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End of Alternative Visions Show & Forthcoming Future Publications by Dr. Jack Rasmus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 1, 2026| 4 Comments »

As the saying goes, ‘All Good Things Come to An End’. And so it has with regard to my 14 year stint as a host on the Alternative Visions show, on the Progressive Radio Network out of New York.

My last Friday, September 25, 2026 show was the last (see podcast link below), as PRN abruptly informed me I had to wrap it up in one week! The show covered my latest comments on the topics of the Decline of the US Empire–a subject more fully addressed in my just published 500p. book, “Twilight of American Imperialism“, now available at discount from the publisher, Clarity Press, and next week or so on Amazon, I’m told. And

Below you’ll find the link to the last show and the announcement for it. You can listen to the podcast for it (and all my prior shows) on podbean, spotify, apple and elsewhere. As the show announcement indicates, while the show is now over I will continue to write and publish articles on topics of current concern the show has been consistently addressing–i.e. the Decline of Empire, AI impact on jobs and incomes,Trump policies and the current crisis of electoral democracy in America, and the recent re-emerging of financial instability in US markets and threat of another financial crash.

Follow me on my written articles and various TV interviews that will continue to be posted on my blog, https://jackrasmus.com; as well as my new X and substack accounts to appear shortly. The show’s last announcement that follows indicates my near term publishing plans–articles, anthologies, and forthcoming Memoir, Victory Heights.

Here’s the link and show announcement to the final Alternative Visions show last week:

https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-9-25-26

SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT

Dr. Rasmus announces final show and reviews the past themes and contributions of the show. He can be reached via his blog, jackrasmus.com; email drjackrasmus@gmail.com; new forthcoming substack and X accounts, and his weekly published articles on Counterpunch, World Financial Review, LA Progressive, Znet, World Review of Political Economy, and URPE forum. In the second half of the show, Dr. Rasmus reviewed the major themes and conclusions of his just published new book, Twilight of American Imperialism, and provided some final predictions on the current course of Empire, AI tech developments, financial markets instability, US elections, and wars of Empire. Thanks to all the followers of the show, real time and via podcasts. Follow me on the sources indicated for continuing analysis.

I’m also appending here my recent reply to one of the show’s frequent listeners, David Baker, which indicates in part my future plans to continue communicating with audiences interested in the topics of my concern:

“Thanks David. Please continue to add your comments to my published articles that appear on my blog, jackrasmus.com. Your views are much appreciated.

As for Keynes, I’m planning to pull together my various written articles last two decades on mainstream economic theory and my critiques, probably entitled ‘Engaging Mainstream Economics’. Also, a companion anthology of articles on contemporary Marxist economics, entitled ‘Engaging Marxist Economics’.

However, in the interim will be a series of articles summarizing my analysis and predictions in my just published book, ‘Twilight of American Imperialism‘, Clarity Press, Sept. 2026, now available at discount via the publisher and in another week or so on Amazon, I’m told.

After that, my publication plans are to gather my various articles published since 2012 on US imperialist regime change operations, entitled “Echoes of Imperialism’, a companion piece to the ‘Twilight’ book.  And a similar anthology of my articles on the Ukraine war, entitled “Ukraine and the Next European War”. 

Finally, I’ve just finished a 500p personal Memoir, “Victory Heights“, about growing up in postwar America from the 1950s to 2008 as a working class kid. Contacting agents at the present.

So stay tuned. More coming even though PRN knocked me off their network abruptly. I suspect it may have something to do with my vociferous and unequivocal criticism of Zionist influence over US politics today, foreign and domestic. But who can confirm a smoking gun! So be it. Moving on….

Keep in touch

Jack“

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Fed Rate Hike, US Treasury Market & Crisis of Empire

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2026| 1 Comment »

September 19, 2026

By Dr. Jack Rasmus

This past week the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark short term interest (Federal Funds) rate a minimal quarter point, .25, from 3.75% to 4.00%. Expectations are strong for yet another .25 hike before the end of 2026.

Goods and services inflation in the US has recently begun to accelerate and the conventional wisdom in the mainstream media is that the Fed is raising rates in order to dampen inflation.

But is that the case? Or is there something else behind the rate hikes?

As the argument goes, Interest rate hikes dampen Consumer and Business demand for loans and thus consumption and investment in turn. Higher rates mean less spending by consumers on mortgages and big ticket items like cars; higher rates dampen business borrowing demand, so the theory goes.

It’s Supply Stupid

But the current inflation surge is not due to excess Demand. It’s a Supply problem. The Fed has little influence over supply, especially if it involves the global economy. And that’s exactly what’s driving up prices: the escalation of global oil and energy prices which translate into higher costs of gasoline for consumers, diesel for truckers and railroads, aviation fuel for airlines and much of electricity and natural gas services throughout the economy. And those prices eventually bleed into higher food prices with a lag.

