By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Between saying something if you are a Chinese admiral and Defense Minister and meaning something if you are a Politburo member and Foreign Minister, there is a pussyfooting difference.

If you are the US Treasury Secretary and you tell the Chinese what you mean, that’s different.

And then if you are the President of China, these differences of meaning might be interpreted as “the law of the jungle”.

Might be is a conditional verb. Sometimes in grammar it connects the subject of sentences with the object. Sometimes in politics it doesn’t.

And so, on or about Monday, April 13, Dong Jun (lead image, 2^nd left), China’s Minister of Defense, said: “We are committed for peace & stability in the world. We are monitoring the situation in the Middle East. Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of Strait of Hormuz. We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honour them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us.”

Where Dong said this, when,  and in front of whom, were unclear in the press reports which, unusually, were not official state Chinese media or commercial media like the South China Morning Post. China experts noticed that the style of the remarks in Chinese was “very different from the official Chinese language style.”  This isn’t necessarily a disqualifier. In Russian practice, sensitive official thinking can often be leaked through unofficial, even obscure sources, in part to test what happens in response.

Dong’s first two sentences were official boilerplate and obvious. The third sentence refers to the fact that in the first month of the US-Israeli war against Iran, an estimated 18 Chinese vessels transited the Strait – with Iranian permission and following a territorial route dictated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  On Monday, if and when Dong was speaking, a Chinese-owned tanker moved through the Strait. This was the Rich Starry which had loaded 250,000 barrels of methanol at the Emirati port of Hamriyah. The tanker is owned by Shanghai Xuanrun Shipping Co Ltd. but sanctioned by the US because it has been used to transport Iranian crude.  

Dong’s fourth sentence is also boilerplate. There are many trade and energy agreements between China and Iran; the most important of them is the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2021–2046), signed in March 2021.  

 It is the Defense Minister’s fifth and sixth sentences which have drawn immediate and serious  attention, especially in Teheran and Moscow, where they are interpreted as the first explicit Chinese declaration of support for Iran’s military control of the Strait and the first explicit Chinese warning to reject President Donald Trump’s naval blockade of the Strait which had begun on Monday.  

Combined with the exit of the Rich Starry and another tanker, the US-sanctioned Elpis, which had loaded a cargo of Iranian methanol at Bushehr, Dong’s sentences appeared to signal that Beijing had decided to run Trump’s gauntlet and challenge the US Navy blockade.  

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent replied that “the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would ensure that no Chinese ships or others would be allowed to pass. ‘So they’re not going to be able to get their oil. They can get oil. Not Iranian oil,’ Bessent said, adding that China had been buying more than 90% of Iranian oil and it constituted about 8% of their annual purchases.”   

As Bessent spoke, several hours after Dong’s speech and the tanker movements, both the speech and the ship courses were reversed. The Chinese Defense Ministry tweeted an official claim that the reports were “fake news” and “entirely fabricated.”  The maritime tracking media reported the Rich Starry had stopped in the Gulf of Oman and then made a U-turn towards the Strait.  The Elpis was reported to have stopped off the Iranian oil terminal port of Kooh Mobarak, which is located outside and east of the Strait, in the Gulf of Oman.  

So now, all things said, what have the Chinese done?

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by Editor - Tuesday, April 14th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the world in which President Donald Trump plans his future (lead image), and the presidential dynasty of his sons to succeed him, the gunman believes he can take away both lives and bribes.  Unless the victim catches him by surprise, outgunning him and those of his allies who have paid the price of his protection. It’s blood for money.

This is the new stage of Iran’s war.  It is the stage which the Iranian and pro-Iranian post-mortem analyses of the Islamabad negotiations have not disclosed; the stage which the US and Israeli propaganda organs cannot comprehend; the stage which the Trump dynasty’s rivals are afraid of, Vice President JD Vance in front.  

This stage of Iran’s war is also an example to President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping of the futility of paying bribes, as their advisors tell them; and the vulnerability of Trump and his sons to political defeat at home.For discussion of the tactics now, the operations for the next six months to US Election Day, and the strategy for winning the war to come, view or listen to the discussion with Nima Alkhorshid today.

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by Editor - Tuesday, April 14th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Inside the Kremlin Wall there is only one man sitting or standing whose closeness to President Vladimir Putin has so excited his ambition to be rich (billion-dollar rich), and to be powerful (the next head of government), that he dares to shout from the ramparts that peace on the Ukrainian battlefield, relief of global economic sanctions, and prosperity with US investments will materialize very soon on condition that Russia puts its unquestioning trust in President Donald Trump.

