Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Joe Biden’s Three Genocides in Four Years: Ukraine Part 2

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On September 16, 2026

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With the toxic and stupid Trump 2.0 regime collapsing in the polls and the useless Democratic establishment licking their chops at the prospect of another electoral gimme in 2026, it’s more important than ever to rub shitlibs’ faces in the abysmal and inexcusable record of the murderous Biden administration.

If we keep voting blue no matter who, we’re gonna keep getting what we got.

In the interest of the public good, therefore, I make my humble offering, attempting to chronicle the three mass death events the senile husk of Joe Biden nominally presided over in his four years in the White House.

I covered COVID first. That was a debacle that many Democrats exclusively blame on Donald Trump and many GOPers and Independents have concluded was a hoax or some shit, but the reality is (as brilliantly documented by Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism in real time) that Biden’s deliberately negligent policies resulted in the death and disabling of over one million Americans.

Next I covered Biden’s role in provoking the Ukraine War from 1992-2008 as a powerful US Senator who never met a war that didn’t give him a stiffy.

Now we’re going to get to the grit, because Vice-President Biden had Ukraine as part of his portfolio under POTUS Obama from 2009-2016 and we all know what he did as President, even if some dumbasses still insist he bears no responsibility for the disaster he spent decades making.

No, Ukraine Is Not ‘Winning’

First I want to establish some facts about the current state of consensus reality by citing some very pro-Ukraine, pro-war authorities who are throwing in the towel.

I’m going to save a few thousand words by using images of the relevant headlines.

Up first, from The Spectator (UK) one of the most blood-thirsty, Russia-hating publications in the English speaking world:

From the “liberal” Wall Street Journal:

From former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who’s made killing Russians his passion project for years now, in the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post (who had to give it multiple headlines so as not to upset sensitive pro-war liberal readers):

HT Simplicius

With that out of the way, let’s get into the time machine, loser, and go back with me to a time when a young Black President that so many Americans had invested with their “Hope and Change” fantasies needed to have an old racist white guy next to him at all times to make idiots and assholes feel comfortable patting themselves on the back for voting for a Black president.

And note, the point isn’t to excuse Putin for his actions. I’m not Russian, Putin’s not my responsibility. I do have the sense to treat Russia with respect, because I’m a student of history and I don’t know of a single instance where fucking with Russia ever ended up in anything but disaster whether for the Swedish Empire, Napoleon’s France, or Hitler’s Germany.

I’m an American and I’m concerned with the conduct of the elected officials who are supposed to be representing me.

Get In, Loser, We’re Going to Kyiv

Biden wasted no time in building upon the disastrous actions of the Bush/Cheney regime at the 2008 Bucharest summit which called for Georgia and Ukraine to be invited to join NATO. By July 2009, on his first trip to Ukraine as Vice-President Biden was already in Kyiv (we spelled it Kiev back then) lecturing Ukraine’s leadership and then flying off to Tbilisi telling them that NATO membership would be cost free (this is after they’d already had their heads cracked in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War that followed immediately on the heels of the Bucharest summit. Anyone remember John McCain saying “We’re all Georgians now”, as he tried to campaign for President on his desire to drag America into a war in a place few had heard of?).

Here’s some of what Biden said on that first visit to Kyiv in 2009, per the Christian Science Monitor which gave Biden that kind of tough guy headline (“Biden’s tough love for Ukraine”) that got him all riled up and gropy with the females on his staff:

Vice President Joe Biden had some surprisingly pointed comments for Ukrainians yesterday.

Speaking in front of 400 Ukrainians in a speech that was billed as an address to the nation’s citizens, Biden chastised Ukrainian officials for, among other things, their immaturity in dealing with inter-party conflicts. Evoking poet Taras Shevchenko, a national icon, Biden said Shevchenko would likely “be wondering why the government is not exhibiting the same political maturity as the people.”

Reforms have stalled and political bickering has become widespread after Ukraine‘s 2004 Orange Revolution. Coupled with neighboring Georgia‘s Rose Revolution a year earlier, the Orange Revolution was a source of hope for Western countries that democracy could take hold in states of the former Soviet Union.

Frustrated by the stalemate and lack of progress, Ukrainians have showed signs of throwing their support to opposition leader Viktor F. Yanukovich, a move that would more closely align the country with Russia and, according to some, could tip the country back toward authoritarian rule.

