Former intelligence contractor, Tore Maras did a marathon livestream yesterday that was nearly 4 hours long, covering her most recent articles that you can read here.
I’ve cut down the first 70 minutes of the podcast to 25 minutes, where she gives her perspective on the war in Iran, starting with the raging “MAGA Civil War” from which I’ve been largely spared, due to being permanently de-platformed by the social media majors.
Tore says that the spectacular number of social media influencer crash-outs are mostly products of paid foreign propaganda; mainly Chinese, Turkish, Iranian and European. The debris field is wide and it appears to include Alex Jones, who went on The Jimmy Dore Show on Sunday to explain his irreconcilable break-up with Donald Trump.
She then discusses the importance of Kharg Island, which she describes as the “Core of the Petrodollar” and a strategic node that would determine how this entire confrontation ends.
Prior to this weekend, 90% of Iran’s oil exports were shipped from Kharg, so the US bombing campaign on the Island has cut off the Regime’s main source of income. She says the operation was supposed to take place after the Midterm elections but it got escalated. She says Israel had wanted to obliterate Kharg, which would have caused a global economic catastrophe by spiking oil prices upwards of $150 barrel.
As it stands, 90 military targets, including the runway, the naval base, the air defenses, the mines, the drones and other weapons stored there were vaporized but the petroleum infrastructure has been left unharmed.
Tore says the Iran war is really about the challenge to the Petrodollar that was mounted by China and Iran out of Kharg. She explains that what China and Iran built there was the first serious physical and financial infrastructure capable of sustaining an alternative to the Petrodollar, at scale.
The payments were denominated in yuan, cleared through CIPS, which is China’s alternative to SWIFT and processed through the Bank of Kunlun, thus completely evading US Treasury Sanctions. A dark fleet of sanctioned tankers were granted safe passage to China, while Western-flagged vessels were targeted.
For example, on March 7th, while bombs were dropping all over Iran, the sanctioned VLCC Nora loaded 2.1 million barrels of crude oil at Kharg Island and departed for Ningbo, China. Meanwhile, at least 17 commercial vessels have been attacked by Iran in the Strait since March 1st, while Lloyd’s of London reportedly cancelled insurance policies.
Tore says that if US forces stand at the terminal where those tankers dock, this alternative financial architecture will collapse at its source. As she says, “You can’t route oil through a yuan settlement system when Americans are standing at the dock.” US Marines are currently en route to Kharg to do just that.
She then describes “The China Trap”, the most elegant geostrategic move she’s ever seen, which she thinks will be studied in geopolitics courses for decades to come:
Trump has invited China to send warships to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. If China accepts and sends their warships alongside American naval forces, they will thereby legitimize American control of the energy corridor. They will have acknowledged that the Strait requires American security to function and they will have abandoned their entire post-dollar energy architecture with that decision.
As she says, “You can’t simultaneously claim you’re building a yuan-denominated oil trading system and send your navy to escort tankers through an American-controlled checkpoint.”
If China refuses, they will have demonstrated to every Belt and Road partner nation in the region that when the energy checkpoints are contested, China can’t protect their supply chains and their entire claim to be a “reliable alternative to American dominance” will evaporate.
She says the Iran war has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, it a financial war dressed-up as a military war.