Unquestioning means, for this man,  never criticizing Trump for anything he says or does —  no war he wages, no ceasefire or peace agreement he breaks.   It also means never questioning Putin’s trust in him.  

This man is Kirill Dmitriev, the President’s “Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries”  — that’s to say, special negotiator with  the Trump family’s money-making regime, including the US Treasury.“I believe he acts with 100% approval of Putin and does indeed speak for him,” says a source in a position to know. “He is Putin’s Whisperer.”

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by Editor - Monday, April 13th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

As the frontrunner in the race to succeed President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance had more to lose in the negotiations with Iran in Islamabad than his principal rivals – they are Trump the father and his sons, Donald Jr and Eric Trump; or Mario Rubio, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

At risk for Vance was the interpretation of Trump’s Jewish advisors, on the one hand, that he had been too soft on the barbarians and had conceded that Israel would remain too vulnerable to Iranian attack for the future. Equally at risk for him was the interpretation, on the other hand, that when the US and Israel resume their attacks and escalate to Trump’s Stone Age options, he, Vance, would be to blame for the economic dislocation impacts, loss of stock market value, and inflation which are the principal drivers of American voter swing against the Republican Party.

Not to mention the risk of another military mission failure like the Isfahan nuclear material and pilot rescue operation of April 4-5. Click for details.  

Trump had said as much himself on April 2. “If it [deal with Iran] doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance. If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”  

As the negotiations continued in Islamabad, Trump, Rubio, and Donald Jr. remained in Miami to watch professional fighters in a multi-million dollar betting ring. Trump’s ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, was also at ringside.  

Vance ended in Islambad with a 210-second statement and stepped out of the ring. The credit Vance claimed for himself was “we have had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians”. The blame was on the Iranians that “we have not reached an agreement. I think that’s bad news for Iran more than it’s bad news for the United States of America.” He meant for the Vice President of the United States of America. “They have chosen not to accept our terms.”  

The Iranians, he added, had refused to give “an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that will enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the President of the United States”.

Vance emphasized this had been a collective “team” negotiation. He had talked with Trump “half a dozen times, a dozen times”, together with military operations chief, Admiral Brad Cooper, War Secretary Peter Hegseth, Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (in that order). Vance was spreading the blame.

He left with almost no offer to continue negotiations “We leave here with a very simple proposal… that is our final and best offer.”  This sounded like a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. But Vance left himself a 9-word escape. “We haven’t seen that [commitment] yet. We hope we will.”  

Trump has followed with three lengthy tweets which he has repeated over two hours. “So, there you have it, the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not. Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.”   Trump said his blockade would apply to “to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”  

Five hours later, the blockade terms were clarified by Cooper’s Central Commnand to apply to “vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian [sic] Gulf and Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”  

This wasn’t the escalation option Trump’s Jewish advisors and the Israeli prime minister want. They say – editorializing through the Washington Post  – an attack on Kharg Island to destroy Iran’s oil production, port storage, and oil shipping infrastructure; destruction of Iran’s missile and drone production capacities and stocks; removal of the enriched uranium stockpile;  and a US military “perimeter” around all Iran’s nuclear installations.

They are still saying these are the escalation options in reserve. “An attack on Kharg Island is still possible.”

When Vance turned his back on reporters in Islamabad and headed for his flight to Washington,  he too was reserving his options. They are the options to  preserve the Trump succession for himself.

Trump, by contrast, is not only escalating against Iran. He has started to attack the Roman Catholic Church, the anti-war movement among American Catholics, and Pope Leo XIV himself. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela… and I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do…  If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican. Unfortunately, Leo’s Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons, does not sit well with me…Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”  Forty-six minutes after Trump published that, he added a portrait of himself as Jesus Christ curing the sick (lead image).   

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by Editor - Sunday, April 12th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

On the eve of the Islamabad negotiations, by intention, the US oligarch-run media platform known as the Washington Post editorialized in favour of a five-point combination of invasion and genocide for Iran in order to achieve a “final and decisive conclusion” if Iran refuses to come to “an acceptable agreement”.

That meant conceding all of the US and Israeli terms including demilitarization of Iran’s drone and missile production and operation capacities; denuclearization of both civilian and military enrichment; decapitation of the surviving Iranian command and control; reopening of the Strait of Hormuz; and an end to Iranian support for the Arab resistance. Read the claims here.  

