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Iran War Just Got Much Bigger / Matt Bracken & Lt Col Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – September 8, 2026

September 8, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran War Just Got Much Bigger / Matt Bracken & Lt Col Daniel Davis

Qatar Warns of ‘Industrial Catastrophe’ If Strait of Hormuz Remains Closed

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | September 8, 2026

Qatar is warning that there will be significant global consequences if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened soon. Iran closed the Strait in response to the war started by the US and Israel. President Donald Trump also imposed a blockade of Iranian ports.

On Monday, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mohammed Al-Ansari, said reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains a priority, warning that the prolonged disruption could lead to an “industrial catastrophe.”

The Strait of Hormuz has become a major issue for Trump. Before the war, the Strait was treated as an international waterway. However, after the US and Israel attacked Iran, Tehran seized control of the Strait.

Since then, Tehran has limited traffic to nations that are not participating in the war against Iran. Additionally, Iran is requiring vessels to use preapproved shipping lanes and pay a “service fee.”

Tehran says any agreement to end the conflict must recognize Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait. Iran is in negotiations with Oman to establish new protocols for ships transiting the waterway. Washington is demanding that Tehran return the Strait to its pre-war status.

The US has attempted to force open the Strait of Hormuz. The US is currently escorting tankers through the waterway in hopes of defending the vessels from Iranian missiles and drones. Over the past week, US warships and tankers were targeted by Iranian missiles and drones.

While US officials have claimed that the amount of oil exiting the Strait is close to prewar levels, monitoring agencies say only a small fraction is getting out of the Persian Gulf.

Trump has attempted to pressure US allies into joining a coalition to reopen the Strait without success. The President has recently turned his focus toward South Korea. He recently scaled back war games with Seoul, in part, because South Korea refused to aid the war against Iran.

On Tuesday, Seoul said it still had not determined if it would provide assistance to the war. “We are closely consulting with the international community, including the US, on ways to make a substantive contribution toward the swift restoration of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and peace and stability in the Middle East,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Chung Bin-na said. “No specific measures have been decided at this point.”

Iran warned South Korea that any involvement in the US war would have “consequences.”

September 8, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Qatar Warns of ‘Industrial Catastrophe’ If Strait of Hormuz Remains Closed

IRGC Navy seizes cutting-edge US unmanned submersible in Strait of Hormuz

Photo released by the IRGC Navy shows an advanced US underwater vehicle captured by the IRGC forces near the Strait of Hormuz on September 8, 2026
Press TV – September 8, 2026

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy announced that it has successfully intercepted and captured a highly advanced, unmanned American underwater vehicle at the entrance of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the IRGC Navy stated that the seizure was carried out in the early hours of the day following a “complex intelligence and operational action.”

The unmanned submersible incorporates some of the world’s most advanced underwater technology and was delivered to the US terrorist military in 2025, the statement said.

The IRGC announced that photographic evidence and detailed footage of the captured US asset would be released in the coming hours.

Iranian news agency Tasnim identified the captured system as a Dive-LD, an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle developed by US defense technology company Anduril Industries and first delivered to the US Navy’s Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group 1 in 2025.

The vehicle is approximately 5.8 meters long, has a diameter of about 1.2 meters and weighs roughly 2.7 tonnes.

Its published specifications include an endurance of up to 10 days underwater and a maximum operating depth of around 6,000 meters.

Designed as a modular autonomous platform, the Dive-LD can be configured for missions including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, seabed mapping, infrastructure inspection and mine-countermeasure operations.

The capture comes amid a sharp escalation between Iran and the United States over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategically important maritime chokepoints.

The waterway has increasingly become a key arena in the US war on Iran, prompting Tehran to assert greater control over maritime activity in and around the strait.

Recent military exchanges have included US strikes on Iranian oil tankers and Iranian missile attacks targeting US naval forces.

On September 6, Iran said it had struck a US unmanned vessel attempting to enter a restricted area near Hormuz.

The capture of the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) marks the latest in a long history of Iran intercepting and seizing advanced Western military technology.

Over the past decade, Iranian forces have successfully downed or captured numerous high-value US assets, including the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and various underwater gliders and surface vessels in the Persian Gulf.

Reverse-engineering these captured technologies has historically played a significant role in accelerating Iran’s domestic drone and unmanned naval programs.

September 8, 2026 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , | Comments Off on IRGC Navy seizes cutting-edge US unmanned submersible in Strait of Hormuz

Israel’s Game

Anti-Zionist activists protest on 2nd Avenue outside the Israeli Consulate General in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, U.S. on August 21, 2026. [Selçuk Acar – Anadolu Agency]
By Dr Hassaan Bokhari | MEMO | September 6, 2026

A few days ago, a very interesting article appeared in the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post. It was written by AJ Jaff, whose profile describes him as “a recognised expert in international security, crisis management, and geopolitical risk”. The “expert” began the article by acknowledging that the 6-month-long air war on Iran has failed to defeat Iran. Then, he provided some “out-of-the-box” ideas for the US to consider if it wants to “achieve its objectives” and win the war. According to him, the war will only be won when Iran’s institutional coherence is broken, resulting in its Balkanization.

I will discuss Mr Jaff’s “out of the box” ideas in a bit, but first, I want to analyse the “expert” himself a little. Two things quickly popped up. First is how he began his article. The first sentence is: “The Pentagon reportedly asked outside analysts this month for creative ideas on Iran.” The hyperlink in this sentence redirects the reader to another article in The Jerusalem Post that cites a CNN report saying that the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, has been privately looking for an off-ramp in the Iran War. How quaint! While the Pentagon is asking for ideas to wrap up the war, Mr Jaff, the expert, stepped up with ideas to escalate the war! It appears that Mr Jaff (and the Zionists) have very different ideas and even objectives than US Generals about the same war. No wonder Pete Hegseth (a committed Zionist) has been firing so many of them!

Secondly, one is amused to see that in March, 10 days after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran, the same Mr Jaff was declaring a resounding victory and claiming that “the data tells a decisive and irreversible story” and “Iran’s missile fire rate has collapsed by 92 percent”! After reading that article now, most readers might laugh heartily and dismiss Mr Jaff, the “expert,” as an idiot. However, that would be an incorrect assessment. On the same day as Mr Jaff’s gaffe’s appearance in The Jerusalem Post, an article of mine elucidated the Israeli strategy as one giant bluff whose aim was to lure the USA into a destructive war in the Middle East by plunging it into a sunk cost fallacy. The Israeli plan was to lure the USA in with the dreams of an easy victory like the First Gulf War or the Maduro kidnapping, but it knew all along that those dreams would prove to be hollow, and their sole purpose was to bring the USA into the war. Then, in the next phase, with the dreams of victory proving illusory, the USA was to be baited with the sunk cost fallacy trap so that it would blunder into further escalation in pursuit of Israeli objectives. Mr Jaff’s seemingly absurd somersaults follow this pattern perfectly.

