Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 14, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
War
US Navy tells shipping industry Hormuz escorts not possible for now
Jonathan Saul, March 10, 2026 [Reuters, via gcaptain]
The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the
Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Navy’s assessments spell continued disruption to Middle East oil exports and reflect a divergence from President Donald Trump’s statements that the U.S. is prepared to provide naval escorts
whenever needed to restart regular shipments along the key waterway….
The U.S. Navy has held regular briefings with shipping and oil industry counterparts and has said during those briefings it is unable to provide escorts for the time being, three shipping industry sources familiar with the matter said….
Malte Humpert, March 11, 2026 [gcaptain]
Mick Schuler, March 11, 2026 [gcaptain]
Zachary Cohen, Phil Mattingly, Kevin Liptak, Kylie Atwood, March 12, 2026 [CNN, via [Talking Points Memo]
Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes, according to three sources familiar with the closed-door session.
The reason, multiple sources said, was administration officials believed closing the strait would hurt Iran more than the US — a view that was bolstered by Iran’s empty threats to act in the strait after US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer….
Trump’s preference of leaning on a tight circle of close advisers in his national security decision making [which] had the effect of sidelining interagency debate over the potential economic fallout.
Why America is Losing the War With Iran (w/ John Mearsheimer)
Chris Hedges, Mar 11, 2026
…John Mearsheimer
Yeah, it’s quite remarkable, Chris, that none of Trump’s predecessors took the bait when the Israelis tried to trap us into going to war against Iran. And you want to remember in 2024, Joe Biden’s last year as president, the Israelis twice, once in April and then second in October of that year, tried to trap Biden into going to war against Iran and he refused to do it.
And Trump is the first president who fell into the trap and of course he did it last June during the Twelve Day War. You want to remember in the Twelve Day War, the Israelis by themselves started that conflict on June 13th and it ended on June 25th….
Yudhajit Shankar Das, Jun 23, 2025 [indiatoday.in]
The US, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear sites, once supplied the Islamic Republic with HAWK surface-to-air and TOW anti-tank missiles despite an arms-export ban. The covert deal during the Reagan era 40 years ago, known as the Iran-Contra case, became one of America’s biggest political scandals.
U.S. Begins Withdrawing THAAD Missile Defence Systems From South Korea to Replenish Losses in War with Iran
[Military Watch, via Naked Capitalism 03-11-2025].
Iran targets Turkey’s Incirlik air base housing US nuclear bombs; sirens trigger panic
Manmath Nayak, March 13, 2026 [indiatvnews.com]
Ted Postol: U.S. Missile Defense Is ‘A Giant Technical Fraud’
Thomas Neuburger, March 13, 2026 [God’s Spies]
There’s a mountain of good information in this video interview/presentation by Dr. Ted Postol, MIT professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security. More on Ted Postol here. He’s truly pre-eminent in his field.
If you want to know what missiles are used by Iran, how they work, and how they defeat U.S.-supplied missile defenses, settle down and watch. You won’t be disappointed.
Iran Cows US Navy into Submission in Hormuz Standoff
Simplicius [via Naked Capitalism 03-12-2025]
…All internal rumors point to neither the Israeli or US side having anticipated the Iranian “regime” surviving so intact.
One of the reasons for this is that in the wake of the last ‘12 Day War’ you may recall Iran carried out a massive purge of Mossad assets throughout the country, with hundreds of agents apprehended, thousands of pieces of sabotage equipment confiscated, etc. After the Mossad network was neutered, it seems the threat of color revolutions and destabilization of the leadership was no more….
The biggest development revolves around Iran reportedly beginning to deploy naval mines in the strait, although there is some contention regarding this. The US appears to be trying to minimize the panic by claiming Iran has only deployed “10 mines” and that the US has been destroying Iranian minelayers. All the while, the IRGC has released videos showing they can lay mines via rockets fired from inland.
The US has even begun making up lies about escorting tankers through the strait, only for them to be humiliatingly retracted….
WSJ reports that Iran itself is exporting “more oil than ever before” through its own straits. This is obviously perplexing: how is the US allowing Iran to do that?
On one hand, one Iranian tanker was said to be hit, presumably by US forces. On the other hand, it’s clear there may be secret allowances at play because we know Kharg Island has not been taken out, and the obvious speculation is that US is afraid to ‘rock the boat’ economically, even if it means sparing Iranian oil and letting it flow.
This more than anything shows the limits of US military capability as the US is not capable of defeating its enemy swiftly enough to preclude the types of economic shocks now at danger of spilling out. They may have done it in Venezuela, but the Iran conflict more than anything else validates the Venezuelan operation was a fake with behind-the-scenes betrayal at play, rather than a determined force putting up a real fight….
