PhilConte 007

Petit tweet détente, quel nom auriez vous donner à nôtre futur porte avions 🇫🇷 ? Je commence le "Vercingetorix" 😌

Victor Davis Hanson says global signals suggest the tide is turning against Iran, arguing U.S. military dominance and shifting alliances point toward a potential collapse if pressure continues: “There’s enough evidence to see how things are really going. Europeans would never agree to go anywhere near Iran unless they thought the tide was turning and that we’re going to win. Otherwise, they would keep still. And the reason that the petro nations of the Gulf survive is they have their finger in the wind and are very attuned to the climate. When you have Al Jazeera praising the United States’ bombing campaign and saying that it’s been underestimated and is brilliant and effective, you get the feeling that they think not only should the United States finish the job, but that it can and will finish the job. So you put it all together, and I think it’s pretty clear that this rope-a-dope strategy—that we’re going to tire before they do—is dependent on public opinion, the midterms, and the United States. And if Trump sees it through—and I think he will—I think they’re going to fall pretty soon.”

Epoch defining moment for the global financial landscape.

When analyzing the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a scenario like this, one does not look at the moment itself. Instead, one looks at the speed at which the window shifts and the series of probabilistic events to follow, along with their political, economic, and military impacts. This is not a snapshot of the moment, but rather a temporal analysis across these three pillars. For all the reasons I have laid out here, the difficulties faced by the US-Israel alliance are visible, ranging from ammunition shortages to internal political-economic pressure and the stance of the Gulf countries. Furthermore, one must imagine potential scenarios. Netanyahu is seeking a pardon for the crimes he is accused of. After incurring such massive military expenditures and returning to Israel without the uranium, suggesting that Iran will now indeed build a bomb, what will his future be? Iran has over 400kg of uranium enriched to 60%. If they wanted to build a bomb today, they could. For decades, Israel has heard Iran openly call for its destruction, a sentiment that has only intensified with the assassinations. If Iran did not build the bomb before this war, they now have every reason to do so. With the window in the right position, Israel could use tactical nukes and claim self-preservation if the invasion option fails. The alternative would be Iran agreeing to hand over the uranium, which I believe would only happen under extremely debilitating conditions. In Israel, this window shifts more easily than in global public opinion, but historically, Israel does not tend to worry about such opinion, which is why this analysis is quite realistic.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s first in-person press conference since the war began. Here’s how it looked from my seat: