company Group 4 Securitas (G4S) has evolved far beyond its original mission of providing security for Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. Today, it resembles a quasi-state, complete with its own armed forces, prison systems, and global reach. G4S secures US embassies around the world, guards airports, government agencies, and military installations for both Washington and London, and even monitors sections of the US border.
It also manages prisons notorious for abuse, torture, and killings. British-American firms now dominate roughly 90% of the global PMC market, and experts say that outsourcing warfare to private contractors has become the preferred tool of foreign policy. It’s easier – and more politically palatable – to fight through intermediaries.
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With roughly 800,000 employees, G4S maintains its own rapid response units – essentially private strike teams supported by in-house intelligence operations. Many Western PMCs now have access to reconnaissance aircraft, satellite data, and cutting-edge surveillance tools. “They work with corporations that provide satellite imagery, which has been used by PMCs in Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” Todorovski explains.
Alexander Artemonov, a defense analyst at the Eurasia Heritage Foundation, estimates G4S maintains a fighting force of 250,000–280,000, equal to the number of troops Russia deployed in Donbass. The rest of the workforce consists of support staff, prison guards, and logistical teams.
G4S’s arsenal includes everything from AK-47s and Glock 17s to MP5s, sniper rifles, Uzi submachine guns, and even Israeli Hermes 450 drones. Their operatives have access to anti-personnel mines, grenade launchers, and portable anti-air systems. For mobility, they rely on armored Land Cruisers, Humvees, and military-grade carriers like the Cougar and RG-33.
From American Conservative.
An Iran War Would Consume Trump's Presidency
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/an-iran-war-would-consume-trumps-presidency/
President Trump can be forgiven for being a little confused. Sometimes he's the president of a nation--the US; nominally a constitutional republic. At others he's the military czar holding the bag for the atrocities of the Anglo-American-Zionist Empire which is dying in the sands of Gaza and the black earth of Ukraine. If he tilts toward the US, the imperial zombies like Z. and N. throw bombs to get him back in line. Will he be able to find his way out of this mess? Who knows. Wonder what J.D. is thinkin'.