Connexion
L’escalade des tensions au Moyen-Orient a des répercussions directes sur les marchés de l’énergie et le transport du pétrole et
L’article Poutine : la Russie peut offrir des voies maritimes sûres et fiables pour le gaz et le pétrole est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Europe’s choice is to surrender or die.
By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.
(machine translation)
Alastair Crook, a retired British diplomat, has stated that the European Union is preparing a provocation on a scale comparable to Pearl Harbor, with the aim of drawing the United States into a war with Russia.
In principle, this is not news. We have been writing for two years that the British, realizing that Ukraine has failed and will be buried, have placed their bets on a pan-European war (under the auspices of the United States) against Russia. While Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was trying to figure out who he was and how he got here, the mechanism for expanding the war was clear: a provocation in the Baltic Sea (less likely in the Black Sea or on the Belarusian border), which would leave Russia with no chance of resolving the crisis without shooting, and an outcry about the “attack” to the country of the EU and NATO, a statement of military support (sending troops and equipment, but without a formal declaration of war against Russia) by the leaders of the EU. In the last act, the United States and Britain enter the scene, demanding that Russia cease fire and threatening to provide all possible support to their allies.
I would like to point out that the mechanism of provocation assumed that in all cases, Russia would initiate military action against a specific country. Moscow, on the other hand, was only faced with the choice of whether to attack the Baltic states, which had blocked Kaliningrad, or to hope for a miracle, sink the transports carrying French and German troops and equipment bound for the Baltic ports, or to express protests, attack the territories of the United States and the United Kingdom in response to their ultimatum, or to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations mediated by them. In the end, acquiescence inevitably led to capitulation (since as soon as one set of demands was met, the West would immediately set forth another), and escalation inevitably led to a global nuclear war.
It is no coincidence that Trump claimed that Biden was leading the country towards a nuclear armageddon. Whether Biden was aware of his actions or was being manipulated by his entourage, the decision-makers in the United States (as well as the majority of the British establishment and the European bureaucracy) believed that Russia would not engage in a nuclear conflict and would retreat. However, there were other politicians in the West who had no doubt that if Russia was pushed to the wall, nuclear mushrooms would grow all over the West – no one would leave without a share. These people came to power in the United States with Trump, and their supporters are gradually pushing back against the European left-liberal supporters of war.
As a result, the United States fell out of the scheme, and Trump openly stated that if Europe wanted to go to war with Russia, it could do so on its own, without the United States. It’s not that the Europeans were particularly eager to go to war, but rather that they couldn’t help but go to war with Russia, as acknowledging defeat in the Ukrainian crisis would completely undermine the left-liberal European elites. To understand why this is significant, it would have political, economic, and social implications on a scale similar to those that shook Russia after the October Revolution and before the outbreak of World War II. The Europe we know will disappear, and a new Europe will be born in agony, compared to which the 1990s in Russia were like a light rain during a summer picnic.
But the Europeans also can’t go to war with Russia. They don’t have the armies, the warehouses, or the ability to quickly deploy the necessary military production. Without the United States, the EU is a paper tiger. Although no, a paper tiger is scarier than the EU without the United States. This is why Alastair Crook emphasizes that the provocation must be so severe and widespread that neither Trump nor other American and European politicians who support de-escalation can avoid going to war with Russia.
By the way, as a loyal subject of His Majesty, Alastair Crook does not mention Britain’s leading role in developing this plan and preparing the provocation. The blame lies with the EU, which intends to drag the United States into a war with Russia, while the United Kingdom simply passed by.
It’s understandable. Most likely, the provocation is unavoidable. The British and the European bureaucracy can’t help but try to seize their last chance. I once wrote that nothing would stop them. They might even detonate a nuclear device in Kyiv to blame Russia. However, the Ukrainian government is not fully in control of the situation. The internal opposition to Zelensky, unable to oust him yet, is attempting to preserve at least some form of Ukraine by pushing Zelensky overboard.
In such a situation, the preparation of a large-scale nuclear provocation, which requires deep secrecy, is extremely difficult, as hundreds of people must be involved in its organization (transportation, storage of the relevant munition, its transfer across the border, security, and other activities cannot be carried out without the involvement of a large number of people). Even if you simply replace the customs officers and border guards at the border with trusted individuals, it will immediately become widely known that something large and secret is being transported.
However, recently, the Ukrainians and the British have started practicing a naval provocation, attacking tankers from any country carrying Russian oil. Russia has already begun responding to the Odessa port and the ships arriving there. In principle, the British Navy and its Ukrainian counterparts can organize a “Lusitania” (with influential Americans on board). However, it is more difficult to prove Russia’s “guilt.” As Poland’s experience shows, it is no longer enough to simply claim that Russia wanted to blow up railway tracks and cause a major disaster; convincing evidence is also required.