Also on the eve but by coincidence, General Reasoning (GR), a London-based research and development consultancy working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, produced an  unprecedented demonstration of the failure of the well-known global search engines and data operations to analyze and predict “long-horizon, non-stationary environments with open-ended goals.”

The first haf of the phrase is GR’s term for reality; the term “open-ended goals”  means the future.

GR’s test evidence is the failure of the AI search engines – Antropic, ChatGPT, Google, Grok, etc. – to bet money profitably on game outcomes over the English Premier League football season of 2023-24. Read the report here.   

“Every frontier model we evaluated lost money over the season and many experienced ruin.  The best-performing model, Claude Opus 4.6, finished with an average return of −11% over three seeds. Only two models, Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.4, avoided ruin across all three seeds.”  

Technical conclusion: “Models can write sophisticated code, diagnose their own failures, and articulate correct strategies, yet persistently fail to execute those strategies reliably, monitor their own performance, or adapt when their approach is not working.”   

GR didn’t extend its skepticism towards Artificial Intelligence in sports to warfighting. On the battlefield of the Middle East, for example, this currently means the failure of the US and Israel to achieve their declared war aims; their refusal to accept the intelligence feedback on the penetration and defeat of their missile defence systems; their rejection of any change of policy.

However, the bottom line of the GR report is that man-made projections of US and Israeli warfighting superiority may prove to go as badly wrong as Google, ChatGPT, and Anthropic lost money and went bankrupt after they applied their machine superiority to sports wagering.  When GR concludes that “[this] is an early example of a complex world that tests long-horizon sequential decision-making under uncertainty. Adaptive reasoning under uncertainty becomes essential, ” the translation for US and Israel warmaking right now is — think again, or you face ruin.   

In this podcast Geopolitics and Empire, hosted from Mexico City by Hrvoje Moric, thinking again is the point. The discussion starts with the mistakes of AI systems and podcasting as the new form of investigative journalism. It then focuses on how imperialism is faring in the Middle East, the Americas, and on the Ukraine battlefield.  

The podcast went to air on Saturday from 8 pm US Eastern Time. Click to view or listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTZEKTJPZfY 

by Editor - Saturday, April 11th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

When it comes to the role God plays in Vatican politics, inside the Holy See and outside in the warmaking capital of the US, there can never be too much ado about nothing.

You don’t have to be a believer to understand that in war and politics, God is Not Nothing.

President Donald Trump made it clear that he and God were head to head and holding hands during the Isfahan operation on the weekend, April 4-5. He —  Trump, that is —   has also been making sure that his most senior Roman Catholic officials (lead image, right), Vice President JD Vance (convert) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (birth) – both of them candidates in the running to succeed Trump – keep American Catholic voters loyal to his presidency as they were in the 2024 election.  

And so it came to pass that on January 22, a Catholic second-stringer in the Administration, Elbridge Colby, Under Secretary of War for Policy, called the Papal Nuncio in Washington, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, for a reproving lecture on papal politics. This followed the refusal of the new Pope Leo XIV to agree to Vance’s invitation to visit the US this year; and one week before Pierre turned 80 years old and signed his resignation to Rome. After a decade in Washington, the cardinal decided not to go out with a whimper, but with a bang.

The public report of what Colby had told him was leaked in the first week of April, reported here in a publication directed by a Jewish convert, almost three months after the Pentagon meeting.    “The Vatican and the White House Are on the Outs” was the headline. The identified source was “Vatican officials briefed on the meeting, who spoke with The Free Press on the condition of anonymity”. They said that Colby gave Pierre “a bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants—and that the Church had better take its side.”  

The timing of this leak followed after Trump launched his declared genocidal war against Iran; and after the Netanyahu regime closed the Holy Places in Jerusalem during the Easter celebrations.

Leo XIV then announced in his Easter Mass homily on April 5: “death is always lurking. We see it present in injustices, in partisan selfishness, in the oppression of the poor, in the lack of attention given to the most vulnerable. We see it in violence, in the wounds of the world, in the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.”  

The Pope added: “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars.”  

On the next day, April 6, in his Washington press conference, Trump replied with seventeen (17) mentions of God.

