The Joy Of Violence; A Hormuz Settlement?

Let’s begin with a follow-up from our post last night, which dealt with topics related to Jewish Nationalist over America, and concluded with Scott Ritter’s warning about what amounts to a Jewish Nationalist coup or takeover of the American NatSec establishment (Catching Up, 8/3/26). This is directly relevant to the reports that there is some sort of settlement being cooked up regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The relevance is that I was listening to Brandon Weichert this morning summarizing his interview with an Israeli general who had headed military intel for 10 years. Two things stuck out.

First, Brandon was stunned that the general clearly seemed not to regard any resident of Gaza as a human being. Second, the general repeatedly maintained that any pause in Trump’s war on Iran was simply part of the “plan”. War with Iran would not end—it would simply be resumed at a later date. And it would be an USraeli war. It was simply part of the plan. This goes back to Ritter. Formalized Jewish Nationalist control over American NatSec is necessary for a continued war.

This tends to fit in with what Brandon took away from his interview with Alex Isenstadt, the reporter for Axios. According to Isenstandt, many of Trump’s advisers are unhappy with Trump’s war because it isn’t at all what they signed on for—even though it’s now clear that war on Iran was baked into Trump 2.0 going back to before the actual election. These advisers simply did not know that Trump was so committed to war. And that suggests that the Big Money behind Trump—I should probably say, the Humongous Money behind Trump—is all in on war.

So I picked up this link to a Ha’aretz article from Alistair Crooke’s Conflicts Forum:

It’s No Wonder Israelis Want War. Violence Has Become a Source of Joy

What if one reason Israelis are so happy is that brutality has become pleasurable?

It’s hard to escape it. Violence is booming all around us. From the Gaza Strip to the West Bank – in pogroms perpetrated by settler militias against Palestinian communities, in police responses to demonstrations and even in the form of the concrete danger encountered by anyone who tries to cross a street or find a parking place – violence exists in every corner of Israeli society.

And that leads us to prospects for a Hormuz settlement. Trump, of course—who has deeply bought into the Jewish Nationalist joy in violence and brutality—is talking about “decapitation” on a strict deadline. We’ve heard this before.

But at this point it’s really about money. While there are plenty of reports of low missile stocks for the US military, we need to take Trump’s words at the time of the MOU seriously—he was afraid of going down in history as another Herbert Hoover. Of course, Trump-like, once he signed on the dotted line he immediately set about trying to finagle a better deal, one that didn’t look so much like a capitulation—itself a type of decapitation, a political type. The reference to Hoover was a clear signal that Money—economic pressures—had forced Trump to sign the MOU terms of surrender. Iran hasn’t budged. What is forcing Trump’s hand is probably what Philip Pilkington pointed to yesterday—the financial crisis in Japan that threatens to blow up both the US bond and stock markets. Trump has tried every trick in the book to get better terms from Iran, but now he needs to take care of political business at home, and he can’t do that if Japan’s problems blow inflation in the US sky high (reread about that here).

Here’s the deal people are talking about—note that there’s a good bit of positioning for optical advantage going on:

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

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BREAKING: Iran rejects US Treasury Sec. Bessent’s and Trump’s claim that the Strait of Hormuz will open tomorrow under a new deal, saying Iran-Oman Hormuz negotiations, held without US participation, are instead aimed at establishing an “intermediate corridor” that will halt both the current Iran-controlled northern and US-backed southern routes, giving Iran as a coastal state fully protected sovereignty, interests, and national security, an informed source tells Press TV.

Iran adds “Trump has violated his commitments, and Iran is moving forward with its plan to establish arrangements in the Strait independently of US threats, and it will succeed,” saying “Iran does not shape its interests and priorities based on schedule or demands of Trump.”

The agreement with Oman would grant Iran total sovereign authority over all inbound maritime traffic, with Oman’s limited role being to clear outbound vessels but only after notifying Iranian officials, ensuring Iran retains visibility and the option to intervene.

But a Hormuz deal isn’t an end to the war. It’s the beginning to a beginning of an end—if Jewish Nationalists will allow that. As Trita Parsi has observed:

Hormuz is only one piece. A lasting peace also requires fixing southern Lebanon, locking in a region-wide ceasefire, and reaching a new nuclear deal. Leave any of those hanging and the road back to war stays wide open.