Armageddon Now! Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program
Kevin Kirk, March 12, 2026 [Naked Capitalism]
[TW: This is a detailed summary of Isreal’s development and construction of nuclear weapons, which included covert assistance from France, Britain, and South Africa. Revelations include the dumping of nuclear waste in Palestinian areas with no safety measures at all, and how Iran has achieved some level of deterrence, including the probability Iran has acquired nuclear weapons from North Korea. ]
…Other dump sites in Palestinian territory are in the Eastern hills of the West Bank. For example, 80 barrels of Israeli waste were physically uncovered in the city of Hebron with another 120 found in the town of Al Ezareya, just outside Jerusalem. Palestinian health authorities in the West Bank grew increasingly alarmed after their monitors detected massive radioactive, pesticide and other toxins leaching into the water supply. The IDF responded by smashing the sensors and raiding their offices, where they destroyed the data then threw all of the equipment out of a 5th floor window….
Israel also dumps its waste on the Egyptian and Jordanian borders after ensuring that the prevailing winds will carry the radioactive dust out of Israeli territory. This is creating health problems for people living in those areas. For example, in the Al Tafila governorate of Jordan, downwind of the waste dumps on the Jordanian border, cancer rates, particularly amongst children, are up to five times more prevalent than anywhere else in the country.…
According to analysis undertaken by the Belorussian military, BELTA, the likelihood of a nuclear strike being undertaken against Iran by Israel is, in their opinion, extremely low. This is because of the Iranian threat to completely destroy Dimona (on a day when the wind blows to the north) and a massive missile attack that would destroy all of the vital services needed for everyday life in Israel, like desalination plants, power stations, ports and refineries. Iran also threatened to destroy ALL of the energy infrastructure in the Middle East, threatening worldwide energy supplies for years to come. It is definitely not in the USA’s best interests, nor Israel’s, because it would achieve the opposite effect of what this war is purportedly about: the elimination of another nuclear power in the Middle East, because Iran would undoubtedly either build a bomb or acquire one from elsewhere. North Korea (DPRK) has already developed (and tested) a bomb for Iran back in 2012. Iran paid for its development and given the passage of time it is more than possible that Iran already has nuclear weapons (two can play the strategic ambiguity game)….
How Close Is Israel to Maximum Escalation? “The situation in Israel is dire,” say many observers.
Thomas Neuburger, Mar 11, 2026 [God’s Spies]
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 03-12-2025]
THE ENTIRE CHIP INDUSTRY IS ABOUT TO SHUT DOWN AND NOBODY IS PANICKING YET No helium. No semiconductors. No phones. No AI. No future.
Samsung and SK Hynix just went on HIGH ALERT. Ships carrying helium have stopped moving through the Gulf.
Here’s how this destroys everything — step by step:→ Helium is used to cool semiconductor manufacturing equipment→ Without it, chip fabs CANNOT operate→ There is NO substitute for helium in this process→ Most of the world’s helium ships through Gulf routes now under fire→ South Korea makes 60% of the world’s memory chips→ Samsung and SK Hynix supply Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, every AI company on Earth….
A Farewell To Arms Supplies
Aurelien, March 11, 2026 [Trying to Understand the World, via Naked Capitalism 03-11-2025]
The fact that a force was constituted and deployed without any real idea of what it was supposed to achieve is actually a lot more common than is often realised. History books are full of apparently stupid decisions to start wars or reinforce failure for reasons that appear insane in retrospect, as well as being generally divorced from the realities of the time. But this conceals a larger issue: such decisions are rarely taken for a single reason, and often result from the interaction of all sorts of different pressures and ambitions. They may also be based on partially or completely false understandings of the situation, or indeed just plain wish-fulfilment. Some are based on over-confidence, others on fear that waiting will make the position even worse….
If I ever write another book on history, I’m going to call it The Alternative was Worse, to underline the point that most decisions about war and peace are sub-optimal, and often the consequences of a search for the least bad solution….
It’s obvious that the current US/Israeli assault on Iran is a good case of this. It’s not so much that strategic objectives seem to change daily in Washington, as that there are a whole host of different motivations, some mutually contradictory, held by different people who go before the cameras on different occasions to say different things. All they have in common is a vague conviction that Iran should be attacked. And it’s a classic error of pundits to imagine that because many different actors in a national capital publicly support something, there is therefore a united policy, let alone an agreed plan. In many cases, vague but impressive-sounding strategic soundbites are all they can agree on, and they differ violently about everything else….
…So far as I can see, there are “cooler heads” in the sense of those who think a military campaign isn’t the best way to destroy Iran, but few who actually advocate learning to live with it. Thus, sudden changes in announced “objectives,” simply mean that another way of punishing Iran has come into favour or fashion. Linked to this, of course, is a profound, willed, ignorance about the country itself and its internal politics….
… Modernisation Theory. This began in the 1950s and 1960s with the belief that economic growth and modernisation would produce democratic, rational, secular political systems….
It’s not just Iran, either. Incoherent ideas derived from Modernisation Theory help to explain the disastrous failure in Iraq: left to themselves, and with the evil Saddam removed, the Iraqis would move rapidly along the path to a modern liberal democratic market economy, because that was the destiny of all societies. Religious forces were so yesterday, and thus could be discounted. Likewise, the arrival of the Islamic State first in Iraq and then in Syria was such a shock because the very idea of religion, not just as a political mobilising factor but as a complete and unchallengeable guide to life, had been unknown in the West since the seventeenth century….
