Iran War And Scary Technology
- Dagny
- 3 days ago
- 13 min read
Iran War
🇺🇸🇸🇦🇮🇷 Did Iran just scare the Saudis into getting Trump to call off strikes?
Tehran has warned that aggression targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure would trigger a massive retaliation that would turn the Middle East’s oil and gas riches into a giant crater in the ground.
👉 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seems to have gotten the message, calling Trump Saturday to express grave “concern over the targets” of the imminent US escalation.
Trump, in turn, did what he’s often done during the Iran war: huffed and puffed threatening to blow Iran’s house down before backing down, announcing that he would “cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL.”
Riyadh’s leverage in this situation? Substantial.
MBS may have:
💰 reminded Trump of Saudi Arabia’s substantial holdings of $140B+ in US Treasury bills
💰 recalled Riyadh’s commitment to invest $600B-$1T into the US economy
🪖 pointed to the generous basing rights US troops enjoy in Saudi Arabia, despite the Iran war showing they’re not able to actually protect anyone
⛽️ threatened to leverage Riyadh’s status as the de-facto leader of OPEC to influence Americans’ gasoline prices ahead of looming midterm elections
💸 reminded Trump that the dollar’s stability still depends on the Saudis’ pricing of their oil sales using the greenback (despite the 2024 decision not to formally
renew the petrodollar agreement)
Why would MBS be worried?
🛢 Saudi Arabia’s energy production grid stands no hope of withstanding wave after wave of Iranian drone and missile strikes, and even Houthi projectiles for that matter
🎯US air and missile defenses are depleted and have largely proven useless, and big oil production sites and refineries are just too bulky and vulnerable to defend effectively
🛢 Saudi oil exports have already been squeezed on all sides – Iran in Hormuz, Houthis in the Red Sea
🛢 55-60% of government budget revenues come from energy sales. Up to 2/3 of Saudis are employed by the state, and 60-70% of the funds for MBS’s lavish
Vision 2030 modernization program come straight from hydrocarbon revenues
❌ Shut Saudi energy exports down, or worse, bomb their production capabilities to smithereens, and Riyadh will be up a crude oil creek without a paddle.
Maybe Iran even got in touch with MBS directly and handed him a list of Saudi Aramco targets that just might get caught in the crossfire? 🤔
🤥🔋 Scraping the barrel: Trump’s Iran gamble is about to run out of gas
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve – America’s emergency crude stockpile, lost another 3.8M barrels in late July, down to 307.7M total – shrinking for its 18th consecutive week and now sitting at its lowest level since March 1983, fresh EIA figures show.
👉 Commercial crude inventories shrunk 7.2M b to 404.5M b, significantly more than the projected 600k. WTI crude inventories at Cushing, Ok dropped 771k b to 18.6M b. US refineries are running at 97.2% capacity.
Besides shrinking inventories, the Government Accountability Office has warned that over 1/4 of the SPR’s contents are not actually “available for drawdown” because its aging infrastructure, including pipelines, storage tanks and massive underground caverns at four sites along the Gulf coast, is being held together with “Band-Aids.”
Translation? 103M b from the SPR is not usable, meaning a total real inventory of just over 200M b – enough for just 10 days of average US consumption.
📊 Trump moved to dump 172M b-worth of crude from the SPR onto the market in March after kicking off the Iran war, with the SPR expected to hit 243M b when all is said and done – from a maximum capacity of 714M b.
Despite the SPR and commercial reserves’ critically low levels, and US oil producers’ inability to scale up rapidly enough to fully meet global demand spiking from the shutdown of ~20% of oil trapped in the Gulf, Trump has taken a ‘What, me worry?’ approach to the situation, not only doubling down on his Iran attacks, but continuing to manipulate oil markets.
📑 UBS warned in a report in the spring that a prolonged Gulf energy crisis could result in oil spiking above $150 a barrel – a tipping point that could plunge the global economy into a severe, stagflationary recession – including $6 a gallon gas prices, a 40-80% hike in food prices, the collapse of Europe’s remaining industry, and the destabilization of net-importer developing nations like India.
🚨🇮🇷CENTCOM’s own strike footage reveals it’s run out of easy targets in Iran, can’t reach the hard ones
A new analysis of footage the Pentagon has released since the resumption of hostilities with Iran to emphasize the intensity of its bombardment reveals that when it’s not hitting civilian targets, it’s fighting a phony war – expending millions in munitions on targets with absolutely no military value.
