One of the main points Alastair Crooke made in his chat with Judge Napolitano on 18 November was provided by a recently resigned Zionist Intel insider who confessed a very major truth that we’re seeing occurring in real time. This is my paraphrase of Crooke’s own paraphrasal:

Before 7 October, we Zionists said We are Strong and Hamas is Weak, and we continue to say that We are Strong and Hezbollah is Weak, but we’re seeing that’s not reality; it’s not that We are Weak, but neither are Hamas or Hezbollah, and We clearly aren’t as Strong as We believe; and that’s a cultural thing that’s extremely difficult to change.

That same cultural problem exists withing the Western Camp and isn’t limited to just the Neocons, but also to the Neoliberals, who have stated for decades that because they are USA they are Strong and all others are Weak, thus We have No Problem waging Three wars at once—against Russia, Iran, and China. The reality is the inverse as being proven on the battlefields in Ukraine and West Asia and in the ocean around Taiwan. Thus, the idiocy of Biden’s delayed announcement of a decision made before the election to “allow” Ukraine to use longer range missiles to attack Russia well after Russia made it clear that would consider such attacks using NATO weapons proof of NATO waging direct war against Russia, thus removing the proxy cloak. How do we know it was delayed? Because no sooner than Biden announced the policy change than those very missiles were launched against Russia’s Bryansk region all of which were shot down. Russian Air Defence has proven very adept at interdicting all NATO missiles, and their newer observation drones can fly 50km beyond the LOC and are net-centrically connected to Russian missile assets that as soon as a NATO missile launch platform is spotted a missile is launched a few minutes later to destroy that target. And the coverage is intense, showing that without adequate air defense systems, you’re essentially naked. On today’s battlefield, if you can be seen—not just visually but also via IR—you can be shot at. And with some of todays specialized radars that can penetrate building walls, there’re very few places to hide. And Russia and its troops have “trained” under live combat conditions to hone their skills in this very new environment—an environment no other military has expertise at. Yes, some Ukies have learned, but few have survived, and their leaders clearly have yet to learn. The same can be said for the Zionists as they’re being subjected to similar conditions, although Hamas and Hezbollah lack the super sophisticated Russian equipment. Hezbollah’s continual rain of rockets, missiles and drones has overwhelmed Zionist AD which wasn’t very good to begin with as has been proven well beyond doubt. Thus, the shattering of the myth of invincibility that upheld the culture of Strength over Weak.

On 15 November, earlier than usual, SCF published Alastair Crooke’s essay, “There are no “Easy Wars” left to fight, but do not mistake the longing for one,” for which much of the above acts as a prelude. For those curious about the maritime aspects of the wars Neocons are pinning for, I highly suggest this Andrei Martyanov video from about the 12-minute mark onward that informs viewers why NATO Naval construction and its current disposition is far behind that of both Russia and China primarily because of the revolution in missilry. One last main point before Crooke’s essay is to contemplate the woeful production volume of missiles of all types by the Outlaw US Empire’s MIC—not only are they mostly ineffective, they are produced at an extremely slow rate versus the rate of production by its stated adversaries—even Ansarallah’s capabilities are wowing US military people.

And now we get to Crooke’s essay, whose title again is “There are no “Easy Wars” left to fight, but do not mistake the longing for one:”

Israelis, as a whole, are exhibiting a rosy assurance that they can harness Trump, if not to the full annexation of the Occupied Territories (Trump in his first term did not support such annexation), but rather, to ensnare him into a war on Iran. Many (even most) Israelis are raring for war on Iran and an aggrandisement of their territory (devoid of Arabs). They are believing the puffery that Iran ‘lies naked’, staggeringly vulnerable, before a U.S. and Israeli military strike.

Trump’s Team nominations, so far, reveal a foreign policy squad of fierce supporters of Israel and of passionate hostility to Iran. The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way.

The Israel Lobby could not have asked for more. They have got it. And with the new CIA chief, they get a known ultra China hawk as a bonus.

But in the domestic sphere the tone is precisely the converse: The key nomination for ‘cleaning the stables’ is Matt Gaetz as Attorney General; he is a real “bomb thrower”. And for the Intelligence clean-up, Tulsi Gabbard is appointed as Director of National Intelligence. All intelligence agencies will report to her, and she will be responsible for the President’s Daily briefing. The intel assessments may thus begin to reflect something closer to reality.

The deep Inter-Agency structure has reason to be very afraid; they are panicking – especially over Gaetz.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have the near impossible task of cutting out-of-control federal spending and currency printing. The System is deeply dependent on the bloat of government spending to keep the cogs and levers of the mammoth ‘security’ boondoggle whirring. It is not going to be yielded up without a bitter fight.