To repeat: the higher energy prices driving US domestic inflation are a consequence of rising global energy prices—and those global prices in turn are the result of Trump war policies in the now spreading Middle East wars, Trump sanctions policy and tariff wars.

The Fed raising rates to dampen Demand has no effect on rising energy prices due to Supply and US war and related policies.

Current rising US inflation is a Supply problem that the Fed can do little about by raising rates and targeting Demand. Demand driving inflation are actually receding for months in the US, as real wages for households decline and unemployment rises in the Tech and now other industries. US job growth in 2026 has all but collapsed. In addition, as costs of borrowing rise—and in turn interest on credit cards, auto loans, student loans, mortgages, etc.—household Demand has slowed further.

Interest on that $18.5 trillion household debt load is a drag on household consumption. So too is the $23.7 trillion corporate and non-corporate business debt on investment. And that’s not counting the additional $43.8 total government debt, federal and state and local or the additional Federal Reserve balance sheet debt of $6.8 trillion. That’s a total combined debt of $106.2 trillion.

All that is money paid to wealthy capitalist investors that otherwise might be spent or invested on goods and services, to create jobs, and generate income for the many instead of the few. Assuming an average interest rate from all sources, that’s $7 trillion a year accruing to investors from interest alone. Interest payment on the Federal national debt alone is now more than $1.2 trillion a year.

Summing up: the problem of rising prices in the US today therefore is not excess Demand. And Fed price hikes, targeting Demand, will have no effect on inflation driven by Supply of global energy and other commodities caused largely by Trump policies.

On the other hand, the higher rates will have an added negative economic impact—as interest rates in general suck up and divert money capital from consumers, government and even some businesses to the super-wealthy investor class minority.

Fed Rates vs. Capitalism’s Financial & Global Restructuring

There’s more. Even if one assumes Fed higher interest rates will dampen consumer-business demand and thereby slow inflation, changes in the US and global economy the past quarter century show that Fed rate hikes have had a declining impact on dampening inflation. Conversely as well, Fed rate cuts have declining impact on stimulating consumption and business investment.

In economists’ parlance: interest rates have become increasingly inelastic stimulating as well as slowing the economy. Why is this so?

The ultimate causes for interest rate (i.e. monetary policy) growing relative ineffectiveness have to do with the growing financialization and globalization of the US and international economies since the 1990s. This phenomenon is addressed in more detail in my just released book, ‘The Twilight of American Imperialism’, Clarity Press, September 2026.

But to summarize in brief: lowering interest rates have been having a declining effect on stimulating economic growth because most of the rate cuts get redirected to investing in the expanding financial asset markets in 21st century  capitalism in the US and general Empire abroad. It is more profitable for businesses and investors to borrow money from the Fed’s affiliated banks (at lower rates) and reinvest that borrowed money in financial asset markets (in US and globally), rather than to invest in real assets in the US that produce goods and services (and in turn jobs and incomes). There are of course exceptions to the rule. But the exceptions represent a declining share of the real economy. Capitalism is changing and monetary policy has been declining in effectiveness as a result.  Fed rate hikes (or cuts) have had less effect in stabilizing the US economy.

For example: the Fed reduced interest rates to 0.11 to 0.40% from 2009 through 2016 and additionally injected $4 trillion in Federal Reserve bond buying into the economy. What happened to US GDP real growth? Annual growth rates averaged 1.43% from 2008 through 2016. One cannot argue therefore than lowering rates stimulated the real economy. They didn’t. But they subsidized a lot of investors with low cost money and made them richer.

The same applies vice-versa: the historical record in the US since 2016 shows raising rates do little to dampen inflation. What that record does show, however, is that when Federal Reserve long term bond rates hit 5.5%-6% they provoke a financial crash. That happened in 2000 just before the dotcom bust, in 2007 before the subprime mortgage-derivatives crash, in 2019 when the Repo market threaten to implode, and in 2023 when the regional banks in the US began to go belly up. Those long term US bond rates are now about 5.4% and rising!  

Rising rates make the rich richer and destabilize the financial system, while doing little to nothing to dampen global supply side inflation driven by US policies.

Fed Rates vs. Trump’s War, Trade & Sanctions

Today in 2026 another global development is rendering Fed interest rate policy ineffective: Trump’s Middle East wars, sanctions and trade policies, and the consequent decline of the US dollar, are all responsible for driving up global energy and commodity prices. It has nothing to do with domestic Demand.

While the US domestic economy is essentially self sufficient in oil and energy, the global economy is not. That’s especially true for Europe and northeast Asia (Japan, South Korea).

