Thank you for nailing the mechanism: the “oligarchical corridor” where Kushner, Witkoff, Netanyahu, MBS, and Putin all coordinate while American institutions, public input, and national interest are absent.
This confirms the framework exactly: Mercenary foreign policy isn’t a metaphor, it’s the operational structure. Kushner collected $3.5B from Gulf states. Iran is their regional competitor. They paid for regime change. U.S. military executes it. No American process, no national interest, just oligarchs using state power for private gain.
The inputs and outputs prove it:
Inputs: Private jets to Tel Aviv and Riyadh, not State Department deliberation
Outputs: Israel gets Iran weakened, Saudis get competitor eliminated, Russia gets higher oil prices and depleted U.S. Patriot stocks, Kushner gets richer
What’s missing: Anything American. No threat assessment. No strategic objective. No institutional process. Just Trump’s “mind” as the interface between oligarchs and the military.
Snyder’s right that this isn’t an “American war”, it’s oligarchs renting U.S. military capacity while the state decays into unusability.
The corridor runs from Mar-a-Lago to Riyadh to Tel Aviv to Moscow. Americans aren’t in it. We just pay for it…in blood, treasure, and the institutional collapse that makes the next oligarchical deal easier to execute.
Mostly I agree but the Patriots have become something of an illusion because the US has delayed deliveries for months now, enabling the Russians to devastate the Ukrainian energy and heating infrastructure.
You’re right—-Patriots were already an illusion. U.S. delayed deliveries for months while Russia devastated Ukrainian energy grid. The Iran war just makes the betrayal explicit.
Ukraine now needs European partnerships, indigenous drone production, diversified supply chains. If they survive the gap while U.S. burns Patriots on cheap Iranian drones, they come out less U.S.-dependent, not more.
That’s the real strategic shift —-Europe and Ukraine learning American “guarantees” are worthless.
I heard that too. It appears that trump is getting ready to give up Europe and Ukraine to Russia through real actions and non-actions right in front of Americans and the World.
Yes, tracking closely. Is it more than they bargained for? No. They don’t care.
Kushner got his $3.5B, oil prices up helping Russia. The chaos isn’t a bug, it’s extraction. Everyone in the corridor is getting what they wanted…well, more or less.
The people dying? They don’t give a …. You’re right.
'The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz'
by Paul Krugman, Mar 6 (excerpts) See link to Krugman's piece below.
'Donald Trump’s attack on Iran will have many unintended and unforeseen consequences. One consequence even I wasn’t thinking about, but which is already clear after less than a week, is that Trump has made a strong new case for renewable energy.'
'Europe is especially vulnerable. Europe is far ahead of the US in renewable energy capacity, but it still depends on imported LNG for much of its heating and electricity generation needs. While it imports only a small fraction from the Persian Gulf (the US is its biggest LNG supplier), the war is nonetheless delivering a severe blow to European economies: Asian nations, scrambling to replace their LNG imports from the Middle East, are driving up prices worldwide.'
'Now, Trump hates renewable energy, especially wind power.'
'Are you sure that Trump or a Trump-like future president won’t cut off energy supplies to nations that annoy him? I’m not.'
'So the U.S. war against Iran is making a strong case for nations around the world to seek energy independence. And for those nations that don’t have large fossil fuel reserves, that means wind and solar (and, yes, nuclear.)'
'Donald Trump, hero of renewable energy? Who knew?'
What do you think, Johan? Renewable and nuclear energy could be the best long-term outcome for us human beings after most of bloodshed ends from this war against Iran/'Oligarchical Corridor'.
Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat had a podcast discussion today.
On Donald’s mad Iran war (imitating Putin’s) they covered how he and his sycophant mad crew don’t care about any American people, any soldiers, any veterans, or any human beings anywhere. They have in mind no U.S. national interests. They’ve no agenda at all other than their Me-Me-Big-Dictator desire to humiliate everyone else, rather as ICE and CBP roamed Minnesota streets only to exhibit indiscriminate terrorism, scorn, and contempt for all.
God, we need American schools to put people first – others – as human beings. We need students learning to write essays as if to respect others as individuals in complicated contexts. We need to key humanities.