Actually, this is the catch: how to organize a provocation in such a way as to shake the imagination of “all people of good will”, and provide “convincing evidence” of Russian “guilt”, and not inherit anywhere, and leave the United States no choice? The task is difficult, but, as experience shows, it is solvable. If British diplomats (even retired ones) start issuing warnings and distancing themselves, it means that the preparations for some large-scale atrocity have entered the final stage or are basically complete, and the London warmongers only need to give the command to launch the operation.
In principle, the supporters of escalation don’t have much time. By March, even if the Armed Forces of Ukraine don’t completely disintegrate and Zelensky still controls some part of Ukrainian territory, Trump should withdraw the United States from the Ukrainian crisis and reorient towards the Indo-Pacific region and Latin America. Moreover, he has announced the beginning of a military operation against Maduro in Venezuela in the near future. If the British and European bureaucrats let the United States out of the Ukrainian crisis and allow it to get involved in others, it will be impossible to bring it back. Washington cannot afford to run around the world like a mad rabbit, and it cannot handle two or three major crises in different parts of the world, either organizationally, resource-wise, logistically, or financially.
In the West, they like to coincide political actions with traditional holiday dates. This way, they are better remembered and evoke more emotions. We are just entering a period of holidays: Catholic Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, and Epiphany. In general, from mid-December to the end of January, almost any day is suitable for the organizers of provocations. All they need to do is manage and dare.
After February, although the danger will not disappear (it will not disappear until a final global settlement is reached), it will significantly decrease, and the further into 2026, the lower it will be.
An echo of History provides insight into the zero-sum equations, and the worth of humanity, to Technofascism
By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.
(machine translation)
No one is perfect, so the saying goes, “Learn from your mistakes.”
At the end of November 1942, Soviet forces encircled the 6th Field Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht, as well as the remnants of four Romanian divisions near Stalingrad (approximately 220,000 Germans and 18,000 Romanians). Hitler forbade the encircled forces from breaking out, and an attempt by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group Don to break through failed. The group under the command of Field Marshal General Paulus fought in the encirclement for more than two months, until February 2, 1943.
During this time, about 30,000 wounded soldiers, vacationers, and highly valuable specialists were evacuated from the pocket by Luftwaffe aircraft. A total of 72,000 people surrendered. As a result, approximately 100,000 Germans and almost all the Romanians died in the pocket. Only 5,000 of the prisoners returned home after the war. The rest died despite the Soviet Union’s attempts to save them due to their extreme exhaustion. In the last weeks of the war, the Luftwaffe lost the ability to fly into the pocket, and the encircled forces ran out of food before they ran out of ammunition.
Field Marshal Paulus, General Heitz and other German officers of the 6th Army after its surrender, 4 February 1943.
The Sixth Field Army fought to the last and was almost completely destroyed. After the war, German generals repeatedly accused Hitler of the unnecessary loss of the Sixth Field Army. Indeed, the Wehrmacht was unable to replace the two hundred thousand seasoned veterans who had fought for several years.
However, over time, military analysts came to the conclusion that Hitler’s decision was correct, while his generals were mistaken. The 6th Field Army, if it attempted to break through the encirclement, would have undoubtedly lost all its heavy equipment. They had enough fuel for their tanks to cover a distance of 50 kilometers. However, in the reality of continuous combat, they would only have enough fuel for about 30 kilometers. After that, they would have to abandon their surviving vehicles. Even if two-thirds of the encircled troops managed to break out of the pocket (it is more likely that about half of them would have succeeded), they would have been armed only with light small arms, and they would have been extremely exhausted after a hundred-kilometer march across the winter steppe in constant combat. The remnants of the army would have had to be withdrawn to the rear for reorganization.
At the same time, there was already a huge gap in the front, which Manstein was barely able to control in December with the help of the remnants of the defeated German and Romanian divisions, which had been formed into combat groups. If Paulus’s army had left the encirclement, the Soviet command would have immediately released more than a dozen divisions that were holding the perimeter of the encirclement and had been conducting an offensive to eliminate it for two months, suffering significant losses.
The Red Army had already almost cut off Army Group A in the Kuban region. The last divisions of the 1st Panzer Army were breaking through the ice of the Sea of Azov to bypass Rostov-on-Don, while the 17th Field Army was forced to defend the Kuban region, with only the Kerch Strait as a reliable link to the rear. If the Soviet offensive on Rostov had been carried out by the armies that had been strangling Paulus at Stalingrad, Army Group A would have been blocked in the Caucasus, and the southern flank of the Eastern Front would have collapsed completely, from the Caucasus in the south to Voronezh in the north. The Reich would not have survived such a catastrophe. The war could have ended in 1943.