Trump’s war in Iran, now spreading throughout the Middle East region, has resulted in a serious shortage of energy (oil and natural gas) In Europe in particular. The US initially exported large quantities of US (and Venezuela) oil and gas to Europe when the Iran war began. Much of the US release of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was exported to Europe. However, now the SPR reserve release is running low and Europe oil supply from US exports is in trouble. Global oil and gas prices have therefore begun accelerating again, and US prices in turn as US oil companies price their sales on global prices not domestic supply.

US sanctions policy—in particular on Russia and Iran—is also driving up global energy prices. So is Trump’s tariff wars raising import prices. And the devaluation of the US dollar which is doing the same.

But if the Federal Reserve’s raising rates has no effect on US and global energy supply and thus no effect on US domestic inflation, why is the Fed raising rates nonetheless?

US Inflation & US Treasury Market Crisis

The US Treasury and its agent selling Treasury bonds, the Federal Reserve, need to raise interest rates. Why? To offer higher returns to buyers of US Treasuries and thereby provide an incentive to buy more US Treasuries.

So why does the Fed and US Treasury have to sell more bonds and securities?

Because the sale of Treasuries to buyers domestic (2/3s) and foreign (1/3) are the primary means by which the US covers its annual budget deficit. This year the 2026 deficit will exceed $2 trillion. It has done so since 2020. Total US defense and war spending is the largest cost element in the annual US budget deficit. Pentagon spending is already over $1 trillion and Trump has requested $1.5 trillion in 2027 to cover the continuing cost of wars, replenishing exhausted US weapons supplies, and to fund new weapons systems like drones, hypersonic missiles, autonomous weapons, etc. Interest rates on past Treasury sales now costs the US more than $1.2 trillion a year and rising as the US national debt escalates past $40 trillion.

 In short, the US must now sell even more Treasuries in order to cover the rising budget deficit driven by ever higher defense and war spending. (Either that or Congress must raise taxes on the rich which it won’t do).

But in order to sell more Treasuries, the Fed needs to raise interest rates it pays borrowers (buyers) of the Treasury securities.

One may argue that the Federal Reserve knows it must raise rates not so much to dampen inflation (which higher rates won’t do), but to sell more Treasuries to pay for US war driven escalating budget deficits and accelerating interest payments on the national debt.

There’s yet another twist to the Federal Reserve’s rate dilemma: Not only must it sell more Treasuries to cover the rising budget deficit and debt, but it faces a growing challenge to even maintain current levels of Treasury sales.

Forces are developing which indicate that key groups of foreign buyers of Treasuries (1/3 of all buyers) are retreating from purchasing US Treasuries.

The Fed must raise rates not only to cover a rising budget deficit. It must raise rates to attract more domestic US buyers of Treasuries as foreign buyers of Treasuries retreat.

The retreat from holding Treasuries has been underway for some time by China. Once having held $1.2 trillion in US securities just a decade ago, latest data show China holds only $.63 trillion. It continues to steadily divest itself of Treasuries, not buying new and allowing old to mature and roll off. Other economies of the global south are beginning to do the same. Blame US sanctions and trade war policies for much of this development. They are replacing Treasuries with gold, and soon digital currencies as well.

For example, recent events in Japan indicate Japan, once a stalwart purchaser of US Treasuries, may be about to join China and reduce its Treasury holdings. A constant holder of more than $1 trillion, the largest foreign buyer, of Treasuries, Japan began to slow its purchasing in 2026. The reason? Japan’s own government bond rates are rising for the first time in more than a decade. Japan’s currency value was formerly zero. Its investors, and global investors, used to buy Japan Yen cheap and use it to buy US dollars and in turn US Treasuries. That was called the carrying trade. That is ending. Japan’s bonds are rising above 3%. Its Yen is also rising. With the government bond rate differential between Japan and US Treasuries narrowing, global investors are now buying Japan bonds instead of US Treasuries. That is why US Treasury Secretary Bessent last month entered the Yen market to buy Yen (with Euros by the way, saving US dollars for other purchases). He did that to prop up the Yen, keep Japan bonds from rising further, and ensure foreign investors continue buying US Treasuries.

However, events in September thus far show Bessent has failed. Japan may therefore buy fewer Treasuries—i.e. at a time that China is buying less and the US needs to sell even more Treasuries to cover its accelerating annual budget deficit!

There’s a third reason why foreign Treasury sales may be entering a crisis. In recent years, as China reduced its buying and Japan didn’t increase its, Europe stepped in to fill the gap, accelerate its buying of US Treasuries, and to help the US cover its US budget deficits as US war spending accelerated after 2021.

European countries in many cases more than doubled their purchases of US Treasuries from 2021 through 2026: Britain increased its holdings of Treasuries from $412 billion in 2020 to $865 billion in 2025; Belgium from $135 billion to $466 billion. Luxembourg from $197 to $431 billion; France from $49 billion to $376 billion and so forth.

