Seymour Hersh: THE GROUND WAR BEGINS?

 THE GROUND WAR BEGINS?

Trump has escalated the war against Iran, heedless of the lessons of the past

Seymour Hersh April 2nd  paid

President Donald Trump arrives to address the nation from the Cross Hall of the White House last night. / Photo by Alex Brandon—Pool/Getty Images.

Who was the guy pretending to be President Donald Trump on stage last night? Surely not the man who once bragged that he could shoot somebody walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City and still get elected. He was subdued as he flawlessly read a prepared speech written by his handlers that had its moments.

In this morning’s New York Times, Edward Wong assesses whether the US has achieved the goals the president set out in a February 28 video announcing the war and finds that it has fallen short. The harsh religious government in Tehran is still in power, and Iran is continuing to limit the flow of oil, gas, fertilizer, and food through the Strait of Hormuz, creating economic havoc throughout the Western world. Iranian missiles and drones are continuing to strike Israeli and America’s oil-producing allies in the Persian Gulf.

What the president’s speech last night didn’t offer were any specifics about the US troop buildup through the region, but the threat was there. “I can say tonight,” he said, “that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard. Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.”

Trump was telling the world that the ground war is on as of today, and he is in the process of sending thousands of American soldiers into the Middle East to engage on the ground, as well as in the air, against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Thousands of US Special Operations forces—Navy SEALs and Army Rangers—are either en route or soon will be to zones within striking range of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial choke points for the shipping of oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

Add the number of those en route to those already stationed in the region, and Trump easily could have fifty thousand US fighters ready to clear the Strait of Hormuz or even to dig out the partially enriched uranium Iran is believed to have tucked away in one or more of tunnels under the nuclear facilities the US and Israel attacked last June.

The 60 percent enriched uranium—requiring just a few days of enrichment to be weaponized, if centrifuges could be found (I have been told there is no evidence that Iran retains them)—would have to be encased in scores of lead caskets weighing two tons or more. The only rational way out would be via helicopter, and that could work, say the experts, since the US and Israel now control the skies over Iran. But who knows where among the many nuclear-related facilities and tunnels in Iran the astonishing cache may be? Perhaps “the Shadow knows,” as they said on my favorite Sunday evening radio show when I was a kid in Chicago in the years after World War II.

Here are some facts about prior American wars in the Middle East that the president, not known as a history buff, may not fully remember or have been told about: in 1991 the US fought in the Persian Gulf against Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq. As many as 700,000 American troops served in that war, which America won, expelling Saddam from Kuwait. Five hundred thousand American soldiers were in the region when the war began. More than 150,000 thousand American-led coalition soldiers were deployed to the Middle East at the start of the invasion of 2003, then called Operation Iraqi Freedom.

One would hope that Trump has been fully briefed on an earlier and successful 1999 air war, led by NATO with the full backing of the Clinton administration and the US Air Force, that bombed military and civilian targets in Belgrade and other areas of the former Yugoslavia for seventy-eight days. It took that long, amid the increasing destruction of the capital city, before Slobodan Milosevic, the brutal Serbian leader, agreed to withdraw his troops from the region of Kosovo, where the majority of the population were Albanian-speaking Muslims. After he was removed from power in 2000, Milosevic was charged with a series of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by an international tribunal at The Hague, but he died of a heart attack in prison before judgment was passed.

The president may not know that Iran, the 17th largest nation in the world, is nearly four times larger than Iraq. He may not know that Iran has one of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East, with 94 percent of adults considered to be literate. He should be aware that the disdain, fear, and worse that much or the Iranian public had for the nation’s fanatic religious leadership inevitably has been washed away by weeks of intensive US and Israeli bombing. Early promises to avoid civilian targets have evaporated and at this point there are few targets off the table.

It is known from American postwar studies that the daytime bombing of German cities by American and British warplanes enraged the German public and increased citizen support for the war to the point that surrender to the Allies was delayed by as much as six months. (One of the officers involved in the study was Army Captain Robert S. McNamara, who served as an unyielding secretary of defense during the worst years of the murderous Vietnam War.)

