Tag: finance

Apparently still reeling from last week’s United Nations Security Council vote where the door was forever shut on the US bid to indefinitely extend the UN arms embargo on Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Thursday remarks blasted Washington’s European allies at a moment he’s attempting to trigger “snapback sanctions”.

In a news conference from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), he charged that Germany, France and the UK are hypocritical in supposedly expressing private support for the US position, while at the UN they publicly “chose to side with Ayatollahs” against the controversial procedure to uphold the punitive action rooted in the JCPOA.

It should be recalled in last Friday’s initial vote which triggered what many see as but more Washington desperation while Europe largely stands by the terms of the Obama-era nuclear deal, only the tiny Dominican Republic voted “yes” to extend the weapons embargo alongside the US. What’s more, Europe is now vehemently opposing Pompeo’s controversial procedure to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran.

He’s specifically responding to the latest actions of Britain, France and Germany, all who say— 

The US did not have the legal right to trigger the so-called “snapback” of sanctions because it withdrew from the Iranian nuclear accord in 2018.

Ironically, Pompeo is claiming authority to initiate a procedure which is ultimately based on the US still being a participant in the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) with Iran, but obviously the Trump administration withdrew in May 2018.

Pompeo lashed out in response late Thursday, saying:  

“No country but US has the courage and conviction to put forward a resolution. Instead, they chose to side with ayatollahs.”

“The United States will never allow the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons,” Pompeo asserted in New York. “We will never allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he emphasized during the UNSC address.

The process to re-impose sanctions on Iran begins. Today I hand-delivered a letter to @UN Security Council President Dian Triansyah Djani to formally notify the Council of something we all know too well—Iran’s failure to meet its commitments under the terrible nuclear deal. pic.twitter.com/MltLupj7lg

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) August 20, 2020

He did however, praise the Arab Gulf nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for being firm in calling for the extension of a weapons ban in a formal joint statement.

Meanwhile, Iran is boasting of two new longer range missiles on Thursday – one named after the IRGC Quds Force chief killed this year by US drone strike:

Pompeo at UN today to request snapback sanctions on Iran.
Majority of Security Council dispute U.S. has legal ground.

Meanwhile, Iran unveils a ballistic missile named after Gen. Sulaimani & a cruise missile named after Abu Muhandes. pic.twitter.com/7qB1SnnsBw

— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) August 20, 2020

He further vowed that the US will do absolutely everything to ensure to enforce sanctions on Iran if they are violated, especially weapons, even on American allies.

It should be noted that both China and Russia have also called out Washington for being in no legal position whatsoever to renew Iran sanctions related to the JCPOA. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov slammed Washington’s latest push as “absurd.”

And China had this to say through its foreign ministry spokesman: “We have repeatedly said that the US has already withdrawn from the JCPOA and therefore has no right to request the restoration of the UN sanctions regime against Iran.”

The reality remains that with the US formally withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear deal, it’s in a much more difficult position to force its will on the diplomatic front, which is why it’s reverted to increasingly confrontational and aggressive unilateral sanctions enforcement and threats, even lately going so far as seizing fuel-laden Iranian ships on the high seas.

Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

Western Michigan University ethics professor Parker Crutchfield recently had an essay published in The Conversation in which he said psychoactive medications might be the most effective way to fight the spread of COVID-19.

He stated:

To me, it seems the problem of coronavirus defectors could be solved by moral enhancement: like receiving a vaccine to beef up your immune system, people could take a substance to boost their cooperative, pro-social behavior. Could a psychoactive pill be the solution to the pandemic?

He reiterated the idea later in the essay, saying:

I believe society may be better off, both in the short term as well as the long, by boosting not the body’s ability to fight off disease but the brain’s ability to cooperate with others. What if researchers developed and delivered a moral enhancer rather than an immunity enhancer?

Yes, that is precisely what we need most.  