One may argue Europe did so in exchange for continuing US military support for NATO in Europe and for Europe-NATO’s war in Ukraine. But with Trump’s decline of support for NATO funding and Ukraine war spending, Europe now has to fund the Ukraine war itself. To that end it has thus far raised or committed $176 billion in Euro bonds. Will it—indeed can it—continue to buy US Treasuries at the same rate as before? Not likely for several reasons.

First, it’s less likely given that Trump and Europe are feuding over Greenland; Trump is attacking Europe with tariffs; And Trump is angry with Europe’s lack of support for his war in Iran. Europe has a number of incentives therefore to reduce its prior level of purchases of US Treasuries.

Evidence is beginning to appear Europe plans not to continue purchasing US Treasuries at past rates. France, Belgium, Britain and other European countries in recent weeks have begun moving their physical gold stocks from the US back to Europe. That likely means it plans to substitute gold in lieu of buying US Treasuries. More outright shifts are also occurring. The huge Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund has reportedly begun selling its Treasuries.

A countervailing force, however, is that Europe has nowhere to go for oil and natural gas other than the US. Oil and energy from the Middle East to Europe continues to decline. The US has backfilled much of Europe’s oil needs in the first half of 2026 with SPR exports. With SPR now running low, that export may slow. In turn, Europe energy prices have begun to escalate still further.

In parallel to Europe, Canada has begun orienting toward Europe as result of a deep trade dispute with Trump. It has become an associate member of the EU. Like Europe, Canada previously increased is buying of US Treasuries from $69 billion in 2020 to $475 billion in 2025. And like Europe, it is unlikely it will continue to do so as the trade dispute between Canada and Trump further deteriorates.

The point of this preceding analysis is that a crisis in the US Treasury market is brewing. Foreign purchases of Treasuries are likely to slow across the board—at a time when the US needs to sell even more to foreign buyers to cover its further escalating war cost driven budget deficits.

That means the US Treasury needs to sell even more to US domestic buyers of Treasuries. For that it needs to raise the rates it pays buyers of US bonds and other securities, to entice them to buy even more and not just at prior rates.

The Treasury Market and Accelerating Decline of Empire

This is where financial instability in the massive Treasury market comes in. The US has to sell more Treasuries to domestic buyers in particular. But who are those buyers? In recent years they have been the increasingly unstable US financial institutions like hedge funds and other so-called and unregulated ‘shadow banks’.

Should the US real economy slow—or worse the AI investment bubble go bust—hedge funds and their ilk may begin to retreat from the Treasury market. The result could be the eruption of a major crisis in the Treasury market, which would reverberate across all financial markets rapidly. One may argue that’s perhaps why Bessent also recently began to provide an extra $8 billion a week to Treasury investors.

A crisis in the Treasury markets would drive Fed rates even higher—perhaps beyond that 6% long bond rate that history shows since 2000 is a tipping point for precipitating a general financial crash. Should that occur, a deep contraction of the US real economy would be certain. That contraction would then exacerbates even further the ability of the US empire to fund its projected war spending.

The Empire would have to accelerate its geopolitical retreat, already underway, as its funding collapses. Empires and their military cannot sustain themselves without sufficient funding. Slowing US Treasury sales and a contracting real economy and deep recession ensure the US Empire would have to retreat and consolidate—to the western hemisphere and central Pacific at minimum.

About the Author

Dr. Jack Rasmus is the author of several books on the United States and the global economy, including The Twilight of American Imperialism, Clarity Press, 2026; The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump, Clarity Press 2020, and Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Clarity Press, (2016). He is a host for the radio show Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network, a journalist, a playwright, and a former professor of economics at St. Mary’s College (retired).

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How America Goes to War: Iraq, Ukraine & Now Iran

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Dr. Jack Rasmus

Copyright 2025

After promising during the 2024 election to stop the USA’s ‘forever wars’ in the 21st century, in less than six months in office Donald Trump is about to start another ‘forever’ war with Iran.

There’ll be no prior vote in Congress, as required by the US Constitution. No seeking support of the United Nations or forming a coalition with allies. Nor even a preparation of public opinion, apart from the Fox News network that appears completely on board. There won’t even be a suspension of the War Powers Act, as occurred in previous ‘forever wars’. 

Trump plans to simply order US aircraft to bomb Iran, within days or perhaps even hours. Certainly as soon as the three additional US aircraft carrier task forces he’s ordered arrive on station in the Arabian sea off Iran’s southern coast.

The carriers and planes are there to neutralize Iranian coastal and inland anti-aircraft missile forces to create a corridor for US B-2 strategic bombers flying from USA’s Diego Garcia island airbase in the Indian Ocean. The B-2s will drop US made GBU 43 bunker busting bombs on the three or more Iranian sites that Israel, and now USA, allege are producing nuclear material for use in an Iranian bomb.