Now let’s turn our attention to Mr. Jaff’s “expert recommendations”. There are three of them:

  • The USA should “recognize the sovereign independence of the Iranian Kurdistan, Ahwaz, and Baluchistan people”.
  • To raise the one million troops required for a victorious ground invasion of Iran, the USA should launch an enlistment scheme based on debt forgiveness (estimated at 40,000 to 1,00,000 US Dollars per person) for 24-36 months of service per person.
  • The US should strike a deal with China that would involve softening the US stance on Taiwan and ensuring China that even after Iran’s destruction, China would continue to receive an uninterrupted supply of Iranian oil in exchange for China’s abandonment of Iran.

Before analysing these ideas, one must first take a moment to marvel at the arrogance and ignorance of the Zionists.

The Zionists have played the victim and the superior/invincible race roles simultaneously in a way that lends itself to a diagnosis of severe dissociative disorder.

This pathological psyche has led them to the delusion that the foremost purpose of the world and everything in it is to accommodate their ambitions. As I have argued elsewhere, this psyche is leading them to their self-created and inevitable destruction as well.

Now, let’s take these ideas one by one. The first idea is simply advocating the balkanization of Iran (just the newest version of the Yinon Plan). The implications are very interesting, though. By supporting Kurdish and Baloch (not Baluchi as written by Mr. Jaff, a mistake that only lays bare how little he knows about Balochistan!) separatism, the US could kill three birds with one stone in the service of Israel. Kurdish and Baloch separatism are grave threats to the integrity of Turkiye and Pakistan, respectively. Very cleverly, the Zionist Mr Jaff is pointing the way for the next wars to be launched by the USA in Israel’s service. The Zionists know that Iran’s balkanization wouldn’t ensure Israel’s survival. They are aiming at the complete destruction of the whole region stretching from Morocco to Pakistan, an Israeli goal correctly identified by the Pakistani liberal thinker Eqbal Ahmed more than 40 years ago!

The second idea is about finding the meat for the meat grinder of forever wars envisioned by Israel. With antipathy toward Israel consistently on the rise in the USA, how can American youth be convinced to become cannon fodder in the Wars of Israeli Ambitions? The answer, according to Mr. Jaff, lies in luring them with the promise of debt forgiveness. Most young Americans are riddled with debt in the exploitative capitalistic financial system (run by whom?) of the USA. Mr Jaff wants their debts written off in return for their blood, sweat, and tears spilled on the battlefields of the Middle East. However, the question arises: who will pay the bill of “debt forgiveness” for this indentured slave army? Will the big capitalists pay? Of course not. The state will pay.

In other words, the US taxpayers will pay billions of dollars so that their sons and daughters can be killed or crippled far from home in wars that have nothing to do with the American people’s welfare.

The third idea is the most “brilliant” one. It’s also the one that should ring alarm bells for even the most obtuse section of people in the USA. Mr. Jaff proposes to bribe China with oil and concessions on Taiwan to abandon Iran. It hasn’t occurred to him that for men like General Dan Caine, China represents a much bigger threat to the USA than Iran! It also peddles the fallacy that Iran is another Venezuela! Such a bizarre, arrogantly ignorant notion can only come from Zionists! In his obsession with what the genocide-dependent state of Israel needs to survive, Mr Jaff has ignored the basic fact of geography that Iran lies closer to China than Venezuela is to the USA! He has also conveniently failed to specify what concessions the USA should make on Taiwan. Unfortunately for Mr Jaff and the Zionists, the Chinese leaders (unlike many in the USA) don’t prioritise Israeli interests over their own country’s.

As I am engaged in analyzing Israel’s “game plan”, one other important factor must be mentioned: Gaza. In the last few days, clear statements have come from Israeli ministers showing their intention to depopulate Gaza completely. Israel’s ultimate goal has always been to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that started with the Nakba in 1948. Since the start of the Gaza blockade in 2007, Israel had been following a policy of making Gaza uninhabitable while concurrently using it as a weapons testing laboratory through periodic aggressions/wars. This policy of slow genocide was abandoned after the 7 October attacks. The goal then became to “clear” Gaza through a “fast genocide” within a few months. However, unexpectedly stubborn Palestinian resistance coupled with the categorical refusal of regional countries (especially Egypt) to accept Palestinian refugees has so far prevented this. The recent pressure from Israel on the USA to give it a green light for forcible expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza shows that Israel hasn’t lost sight of its genocidal goals in Palestine for one minute, even during the Iran War. If Palestinian refugees are forced into Egypt, it will provide an added bonus for Israel by destabilising Egypt.

A summary of the comprehensive Israeli strategic plan is as follows: Israel wants a massive US ground invasion of Iran with more than a million soldiers to destroy the Iranian State and balkanize the country with the help of Kurdish and Baloch separatists. This will, in turn, bring the “Grand Israeli War” to its next phase: the destruction of Turkiye and Pakistan. The latter will be denuclearized after internal instability brought upon by economic, political, and military crises resulting in an implosion of the State, leaving Israel’s ally India as the sole power in the subcontinent. Simultaneously, Israel plans to depopulate Gaza and South Lebanon while destabilising both Syria and Egypt to an extent that new civil wars erupt there. To achieve these lofty aims, Israel wants the USA to put its strategic tussle with China on hold and offer significant concessions on vital issues like Taiwan to keep China neutral. This will free up the USA to deploy its full military might in fighting Israel’s wars and divert limited but critical military resources in bulk to the Middle East from the Pacific. With the whole of the Middle East in ashes, Israel can replace the USA as Saudi Arabia’s “security guarantor”, gain control over all 3 Muslim Holy Mosques (in Makkah, Medina, and Al-Quds) to be used as blackmail against any future attempt by Muslims to confront it, and create a Greater Israel that is not dependent on US aid. Afterwards, Israel can easily discard the USA in favor of a modus vivendi with the new global hegemon (China) as the former’s power wanes through wars and strategic overextension.

