MAGAGEDDON
How America's dreams unmade itself
The regime that is being changed by the war on Iran is our own.
In this report I examine what the strategic defeat of the US and Israel in Iran means, showing how the post-9/11 vision for US global domination led to another impossible dream - to Make America Great Again using military power.
MAGAGEDDON
It is a matter of time before the profound financial, military and economic shocks produced by Trump’s war for Israel will be felt in the United States.
What looks very likely is the end of the world as Americans knew it.
The impact of this war will be felt at home in the US, as unlike the other regime change wars this one is not a case of viewing explosions in some distant desert.
It is becoming clear that the war is tremendous mistake which is unintentionally delivering what MAGA promised to do - permanently resizing and rebalancing US commitments and grand strategy.
WHAT WAS MAGA ALL ABOUT?
The Greek word “apocalypse” means something like “uncovering” or “revelation”. This is what is in store for Americans, and this is what is going to be supplied in place of the global supply chain on which American dominance relied, and which its latest war has destabilised.
After months of obvious lies from the White House about the reasons for this war, its conduct, losses, and consequences, it is hard to fathom where the Big Lie began. Perhaps it began with the Noble Lie of MAGA itself.
Liberal democracy is the marketing of elite agendas to the masses through the mobilisation of popular sentiment through the use of the media.
MAGA was the sale of Trumpian populism on promises of national renewal and the restoration of American greatness. This was a sales pitch.
You cannot get elected in America by admitting your attempt at global empire has failed and you have no more money, so the show is over. Instead, an initially impressive team of strategists put together a new Realism to produce what JD Vance called “A Foreign Policy for the American Middle Class”. It promised a new era of “Realism and Restraint”.
This was a tacit acceptance the US had not won and could not win the world and admitted the regime change era had ruined America.
WHERE DID MAGA BEGIN?
One dream of making America Great lead to another. The first was world domination, the second, the consolation prize of withdrawal as renewal.
MAGA really came from the recognition that the US had bankrupted itself both financially and morally in following a grand strategy aimed at becoming and remaining the Only Global Power. This vision materialised after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, and was presented in a RAND paper a year later.
In this vision, the regime change wars for Israel in Libya and the Middle East made strategic and even financial sense, as did the attempt to “overextend and unbalance Russia” with the war in Ukraine.
Victory would gift the West the boon of massive mineral resources to defray the mortgage it had taken out to secure them.
In 1990 Hirschfeld noted the US “is the only remaining global military power”. One obvious point: it is not the 1990s any more. Another is the strange function of the power of belief in how we are ruled. We have been trained to distrust the obvious and to disregard reality, so it always comes as a shock to be confronted by what is, in place of what we have been led to believe ought to be there instead.
Before it dissolved the Soviet Union was the number one military power in the world. The US won its top spot by default, when the USSR disintegrated, taking practically all the experts by surprise.
Why was this such a shock? The title of Alexei Yurchak’s book shows people simply could not imagine that the whole system could end, and so they didn’t.
Even as the effects caused by the Iran war become visible, few people are willing to contemplate the end of the US-led global order.
We cannot imagine this could happen, and so we won’t. And yet.
TAKEN TO THE LIMIT
What the war in Iran has done has revealed the reality of the US in terms of the limits of its economic, military and political power. It has also revealed much of the nature of US political, religious, financial and media culture. In short, none of it is what it says it is.
Most people don’t seem to care about the shift towards the normalisation of assassination, to the routine use of atrocity propaganda and lies to permission the destruction of a civilisation for nebulous reasons.
Nor do they seem overly interested in the fact that the White House is staffed with Epstein crooks and advised by quasi-religious lunatics who see salvation promised in sparking Armageddon in a war for Israel.
What seems to move Americans most is the cost of things. The price of food, of fuel and medicine - as well as everything else - is going to rise. Meanwhile, the value of their money to buy these things is going down. The dollar has lost 87% of its purchase power since the year 2000. Almost 30% of that loss came in the last six years.
The Iran war is driving de-dollarisation, which means that countries will no longer trade oil in dollars, undermining its value for investors. This means fewer nations will be confident in buying US debt, which stands at just under $40 trillion.
This exposes the reality that the US economic model is not only based on the issuance of debt, but on confidence. If other countries no longer believe the US is solvent, the dollar dies back due to a lack of belief. If this seems alarmist, note that though a report claiming the US is insolvent (bankrupt) last month was “debunked”, it turns out that the counter-claim says America cannot in fact pay its debts.
“The real problem facing the government,” Smetters said, “is that we currently have a fiscal policy path that is itself imbalanced. Specifically, the present value of future spending far exceeds the present value of future tax revenue.