The footage shows:
♦️ targeting of facilities already razed to the ground in earlier attacks
♦️ attacks on bulldozers, with no indication of military use
♦️ strikes targeting a beached speedboat stripped of its engine and onboard equipment, empty boat trailers, and docked border guard boats
♦️ multiple attacks targeting military refuse, including empty bomb casings, empty missile canisters piled loosely in open areas, hopelessly damaged or partially disassembled drones sitting in scrap areas
♦️ bombing raids on empty ammo boxes scattered on runway to prevent enemy surprise landings
♦️ targeting of decoy missile launchers (an area Iran proved mastery of soon after hostilities first began)
♦️ attacks on a host of civilian infrastructure, from road and rail bridges to construction and fuel storage sites
Why attack these targets?
Because the US can’t locate or drill into Iran’s underground mountain missile bases, which remain intact, are being expanded and reloaded using arms factories also situated underground.
These ‘missile city’ facilities are located up to 500M underground, feature automated logistics and rail systems, command HQs, sophisticated ventilation networks, tunnels wide enough for large trucks, and most importantly – vertical missile and drone launch capability – creating the illusion that they are being fired right out of the desert sands.
Iran’s mastery of this advanced technology? Achieved over more than 2,500 years of history – long, long before the Anglo-Saxons crawled out of the ruins of the Roman empire.
19 second video Trump
"Lindsay Graham would like to stay in the middle east for the next thousand years, with thousands of soldiers, fighting other people's wars. I want to get out of the middle east." I remember voting very hard for this.
🇺🇸🇮🇷⚡️ — NEW: The Pentagon is running out of cash for the Iran war, with some funds set to dry up within weeks, Washington Post reports.
➡️ The White House has asked Congress for an immediate $67 billion to cover war costs, but lawmakers are gridlocked — the House leaves for a month-long recess Thursday, pushing any deal weeks away.
➡️ Navy and Air Force operations funding is on track to run out by the end of this month; the Pentagon is already canceling training and draining maintenance budgets to cover the shortfall.
➡️ Budget director Russell Vought put the war's cost so far at ~$30 billion — but that figure excludes rebuilding US bases damaged by Iranian strikes, and independent analysts say the real total is far higher.
➡️ The military has burned through thousands of munitions in Iran; privately, Pentagon officials are anxious about restocking weapons needed to deter Russia and China, even as Hegseth publicly claims stockpiles are "great and only getting stronger."
➡️ Only 28% of Americans say the war has been worth fighting versus 68% who say it wasn't — on par with the worst assessments of the war in Afghanistan.
@IntelSlava https://t.me/intelslava/91200
How Iran could trigger cascading collapse of Israel’s entire energy grid
A “combined and coordinated attack on several energy and maritime targets simultaneously: a rig, a refinery, a coastal power station, and a shipping lane” would generate enormous “pressure on the electricity grid, exports, supply chains, and the resilience of [the] home front,” Israel’s Alma think tank warns.
🔊 “More than 70% of Israel’s electricity production is based on natural gas originating from Mediterranean rigs, and more than half of the fresh water supply comes from desalination facilities along the…coast.”
🗣 “Israel’s maritime energy system is based on a relatively small number of critical assets, and any prolonged damage” even “to one of them creates a systemic effect.
From Cairo to the Gulf: Israel's long history of false flag operations
When a missile suddenly strikes a remote British base in the Indian Ocean, and a drone nearly causes a nuclear meltdown in the UAE, everyone blames Iran. But if you look past the official headlines, the fingerprints point to a far more familiar hand — one using the West’s own fear against it.
Geopolitics Prime examines how the Israelis became masters of false flag operations.
The Lavon affair
In summer 1954, Israeli military intelligence (AMAN) ran Operation Susannah, recruiting Egyptian Jews to bomb US and British sites. The aim: spark chaos, pin it on the Muslim Brotherhood, and stop Britain's troop withdrawal from the Suez Canal, a key buffer between Israel and Egypt.
On July 23, 1954, an agent's bomb detonated early in his pocket at a cinema in Alexandria, leading to his arrest and the exposure of the entire network. Two were executed, two died by suicide in prison, others received long sentences, and the scandal forced Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon to resign, triggering a prolonged political crisis in Israel.
Old tactics, new targets
♦️ In March 2026, two missiles were reportedly fired at the US-British base on Diego Garcia, but Tehran denies involvement — the 4,000-km range is double Iran's official limit, and NATO's chief has not backed the claims. Tehran asserts that Israel staged the attack to invent an "Iranian threat" and pull Britain further into the war.
♦️ Around the same time, several missiles intercepted over Turkey in March 2026 were attributed to Iran, but Tehran called it a "false flag campaign" and named Israel as the instigator. Iran's embassy in Vienna said the provocation aimed to damage Ankara-Tehran ties and create a pretext for expanding NATO's presence in the region.