A “morality pill.”  What could go wrong with a government mandating the usage of a “morality enhancing” drug to make its citizens more “cooperative” and compliant?  Forcing people to comply with whatever the state mandates — by way of mind-altering drugs — sounds like a great idea!  People would never again take their masks off, never leave their abodes, always strictly comply with all social-distancing laws and regulations.  Follow Big Brother’s rules, and we can eliminate the coronavirus.  And free will, freedom, acts of conscience, and our souls.  Perhaps it would be best if we turned to God as our moral enhancer rather than science.

The Nazis would have loved the idea of a pill to make the Jews more malleable and compliant.  It would have made the Holocaust easier.

I’m sure China will run with Crutchfield’s idea.  It already grades its citizens on their social behavior and acquiescence to the government’s wishes.  Maybe everyone could get a perfect score!

But let’s not be xenophobic.  Can you imagine if today’s Democratic Party had morality pills to dispense?  If they controlled all three branches of the federal government as they control most of America’s big cities, do you truly doubt they’d push the pills as the best possible way to “flatten the curve”?  Look at the actions of some of the country’s Democratic governors and mayors.  They have already mandated the use of face masks (even outdoors), arrested people for paddle-boarding or sunbathing, told people they cannot leave their homes for long stretches of time, and banned weddings and funeral attendance.  I wouldn’t put it past them to demand we all wear tweed jackets and clown shoes while mandating the taking of our daily morality pills.

I can almost hear Big Brother (Nancy Pelosi?) saying, “And remember, citizens: vote a straight Democratic ticket this coming election.  It’s the right thing to do.”

Amid a record-breaking heatwave, air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area was the worst in the world, as smoke from wildfires blows over the region.

Source: PurpleAir

As ABC7 reports, more than 10,800 lightning strikes started 367 new fires according to CAL FIRE division chief Jeremy Rahn.

“Over the past 72 hours, California has experienced a historic lightning siege.”

Three major wildfire complexes in the East Bay, North Bay and southern Peninsula continue to blow smoky air over nearly the entire region.

Source: ABC7

“It’s going to get worse in a lot of areas,” said ABC7 News Meteorologist Mike Nicco Thursday.

Source: PurpleAir

San Francisco Mayor London Breed warned residents:

“The best thing you can do is avoid exposure to outdoor air by staying indoors with the windows and doors closed.”

And ironically, the ‘lockdown’ is being suggested as California Governor Gavin Newsom urges residnts to turn off A?C units to preserve electricity and the state also deals with rolling blackoust.

Seems like another good reason to start considering joining the ‘mass exodus’.

Authored by Sophia Jiang via The Epoch Times,

Australians are hoarding cash but using cashless transactions more than ever thanks to the effects of the CCP virus, two new reports have found.

The reports from electronic payment company Square shows that cash gave way to cards in daily transactions over the first half of the year while Australia’s central banking institution the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)revealed that the demand for banknotes had increased by 11 billion since February.

More Businesses Turn to Cashless

Square’s report (pdf) showed that over one in three Australian businesses— an estimated 36 percent—were effectively cashless during the lock-down peak in April, compared to seven percent pre-pandemic in January.  Square defined cashless as accepting 95% or more transactions through debit or credit cards.

Data analysis also showed that cash payments declined by more than half between January and April, down from 35 percent to 15 percent of all transactions. But the payments levelled out in June to 18 percent.

Square also noted some variances between states and industries.

The ACT saw the most substantial cash payments plummeting,  from 42 percent of transactions in January to 14 percent in April. By June, 35.6 percent of businesses in the territory has turned cashless, over three times that of January at 9.8 percent.

In Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, cash payments also declined by more than half during the period from January to April, with the ratio of cashless businesses more than doubling to above 20 percent by June.

By contrast, the Northern Territory remained the most committed to paying by cash, with cashless businesses ratio edging up only by 0.9 percent during the period from January to June, from 14.5 percent to 15.4 percent.

Professor Steve Worthington from Swinburne University Business School attributed the decline in cash payments to both safety concerns and the drop in the number of available ATMs. Adding that he believed the pandemic is only accelerating the digital shift that has been gaining momentum over the recent years.

