Lillitputians Attack US Navy, US Intelligence, Russia, China &Co.
Houthi Attacks on US Navy
Two days ago on November 12, the US Navy reported that Houthi forces had attacked two American destroyers with drones and missiles as the ships transited the Bab el-Mandeb Strait entering the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis were said by the Pentagon to have launched at least eight one-way uncrewed aerial systems, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles at USS Spruance (DDG-111) and USS Stockdale (DDG-106), which the Pentagon says engaged all the projectiles. According to the Pentagon, there were no injuries or damage to the two destroyers. The Houthis had previously launched an attack in late September against the two destroyers, as well as USS Indianapolis (LCS-17).
Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare’e claimed the attack on the two destroyers was successful. Sare’e also said the Houthis attacked USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in the Arabian Sea.
Interviewed by Andrew Napolitano in the past day, commentator Gilbert Doctorow (who reports regularly on Russian media coverage) speculates, in the light of information he presumably has but which I have not yet seen myself, to the effect that the USS Abraham Lincoln is headed homewards, and that the Houthis did inflict significant damage. He notes that the Houthis fired both drones and hypersonic missiles (the Navy has made no specific mention, to my knowledge, of hypersonic).
Doctorow further speculates that the satellite targeting data necessary for a precise hit would have had to have come either from Iran or, more likely still, Russia. Doctorow’s monitoring of Russian media leads him to think, however, that Russia does not expect that Trump will fall into Israel’s trap (of seducing the US into a war on Iran for the supposed defense of Israel) and that Trump is actually more interested in repairing US relations with Iran in a manner similar, the first time in office, to his attempt to repair relations with North Korea. But, if the US really does engage in war with Iran, then Iran can certainly count on Russian assistance and, because of Chinese dependence on Iranian oil (greater, even, than its dependence on Russian), China’s involvement on the side of Iran as well.
Russian-Iran Treaty
There is conflicting information as to whether this pact has been formally concluded. My impression is that it is very close to being concluded but has not yet actually been concluded (as I had previously thought).
This is of course of potentially very great relevance to the question of the extent to which we can expect to see further Russian assistance to Iran either in preparation for an Iranian strike, promised by Iran, on Israel, in escalatory retaliation for Israel’s strike on Iran on October 26th.
On November 1st - now two weeks ago - the Iranian news agency MEHR reported a statement by President Lavrov that the treaty was being prepared for signing in the near future…It would “affirm both parties’ commitment to closer defense cooperation and collaboration for regional and global peace and security”. In October, President Putin approved a proposal forwarded by the country’s foreign ministry for the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Iran and invited Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to visit Russia to ink a comprehensive cooperation agreement. Putin called Moscow-Tehran ties a “priority” for his country. MEHR notes that in 2001 the countries signed a 10-year deal, dubbed the Treaty on the Basis of Mutual Relations and Principles of Cooperation between Iran and Russia. Upon the conclusion of its period, the agreement was extended for two five-year terms, extending its expiration date until 2026. President Masoud Pezeshkian has termed Tehran-Moscow ties as "strategic and highly beneficial" for both sides.
Two days ago, Pravda reported that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will arrive in Moscow by the end of the year to sign a strategic partnership agreement between the two countries. The agreement will confirm “the parties' desire for closer cooperation in the field of defense and interaction in the interests of regional and global peace and security.”
Turkiye
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced earlier today that Turkey has officially severed relations with Israel. This has been reported by Newsweek, citing reports from Turkish media. A Global Times commentator has noted that the tensions between Turkey and Israel are mostly at the diplomatic level and have not extended to the security or military level.
Ukraine
Russian forces have reportedly moved into central Kupyansk and are making significant progress westwards or northwards along other parts of the front lines from Zapporizhzia, through Toretsk, Dalnie, and Kurakhove, towards Pokrovsk and Slaviansk. Siversk, I believe, is more complicated. In Kursk, Ukrainian forces are being pushed back but at very heavy cost to both sides.
Gilbert Doctorow is correct, I believe, in reminding everyone that, losing though it is, Ukrainian forces are not retreating in mass and have been putting up stiff resistance in many parts of the front lines. This does not sit well with multiple reports over many months’ duration about Ukrainian abuses in the processes of recruitment and mobilization, and poor levels of training and morale on the Ukrainian side, although such things may not be totally incompatible with courageous resistance. Nor does courageous resistance help Ukraine with its insufficiencies of manpower and equipment (although the Biden administration, even in its dying breaths, is still moving heaven and earth to ram agreed US aid to Ukraine in advance of Trump’s ascendancy in January).
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Trump administration’s plan for Ukraine will have three elements: a freeze on military operations along the front line, the creation of a demilitarized zone, and a guarantee that Kiev won’t join NATO for at least 20 years. At the same time, the West would continue to supply Ukraine with weapons.
