Geopolitical Economy Hour: Michael Hudson & Radhika Desai – War On Iran, World War III or Imperialism’s Last Stand?

The latest twist – out of many twists and turns – in the US-Israeli war on Iran is Trump’s announcement that the War in Iran will be ‘ending very soon’ and that it was ‘ “very complete, pretty much” and ahead of schedule.

At the same time, he also claimed that ‘We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.

Iranian authorities called his bluff right away, stating that they would determine when the war would end, ruled out talks and said that they would not allow “one litre of oil” to be shipped from the Middle East as long as the US-Israeli war continued and Trump threatened to hit them “20 times harder”.

This is clearly Trump preparing his off ramp because he is worried about the markets because what is at stake there is not just the price of oil, not just inflation, not just interest rates, not just another recession, but the future of the dollar system, the chief mechanism though which the US sucks up value from around the world.  After all, higher interest rates would prick the multitude of bubbles, or the everything bubble, on which the dollar system depends.

However, not only is Trump likely too late, they may allow him no off-ramp.

Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the resulting mess.