Biden’s remarks seem to indicate that Ukrainians aren’t the only ones who are frustrated. The vice president was expected to address Washington’s concerns only behind closed doors, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the weight of his public remarks were unexpected.

“Centuries from now, what will Ukrainians say of this time?” he said. “What will they say of their leaders? Will they say they returned to the past, or will they say the beginning of the 21st century launched a period of prosperity, freedom and independence?”

But lest the news out of Ukraine been seen as all harsh, Biden was also overheard praising the country’s women. “It’s certain you have so many beautiful women,” Biden is reported to have told President Viktor Yushchenko at an unscheduled visit to a Kiev pub.

What a charmer. Note that bit about the “color revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia. At the time I thought all that shit was organic and awesome. I also thought Gene Sharp was the greatest man since Gandhi.

I’d love to get a poll of Ukrainians today on whether they think following the US and NATO down the garden path to war with Russia was “the beginning of…a period of prosperity, freedom and independence?”

But let’s keep moving.

How’d That Russian Fleet Get In Crimea? Oh Yea, Legally

Turns out the Ukrainians did, in fact, democratically elect the pro-Russian President Yanukovych. Biden’s visits to the country cease for the full duration of Yanukovych’s term.

Yanukovych signed something called the Kharkiv Pact, which extended the Russian Navy’s lease on Sevastopol for 25 years to 2042 in return for a major discount on natural gas. The Accord easily survived an opposition attempt to renounce it in 2013 in the Rada.

The Yanukovych administration also oversaw the passage of a law that forbade Ukraine from entering into military alliances with anyone. Neutrality is always the first step to fascism, war, and disaster, as all Swiss people know.

2013: Ukraine Caught Between the EU and Russia in Trade Tug of War

Shit hit the fan in November 2013 when Yanukovych backed out of the EU Association Agreement, suggesting instead the “creation of a tripartite commission of Ukraine, the EU and Russia, which would work to remove barriers in mutual economic cooperation and trade liberalisation.”

Yanukovych’s reasons couldn’t have been more sinister and inexplicable, per the OSW:

In the context of the upcoming presidential elections in early 2015, where victory is a priority for Ukraine’s ruling elite, President Viktor Yanukovych’s most important task is to stabilise the increasingly difficult economic situation. To this end, it is necessary to ensure Ukrainian goods’ continued access to the Russian market, and to guarantee external financial support. The Ukrainian government is hoping that, in exchange for the postponement of its rapprochement with the EU, it will manage to come to an agreement with Russia on the issue of a stabilising loan and renegotiating the gas contract.

The crazy cat also blamed the IMF for the collapse of the deal with the EU — and certainly everyone knows that the economic hitmen at the IMF and their ilk only bring prosperity in their wake — per the NYT:

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov of Ukraine told enraged opposition lawmakers on Friday that his government’s decision to walk away from far-reaching political and trade agreements with the European Union was based on fiscal imperatives, and ultimately prompted by the International Monetary Fund’s overly harsh terms for an aid package.
…

Protests against the government’s decision were held in several Ukrainian cities, including Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine and a hotbed of anti-Yanukovich sentiment, where more than 5,000 people joined a rally in the main square, led by Mayor Andriy Sadovy. Kiev, the capital, was pulsing with emotion that officials and commentators said they had not seen since the Orange Revolution of 2004.

On Friday evening, about 1,000 people protested in the rain in Independence Square, the revolution’s central gathering point, waving European Union flags and chanting, “Ukraine is Europe!” A bigger rally was set for Sunday. The jailed former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, issued a statement urging people “to react to this as they would to a coup d’état” and take to the streets.

Note that it was western Ukraine that was the hotbed of protest. Good old Western Ukraine, home of legendary freedom-lovers.