At this point, it is fair to say that Trump’s current war, undertaken in concert with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and largely, according to many press reports, at his bidding, is an unnecessary war that has more and more targeted cultural and educational sites as well as residential apartment buildings. The air war is also, as an Israeli insider and combat hero said to me the other day, “one of the most stupid wars ever fought by a superpower in history. There is no upside. Iran has not yet been able to build a bomb, and the war is destroying the West economically”—a reference to the ongoing Iranian blockade of Western oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Israeli added that the Revolutionary Guard and other pro-regime zealots “would love to have American troops” on the ground inside Iran. “It’s a gigantic trap.”

If that is so, he asked, “What is Trump going to do?” He had only one ready answer if the US invasion of Iran takes place and turns out badly: “He may just scapegoat Pete Hegseth,” the vulgar secretary of defense who has cheerfully promoted every aspect of Trump’s war, as all in the Cabinet must.

We are being led by an ignorant and unqualified president, who was nonetheless duly elected. When will someone inside the administration have the integrity and courage to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment?

Iranian President's Letter to the American People

Reprinted from the Meidas Touch  and On You Tube

 

BREAKING: Iran President Pezeshkian releases a lengthy public letter addressed to the American people ahead of Trump's address to the nation, defending its actions, denying it poses a threat, and blaming the U.S. for escalating conflict—while warning that continued attacks will deepen instability and resentment.

 

He warns: "Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure—including energy and industrial facilities—directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders"

 

FULL LETTER BELOW:

"To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life:

 

Iran—by this very name, character, and identity—is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination. Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global powers—and despite possessing military superiority over many of its neighbors—Iran has never initiated a war. Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it.

 

The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness—not a temporary political stance.

 

For this reason, portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful—the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.

 

Within this same framework, the United States has concentrated the largest number of its forces, bases, and military capabilities around Iran—a country that, at least since the founding of the United States, has never initiated a war. 

 

Recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is. Naturally, no country confronted with such conditions would forgo strengthening its defensive capabilities. What Iran has done—and continues to do—is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.

 

Relations between Iran and the United States were not originally hostile, and early interactions between the Iranian and American people were not marred with hostility or tension. The turning point, however, was the 1953 coup d’état—an illegal American intervention aimed at preventing the nationalization of Iran’s own resources. That coup disrupted Iran’s democratic process, reinstated dictatorship, and sowed deep distrust among Iranians toward U.S. policies.

 

This distrust deepened further with America’s support for the Shah’s regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of the 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression—twice, in the midst of negotiations—against Iran.

 

Yet all these pressures have failed to weaken Iran. On the contrary, the country has grown stronger in many areas: literacy rates have tripled—from roughly 30% before the Islamic Revolution to over 90% today; higher education has expanded dramatically; significant advances have been achieved in modern technology; healthcare services have improved; and infrastructure has developed at a pace and scale incomparable to the past. These are measurable, observable realities that stand independent of fabricated narratives.

 

At the same time, the destructive and inhumane impact of sanctions, war, and aggression on the lives of the resilient Iranian people must not be underestimated. The continuation of military aggression and recent bombings profoundly affect people’s lives, attitudes, and perspectives. This reflects a fundamental human truth: when war inflicts irreparable harm on lives, homes, cities, and futures, people will not remain indifferent toward those responsible.

 

This raises a fundamental question: Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country “back to the stone ages” serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?

 

Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement, escalate toward confrontation, and launch two acts of aggression in the midst of negotiations were destructive choices made by the U.S. government—choices that served the delusions of a foreign aggressor.

 

Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure—including energy and industrial facilities—directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders. They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tension, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength; it is a sign of strategic bewilderment and an inability to achieve a sustainable solution.

 

Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime? Is it not true that Israel, by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians? Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar—shifting the burden of its delusions onto Iran, the region, and the United States itself in pursuit of illegitimate interests?

 

Is “America First” truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?

 

I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation—an integral part of this aggression—and instead speak with those who have visited Iran. Observe the many accomplished Iranian immigrants—educated in Iran—who now teach and conduct research at the world’s most prestigious universities, or contribute to the most advanced technology firms in the West. Do these realities align with the distortions you are being told about Iran and its people?