To create balance, we would either need to raise all federal income taxes, including payroll taxes, immediately and forever by 30%, or cut all federal spending, including entitlement programs, immediately and forever by 25%, or some combination.”
Much of that debt was created in financing decades of regime change wars from 2001. At least 8 trillion dollars were spent on regime change wars in the 20 years from 2001-2021. I documented something of how the West has been ruined by the regime-change regime here, in 2023.
Despite soaring debts and the routine production of disaster, the US military budget for 2027 is rising to 1.5 trillion dollars.
What has all this borrowed money bought?
ISRAEL’S STRATEGIC FAILURE
In the West, we are given Israeli talking points in place of real news about Israel. The Trump Administration, for example, has adopted the media and military strategy of the Israelis, which is to demonise your designated enemy and use that narrative to permission war crimes towards an impossible goal.
This is the end product of decades of wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Iran which have been fought to secure Israeli regional dominance. The argument that all the leaders of these nations were pursuing weapons of mass destruction is not only false, it obscures the fact that the Israelis are the only nuclear armed power in the region, and that their nuclear weapons were developed against the will of the US, using plutonium and secrets stolen from the Americans.
How has this happened? Israel has built a powerful lobby in American politics, which has donated to every one of the 100 US Senators, and sponsors most members of Congress. Israel-Firsters Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave Donald Trump and his movement over $500 million dollars between 2016 and 2025.
What has all this blood and treasure bought for Israel? If we look at the Israeli media we see that Israel is deeply divided and the view of the Israelis is that the war in Iran, as that in Lebanon, has been a failure.
This report from Kit Klarenberg gives an excellent summary of how the Iran war, the Mossad-orchestrated “protests” in Iran, and the proposed Kurdish invasion did not amount to a “final…solution” but in “heartache” for the Israelis.
In place of Netanyahu’s imagined “total victory”, Israel was defeated. The impact of its genocide in Gaza and the launch of its latest wars has been fatal to US public support of Israel. Though the lobby remains in power for now, it has no future in American nor in European politics.
The Israeli brand is now toxic due to the actions of the Israelis themselves.
As the time horizon closes on US public understanding of the costs of this war, pressure builds on the White House to end it.
When the war does end, whether it does so after a further round of destruction or not, a bitter separation between the US and its so-called “Greatest Ally” will most likely follow in time.
Though one could expect repeats of the cry of betrayal from Israel, as is routinely the case when peace breaks out, this response is likely to be muted by another factor invisible in the Western media - the fact that Israel has been remade in the service of another impossible dream of domination that has now come to nothing.
Additional reports from Alastair Crooke on his Conflicts Forum document the deepening domestic economic and political crisis in Israel, showing also how the Netanyahu “poison machine” has transformed Israeli national identity, just as it has remade the US government in its own image.
You can read his peerless analysis here. His frequent reference to Hebrew-only media from Israel gives a level of insight that is absent from the English language press.
The enormous cost of the regime change period to America cannot yet be calculated. It will include the end of the US military presence in the Gulf, of its international policing of sea trade routes, and very likely the end of the structure of its oil-based currency and debt system.
Americans will soon realise that the America they imagined was just a dream, as reality sharply corrects the outdated fantasy of a peerless global power which can just say things into being.
Two early indicators of the impact of reality have already arrived. One, the Chinese are now going to ignore US sanctions on Iranian oil - bringing the era of power by US economic decree to an end. Two, the economic system of the US is shown to be a sort of Ponzi scheme, as the reason the prices on the exchanges don’t correspond to reality turns out to be all hot air.
Markets versus reality
What’s the difference between the real price of a barrel of oil and its market value? Quite a lot, it seems. Why is this the case?
Many commentators have noted for weeks that statements from President Trump promising an end to the war and de-escalation have had no basis in reality. Despite there being no military solution, and no obvious way out for the US, Trump’s “Truths” have had a significant impact on the listed price of oil.
Frequently issued on Fridays, Trump’s statements have touted imaginary negotiations, unrealistic operations like the shortlived “Project Freedom” and repeatedly teased an end to the war that never arrives. Trump has talked the markets down whilst the supply crunch looms ever larger.
A report from a Singapore-based oil market analyst put it plainly:
“The market is on the cusp of a complete breakdown,” said Vandana Hari, founder of oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights.
“Price formation is no longer anchored in a pragmatic reading of the war’s trajectory or the physical realities in the Strait of Hormuz.”
What are those “physical realities”? They include the fact that the Straits were open without tolls before the US launched its war for Israel. They also include the fact that the US has now blockaded the Strait, worsening the collapse of the global supply chain of oil, its vital constituents, and of natural gas, fertiliser and significant industrial precursor chemicals.