So, on the one hand, the Lobby gets a dream team (Israel), but on the other side (the domestic sphere), it gets a renegade team.

This must be deliberate. Trump knows that Biden’s legacy of bloating GDP with government jobs and excessive public spending is the real ‘time bomb’ awaiting him. Again the withdrawal symptoms, as the drug of easy money is withdrawn, may prove incendiary. Moving to a structure of tariffs and low taxes will be disruptive.

Whether deliberate or not, Trump is keeping his cards close to his chest. We have only glimpses of intent – and the water is being seriously muddied by the infamous ‘Inter-Agency’ grandees. For example, in respect to the Pentagon sanctioning private-sector contractors to work in Ukraine, this was done in coordination with “inter-agency stakeholders”.

The old nemesis that paralysed his first term again faces Trump. Then, during the Ukraine impeachment process, one witness (Vindman), when asked why he would not defer to the President’s explicit instructions, replied that whilst Trump has his view on Ukraine policy, that stance did NOT align with that of the ‘Inter-Agency’ agreed position. In plain language, Vindman denied that a U.S. president has agency in foreign policy formulation.

In short, the ‘Inter-Agency structure’ was signaling to Trump that military support for Ukraine must continue.

When the Washington Post published their detailed story of a Trump-Putin phone call – that the Kremlin emphatically states never happened – the deep structures of policy were simply telling Trump that it would be they who determine what the shape of the U.S. ‘solution’ for Ukraine would be.

Similarly, when Netanyahu boasts to have spoken to Trump and that Trump “shares” his views regarding Iran, Trump was being indirectly instructed what his policy towards Iran needs to be. All the (false) rumours about appointments to his Team too, were but the interagency signalling their choices for his key posts. No wonder confusion reigns.

So, what can be deduced at this early stage? If there is a common thread, it has been a constant refrain that Trump is against war. And that he demands from his picks personal loyalty and no ties of obligation to the Lobby or the Swamp.

So, is the packing of his Administration with ‘Israel Firsters’ an indication that Trump is edging toward a ‘Realist’s Faustian pact’ to destroy Iran in order to cripple China’s energy supply source (90% from Iran), and thus weaken China? – Two birds with one stone, so to speak?

The collapse of Iran would also weaken Russia and hobble the BRICS’ transport-corridor projects. Central Asia needs both Iranian energy and its key transport corridors linking China, Iran, and Russia as primary nodes of Eurasian commerce.

When the RAND Organisation, the Pentagon think-tank, recently published a landmark appraisal of the 2022 National Defence Strategy (NDS), its findings were stark: An unrelentingly bleak analysis of every aspect of the U.S. war machine. In brief, the U.S. is “not prepared”, the appraisal argued, in any meaningful way for serious ‘competition’ with its major adversaries – and is vulnerable or even significantly outmatched in every sphere of warfare.

The U.S., the RAND appraisal continues, could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theatres with peer and near-peer adversaries – and it could lose. It warns that the U.S. public has not internalized the costs of the U.S. losing its position as the world superpower. The U.S. must therefore engage globally with a presence—military, diplomatic, and economic—to preserve influence worldwide.

Indeed, as one respected commentator has noted, the ‘Empire at all Costs’ cult (i.e. the RAND Organisation zeitgeist) is now “more desperate than ever to find a war it can fight to restore its fortunes and prestige”.

And China would be altogether a different proposition for a demonstrative act of destruction in order “to preserve U.S. influence worldwide” – for the U.S. is “not prepared” for serious conflict with its peer adversaries: Russia or China, RAND says.

The straitened situation of the U.S. after decades of fiscal excess and offshoring (the backdrop to its current weakened military industrial base) now makes kinetic war with China or Russia or “across multiple theatres” a prospect to be shunned.

The point that the commentator above makes is that there are no ‘easy wars’ left to fight. And that the reality (brutally outlined by RAND) is that the U.S. can choose one – and only one war to fight. Trump may not want any war, but the Lobby grandees – all supporters of Israel, if not active Zionists supporting the displacement of Palestinians – want war. And they believe they can get one.

Put starkly and plainly: Has Trump thought this through? Have the others in the Trump Team reminded him that in today’s world, with U.S. military strength slipping away, there no longer are any ‘easy wars’ to fight, although Zionists believe that with a decapitation strike on Iran’s religious and IRGC leadership (on the lines of the Israel’s strikes on Hizbullah leaders in Beirut), the Iranian people would rise up against their leaders, and side with Israel for a ‘New Middle East’.