“God was watching us,” Trump said of the Isfahan operation. “Well, it was the Easter — we were in Easter territory, I guess, but God was watching us…God is good every day. And to our adversaries watching from Tehran, let this be a clear message to the United States military will go anywhere at any time to protect our own and complete the mission. We execute with precision.”  Asked by a reporter to clarify if “God supports the United States actions in this war?”, Trump replied: “I do. Because God is good. Because God is good, and God wants to see people taken care of god doesn’t like what’s happening. I don’t like what’s happening everyone says I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy this I don’t enjoy it. These two guys don’t enjoy it. You know, people say, oh boy, they’re so tough. They don’t want — they don’t like — I don’t like seeing people killed.”  

The Pope’s foreign minister, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, then reacted with a statement on April 9. “We cannot surrender to the logic of the strongest because that bends international law to its own interests. We cannot move from the force of law to the law of force.”  Parolin took shots at President Vladimir Putin, Trump and the Israelis. “Many governments have expressed indignation over attacks against Ukrainian civilians by Russian missiles and drones, imposing sanctions on the aggressors. I do not think the same has happened with the tragedy of the destruction of Gaza.”  

The Roman Curia has been under pressure from the American bishops to take a clear stance against Trump’s war and against his threats of genocide against Iran.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, speaking for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, followed the Pope’s Easter speech with one of his own, explicitly against Trump: “The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified. There are other ways to resolve conflict between peoples. I call on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war and negotiate a just settlement for the sake of peace and before more lives are lost.”  In the campaign to keep God on the side of Catholic voters for Trump — begun at Colby’s meeting with the Papal Nuncio in January and ending with the Pope ordering the US bishops to vote their consciences against Trump —  the Christian faction in the White House has been beaten as badly as the Jewish faction  was beaten by Iran on the battlefield of the Persian Gulf.

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by Editor - Thursday, April 9th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Professor Higgins’s question to Colonel Pickering about Eliza Doolittle in the line from the musical, My Fair Lady, (lead image) was: Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

In Moscow, where the course of the Iran war is having a profound impact on military, intelligence, Foreign Ministry, and Kremlin officials, almost nothing can be said in public. Not even the question they are asking each other downwards and sideways, not upwards: Why can’t a Russian be more like an Iranian?

The difficulty of answering is not because it is against the law to criticize the Russian Army’s performance in the present Special Military Operation (aka war), according to the interpretation of the local United Russia party commissar, his chief in the Kremlin, Alexei Gromov,  or his chief, President Vladimir Putin.

It is not because of a lack of confidence in what Putin is deciding as commander in chief. The President reveals himself in his private conversations; their substance is not a secret for a great many in a position to know.  In the telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban — according to the authenticated transcript of their conversation of last October 17 – Putin said he believed Trump was not at war,  not even in a special military operation,  in the Middle East – not in Gaza and Lebanon from 2023, not in Iran in June 2025. Putin also made clear then that he doesn’t think Trump is at war with Russia, and that on the Ukrainian battlefield, Trump’s “tank” is fully functional, moving “forward”, not backward.   

“Donald,” Putin told Orban,  “has a surprising ability to deal with various crises, such as the regulation of the Middle East and, most recently, the Gaza region, and I hope that there will also be a satisfactory solution to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict.”

Orban replied: “To be honest, I was also very surprised. I’ve known Donald for a long time, he’s not an ordinary person [both laugh]. His working method leaves no questions unresolved, I watch with admiration how successful he is. His business style, which is like a tornado, brings results.”

“Putin: As they say, he is moving forward like a tank. It worked for him, and we can only be happy about that. Prior to the meeting in Anchorage, the US side formulated the general principles of possible regulation, and I believe that these will be discussed again in the discussions. We have already talked about this in Anchorage, and there will probably be something to discuss in Budapest as well.”  

Putin may have been using Orban to ingratiate himself with Trump in the preliminaries for the  Budapest summit meeting, but it didn’t help and the summit failed to materialize. The reasons, Russian reasons first, American second, can be followed here  and here  and here.

What the newly disclosed transcript shows – just as other transcripts of Putin’s private conversations with US leaders reveal  – is that Putin is not aiming to fight or deter Trump; that Russia is not at war with the US (and its allies); and that Putin believes  that money can be paid in sufficiently large amounts (billions of dollars more for Trump than for his White House predecessors),   so that Russia’s national interests will be served. That conviction is one of the three“understandings” — Putin insists as do his subordinates — which were reached at the Anchorage summit meeting with Trump on August 8, 2025.

Putin’s Anchorage reference to Orban is to the “Anchorage Understandings”.  