This Israeli “game plan” is clearly fantastic, unrealistic, and wildly overambitious. However, like the Nazis, Israelis see themselves as an embattled and desperate “superior race” that has to risk it all on a grand throw of the dice. In its post-7 October psychosis, Israel has lost whatever rationality or sense of proportion it previously possessed. Like Hitler, Israel’s leaders fail to see their predicament: they might win some victories in this war, but each victory will open up new threats, which will result in fatigue as the costs of war mount and geographic and demographic factors overstretch both Israel and the USA. In his seminal work, “Israeli Exceptionalism – The Destabilising Logic of Zionism”, Professor Shahid Alam explained this brilliantly: “The tragedy of Israel is not fortuitous. Driven by history, chance, and cunning, the Zionists wedged themselves between two historical adversaries, the West and Islam, and by harnessing the strength of the first against the second, they have produced a conflict that can only grow deeper over time. In this conflict, Israel’s triumphs are temporary, are indeed illusory, since they evoke a deeper, wider response from the societies that suffer the devastation of its triumphs. In the long run, in the time scale of history, by relentlessly pressing its advantages, Israel only ensures that its adversaries will slowly build the defenses that will eventually rise to match Israel’s military might and its expansionist ambitions.”

Blinded by the imperatives of genocidal Zionist ideology, it would be foolish to expect the recognition of this reality from the Israelis.

However, the USA and the Muslim World urgently need to recognize “Israel’s Game” to minimize the damage to be suffered by them. Had Hitler been stopped at Munich, the Second World War might never have happened. Had Israel’s genocide in Gaza been stopped in November 2023, we wouldn’t be seeing the Iran War and the Hormuz crisis today. If Israel isn’t stopped now, we will see not just Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, but Turkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, and the Gulf countries engulfed in flames of war as well.

As Israel plans to fight this war to the last US soldier, it would behoove the USA to realize that playing Israel’s game will result in polarization and decimation of American society (just like the Vietnam War put an end to Lyndon Johnson’s vision of “Great Society), the loss of its military dominance in the Pacific, and the loss of its global economic primacy. Today, it is imperative that all of the Muslim World in general and Turkiye, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in particular start squarely backing Iran in thwarting external aggression. The recent Mecca Pact between Pakistan, Turkiye, and Saudi Arabia can only be meaningful if it clearly declares Israel as the greatest threat to peace and operationalizes the military and economic power of these countries to combat Israeli aggression in Gaza, West Bank/East Jerusalem, Lebanon, and Iran. Only through the defeat of Israel’s genocidal state and the birth of an independent Palestinian State can peace and security be ensured for the Middle East. If these countries present a united front against Israeli aggression, not only will they be backed by the likes of China and Russia, but they will also compel the USA to recognize Israel for the dangerous strategic liability it is. “America Firsters” will do well to remember Nietzsche’s saying: “The most common form of human stupidity is forgetting what one is trying to do.”

September 6, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel’s Game

Is America preparing a tactical nuke for Iran?

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 6, 2026

The escalation trap is getting worse for Trump and his cabal of sycophants, as what was once a discussion which was linked to existentialism – the nuclear option – is now being dialled down to any kind of military option. Just a bigger bomb. The more Trump loses, the more Iran hits U.S. assets and allies in the Middle East, the longer the straits remain closed, and the higher gasoline and diesel costs reach in the U.S. – the more the idea of a ‘tactical’ nuke dropped on Iran becomes normal and even preferred.

But Trump is also getting madder. He is literally losing his mind, and his condition has worsened in his second term in office to the point where he is losing touch with any kind of reality. Before February 28th, the U.S. economy was not in bad shape. A lot of fundamentals were holding out. But now everything is spiralling out of control, and quite apart from blue-collar workers being hit with gas pump prices being well above $4, now diesel is being hiked – which only means that the cost of food, among other goods, is going to rise significantly, as trucking firms pass on the bill to producers, who pass it on to the consumer.

And as things start to get out of control, take a cursory glance at who is running Trump and who stands to gain if a nuclear bomb were used. It’s the same people who walked away from 9/11 laughing until their sides hurt. Israel. The Zionists are now pushing for the tactical strike option, as any escalation in the region – no matter who gets killed or whose country gets wiped out even of water – is not their worry or concern. These days, Netanyahu’s coterie can argue even more that Iran is probably making a nuclear bomb, as the one institution that Trump could turn to – the IAEA – can’t enter Iran and do its inspections. And so the default conclusion is that the U.S. president is going to be bullied again into making a cataclysmic error of judgment in hitting Iran.

The Zionists have been busy on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, it’s hard not to see how their money is now reaching Nigel Farage’s far-right party, which has just been hit by another dodgy funding scandal – presenting the leader of the party as bereft of any political morals of any creed in preference for filling his pockets with dirty cash. The Zionists control UK media, and it’s interesting to see how Farage gets a pretty easy time despite the graft scandals burying him. In the U.S., it’s a similar story. For a while now, J.D. Vance has been quite critical of how Zionists are shaping U.S. politics both internationally and even domestically, and has always been quite vague about how the U.S. should move forward in Iran. But now those who have crossed a threshold and are in the pockets of Israel’s lobby are going for him.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley recently accused him of not taking a clear stance on Israel – slamming him for trying to “be both.”

“Right is right. Wrong is wrong. In life, you must choose a side. You are either with the Tucker Carlson wing of the country or you are with the pro-Israel wing of the country,” she wrote on social media. “You can’t be both.”

Haley, a former GOP presidential candidate who isn’t overburdened with a high IQ, couldn’t even hide who was directing her and even giving her reference material to attack Vance – leading some to wonder if Israel’s lobby just writes her social media posts.

She continued her post with a quote from Nobel Prize-winning writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who said in his 1986 acceptance speech: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”

Meanwhile, America’s trust around the world seems to have been eroded to almost nothing. Recently, the Netherlands just pulled out its gold reserves it used to keep in the U.S. The move followed Germany a few weeks ago, which did the same. EU leaders just don’t trust Trump and can see the de-dollarisation trend gaining ground while U.S. debt continues to mount. Trump can’t do anything, of course, as his immature ideas about governance have produced a series of policies which haven’t served the country’s interests but merely backfired – reminding many that he doesn’t have one or two failed businesses under his belt like many successful entrepreneurs, but scores, which would suggest that he doesn’t really understand business at all. A nuke, he might believe, would be a reset in the Middle East and perhaps a huge distraction away from terrible numbers back home. But the precedent it would set to Russia and China would only make Iran an even greater winner than it already is in the region. Trump simply has no idea what he is doing – and all the people who could advise him have been fired.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Is America preparing a tactical nuke for Iran?