Maidan Protests, Entirely Organic, Break Out

I’ll use the definitely not edited by the CIA Wikipedia entry on the Maidan Protests to tell the next part of the story:

The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government.[90] Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations,[91] and the influence of oligarchs.[92] Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world.[93] The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger.[5] Euromaidan was the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989[94] and led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

During the uprising, Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv was a huge protest camp occupied by thousands of protesters and protected by makeshift barricades. It had kitchens, first aid posts and broadcasting facilities, as well as stages for speeches, lectures, debates and performances.[95][96] It was guarded by ‘Maidan Self-Defense’ units made up of volunteers in improvised uniform and helmets, carrying shields and armed with sticks, stones and petrol bombs. Protests were also held in many other parts of Ukraine. In Kyiv, there were clashes with police on 1 December; and police assaulted the camp on 11 December. Protests increased from mid-January, in response to the government introducing draconian anti-protest laws. There were deadly clashes on Hrushevsky Street on 19–22 January. Protesters then occupied government buildings in many regions of Ukraine. The uprising climaxed on 18–20 February, when fierce fighting in Kyiv between Maidan activists and police resulted in the deaths of almost 100 protesters and 13 police.[71]

And about those protests, much like the 2004 Orange Revolution, I’d love to see the US State Department’s books on how much of the $5 billion Obama (and Bush and Clinton and later Biden) State Department official Victoria Nuland bragged about investing in Ukraine between 1991 and 2013 went to that kind of crap. I think there are some words for when one country spends immense fortunes to cause civil unrest in other countries; oh yea, it’s called subversion. Unless the US is doing it, then it’s just spreading freedom and democracy to a grateful world.

Crazy that some Ukrainians still wanted to be neutral and do business with Russia, who offered $15 billion in cash and a massive reduction in what Ukraine paid for natural gas. Evil Rooskies. Always up to something sneaky like that.

America’s investments in peace and democracy were bearing their fruits in the Maidan Protests in Kyiv, but a bipartisan pair of peace-loving US Senators went to the Ukrainian capital to help those fruits ripen even faster.

John McCain (R-Hell) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) addressed a crowd estimated at ~200,000 people saying, “We are here to support your just cause… And the destiny you seek lies in Europe.”

McCain shared these noble sentiments while standing shoulder to shoulder with one of Western Ukraine’s most notorious freedom lovers:

Those Putin-puppets at FAIR were still bitching about it in 2018, when then-Washington Post columnist (and current never-Trump freedom lover and Substacker) Jennifer Rubin got to singing McCain’s praises for his sterling human rights record, under an unfortunately chosen photo:

The Washington Post (8/27/18) published an op-ed by conservative staff opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin praising the late Sen. John McCain for his supposed commitment to “human rights.”

Rubin waxed poetic on the ostensible “lost champion” of human rights, who “model[ed] for others the behavior of a free society.” She declared, quite paradoxically, “With the possible exception of the US military…no group was more indebted to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) than the human rights community.”

There was an, er, optical problem, however: For the header image on this column, the Washington Post used a photo of McCain speaking next to the notorious Ukrainian neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok.

Tyahnybok, a longtime fascist, has called for a war on the so-called “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” (BBC, 12/26/12). The far-right leader has attacked the role of “Jews-Bolsheviks” in his country’s history, and claims that there is still today a cabal of “Jewish oligarchs who control Ukraine” (JTA, 3/25/09).

John McCain met with Tyahnybok and stood next to him as the senator gave a speech in Ukraine in late 2013, as Business Insider (12/16/13) reported at the time. The Washington Post indicated in the caption on its header image that McCain was “wav[ing] to protesters during a mass rally of the opposition in Kiev, Ukraine, on December 15, 2013.” But it failed to identify the man standing next to the Arizona senator—or his extremist politics, which are the antithesis of human rights.

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The Structural Incentives Of Western Capitalism Make Competing With China Impossible

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On September 15, 2026

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JoeQuant’s an ex NY finance guy who moved to Hong Kong. This tweet makes an important point:


He then goes on as follows:

One reason China is “winning” is that if you are a Western auto company, and you make extra money, you will put it into exec bonuses and shareholder buybacks. If you are a Chinese company, you realize that if you don’t put money back into the company, then the competition will eat you alive. At that point as a shareholder or exec you wonder how much is enough. What if I cut my salary to 2 million USD rather than 10 million USD and put the rest into R&D or worker salaries.

Yes.

The reason VW and other German firms made so much money in China for so long is that they had, brace for it, better cars. More technologically advanced. Better handling.

But, as Joe points out, they didn’t try and keep that lead. They let the Chinese beat them by refusing to properly re-invest their profits.

This is a constant problem in the West: our elites don’t want to compete on price. They don’t want to compete on quality. They want “moats” — they want monopoly profits just for existing.