More than two months of hopeless battles in the encirclement by the soldiers of the 6th Field Army, which diverted significant forces of the Red Army, allowed the Germans to stabilize the front. In March, Manstein launched a counteroffensive, recaptured Kharkiv and Belgorod, and formed the southern flank of the future Kursk Bulge.
No one knows whether Hitler deliberately sacrificed Paulus’s army or whether it was a spontaneous decision, but it allowed the Wehrmacht to avoid the catastrophe on the southern flank of the Eastern Front and prolong the war for an additional year and a half or two years.
After Putin’s order to ensure access to the areas where Ukrainian troops are being blocked for foreign journalists, some of the ever-concerned patriots began to worry in advance that, God forbid, the Ukrainian Armed Forces would be allowed to break out of the encirclement, and they would wonder why we needed foreign journalists there at all. They might even kill a journalist and blame it on us.
Protocol of military defeat: “Initially, representatives of the German command were brought to the location of the 64th Army, where a preliminary ceremony was held under the leadership of Lieutenant General Mikhail Shumilov. The main negotiations were held at the headquarters of a higher-level military unit. The procedure was led by Colonel-General Konstantin Rokossovsky, commander of the front group, and Nikolai Voronov, a representative of the top military leadership.” [01]
At the same time, the remnants of the defeated brigades would have left without heavy equipment and almost without weapons (the Ukrainians would have enough automatic weapons for them anyway). The very fact of abandoning positions and equipment is seriously demoralizing, and most importantly, such troops cannot be immediately used on the front lines. They need to be reorganized, re-equipped, and only then can they be sent into battle. The most that Syrsky could immediately do with this contingent would be to distribute it as reinforcements to other brigades. But for this to happen, these units would have to be disbanded, and the best forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were deployed to defend Pokrovsk and Kupyansk. In other words, by disbanding these elite units with significant combat experience, Syrsky would simply receive reinforcements for less effective units, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine would lose within a week or two.
Russia would be able to free up the units that were engaged in the blockade of Pokrovsk and Kupyansk to launch an offensive in an almost empty area. Syrsky does not have the reserves to plug the gaps in the front.
I will repeat that no one is going to let anyone out of the cauldrons yet. The role of foreign journalists is to convey to the Ukrainian public (relatives of the blocked military) the proposals made to the garrisons of Pokrovsk and Kupyansk to surrender. Our media in Ukraine do not read (do not watch), and those who read (watch) cannot admit it. Therefore, no matter how much we write about Russia’s proposals to save the lives of the blocked Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers by allowing them to surrender, this will not become a factor in Ukraine’s public or political life.
But the Western media will read (watch) it and refer to it. As I wrote above, it is highly unlikely that this will force Zelensky to order the garrisons to surrender, but ordinary people who receive information from the Western media will call their relatives who are under blockade and tell them that the Ukrainian government does not intend to save them, while the Russian government will ensure their lives and permanent conditions of captivity. Eventually, the special military operation will end, and the prisoners will be allowed to return home. Such information will contribute to the demoralization of the garrisons, reduce the tenacity of their resistance, make it easier for Russia to end the battles for Pokrovsk and Kupyansk and launch a strategic offensive in the areas where the front has been breached, accelerate the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the disintegration of the front, and the catastrophe of the Kiev regime, and allow for a faster conclusion of the special military operation while preserving the lives of Russian soldiers.
Of course, it is unlikely that Western media reports alone will be enough to achieve the complete surrender of the encircled Ukrainian garrisons. However, at the very least, their faith in their leadership will be undermined, and their suspicions of their comrades will increase, which may lead to some of them surrendering. The faster the encircled units are eliminated, the greater the likelihood of effectively continuing the offensive before the enemy can gather any reserves and stabilize the front line.
So, of course, we want to save the lives of those who are surrounded in a humane way, but not without benefiting ourselves. We need to hurry up with the victory in Ukraine, as Lithuania is already starting to fuss suspiciously about the transit through Kaliningrad.
Un premier cargo a quitté le port de Ningbo Zhoushan, en Chine, à destination de Felixstowe, au Royaume-Uni, par la
L’article Un premier cargo chinois s’élance vers l’Europe via la Route maritime du Nord est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
A poignant travelogue and historical review of this former pearl port city of the Eastern Mediterranean
Laith Marouf and Hadi Hotait travel to Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city, to discover its hidden and neglected treasures, discuss its brilliant past, and analyze threats by the USA to hand it over to the Wahhabi Death-Squads governing Syria today, if Lebanon doesn’t disarm the Resistance.
Filmed on: 2/8/2025
Producer: Hadi Hotait
Montage: Rabih Ghannam
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A living Revelation anticipates the astonishing tableau which confronts us today: the violent and calamitous end to the Old Order heralded by the aggression of the Anglo-Zionists on Iran.