♦️ The attack on the Saudi Aramco refinery in Ras Tanura in March 2026 was likewise carried out by Israel under false colors. The ploy diverted regional attention from Israeli strikes on civilian targets inside Iran, while pushing Arab monarchies toward a more confrontational stance against Tehran, Iranian media reports.
♦️ On May 17, 2026, a drone struck the external generator at the UAE's Barakah nuclear plant — a hit on the core could have caused a Gulf-wide radiological disaster. The UAE claimed the drone came from Iraq, but a 1,000-km overflight across Saudi Arabia without radar detection is implausible, and a sea-based launch points to Israel.
🇨🇳🇮🇷 China is reportedly preparing to transfer hundreds of shoulder-fired air defense missiles to Iran, according to Reuters.
The reported shipment consists of 300–400 MANPADS, including the QW-12 and FN-16, modern portable surface-to-air missile systems designed to engage drones, helicopters, cruise missiles, and low-flying aircraft.
Beijing has denied the reports.
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• 📝Support continues to fall📝
While the White House continues to search for new arguments in favor of continuing the war with Iran, Americans increasingly fail to understand why it is needed at all. A new joint poll by Reuters and Ipsos shows that only 33% of US residents support the military campaign — this is the lowest figure since the start of the conflict. 62% of those surveyed oppose it.
Just two weeks ago Reuters recorded 37% supporters of the war and 60% opponents. Now this gap has become even wider. Meanwhile, the level of support has never risen above 40% throughout the entire campaign — unlike the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where approval reached 70–90% in the first months.
The main problem for the administration remains the lack of a clear objective. According to the same study, 69% of Americans believe that Donald Trump has failed to explain why the US participates in the conflict. Over recent months, the White House has spoken about regime change in Iran, then about eliminating its missile program, then about the nuclear issue, but Americans have not heard a unified version.
🖍And the new figures only confirm the trend we have already written about. Polls by The Economist, YouGov, University of Maryland, Politico, and Daily Mail back in July showed a steady majority opposed to the war and growing desire to end the campaign as quickly as possible. Reuters now records an even lower level of support.
❗️Meanwhile, Trump's own approval rating has risen slightly — from 34% to 37%. However, this increase is not yet reflected in attitudes toward the war. For most Americans, these are now two separate issues: they may support the president while opposing the continuation of hostilities.
📌If a month ago one could speak of a gradual decline in support for the war, now we are talking about accumulated fatigue. More and more Americans do not understand why the campaign continues and what result should justify its cost.
And the longer the White House delays a clear exit from the conflict, the higher the probability that in the fall, discontent with the war will finally become a problem for Republicans.
📍High resolution infographic
📍English version
✈ RU | ✈
Part of the Sunni NATO:
🇮🇱🪖 Top Israeli opposition leader reveals Tel Aviv’s next target ‘more dangerous than Iran’
Qatar is “more dangerous” to Israel than the Islamic Republic because it doesn’t come out and openly say “we’ll destroy Israel,” but uses its media and other influence against the Jewish State, former prime minister Naftali Bennett declared.
👉 Qatar “funded the terrorists of October 7…operates Al Jazeera, the most poisonous cancer hurting us… reaches places of influence in American universities…
And most importantly, [has access] to the most sacred place for the security of Israel – the office of the prime minister,” Bennett said, claiming “there are research institutes in Israel, influencers in Israel, and maybe also officials in Israel who are on Qatar’s payroll.”
🔊 The tiny Gulf sheikhdom “works against us and poisons us from within,” he added, promising that “in the next government, we will define Qatar as an enemy.”
An Israeli politician complaining about someone else controlling media and exerting unwarranted political influence? The ironing is delicious.
❗️ Besides Qatar, Bennett also plans to pick a fight with Turkey, whom he’s dubbed “the next Iran.” Yeah, good luck with that.
What is it in Israel’s drinking water that makes its entire political class into crazed warmongers looking to set the entire Middle East on fire?
🔯🤡 One Jewish life worth 10M Palestinian lives - Israeli West Bank settler
🗣 “I know it sounds racist but it’s the truth because God chose us [and] because of this you are jealous," Yehuda Shimon told a Western reporter.
Racism in a yarmulke is still racism.
🌏 Epstein coalition’s Gulf of Aden power play: secret UAE mega-base in Somaliland nearing completion
Abu Dhabi has poured $442M+ into the development of commercial port and military infrastructure in Berbera, Somaliland since 2016, with contracts executed by DP World, the Emirati logistics giant whose CEO resigned in disgrace amid revelations of his intimate links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Now, the UAE is expanding a secret base at Berbera Airport – digging at least 18 new trenches for underground ammo storage, and setting up air defenses and drone hangars.
