It's a long, fascinating article analyzing the Iran war, now about one month in. The objectives of Israel, Iran, and the US, and how well each of them have achieved their objectives so far. Along with escalation risks, and potential outcomes.
It's worth noting that Saifedean Ammous is Palestinian, and currently living in Jordan (which if the "greater Israle project" comes to fruition, would be part of Israel)
https://saifedean.substack.com/p/escalating-from-suez-to-waterloo
Here a few choice extracts:
“When Israel and the US launched their war on Iran, they claimed it would last a few days. A few days later, they said it would last 3 to 4 weeks. As the fourth week ends, it is a good time to take stock… there are clear changes in the facts on the ground so far that indicate the US has suffered a significant setback…
A massive global economic crisis might unfold, the presence of the US in the Middle East is in serious danger, the US Empire may be in its death throes, the fiscal fate of the US hangs in the balance, and the world may finally be free of dollar slavery.”
“Militarily and technologically, this might go down in history as a decisive turning point in which a twentieth-century superpower was defeated by a twenty-first-century medium power, which used newer technology at ~1% of the cost. Drones and hypersonic missiles that defeat aircraft carriers, jet fighters, tanks, and other twentieth-century relics remind us of small gun-wielding armies defeating larger armies carrying swords.”
“Iranian drones cost around $7,000 to make, as cheap as the average social media influencer Israel buys. They weigh 200 pounds and are easy to hide… earning the nickname ‘flying lawnmower’.”
“Rather than the US destroying Iran’s military capabilities, Iran is depleting American weapons stocks, leaving American allies exposed worldwide, and exposing how limited the American military really is in this new military technology world. If America is faring like this against a medium-sized, relatively poor country under sanctions, imagine how it would fare against China.”
“What is remarkable about this war is the disconnect between the real-world battlefield outcomes and the public understanding of what is happening. Over the past few decades, American military dominance has been so complete… that Americans seem no longer capable of even conceiving of defeat, and cannot recognize it even as it stares them down.”
@Cje95 - thought you might be interested
Everytime I read Ammous on topics other than his core expertise, I want to remind him of this proverb of old times: Let the cobbler stick to his last. This analysis just feels like written from emotion rather than based on fact (even if his emotion agrees with my personal feeling that the US's image came out really badly from this military intervention).
What would you say his core "expertise" is?
(Bc when he goes into the weeds of money and monetary history, he's soooo bad)
Huh? How's that? How on earth is he bad on monetary history?
Oh, how much time do you have?
Basically nothing he says about it is accurate or true
I'd love to hear more. I got a lot of time. ;-)
here are the two articles on him I write back in 2022...
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/everything-is-the-feds-fault-a-review-of-the-fiat-standard/
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/where-does-saifedean-think-money-comes-from/
guess that's a good start
Did you ever get to interact with Saif, directly or indirectly?
yeeessss... we met in my curious/precoiner years when I was too obsessed with the inaccurate liberties he took with monetary history to hear the overall bitcoin story. MIGHT be able to dig up a selfie haha
Well, seems like I still gave him too much credit then, even as one of his haters.
I think the exact opposite.
Not only did I get my first big push into Bitcoin from from Saifedean Ammous. But I also learned about carnivore. He mentioned it occasionally, and then had an interview with Nina Teicholtz, and that was the starting point of going down the carnivore rabbit hole.
So - definitely not within his core expertise, but I attribute my carnivore diet (and all the immense benefits I've gotten from it) to him.
Nina's book is fantastic, agreeeeed. It's impressive af, too, how she's kept that lazer-eyed(!) focus for so long
While I am not a fan of this Iran war led by Israel and the U.S. I think his predictions might be a little premature.
I find it to be a ridiculous take. I'm not a fan of the war, but I don't see in any way how it makes the US look weak. Stupid, maybe, but not weak. Any defeat of the US would come entirely from internal politics, not anything Iran forced militarily. It actually makes Iran look like a paper tiger, and closer to a terrorist organization than a sovereign nation, because the only way it had to defend itself is to threaten civilians.
That being said, it does show the world three things:
I don't think any of those things are good, so I don't think the war was a smart move.
It blows my mind how something so obvious seems to be lost of most people. Especially when you consider how many of them value personal firepower. If anything, a post war Iran will be more incentivized to pursue nukes.
He makes a ton of good points. I think his conclusions are not as probable as he paints them. He's not a humble man and so I'm not surprised. But also, neither are the regime of either country. I'd be shocked if there aren't many inside the military leadership that have come to many of the same conclusions now.