Chapter 105 of the Qur’an: Surah Al Fiil (The Elephant) — for interpretation & context see (here)
Divine Revelation, as Sheikh Imran Hosein and serious scholars note, is neither static nor dead. The same verses in subsequent generations, according to need of the flock, reveal gems, and guidance for navigation. For the same words or phrases can differ in meaning, or emphasis, according to context and circumstances of the times.
Symbol of the Republican Party of the United States
Yesterday, eschatologist Omar Baloch linked the unfolding Iranian-American Murder-Suicide in the Qur’anic chapter named Al Fiil (The Elephant). The incredible pressures, tensions, and mind-blowing geopolitical rearrangements and shattering of the old templates underway force contemplation. These astonishing and hair raising developments were previewed approximately 1,500 years ago.
The Republican Party (GOP) of the United States of America has the distinction of using the elephant as its symbol; the Democratic Party uses the donkey.
The messianic GOP will have the distinction of burying the Last Satanic Empire.
It has to do with one of the shortest and sweetest chapters of all – called The Elephant.
Rubio appears on live TV with the ash cross on forehead, discussing the Ukrainian and Middle East crises. 3.6.2025 (3×6=666).
Methodology of interpreting the Qur’an: if a non-Arab word is used in the Arabic Qur’an, it points to the land it came from. The Arabic language, as all languages, adopted various terms and phrases from other languages and cultures with which Arabs formed contact and relations.
Elephants were unknown to the peninsular arabs to which were revealed the Qur’an. At the time, during the 7th century, elephants were associated with Persia. The very word, “Fiil”, was arabicized Farsi, the Persian language.
India and Africa are also associated with elephants, but Persians are closer to the Arabs by direct land route. And for several millennia, Persians ruled the Arabs, whose culture and norms and language were of intimate familiarity, being one of the traditional two superpowers of the millennia preceding the revelation of the Qur’an. Historically, all parts of Arabia were at one point or the other dominated by Persia.
June 18, 2025: for the first time, Iran launches the 2-stage Sejjil MRBM on Zion. In verse four of the Chapter of the Elephant, Sejjil are the clay stones baked in the Hellfire launched by the flock of birds on the army of the People of the Elephant.
The Chapter of the Elephant is remarkable worldwide for two seminal events in history, being an extremely important year, both for Arabs and Islam.
First, it was the year in which was born the Islamic Prophet, PBUH.
Second, this year marked the first serious attempt to destroy the Kaaba, the House of God, in Makkah (Mecca). An invasion was mounted by a Christian Abyssinian army to destroy this House in Makkah, spiritual symbol of all the Arabs.
The Abyssinian powers of that time had come to Yemen to expunge the Jewish tyrant king that genocided their Christian brethren, recounted in the Chapter of the People of the Trench. They then overstayed to conquer Yemen, displeasing Yemenis. When the Abyssinian warlord built a grand cathedral, one night an ignorant pagan Arab entered and defecated inside it, leading to his vowing to as desecrate in retaliation the Arabs’ holiest sanctuary in Makkah.
This warlord Abraha marched to Makkah to destroy the Kaaba, then controlled by pagan Arabs, but nevertheless symbolically the central house of worship of all Arabs. His army included novel war elephants in its procession, unknown to Arabs and hence the symbol of that striking year, memorialized in the parable and the name of this scriptural chapter.
Forty years later, the young herder of those elephants, then an old blind man, was alive at the time of the investiture of the Islamic Prophet, having escaped the fate of the army by fleeing up a mountain when he saw the Elephant refuse to continue on the suicide mission by kneeling just before entering the Haram (holy borders) of Makkah, the forbidden sanctuary. The men who continued onward did not survive.
Iran unveils Hesa Ababil 3 unmanned combat aerial vehicle. In verse three of the Chapter of the Elephant, Ababil are the flock of birds which attack the army of the People of the Elephant. (see Iran’s Ababil drones family)
Now follow reinterpretation of this historical chapter, known by heart to perhaps billions since it is so very short, sweet and singsong, and striking, and as Scripture is not static but constantly unfolding:
The Eschatologist noted several things – note the promise of the Lord to annihilate this arrogantly aggressive and presumptuous army, “the People of the Elephants.” Their plans will go awry in terrible ways. Their forces (in the region) will be obliterated, scattered like dead chewed straw (being helpless without adequate AD, and at point blank ranges).
Extrapolating the nature of MAGA behind the current GOP incumbent, are they not a cult? Even so, the MAGA base is openly disintegrating right now, with most against this suicide in motion. They’re disillusioned with endless unwinnable foreign adventures, as their nation fractures and quality of life disintegrates and irreversible poverty sets in. Even those mind-washed for generations can connect the dots – if all the money is spent on guns, used abroad fruitlessly at behest of others, there will be no butter at home. And this they see.