“We Are Being Drawn Into a War We Don’t Want to Fight”: What Jordan’s Alliance with Washington Is Costing It

By Muhammad Hamid ad-Din – New Eastern Outlook – September 6, 2026

The growing public discontent with the presence of American troops in Jordan, fueled by the regional conflict and Iran’s strategy, is putting the country’s government in a serious crisis of trust, forcing the authorities to choose between a strategic alliance with the United States and the internal stability of the state.

Some 4,000 U.S. troops, bases used for strikes against Iran, Iranian missiles crossing Jordanian skies, and American soldiers killed on Jordanian ground—all raise an increasingly urgent question: has the strategic alliance with Washington become a threat to the very existence of the country?

A Letter That Could Not Be Ignored

More than 200 Jordanian politicians, cultural figures, tribal leaders, and retired military officers did something extremely rare in Jordan—they publicly challenged their own government. In an open letter to the authorities, they demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, the cancellation or revision of the security agreement with the United States, and its submission to parliament for review.

“We affirm that their presence exposes Jordan to security, political, and economic risks that serve no national interest, and increases the likelihood of our country being dragged into a regional conflict in which it has no part,” the appeal stated.

The initiative was led by former minister and lawmaker Amjad Khazza al-Majali. Among the signatories were former secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front, Salem al-Falahat; 90‑year‑old political activist Sufyan al-Tell; retired military figures including Ali al-Habashneh; and former secretary-general of the Jordanian Communist Party, Saud Kbeilat.

The diversity of the signatories—from leftists to Islamists, from tribal chiefs to secular intellectuals—prevented the authorities from dismissing the letter as the work of a single political faction. But it would be an exaggeration to claim that it reflects the views of all Jordanians; on such sensitive matters, the kingdom simply does not conduct opinion polls, and open disagreement with the authorities has always been a risky undertaking here.

When an Ally Becomes a Target

Jordan has long been one of the United States’ main military partners in the Middle East. Some 4,000 American troops are stationed on its territory. However, the war between the U.S. and Iran, which resumed after the collapse of the June ceasefire, has turned that presence from an abstract diplomatic arrangement into a tangible threat.

Iranian missiles and drones aimed at Israeli or American facilities regularly cross Jordanian airspace. Some strikes hit installations used by U.S. forces. As a result, American soldiers are being killed—and this is no longer just news from another continent, but events occurring on Jordanian soil.

As The Jerusalem Post noted, the Iranian strikes against Jordan were a calculated move: Tehran sought to “sow discord within Jordan and create governmental chaos.” Professor Ronen Itzhak commented on the situation as follows: “This is exactly what Iran was trying to achieve by launching missiles at Jordan. Its goal is to pressure the Jordanian population into demanding the removal of the American presence.”

And Iran is succeeding. Every new attack reinforces the position of critics of the U.S. presence: the alliance with Washington is costing Jordan in direct security losses.

Storm in Parliament: Condolences to “Child Killers”

A particularly telling episode occurred in the Jordanian parliament in late July. Deputy Ali al-Khalayleh proposed sending official condolences to the U.S. Congress over the deaths of American servicemen on Jordanian soil.

The proposal sparked a storm. Other legislators fiercely attacked al‑Khalayleh. They called the United States “the biggest supporter of Israel, which has committed a massacre in Gaza,” and branded American soldiers “child killers.” “The Jordanian people are above such condolences,” their opponents declared.

What made the situation especially delicate was that al‑Khalayleh himself had earlier described the U.S. military presence in Jordan as “a walk with shepherds.” Now he was proposing that parliament express formal condolences to Washington—and he was jeered by his colleagues.

What matters is that opposition to American policy in parliament came not from fringe activists, but from elected representatives within an official political institution. This indicates that discontent with the U.S. alliance is penetrating the highest levels of Jordan’s political system.

Trump’s Double Game

U.S. President Donald Trump, for his part, also fanned the flames. After the deaths of American soldiers in Jordan, he effectively blamed Jordanian forces for incompetence. “If we had different air defense operators, this would not have happened,” Trump said, hinting that the Jordanians had failed to provide adequate protection for U.S. troops. “When you let others do your work… sometimes things go wrong,” the president added.

For Jordanian critics of the American presence, these words were yet another confirmation of their position: Washington itself does not consider Jordan a safe place for its troops and is ready to shift the blame for their deaths onto local authorities.

The Jordanian government, by contrast, could have used the same attacks as proof of the need to strengthen air defense in cooperation with the United States. But amid growing public dissatisfaction, that argument sounds increasingly weak.

Iran Plays on the Divide

Iran’s strategy in this conflict is anything but subtle, yet at the same time highly professional. Tehran consistently draws a distinction between the Jordanian people and the Jordanian government. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a direct appeal to Jordanians, stating that Iran is “not hostile to Jordan” and that its grievances are only with the American military presence.

“America is using bases on Jordanian soil to wage aggression and commit massacres against our people. It is our legitimate right to strike the aggressor wherever he launches his attacks,” the Iranian military declared. And in the view of many analysts, Tehran has a point on this issue.

Moreover, Iranian propaganda went further: the IRGC claimed that information about the location of U.S. troops in Jordan had been provided by Jordanian civilians and military personnel themselves and expressed gratitude to the Jordanian people for their cooperation.

In this way, Iran is trying to deepen the rift between the authorities and society, using the Palestinian cause as a lever. Support for Palestine is deeply rooted in Jordanian society, and the war in Gaza and Washington’s backing of Israel have only intensified anti‑American sentiment. That is precisely why Iranian statements fall on fertile ground.

Media Blockade and Information Gap

Paradoxically, despite the significance of the letter and the many prominent signatories, major Jordanian media outlets did not publish it in full. Critics of the government saw this as evidence of severe restrictions on political and media space in Jordan. Analysts argued that the limited room for dissent means that the level of opposition visible in the media is likely lower than the actual discontent in society.

As a result, the letter was disseminated mainly through social networks and foreign media. The Jordanian government, for its part, sought to frame the conflict not as a geopolitical problem but as a matter of national security. Official statements emphasized border defense and Jordan’s refusal to take part in the war.

However, in the age of social media, traditional methods of managing information are working less and less effectively. Citizens see videos online, read international reports, and compare them with official statements. The growing gap between the official version and what people see with their own eyes is undermining trust in the authorities.