“For consumers, fears over social distancing and a preference to minimise contact with physical currency are likely to be top of mind,” he told Square’s blog.

“What’s more, with banks closing branches, reducing operating hours and fewer ATMs available, there’s less cash in circulation. Combining that with the fact that many businesses favour digital payments for speed and security, there’s less incentive now for any of us to carry cash.”

Latest figures from the self-regulatory payments body, the Australian Payments Network shows that the number of ATMs fell from 27,870 to 25,720—a drop of 2150—during the June quarter.

Higher Demand for Cash

Despite the increase in cashless transactions, The Reserve Bank has seen a rise in demand for banknotes in recent months, mainly by individuals with substantial deposit balances.

In his August 14 speech to House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, RBA governor Philip Lowe noted keeping extra cash was some Australian’s responses to the pandemic.

“While COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to electronic payments, there has, paradoxically, also been record demand for banknotes,” he said.

“Some people seem to be wanting to keep some extra money at home. The result has been that the stock of banknotes on issue has increased from $83 billion in February to $94 billion today.”

The elevated demand reflects concerns over financial stability amid the pandemic-induced economic recession.

RBA has revealed in its Financial Stability Review report [pdf ] in April that over-the-counter withdrawals of cash from banks increased sharply over the second half of March as some customers with considerable balances sought to hold precautionary funds.

“This included a small number of customers making very large withdrawals (more than $100,000, and in some cases into the millions of dollars),” the report said.

RBA is confident that the Australian financial system will navigate the crisis because of the high capital levels and strong liquidity position of banks, as well as their high profitability and excellent asset performance.

When President Trump campaigned across coal-mining producing states in 2016, he told industry leaders and workers that it was Barack Obama’s strict environmental regulations that doomed them.

In late 2016, the president, then a Republican candidate, told coal miners in West Virginia: “We’re going to take care of years of horrible abuse. I guarantee it.”

But new data reveals a troubling trend for the president’s attempt to revive the coal industry, one that suggests the recovery has yet to materialize, but rather the great bust cycle in coal continues to gain momentum. We noted, as early as 2016, the president wouldn’t be able to save the dying industry. 

Bloomberg’s Justin Fox wrote a new opinion piece Monday outlining the demise of coal under the Trump administration. He sourced government data from the EIA that shows US power generation from coal just recently hit a five-decade low. 

Fox wrote, “Renewables will most likely surpass the fossil fuel in electricity generation this year despite the Trump administration’s efforts to prop it up.” 

The decline of coal has accelerated since President Trump took office.

Readers may recall, President Trump promised to “end the war on coal” in 2016:

“Oh, coal country – what they have done… You are amazing people and we’re going to take care of a lot of years of horrible abuse – you can count on it, 100%… If I win, we’re going to bring those miners back to work – you’re going to be so proud of your president and your country. You’re going to be back to better than ever before and that means all kinds of energy. We never want to be in a position like we were in before, where we were literally controlled by people.”

While many in the coal industry thought they were going to have friends in high places (i.e., the White House) that might have turned out not to be the case as a disorderly collapse of the industry continues with bankruptcies, liquidations, mine closures, and idled mines. 

As we noted in summer 2019 (see: Trump Is Silent After Bankruptcy Wave Devastates Major Coal Producers), the administration, who once routinely pumped the coal industry in daily headlines, is nowhere to be found cheerleading the industry. Instead, the Trump administration is cheering the Nasdaq hitting record highs as the real economy falters. 

Thanks for playing coal miners… 

Senior editor, Ash Bennington, hosts managing editor, Roger Hirst, to discuss ongoing global monetary and fiscal policy support, how central banks may need to adjust their course, and what the long-term ramifications would look like. Ash and Roger review the latest FOMC minutes and consider the effects of looser inflation targeting and the implementation of yield curve control. They dig deeper into the push and pull of inflation targeting by looking at the risks of aiming for reflation and ending up with stagflation. In an environment of low rates and low yields within a deflationary structure, Roger and Ash explore how aggregate debt and growth could be negatively impacted in the long run. Finally, they look at how these scenarios would be expressed in currency markets—the continuing disparity between the dollar and the DXY and the growing pressure for a weaker euro and yen. In the intro, Peter Cooper examines the scaling back of U.S. dollar liquidity swaps, the newest unemployment numbers, and the FOMC minutes.