 

Today, the world stands at a crossroads. Continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before. The choice between confrontation and engagement is both real and consequential; its outcome will shape the future for generations to come. Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures—resilient, dignified, and proud."

Opinion: An Open Letter To the rulers of the Arab and Muslim world

I am sharing this important open letter for the interest of our readers.  And while I agree the criticism of the Arab leaders in the Middle East is valid, sharing is not an endorsement from FFWP that leaders in the Arab and Muslim world or the western imperial nations for that matter, can resolve the crisis in the Middle East or globally. The present crises are a product of the capitalist system of production and its imperial stage; capitalism cannot solve a crisis of its own making. Only the working class internationally can find a way out of a crisis that threatens to end human civilization on this planet, either through nuclear war or environmental catastrophe. Richard Mellor, FFWP Admin Note: Thank you to David Muir for sharing.

An Open Letter To the rulers of the Arab and Muslim world

 

Ajmal Masroor

Dear Muslim leaders,

There are moments in history when silence is not counted as cautious diplomacy or wise strategy, but is instead remembered as a damning indictment of cowardice, spinelessness, and complicity in oppression that has caused so much pain and suffering. Your silence is a death sentence for the oppressed. This is that moment—when you should have chosen to rise, not cower like cowards.

Dear Muslim leaders,

Let me remind you of your humiliations. When Donald Trump openly mocked you, boasting that you were “kissing his ass,” he was not just being vulgar—he was exposing your shameless, poodle-like status. He was revealing your hypocrisy, telling you bluntly and crudely how you are perceived by those whose approval you seem to value most. He does not see you as equals, sovereign powers, or even civilised, modern, enlightened nations, but as compliant actors in a hierarchy you did not design and over which you have no control—yet you continue to uphold it. Do you have no dignity? Did your mothers not teach you basic human values?

When Steve Bannon went even further—suggesting that the children of Gulf rulers should be sent to fight American and Israeli wars—it exposed an even more disturbing reality: that your nations are viewed as instruments, your children as expendable, your honour as worthless, and your role as one that absorbs the costs of conflicts shaped elsewhere. And what was your response? Silence or sycophancy.

Instead of roaring like Umar Ibn Khattab, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, Khalid Bin Waleed, or Salahuddin Al Ayyubi, you chose cowardice. You issued measured statements, careful not to upset your patrons. You spoke in diplomatic doublespeak, hoping to appease those you depend on. You chose silence instead of the immediate and unmistakable outrage that was required. Your voices should have thundered. Your unity should have carried force. But you chose silence. What is wrong with you?

Meanwhile:

Gaza reduced to rubble

Lebanon repeatedly attacked and now invaded

Yemen devastated

Sudan torn apart

Libya destabilised

Ongoing conflict across Pakistan

All while imperialist and Zionist powers exploit you, discard you, and mock your weakness. This devastation is not abstract—it is visible, documented, undeniable. It is broadcast live for the world to see on handheld devices.

Can you imagine watching your children blown apart, your parents buried under rubble, your families violated, your communities destroyed? While you remain silent, your brothers and sisters are experiencing exactly this. Entire neighbourhoods erased. Civilians buried beneath collapsed hospitals. A humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in real time.

And yet, from those with the greatest capacity to act, what has emerged? Hesitation—carefully calibrated, politically cautious, and profoundly inadequate gestures that amount to nothing.

Dear Muslim leaders,

Do you think your silence is neutrality? You cannot be neutral in the face of genocide. You cannot remain passive while a reckless American leadership drives your region toward chaos, destruction, and long-term subjugation. Your failure lies in your inability to decide whether you stand with the oppressed or the oppressor.

Let me remind you how Western power operates. Consider the case of Karim Khan. As he pursued war crimes cases related to Gaza at the International Criminal Court, allegations against him surfaced and were quickly weaponised to undermine the process. Even though a UN investigation later found insufficient evidence, the damage had already been done: attention diverted, momentum slowed, credibility questioned. This is how accountability is disrupted—not always through direct opposition, but through delay, distraction, and erosion of trust.

And where were you? Watching. Calculating. Waiting.

You did not take Israel to the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. You did not support those who did. You did not defend the integrity of the process. Instead, your silence enabled efforts to obstruct justice.

