RANT: WARPEACEWARPEACEWARPEACEWARPEACEWARPEACEWARPEACEWARPEACEWAR

 

 

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing-

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain”

(line 1-4, The Wasteland, T. S. Eliot)

 

LET’S HOPE OUR APRIL is less cruel than Eliot’s was when he published The Wasteland in 1922, following those long, broken years after World War One. SO FAR in West Asia, the Strait of Hormuz has apparently been reopened to all ‘friendly’ traffic and peace…oh, wait. That was yesterday. Today, apparently, it’s closed again to all, or mostly all, traffic, potentially stopping 20% of global oil reserves from reaching their markets. Originally, the Iranians had closed the maritime ‘choke point’ in response to the February 28 attacks by the United States and Israel which ended the November 2025 ceasefire.

Since February 28, the Iranians have launched devastating counterattacks against Israel, as well as Gulf Arab states hosting American military bases or allowing overflights of American and Israeli warplanes.

 

AFTER WEEKS OF intense bombing and missile attacks from both sides, a two-week ceasefire was negotiated and went into effect April 7. In the following days, Trump insisted there also be a ceasefire to temporarily end Israel’s ferocious attacks on Hezbollah militia (Iran’s ally). Over 2,000 Lebanese were killed, 6,000 injured, and nearly one-million have been displaced from southern Lebanon since March 1.  Not to give Donald Trump any more credit he doesn’t deserve, but here he may have ‘boxed the ears’ of the Israelis to include the Lebanon deal, though Israel says it retains the right to launch “defensive” attacks (and it continues its scaled-back, for now, ‘Gazafication’ of southern Lebanon, irrespective of what the feckless American president says). On a Truth Social post, Trump said: “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so. Enough is enough!” (April 17)

 

IRAN, responding favourably to Trump’s apparent arm-twisting the Israelis¹ to make them honour 😂 a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, opened the Strait to commercial shipping.

LATER THAT SAME DAY Trump announced he would not be extending sanctions relief* on exported Iranian oil he'd initiated with Iran at the same time he did for Russian oil “on the water” to keep global oil markets relatively ‘topped up’ and prices as low as possible. He also announced, on April 17, a blockade of Iranian ports along Iran’s southern coast beyond the Strait of Hormuz, and for those Iranian ships transiting to and from the Strait (illegal under international law, but who’s counting?). The next day, Saturday April 18, Iran closed the Strait once more in response to this skullduggery by the U.S. 

ON SUNDAY, an American warship crippled and boarded a commercial vessel attempting to run the American blockade in the Sea of Oman as it transited to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. The ship carried cargo from China. Q: Is that why the ship was stopped, because it was from China? America wanted to peak 'under the hood' to see what China was sending Iran?Who knows?

 

NOTE: The Iran War ceasefire, in effect since April 7, is due to expire on Wednesday. Trump said the Americans were sending a crackerjack negotiating team (Not! It’s the same losers as before—Vance, Witkoff and Kushner) to Islamabad, I guess hoping for another marathon negotiation to be hammered out before Wednesday's ceasefire deadline. As of this writing, Iran has not confirmed it is sending a negotiating team. Frankly, why should they? The American "B-Team" (at best) shows one and all that the United States is not serious about substantive negotiations and they are there just for show. It's a performance. Nothing more.

I'M GETTING WHIPLASH with all the toing and froing from the American president. Is this leadership? Or untreated ADHD? We have indeed been press-ganged aboard the SS Donald Trump. Batten down the hatches, Maties!

 

ON A RELATED TOPIC, Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who writes at Sonar21.com, said during an interview on the Daniel Davis Deep Dive podcast that the real effects of the turmoil in the Persian Gulf on world oil supplies are only now about to be felt. Other economies are adopting rationing of their domestic oil reserves, or tax relief on gasoline etc. Canada has recently waived federal excise taxes on gasoline, diesel and aviation fuels until Labour Day. Prices of petroleum products have gone up around the world because oil is a globally traded commodity and is sold within an international price range, though as an oil producer, our domestic refineries here in Canada are well-stocked. Nevertheless, I noted a 35-cent per litre increase in gasoline at the pumps over last week. Other countries are less advantaged, like Japan which imports over 90% of its oil needs. China imports roughly 50% of its oil requirements from the Gulf region, with 12% coming from Iran.

