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Saturday, Aug 29, 2026 - 17:37 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Guy For Never Mind


In for a penny, in for a pound dollar!
[N.B. They, like, simply cut-and-pasted the dollar bill...]
(Sources: nytimes.com, r/askmusic)


In news from the Middle East, Iran appears to be holding out an olive branch with a billboard proclaiming "Great Victory!" for GEOTUS TRUMP in Tehran, in which they offered Caesar a whole dollar despite his declining to offer a dime while claiming the Strait of Hormuz as American territory*, as explained before. Granted, while it is only proper for Emperors to rename places (and TRUMP isn't even doing it for himself, unlike the examples of Constantinople, Augsburg, Orléans etc.), it might be considered to moderate the trend before everything gets called "America", as with the former Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario.

Now with tongue slightly out of cheek, it can be noted that the Iranian billboard follows in their established propaganda tradition of Western cultural appropriation, recalling the previous well-researched Lord of the Rings reference in April. The inspiration for the latest effort is Nirvana's generational Nevermind album from 1991 (whose hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" had coincidentally just been referenced here). The baby on the much-parodied album art has by the way just lost his lawsuit in the U.S. over the inadvertent exposure, and we are grateful to Iran for their interpretation in sparing undue envy.

And now, two questions. Firstly, why the adaptation of Western cultural icons? Iran has after all been a unitary Islamic theocracy ever since their 1979 revolution, extending to the criminalization of Western music, and indeed all musical instruments on (state-controlled) television. That said, the embargo appears to be hardly absolute, and there are indications that some private and underground consumption of Western (and Asian etc.) pop culture does take place (as happened across the Iron Curtain, during the First Cold War too)

However, the apparent contradiction here is: although one figures the Iranian administrators to know that at least some of their citizens are perusing banned media, it is not clear as to why they would reference said media in official propaganda, since the context should be lost on most. Is this, then, a subtle warning to pro-Team Blue supporters (who would be expected to recognize the provenance), some of whom are being executed for their part in earlier protests? A thumbing of the nose at Team Blue members? Or even some sort of cheeky signal indicating latent Team Blue influence, in the Iranian ranks?



At least there's already a Gulf of America
[N.B. As predicted here, the sucker is being discovered.]
(Source: wionews.com)


Leaving that aside, the second question, which relates to the Strait of Hormuz (America?). Following up on previous analyses, Great America and Iran are both apparently not on talking terms after TRUMP suggested that they were facing one last chance before (another) decapitation earlier this month, with honest broker Oman also catching some flak after possibly leaning a little too much to the Iranian side. Thankfully, this "head for an eye" has moderated to an economic assault, as hinted here recently, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just announcing Operation Economic Outcast (a.k.a. Economic D-Day) towards the complete (economic) isolation of Iran - fresh off his own Bondesque subterfuge towards corralling American debt.

Oh yes, the question. Here goes: a large part of why GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP's attack on Iran had been considered ill-considered by the mainstream media and Internet layabouts, had been because it was expected to precipitate an oil crisis akin to that of the 1970s, when a mostly-Arabic OPEC embargo had catapulted the price of oil nearly threefold. Despite all the doom-mongering on r/oil and other subreddits, however, crude oil benchmark prices have remained blissfully unperturbed after a brief post-decapitation spike, with current WTI futures at about US$83, or not really that different from typical levels over the past years, especially after factoring in inflation. How then has the oil price remained so stable, despite the Hormuz blockade cutting off a fifth of global supply for months?

On this, the standard answer has been (oil) demand destruction (i.e. consumers are using less oil), together with countries dipping heavily into their (strategic) reserves, with a special mention to China for voluntarily slashing their (considerable) purchases by perhaps a quarter or more for whatever (potentially partly-altruistic) reasons. This by the way comes alongside Bessent requesting China to cooperate on his Operation Economic Outcast against BRICS Team Red partner Iran, to which China has quite obviously firmly rejected - which means that Team Red Iran should be able to access supplies from China, Russia and others, for the foreseeable future.

Personally, all of this makes a lot more sense when viewed under the framework of The Greatest Game (i.e. Cold War II), with America's latest move being towards binding China into deeper - and more significantly, security - entanglements while defining the terms of engagement (i.e. who is on which team)


Will this finally be enough to force China's hand?
(Source: manhuagui.com)


And before one rejects this framing out of hand, it might be considered as to whether the current AI blocs (Pax Silica & WAICO) having almost zero overlap across their seventy-odd members in total, is really just a coincidence. The main exception has been revealed to be Kazakhstan, who have repeated basically the same arguments projected in our post on the topic: "...obviously American tech companies offer cutting-edge AI chips and AI models. China, in turn, offers open-source models that are significantly cheaper than American ones. And we would like to have access to both". And while Beijing is promoting WAICO as inclusive (with the costs for bloc-splitting borne by America in this sphere), it is doubtful as to whether BRICS will ever include (core) Team Blue nations, from how they have been prevented from even attending BRICS summits.

Finally, while there has been much screeching of late as to American strategic reserves sinking towards their operational minimums, it could be recognized that governments are not bound to be fully honest, especially on these matters. One supposes that Starlink and the CIA's HUMINT assets may have been very busy analyzing how China has been dealing with their energy shortfall thus far - especially pertaining to new activity and convoy movements to and from possible oil storage sites - and before one insists that TRUMP has no strategy, it might be considered as to whether January's Operation Absolute Resolve towards accessing Venezuela's 65 billion barrels of oil reserves (whilst denying them to Team Red), may or may not have any relation to the energy control gambit being played out now.

And if so, given that the GOD-EMPEROR reportedly does not play any musical instrument - unlike say Clinton with his saxophone, or Nixon with the piano - it is then only considerate for him to provide some in-game entertainment in his own fashion, while the proceedings unwind...

看来底牌还没有被揭开，可能还需要一些时间，敬请原谅！
[To be continued...]



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