Will the Strait of Hormuz Be Trump’s Gallipoli?

The World Rules Based World Order is facing a crisis in Iran, but it didn’t start yesterday. Before we can predict what will happen next it is important to understand how we got here.

“Pax Americana” as we know it now started in 1974 with the establishment of the Petrodollar, which replaced the Bretton Woods system that collapsed during the Vietnam War. The gold standard gave way to oil and aircraft carriers, which could be described as a “carrot-stick” system. Adherence to the rules of the system was rewarded by the carrot of access to the “free world” financial system, leading to prosperity. And breaking the rules was punished with aircraft carriers and aerial bombardment.

What I find most curious about the decline of American power is that this didn’t happen due to external attack. There were no untrustworthy Chinamen or belligerent Ruskies plotting to undermine the system, quite the contrary. Every other major country was perfectly content with the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and did nothing to oppose it. The USA itself is responsible for its downfall.

The main principle that made the Petrodollar system work was its alleged neutrality. Maybe not for Serbia or Libya, but for major powers at least, access to these institutions was not directly dependent on US political whims. Severing Russia’s access to SWIFT in 2022 permanently and irreversibly destroyed the illusion of internationality in the system. SWIFT and every other alleged “international” institution established in the western world was in actuality a weapon of the US government. Freezing Russia’s assets was particularly egregious, as was a literal declaration that there is not even a respect for property rights in the system. Nothing is owned, only leased from the USA, and it can be taken away.

Of course there were other victims of such theft long before 2022, like Cuba, Iran, or Venezuela. But the average king or investor doesn’t associate himself with “those” countries. But if Russia, a major world economy, can be locked out in the cold just because the US president at the moment doesn’t like them, then it could happen to anybody. Being cut off harmed Russia, but it did not collapse them. The thrown knife leaves the hand empty, a threat is no longer useful as a deterrent after it is used, and the target survives intact.

So cracks in the “carrot” aspect of the system turned into fissures, but the thousand nations of the American empire had their stick, the invulnerable US military. However, the “wonder weapons” failed to achieve victory. Fields of burning American tanks and IFVs showed the world that any weapon, even the US wonder weapon, can be destroyed. But there was still one stick left, the US military itself. Yes there have been many cases of Arabs and Slavs using American weapons and getting destroyed, but those could all be dismissed as lazy, incompetent subhumans who just don’t know how to use them properly.

That’s the system Trump inherited last year.

As brazen and illegal as his Venezuela raid was, it was likely a net benefit to the American system. A lightning operation with a carefully curated propaganda campaign proved that the US military was still as invulnerable and undefeatable as ever.

But… the fundamental weakness of a propaganda image is that it cannot ever be exposed to reality. It needs to be protected from reality as much as possible. The invincibility of the US military could have been nurtured for years longer, decades even, but only if the battles were picked carefully, and curated to be certain crushing victories.

All of Trump’s military adventures have been huge gambles, which wouldn’t automatically be a bad thing, except Trump never seems to have realized they were gambles, which means he couldn’t even think if his goals were worth the risks. Kidnapping Maduro worked out, but what if a US helicopter was shot down and killing an entire special forces team. Was Trump’s policy goals worth the risk? Who knows, because I don’t think Trump was even aware there was risk at all.

Now it seems something similar happened in Iran. He seems to have been assured that Iran would collapse in a few hours, and oblivious to the possibility it wouldn’t, or that it would be able to strike back. At least there was the awareness of the danger against US ships, so they were kept vast distances away, safely out of reach of all immediate threats except laundry room fires.

And this brings me to the title; Will the Strait of Hormuz Be Trump’s Gallipoli?

The allied naval expedition through the Dardanelles on March 18, 1915, was anticipated by both sides to be a success. The coastal forts were no match for battleships and the Ottomans expected Constantinople to only last a few hours under attack. But the attack never came. The French battleship Bouvet hit a mine and perished along with almost 700 crew, spooking the armada into calling off their attack.

With their naval campaign a failure, the West could not admit defeat to Turks, of all people, which forced a ground operation, at Gallipoli.

Tune in to my podcast with Billy Bob tonight to hear the latest on Trump’s “Special Combat Operation” in Iran. The show starts tonight at 7 p.m. and can be viewed below. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel for notifications of future videos and interviews. Blowback: Exposing Imperial Decline can be followed here. The stream will also go to Billy Bob’s Facebook page, which you can follow here.