Micheal Lester

Expelling the woke scourge, progressing American imperialism and defeating the east are all good things actually.

3 weeks ago I argued the US goal in Iran is to seize the global oil spigot. Venezuela in January -> Iran in February. Neutralize every supply channel outside the dollar system within 90 days. Achieve a compliant successor government and complete energy dominance. The oil thesis was the obvious layer. However, when you zoom out & view the last four years as a single sequence rather than isolated geopolitical events, the architecture of the grander US plan becomes visible. 1st was Europe, which laid the groundwork. The Ukraine conflict provided the justification for sanctions that collapsed Russian pipeline gas from 150 billion cubic meters to 40. Then Nordstream was destroyed, which rewired the entire European energy system permanently. The US went from supplying 28% of Europe's LNG in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million MTs, the 1st country in history to break 100 MT. Europe was transformed from a customer with options into a captive market now purchasing its survival in USD. 2nd was Syria. The fall of Assad severed the critical node connecting China's Belt & Road Initiative to the Mediterranean. The trilateral railway linking Iran, Iraq & Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was completely destroyed. This isolated Iran geographically & cleared the path for what came next. 3rd was Venezuela. In January the US effectively took control of the world's largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast has the most advanced refining complex on earth, specifically built for heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero & the rest are now positioned to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude daily. The US captured a massive strategic reserve & solidified its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, an industry worth $110 billion in 2025 alone. Venezuela & Iran were the two major oil supply channels that existed outside the dollar system. Both produce heavy crude sold primarily to China & evaded US financial supervision. Both now being neutralized within 90 days, which leads us to.. 4th is Iran & the Middle East energy shock. Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar's Ras Laffan, the single largest LNG facility on earth, responsible for a fifth of global supply. QatarEnergy's own assessment is that 17% of export capacity is gone and recovery will take up to 5 years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices spiked 70%. Asian spot prices doubled. The only remaining scaled supplier? The United States. If Iran falls & a successor government is installed that the US controls or influences (the Delcy model described weeks ago) then roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million is effectively under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the US coalition is now the marginal producer. Now add the gas dimension & it goes beyond oil. This war is solidifying the petrodollar system as it evolves into a hybrid petro/LNG-dollar. The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long term contracts & regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply relationships for decades. Europe & the Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) cannot pivot away as there is nowhere left to pivot to. They're now locked into the US energy system. The market confirms this. DXY went from 96 to 101. Gold down ~20% from its January all time high. Bitcoin down 20% on the year. Brent above $100. European & Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and crypto to buy dollars because they need dollars to buy the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy in American currency. The dollar is now being weaponized through energy dependency. The structural repricing is happening regardless of how the conflict resolves. But the US grand strategy goes deeper.. Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily provided by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium & rare earths. By choking the Strait of Hormuz & crippling Middle Eastern LNG & helium production, the US is systematically degrading China's ability to power its data centers & fabricate semiconductors at scale. The US is energy self sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves & expanding Gulf Coast capacity running on domestic gas. On the other hand, China is import dependent & every joule it imports effectively now transits chokepoints the US Navy controls.. Iran was the Belt & Road's overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized that corridor is severed. China faces a world where its compute infrastructure competes for scraps on a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy. Russia is next in the sequence. A post-war Iran reopening under US influence competes directly with Russia for the same refineries in China & India at lower cost. Iran's production costs are lower. Russia loses its last structural advantage in heavy crude & its economic lifeline. Additionally, under the Iran war cover, Ukraine has been opportunistically destroying Russian energy infrastructure & all signs point towards Russia being at the end of the line. The message from Washington becomes very simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to get crushed, sign the Ukraine deal. Then Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. Complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG-dollar fortified, Iran cleared, Russia cornered, & China facing the Malacca Trap fully closed with no remaining energy bypass. Israel & the GCC are absorbing the kinetic cost of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, counter to the mainstream narrative, is actually America (First). Qatar offline for 5 years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of US exporters for the remainder of the decade. The Gulf states face years of rebuilding. Europe faces its 2nd energy crisis in four years. Sure, the average American might face temporary moderate inflation & higher gas prices. But if you are the architect of the US empire & you view the rise of China & Chinese ASI as an existential winner takes all scenario, the collateral damage is acceptable cost. Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls the monetary system & the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that determines which civilization builds ASI first. The US is seizing all 3.

Before the war I was sure US and Israel were the “good guys” Now I’m wondering.

@qthomp LOL.

The below point is very important to understand about any negotiations with Iran. Iran is happy for Trump to delay conflict, it strengthens their hand further by keeping the Strait closed for longer, ratcheting up the pressure on global economies and keeping oil prices elevated. Iran benefits tremendously from the current oil prices. This is what happens when you have the leverage. If you exclude the nonsense coming from Trump and just look at the facts, nothing has changed. Israel and Iran are still trading blows, the Strait remains closed and the demands from both sides are very far apart. Trump is labeling the time he needs to refuel and restock military assets in the region as well as send additional troops as a 'delay to allow for ceasefire negotiations'. Does the 3 month VIX look like de-escalation to you?

@michaeljknowles @GrammarJedi01 @grok Which is worse, my wife was a whore, my wife was promiscuous? Obviously “whore” is worse. Why exaggerate it?