Netanyahu has just made his second broadcast to the Iranian people promising them early salvation. He and his government are not waiting to ask Trump to nod his consent to the annexation of all Occupied Palestinian Territories. That project is being implemented on the ground. It is unfolding now. Netanyahu and his cabinet have the ethnic cleansing ‘bit between their teeth’. Will Trump be able to roll it back? How so? Or will he succumb to becoming ‘genocide Don’?

This putative ‘Iran War’ is following the same narrative cycle as with Russia: ‘Russia is weak; its military is poorly trained; its equipment mostly recycled from the Soviet era; its missiles and artillery in short supply’. Zbig Brzezinski earlier had taken the logic to its conclusion in The Grand Chessboard (1997): Russia would have no choice but to submit to the expansion of NATO and to the geopolitical dictates of the U.S.. That was ‘then’ (a little more than a year ago). Russia took the western challenge – and today is in the driving seat in Ukraine, whilst the West looks on helplessly.

This last month, it was U.S. retired General Jack Keane, the strategic analyst for Fox News, who argued that Israel’s air strike on Iran had left it “essentially naked”, with most air defences “taken down” and its missile production factories destroyed by Israel’s 26 October strikes. Iran’s vulnerability, Keane said, is “simply staggering”.

Keane channels the early Brzezinski: His message is clear – Iran will be an ‘easy war’. That forecast however, is likely to be revealed as dead wrong. And, if pursued, will lead to a complete military and economic disaster for Israel. But do not rule out the distinct possibility that Netanyahu – besieged on all fronts and teetering on the brink of internal crisis and even jail – is desperate enough to do it. His is, after all, a Biblical mandate that he pursues for Israel!

Iran likely will launch a painful response to Israel before the 20 January Presidential Inauguration. Its riposte will demonstrate Iran’s unexpected and unforeseen military innovation. What the U.S. and Israel will then do may well open the door to wider regional war. Sentiment across the region seethes at the slaughter in the Occupied Territories and in Lebanon.

Trump may not appreciate just how isolated the U.S. and Israel are among Israel’s Arab and Sunni neighbours. The U.S. is stretched so thin, and its forces across the region are so vulnerable to the hostility that the daily slaughter incubates, that a regional war might be enough to bring the entire house of cards tumbling down.The crisis would pitch Trump into a financial crisis that could sink his domestic economic aspirations too. [Bolded Italics My Emphasis]

Note the Culture of Hubris exhibited that Iran will be easy as it’s Weak, the US Strong. There clearly is another ongoing war Crooke illuminates some portions of between the Deep State, what Crooke calls the “deep inter-agency structure,” which has usurped for itself many of the powers previously assumed by strict constructionists to be presidential powers alone, such as being the leader in forming foreign policy. The key is in the utter vagueness of Article Two Section Two of the US Constitution, which was a problem well before the Constitution was approved where Anti-Federalists argued it would be simple for any president to become a dictator. Given what happened during Trump’s initial term, he hopefully read the Constitution and boned up on its history, particularly on the precedents made regarding presidential formulation of policy, which was done quickly during the terms of Washington and Adams. If he did so, I expect Trump to come out swinging forcefully to make it clear who’s boss. Much of the drama will be seen during the confirmation hearings. IMO, the first war Trump will be forced to fight will occur in Congress during his first 8 weeks in office, roughly half of the supposedly critical first 100 days period.

Given the Rand corp., Congressional Committee and Heritage Foundation assessments of the Outlaw US Empire’s military capabilities which includes those of its MIC, there’s a very large gap that widens daily between its capabilities and those Congress has declared its adversaries. This is actually a very dangerous situation since it leaves the use of nuclear weapons as the only possible response to demonstrate the Empire’s still Strong. And given the missile defense and offensive capabilities of its adversaries, that could easily result in nuclear devastation of the US mainland, which has zero defense capabilities. So, not only are there no more “easy wars,” the possible outcome of any the Empire might choose to wage ought to be seen as intolerable. But of course, eyes and brains must be capable of seeing and comprehending reality; and currently, that’s most definitely not the case with Team Biden and was also true for the previous Team Trump. And this just relates to Imperial Policy. Domestic Policy will likely be a clusterfuck given Trump’s track record along with his proposals since he will cater to his top 10% constituency and again ignore those who actually elected him. But since little is known beyond the vague descriptions Trump allowed to be seen during the campaign, it’s very hard to comment further at this time. But you can be sure if Trump tries to rectify the Outlaw US Empire’s vast military weaknesses, domestic policy will suffer big time.