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

President Trump is saying that he might issue a pardon to Edward Snowden. For some reason, he hasn’t said the same thing about Julian Assange.

But a pardon suggests that the person being pardoned has done something wrong.

Neither Snowden and Assange has done anything wrong – at least not in a moral sense. It is the U.S. government – and specifically the national-security state branch of the federal government – that has engaged in terrible wrongdoing – wrongdoing that Snowden and Assange revealed to the American people and the people of the world.

Therefore, the real question is: Should Snowden and Assange pardon the U.S. for having destroyed a large part of their lives and liberty?

Oh, sure, the two of them technically violated the federal government’s national-security laws, rules, and regulations against revealing the dark-side, sordid policies and practices of the national-security establishment. Big deal. Those laws, rules, and regulations are illegitimate, at least in a moral sense. Why should the dark-side, sordid policies and practices of a government be immune from disclosure?

The American people have now become so accustomed to living under a national-security state form of governmental structure that many of them tend toward deferring to the laws, rules, and regulations that come with a national-security state. Thus, when the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA refer to Snowden and Assange as “enemies of the state” or “traitors,” the tendency of many Americans is to blindly accept their assessment.

Of course, it works that way under every national-security state. Look at China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, They too are all national-security states. Like the U.S. national-security state, they all engage in dark-side, sordid policies and practices. And like the U.S. national-security state, they go after anyone who discloses such policies and practices with a vengeance. And most of their citizens blindly and loyally go along with it all.

The real question, however, is not whether Snowden and Assange should pardon the U.S. government. In fact, the real question isn’t even whether it should be a crime for people to disclose the dark-side, sordid policies and practices of a national-security state.

The real question — one that unfortunately will not be discussed in the presidential race — is whether it’s time to end America’s 75-year experiment as a national-security state.

A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure, one that empowers a government to engage, either secretly or openly, in dark-side, sordid policies and practices, such as torture, assassination, coups, murder, regime-change operations, invasions, bribery, kidnappings, indefinite detention, denial of due process, denial of trial by jury, and denial of speedy trial.

Keep in mind that the United States was founded as a limited-government republic, not a national-security state. In fact, if the Constitution had proposed a national-security state, there is no possibility that the American people would have approved the Constitution. That would have meant that the nation would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation, a third type of governmental system under which the federal government’s powers were so weak and limited that it didn’t even have the power to tax people.

It wasn’t until the end of World War II that the federal government was converted into a national-security state. The rationale was that in order to prevent the communists, especially those that governed the Soviet Union (which, ironically, had been America’s wartime ally and Nazi Germany’s enemy) from from taking over the United States, it would be necessary to become a national-security state, just like the communist regimes were. A limited-government republic, it was said, would be insufficient to defeat a foreign regime that wielded omnipotent dark-side, sordid powers.

I challenge that notion. The best way to have opposed communism would have been to remain a free society and a limited-government republic, not by adopting the governmental structure and dark-side, sordid policies and practices of the communists.

Nonetheless, one thing is crystal clear: The Cold War ended in 1989 and so did the justification for converting the federal government into a national-security state in the first place.

By disclosing the dark-side, sordid policies and practices of the U.S. national-security state, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have performed an invaluable service to the American people. They have helped remind us that this is not what America is supposed to be all about.

Assange and Snowden deserve the praise and thanks of every American. The best way we can honor them is by dismantling America’s Cold War legacy of a national-security state and restoring America’s founding system of a limited-government republic.

Officials in the Florida Keys approved a plan to release over 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes, despite objections by local residents and several environmental advocacy groups.

The proposal – aimed at eradicating the Aedes aegypti species of mosquito that carries several deadly diseases including Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever – has already been approved by both state and federal bodies, with the EPA signing off on it in May.