The US bombing will occur on the flimsiest evidence supporting the claim Iran is just weeks away from having a nuclear weapon, as the US and Israel leadership and both countries’ media are saying. To the contrary, however, UN IAEA inspectors this past March 2025 publicly said there was no evidence Iran was near having such a weapon. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of the US Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates all 17 US intelligence services, also told Congress that same month there was no evidence.

Two days ago as Trump was leaving a G7 meeting in Canada he was asked by the media what he thought of Gabbard’s view and statement. Trump replied: “I don’t care what she said. I say they’re working on a weapon…I don’t listen to her”. So who does Trump listen to? Netanyahu? Israel’s CIA-like counterpart, Mossad, instead of US intelligence services?

Trump will send US planes and bombers into Iran— not to prevent an attack on the USA by that country; not in response to an actual or imminent attack by Iran on US bases or its 40,000 troops now in west Asia; nor in response to an attack by Iran on US warships or any international shipping.  Iran is not at war with the USA nor plans to; nevertheless, the USA will soon be at war with Iran. 

Iran publicly offered this past week to sign a treaty saying it has no nuclear weapon and agrees not to develop one—a move strongly suggesting it is not concerned US inspectors would find anything indicating it has.

Trump is thus preparing to take the USA into another ‘forever’ war, this time with Iran on behalf of a foreign nation—Israel—simply because its leader, Natanyahu, has asked him to do so. The Israeli leader has been asking the USA to attack Iran since 2002 when he addressed the US Congress on the eve of the USA’s imminent Iraq invasion in 2003. Now he’ll likely get what he’s been asking for: the USA to attack Iran on behalf of Israel.

Since 2002 Natanyahu has cleverly deepened Israel’s influence—and indeed control—of the US government through its lobbying group, AIPAC, and other personal connections within the US bureaucracy, aka its Deep State.

A majority in Congress has already been writing a blank check to Israel to cover the costs of its current wars in GAZA, Lebanon and Syria. Congress will no doubt rubber stamp quickly any US air attack on Iran, in order to legitimize US bombing Iran—an act of war and aggression by America by any definition of international law. Like Congress, the US government bureaucracy and Deep State is also deeply aligned with Israeli interests, as is the Trump administration and the president himself. 

The two political systems—USA and Israel—are fused at the political hip and have been for some time. There has never been anything quite like the political integration of the two systems, America and Israel, in the entire 250 year history of the USA.

Israel is the American Empire’s landlocked aircraft carrier looking out over the entire middle east, enforcing US imperial interests; America is Israel’s military weapons industry and blank check writer. It is estimated more than $340 billion in aid has been given to Israel by the US government since the 1970s. Most of which gets recycled back to the US companies providing Israel US advanced weaponry.

The USA ‘How to Go to War’ Playbook

Since 2001 America has been embroiled in what can only be called wars of empire: Wars to expand the empire. Wars to punish those who try to break from it or dare to chart an independent path. Wars to pre-emptively attack those who pose a potential challenge to it in the future. 

There have been three defining wars of empire in the 21st century: the Iraq war of 2003-10 (of which the Afghan war was a second front). The Ukraine proxy war of 2021-25. And the Israel-Iran proxy war of 2023-25.

In retrospect, there is a pattern in how the US prepares and initiates war across all three.

When the US imperial elites—in government, Deep State, and Military Industrial Complex—shift the machinery of war into first gear and the war train leaves the station there is no calling it back. The gears of war were set in motion in 2002 in the case of the Iraq war; in 2021 in Ukraine; and sometime during 2024 in the current case of Iran. War plans are developed and the funding sources identified and earmarked months, and sometimes years, before military action is initiated.

Once the decision is made what remains is mostly the timing, i.e. when is it best to pull the trigger. That timing depends on getting the necessary military assets in place, lining up agreement to go to war with key players in Congress and US allies, preparing public opinion by creating an imminent threat image with the US public, and, if time and conditions permit, staging a ‘false flag’ event to give credibility to the imminent threat.

Here’s how the playbook works after initial preparations, as the US war train shifts into higher gear as evidenced in the last three major wars in the 21st century: Iraq, Ukraine, and Iran:

The Case of Iraq 2003

First, the US raises a set of demands the target country must meet and engages in a period of negotiations with it. 

In the case of the Iraq war of 2003 the US charged Iraq with possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that it was planning to use. Who can forget the visuals of Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN security council showing charts of African countries from where Iraq had purchased ‘yellow cake’ to make nuclear material. WMDs include chemical or biological weapons. But Powell’s presentation suggested Iraq’s WMDs were also nuclear.