The second of these was Putin’s belief that Trump will concede Russia’s dominance of the Ukraine in exchange for Trump’s dominance of the Americas – from Greenland through Canada to Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Exactly what (whether) Trump conceded Russian dominance of the entire NATO eastern front from Poland, the Baltic Sea, to Finland was left unclear at the time. Exactly what (whether) Putin conceded US dominance of China, North Korea, and Iran with Greater Israel was also left unclear.

The third of the “understandings” was that bribes agreed by the two presidents’ bagmen will be honoured by the presidents on receipt.

Who in Moscow shall count the sums in exchange and the interests served? That’s the Russian oligarchs.

The President’s confidant, negotiator with Trump, spokesman for the Anchorage understandings, signatory of the bribe payments,  and chief representative for the Russian oligarchs  – this is Kirill Dmitriev. He writes and publishes tweets several times each day because he wants to be heard. It is therefore his determined silence on every aspect of Trump’s attempted genocide against Iran, and his near-completed one against the Arabs of Palestine and Lebanon, which speaks loudest.  

The Iranians do not misinterpret that silence. Nor the Chinese nor the Cubans.

To understand what the Russians who count understand at present of Russian conduct of operations on the Ukrainian battlefield, the Iranian battlefield, and the Cuban battlefield, it is necessary to read between the lines of what is said in public by the officials, including Putin; and to ask questions in private of those in a position to know enough to piece the answer to the big question. Right now that’s the Doolittle Question.

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by Editor - Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Broadcast with Chris Cook on Tuesday evening, the news broke midway that President Donald Trump had withdrawn his CBOU – Crazy Bastards Obliteration Ultimatum – and agreed to a ceasefire for two weeks of negotiations with Iran.

This news followed by several hours in New York, the double veto by China and Russia of the draft UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the Strait of Hormuz. This was the attempt by the US, through Bahrain and several Arab sheikhdoms, to legalize the use of force by the US and Israel in the war they launched against Iran on February 28.  

A UNSC press release claimed the resolution aimed to “coordinate defensive efforts and deter attempts to interfere with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

This was deliberate soft-pedaling by UNSC officials.

Their description of the resolution, whose text the UNSC refuses to publish, claims the use of force proposed was “defensive”. China’s and Russia’s UN representatives criticized this as unbalanced because “it failed to capture the root causes and the full picture of the conflict in a comprehensive and balanced manner” (Fu Cong); and because it was a “fundamentally erroneous and dangerous approach” (Vasily Nebenzya). The two countries proposed that their draft resolution to come will “be concise, equitable and balanced.”  

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by Editor - Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

President Donald Trump has been defeated on the battlefield near Isfahan over the weekend. He was then defeated on the morning of Tuesday  in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in  his attempt, manipulating Bahrain, to legalize the use of force against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

Finally, minutes short of his announced genocide deadline “before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”  and “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”,  Trump bit his tongue on his threat: “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”  

Instead, Trump announced that as a favour to his Pakistan ally, Asim Munir, “subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution.”  

The official statement, issued in Teheran by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi,  said that Iran is “considering announcement by POTUS about acceptance of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal as a basis for negotiations”. The Iranian agreement, Araghchi went on,  then preserved the new regime for the Strait “via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”  

Trump and his tweet supervisor, Stephen Miller, then swallowed their tongue by tweeting the text of Araghchi’s tweet.   

Exact and official wording of Iran’s 10-point proposal is not published. However, this summary published by the Tasnim News Agency, a platform of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), comes close.  The IRGC has added the interpretation: “By accepting these conditions as the basis for negotiations, Trump has retreated from his desperate threats and bluffs.”

Humiliation reversed. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and War Secretary Peter Hegseth had repeatedly declared in their April 6 press conference, celebrating the weekend pilot rescue, that the Iranians had been “embarrassed and, ultimately, humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission”, and “Iran’s military, and we know this, is embarrassed and humiliated, and they should be”.  With Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, Trump had declared last December: “Iran has been greatly reduced in power, prestige. I don’t want to use the word humiliation because, you know, they’re trying to build up again.”  

In this discussion with Rasheed Muhammad on the Red Pill Diaries, the domestic political drivers of Trump’s aggression, and also of his retreat, have been identified. The factional lineup of Vice President JD Vance, Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, White House lawyers,  pollsters, and senior military officers has proved to be stronger than the Jewish faction of Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, Steven Witkoff,  and Netanyahu.