Yet the American elite are under compulsion of the Anglo-Zionists, and will march on into the breach. It is decreed, to complete the Humiliation, and conclude the Babylonian System. The Tragedy of the End Times. So much waste for such the abominable project of Pax Judaica.
The Americans will at the same time deal terrible blows to Persia, unprecedented in human history. The Islamic Prophet said “one blow” in one narration, “two blows” in another narration.
I assume after Persia defeats their conventional attack, and annihilates their regional forces, they will use ICBMs?? This is beyond my competence. But it is a given that the Exceptionalists whose last place of hegemony is at total risk, and having been humiliated, will escalate to becoming permanent Black Hats, the unconscionable Pariahs within the larger human family. With the coming Deeds, they shall carve their own tomb-stones in Persia, and attribution for all subsequent horrors that follow.
According to further explication of subsequent events, after the satanic wasting of Persia, the Zionists and India (Hind) will join to annihilate Pakistan (Sind), with Zionazis having taken baton from the defeated Anglos. “Hind will defeat Sind”. So dramatic reversals will appear for a Pakistan which just stymied India last month.. But he then added, “China will defeat Hind”/India. China will not sit out. She appears to keep her powder dry for the coming moment, hence the agony of India now knowing its total exposure if she serves the suicidal Anglo-Zionist aims, effecting her own Murder-Suicide. For all now know that Pakistan and China come as a package…
After nuking Iran, the same treatment will be meted to the Arabs — i assume the GCC, even more than former Resistance (Yemen, Iraq, Hezbollah, etc) since the PetroSheikhs will be then be ghost, consumed in the Persian Gulf conflagration as most of their citadels and oil/gas assets, located in the eastern peninsular half adjacent to Persia, will be no more, and at that point, Pax Judaica can absolutely not trust ANY arab whatsoever.
Pax Judaica will rise on a sea of skulls like Pol Pot, or rubble like Gaza. Such terrible wars of extermination lie ahead. As Yahya Sarae, spokesman of the Yemeni Armed Forces, warned the comatose compradore Arabs:
“To the rest of the Arab and Islamic countries and peoples, we say:
Jihad is one of the gates of Paradise, opened by Allah for His distinctive servants.
Take the initiative to stop the Israeli crimes against your people in Gaza, for what befalls them today will befall you tomorrow.” (June 15, 2025)
This is the Pandora’s chest willfully opened by Donald J Trump, the Last American President, and Joker of our End Times.
I suspect Iran will initially win, yet lose in the interim, before the ultimate Victory, due to the Murder-Suicide. The other side will fight dirty to “win” at all costs (when did empires fight “fair”?), condemning itself in the process, through cascading nuclear exchanges. So the real order of events may be Suicide (of the annihilation of regional western force presence) then mass Murder of the Iranian civilians by the Antagonists of All.
Californian Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. His father Yoav Botach was an Iranian Jew who left Isfahan. [01][02]
The overriding imperative remains of 70,000 true semitic Jews to emerge from Isfahan, under leadership of the AntiChrist making his entrance in human guise. This completes the ascension of the “Moshiach” of messianic Jewry, ruling a leveled world from Jerusalem.
Isfahan has the oldest continuously settled Jewish community on earth, nearly 3,000 years old. Today only some 20,000 Jews remain, with most having relocated to Zion, and USA. Arguably the most famous US rabbi is a Californian with direct ancestry in Isfahan. His father migrated from Isfahan to Zion in the last century, then onward to the USA. He peppers his speeches and presentations with exhortation to liberate Iran, so that they may return to Isfahan. So with much of Iran erased, they would be able to reverse migrate to Isfahan…
My father Yoav Ben Eshrat Botach passed away tonight after Sabbath on Rosh Chodesh Sivan. He was 87 yrs old. He fought for months & we believed he was healing. This was last time I put tefillin on with him. This is a devastating time. May my father’s memory be an eternal blessing pic.twitter.com/xzIDucLRk8
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 24, 2020
IMO, most of Iran (and Yemen’s) fighting men may be in underground cities inside mountains and deserts and other secret areas. Plenty of places to hide. Impossible for even nukes to materially affect them. I heard about a million Iranians are currently under arms.
But what civilization can hold on without women, children, elderly, and the non-martial trades? When these are Gaza’ed… it will take time to reconstitute, being dispersed autonomous cells and forces over a huge land of over 1.5 million km² in Iran.
The Persian, and others, especially Pakistanis, will essentially return as guerrillas, having been decapitated, stateless, fighting totalen krieg every inch, like in Gaza. And when they put the last zionazi and westerner to the sword, they’ll weep rather than celebrate, having had their hearts and hearths torn out.
Such horrors beckon as the living will envy those in their graves. What we see today in Gaza will seem a beach holiday. The Mad Orange Emperor warned the Palestinians in January to surrender or the same bestial Hell we currently see would be unleashed; last week he warned “Leave Tehran” …
Sorry for the terrible previews. There is scant good news for any side in the End Times. This is the Islamic version of the Book of Revelations, and it gives the same unvarnished terror, trials and tribulations. As Imran Hosein said, around the time corona began in 2020, now’s a good time to die, given what comes.
Why would the Persians commit to the Murder-Suicide, knowing the terrible outcome for their people at the hands of unrepentant resolved devils?
Their ultimate victory would be pyrrhic, spent mourning for generations, given holocausts experienced.
Clues lie in words of the Islamic Prophet recounted by Omar Baloch, Imran Hosein, and many — he said none would be as knowledgeable in his flock as the Persians, who would seek knowledge and wisdom in the very heights of the stars if needed. So they know everything described herein in this short article, and foretold of their unusually bitter role in the End Times.
“We are the nation of Imam Hussein, peace be upon him” a declaration of identity, emphasising allegiance to an Imam revered for his martyrdom at Karbala in 680 CE., symbolising resistance, sacrifice, justice and ready to face the enemy with courage.https://t.co/U5xCe8xnv6
— Elijah J. Magnier
I will leave you this tweet by Magnier and Prof. Marandi, which highlight the ethos and determination of Karbala, where the grandson of the Islamic Prophet marched to his certain annihilation at the hands of the tyrant of the time. This is the lodestone of the Shia realm; the fount of their devotion to sacrifice, and struggle against impossible odds. It is of the same strand of the Sunni Palestinians who say, ‘ …verily, it is a Jihad, until Victory or Martyrdom.’
We will find, as Hamas refuses to lay down its arms and surrender even as 100-200 of their precious children and women and elders are massacred every single daily for over 600 days, the Iranian nation will prove to be as resolute in dealing as catastrophic commensurate annihilation to the Anglo-Zionists. It remains a Murder-Suicide, come what may.
The Chapter of the Elephant of the Qur’an appears to foretell that during the initial phase, Iran will be given unusual tools that will militarily erase the fallen West from the face of West Asia.
Selon Kommersant, le 20 juin, NOVATEK (MOEX : NVTK) a expédié la première cargaison de la nouvelle saison vers la
L’article Novatek envoie sa première cargaison de l’année sans brise-glace via la Route maritime du Nord est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
The full version, including what happened in Tehran on several fronts – IRGC, nanotechnology, academic debates – of the column originally published on Sputnik.
By Pepe Escobar at VKontakte.
ON THE ROAD IN IRAN – The International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is one of the most crucial geoeconomic/infrastructure projects of the 21st century. It unites at its core three key BRICS nations – Russia, Iran and India – branching out to the Caucasus and Central Asia. When fully operational, the INSTC will offer a full trade/connectivity corridor sanctions-free, cheaper and faster than the Suez canal to a great deal of Eurasia. The geoeconomic consequences will be staggering.
The International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC): The New Silk Road Shaking Up Global Trade. A 7,200km sanctions-proof trade route that could replace the Suez Canal for Eurasian trade.
To re-visit Iran in these times of geopolitical trouble, relentless “maximum pressure”, red lines on uranium enrichment and bombing threats could not be more pressing – and enlightening.
These have been only a few of the highlights of the past two weeks:
In essence, Wilāya…can mean 1. regent, sovereign, lord and master; 2. patron, guardian, protector, custodian. Its plural form is awliā: those of God’s creatures who have spiritual affinity and propinquity to Him, inclusive of prophets and Imāms. The walīy is the divinely-appointed Divine Guide, Just Ruler, and Guardian-Sovereign (walīy al-amr) of the affairs of the community of true believers (the mu’minīn).
Williams explains how “Wilāya has a two-fold essence: the walīy is chosen by God because of his spiritual affinity and propinquity to Him. This preeminence gives the walīy’s soul a certain sacred luminosity (due to his sacral propinquity), which in turn draws people to him, as it responds to their need for guidance and to their appreciation of beauty and nobility of character. Thus, wilāya has a top-down function [being appointed by God due to his preeminence], and at the same time, has a bottom-up function (being drawn to and appointed by the people to lead them on their common sacred purpose of their self-surrender to God’s will (islām).” Both of these aspects (the theocratic and the democratic), as Williams stresses, must be present because, “paradoxically, wilāya is meritocratic and democratic at one and the same time.”
By then it was time to hit the road. And there was only one way to go: to explore the INSTC on the ground, from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf and the Makran coast in Sistan-Baluchistan all the way to Iran-Pakistan border.
Total connectivity: highway, mosque, bazaar
By an auspicious turn of events, the old school reportage/investigation actually became the plot line of a documentary, produced in Iran, shot by an outstanding crew of 6, and to be broadcast in several parts of Eurasia, including Russia and China. Here we offer the broad strokes of our travel to the heart of the INSTC.