You speak of sovereignty, yet act with dependence. Understand this clearly: no one will secure your future for you. The United States will not choose you over Israel. It will sacrifice you to protect its strategic interests.

You speak of unity, yet remain divided. You cannot even tolerate your neighbouring nations. Your words of unity ring hollow when your actions promote fragmentation. Once, you lived simply—now wealth has blinded you and distanced you from your roots.

You speak of stability, yet ignore that true stability cannot be built on silence in the face of suffering, occupation, and mass violence. For decades, you have relied on external guarantees for your security. But those alliances come with limits. The weapons you buy are controlled. The intelligence you receive leaves you exposed. Respect is never given to those who do not assert themselves.

The reality is clear: you are being exploited, and you fail to recognise it.

When crises arise, you hesitate—not because you lack resources or influence, but because decisive action would require breaking patterns you have long depended on. You rely on external protection because you lack legitimacy at home. This is not just political failure—it is moral failure.

Your people see this. They see the gap between your words and your actions. They see suffering met with silence. And they are drawing conclusions—about your leadership, your responsibility, and your values.

History will judge you. It will not remember your careful diplomacy or calculated restraint. It will ask a simple question: when faced with injustice, what did you do?

You signed the Abraham Accords. You enabled destruction. You supported oppressive systems. You invested in leadership that prioritised others over you. And still, you were not valued.

Dear Muslim and Arab leaders,

There is still time to change—but not indefinitely. 

- Repent openly and apologise to the people you have abandoned

- Rebuild legitimacy through action, not statements. 

- Engage your people as representatives, not rulers. 

- Pursue cooperation as strategy, not symbolism. 

- Show that leadership is defined by conviction, not submission.

- Serve your people as humble leaders not oppressive monsters. 

Because the path you are on leads to one outcome: diminishing relevance, eroding credibility, and a legacy defined by absence at the moment it mattered most. If you continue on this path you will be remembered for being treacherous puppets. 

You can choose a different path.

But it will require something you have not yet shown: resolve.

Yours sincerely 

Ajmal Masroor

LBC Financial Times Sky News Islam Channel The Economist CNN BBC Channel 4 Al Jazeera English The Guardian Saudi Gazette Emirates

Donald Trump: A Walking Inventory of the Seven Deadly Sins

By Michael Jochum

 

The irony here isn’t subtle. It’s radioactive. In any functioning moral universe Donald Trump wouldn’t be the hero of the evangelical movement, he would be the cautionary tale they warn their children about at church camp. He doesn’t attend church. He can’t quote scripture beyond the marketing slogans his handlers spoon-feed him. The only time he bows his head is over a plate of butter-drenched pancakes at IHOP, communing not with God but with syrup and cholesterol while ordering from the senior menu like a man who thinks the Sermon on the Mount is a golf course. His personal life isn’t just un-Christian, it’s a grotesque parody of every vice Christianity supposedly condemns, performed loudly and proudly for the cameras. Lust, greed, pride, gluttony, wrath, the man isn’t fighting the seven deadly sins, he’s hosting them like permanent guests in a penthouse suite.

 

And yet this is the man staging theatrical prayer circles in the White House like some televangelist revival tent built out of gold leaf and ego. Hands on shoulders. Heads bowed. Cameras rolling. The entire spectacle has the spiritual authenticity of a late-night infomercial selling miracle water. Trump treating religion this way is almost expected, his entire life has been one long con, but watching self-described evangelical leaders gather around him like he’s the Second Coming isn’t faith. It’s idolatry with a cheap Jesus sticker slapped over naked power.

Now the rest of the world is doing what the rest of the world does when America loses its mind. They’re laughing. Not quietly either. In China the bizarre White House prayer stunt has become a full-blown social media trend. Factory bosses and office managers are gathering employees into circles, placing hands on heads and shoulders just like Trump’s little Oval Office revival, and “praying” for things like higher sales numbers and bigger profits. Entire companies are staging parody prayer services, filming them, and posting them across platforms like Douyin and Weibo where millions of people are watching and howling. 

It has become a global comedy routine, America’s president pretending to be a holy man while the rest of the planet turns the whole thing into a meme.