UN and US inspectors found no evidence of WMDs in the run up to the war. And after the war it was confirmed there were none. That didn’t matter at the time. The US War train had left the station months before. Assets and allies, Congress and public opinion, were already prepared and in place. In negotiations on the eve of war, Iraq agreed to US initial demands.  The US just moved the goalposts. It demanded instead of UN IAEA inspectors the Iraqi armed forces submit to the occupation of Iraq by US/NATO forces to ensure there were no WMDs. In other words, agree to de facto unconditional surrender.

The WMD issue was just a cover. The real US demand was regime change in Iraq and the deposing of Saddam Hussein as the country’s leader and dismantling of his political party. When the US goes to war it is always about regime change. The manufactured threat issue is always just a cover. Negotiations are never intended to reach a compromise. They are just a tactic.

The US war prep playbook is to never agree to a deal via negotiations but only make it appear one is possible. The US raises new, more unacceptable demands and ignores concessions offered by the target country as a basis for a deal. Negotiations are thus used to lull the opponent into thinking a compromise is possible when in fact no deal will ever be agreed to. However, as the US ratchets up demands and moves the goalposts, it issues public statements in parallel that discussions are going well and negotiators are getting closer to a deal to avert war.

In the weeks just prior to the Iraq war erupting, Saddam offered UN and US inspectors free access to all sites, including military, in Iraq to determine there were no WMDs. The US ignored Saddam’s offers. WMDs were just the pretext. It was always about regime change. It always is.

And then when all assets are in place, the war hammer drops. An attack is launched by surprise with no prior indication or warning.

The parallels with the current imminent US war with Iran are notable.

The Case of Iran 2025 

Ever since the collapse of Syria in late 2024 and Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency, the US has been using negotiations to lull Iran into thinking a deal was possible to avert a US involvement in Israel’s war with Iran.  When Iran agreed last week to sign a treaty indicating it had no bomb and would not develop one in the future, the US moved the negotiations goalposts: it demanded the Iranians open up their military sites to US and Israeli inspectors to verify if nuclear production machinery was creating fissionable material.

The US further demanded Iran turn over its entire existing stock of fissionable uranium.  Iran agreed to do so for all its excess material except for what was needed to run its civilian nuclear power plants. It offered to turn over all its excess stock of uranium to be managed by a third party, in this case Russia.

The US responded Iran must turn over all its uranium stock, including that needed to run its civilian nuclear generating plants. In other words, Iran had to shut down its civilian nuclear power plants.

As negotiations proceeded last week, Trump publicly declared the US and Iran was close to a deal. He added the situation looked promising and a deal was likely on Sunday, June 15, when US and Iranian teams were scheduled to meet again. Within 48 hours of Trump saying a deal was imminent, Israel launched its surprise attack on Iran. It is naïve to believe Trump had no knowledge of Israel’s surprise attack launched in Friday, June 13. He as much indicated he knew. And he knew such an attack would lead to a cancelling of June 15 negotiations. He knew no deal was imminent. Negotiations had served their purpose to lull Iran into thinking a deal was possible, even imminent.

Whether this tactic resulted in Iran leaving its guard down on June 13 cannot be known for certain. What is certain is that Israel’s June 13 attack wiped out much of Iran’s air defense system and giving Israel aircraft more or less free entry into Iran air space to bomb not only military facilities but power plants throughout the country, including nuclear, as well.

It was the Israeli version of Colin Powell’s ‘shock and awe’ prediction of the prior US air war launch on Iraq.

Israel’s surprise attack not only neutralized many of Iran’s air defense facilities but Israel simultaneously carried out assassinations of high ranking Iranian military, government officials as well as civilian Iranian scientists. Israel thus included a ‘decapitation’ strategy, which had previously proved successful with Hamas in GAZA and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Purposely targeting and decapitating civilians is considered a war crime.

So is targeting civilian nuclear facilities. In the initial attack Israel bombed several, with reported nuclear radiation fallout occurring in several locations in the country. 

To sum up: the US Iran war playbook has followed much of that employed by the USA in Iraq: engage in negotiations to lull the opponent into thinking a deal is possible. Keep moving the demands goalpost as the opponent makes concessions. Use a pretext like WMDs (Iraq) or nuclear bomb in weeks (Iran) to maneuver public opinion in support of the war. And as in the case of Iraq, the actual goal is regime change. Military action is designed to achieve political objectives. Launching a surprise massive air campaign is to inflict as much damage on the economy and disable the government in order to spark political uprisings to depose the regime and its leaders.

Neither WMDs or a nuclear bomb are ever the real issue or objectives. They are the excuse to launch a massive military air strike to wreck the economy and create political instability and engineer regime change. And negotiations in the run up to war are a tactic, not a step in a process to reach a compromise and a deal to avert war. Their purpose is to lull the opponent into thinking a deal is possible when it isn’t.

