"A deep misunderstanding of the nature of war."

Editor's note: As you read through this extensive article by The Unz Review, keep in the back of your minds that somebody might be destroying petrochemical facilities in different countries. The supposition is global elites are intentionally disrupting oil supplies, food production, and infrastructure to trigger famine, depopulation, and societal collapse. These crises could be engineered to justify increased surveillance and centralized control under a future global agenda, while the public remains largely unaware due to misleading economic signals mostly involving oil (when the US dollar loses its strength the price of oil rises). Negotiations seem to be underway between China, Russia and the US to allow China to build oil infrastructure in Iran. There will be no "American surrender", only agreements on oil and central banking, so use discernment in this report. Nobody has access to the organizations and people planning and carrying out what's going on and what we are seeing unfold with Iran is mostly theater.  
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Will China Retaliate Against Donald Trump's Oil Blockade and Force an American Surrender? 

By Ron Unz | April 13, 2026 | 633 Comments

As might have been expected, the peace talks in Islamabad between America and Iran quickly ended in complete failure, breaking up in less than 24 hours.

President Donald Trump had originally proposed peace negotiations based upon Iran's 10-point proposal, but all of that was totally ignored when the talks actually began. According to media accounts, the American team led by Vice President JD Vance and New York City real estate developers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff instead issued unacceptable demands to the Iranians. These included that the Iranians must abandon all the nuclear enrichment activities to which they were legally entitled and also relinquish their control of the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps Vance and the others surprisingly expected to win at the negotiating table what their American military had completely failed to achieve in six weeks of warfare, and they were disappointed when the Iranians stood firm.

Astonishingly enough, a Washington Post columnist had recently called for the assassination of all of Iran’s leaders and negotiators unless they bowed to American demands, and this led some to suggest that the Iranian team should fly back to their own country on a Russian or Chinese airliner lest the disgruntled Americans shoot their plane down. America as a nation has sadly begun to resemble some unfortunate animal suffering from rabies, a pattern of behavior that also reflects what journalist Glenn Greenwald has decried as the increasing "Israelization" of our political system. But perhaps this merely demonstrates the remarkable extent of American desperation after more than six weeks of a lost war.

Meanwhile, the most substantive outcome of these failed talks was Trump's announcement that he would impose his own blockade on the Persian Gulf, ordering his navy to seize all oil tankers that pass the Strait of Hormuz in order to eliminate Iranian oil revenues. Given the dangers of Iranian missiles, our warships will probably be forced to remain far from the Iranian shore and seize these vessels on the high seas, constituting blatant acts of illegal piracy. And even if successful, such a measure would remove at least 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from the international markets, thereby greatly driving up prices. Indeed, this was the exact reason that just last month America had suddenly lifted all sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing it to be easily sold internationally, but the Trump Administration is hardly notorious for its logical consistency.

China currently buys some 90% of Iranian oil and large quantities from the other Persian Gulf states, and by seizing China-bound tankers in international waters, Trump's new action amounted to imposing an oil blockade against China, an obvious act of war. But two can play at the blockade game, and I wonder if Trump’s rash decision may finally prompt the notoriously cautious Chinese to retaliate with the sort of shrewd, calculated response that would force America into a rapid surrender, thereby putting an end to the dangerous Iran War before it further escalates.

Since I'm not involved in the inner discussions of the Trump Administration, I can't say exactly why Vance and his team issued such aggressive demands to their Iranian interlocutors, and then immediately terminated the negotiations when those were refused. But it's possible they were operating under the assumption that America was winning the war, and that the Iranians would therefore be forced to bend to their will. Given our massive bombing campaign against Iran and the very small number of casualties we have suffered, that might seem a reasonable conclusion, but it would be based upon a deep misunderstanding of the nature of war.

Please go to The Unz Review to continue reading.

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The destruction of oil related assets continues:

Oil slick near Tuapse covers 10,000 sq m after drone attack