Tehran: (L): With serious Persian brainpower – in film making, academia and Shi’ite theology. (R): At a very serious theology, Western nihilism and sufism discussion, with, among others, Alastair Crooke and George Galloway.
We started with a series of interviews in Tehran, with Central Asia analysts and most of all Mostafa Agham, the top expert of Behineh Tarabar Azhour, a transportation and logistics firm specialized in Eurasia railway corridors. These analyses offered contrasting points of view on where the INSTC should go next and what are its main challenges.
Travel along Iran’s main artery, from Tehran to Bandar Abbas, was a must – as it will conform the trans-Iran north-to-south highway axis of the corridor. That doubles of course as a cultural and spiritual pilgrimage, which in our case featured plenty of auspicious overtones.
Isfahan: (L): On the road to Isfahan, not far from Natanz nuclear plant. (R): The mesmerizing ‘Royal’ mosque.
Isfahan: (L): Isfahan architectural magic. (R): In the most astonishing square in the world.
We arrived at fabled Isfahan past sunset, which allowed us to visit the Masjed-e Shah – or “Royal” – mosque virtually undisturbed. The Royal mosque – one of the highlights of Islamic architecture – sits on the south side of the Naghsh-e square in Isfahan, one of the most extraordinary public squares in the history of art and architecture, rivaling, and arguably surpassing San Marco in Venice.
A visit to the Isfahan bazaar is also inevitable. I was looking for an old friend who sold nomad carpets – in the end, because of slow business, he relocated to Portugal – just to find his sort of heir, young, energetic, who apart from pointing me to a spectacular, rare tribal rug from northeast Iran close to the Afghan border, gave me a crash course on the effects of sanctions and the perpetual demonization of Iran in the West (“Turkey has 40 million tourists; we have two or three”). Isfahan’s neat and extremely organized bazaar offers quality handicrafts to rival Istanbul, but there’s essentially domestic tourism, sprinkled with a few foreigners mostly from Central and South Asia and some from China.
(L): Tehran. At the IRGC Aerospace Museum; reverse-engineering an American missile. (R): Qom. At the Fatima Masumeh shrine. (leading article banner is at the Fatima Masumeh shrine at 2 in the morning)
On the way back to Tehran we learned that, being a Tuesday, the revered Haram of Fatima Masumeh, the daughter of the 7th Imam Musa, in Qom was open all night. Nothing prepares the pilgrim for an arrival at nearly two in the morning to an apotheosis of gold and crystals in the heart of Qom, Iran’s second most sacred city after Mashhad. Only a few pilgrims paying their respects, some strolling around the shrine with their families or reading the Quran. A moment of quiet illumination.
Southern Caspian Sea: (L): Fishing at the Caspian, outside Bandar Anzali. (R): On the Caspian corridor: from Astrakhan to Bandar Anzali.
Afterwards it was time to hit the Caspian, and the port of Bandar Anzali, the proverbial “international bridge” where, in theory, cargo ships from Astrakhan in the Russian Caspian, as well as other Caspian-bordering states will start arriving en masse via the INSTC. In Bandar Anzali, Iran essentially imports petrochemicals, construction materials, minerals, and iron products and exports grains (soybeans, corn, barley, wheat) and crude oil.
In Tehran, Mostafa Agham, the connectivity expert, had explained in detail that perhaps the multimodal drive of the INSTC across the Caspian may not be the best idea. The Russians prefer to build a railway bordering the western margins of the Caspian; and another possibility is to use a network of already functioning railways from southcentral Russia, across Kazakhstan all the way to Aktau, by the Caspian, and then connecting across Turkmenistan to Tehran.
It’s only via a close up on Bandar Anzali that one understands the Russian rationale. One of our cameramen, in delightful broken English, coined an instant hit: “Port no exist”. Translation: the infrastructure has not been upgraded in decades, which brings us to the devastating effects of sanctions, visible in several nodes of Iran.
That was extra evidence supporting the fact that China will have a lot of work to do as part of the 25-year strategic partnership with Iran, signed in early 2021: a comprehensive agreement between two civilization-states where energy-for-infrastructure is a central plank amidst scores of BRI-related projects.
The Persian Gulf: (L): Entering Bandar Abbas port, Iran’s key INSTC port. (R): From Bandar Abbas, the Strait of Hormuz is 39 km that way.
Break to the border!