Parsi left out the part about US withdrawal from the region, which is part of the MOU. Iran continues its strikes on US bases.

Now, Chris Martenson—following on his excellent interview with Philip Pilkington yesterday—picks up on many of the themes, above, in a discussion with Mario Nawfal. It’s fine to talk about a deal on Hormuz, but—as indicated—it’s all more complicated. Edited excerpts:

IRAN CONTINUES BOMBING SHIPS IN HORMUZ AS OMAN DEAL “FINALIZES” - w/ Economist Chris Martenson

Chris, not sure if you share my optimism or you think that war is inevitable until American objectives are achieved. What do you think of all this?

Martenson: I have to throw Israeli objectives in there as well. We heard that Israel was all dialed in [before Trump’s most recent TACO]. They were getting ready to join the attacks, but their condition was: Once we start, we don’t stop until our objectives have been met--complete regime change. Iran’s totally out of the game. They’re destroyed. Apparently Trump said, “Nah, not going to do that cuz Muhammad bin Salman talked to me and I listened to him instead of BB.”

I’m not sure that totally squares, but it’s okay because I actually think what’s really happening underneath it all is that we’re down to really dangerous levels of oil inventories around the world. And that wasn’t getting better anytime soon. It’s clear that Iran actually holds the cards there. So, the war is over--if and only if--Trump can find a way to spin what most people are going to call a massive strategic retreat and a giant “L” into a “W”. I’m not clear how they’re going to spin this, but Iran clearly holds the cards and I don’t see them caving at this point in time. So there’s that.

My optimism is that somebody got to Trump--or whoever controls Trump--and said, “Look, if we don’t get this unplugged soon, you’re going to have your name on it. Hebert Hoover x 10.” And I think that’s where we’re at, cuz I think reality is starting to bite behind the scenes. Look at that ship traffic. It’s just it’s insufficient to prevent a real disaster from coming. So, it’s either do or die time. Either you go in hard and you try and do this militarily or you don’t. I think we’re out of time.

And if I’m reading this right, this is just a deal about the strait to begin to open up the MOU deal, which is an agreement to get to a final agreement. There’s a lot that can go wrong here to there. Let’s hope that Israel doesn’t decide that it needs to keep this going. But let’s be clear, even if we get that deal going, Iran has all these other conditions. I don’t think they’ve dropped them. I haven’t heard anything specifically about them dropping the $300 billion reparations fund, the release of all their frozen funds, the lifting of the sanctions, etc., etc., etc. So, I’m of a mind that Iran is not going to drop any of those conditions at this point because they clearly are in the driver’s seat now.

Mario: You’re really worried about the Israeli side, aren’t you? What you said earlier is absolutely correct. The Israelis do not want to participate in a war again unless Trump continues all the way to bring down the regime. That would literally be driving the US to the ground. It’s one thing being a leech, as in sucking money and weapons from the US over decades. Fine--good for them, terrible for the US--using the US, letting it destroy itself for Israeli interests. It’ll be a pretty scary world if they have that much influence.

Martenson: There’s some powerful interests that really want this war to keep going. Now, I think it’s a bad idea because once you understand the role of energy in the economy, you go, “This is different. We can’t just bomb everybody and it sort of works out, right?” This is holding the world’s entire economy hostage. You can’t take 20% of energy offline without a giant economic catastrophe. But I’m worried that we have all these people who who don’t see the world that way. They live in this world where it’s just important that we impose our will because otherwise we’re losing. They have a very narcissistic mindset. There’s no win-win, right? It’s either you’re winning and I’m losing or you’re losing and I’m winning, right? So I think that’s really still driving things here. So, we’ve got powerful interests on the US side and we’ve got powerful interests politically currently in Israel. They’re really aligned on this subject. The concern is they don’t want this to stop potentially. So, let’s hope that we have more control than that. Let’s hope that that these people have waned in their power, but none of them ever suffered any consequences for what they did in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq, on and on and on. It’s been it’s been a pretty long unbroken stretch of just breaking things.