The problem is that in most industries China doesn’t allow moats. It forces competition. It wants competitive markets. Chinese capitalism is actually what Americans think American capitalism is: red of tooth and claw. In America the Red Queen’s race is “make more money so you can buy more companies and make sure you can’t be bought”, in China it’s “keep ahead of real competition which is trying to have better quality cheaper products.”

I wrote a fairly long article on Germany’s tax and industrial policy earlier this year. The short of it is that they changed the incentives to make it easier for German firms to pay more divdends and do my buybacks, and so that investing outside the country made more sense than investing inside the country.

Then they got exactly what they deserved. Now, since they’re not competitive, they’re starting to switch their automotive industry over to military production.

And no, that won’t end well.

I continue to note that it appears that only communists and socialists seem to understand how to use markets to actually produce widespread prosperity. Capitalists should never be allowed to run markets, because capitalists always want to destroy the markets. The government must always view capitalists as greedy stupid children who must be supervised with heavy application of the rod, because the minute capitalists get rich, they want to end competitive markets. This is logical, in competitive markets no firm is ever secure, no fortune is ever impregnable.

Only oligarchy is safe for oligarchs. Unfortunately oligarchy destroys nations. Why is the US getting its ass kicked? Because it got rid of its industry. It’s that simple. It can’t even produce enough weapons any more, and essentially every industry in effectively an oligopoly–set up to raise prices faster than wages and entirely opposed to actual price and quality competition.

The CPC, not being capitalists, understand that capitalists are stupid, venal scum who must have fist of the state around their throat at all times.

The West used to understand that capitalists needed regulating, especially during the New Deal era. But they never truly understood that capitalists are like powerful nobles. If you don’t keep the boot on their neck, they will destroy you. And so they did and so they have, we’re just playing out the end results of oligarchs taking over the West: all the sound and fury and deaths are just part of an inevitable end-game. The actual damage was done in the 70s thru 90s (people can quibble about the dates) and the rest is just consequences.

If you want free markets, you need people who don’t trust capitalists in charge, and you need to be sure capitalists never capture the government. The second they do, your country is cooked. Depending on how prosperous it was before the oligarchs took over, it may take a few generations, but the end result is not in doubt.

 

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Defending Most Infrastructure Is Now Impossible But No One’s Getting It

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On September 14, 2026

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After Ansar Allah grabbed a huge chunk of territory, including coast and islands which let it control the Red Sea, and after blowing up a pumping station and pipeline which will require weeks to repair, the Sauds are doubling down with airstrikes and missile attacks.

And I’m wondering what’s going thru their heads.

Because we’re in a period where, with a few exceptions, anything can be destroyed by missiles and drones if you’re within range. That especially mean port infrastructure, airports, refineries (which have also been hit) and, yes, pipelines.

Whatever one thinks of Ansar Allah, they have shown an ability to absorb massive amounts of damage, and frankly, they have almost nothing. If it comes to a tit-for-tat exchange, they can take the punishment, while Saudi Arabia has all sorts of vulnerable infrastructure.

It’ll take, supposedly, six weeks to repair the pipeline.

Then it can just be hit again, because there is no way to protect it.

This is the new calculus of missile power. It’s hard to defend against, and in the context of western interceptor stockpiles being almost depleted, it’s effectively impossible.

In Ukraine/Russia this favors Russia, because they can hit more. In Yemen/Saudi Arabia it favors Yemen because what they can hit matters much more.

As with the Iran war, the correct play here is peace. Yemen wants an end to the blockade. Give it to them.

Saudi Arabia’s army is an infamous joke. They’re flirting with the end of the House of Saud here, because if the money stops, then their population will become a serious threat. The military is weak to avoid a possible coup, but that means it can’t stop a major uprising or invasion. The secret police are scary, but they only work at stomping out small fires, they can’t stop anything major.

Everyone hates the Saudi Royals. I’ve never met anyone who dealt with them who didn’t despise them, even if they were being paid well by the Sauds, they hated them.

This is a new world. Saudi Arabia bet on America to protect them, and that worked for generations. But America can’t any more. The royal family needs to find a new way, and so far the Pakistan/Turkey alliance is a dud.

It’s not looking good for them, but the first thing they need to do if they want to survive is get real about their situation, and about how warfare has changed.

I rather hope they don’t.

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Open Thread

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On September 12, 2026

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Use to discuss topics not covered in recent posts.