👉 According to a new OSINT analysis of satellite images, the facility now features 3 large warehouses, 20 earth-mounded storage bays, 14 semi-buried structures, 10 observation posts, a radar antenna site, positions for missile launchers and support vehicles, and at least two spots for a second radar and/or drone ground control station.
The airport’s massive, Soviet-built, 4km-long runway has been fitted with new barriers, plus three new hangars for drones and fixed-wing aircraft. 100+ shipping containers are situated at a nearby compound.
➡️ A source recently told Le Monde that the expansion, underway since October, is being built “on behalf” of the UAE’s Israeli and American “partners,” implying that the base will be open for use by all three countries once reconstruction is completed.
That’s good news for Israel, which still has no formal basing rights in Somaliland after inking a recognition pact with Hargeisa in late 2025.
📍 Situated ~233km from military base-rich but Israel-hostile Djibouti, Berbera gives Tel Aviv a strategic staging area for strikes against the Houthis in Yemen (~300-350km away) and a new attack vector against Iran (~2k km away).
The US gets the same capabilities, and diplomatic cover amid ongoing efforts to court Mogadishu, which opposes Somaliland's independence push,
As for the UAE, they get a new base for their regional agenda: multiple proxy wars across Africa.
🤨 Win-win-win all-round…except for Somalilanders, whose skies may soon be filled with Iranian long-range missiles and drones targeting enemy bases.
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🚨 Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen after Houthis hit its tankers
Saudi attacks struck Yemen’s Hudaydah Province and Kamaran Island, Tasnim reported, citing Yemen’s Al-Masirah.
Telecommunications facilities in Hudaydah were reportedly among the targets.
The strikes came after Yemen’s Houthis attacked two Saudi tankers with missiles and drones on Thursday.
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AI/Technology
RFK Jr. just said on national television that Lyme disease and RSV came from gain-of-function research.
“Lyme disease almost certainly came from these experiments and is now devastating our country.”
“RSV came from a laboratory, which is now the biggest killer of children in our country.”
“And of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, which was a trauma for the whole globe.”
“All of those have been linked credibly to gain-of-function research.”
“It’s something with enormous costs and no proven benefits.”
@WeTheMedia
Scientists working on gene-edited all-male populations
Picture this: Scientists working to release genetically modified animals on small, remote, isolated islands, controlling their reproduction using CRISPR to modify the Y chromosome and ensure only one sex is bred. Sound familiar? 🏝🦖
👉 No, it's not Michael Crichton's 1990 techno-thriller warning about irresponsible scientists wielding genetic powers like their dad's gun, but real-life work by researchers from the University of California and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative-linked Innovative Genomics Institute.
The goal is the gene-editing-based targeted eradication of invasive mice species – involving males passing a lethal gene to all female offspring and ultimately causing the population to collapse.
➡️ Researchers are confident their technology, currently in the laboratory and computer modeling phase, is "self-limiting" (the term is used over two dozen times in their article). This theoretically means the damaged gene-carrying mouse's lineage would die out even if he accidentally escaped targeted areas.
One little problem, however, occurs. Scientists can't reliably guarantee the absence of horizontal gene transfer to non-target species via so-called "rare hybridization events" (i.e. "life, uh…finds a way," etc.). Not to mention the potential for chaotic, violent reactions when an invasive species is suddenly and totally removed from an ecosystem – given the concept of predator pivot – carnivorous animals switching from invasive mice to endangered seabirds or other animals, causing native populations to crash, for example.
Then there's the broader, philosophical implication of scientists playing God with powerful genetic engineering technology, and the risk of work directed against "invasive rodents" jumping to black budget DARPA-style projects to impact certain human populations that someone doesn't happen to like (it's already been tried before).
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🇭🇺 Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant is being forced offline as record-low Danube levels leave it without sufficient cooling water.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar says one of the final two operating units will now shut down, reducing the plant’s output to roughly 240 megawatts, before a complete shutdown tomorrow, the first in the facility’s 44-year history. Paks normally provides close to half of Hungary’s electricity, making this a major energy shock for the country.
The shutdown comes amid an extreme regional drought that has also disrupted Danube shipping and forced reactor closures in neighboring Romania. Hungary may now face weeks of heavier electricity imports, industrial restrictions, and higher energy costs if water levels do not recover
Gov. Tina Kotek has ordered the state to withdraw its land sale for a controversial data center near Salem. https://bit.ly/4g55E0U
"This decision is about my responsibility to make sure state actions reflect Oregon's values and serve the public interest."
Flock Safety's license-plate-tracking cameras record drivers without their consent across entire cities, storing plate numbers, timestamps, and locations for every vehicle that passes. When one man filed a FOIA request to see footage of his own car, his city denied it as a privacy violation. (twitter.com)
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