We don’t need any more of our rich raping our underage girls. We don’t need any more of our rich grabbing more percentages of our national wealth. We don’t need any more of our mainstream media glomming unto Donald’s need for camera time for himself and his chaotic destructions. We don’t need any more of our social media billionaires yet with their algorithms for hatreds.
And we don’t need a HHS director killing any more of us with his stupid ignorant health directives against vaccines and stopping major research bringing the cures of tomorrow. They just don’t care- let them die— not just the American people but millions around the world. Shutting down USAID is among the cruelest acts this government has undertaken.
I agree with your take on this war, but I would add one thought to your vision of oligarchic policy. It is striking to me how very little interest the White House and its friends have in actually understanding Iran. Of course they don’t see any need to understand that country because as you argue people don’t really enter into this world view. We’re all simply tokens in their power game. My favorite book on Iran is Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Shah of Shahs. Frustratingly eccentric in its “journalism,” it captures one truth about the very old Iranian civilization that maybe only a Pole would understand. Iran’s history--and its national identity--is built around centuries of resistance to attempts to eradicate the nation. Arab invaders, Turks, European imperialists, Anyone who thinks he should have a say in picking the next Iranian leader does not know anything about Iran at all. But then may be that’s the point.
My father was stationed in Iran during the Second World War. He loved the art history and culture very much. I grew to love it too. I read a few years ago “all the Shahs Men” on the suggestion of an Iranian friend. From this book I learned that in 1953 the CIA was born from a successful intervention to kick out the democratically elected government and reinstall the Shah on behalf of British and American Oil interests. And look who came after the Shah! Dr. Snyders analysis is a gut punch to the reality that is taking place in our world- this realignment of geopolitical forces which have everything to do with greed and control. I weep for my cousin in Kyiv and his family and perhaps my friends in Europe.
In addition to this excellent assessment, listen to Timothy Synder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat's video from yesterday, March 4th. Between these two, we have more information and expertise than anything we'd get from the WH or Congress. A must read and a must listen.
Fabulous analysis. Hegseth likes Patriot missiles because the are powerful and cool looking. Lethal!!! That's how decisions are being made these days. And for a year now, the regime's message has essentially been "to hell with Ukraine."
Furthermore, the conspiring oligarchics (aka members of the Board of Peace) are getting ready to construct a new Gaza, a stateless and unregulated strip of conspicuous excess, with Palestinian serfs concentrated in housing blocks, and obliged to serve their every whim.
As an historical footnote the asymmetry between missile and interceptor costs has been recognized by the US military as a problem since at least the 1990s. I worked with DARPA for several years on their Low Cost Cruise Missile Defense program, which succeeded in developing a lower cost phased array radar seeker, but none of the services were interested in completing the system development. Had they, we would now have an effective anti-drone missile costing a few percent of that of the Patriot.
Thanks . This description of the ignorance and chaos of these “ deciders of our fates “ is as convoluted and unreasoned as any other Trump decision made by little thought and a lot of grandiosity.
Israel’s involvement and pressure on the
U. S. To accompany them on their incessant mission, is quite timely .
Trump has not one thought of reality as the consequences of this war unfold.
He cannot even make up a false narrative that is remotely sensible.
But Trump is fine with Netanyahu’s race to the heights of criminality through warfare.
Thank you for your lucid thoughts on this distressing subject.
The billionaires have forgotten one item, an item called revenge. In their haughtiness they were blinded. They can run, they can try to hide, but they are blind. The reality is that there is not enough distance between them and the next grifter. One can already see the tables turning as CBS falters and Anthropic is sidelined. Watch as these power-hungry wing-nuts send us all down the river.
Oh, and look at our military. Once we knew how to protect and serve our nation. Under Hegseth, we forfeited everything in the name of the White Christian Nationalists. We have dumbed down the thinking when our country takes out a religious leader in order to resurrect one. Not one bit of this heresy makes sense. Absolutely insane! You don’t have to believe in an almighty god to understand how messed up their thinking was/is/will be.
It feels like Epstein is part of all this, one of the connectors between the individuals and maybe also the corporations. It feels like globalization has been a mask for this.