Bandar Abbas, in the Persian Gulf (italics mine), is a completely different story. That’s Iran’s main port, and a key node of the INSTC, to be connected to Mumbai and already connected to the big ports in eastern China. We had all the hard-to-get necessary permits to explore Shahid Rajae-i Special Economic Zone, crammed with containers from shipping firms such as West Asia Express and unloading scores of Chinese container cargoes. The uber-strategic Strait of Hormuz is only 39 km to the south. A few days after our visit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian went straight to the point, referring to proverbial Trump threats: “Block our oil, and we’ll block the world’s energy.” Iran can do it – in a flash; were that to happen, the collapse of the global economy is guaranteed.
Additionally, port authorities explained that the recent explosion on Shahid Rajae-i – attributed to “negligence”, still under investigation and somewhat mired in controversy – was not in the port itself, but in a storage area 10 km away.
Sistan-Baluchistan: (L): The Makran coast. The fishing port of Beris. (R): At a kapar – the Sistani version of a yurt.
From the Persian Gulf we fly to the Sea of Oman – and infrastructure problems ride again: there are only two flights a week. We arrive at a minuscule military airport outside the future superstar of the INSTC: the port of Chabahar in Sistan-Baluchistan province. Baluchis are exceedingly cool, cousins to the ones on the other side of the border, in Pakistan. In bustling Chabahar, the lineaments of a boom town are quite visible.
A long walk in the port side by side with Alireza Jahan, a logistics expert and then a conversation with Mohammad Saeid Arbabi, the Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of the Chabahar Free Trade Zone could not be more enlightening.
Jahan explains how Chabahar is essential to Iran’s East Axis, serving over 20 million people not only in huge Sistan-Baluchistan but also three other Khorasan provinces, and further on to Kerman. So Chabahar is the port for an enormous hinterland, while its competitor, Gwadar in the Arabian Sea in Pakistan, only 80 km away or so, is virtually isolated.
Jahan also explains Indian investment. Tehran is investing heavily in the infrastructure and superstructure of Chabahar port, while India is investing in equipment: the Italian cranes around the port came from India. Arbabi, at the Free Trade Zone, expands on the international profile of Chabahar, which will be an absolutely key node not only for landlocked Afghanistan but also the Central Asian “stans”.
And that brings us to the local highway saga: Chabahar to Zahedan, in the Afghan border, 632 km, already an “acceptable road”, and with a companion railway to be built within the next three years, everything 100% financed by the Iranian government.
Progress at the port is steady – slowly but surely. For the moment Chabahar receives three ships from India a month and two ships from China, plus three from the Persian Gulf. The distance from Mumbai is only 4 days, and from Shanghai, 15 days. The potential for expansion is limitless.
From Chabahar, it’s on the road bliss along the spectacular, strategic, oil-drenched, semi-desert Makran coast, bordering the immaculate Sea of Oman all the way to the Arabian Sea. History looms large: this is where Alexander the Great lost as much as 75% of his army to dehydration and starvation when he was retreating across the desert to Macedonia after his tortuous two-year invasion of India.
Sistan-Baluchistan: (L): The spectacular – virgin – Makram coast. All the way to the Iran-Pakistan border. (R): WELCOME TO THE IRAN-PAKISTAN BORDER. I finally made it – by boat! Thanks to Commander Chabad, born in Chabahar, and his little brother and second-in-command. Iran is around sunset. Pakistan is ahead of us, to the left. No CIA and MI6, no instrumentalized Salafi-jihadis disguised as Baluchi nationalists. Only the silence and beauty of the Sea of Oman meeting the Arabian Sea.
Due to a concert of economic and ecological reasons, there have been plans for quite a while to relocate the capital, Tehran, to the Makran coast. Chabahar in this case would be the ideal candidate: free port, INSTC connectivity between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean.
India – which needs to step up its geoeconomic game – has noticed it. China as well. Even though China is not formally part of the INSTC, Chinese companies are bound to invest massively in Chabahar – the de facto key node for South Eurasia integration – as part of yet another vector of the Maritime Silk Road.
I had been trying for 20 years-plus to reach the Iran-Pakistan border, from either side. It was always an impossibility due to serious security reasons. I finally made it – by boat, thanks to teenage Commander Chabad, born in Chabahar, and his little brother and second-in-command.
As we sailed away from the small fishing port of Gwat, Iran was located around sunset and Pakistan ahead of us, to the left, in what the locals call “Pakistan beach”. No CIA and MI6; no instrumentalized Salafi-jihadis disguised as Baluchi nationalists; no sanctions; no maximum pressure; no bombing threats. Only the majesty of Nature, the silence and the beauty of the Sea of Oman embracing the Arabian Sea.
A masterful historical exposition – both geopolitical and eschatological, providing context to the ongoing holocaust of the Arabs, and anticipatory of the next events.
If you can, download as MP3 and speed up to 3.0x for Imran Hosein and 2.4x speed for Dr. Olsi. Highly recommended for both their two lecture parts, and the following interactive Q & As.
Imran Hosein starts after 40 min, discussing:
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