I cannot see Russia entering into any such negotiation from such starting positions. Russia will not negotiate while the West continues to funnel weapons into Ukraine. Russia will require prior regime change in Ukraine (Zelenskiy is illegitimate and deeply untrustworthy), something that may be forced on Ukraine in any case by the USA in 2025, if it regards elections as a precondition for negotiations. Regime change will otherwise be one of Russia’s terms for Ukraine’s surrender. Russia’s main negotiating interlocuters, in any case, must be the US and NATO.
Russia is winning on the battlefield and will establish its own front line according to its estimation of its own best security interests. If there is to be a demlilitarized zone then that would likely start somewhere west of the west Bank of the Dnieper. Russia will retain Crimea and all the territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zapporizhzhi and Kherson. I strongly suspect that Russia will also want control of Odessa and Kharkiv. Russia will absolutely reject any suggestion of Ukrainian membership of NATO, whether now or some time in the distant future, and it will still want to insist on a significant measure of Ukrainian demilitarization and denazification.
Trump’s Appointees
There is a great deal of bad mouthing going on about several of Trump’s appointees in the alternative media space. The people involved probably deserve it and some of them have marked themselves in recent statements as ignorant, bellicose, dishonest and recklesss.
However, we should also bear in mind the lessons that we have learned about the extent and depth of mainstream media complicity with the Deep State and be open to unpleasant revelations as to the success of Deep State smearing of individuals that it does not like, however powerful they may be.
I don’t imagine I shall be inviting Marco Rubio over for a drink anytime soon, but the sound of charges such as traffiking and drug use raise red flags long ago planted in the annals of Deep State character assassination. I note with interest and some amusement how Judge Napolitano frequently refers to the Washington Post as a CIA outlet, while recalling how CIA and MI6 penetrate not just nearly all mainstream media, but a great deal of social media and alternative media space.
It is the job of modern Intelligence to shape narratives and thereby to shape human consciousness and belief, and any media outlet that appears influential is going to attract Intelligence as moths are attracted to flame. Even so, I think the extent of this Deep State influence was widely underestimated until the duplicities of 9/11, and of the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2004. Deep State control of the narrative became steadily more shocking - for the relatively small numbers of people who try to keep on top of these things - in mainstream deceptions over Libya, Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Russiagate, Huntergate and October 7, 2023.
Yet, even with the knowledge we have, I suspect we have scarcely scratched the surface. Even the new Republican administration, its passions engaged by what many of its members believe to be their own negative experiences of Deep State misinformation (leading to surprising expressions of support from their ranks for the likes of Edward Snowden and, perhaps somewhat less, Julian Assange), probably doesn’t know the half of it and doesn’t yet understand how its members’ perceptions of the world have been manipulated by the very same forces they profess to see as renegades.
One extremely surprising Trump appointment is that of Tulsi Gabbard (raised in Hawaii and whose parents are Catholic and Hindu) to the position of Director of National Intelligence. She does not have previous Intelligence experience except possibly for a two-year stint on the House Homeland Security committee. As DNI she supposedly will oversee the operations of 18 Intelligence institutions. This seems very likely a further measure of the disdain that Trump and many of his colleagues have for the Intelligence establishment - Trump was, after all, a real victim of a real Intelligence hoax namely, Russiagate - and their hope that she might be able to constrain its worst excesses.
I fear that while that may be the hope, it is futile to expect that one woman, however skeptical, can outwit some of the greediest suckers on the tits of the National Security State. Does Trump even expect that she will? I have just seen that Ray McGovern has a critical article on Gabbard’s appointment in today’s Consortium News. My skepticism aligns with his, and he makes a very good argument that, smart as she is, Gabbard will have a hard time overcoming the secrecy and duplicity of the covert operations of Intelligence agencies.
Europe
There is a great deal of EU chatter about how the EU will have to assume for itself the burden of its aggression against Russia over Ukraine in the event that the US abandons “project Ukraine.” Voices such as those of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, or Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, or Miloš Vučević, prime minister of Serbia (to which might be added the voice of the Czech Republic after its 2025 election) are advising the EU that its politicians are ridiculous, first of all, if they think Russia has any interest whatsoever in invading Europe, and if they think, secondly, they can possibly sustain Ukraine in the proxy war over Russia if the US withdraws.
While mainstream media refuse to acknowledge it, growing fissures between and inside EU countries are significantly related to disquiet about the extraordinary wastefulness, pathetically weak analysis, and hubris of Europe’s investment in the war in Ukraine. The German coalition has come apart largely because of it, as Germany de-industrializes and is now forced to convert to dirty coal rather than natural gas for heating. All because Germany no long has access to cheap Russian oil and gas since the EU discontinued purchases and the US blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
Europe has come to rely much more on Russian LNG as a substitute, but this is far more expensive than traditional oil and gas. Exacerbating the madness, EU Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen now wants the EU to stop purchasing Russian LNG and just buy from the US, even though there is no guarantee that the US will continue to supply it. For Germany there will be new elections in February and it is highly likely that either AfD (rightist) or the SWA (leftist), new parties both, both of them highly skeptical about Ukraine, will find themselves in king-making positions when it comes to the formation of a new governing coalition.