It can be assumed that the architects of Project 2025 are the force behind this invasion of Iran. Trump and others are just carrying out its mission. This act creates the conditions that they believe will result in the eventual return of Jesus. I think it is a mistake to underestimate the influence of Christian’s Nationalism in everything unfolding in our country and the world.
This war with Iran is not really about freeing the people of Iran. Why would Trump give a flying F@@## about the brownish Muslim people of Iran?
This war is primarily about two things: It’s about our midterm elections; and it’s about Trump being bribed and manipulated by all manner of foreign powers into turning our military into a mercenary force used to do their bidding while enhancing his personal power and wealth — both here and abroad.
The U.S. Military is now a personal mercenary force of Donald Trump’s — both here and abroad.
'Is this an Amerucan war?", Tim Snyder asks at the start of The Oligarchical Corridor, A Source of
War. He then sleuths along that Corridor following '...the exhaust fumes of private jets which speed, tellingly, to some capitals but not to others. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been involved in three sets of negotiations which touch the parties concerned by this war.'
Why have there been so many different explanations comng from Trump, Rubio and Hegseth providing the reason for Trump's war against Iran, none of which have stuck? Snyder's international Oligarchal Corridor makes sense. He provides the fumes and an explanation $$$ that makes sense. This Oligarchical group, including Trump, have no interest in the welfare of the U.S., except as a sourcce of money, and Democracy, that's for the losers.
The truth you carefully lay out needs to be blasted to everyone. Without a goal, destructive outcomes are inevitable. And that Russia is making money over out stupidity is insane. Just as insane is not anticipating gettting Americans to safety before starting. Explosions look wonderful to Trump, but that is all he's caring about at the moment.
I cannot unsee what you have written! ….Through this lens elections and the rule of law as practiced (until recently) in this country look so frail and nostalgic. Time to celebrate some of the recent wins against this Trump thing….
Thank you for nailing the mechanism: the “oligarchical corridor” where Kushner, Witkoff, Netanyahu, MBS, and Putin all coordinate while American institutions, public input, and national interest are absent.
This confirms the framework exactly: Mercenary foreign policy isn’t a metaphor, it’s the operational structure. Kushner collected $3.5B from Gulf states. Iran is their regional competitor. They paid for regime change. U.S. military executes it. No American process, no national interest, just oligarchs using state power for private gain.
The inputs and outputs prove it:
Inputs: Private jets to Tel Aviv and Riyadh, not State Department deliberation
Outputs: Israel gets Iran weakened, Saudis get competitor eliminated, Russia gets higher oil prices and depleted U.S. Patriot stocks, Kushner gets richer
What’s missing: Anything American. No threat assessment. No strategic objective. No institutional process. Just Trump’s “mind” as the interface between oligarchs and the military.
Snyder’s right that this isn’t an “American war”, it’s oligarchs renting U.S. military capacity while the state decays into unusability.
The corridor runs from Mar-a-Lago to Riyadh to Tel Aviv to Moscow. Americans aren’t in it. We just pay for it…in blood, treasure, and the institutional collapse that makes the next oligarchical deal easier to execute.
Grift isn’t the bug. The corridor IS the system.
Thank you for keeping it real.
—Johan
Mostly I agree but the Patriots have become something of an illusion because the US has delayed deliveries for months now, enabling the Russians to devastate the Ukrainian energy and heating infrastructure.
You’re right—-Patriots were already an illusion. U.S. delayed deliveries for months while Russia devastated Ukrainian energy grid. The Iran war just makes the betrayal explicit.
Ukraine now needs European partnerships, indigenous drone production, diversified supply chains. If they survive the gap while U.S. burns Patriots on cheap Iranian drones, they come out less U.S.-dependent, not more.
That’s the real strategic shift —-Europe and Ukraine learning American “guarantees” are worthless.
I heard that too. It appears that trump is getting ready to give up Europe and Ukraine to Russia through real actions and non-actions right in front of Americans and the World.
I agree and applaud your written summary, too.
It's March 6th. Have you learned about what is happening in Iran, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Kuwait, Bahrain; it is uncontrollable.
Is it more than the Oligarchical Corridore bargained for?
Yes, tracking closely. Is it more than they bargained for? No. They don’t care.