The distinction you're making just isn't true. Both words refer to people. He didn't say "my wife's behavior was promiscuous." He said she was promiscuous. I agree that one's past sins shouldn't define them—in fact, that's the point I'm making!

"Dad, what should I do if I want to have a good marriage?" "Well, son, my first piece of advice is to avoid calling your wife a whore, reformed or otherwise, to strangers on the Internet."

@michaeljknowles @Strangeland_Elf This is what you should’ve said to begin with. Exaggerating “whore” from “promiscuous” is beneath you.

@Strangeland_Elf Pushing back against detraction should not, it seems to me, entail calling one's wife "promiscuous" to strangers on the Internet. It's good to tell people that redemption is available, and sin need not define them. Part of doing that is having discretion and the grace to move on.

@michaeljknowles @GrammarJedi01 @grok Damn, this is disappointing coming from you. You’re really using grok for this? I am going to charitably assume you don’t understand how chat models work.

@GrammarJedi01 .@grok, does the word "promiscuous" carry a negative connotation?

@qthomp I could think of a few reasons that rhyme with smead smyatollahs 💀

Why in the world would Iran agree to this

@qthomp Frankly, I don’t think you have a complete understanding of the political field.

The damage Trump has done to the integrity of financial markets is one of the biggest stains of this entire administration. The deregulation and financial market innovation are positive but they don't need to come at the expense of rampant insider trading, targeted retail scams and fraudulent IPOs/SPACs. For such a financial literate cabinet like @SecScottBessent @howardlutnick who understand the importance of efficient capital allocation and trust in capital markets, it's a shame they are not doing more to stand up and speak out against these things. I thought it was 'drain the swamp', not enable and grow the swamp.

I find it very difficult to assess the true state of the war against the Iranian regime because the entire intellectual opinion class suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome and wishcast for a US defeat

@War4theWest @MagnusFratus Holy shit, this thread is insane.

@MagnusFratus What makes you think he’s threatening nuclear catastrophe? Is everybody on this thread a complete freaking idiot?

Many of you will not like hearing this, and a lot of you will refus to understand it. But I’m going to explain it anyway. In the brutal calculus of war, escalation equals deterrence. Up until now, Iran has been willing to escalate with unrelenting attacks on Gulf states and by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, trained by decades of weak, feckless US and western leadership, incorrectly presumes that the United States would never escalate the conflict further to cause them more pain than they are causing the world. This counter-escalation brings more pain to Iran than their closing of the Strait brings to the world. That’s how you win and bring the Mullahs to their knees. Consider what Iran has been doing. They’ve engaged in a very clever economic war of sorts to create massive pain for the developed world. They are using our reluctance to cause society-wide pain in Iran, basically our restraint, against us. As always, weaknesses is provocative, whether perceived or real. Sadly, for the Iranian Mullahs. and more importantly, the Iranian people, they have miscalculated gravely The best thing about this development is that it will show the Iranian people how hopeless the situation is for the Iranian government. Up until now, they have been playing an arrogant, provocative, game in terms of propaganda and their actions which convinces many that the Iranian regime can somehow another prevail in this conflict. If Trump follows through, which I have no doubt he will, they will find out the cost of that foolishness. It is crucial that Trump is willing to act in this way. It not only will deal with Iran, but it will restore deterrent in other areas of the world who will now know that the US is willing to escalate to the point it needs to to win a conflict. It says we will no longer be blackmailed by our own restraint. This brutal truth and reality is the essence of war.

@krugermacro It’s from the fucking Washington Post. Come on, give me a break.

"Trump should cut his losses and get out while he still can"

They say, the account, ‘Open Source Intel’ is biased because it is always “against the resistance” Damn straight. Yes. I am against Islamic terrorism. Everywhere. Yes, I am openly biased and against the IRGC and the Islamic resistance. You don’t like it? You can kick rocks and unfollow.

We have specially designed graphite bombs that can disable/disrupt power without doing massive long-term damage to grid infrastructure. We used them in Desert Storm, Allied Force and Enduring Freedom. Damage is minimal; outages last 24 hours or so, but with no air cover to prevent re-attack, Trump can just keep pressing the "off" switch as long as he wants.

@jonfavs @krugermacro Nice straw man.

He’s winding down the war and looking for an off-ramp but will blow up all their power plants unless they open the Strait which we don’t need and will open itself anyway which is why he might send ground troops to the country he already blew off the map.

I think this is close, but not quite there. The full picture is conflation of theory of mind (cognitive empathy) and shared emotions (emotional empathy) as simply “empathy.” This produces misdirected compassion.

@JayceLong Nice straw man, “doc.”

Again and again, it’s the same move from Trump. It’s a very simple negotiation tactic that everyone knows. Negotiate for more than you expect to get. Then take the counteroffer that is positive sum for you. It’s that simple. And it works to some degree. Every. Time.

The most retarded people you know are saying “Iran holds all the cards.” Gee I wonder how things shake out.

The Retard Right is going to ignore this, but this by itself justifies the entire Iran war. Iran's military had developed missiles (IRBM) that were capable of traveling 3,700–4,500 km, depending on launch point inside Iran. Anyone questioning "imminent threat" has their answer.

@bitcoinjack No. It was already known. This capability was part of the reason for the operation to begin with.

Further escalation likely because they showed their hand having more capabilities than previously claimed?