…The residual influence of Modernisation Theory even today is such that western leaders and the media assume that every country is full of People Like Us standing ready to take over the reins of government, and that by contrast if a country is run by People Not Like Us, then the vast majority of the population must be waiting for Us to overthrow the government for them. And yes, it’s actually as dumb as that….
… So we can see the fundamental, and typical, US error in assuming that the Iranian regime was fragile, that removal of a small number of its leaders would bring the system down, and that People Like Us were ready to take over….
… very tangible hard limits brought to you by all these clever people who outsourced and globalised everything ….
Electronic Fog of War: GPS Spoofing Distorts Ship Traffic Near Hormuz
Mike Schuler, March 10, 2026 [gcaptain]
“Vessel tracks show clear inconsistencies when compared with simultaneous vessel movements and reported headings,” MarineTraffic said, noting the apparent transits are the result of satellite navigation interference rather than actual vessel activity….
The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) said in its latest advisory issued March 10 that the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters remain at a “critical operational risk level” for commercial shipping amid the escalating conflict with Iran. Over the past 24 hours, more than 600 GNSS disruption events have been reported across the operational area, according to aggregated open-source monitoring and maritime reporting, with documented impacts including positional offsets, AIS anomalies, and intermittent signal degradation.
A separate update from the EU’s Maritime Security Centre – Indian Ocean (MSCIO) warns that heavy GPS and AIS spoofing is continuing across the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman, adding that disruptions have also affected communications and radar systems.
The advisory states that navigation systems in the region are “highly likely to be unreliable”, urging vessels to rely more heavily on radar and visual navigation methods when operating in the area.
Why Little Was Done to Head Off Oil’s Strait of Hormuz Problem
Rebecca F. Elliott and Vivian Nereim, March 14, 2026 [New York Times]
…The reason there is no true alternative comes down to a combination of geography, political tensions and economic competition among the region’s oil powers. There have been efforts to circumvent the strait, notably by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But the pipelines through those countries can carry only a small fraction of the energy produced in the Persian Gulf.
For many other energy-producing countries in the region, the only way to avoid the strait would be to lay a pipeline across a neighboring country — an expensive and politically fraught endeavor. Take Qatar, one of the world’s biggest natural gas exporters. Its only land border is with Saudi Arabia — a country that cut off diplomatic ties and closed that border during a
regional spat resolved five years ago. Plus, any pipeline would itself be vulnerable to Iranian attacks….
I Was a US Intelligence Analyst. Here’s What a Ground Invasion of Iran Could Look Like
Harrison Mann, Mar 10, 2026 [Zeteo]
US intelligence shows Iran government is not at risk of collapse: Sources
[Reuters, via Naked Capitalism 03-13-2025]
Will the Iran Price Shock Break the World?
Matt Stoller, Mar 09, 2026 [BIG]
[TW: Remember Obama boasted about how his policies facilitating fracking had boosted US oil production? The horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing used to tap shale oil reserves allowed the US to produce 12.9 million barrels of oil per day in 2023, the highest annual average ever. In 2019, for the first time in decades, the U.S. was a net exporter of crude and refined oil. Imports of oil dropped to almost one tenth of what they had been: 2022 imports of about 1.6 million barrels per day compared to 12 million barrels per day in 2005.
[So, if the US is not using oil from the Middle East, why have gasoline prices in the US increased? The cost of producing oil in the US has not increased one iota because of Trump’s Epstein Fury war. But profits sire have. Over a decade ago, a number of observers explained how increases US gas prices go almost entirely to enrich financial speculators. Most prominent among these was Michael Greenberger, who served as director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Obama administration. I was saddened to learn, in searching for Greenberger’s articles on the role of speculation in gas prices, that he had passed just three months ago. ]
Make Markets Be Markets: Restoring the Integrity of the U.S. Financial System (pdf)
Roosevelt Institute, March 3, 2010
The crisis of 2008 was predictable. Unless we go far beyond current legislative
proposals the next crisis is inevitable.
The structure of our current financial markets does not reflect the critical mar
ket principles that once allowed our economy to flourish– principles like trans
parency, competition, and free flow of information. And it has not been subject
to the most important principle of all — the opportunity for market participants
to fail. We all know the result. Financial sector CEOs have relied on taxpayer
support. They have benefitted from express taxpayer bailouts as well as secret
“back door” deals. They continue to lead companies that seem to make profit
but actually only thrive because of government subsidies and taxpayer support.
Make Markets Be Markets: Restoring the Integrity of the U.S. Financial System
is the result of months of discussions among the country’s leading financiers,
market experts, academics and former regulators….
Testimony of Michael Greenberger before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
on Excessive Speculation: Position Limits and Exemptions (PDF)
August 5, 2009 [Commodity Futures Trading Commission]
Speculation and Criminal Manipulation of Food and Commodities Prices
Lambert Strether, April 14, 2012 [Naked Capitalism]
The Price of Oil – Where the Outrage?
Payam Sharifi, February 18, 2011 [Naked Capitalism]
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