Click to view or listen: https://www.youtube.com/live/EG_R1PUqhLY?si=6fTElDx2TaDkFxF-

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by Editor - Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Alive or dead, US Air Force (USAF) Major Amanda Ryder has just destroyed President Donald Trump’s future.

The document bag (lead image, bottom left) and documents (right) which the Iranian Law Enforcement Force (Faraja) has disclosed and published in the last twenty-four hours,  are evidence of the weekend firefight  and destruction of at least four US aircraft  at a desert location near Isfahan, central Iran.  The cache reveals top secret operational details, location maps, time logs, local intelligence sources,  and objectives of a joint US-Israeli plan which was already in motion before the attack on Iran was launched on February 28.

President Trump’s public version of the mission is that it was to rescue the USAF colonel and weapons officer who had survived the earlier shooting-down of his F-15. Trump’s official calendar for the Saturday and Sunday, April 4-5, reveals that he remained in Washington instead of taking his usual weekend in Florida, but the record of his activities is unusually empty – until early on Sunday afternoon when Trump revealed by tweet that “we have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer”;   and then next morning: “WE GOT HIM! My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History”.  

Follow where Trump was and what he said in this analysis.  

Teheran has announced that Ryder’s initial mission had been for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in and around Isfahan, to capture stocks of enriched uranium and to destroy the enrichment plant and its personnel at the same time.  

There has so far been no statement from the Pentagon or the USAF corroborating the identity, whereabouts, or condition of Ryder.

Independent open-source investigation, however, confirms that on May 9, 2014,  Amanda M. Ryder received her Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commission as a second lieutenant in the USAF.   Her home was recorded as in Vienna, Virginia, although at the time she was studying at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  In July 2023 she was nominated for promotion to major and this was confirmed by the US Senate on July 27, 2023.  Her paygrade as a major was O4.  

The military identification card (lead image, top left) which has been displayed in Iran as Ryder’s is the standard form of the Geneva Conventions Identification Card.  The name, rank, and  paygrade displayed are standard. The lack of an issuance date at bottom, the placement of the expiration date at top, and the absence of the USAF logo differ from the standard.

Details of Ryder’s age, her family home in the Greater Washington area, and her attachment to the Air Force suggest that she may be the daughter of Major General Patrick Ryder whose long career in the USAF culminated in his posting as the Defense Department Press Secretary and Pentagon spokesman between 2022 and 2025.   There is no official confirmation of the relationship.

If the identification of Ryder and authentication of the visible documents are proved, then they have enormous political significance. The Israeli B2 visa card (lead image, top right), issued for Ryder’s entry on March 20, 2026, and expiring on June 20, reveals that Ryder was based in Israel prior to the Isfahan mission; she may have flown from Israel into Iran for the weekend operation. This confirms the close coordination in operations between the US and Israel.

It reinforces the likelihood that Ryder’s mission – along with the multiple special forces units which she was flying into the Isfahan desert landing site – was in planning from as early as March 20, her arrival date in Israel – and most likely for at least a month before then. However, if the operation’s objective was to launch a surprise attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities in and around Isfahan,  then its failure is likely to have motivated Trump’s escalation threats which have followed.

In retrospect, it now seems likely that Trump was following the operation from the White House Situation Room through most of the day and night of Saturday and on Sunday morning. The losses of Ryder’s aircraft, another C-130 transport and two (possibly three) AH-6 Little Bird helicopters, the substitution of evacuation aircraft, the combat, and the final rescue of the F-15 pilot are likely to have created enormous tension and fear of failure for Trump and his associates. They had reason to believe they were facing an even more catastrophic Iranian desert rescue mission as had been attempted by President Jimmy Carter in April 1980.

The political consequences of a repeat of Carter’s failure for Trump would have been dramatically obvious.The faction of White House officials and military officers who have been warning Trump against escalation of the war – Vice President JD Vance, Chief Staff Susan Wiles, Counsel David Warrington, pollster Tony Fabrizio – is likely to have reinforced their urging to Trump to get out of the war as quickly as possible, with a negotiation for smokescreen.

The faction in favour of escalation – Stephen Miller, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu – would have reinforced their urging to escalate, ignore the negotiations with the Iranians through the Pakistan intermediary, and prepare for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

View now or listen to this analysis of Trump as he crosses the last of his warfighting, genocide-aiming red lines.  

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by Editor - Monday, April 6th, 2026
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