The Price of Alliance

Jordan’s economy was already under severe strain due to inflation, unemployment, and declining purchasing power. The conflict dealt an additional blow to the tourism sector, which accounts for up to 18% of the country’s revenues. In the first half of 2026, income from tourism and Jordanian expatriates fell by 12%, from American tourists by 25%, and from European tourists by 28%. At the same time, the United States provides Jordan with about $1.65 billion annually in economic and military aid.

King Abdullah II’s government finds itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the alliance with the United States brings billions in aid and security guarantees. On the other hand, that same alliance turns the country into a target, undermines internal stability, and erodes citizens’ trust in the authorities.

As Professor Itzhak noted, “The King of Jordan has the sovereignty to make independent decisions in accordance with the constitution, so it is unlikely that he will change the country’s policy.” But the question is how much longer Jordanian society can endure being held hostage to a geopolitical game in which it has no voice.

The open letter from Jordanian public figures is not just a protest against foreign troops. It is a symptom of a deep crisis of trust between the authorities and society, between the government’s strategic calculations and the real interests of its citizens. War, the Palestinian question, the American military presence, and national sovereignty have become tightly interwoven—a knot that Amman is finding increasingly difficult to untie.

Traditional methods of managing public opinion are working less and less effectively in the age of social media. Jordanians are no longer passive recipients of official messages—they actively seek out alternative sources of information and compare them with government statements. And this growing comparison may prove to be the biggest challenge for the Jordanian government, because in today’s world, controlling the flow of information is far harder than controlling the country’s borders or its airspace.

Muhammad Hamid ad‑Din is a prominent Palestinian journalist

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September 6, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on “We Are Being Drawn Into a War We Don’t Want to Fight”: What Jordan’s Alliance with Washington Is Costing It

Seyed M. Marandi: U.S. Intel Warns Iran Is Preparing a MAJOR Escalation

Dialogue Works | September 5, 2026

September 5, 2026 Posted by | Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Seyed M. Marandi: U.S. Intel Warns Iran Is Preparing a MAJOR Escalation

Ex-Pentagon official: US ‘intentionally targeting Iranian civilians’

Press TV – September 3, 2026

A former senior Pentagon official has said that the United States is deliberately killing civilians in Iran after a US missile strike hit a wedding ceremony in Hormozgan Province, which led to the martyrdom of five civilians, including a four-year-old child, and injured more than 70 others.

Wes J. Bryant, who served as the Pentagon’s chief of civilian harm assessments and now works as a war crimes analyst, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that the attack on the wedding in Kouhestak, Sirik County, exposes the real moral and legal standards of the War Department and the Trump administration.

“Is the US intentionally targeting civilians in Iran? It is,” Bryant said. He rejected US Central Command’s claim that American forces never attack civilians, arguing that Washington is “recklessly and negligently endangering and killing civilians” in its war against the Islamic Republic.

Bryant said every target location is recorded at multiple levels of the chain of command. Comparing Tuesday’s wedding massacre with the February US strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, he said the US military would have been able “to report within hours” whether a school or a wedding had been hit. Washington has still not produced a transparent accounting of the Minab slaughter.

No sitting American official has condemned the Kouhestak attack. Vice President JD Vance said only that Washington was “investigating” the reports while declaring himself “extremely skeptical” of Iranian accounts. CENTCOM spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins repeated the stock line that the US military “never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC.” President Donald Trump described the same night’s bombardment as “large and powerful.”

The US military struck the wedding at the home of fisherman Ali Mallahi around 8 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday as families gathered for his daughter’s ceremony. Hormozgan authorities named the martyred as four-year-old Amir Ali Karimi, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, 43-year-old Kolsoum Mallahi and Zarkhatoun Taheri. State television later said a fifth victim, a 22-year-old woman, died in hospital; nearly 70 others were wounded, most of them women and children.

Mallahi told state television that those inside were ordinary civilians. Videos from the scene showed a collapsed roof, blood-soaked carpets and guests being treated in Minab, the same city where US missiles destroyed a primary school on the first day of the US-Zionist war.

US senator calls for a full investigation and accountability of US strike

US Senator Chris Van Hollen wrote that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth treats civilian casualties as an afterthought, cuts personnel responsible for preventing them, & boasts that there will be “no stupid rules of engagement.”

“There must be a full investigation & accountability for this strike. And we must end this disastrous war now,” he added.

Defence experts identified munition fragments consistent with a US AGM-84K SLAM-ER cruise missile. The house stood more than 100 meters from a telecommunications tower also hit in the barrage.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei called the strike a war crime and part of America’s “catalogue of atrocities” against the Iranian nation, linking it to earlier massacres in Minab, Lamerd and Qeshm.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said a power that “picks targets like Satan and kills like Satan” is Satan. The Iranian Red Crescent wrote to the International Criminal Court demanding an independent investigation. Iran’s UN mission sent a formal letter to the secretary-general and the Security Council describing the bombing of a wedding as a grave breach of international humanitarian law.

IRGC Commander Ahmad Vahidi, in a message to the victims’ families on Thursday, said the blood of those killed in Kouhestak “will never go unanswered” and would “catch up with those who ordered and carried out this heinous crime.”

He said the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and Iran’s armed forces would continue to guard the sanctity of the martyrs of the second and third US-Zionist-imposed wars, particularly the Battle of Hormuz.

Mourners buried the dead on Thursday in the coastal village, tossing petals over flag-draped coffins. Iran answered the latest US assault with missiles and drones against American bases in the region.

September 4, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Ex-Pentagon official: US ‘intentionally targeting Iranian civilians’

Sanctioning a Ghost: Europe’s Empty Gesture Against Iran

By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | September 3, 2026 

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced today that the European Union has “officially joined” the American sanctions campaign against Iran — Operation Economic Outcast — and framed Tehran’s choice in the usual absolutes: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy. It made a commanding headline. It is a hollow one. You cannot embargo a trading partner you have already stopped trading with, and in economic substance that is precisely what Europe did years ago. Today it merely issued a press release about it.

The trade Europe is threatening to withdraw barely exists

One number frames the entire affair. In 2025 the whole of the European Union traded about €3.7 billion in goods with Iran — roughly $4 billion — against Iran’s total foreign trade of some $182.6 billion. Europe therefore accounts for about 2 percent of Iran’s commerce. That is the sum of the leverage now being brandished: a rounding error dressed up as a thunderbolt.