Kushner got his $3.5B, oil prices up helping Russia. The chaos isn’t a bug, it’s extraction. Everyone in the corridor is getting what they wanted…well, more or less.
The people dying? They don’t give a …. You’re right.
'Renewable Energy and National Security'
'The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz'
by Paul Krugman, Mar 6 (excerpts) See link to Krugman's piece below.
'Donald Trump’s attack on Iran will have many unintended and unforeseen consequences. One consequence even I wasn’t thinking about, but which is already clear after less than a week, is that Trump has made a strong new case for renewable energy.'
'Europe is especially vulnerable. Europe is far ahead of the US in renewable energy capacity, but it still depends on imported LNG for much of its heating and electricity generation needs. While it imports only a small fraction from the Persian Gulf (the US is its biggest LNG supplier), the war is nonetheless delivering a severe blow to European economies: Asian nations, scrambling to replace their LNG imports from the Middle East, are driving up prices worldwide.'
'Now, Trump hates renewable energy, especially wind power.'
'Are you sure that Trump or a Trump-like future president won’t cut off energy supplies to nations that annoy him? I’m not.'
'So the U.S. war against Iran is making a strong case for nations around the world to seek energy independence. And for those nations that don’t have large fossil fuel reserves, that means wind and solar (and, yes, nuclear.)'
'Donald Trump, hero of renewable energy? Who knew?'
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/renewable-energy-and-national-security?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
What do you think, Johan? Renewable and nuclear energy could be the best long-term outcome for us human beings after most of bloodshed ends from this war against Iran/'Oligarchical Corridor'.
Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat had a podcast discussion today.
On Donald’s mad Iran war (imitating Putin’s) they covered how he and his sycophant mad crew don’t care about any American people, any soldiers, any veterans, or any human beings anywhere. They have in mind no U.S. national interests. They’ve no agenda at all other than their Me-Me-Big-Dictator desire to humiliate everyone else, rather as ICE and CBP roamed Minnesota streets only to exhibit indiscriminate terrorism, scorn, and contempt for all.
God, we need American schools to put people first – others – as human beings. We need students learning to write essays as if to respect others as individuals in complicated contexts. We need to key humanities.
We don’t need any more of our rich raping our underage girls. We don’t need any more of our rich grabbing more percentages of our national wealth. We don’t need any more of our mainstream media glomming unto Donald’s need for camera time for himself and his chaotic destructions. We don’t need any more of our social media billionaires yet with their algorithms for hatreds.
And we don’t need a HHS director killing any more of us with his stupid ignorant health directives against vaccines and stopping major research bringing the cures of tomorrow. They just don’t care- let them die— not just the American people but millions around the world. Shutting down USAID is among the cruelest acts this government has undertaken.
I agree with your take on this war, but I would add one thought to your vision of oligarchic policy. It is striking to me how very little interest the White House and its friends have in actually understanding Iran. Of course they don’t see any need to understand that country because as you argue people don’t really enter into this world view. We’re all simply tokens in their power game. My favorite book on Iran is Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Shah of Shahs. Frustratingly eccentric in its “journalism,” it captures one truth about the very old Iranian civilization that maybe only a Pole would understand. Iran’s history--and its national identity--is built around centuries of resistance to attempts to eradicate the nation. Arab invaders, Turks, European imperialists, Anyone who thinks he should have a say in picking the next Iranian leader does not know anything about Iran at all. But then may be that’s the point.
My father was stationed in Iran during the Second World War. He loved the art history and culture very much. I grew to love it too. I read a few years ago “all the Shahs Men” on the suggestion of an Iranian friend. From this book I learned that in 1953 the CIA was born from a successful intervention to kick out the democratically elected government and reinstall the Shah on behalf of British and American Oil interests. And look who came after the Shah! Dr. Snyders analysis is a gut punch to the reality that is taking place in our world- this realignment of geopolitical forces which have everything to do with greed and control. I weep for my cousin in Kyiv and his family and perhaps my friends in Europe.
In addition to this excellent assessment, listen to Timothy Synder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat's video from yesterday, March 4th. Between these two, we have more information and expertise than anything we'd get from the WH or Congress. A must read and a must listen.
