𝗪𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗜𝘁 𝗮 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 𝗧𝗲𝗵𝗿𝗮𝗻'𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗜𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗿, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗿𝗮𝗻'𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗜𝘁. On 23 September the United States placed Iran's entire aviation sector under sanctions. The mechanism of control is the US dollar. Treasury Secretary @SecScottBessent said it plainly: if an Iranian plane lands, you cannot fuel it, service it, or sell its tickets, or you are cut out of the dollar system. Washington calls the wider campaign "Operation Economic Outcast." Within a day the effect was visible, and it was the neighbours who delivered it. - Georgia imposed a full ban. - Azerbaijan suspended every Iranian flight. - Iraq halted flights into Baghdad. - Turkey had Mahan Air pull out at Ankara's request. - Oman cancelled the Tehran to Muscat route. - Iran Air and Mahan Air, the two carriers that tie Iran to the world, were grounded across the region in forty-eight hours. - China and Russia refused, and called the measure illegal. Washington's aim is straightforward. Isolate Iran, choke a channel it claims moves weapons, personnel and cargo, and drive the daily cost of the war onto ordinary Iranians until the pressure reaches the state. This is the "aviation front of a siege" that already runs through oil, banking and the naval blockade. The American mistake is a category error. Washington filed this under economics, a sanction, a financial penalty, a line item. It keeps its economic war and its kinetic war in separate columns. Iran does NOT. Tehran has stated, openly and often, that it treats EVERY phase as war, that even diplomacy is war carried on by other means. If diplomacy is war, an airline blockade is war, and once Iran files a thing as war it stops being the Treasury's file and becomes the military's. Iran has published its doctrine for anyone willing to read it. The declared pillars: 1. Unity of Arenas. All fronts are ONE front. A blow against any part of the Axis keeps the whole war live, an informal Article 5. 2. Reciprocity. An eye for an eye, blow for blow, to rebuild the deterrence the opening strikes broke. 3. Proportional escalation. For every strike absorbed, Iran answers at 1.5 times, to make the next attack cost more than the last. 4. Energy symmetry. If Iran cannot export its oil, no one exports through the Gulf either. The chokepoint is the equaliser. 5. Facilitators are targets. Any state whose soil, airspace, ports or bases are used to strike Iran or to enable the strike is a legitimate target. Iran has warned this for years, and acted on it when it hit a US base in the Gulf. 6. Forward defence. Keep the fighting away from Iran's own cities, through allies and depth rather than on home ground. 7. Strategic patience with a promised answer. Absorb, then retaliate at the time and place of Iran's choosing, the "True Promise" template of direct strikes. 8. Mosaic defence. Thirty-one provincial commands built to fight on if the centre is hit, so the country cannot be decapitated. 9. Asymmetric deterrence. Mass, cheap missiles and drones to offset an enemy that owns the sky. Against that doctrine, the blockade traces a clear path. The states now denying Iran fuel, landing and servicing are, in Iran's own filing, enabling an act of war against it. Pillar five does not distinguish between a bomb and a banking penalty. What counts to it is the enabling, not the instrument. By Tehran's stated logic, Baghdad, Ankara, Baku, Muscat and any Gulf capital that joins the blockade have moved from bystander to PARTICIPANT. Read or listen to the full analysis on what this means, the order of effects on the Middle East and wider region and how this shapes the next phase of the war. 𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗟, 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗜𝗦𝗘!!

Washington wants to normalize Delcy Rodríguez as its proxy in Caracas. But elections are the first requirement for restoring normalcy to Venezuela, says @JPSpinetto (via @opinion)

Washington prison staff put Shane Goldsby in a cell with the man serving 43 years for r*ping Goldsby’s sister. It went about as well as you'd expect. ⠀ Goldsby was 26 and from Longview. He arrived at Airway Heights Corrections Center near Spokane about 10:30 a.m. on June 2, 2020. ⠀ His cellmate was Robert Munger, 70, of Kelso. In December 2019 a Cowlitz County judge had given Munger at least 43 years for child r*pe and child mol*station. ⠀ Munger also had a child-p*rnography conviction. One of his victims was Goldsby’s younger sister, still a minor. ⠀ Goldsby was already doing about seven years for a 2017 second-degree as$ault with a de*dly weapon. That case included stealing a Kelso police car and hurting a state trooper in a chase. ⠀ Hours after they met, surveillance caught Goldsby coming up behind Munger in a common area. Washington State Patrol said he punched Munger’s head about 14 times. ⠀ He stomped the head at least four times and kicked it again before guards pulled him off. Munger d*ed three days later in a hospital of a skull fracture. ⠀ Goldsby told KHQ that Munger kept describing the photos and videos. “He r*ped my little sis.” ⠀ He also told a reporter, “What the f*ck? You’re talking the same institution, the same unit, the same pod in the same cell as this dude.” ⠀ WSP wrote there was no evidence screening staff should have known about the family link. Existing protocol should have blocked that pairing if the link had been flagged. ⠀ Prosecutors first charged first-degree m*rder. Goldsby later pled guilty to second-degree m*rder without premeditation. ⠀ In August 2021 a judge added about 24 years, three years of supervision, and restitution to Munger’s family. Goldsby’s lawyer read, “I’m ashamed of my actions, I was put into a situation that I don’t wish on nobody.” ⠀ #Washington# #AirwayHeights#

Washington has a strong dollar, high interest rates, and an unmanageable debt-service burden. The math won’t let it have all three. My two cents: A weakening dollar and financial repression will be the two defining macro drivers of this decade. None of us owns enough hard assets.

Washington removed Venezuela from the group of countries it says failed to meet drug-control obligations, and signaled that Colombia could follow next year if its new government makes progress against cocaine trafficking.