And it is a hollow 2 percent, because the flow runs almost entirely one way. Europe still sells Iran a little machinery, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals — about €3 billion, or 4 to 5 percent of Iran’s import bill. It buys almost nothing back: EU imports from Iran were €0.76 billion, under 1 percent of Iran’s exports, since Europe no longer takes meaningful Iranian oil. Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands make up nearly two-thirds of even this remnant. Withdraw it in full and you bruise a few exporters in Stuttgart and Milan far more than you trouble the treasury in Tehran.

Europe’s leverage was spent years ago

The collapse Europe is now formalizing already happened, slowly, over more than a decade. EU–Iran trade topped €27 billion in 2011 and reached €20.7 billion in 2017, during the nuclear-deal window — a period when Europe genuinely was a major Iranian partner, on the order of 15 to 20 percent of Tehran’s trade. The 2018 US withdrawal began bleeding it out; the trend never reversed; a fresh EU sanctions package in January 2026 drained it further. By 2025 it stood at €3.7 billion. Europe dismantled its own bridge to Iran plank by plank across seven years, and Iran long since built new ones — to China above all, which takes the bulk of its oil, and to the UAE, Turkey, and Iraq for the rest. The marginal Iranian barrel is priced in Shandong, not Rotterdam. There is nothing left in Europe’s hand to take away.

Sanctioning from a sickbed

Here is what makes the gesture worse than empty: Europe is declaring economic war on Iran at the precise moment its own major economies can least afford one — and while they are being bled by the very war Europe is now underwriting.

The eurozone crawled through the first quarter of 2026 at 0.1 percent growth, its weakest in nearly a year, with the composite PMI stuck in contraction and energy inflation running near 11 percent. That last figure is the tell, because it is a direct transmission of this war: the Iran shock and the throttling of the Strait of Hormuz sent fuel prices surging into economies that, unlike the United States, import their energy. The European Central Bank has warned that a prolonged conflict could tip Germany and Italy into technical recession by year’s end.

The particulars are grim. Germany — Iran’s largest European trading partner, and thus the country with the most of that thin trade to forfeit — is also the continent’s biggest casualty. It has already endured two straight years of recession, its manufacturing base has shrunk some 15 percent from its 2017 peak in what economists now call outright deindustrialization, its automotive crown jewel is shedding tens of thousands of jobs, and unemployment sits at a twelve-year high. A recession in 2026 would be its fourth in four years, an outcome with no post-war precedent. France is paralyzed in parallel — a deficit near 5.1 percent of GDP, its fifth prime minister in two years, growth downgraded toward 0.4 percent. Italy limps along near 0.5 percent, its consumers acutely exposed to exactly the energy swings this war is producing.

So the tableau is this: a bloc whose largest economy is deindustrializing under an energy shock, whose second-largest is fiscally ungovernable, and whose third is one bad quarter from recession, has volunteered to prolong the conflict driving its energy bill — by forgoing a trickle of trade that costs Tehran almost nothing and its own exporters rather more. Germany torches a bridge it could use while standing in a house that also is burning.

The one caveat, and why it fails too

In fairness, Operation Economic Outcast was never really about Europe’s own thin trade with Iran. It is a secondary-sanctions weapon — the threat to bar any firm or nation dealing with Iran from the dollar system — and Europe’s theoretical value lies not in the goods it stops selling but in the financial and shipping chokepoints it controls: euro clearing, European banks, the reinsurance and protection-and-indemnity clubs that underwrite tankers. But that leverage aims at Iran’s trade with third countries, chiefly China — and Bessent has conspicuously declined to say whether Washington will actually sanction Chinese banks, because everyone understands what that would cost. Iran, meanwhile, has spent seven years rebuilding its commerce on Chinese banks, yuan settlement, barter, and a shadow tanker fleet engineered to be untouchable by European paperwork. The US naval blockade ostensibly has done more to choke Iranian exports this year than any designation list will. Europe adding its signature raises the compliance risk for the handful of European firms still tempted by Iran. It does essentially nothing to the Chinese refiners who are the actual market.

A sanction is worth what it denies a target that the target cannot easily replace. By that measure Europe’s hand is all but empty: its direct trade with Iran has withered to roughly 2 percent of Tehran’s commerce, in goods Iran already sources from China, Turkey, and the Gulf, and the one channel where Europe might still matter points at a Beijing that Washington will not confront. What makes the move not merely futile but faintly self-destructive is that Europe is making it from a sickbed — its industrial engine stalling, its energy costs inflated by this very war — in order to prolong the fight that is inflating them. The announcement signals Western unity and puts the EU on the record. As a blow against Iran, it is a spent cartridge fired from a trembling hand.

September 4, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Sanctioning a Ghost: Europe’s Empty Gesture Against Iran

A proposal seeks to exploit Americans’ debt to force them into wars against Israel’s enemies

MEMO | September 3, 2026

The debt of Americans should be exploited to force them to fight in wars against Israel’s enemies, a Jerusalem Post commentator has argued, proposing that indebted young Americans be offered full debt forgiveness in exchange for military service.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper, security analyst AJ Jaff said a “federally administered debt-forgiveness enlistment program” that discharges Americans’ student loan, credit card and other debts after 24 or 36 months of service “would produce voluntary enlistment at scale”.

Jaff, described by the paper as “a senior strategic security strategist and analyst with 20 years of experience across corporate security, military, and geopolitical intelligence”, wrote that “the war with Iran will not be won through airstrikes” and that a ground invasion would require between 750,000 and 1.5 million American troops, against a current active US Army of 452,000.

The article proposed debt relief as the way to fill that gap. “The economics of the indebted American 20- and 30-something make this the most efficient conversion mechanism available,” said Jaff while explaining that “states generate the soldiers they need through the incentives that work on the population they have”.

The proposal has been condemned as confirmation that Israel expects Americans to fight and die in wars fought on its behalf. The Mises Institute, a US think tank, said the article amounted to a call for more Americans “to enlist – to die for Israel”, adding: “The whole point being to further subsidize the state of Israel.”

Users on social media described the proposal as an attempt “to exploit the crippling debt young Americans are carrying by offering them a chance at forgiveness if they’re willing to go die for Israel in the Persian Gulf.”

Responding to the plan, prominent American commentator Glenn Greenwald said: “ Israel pays scummy US politicians in both parties and DC vultures in the lobbying firms to ensure that Americans are forced to send billions to Israel. Then they argue that the debt of Americans should be exploited to force them to fight in wars against Israel’s enemies”.