 

Think about what that means for a moment. The United States, once the country that lectured the world about democracy and moral leadership, is now exporting political theater so ridiculous that foreign businesses are literally recreating it as satire. Our national leadership has become a punchline. The White House has turned into a stage set for evangelical cosplay while authoritarian governments laugh at the performance.

 

And the tragedy is that Trump didn’t create this farce alone. He simply revealed how eager millions of people were to worship a man who embodies every single vice their religion claims to oppose. When a walking inventory of the seven deadly sins becomes the spiritual mascot of Evangelical Christianity, the problem isn’t just the man in the gold-plated chair.

 

It’s the congregation applauding him.

 

Donald Trump isn’t just a failed president.

 

He’s the world’s most powerful televangelist fraud, and the entire planet can see the scam.

 

—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.

Michael Roberts: All roads lead to stagflation

All roads lead to stagflation

by Michael Roberts

In its latest review of the impact of the Middle East conflict on the world’s economies, the IMF summed it up: “Although the war could shape the global economy in different ways, all roads lead to higher prices and slower growth.”

The global benchmark oil price is on course for its largest monthly rise on record in March, higher than in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The conflict could end soon, as Trump and Rubio claim (presumably through with a deal with Iran in which the latter basically surrenders to US demands).  Or more likely there is a longer conflict stretching out into April and beyond, possibly involving US troops on the ground attempting to break Iran’s stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz and searching for its nuclear stockpiles.  

Either way, crude oil prices will stay high for some time (and even more for prices of oil derived products, which have risen even more).

That means two things.  In the short term, global inflation is going to rise.  If the conflict lasts longer, then rising inflation will be joined by falling economic growth and the likelihood that even some of the major economies could slip into a slump.  Stagflation is certain and slumpflation is possible.

If oil and gas installations are permanently damaged or out of operation for a long time, then oil prices will rise further to reach $150/barrel—nearly three times pre-war levels—and natural gas prices would rocket to €120 MWh, or four times the pre-war rate. Such a rise would be comparable to the global supply shock of the late 1970s, which contributed to high inflation and global recession. France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure reckons that 30–40% of Gulf refining capacity has already been damaged or destroyed by Iran’s retaliatory strikes, leaving a shortage of 11 million barrels a day on global oil markets. Lescure warned it could take up to three years to restore damaged facilities and several months to restart those that were urgently shut down.

Goldman Sachs economists offer three scenarios: the baseline scenario is six weeks disruption where crude oil price rises to $120/barrel before falling back to $80–100, with no lasting infrastructure damage. The second scenario is a medium-term war (ten weeks) where the crude price spikes to $140/barrel, staying at $95+ for a further ten weeks. This  would “scar” production permanently. The third scenario is apocalyptic (with ten weeks of war and lasting damage). Then the oil price rises to $160/barrel and never falls back below $100 for the foreseeable future because of damage to production facilities.

The OECD’s latest economic outlook has already downgraded forecasts for real GDP growth in the major economies this year due to the US-Israel war with Iran. All G7 economies except the US will now grow more slowly this year than previously forecast, with the UK reduced the most—from 1.2% to just 0.7%. The US economy will grow faster than forecast, according to the OECD, because of gains for its oil and gas exports. The OECD has also raised its forecast for inflation in the top G20 economies from a previous 2.8% to 4%. Argentina will have the highest rate of inflation in the G20 at 31% and China the lowest at 1.3%. US inflation will jump to 4.2% from the current 2.9%. If the war continues into the next quarter, expect these growth forecasts to be further reduced and inflation forecasts raised. 