 

HERE’S THE RUB:

On February 28 Iran is attacked by Israel and the United States, ending the November 2025 ceasefire. Subsequently, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to all save “friendly” traffic. Missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel/United States continued throughout March, with the Strait mostly closed. On April 7, a two-week ceasefire was brokered. On April 17, Trump (“Enough is enough!”) insists on a similar ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. [Hezbollah militias were established following the invasion of southern Lebanon by Israel in the Nineteen-Eighties. They are the major military force in that country and the only one that can stand against Israeli aggression. Ed.] Following Trump’s peace initiative between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel, Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, stating that the terms of the original November 2025 ceasefire between Iran and Israel/United States had finally been fulfilled (by the Lebanese ceasefire, something that was ignored by the Israelis). A positive move, right?...until Trump said he will not extend the U.S. moritorium of secondary sanctions on Iranian oil. He also sent naval ships to blockade Iranian ports. Sigh….

 

👉HERE'S THE REAL RUB nicely summarized, I must confess, by Google’s AI:

 

“Based on April 2026 reports, recovery from a blocked Strait of Hormuz will take months due to severe supply chain disruptions and backlog, even after the waterway reopens. While initial shipping traffic might stabilize within roughly two months, full recovery of Middle East exports is expected to take 12-18 months, with shipping schedules remaining disrupted for months.” (Google AI)

 

ANOTHER WAY of putting it: Each day that oil does not flow through the Strait, along with fertilizer, urea, LNG, diesel and airline fuels, aluminum and helium (though each will have separate metrics), for each day that oil in particular does not flow through the Strait of Hormuz at roughly 20M bpd, several days (a week? More?) are required to get production and distribution back, and until that happens a short fall of 20% in the world's petrochemical energy supply, with all the cascading effects throughout the world's economies that will entail, will become the new normal for some time. Another month of restricted passage (not including damage done to Iran’s and the Gulf State’s oil infrastructure in the meanwhile) may entail global oil shortages lasting several months. 

👉 Should this regional war go pear-shaped and Iran's civilian infrastructure and oil distribution network are attacked, Iran is capable, along with their Houthie allies in Yemen, of putting offline over one-third of the world's daily oil consumption!😱 

IF THIS BABY isn’t put to bed real soon, we’re going to end up in a world of hurt. Buckle Up, Amigos!  

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________  

 

* American sanctions on Iranian oil shipments, along with Russia’s that are on the water as of March 11 would be lifted. The last of those ships carrying tens of millions of barrels of oil will soon reach their ports. Sanctions were lifted on Iranian (and Russian) oil to keep global oil markets stable and the price per barrel from inflating to the point where economies worldwide begin to wobble.

 

“The step was part of a series of measures launched by the Trump administration to quell skyrocketing energy prices following the start of the war on February 28, including a similar easing of sanctions on Russian oil at sea.” (Times of Israel)

 

TRUMP ALSO ANNOUNCED that the U.S. would blockade Iranian ports south of the Hormuz Strait (an act of war according to international law), part of his usual negotiating tactic of “maximum pressure”, to make Iran concede. We’ll see who yells “uncle” first. Predictably, Iran responded to Trump’s latest pressure tactic by again closing the Strait of Hormuz. Good job, Donald.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED that U.S. naval vessels operating in the Gulf of Oman, some distance from Iran’s coastline, will be interdicting Iranian shipping to and from the Persian state’s ports. Or at least they’ll try.

Oil aboard Russian tankers on the water will see an extension of the American moritorium on secondary sanctions. Eliminating secondary sanctions allows Russian oil to be sold to countries without financial penalties accruing to the importer. Iran is not so lucky in this matter. 

 

1. Patrick Henningsen, in a recent talk on his podcast, Sunday Wire, suggests Trump and Netanyahu are reading from the same playbook, that there is no disagreement between them in terms of goals or tactics. When Trump gave a gruff ‘cease and desist’ order for the Israeli president to stop his attacks on Lebanon, Netanyahu ignored him though he did slow down for a day or so. But it’s all show—a kabuki theatre, Patrick says, designed to flood the media space with contradictory statements and false narratives, disguising how much Zionist and Imperial objectives overlap. For example, Trump and “Bibi” both want Iran gone as a nation state and they play good cop-bad cop games to disguise this fact. More and more though, Trump will drop a turd in the punchbowl and just say whatever comes to the surface in his increasingly fried brain like: “We’ll just have to drop more bombs” or “I want the oil”.  

Out of the mouths of babes and sundowners! 

 

“Gazafication”— “Refers to the extension of Israeli military tactics like siege, intense bombardment, destruction of infrastructure, and forced displacement used in the Gaza Strip to other areas, mostly notably the West Bank. It describes a process of creating “coercive environments” that make areas unlivable for Palestinians through surveillance, confinement to enclaves, and destruction of civilian life.” (Google AI)