The proposal to exploit the debt of Americans to fight wars against Israel’s enemies follows a string of remarks by senior Israeli officials suggesting they see US military power as a tool to be wielded on their behalf, while Israel itself stays out of the fighting. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the Katif Conference for National Responsibility on 21 July that a US war against Iran fought without Israeli participation was “the best for us”, adding, “Israel has no interest in joining the campaign.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, boasted on Israel’s Channel 14 on 30 August that he had used “close to a thousand hours” on American television and his “influence in the United States” over almost 40 years to persuade Washington to take military action against Iran, saying, “It took a long time to bring the US in.” The US had launched military action against Iran on 28 February, an escalation Netanyahu had reportedly been pressing Washington to undertake for months.

September 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on A proposal seeks to exploit Americans’ debt to force them into wars against Israel’s enemies

Europe enters winter with ‘dangerously low’ gas reserves amid Persian Gulf supply shock: Report

The Cradle | September 3, 2026

Europe is heading into winter with dangerously low natural gas reserves, Bloomberg reported on 3 September, amid high prices driven by the US-Israeli war on Iran and rising competition for supply in the global market.

According to the European Commission’s most recent update, gas storage levels in the EU are at 65 percent.

To meet its lowest storage target of 75 percent, Europe will need to purchase 100 terawatt-hours of gas before the end of the year, Bloomberg calculations show.

Such purchases would cost more than $8 billion at current prices, making stockpiling uneconomical.

Governments and utilities across Europe have delayed natural gas purchases in hopes that additional supply becomes available and prices fall in time to refill before winter.

Gas prices have doubled since February due to the US-Israeli war on Iran as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, disrupting exports of gas from Qatar, a major international supplier.

European countries have sought to build inventories ahead of each winter following natural gas shortages resulting from the Russia–Ukraine war that began in 2022.

Europe has deliberately sought to limit its own purchases of Russian gas in response to the war. Additionally, the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, which supplied cheap gas from Russia to Germany, was destroyed in September 2022 under mysterious circumstances benefiting the US, Ukraine, and Poland.

US natural gas producers have benefited from both the destruction of Nord Stream and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The US has become the world’s top exporter of natural gas after rushing to fill the gap in lost Qatari and Russian gas supplies by providing more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipped by tankers across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to Europe and Asia.

Germany and other EU nations are not expected to suffer gas shortages this winter, as they can pay for the needed gas supplies despite the higher prices.

However, late European purchases at high prices could cause shortages and energy blackouts in poorer countries that lack the funds to compete to purchase the same LNG cargoes.

“The potential for a global ‘fight for fuel’ is there, particularly in a colder winter,” stated Go Katayama, principal insight analyst for LNG at maritime data tracking platform Kpler.

Bangladesh and Pakistan are among those countries most vulnerable to shortages. Both countries suffered blackouts and factory closures after the natural gas crisis in 2022.

However, more expensive gas purchases will drive higher inflation in Europe and expand the risk of a long period of stagnation, sluggish growth, and de-industrialization.

September 3, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Europe enters winter with ‘dangerously low’ gas reserves amid Persian Gulf supply shock: Report

The Bishkek Declaration: What the SCO Signed, and Why India’s Name on It Matters

By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | September 2, 2026 

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation closed its 26th heads-of-state summit in Bishkek on September 1 with a joint statement — the Bishkek Declaration — timed to the bloc’s 25th anniversary and signed by the leaders of all ten member states: Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and the host, Kyrgyzstan. It is a long anniversary text, adopted alongside some 28 other outcome documents and amendments to the SCO Charter, and its language on the war in Iran is unambiguous. But the single most consequential fact about the declaration is not what it says. It is whose signature sits on it. Narendra Modi’s India — a Quad member, a US strategic partner, and a country the same declaration implicitly defends against Washington’s tariffs — put its name to a text condemning American and Israeli military action, mourning a dead Iranian supreme leader, and rejecting the sanctions architecture the United States has built. That signature is the story.

What the declaration says

On the war, the SCO condemned the military strikes on Iranian territory that it said caused numerous civilian casualties and significant damage to Iran’s economy, characterizing those strikes as violations of international law and the UN Charter that created serious risks to international peace and security. It expressed condolences on the death of Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei — killed earlier in the war — reaffirmed support for Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and called for the conflict to be resolved solely through political and diplomatic means. It extended the point to Gaza, calling a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian question the only path to stability in the region.

On sanctions, without naming the United States, the members opposed “unilateral coercive measures” inconsistent with UN and WTO rules and damaging to the global economy — language that simultaneously covers US sanctions on Iran, Western sanctions on Russia, and the tariff pressure on India. On the nuclear question, they upheld Iran’s position directly, affirming every member’s “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear energy and declaring that measures restricting that right are contrary to international law.

The rest is familiar SCO scaffolding, weightier for the anniversary: an open, non-discriminatory multilateral trading system; implementation of the SCO economic and energy cooperation strategies to 2030; a push to reform global governance toward a multipolar order that “excludes bloc-based and confrontational” methods; responsible use of artificial intelligence; and the ritual condemnation of the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism, with a pointed line that “double standards” in counterterrorism are unacceptable. Pakistan takes the rotating chairmanship for 2026–27 and will host the 2027 summit in Islamabad.

From the Knesset to Bishkek: the anatomy of a reversal

To read India’s signature as simple hedging understates it. Six months earlier, Modi had planted India firmly in the opposite camp — and the Bishkek text reverses, almost line for line, the position he took in February.

On February 25–26, 2026, Modi made a state visit to Israel: the first Indian prime minister to address the Knesset, honored with the Speaker’s Medal as the first foreign leader to receive it, presiding over the elevation of the India–Israel relationship to a “special strategic partnership” with 27 bilateral outcomes and a defense co-production track. Two days after he left, on February 28, the US and Israel opened their war on Iran. India’s response was conspicuous silence: it did not condemn the strikes on Iranian sovereignty, and it did not condole the killing of Iran’s supreme leader. New Delhi zeroed out its Chabahar port funding in the 2026–27 budget under US pressure, let bilateral trade with Iran collapse, and offered only a muted, “humanitarian” reaction when an Iranian frigate returning from joint exercises with India was sunk near Sri Lanka. Commentators summarized the moment cleanly — Modi had put India firmly in the Israel–US camp — while critics at home called it a strategic surrender. Among India’s BRICS and SCO partners, Russia, China, and Iran above all, the tilt bred real distrust.