“With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the State of Florida — the Covid-19 pandemic, racial injustice, climate change — the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety in a Wednesday statement reported by CNN.

“Now the Monroe County Mosquito Control District has given the final permission needed. What could possibly go wrong? We don’t know, because EPA unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks, now without further review of the risks, the experiment can proceed,” she added.

Named OX5034, the mosquito has been genetically altered to produce only female offspring which die in the larval stage, before they can hatch and start biting things. Only female mosquitoes suck blood, which they require to mature their eggs. Males feed on nectar and are not carriers for disease.

To grow them to adulthood, however, the antibiotic tetracycline is added to the water – creating batches of sterile OX513A which would be allowed to mate with females, whose offspring would inherit the self-destruct programming and die.

The same mosquitoes have also been approved for release in Harris County, Texas beginning next year, according to the US-owned UK-based Oxitec which developed the genetically modified bugs and has field tested them in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil.

According to the company, a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the Aedes aegypti by 95%.

“This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases,” said Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen in a previous statement.

Florida reached out to Oxitec in 2012, after 2009 and 2010 outbreaks of dengue fever in the Florida Keys were unable to be contained with aerial, truck and backpack spraying, as well as the use of mosquito-eating fish.

That said, a backlash over the GMO mosquitoes has ensued – with nearly 250,000 people signing a Change.org petition against the plan.

The EPA permit requires Oxitec to notify state officials 72 hours before releasing the mosquitoes and conduct ongoing tests for at least 10 weeks to ensure none of the female mosquitoes reach adulthood.

However, environmental groups worry that the spread of the genetically modified male genes into the wild population could potentially harm threatened and endangered species of birds, insects and mammals that feed on the mosquitoes. -CNN

“The release of genetically engineered mosquitoes will needlessly put Floridians, the environment and endangered species at risk in the midst of a pandemic,” said food technology program manager at Friends of the Earth, Dana Perls.

Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

If you have three large objects that have gravitational impact on each other, you can determine where they have been in the past.

However, you cannot predict where they will be in the future. At least, not without great difficulty.

In physics, this is called the three-body problem.

In economics, we are well beyond the three-body problem.

I think it is more like an eight-body problem.

See if you agree:

Body No. 1: The service economy has imploded. We don’t know when it is coming back. I am not going to argue the correctness of whether we should lock down or open up. I am simply talking about what is. And it appears that much of the economy is going to be locked down for some time. There is simply no telling when that part of the economy will normalize.

Body No. 2: We have seen the largest central bank intervention, not just in the US but in many parts of the world, ever in history. Clearly that is keeping markets up. Furthermore, governments are providing fiscal stimulus in an unprecedented manner. In essence, the government borrowed money to give people the money that they would’ve earned in their jobs. Interestingly, not all of it was spent. We have seen a record amount of disposable income being added to savings.

The US government is in a food fight over the next round of stimulus. Some amount will likely be determined. That is a major economic gravitational body, and we have no idea what it will look like this year, let alone next year and 2022.

Body No. 3: Federal Reserve policy and, to some extent, government policy has short-circuited both Schumpeter’s creative destruction cycle and moral hazard. Companies with the lowest-rated junk bonds are refinancing their debt at lower rates. In some cases, that means we are keeping zombie companies afloat.

Body No. 4: Global trade is beginning to implode. This is a global depression and it affects everyone. I was writing 20 years ago that the biggest threat to prosperity in the future would be protectionism and tariffs. I have made it clear that China is not a good actor, and we need to review our policies and our reliance upon them. But tariffs are just a bad idea, whether it’s China or Europe or whatever country.

Body No. 5: On average, six companies with assets larger than $50 million have filed for bankruptcy every week since April. This is going to increase and become a tsunami. Small local companies don’t even bother filing because it’s too expensive. Every one of them represents jobs.