When the US playbook believes pretexts and excuses like WMDs or nuclear bombs are not sufficient to invade, it adds a ‘false flag’ operation to the playbook. Some notable false flags from earlier US wars include the alleged ‘Tonkin Gulf’ attack by North Vietnam boats on US destroyers that was used to justify US expanding its war in Vietnam; the claim the Cuban army had invaded Grenada and seized US medical students as hostage; the charge that Panama president Noriega was running a drug operation transporting Colombia cocaine to American cities as justification for the US invasion of that country in 1989; the claim that Assad, president of Syria, was using chemical weapons; Iraqis in 1990 were killing Kuwaiti babies in incubators.  Every US war playbook engineers a pretext and/or a false flag operation leading up to initiating  military action.

The Case of Ukraine

The case of Ukraine is a variation on these themes.  In 2014 following the US financed and CIA directed coup in that country, Russia occupied Crimea to prevent NATO from seizing its naval base there, which would have led to NATO occupying the entire Black Sea.  There were brief military conflicts in eastern Ukraine, followed by negotiations and a cease fire in a Minsk Agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. Germany’s then Chancellor, Merkle, and France’s president, Holland, served as guarantors of the Minsk agreement. Later in 2022 they would both admit publicly the purpose of the Minsk negotiations and deal was to lull Russia into thinking the military conflict as over. Ukraine was not militarily prepared to go to war yet. It would require 8 more years to prepare massive fortifications and weapons development and training of troops before it was.

The US/NATO decision to go to war with Russia in Ukraine was made by US president Biden around June 2021 when he met with Putin for the first, and last time. The US plans for the Ukraine war date back to 2015. They were shelved when Trump won in 2016 and thereafter quickly dusted off by Biden when he took office in January 2021. Biden in August 2021 ‘cleared the decks’ in Afghanistan by pulling out. US advisors and weapons thereafter began pouring into Ukraine. Putin attempted to ‘negotiate’ with the US from afar during the rest of 2021 without any progress. The US-Ukraine plan called for a major Ukraine offensive in February 2022 to defeat what remained of the local Russian ethnic resistance in Ukraine’s two eastern provinces, Lughansk and Donetsk. But the Russians pre-empted that and invaded first in late February.

Russian advances were swift even though it invaded with barely 90,000 troops across a combat line of 1500 kilometers from Kiev to south Donetsk. That limited force was no where near sufficient to occupy Kiev or conquer Ukraine. Its purpose was intimidation to force Ukraine into a compromise deal which was tentatively reached in Istanbul, Turkey. As discussions in Istanbul were occurring, Russia was asked to show good faith by withdrawing its forces from Kiev which it did. A tentative deal was then reached between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul in April 2022 which was quite favorable to Ukraine. However, NATO convinced Ukraine president Zelensky to reject the deal and to continue the war. The Istanbul negotiations collapsed.

Twice Russia was lulled into negotiations to ‘buy time’, as Merkle and Holland admitted in 2015 with the Minsk deal and Ukraine did again in April 2022. US/NATO rushed in weaponry and advisers after Istanbul and Ukraine launched a major offensive that threw Russian forces back from Kiev and other locations to limited positions in Lughansk and Donetsk.  Thus Russia was out-maneuvered twice by negotiations with US/Ukraine that were never intended to conclude with a compromise deal to end the war in Ukraine.

As in the cases of Iraq and now Iran, from the outset the US playbook in Ukraine proxy sought the ultimate objective of regime change in Russia.  The admitted strategy was a military conflict in Ukraine, financed and provided with weapons by NATO, which the plan envisioned would lead to a collapse of the Russian economy, political instability, and the deposing of Putin by Russian oligarchs and military. 

The US neocon and CIA analysis was Russia’s economy was weak and the Putin government even weaker. A military conflict, supported by extensive sanctions on Russia’s economy was argued in US war planning to lead to Russian implosion and NATO/Ukraine victory. Regime change was again the objective.

Negotiations at Minsk in 2015 or Istanbul in 2022 were never meant to reach a deal but to lull Russia into thinking one was possible. In 2025 the US and EU again tried to lure Russia into a negotiation that demanded as a precondition to negotiations that Russia agree to a ceasefire first. The preconditions in turn allowed Ukraine to rearm and mobilize and train more troops during negotiations.

It was clear the US/NATO 2024 proposal was another example of negotiations employed as a tactic to ‘buy time’ to prepare for another military offensive—after which the pretext of negotiations would be dropped. This time, however, Russia did not agree to ceasefire first and then negotiations. Nor will it again agree to negotiations as a delaying tactic after twice being manipulated and out-maneuvered in 2015 and 2022.

Unlike in the cases of Iraq in 2003 and Iran today, in the case of Russia the US playbook’s negotiations tactic as well as its strategic objective of regime change have both conclusively failed.

What’s Next in the US-Israel Proxy War On Iran?