What turned India back was oil. India imports roughly 85 percent of its fuel and draws a large share of its crude and LNG through the Strait of Hormuz. Under the 50 percent US tariff wall — half of it levied explicitly to punish Russian-crude purchases — New Delhi had spent early 2026 trimming Russian imports and leaning on Gulf suppliers, a quiet alignment with Washington. The Iran war detonated that arrangement: Hormuz disruption tightened supply, prices surged, the rupee came under pressure, and Modi was reduced to urging citizens to conserve fuel. With Gulf barrels suddenly unreliable and Washington’s tariffs making the alignment costly anyway, India turned back to discounted Russian crude out of straightforward energy necessity. As one analysis put it, the energy shock reordered India’s alignments — the tilt toward Washington of a few weeks earlier giving way to a familiar, interest-driven return to Moscow.

Modi was working two constituencies at once, and they pulled opposite ways. The influential Indian-American diaspora he has assiduously courted aligns comfortably with a pro-US, pro-Israel posture; against it stood the roughly ten million Indians in the Gulf and a domestic opinion for whom the image of India embracing Israel mid-war became a live political liability the opposition worked hard. Energy security and the Gulf-and-domestic pull won.

Seen against that arc, the Bishkek signature is the visible completion of a U-turn. The declaration made India condemn the strikes it had refused to condemn in February and mourn the supreme leader it had refused to mourn. The signature therefore reads less as conversion than as correction — an interest-driven snap back to the multi-aligned center after a six-month experiment in the Israel–US camp proved too expensive.

This is where strategic autonomy, not alignment, becomes the only coherent description, and the distinction matters for anyone tempted to call the SCO a consolidated anti-US front. India will lean toward Washington and Jerusalem when the terms are right and swing back toward Moscow and the Global South when its energy and standing require it, bending each forum to its own positions rather than adopting anyone’s line. Modi spent the Bishkek summit proving the point even as he signed the consensus: he demanded an end to “double standards” on terrorism in language every observer read as aimed at Pakistan, then sitting at the same table and about to take the SCO chair; he insisted connectivity projects respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, India’s standing refusal to bless China’s Belt and Road and the corridor it runs through territory India claims; and he pressed Putin directly to move from endless war toward a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine rather than echo Moscow.

And the timing is not incidental. India hosts the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12–13 — ten days after Bishkek — as BRICS chair for 2026, with Putin confirmed and Xi and Pezeshkian expected. A chair cannot antagonize the leaders it is about to receive, so part of the Bishkek signature is simply the housekeeping of a host keeping its room intact before its own showcase. Yet India deliberately themed its BRICS presidency around resilience and cooperation — a framing chosen to keep the focus on delivery rather than confrontation. The tell is in the gap: India signed a confrontational SCO text while steering its own BRICS summit deliberately away from confrontation. The New Delhi declaration on September 13 will be the better test of where India actually stands, and whether the correction that began at Bishkek holds.

The energy weight behind the declaration

A bloc’s communiqué is worth as much as the material power behind it, and on oil the SCO’s ten members carry more weight than the “regional talking shop” framing suggests. Taken together, and using the most recent 2026 figures, the member states produce on the order of 21 to 23 million barrels per day of crude and condensate — roughly a fifth of world output. Set against OPEC’s crude production of about 27 to 28 million barrels per day, the SCO membership produces somewhere near 80 percent of what the entire OPEC cartel pumps.

SCO member Crude + condensate (approx., 2026)
Russia ~10.9 million bbl/d
China ~4.3–5.0 million bbl/d
Iran ~3.3 million bbl/d (war-depressed)
Kazakhstan ~1.8 million bbl/d
India ~0.7 million bbl/d
Others (Uzbekistan, etc.) ~0.2 million bbl/d
SCO total ~21–23 million bbl/d

Four caveats sharpen rather than soften the picture. First, Iran sits in both camps — it is the only country that is both an SCO member and an OPEC member — so the two blocs are not cleanly separable; strip Iran out to avoid double-counting and the SCO membership still produces roughly two-thirds of OPEC’s volume. Second, Russia alone, at nearly 11 million barrels per day, produces about 40 percent as much as all of OPEC combined and is the gravitational center of the SCO’s energy weight. Third, the figures are unusually soft this year because the war has curtailed Iranian output and repeatedly throttled Gulf flows through Hormuz — crude and liquids transiting the strait fell from about 21.6 million barrels per day before the conflict to under 5 million in the second quarter of 2026 — so actual regional production has swung well below capacity. Fourth, and most telling, several of OPEC’s Gulf heavyweights — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait — are not SCO members but SCO dialogue partners, drawn into the organization’s orbit since 2023. The bloc that just defended Iran and condemned the US-Iran war is steadily accreting the very Gulf producers on whom OPEC depends.

The deeper asymmetry is that OPEC is a supply cartel, while the SCO spans both ends of the oil market. Its members include not only Russia, Iran, and Kazakhstan on the production side but China and India — the world’s largest and third-largest crude importers — on the demand side. No other grouping contains both the sellers and the biggest buyers of oil under one roof, and the declaration’s commitments to an SCO energy cooperation strategy to 2030, a proposed SCO Energy Consortium, and expanded settlement in national currencies are early scaffolding for exactly that: a producer-consumer bloc that could, over time, price and clear a meaningful share of Eurasian energy trade outside the dollar and outside OPEC’s writ. That ambition is nowhere near realized. But it is the material fact that gives an anniversary communiqué more heft than its boilerplate would suggest.

The Bishkek Declaration is, on its face, a predictable statement of Eurasian grievance: condemn the strikes on Iran, defend Iran’s nuclear rights, reject Western sanctions, call for a multipolar order. What lifts it above boilerplate is the combination of the signatory and the substance behind it. India signed a text that condemns the very strikes on Iran it pointedly declined to condemn in February, when Modi was in the Knesset — not because it has changed sides, but because a six-month tilt toward Israel and Washington collided with an energy shock and a tariff wall, and snapping back to the multi-aligned center became the rational course. The anti-coercion language now shields India too, and a BRICS summit India must host in ten days makes keeping the room intact its own necessity. And the bloc doing the signing controls something close to four-fifths of OPEC’s oil output, both of Asia’s giant import markets, and a growing roster of Gulf dialogue partners. The declaration’s rhetoric is cheap. The energy and demographic weight standing behind it is not.

September 3, 2026 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Comments Off on The Bishkek Declaration: What the SCO Signed, and Why India’s Name on It Matters

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