Information Overlord: Houthis Roll, Hegseth Bumbles, AI Doomer Hype, Lots of Music Talk

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On September 11, 2026

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Nat Wilson Turner = Information Overlord = Flames Up = Phones Out = No Sense of Urgency

From me this week as Nat Wilson Turner

This week at Naked Capitalism I pulled a shift covering the Iran War and tried to connect the dots between Pete Hegseth’s Department of War and what’s going on with Meta and OpenAI.

I also continued my “Joe Biden’s Three Genocides in Four Years” series with the first installment of the Ukraine debacle.

More of what I wrote and recorded for The MMA Draw and The Let It Roll Podcast is at the bottom of this post but I wanted to feature the news links and think pieces.

What I’m Reading and Watching

The Iran War

  • The Iran War Has Just Had A Major Phase Change — Ian Welsh. On the interceptor math: the US runs out long before Iran does if Iran chooses to go all out, and hitting only three or four tankers a day was a choice rather than a ceiling.

“As I said day one of the war, the math is on Iran’s side: the US will run out of interceptors long before Iran if Iran chooses to go all out.”

Empire, and what it remembers

The AI trade

The AI Doomers really had their moment this week. I hope y’all know most of that crap is as overblown as the hype.

Money

What the heck is going on with the bond market, private equity, etc

 

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Ansar-Allah’s Blitz Likely To Reduce Saudi Oil Exports To Near Zero

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On September 11, 2026

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The picture above is from an Ansar-Allah (Houthi) strike on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. That and the Red Sea are how they were getting around the Iranian blockade.

About the Red Sea:

Yemen appears to have captured four islands plus the West coast of Yemen, most of which they didn’t previously control. This is… remarkable… because they have no navy, no airforce and one of the islands had an air base.

Meanwhile, they completely routed Saudi mercenary forces, capturing vast amounts of land in thirty six hours:

Saudi (and a few UAE proxies) were routed. They basically fled on contact. This is what happens when merecenaries go up against real troops, and the US isn’t there to help. Saudi Arabia has a huge air force, but it appears to have done basically nothing. (It’s an open secret that the Saudi military is a complete joke.)

MBS begged Trump for help and got none:

Saudi Crown Prince MBS called US President Trump twice on thursday, urging the US to carry out strikes but Trump reportedly declined as there are currently no plans for direct intervention. (Axios)

The US is over-stretched, and not just low on interceptors on missiles, glide bombs and so on.

The war in Yemen was a big project for Obama, and it included a hell of a lot of US support. Even with all that support they were only able to contain Ansar-Allah, not defeat it. (It’s worth knowing that while most of Yemen is not under Ansar-Allah control even now, the areas they control have 80% of the population.)

This is what it looks like when an Empire is in fatal decline.

I consider this good news, overall, but it’s going to absolutely suck for almost everyone. I have warned before, I’m warning again: stock up on staple foods, fuels and so on. Ansar-Allah now has complete control of the Strait, plus that pipeline is down for a while, and they can take it out again, or hit more refineries. Combined with the Iranian blockade, hardly any Saudi oil will be getting out, nor will the precursors for fertilizers.

Much of what was holding the oil market down (other than massive manipulation and releases from the reserves) was China reducing its purchases for months, but they’ve started up again, so demand is actually increasing.

We’ll see if Saudi Arabia has more sense than America: the correct action is to make whatever concessions are necessary. The Sauds cannot protect their infrastructure, their army is garbage, their mercenaries won’t fight and Ansar Allah has them by the throat. If they insist on fighting on they risk losing everything, because without oil revenue, Saudi Arabia is not viable, right down to not having enough food.

Much like the Iranians, Yemen has escalation dominance and is more willing and able to take pain (they lost millions to the last war) than the corrupt and effete Saudis. The Sauds have LOST and if they refuse to admit that, the House of Saud itself may fall. (No one will miss it, except people like Kushner, whom it has bribed.)

I consider yesterday one of the best days, geopolitically, of my life. The American Raj is taking body blow after body blow and is fatally overstretched. But it is going to SUCK for most of us, as prices rise and there are shortages, unless Trump has surgery to correct his chronic case of head in ass and agrees to Iran’s terms, while the Sauds do the same with Yemen.

It’s hard to predict Trump, but my guess is his Israeli masters won’t let him make peace, so get ready: the next year is going to be awful in much of the world.