Fabulous analysis. Hegseth likes Patriot missiles because the are powerful and cool looking. Lethal!!! That's how decisions are being made these days. And for a year now, the regime's message has essentially been "to hell with Ukraine."
Furthermore, the conspiring oligarchics (aka members of the Board of Peace) are getting ready to construct a new Gaza, a stateless and unregulated strip of conspicuous excess, with Palestinian serfs concentrated in housing blocks, and obliged to serve their every whim.
That "New Gaza" will be the biggest terrorist target on earth.
As an historical footnote the asymmetry between missile and interceptor costs has been recognized by the US military as a problem since at least the 1990s. I worked with DARPA for several years on their Low Cost Cruise Missile Defense program, which succeeded in developing a lower cost phased array radar seeker, but none of the services were interested in completing the system development. Had they, we would now have an effective anti-drone missile costing a few percent of that of the Patriot.
Thanks . This description of the ignorance and chaos of these “ deciders of our fates “ is as convoluted and unreasoned as any other Trump decision made by little thought and a lot of grandiosity.
Israel’s involvement and pressure on the
U. S. To accompany them on their incessant mission, is quite timely .
Trump has not one thought of reality as the consequences of this war unfold.
He cannot even make up a false narrative that is remotely sensible.
But Trump is fine with Netanyahu’s race to the heights of criminality through warfare.
Thank you for your lucid thoughts on this distressing subject.
The billionaires have forgotten one item, an item called revenge. In their haughtiness they were blinded. They can run, they can try to hide, but they are blind. The reality is that there is not enough distance between them and the next grifter. One can already see the tables turning as CBS falters and Anthropic is sidelined. Watch as these power-hungry wing-nuts send us all down the river.
Oh, and look at our military. Once we knew how to protect and serve our nation. Under Hegseth, we forfeited everything in the name of the White Christian Nationalists. We have dumbed down the thinking when our country takes out a religious leader in order to resurrect one. Not one bit of this heresy makes sense. Absolutely insane! You don’t have to believe in an almighty god to understand how messed up their thinking was/is/will be.
It feels like Epstein is part of all this, one of the connectors between the individuals and maybe also the corporations. It feels like globalization has been a mask for this.
It can be assumed that the architects of Project 2025 are the force behind this invasion of Iran. Trump and others are just carrying out its mission. This act creates the conditions that they believe will result in the eventual return of Jesus. I think it is a mistake to underestimate the influence of Christian’s Nationalism in everything unfolding in our country and the world.
This war with Iran is not really about freeing the people of Iran. Why would Trump give a flying F@@## about the brownish Muslim people of Iran?
This war is primarily about two things: It’s about our midterm elections; and it’s about Trump being bribed and manipulated by all manner of foreign powers into turning our military into a mercenary force used to do their bidding while enhancing his personal power and wealth — both here and abroad.
The U.S. Military is now a personal mercenary force of Donald Trump’s — both here and abroad.
Sheer insanity. The Bloated Yam will bring us all down.
'Is this an Amerucan war?", Tim Snyder asks at the start of The Oligarchical Corridor, A Source of
War. He then sleuths along that Corridor following '...the exhaust fumes of private jets which speed, tellingly, to some capitals but not to others. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been involved in three sets of negotiations which touch the parties concerned by this war.'
Why have there been so many different explanations comng from Trump, Rubio and Hegseth providing the reason for Trump's war against Iran, none of which have stuck? Snyder's international Oligarchal Corridor makes sense. He provides the fumes and an explanation $$$ that makes sense. This Oligarchical group, including Trump, have no interest in the welfare of the U.S., except as a sourcce of money, and Democracy, that's for the losers.
The truth you carefully lay out needs to be blasted to everyone. Without a goal, destructive outcomes are inevitable. And that Russia is making money over out stupidity is insane. Just as insane is not anticipating gettting Americans to safety before starting. Explosions look wonderful to Trump, but that is all he's caring about at the moment.
I cannot unsee what you have written! ….Through this lens elections and the rule of law as practiced (until recently) in this country look so frail and nostalgic. Time to celebrate some of the recent wins against this Trump thing….
Excellent analysis! Thank you.