Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| Why The Iran War Will Not Stop |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2026-09-30
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SUMMARY
Why did Trump start the Iran war in 2025? Pressure of blackmail (Epstein Files) and Trump’s own deteriorating mental state which allowed him to accede to Israel’s blandishments in 2025 when he did not do so in his first term. Why does he continue the war today? Ego. Trump’s ego—he cannot admit defeat; USA’s military “ego”—we are strongest military in the world and cannot admit defeat. Will USA or Israel use nuclear bombs? And If they do, who would respond and how? ESSAY Tallyrand—and others—are credited with the description of a political execution in France this way: ”It Was Worse Than a Crime; It Was a Blunder”. This expresses the idea than crimes are at worst unpleasant, but blunders have disastrous consequences. Many people regard the USA-Israeli attacks and on-again-off-again war against Iran as worse than crimes (which they were and remain)—people now regard them as a succession of blunders, meaning that the consequences for the USA (and for Israel) are already disastrous and likely to become more so as the war continues. This is my view. Why This War And Why In 2025? Israel (Netanyahu) has been asking American presidents to attack Iran for decades and, until 2025, they all refused. This includes Trump in his first term. Israel has a national fixation on creating a “Greater Israel” in a territory which include all of historic Palestine, parts of Lebanon and Syria, and perhaps much more. In my view, this is an aspiration—not a necessity—for Israel, but it has become an unchallengeable ideology of Israeli governing policy and, thus, in effect, an inseparable element of Zionism-2023.[1] Israel has long wished to supplant national independence and sovereignty in its neighboring countries with subservience to Israel (or to the USA), and the wars which the USA fought (in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Syria, now in Iran) and Israel’s own wars (in Lebanon and Palestine and Syria) all had the purpose of such “regime change”. Iran was the strongest of all these countries and therefore the last to be attacked. Israel desired to be the local “hegemon” and the USA went along, partly for its own reasons (the desire to appear a “superpower”), and partly to appease and enrich the Military-Industrial-Complex, and partly to appease the Israel Lobby. This is part of normal USA governmental corruption. Iran had been peaceful for the 47 years of severe USA economic sanctions and the Straight of Hormuz had remained open and untroubled. Iran had not attacked another country in recent memory. Meanwhile Israel was an acknowledged (local) “superpower” militarily, and had no reason to be afraid of an attack from Iran. Iran did support Hezbollah in Lebanon, but Hezbollah was organized, and behaved, to defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression, not to attack Israel otherwise. In that sense, Hezbollah and Iran “threatened” Israel’s Greater Israel Project, but such threat was not “existential” for Israel. Israel had been asking the USA to attack Iran for decades. If Iran had been an “existential” threat to Israel over that time, there would have been a sign of it. There was not. It would seem that the war against Iran was delayed until 2025 because earlier American presidents has been persuaded that such a war would be unworkable—or worse. In that case, why did Trump agree to fight this war in 2025? I assume (I’ve never read an explanation) that the many previously insufficient pressures on Trump to begin this war were, in 2025, augmented by blackmail—the threat to expose him in the Epstein scandal—and facilitated by his advancing mental deterioration. The Epstein enterprise is seen by some as a project of the Mossad (Israeli intelligence), a blackmailing trap for western politicians, including Trump, to assure their compliance with Israeli demands. The USA And Israel Have Lost The War All the USA’s and all of Israel’s attacks on Iran have failed to compel Iran to stop defending itself. Indeed, to the contrary, they have energized Iran in its response, namely, destroying USA military installations in the region and restricting commercial traffic through the Straight of Hormuz. The USA’s (call them Israel’s) two principal war aims—causing regime change in Iran or destroying Iran as a sovereign country—have clearly failed. In that sense the USA’s and Israel’s war aims have failed and the war is already lost by them. Why Has The USA Continued The War With Iran After It Was Clearly Lost? This war did not start and has not continued because Israel or the USA were, then, are are now, in “existential danger” from Iran. It has been continued by Iran because, quite understandably, Iran regarded itself as under “existential” threat. That is not in doubt. The question I pose here is, why has the USA continued? Iran has not seriously attacked Israel during the current war. Israel is a nuclear power and Iran is understandably cautious. So Israel is not under an existential threat from Iran even today. And, although lost, the war remains very costly to the USA. The continuing military costs are expensive but are the least of it. The reputational loss to the USA—now associated so closely with the pariah Israel due to the USA’s consistent support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and due to our participation in the Iran war—are also not “existential”, and are not clearly economically costly, although losing friends is bound to be costly. The principal costs to the USA have been and remain the threat to our energy sufficiency. Gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel have all become much more expensive—enriching the oil companies, because their local costs have not increased—due to the price rises in the international markets, all this due to the closure of the Straight of Hormuz by Iran. The attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Ansar Allah (not part of the Iran war), have cut off Saudi oil exports via the Bab Al-Mandab Straight. Altogether, oil exports from the Gulf region have declined almost entirely, reducing world oil supply from pre-war levels by about 25%, causing prices to rise internationally and in the USA. And all this is caused, directly, by the refusal of the USA to accede to Iran’s terms for ending the war, set forth in the so-called MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), which terms amounted to ignominious surrender by the USA, payment of reparations and various other economic costs, (B:and cessation of all Israel’s aggressions among its neighbors, principally Lebanon and Palestine.. Ending Israel’s aggressions against Lebanon, Palestine, and elsewhere (Syria) presents a different cost for USA (or for Trump). Of course, the US could ask nicely for Israel to stop, but this is unlikely to be effective. So—in my view—the USA would have to end all support for Israel (money, weapons, diplomatic) and perhaps even end diplomatic contact, end direct air-transportation to and from Israel, maybe end all trade with Israel. These are how we might treat an enemy (e.g., Cuba) but would seem very costly politically in the USA as a way to treat an ally (Israel). So—a further cost of ending the war. The USA has long seemed a Zionist puppet, and this would be more of the same. And thus, this political cost to ending the war induces the USA to delay acceding to Iran’s demands (and they may change over time!) and thus increase the severity of the costs accruing from not ending the war. Some pundits are speculating (I see them on YouTube) that Israel is close to collapse. Well, considering the Masada Complex, that’s not so wonderful a thought as it might seem. The price rises in diesel have hit trucking hard, adding $1000 to each long-haul trip. They have hit farming hard, because farmers run farm equipment on diesel fuel. If what started as price rises morph into shortages, and shortages into unavailability, we will see a shut-down of USA’s economy and food crises (or starvation) in the USA. All of this may be true in most other countries as well, but I am examining costs to the USA of continuing the war. The rise in price of jet fuel has already made some airlines cut the number of flights. We may expect some smaller airlines to close entirely. The USA had a Strategic Petroleum Reserve but has now used it all up. If the USA cannot produce (or purchase elsewhere) these fuels, then mere price rises may change to shortages. In addition to costs to the USA are costs to Trump himself of continuing the war. The Republican majorities in Congress seem likely to vanish in the November 2026 elections, which damages the party and damages Trump’s ability to govern as well, possibly advancing the likelihood of impeachment. So, with all of these costs of continuing the war, what explains Trump’s refusal to accede to Iran’s demands (and thus secure a re-opening of the Straight of Hormuz)? Of course, the pressure of the Epstein blackmail is still there, and Israel is still committed to Greater Israel which seems, in the Israeli view, to demand a neutered Iran. And Trump’s mental disintegration is probably worse now than in 2025. (His speech at he UN in September 2026 was off the wall loony.) But his ego is involved as well. He could have refused to start the war without damage to his ego, but ending the war, now, on Iran’s terms, is ignominious and is probably to hard for him to consider: Trump has always refused to admit defeat. In effect, the US is today in “I will continue this war though the heavens should fall” and ”after me the deluge” territory. ((CB:What Of Nuclear Bombs? There are some indications that either the USA or Israel—frustrated and embarrassed by Iran’s survival (and their own loss so far) may resort to nuclear bombs. I would hope that China and Russia have had talks with the USA and Israel about nuclear war—warning them not to use nukes and explaining the possible consequences of doing so. Perhaps suggesting thsat if the insisit (against all sense) to use nukes, they begin small—with the smallest bomb used in an unpopulated place—so that a demonstration retaliation (by China or Russia) at an unpopulated part of the USA could persuade the USA to end this experiment. Same for Israel. And such talks should, in my opinion, be made public and made immediately, and not wait for the midterm elections in November. But I am neither a diplomat nor a psychologist. And Trump and Netanyahu are both madmen. So my thoughts are probably off the mark if, indeed, there is a mark. ----------- [1] Zionism is not a single ideology. Like Christianity or Islam or Judaism, Zionism is changeable-over-time and not a single thing. That said, there can be no doubt that Israel describes itself as a Zionist enterprise and that its actions, especially its current genocide in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank are properly regarded as Zionist enterprises. Or Zionist-2023 enterprises. By Zionism-2023 I mean the current “edition” of Zionism. It could as easily be called Zionism-2000 I suppose. |
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