Revised OECD growth forecasts

In my view, contrary to the OECD’s optimistic forecasts on US growth, the US will not escape this downturn. According to Royal Bank of Canada economists, if oil prices hold at $100/barrel, it could cut US real GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points (from the current average 2% a year to near 1%) and US inflation could reach 4% a year.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) forecasts that if energy prices remain persistently high, merchandise trade growth this year will slow from 1.9% to 1.5%. North American export growth will slow a bit, from an expansion of 1.4% to 1.1%, but Europe will be clobbered, with exports shrinking by 0.6% rather than growing by 0.5%. The hit to growth will be equally lopsided: while costly energy could boost GDP growth in North America this year to 2.5% (from a baseline of 2.3%), it would slow GDP growth in Asia to 3.1% from 3.9%. In Europe, a long war would bring the economy almost to a halt, slowing its expansion to 0.4% from a prior estimate of 1.6%. Analysis by the ECB also reckons that a long war would mean a deep, prolonged downturn in output with persistently higher inflation.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) forecasts that if energy prices remain persistently high, merchandise trade growth this year will slow from 1.9% to 1.5%. North American export growth will slow a bit, from an expansion of 1.4% to 1.1%, but Europe will be clobbered, with exports shrinking by 0.6% rather than growing by 0.5%. The hit to growth will be equally lopsided: while costly energy could boost GDP growth in North America this year to 2.5% (from a baseline of 2.3%), it would slow GDP growth in Asia to 3.1% from 3.9%. 

In Europe, a long war would bring the economy almost to a halt, slowing its expansion to 0.4% from a prior estimate of 1.6%. Analysis by the ECB also reckoned that a long war would mean a deep, prolonged downturn in output with persistently higher inflation. Already, Euro area annual inflation climbed to 2.5% in March, up from 1.9% in February.This marked the highest rate since January 2025, pushing inflation above the ECB’s 2% target as energy costs soared 4.9%, the first annual increase in nearly a year and the sharpest since February 2023, driven by the Middle East conflict.

Moreover, an energy price explosion does not just drive up overall inflation, at a certain point, it forces households and businesses to cut back on purchases and investments in order to meet energy bills.  It becomes a tax on growth.  Already, borrowing costs, as expressed in long-term government bond yields, are rising in all the major economies.

How high and for how long must energy (and other key commodity prices) rise for a slump to happen?  There are various estimates.  Paul Krugman, the Keynesian economist, reckons that the price elasticity of demand for crude oil is low — that is, even large price increases only cause small declines in demand (ie GDP). But this time could be different. He reckons that ‘low disruption’ (oil price $100-150/b) would reduce supply by about 8% in the US.  Medium disruption (oil price $120-230/b) would cause a fall of 12% in US economic growth.  High disruption (oil price $155-370/b) would take US supply down 16%. 

A prolonged conflict would hit the Middle East and Asia hardest. The Gulf states would lose their lucrative tourist traffic and airlines may be forced to bypass the area for global transit. The heady days of luxury lifestyles for foreigners would be over in these places. With large infrastructure projects in Gulf countries targeted by strikes, migrant construction workers will have less money to send home—a loss affecting households across the Middle East and South Asia. Workers in Gulf countries send home $88 billion in remittances annually. Countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and India are the biggest recipients, amounting to tens of billions of dollars per year and accounting for more than half of all remittances received in these economies. Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan each receive more than 4% of GDP from Gulf remittances.

Société Générale estimates that every $10 sustained increase in oil prices would widen India’s current account deficit—currently around 1% of GDP—by half a percentage point and would cut economic growth by 0.3%. At $100/barrel, that would mean a current deficit of 3% of GDP and a reduction in economic growth from a 2026 forecast of 6.4% to 5%. The Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington-based organisation, compiled a list of 17 countries most vulnerable to the shocks of the Iran war. Thirteen of those are African, including Angola, Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana and Ethiopia. In Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were deemed vulnerable, with Jordan singled out in the Middle East.

Taken together, higher oil prices and exchange rate devaluation will lead to a negative terms-of-trade shock for many countries, making it harder to service external debt and build foreign exchange reserves. Countries that have both high external debt service and low reserves will be especially at risk. For instance, Egypt may need to roll over more than $4 billion in outstanding eurobonds in the next year; Jordan and Pakistan may need to roll over around $1 billion apiece.

About 70% of Brazil’s and 40% of India’s urea imports—essential to their agriculture sector—come from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. Gulf nations import most of their food: 75% of their rice comes through the strait, as well as more than 90% of their corn, soybeans and vegetable oil.¹² On top of all this, countries like Bangladesh, India and Pakistan will be hit by the inevitable drop in remittances from millions of their citizens working in Gulf countries as the war takes a toll on the regional economy.