This is the hard one…

Body No. 6: The working class will be last to see the recovery. Most of the jobs that are being lost are by the least-well-off in our society. We’re talking about tens of millions of workers who can’t work from home. Those with children have to figure out how to take care of them in case schools don’t open… or if they don’t want to send them back. Unemployment insurance won’t cover the bills when the federal money runs out. And employment is not going to bounce back miraculously in Q1. It is going to be a long, slow climb.

Now for some good news…

Body No. 7: Entrepreneurs will re-emerge, and new ones will seize this moment to shine. All those businesses going bankrupt or out of business? They are run by entrepreneurs who have the entrepreneurial bug. It is part of their DNA.

I was talking to a Dallas restauranteur who is “down” to three restaurants. He is stretching his cash and hoping for another round of PPP. He will breathe easier when he can get his normally booming restaurants up to 50% occupancy.

Depressed? Not at all. He believes this will all eventually normalize, and he will have the greatest opportunity he has ever had. He can see 10 restaurants in his future. This is the kind of vision that accelerates recoveries.

He and hundreds of thousands of other entrepreneurs throughout the country and the world look for opportunity. It’s just what they do. They can’t help themselves.

It will take time, and they have to figure out where the capital will come from. But I am convinced that entrepreneurs will be the ones to dig us out from this, not governments.

Body No. 8: We are in the midst of The Greatest Transformation in history. Elon Musk just launched and landed a massive rocket as a test. That is just a very visible example of tens of thousands of new technological revolutions happening all around us.

These disruptive technologies will truly change the world. I can’t even begin to describe what is happening in the biotechnology and aging space. Artificial intelligence, robotics, self-driving cars, incredible advances in agriculture, shipping, quantum computers… you name it. The list is just too long. And it’s growing.

Every one of the “bodies” I mentioned will have a significant recovery impact. We don’t know how they will interact.

In the meantime, take heart. Yes, there are a lot of miles left on this road, and it’s going to be lumpy and bumpy. But we have a lot to look forward to along the way.

*  *  *

Get my timely take as that happens here: https://twitter.com/johnfmauldin.

I predict an unprecedented crisis that will lead to the biggest wipeout of wealth in history. And most investors are completely unaware of the pressure building right now. Learn more here.

In timing sure to make things awkward at the UN where the Security Council just voted down the United States’ bid to extend the weapons embargo on the Islamic Republic, Tehran has unveiled a new ballistic missile named after Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed last January in a US drone strike.

“Iran displayed locally made ballistic and cruise missiles – a move certain to anger the United States as it prepares to demand that all UN sanctions be reimposed on the country,” Al Jazeera reports. State media featured a ballistic missile launch test in the desert Thursday.

The other missile is named after Iraq’s top Shia militia leader who was killed in the same convoy while traveling with Soleimani through the Baghdad airport, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Defense Minister Amir Hatami touted the ballistic missile’s range of 1,400km (or 600 miles), with the cruise missile at an estimated 1,000km (400 miles), which flies in the face of Washington’s demands that Iran shut down its advanced missile program.

Indeed the Iranians almost seem positively boastful, choosing this moment to show off the new missiles as a thumb in the eye to the United States, given it was only last Friday night the UN vote was announced wherein the US utterly failed to achieve its objective. The only “yes” vote the US could muster in its favor was from the Dominican Republic.

On the occasion of Nat’l Defense Industry Day, #Iran has unveiled two new missiles after Soleimani & Muhandis–the “Martryr Hajj Qassem” surface-to-surface ballistic missile & the “Martyr Abu Mahdi” naval cruise missile. Clip from IRIB below. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/b3VkukPeAI

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) August 20, 2020

“Missiles and particularly cruise missiles are very important for us… The fact that we have increased the range from 300km to 1,000km in less than two years is a great achievement,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on the occasion of the new weapons roll out Thursday. “Our military might and missile programs are defensive,” he emphasized.

Though Iran hawks have consistently warned these ballistic missile pursuits go hand in hand with Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons aspirations, and could be used to attack US allies like Israel or even American bases in the region (as happened earlier this year in response to the Soleimani assassination), it must be remembered that the two countries immediately bordering Iran on either side have both been attacked by the United States and are still being occupied.