 

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The Iran War Has Just Had A Major Phase Change

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On September 10, 2026

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Recently the US started hitting Iranian oil tankers. The Iranians had said that if this happened, they would escalate and they have done just that. This is a very serious change in their strategy: before they retaliated, but did their best to keep casualties low, rarely made serious attacks on US naval ships, and their attacks were relatively small. That’s all changed.

(Footage of the US firing off more than 100 patriot missiles to try and stop an attack in Jordan.)


As best I can tell the interceptors also mostly failed to stop the missiles. The attack was much larger than normal, 30 to 50 missiles, showing that the previous smaller attacks were a choice, not an operational necessity. According to CBS 9 planes were damaged on the ground.

The change in doctrine was also confirmed:

Iran Threatens 20 Strikes For Every 2 Targets Hit

General Mohammadi says Iran has reached a new stage of retaliation and laid out its demands to END the War:

1) Completely END the war and military attacks

2) STOP further threats against Iran

3) WITHDRAW Israeli forces from Lebanon

4) END the siege of Yemen

5) RELEASE $24 BILLION in frozen Iranian assets

6) STOP interference in Iran’s NUCLEAR program 7) STOP interference in Iran’s MISSILE program

He says the era of limited retaliation is over.

Attacks on US ships have yet to take any out, but they force the use of interceptors and ships have very limited stockpiles. When they run out they have to pull back and wait for naval resupply or go to Diego Garcia for resupply, since all closer naval bases are no longer operational.

Jordan is the last shield before Israel. They routinely intercepted attacks against Israel from Iran during the early part of the war. Once their ability to do so is damaged, Israel lies open. In addition, the US is running very low on patriots – less than 900 before this attack seems to be the consensus estimate. And they just burned off 100 to protect from one attack.

As I said day one of the war, the math is on Iran’s side: the US will run out of interceptors long before Iran if Iran chooses to go all out. They didn’t because once the Strait was at least partially interdicted, they figured that the long term math favored them economically: the US and world economies would crack before they did. But that calculus changes if the US is going after Iranian tankers, so they’ve escalated. They’ve also been hitting far more tankers from other other countries than previously, again showing that hitting only 3 or 4 a day was a choice, not something they had to do.

Since Iran keeps saying that Israeli occupation of Lebanon is a red line (they’ve dropped Gaza, as I suspected they might) and since the war won’t end as long as Israel tells America to keep going, this war is moving back towards direct attacks on Israel.

This follows the Supreme Leader replacing moderates with hawks in various key positions.

To put it simply, Iran is now on the offensive. It does show that they have a weakness: they need at least some oil sales getting thru, but it also shows that they are militarily dominant in the region, especially against land based assets. And my guess is they still aren’t seriously trying to take out naval ships, but are just firing enough missiles and drones to drain interceptors and force a withdrawal.

Iran also needs to put more pressure, fast, on the US economy before the mid-terms.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, the Houthis are advancing aggressively.

The Yemeni Armed Forces through a series of rapid operations, have achieved significant advances in the Taiz and Hodeidah provinces within just a few hours, covering an area of approximately 2,600 square kilometers, and have liberated numerous areas, including the strategically important port of Al-Mokha.

On the Taiz front, the Yemeni Armed Forces have made rapid progress in the districts of Al-Wazi’iyah and Mozah in western Taiz province. During these rapid advances, with the support of popular committees, the Yemeni Armed Forces have cleared the Al-Wazi’iyah and Al-Mokha, the important Khaled bin Walid base, and areas in the Al-Wazi’iyah district, including Al-Hania, Al-Aqma, and Al-Gheil, extending to the outskirts of Al-Shaqira, the center of the Al-Wazi’iyah district.

In southern Hodeidah province, the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of the important towns of Hays and then Al-Khukhah, and by continuing their advance along the coastal strip and liberating Yahtal, they entered and took control of the strategically important port of Al-Mokha.

The advances of this morning are reminiscent of the rapid advances made five years ago in the Hodeidah province, when, in November 2021, the Saudi-led coalition forces were forced to withdraw from the entire coastal strip, from within the city of Hodeidah to north of Al-Khukhah in southern Hodeidah province.

The intense pressure exerted by the Yemeni fighters on all fronts in western Taiz province and southern Hodeidah continues, and the forces of Tariq Saleh are reportedly fleeing the fronts towards Aden.