Three countries will be less affected. The US has plenty of strategic stockpiles and, of course, its own domestic production. Although China relies for much of its oil from the Middle East (mainly Saudi Arabia), it has been building up its strategic stockpiles for just such events and because of worries about US sanctions. Last year, China imported about half of its crude oil and almost one-third of its liquefied natural gas from the Middle East. But it has aggressively built up strategic stockpiles of fossil fuels. China is estimated to hold the world’s largest emergency reserves of petroleum, totalling 1.3 billion barrels.

China has also made significant investments in electrification. Electricity accounts for 30% of the country’s energy consumption—about 50% higher than the US or Europe—making it more insulated from rising global oil prices. (With its rapid solar and wind build-out, it already accounts for roughly one-third of renewable energy generation capacity worldwide.) A diverse energy mix, multiple suppliers and access to routes that bypass the Gulf mean only about 6% of China’s total energy consumption is directly exposed to disruptions in the strait, estimates Goldman Sachs.

So China is well placed to deal with any shortages; and it can still turn to more oil imports from Russia and from South America, where it has been increasing supply in recent years to avoid the Middle East. And ironically, Russia will benefit from increased revenues from its energy exports.

One recent study of all wars since 1870 found that: “output falls by almost 10 percent in the war-site economy, while consumer prices rise by some 20 percent (relative to prewar trends).” And “the economies of belligerent countries and even those of third countries witness similarly unfavourable dynamics if they are exposed to the war site through trade linkages.” Output in close trading partners falls by 2 percent relative to trend. This war will easily surpass these averages if it continues much longer.

Easter week is shaping up as a crucial turning point in the war.  Will a deal be reached or will the US launch a new stage in the conflict with ground troops?  Either way, what is certain is that all roads lead to stagflation. 

Ken Klippenstein: Trump Goes Commando

Trump Goes Commando

Iran "raid" has replaced ground war and you're supposed to clap

Ken Klippenstein March 30 2026

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Most Americans are bracing for a massive ground invasion of Iran, one that military sources tell me will not happen. That’s because there’s another plan entirely.

What’s in store is a “raid,” all of these sources agree.

Of course, it all depends on what Donald Trump orders, and sources say they don’t know what that might be on any given day. So they offer the White House different alternatives, highlighting the cost for operations that they don’t want to undertake and focusing on the epic, derring-do nature of those that they would prefer. 

Planning for small raids onto Iranian soil has taken over as the favored outcome, I’m told, operations that would be carried out by commandos rather than conventional soldiers.

Those missions include taking Kharg Island as leverage to use it as a bargaining chip since it dominates Iranian oil and gas exports, or a similar island raid in the Strait of Hormuz to help open up shipping, or, most spooky and Maduro-like, a “black” operation to seize Iran’s nuclear materials.

And what do the American people think? Millions are afraid of what won’t happen and largely unaware of what could. This is reflected in a recent pollby Reuters/Ipsos finding 65 percent of Americans believe Trump will order troops into a large-scale ground war in Iran, though only seven percent support such a scenario.

Seven percent! In other words, Americans want a ground war like they want to give a hug to Congress (which enjoys a slightly higher approval of 10 percent, per Gallup).

Tucked away in the Reuters poll is another question that no other pollster seems to be asking": whether Americans “support deploying a small number of special forces for targeted operations?”

The results? Some 34 percent of Americans say yes — including 63 percent of Republicans. That is roughly in line with American opinion on the Iran war in general, which clearly hasn’t deterred the White House so far.

Reuters/IPSOS poll

In other words, though a full-scale ground invasion is not politically viable, a special operations raid is. 

A full-scale ground invasion isn’t even logistically feasible (at least for now). The U.S. troop presence in the Middle East has increased just 20 percent since the beginning of mobilization two months ago, The New York Times reported Sunday. And most o of those people are not “boots on the ground” types of forces, but are augmenting operations, logistics, maintenance, air defenses, etc.

When the Marines aboard the USS Tripoli group arrive and the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division are deployed and ready, there will be some 5,000 troops at the “ready,” but even here, we’re talking about some 2,500 actual “boots,” fighters with guns.