I don't think the US is weak. I do think the US is arrogant. I do think the US has been in this kind of situation before. When a state is outgunned by the US they look for blind spots. That is what we are seeing. Evolution of modern warfare. I do think the US population is not invested in this war and the Iranian leadership knows it. It is funny how he goes back and forth in this post suggesting Israeli political influence runs the US but then suggesting Trump is just easily manipulated.
I'm not in the "the Jews" run the US government camp. But for over a decade I have be aware of the strong influence of the Likud party and Zionism. Saying they "run" the state is fun to say. Its "based" I guess. But I think like most takes that seem based, its very flawed. There are individuals in many of levels of the state that I think are controlled by some sort of Zionist group. Just as there are people controlled by many special interest groups. But, not all are. But it doesn't take all of them. It takes a few key people influencing others.
And really, once you see that this is easily shown. I don't care that much about the details. Its pretty obvious that the political party in power in Israel today is manipulating the US regime. When people dumb this down to "the Jews" or even "Israel" runs America a massive number of people just write you off as stupid. Because... it sounds absurd on MANY levels. Especially if they do not understand the history of Zionism, how US politics actually works, and the history of Netanyahu.
Even in Israel, Netanyahu is not some god politically. I think the guy is just about one of the most evil leaders alive today based on what i know about him. The pattern I see repeating over and over again is bravado replacing logic, reason, and honest dialog. I'm unmoved by how "based" someone appears. When I was in my 20s I had this same sort of bravado too... and you know what. I was an idiot.
This turned into a rant but I'm getting old and tired of really bad rhetorical games by immature lazy people who appear to have never actually convinced someone of their position face to face. Its all done for the audience. Its all preaching to the choir. And all sides seem to have given into this on many topics.
If people hate Saif, good for them I guess. If he's "anti-American" I guess that's bad. I mean... he's not an American so... whatever. There are some lessons in this article.
TLDR: stay humble and stack sats
🧡
We need a collapse so we can purge the communists. Our stability was being used against us.
No one else sees the obvious strategy here? Dump all public sector resources on attacking anti-American dictatorships until there's nothing left for the welfare state at home. Bait the communists into initiating a revolution while we have the Federal military on our side.
Better to deal with a few years of strife now than let blue states leech off us indefinitely. To complain that the Iran war is expensive is so short-sighted and surperficial. It completely ignores all the potential upsides of throwing shit at the fan.
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He probably wants Sharia too.
So long dollar slavery, welcome renminbi slavery. China Maxi Ammous will welcome his favorite overlords with open arms.
Maybe he should stick to writing books about hypothetical standards.
This is something I haven't heard - Ammous is a China Maxi? Tell me more.
Calling him a China maxi is probably a bit hyperbolic. He's for sure not a US maxi. This episode I wrote about is full of comparisons between the CCP and US approaches and I would agree with some of the things he agreed with. I'm no China maxi. Nuance is rare these days.
Most comparisons I recall him aligning with were China's approach to manipulation being less violent and more subtle. The US state has a long history of violence globally. He isn't a commie.
The discussion with Perkins was revealing: #895858
amazing, this will be tomorrow's plane reading. Thanks for drawing it to my attention
Yes! Completely agree
Writing an entire article about Iranian shahed drones and not once mentioning Ukraine's success – and assistance – in shooting them down is laughable.
Cheap drones are countered by cheap drones. They're not magic. Ukraine shoots down roughly 95% of all shaheds. One of the pioneers at this is even a charity that accept a Bitcoin: Wild Hornets.
As long as the US doesn't do something stupid like give in to left-wing pressure and the psychos who want to see Jews dead, and negotiate yet another bullshit ceasefire, Iran's future is bleak. The next step is for the US to collapse the Iranian economy. Which being dependent on oil and gas is easily accomplished.
Unfortunately it's likely that a sufficiently high % of the Iranian population are islamists to make a revolution impossible. But the onus is on them to throw off Islam. If they can't, destroying the country is the best option for the rest of the world.
Really good point about Ukrainians shooting them down for the most part.
Is it known what breakthrough is needed to defend against the final bits?
It's probably fair to say that getting closer and closer to 100% is increasingly expensive.
The real way to get to 100% is to destroy your opponent's ability to build/pay for drones. Trump is threatening to do that to Iran. Hopefully he follows through.
Speaking of, first reported footage of a Ukrainian interceptor drone taking down a shahed in the middle east. Specifical a P1-SUN in Iraq.