In short, the market has lost touch with reality. It was being conducted by Trump’s tweets - and gamed by insider trading.
Corruption and market manipulation
On the 7th of May Reuters reported that billions of suspicious trades timed immediately before statements made by President Trump are being investigated.
OilPrice.com summarised the probe into these trades on the 8th of May, which were first noted on the 23rd of March.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has launched an investigation into short oil bets worth a total $7 billion, made in March and April right before statements by President Donald Trump that led to oil price drops, Reuters has reported, citing exchange data and unnamed trading sources.
In each case, trades were placed minutes before Trump issued public statements which would see the market listed price of oil fall.
The pattern continues to this day, with Trump claiming the ceasefire is holding whilst fire is exchanged between the US and Iran. In recent days, oil tankers have been hit, the Iranians fired on US destroyers, and strikes took place on the Fujairah refinery complex in the Israel-aligned United Arab Emirates.
A report from the International Business Times said
According to Iranian military officials, U.S. forces targeted two ships entering the Strait of Hormuz and carried out strikes on Iranian territory, including areas near Qeshm Island and Bandar Khamir. Tehran said it responded by attacking U.S. naval vessels east of the strait and near the port of Chabahar.
MARKETS BEGIN TO RECOGNISE REALITY
President Trump continues his method best illustrated by this meme, but the markets seem to be waking up to the reality his tweets deny.
Even with the renewed military activity, U.S. President Donald Trump later told reporters on Thursday [7th of May] that the ceasefire remained operational.
“The U.S. administration continues to oversell the prospects of a thaw, and an optimism-biased market buys into it,” Vanda Insights’ Hari said.
“Curiously, each time, the rebound is gradual and incomplete, making the head fakes at least somewhat effective.”
Despite Trump’s attempt to talk down the market, oil prices jumped to over $100 per barrel as a round of hostilities resumed on Thursday.
The control of the markets is slipping from Trump’s amusingly named “Truth” social media posts. He can no longer make people believe in something other than reality.
AND YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF, “MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?”
Donald Trump certainly knows how his actions have brought about the end of the American world as we knew it. Americans don’t, but they will do soon. It is difficult to see how he survives this, having presided over the dismantling of the American Empire, and in place of the restoration of American greatness has delivered a rude awakening instead.
The regime in Iran has not changed, there is no military solution to the crisis caused by the war begun for the Israelis by Mr Trump, and of course all this was predicted and told to Mr Trump in advance.
Whether through blackmail, through misguided self belief, bribery or other means, Mr Trump took a decision to attack Iran which was rejected by all his predecessors in recent administrations.
It has been a fateful error greater than that of the US-NATO eastward expansion, which inexorably led to another failed war to collapse and conquer the resources of another so-called enemy - Russia.
These two wars have demonstrated the limits of reality to a system whose power relied on make belief.
We are living through the end of an impossible dream, which was sold to us so completely as to make anything other than its realisation unthinkable.
This will in time end the Presidency of Donald Trump. It will bookend the bankrupting regime change era and take the dream of US global dominance and leadership with it. What has also been exposed is that our economic system appears to be a scam run for the benefit of the elite, who see in the ruinous wars which magnified its debts an opportunity for personal enrichment.
Finally, the manufacture of belief to permission political action seems to be less effective every day, as the awful reality produced by these actions is more convincing to voters and the markets they watch than the upbeat trans-sanity radiating from the current regime.
The political technique of the 20th century also appears to be entering its season finale. The most dangerous thing of all to machine politicians is when people begin to take an interest in politics. Given the state we are in, most people have no choice these days. The demands political leaders will face will no longer be made by populations mesmerised by impossible dreams and secured by a system which makes belief in itself through everything it sells.
The future politics will be about reality, not fantasy, and the future we face will be strictly concerned with the provision of needs. MAGA has delivered on the resizing and rebalancing of US commitments. It could have cut its cloth to reality in a way which convinced Americans they were undergoing a national renewal.
Instead, the final regime change war launched for Israel has pulled back the curtain on the whole show, to the profound embarrasment of audience and actors alike. Mr Trump can bark a great carnival, but the people will no longer entertain circuses when they want for bread.
If you like this sort of thing, you can pay me to do it here:
If you like to offend people by telling them the truth, consider doing this:
I am working on a series about the last century and how we got into the State we are in today. More on that soon. Have a splendid weekend and God bless you all!
Brilliant insight as always, Frank. Well done. 👍
As the great George Carlin once said: "That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."
God Bless, Frank!