Overall, with the advances made over the past three days, the conditions have been created for the complete liberation of the southwestern coast of Yemen, and also for the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

The Houthis are just better fighters than the mercenary forces Saudi Arabia is using, and the Saudi Army is a joke in any case.

The real battle of the Iranian war is yet to come: once Iran has cleared away the US forces protecting Israel, they will need to force Israel to tell the Americans to go to peace. By clearing the forces they will also make it much harder for America to hit Iranian tankers and infrastructure

Stay tuned. This is the most important war of the last 50 years.

Update:

What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.

 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 13, 2026

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On September 9, 2026

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 13, 2026
by Tony Wikrent

 

How the EU is using anti-Russia sanctions to criminalise journalism

Hüseyin Dogru,  September 6, 2026 [defenddemocracy.press]

The EU sanctioned me and my media outlet for covering Palestine protests in Germany.

 

War on voting

The Final Battle for America’s Democracy

Michael Luttig, September 10, 2026 [The New Republic]
[Summarized in link below, plus more.]

Letters from an American, September 12, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson, September 12, 2026

On Thursday, in The New Republic, conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published a dire warning to the Republican Party…and to all Americans. In the piece, Luttig outlined how Republicans could refuse to seat elected Democrats in January after a Democratic victory in the 2026 midterm elections of November. “The coming crisis,” the piece says, would be “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”

Luttig spelled out that Trump is fighting a war against America’s democracy. While the refusal of Vice President Mike Pence to assist his power grab made it fail in January 2021, Luttig notes, today Trump and his Republican congressional allies are more determined than ever to take over the country.

Luttig focuses on the ability of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to prevent the recognition of duly-elected Democratic representatives on January 3. Johnson has the power, Luttig says, to remove the current House clerk, Kevin McCumber, and replace him temporarily with a MAGA loyalist who will refuse to list Democrats on the roll of those elected to the 120th Congress.

In this scenario, once Democrats are eliminated, they will have to get a federal court to order the temporary clerk to list their names. If a court does so, another crisis point will arrive if the clerk simply refuses to obey the order. Then it’s possible the courts will stay out of the fight until the 120th Congress formally convenes and the Republicans vote not to seat the Democrats. That vote would be reviewable by the courts, including the Supreme Court.

But that review would take weeks, if not months, paralyzing the United States and leaving the country “helplessly vulnerable to all the world’s evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” And at that point, how would the current Supreme Court answer the question: “Is the United States of America a democracy, in which ‘We the People’ elect our representatives to the Congress and to the presidency, or is it not?”

As if to illustrate Luttig’s warning, House speaker Johnson told attendees at Trump’s convention in Dallas on Thursday: “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in the Congress. We’re not gonna do it.”

Trump’s attempt to use the United States Postal Service to screen mail-in voting has recently had a test run. Yesterday, Jim Saksa of Democracy Docket picked up a story from Jeff Berlew of the Tallahassee Democrat to report that the USPS rejected mailed ballots from Leon County, in Florida, because the words “return service requested” were only 0.236 inches from the election office’s return address. They were supposed to be a full quarter-inch apart. So, the delivery of those mail in ballots came down to a federal complaint about a spacing issue of 0.014 of an inch.

“It’s ridiculous,” Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley told Berlew. But, as Saksa notes, the rejection of ballots for such a petty flaw shows what will likely happen if the Supreme Court lifts the injunction blocking the postal service from implementing the new rules it has put in place since Trump ordered such interference in a March executive order.

On Thursday, September 10, Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) under Trump has sent threatening letters to at least thirty top election officials in the states, warning that those officials “are currently under investigation” and are subject to “ongoing litigation,” and so must not destroy any records relating to the 2024 election. As Corasaniti notes, the administration has sued 30 states for their voter lists and has lost 23 of the cases and won none. Trump has claimed to be the victim of voter fraud since the 2016 primaries but has never produced any proof of his claims.

In July, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the civil rights division in the DOJ, threatened state election officials with criminal prosecution if any noncitizens cast a ballot in their state (although it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote), and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin threatened election officials with criminal prosecution if they did not put Trump’s election changes into effect….

 

Voting Rights Groups Are Preparing to Confront ICE at the Polls

[Truthout, via Naked Capitalism 09-07-2026]

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