The official position of the USA is that it isn’t involved in Israel’s war with Iran. Few believe that given the US provision of weapons to Israel, likely planning the operation for months, and obvious US satellite surveillance and targeting assistance.  As US official spokespersons deny US involvement, Trump himself publicly refers to the Israel attack as “we”, calls on Iran to ‘unconditionally surrender’ and says the US knows where Iranian leader Khamenei is located and could ‘take him out’ any time. All of which hardly suggests no USA involvement. Will the US then overtly escalate its involvement by bombing suspected Iranian nuclear weapons development sites deep inside several mountains. No one yet knows for certain but it is very likely Trump will do so.

But what if the US GBU 43 ‘bunker busting’ bombs do not achieve their objective and destroy Iranian deep mountain sites? The only further weapon that can is a tactical nuclear US bomb. Will it risk that?

It is likely should Trump allow B-2s to drop bunker buster bombs that Iran will attack US naval bases in the Persian gulf located in Bahrain and elsewhere. The same response may occur should US carrier plans attack Iran’s Persian Gulf ports and naval installations. A large contingent of US naval forces are stationed in Bahrain. What happens if the Gulf erupts in military conflict? One outcome is certain: global oil and gas prices will quickly rise and so will US consumer energy costs and inflation in general.

There is also the question what will Russia, now a signatory to a mutual Russia-Iran defense agreement since January, do in response to a US direct military involvement in Iran? It is difficult to imagine Russia will not come to Iran’s defense. That would greatly undermine its credibility everywhere. Nor will China remain neutral. Reports are it is already shipping weapons to Iran by air. It is very unlikely Russia or China will permit its ally Iran to be militarily defeated or its government to collapse. And then there’s Pakistan that has vowed to provide Iran with nuclear weapons if either Israel or US use them on Iran.

Can an air attack by Israel, with or without the USA, actually succeed in bringing about regime change in Iran? That too is extremely unlikely.  Iran is not Libya. Its leadership is not isolated from public support, as was Assad in Syria.

It is difficult to see how the Israel air attack, despite some of its initial successes, can succeed in the longer term in bringing about the primary objective of Iranian regime change. What then? Can Netanyahu then agree to compromise after significant Israeli military bases and urban areas have been seriously damaged by Iranian hypersonic missiles that have shown to penetrate Israeli air defenses and will continue to do so? Iran has a population of 92 million and has shown it will sacrifice millions dead in its 1980s war with Iraq if necessary.

Neither the US or Israel have sufficient ground forces with which to invade Iran. Israel is a population of 10m with military forces engaged in GAZA, Lebanon and recently Syria. It would be a disaster for the US to invade Iran with ground troops.  Even an air attack on Iranian sites risks significant US losses of aircraft. Trump should remember the disastrous US air invasion of Iran during the Carter administration to attempt to rescue US hostages in Tehran. It failed miserably, with the US losing several aircraft on the attempted entry.

Despite these likelihoods US neocons like Lindsey Graham now call for the commitment of US troops to Iran. Thus proving once again that neocons never compromise or admit defeat; once their plans fail they simply double down and call for further escalation.

Trump should also consider the effect of a decision to bomb Iran on his domestic base. The initial phase of a MAGA movement realignment in domestic US politics may impale itself on Trump’s escalation in Iran. Already significant voices in the MAGA movement are challenging Trump’s imminent decision to bomb: Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and a growing list of MAGA members in Congress.

Millions of American voters in 2024 no doubt voted for Trump last November in part because of his campaign promise to end America’s ‘forever wars’. Bombing Iran after less than six months in office will reveal that was just another fake election campaign pledge that presidents feed the public for votes, then turn around and do the bidding of the neocons who’ve been running US foreign policy since 2001, the US military industrial complex and their Deep State allies in America.

Should Trump soon decide to bomb Iran that act will likely unleash global and domestic US responses not easily contained by the Trump administration. Trump’s advisers should remind him not only of Carter’s disastrous invasion in 1979, but of Nixon’s bombing of North Vietnam which only accelerated the collapse of US’s war in Vietnam. 

Air wars are successful only when targeting small weak military state opponents. They worked with Serbia, Libya, in Sudan, and such. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan US ground troops had to be committed and then were forced to leave. And this time the US simply has no sufficient ground forces, short of reinstituting a draft. Europe has even less.

Trump’s decision to bomb Iran will result in forces of global and domestic US political entropy spinning out of his control. But like the US neocon community—which Trump has now apparently joined—looking beyond the immediate situation to possible consequences is not part of their mental apparatus nor in either of their war time playbooks.

Looking back in the months to come, the USA proxy war in Ukraine may be understood as the dress rehearsal to World War III. But a US-Israel war on Iran will be understood as the actual start of a global conflict.

Dr. Jack Rasmus

Copyright 2025

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