That’s a significant number of course, but it is hardly the numbers you’d need for an Iraq War-style invasion or occupation. In 2003, for context, 466,985 U.S. personnel were deployed for the Iraq operation using the same count that includes air, ground, and naval forces across the region. Today, there are some 50,000 personnel in the region, roughly 10,000 of which are part of the increased ships and aircraft, etc.

What none of this fiddling includes are the number of special operations forces which are not officially disclosed. This includes special operators from Army special forces groups, Army Rangers, Army aviation from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Navy SEALs and “special warfare” personnel, Air Force “special tactics” fighters, Marine commandos, the Joint Special Operations Command that spearheaded the Maduro operation, and supporting intelligence, transport, communications, as well as CIA paramilitaries, clandestine intelligence collectors and others. 

These are exactly the kinds of forces that would carry out the various limited raids.

When I reported last week on the unlikeliness of a conventional ground invasion, it created a flurry in major media which had been starved of any actual reporting on the ins and outs of actual deployments and readiness.

This weekend, CNN broadcast a segment about our story, with anchor Michael Smerconish practically tugging at his collar in discomfort over having to cite me in the absence of someone more mainstream.

“I read something online from a guy who writes provocatively, admittedly, his name is Ken Klipperstein [sic],” Smerconish said, putting to his guest, retired Admiral James Stavridis, my point that a major ground invasion of Iran was simply not in the cards at this time.

Screenshot of CNN segment about my story

A clearly flustered Stavridis, who like other cable news retired military brass was making coin off hyping the war, replied: “It’s not inevitable, obviously,” adding: “inevitable, no; possible, yes.”

That’s what four stars and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year buys you: ‘Well, this could technically happen.’ Admiral, it’s technically possible that an asteroid wipes us all out, or the sun doesn’t rise. Yet you still bother to get out of bed and show up for these cable hits because you know there’s a difference between possible and probable.

What we should focus on is the probable that is the raid(s). Like with the raid that deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January, or the killing of the Ayatollah, or even the raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan in 2011, we will likely just wake up and find out it happened after all. In these types of operations, the government has developed a remarkable capacity to evade public scrutiny and make them feel inevitable, like the weather.

Partly that is done through “messaging” and disinformation which encourages the media and even the experts to look in one direction, in this case, a “boots on the ground” invasion. The confusion is stoked by messaging like the letter (embedded below) written by Lt. Gen. Leonard F. Anderson IV, head of the Marine Corps Reserve, which blithely says that “a mass mobilization could become reality.”

With millions of Americans already nervous about a ground war and even a possible draft, one wonders what Gen. Anderson knows that we don’t. I asked and the answer I get from reliable sources is: nothing. There are no preparations for any kind of mobilization and there is not any thought of some draft.

So, see how it works? Boots on the ground, a months-long ground war that smells like Iraq (or even Vietnam for the seniors), a mass mobilization, a draft, such stories fill the media and social media and in the end when the special operators come to the rescue, people are not only relieved but they “support” such an operation. 

Support, of course, when it’s all over, if it’s successful. The cycle of disinformation and secrecy ensures that your only job is to discuss what happened after-the-fact, not whether it should have happened at all.

It’s a style of warfare perfected for decades that limits public involvement and consent because a combination of remote air and drone warfare and the favored clandestine special operators make the war machine impervious to true debate. As the deliberations continue regarding the mythical ground war, or as Donald Trump continues to babble about destroying this or that, the bombing continues. The Pentagon is saying practically nothing about what is being bombed or how much, or what the assessed impact is, and certainly what it is saying is so exaggerated and fact-free that it’s hard to determine what the true effect is.

Meanwhile the media has nothing much to say. Organizations with dozens of reporters on the case focus on every Trump utterance while the actual war “on the ground” is referred to in passing. Retired cable news generals and admirals with conflicts of interest that would make the Wolf of Wall Street blush have nothing to say either.

Bolstered by the “success” of the Maduro raid, Trump will inevitably fall in love with the next seductive briefing involving some slickly produced video that shows jumping and rappelling and shooting all coming together in a cinematic ending. 

The only question is if the American public approve of these operations — assuming the media bothers to report on them.

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