Trump's Iran deception: regular or super-sized?

Key Markets report for Monday, 16 Jun 2025

Something about the war between Israel and Iran doesn’t seem to add up. Israel’s initiated the hostilities, which, of course, were purely defensive in nature. They were merely a justified retaliation against Iran’s missile attack which was sure to follow in the near future. Israel always has the right to defend itself.

Trump’s collusion with Bibi

But the troubling part of this story is that it appears to have been planned in collusion with the Trump administration and that Donald Trump himself took part in the elaborate deception of the Iranian leadership. The US-Iran negotiations, which were supposed to take place in Oman over the weekend were only a ruse intended to give the Iranians a false sense of security that neither Israel nor the US would attack them as a deal with the US seemed within reach. Trump’s own messaging in the aftermath of Israel’s surprise attacks gave the world a firm impression that this was indeed the case:

Then there’s also this:

Trump’s supposed BFF Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu reaffirmed this impression, profusely thanking President Trump for his steadfast support and friendship along with the hard to watch, gushing praise of Trump. Thus, by Saturday morning the case seemed closed: the whole affair was a devious, cynical deception played by Trump and the Israelis against the Iranians, aimed at effecting a regime change in Iran. But why?

This is all far too stupid!

As they say, the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. However, I find this particular simplest explanation difficult to believe for a number of reason. If it were true, Trump’s role would have been so outrageously devious that it would probably destroy his presidency. In one fell swoop, he would have proven right all those who insisted that he was a bad faith, duplicitous, double-dealing backstabber entirely unworthy of trust and support. At the same time he would have made his remaining supporters look hopelessly naive and foolish.

For Trump, who presented himself as a peace maker and who takes pride in his deal-making capability, this would have been a spectacular own goal as the whole world is watching. If you are willing to burn your reputation in such an obvious manner, how would you even get anyone to sit at a table to negotiate with you in good faith. You could no longer achieve any deal of any significance.

Not to mention the risk of war: Trump’s blunder comes also with the risk of dragging the US into an unwinnable all-out war against Iran which would prove disastrous for the US. For anyone who still thinks this is the 1990s when US carrier strike groups could intimidate anyone into yielding to US demands, remember that since 2021, the US forces in the region got their derriers handed to them, not only by Ansarallah in Yemen, but also by the goat-herders of Afghanistan, after 20 years of US forces trying to subdue them. As a result, the Americans by now have very little enthusiasm for going to war for Israel:

Perhaps not entirely representative, this is still a huge chunk of the American public opinion.

In all, Trump’s collusion with Netanyahu would have come with a massive risks and costs to his presidency. The only upside would have been a long-shot attempt at saving Israel and defending the American hegemony in the Middle East.

American role in Syria: royally shafted!

This last possibility - defending US hegemony in the Middle East could explain Trump’s conduct, but this is exactly where the appearance of things begins to unravel. The key anchor of stability and influence in the region is Syria. This is why Western powers persevered for 14 years in trying to take down the government of Bashar Al-Assad to wrest control of Damascus. They finally succeeded last December, but the United States pretty much got shafted in that whole affair. Turkey, Great Britain and France took control instead.

For anyone paying attention to Syria, they’d pick up on the fact that the Americans are actually quite furious about the affair. The HTS who overran Syria last December are in fact the project of the Turkish deep state and Great Britain. As the British investigative journalists Vanessa Beeley, Kit Klarenberg and Matt Kennard recently exposed, Syria’s current President Al Zelensky Al Jolani has been recruited and groomed by the British secret services as far back as 2011 when the assault on Syria began.

Al Jolani’s ultimate political patron was and still is the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair through his former Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell. In spite of is role in facilitating the 2003 invasion of Iraq and in fomenting the bloody war in Syria in 2011, Powell magically re-emerged among the British foreign policy cabal in November 2024 as Sir Keir Starmer’s National Security Advisor - smack in time to coordinate the violent takedown of Syria’s government with the help of the Turks and the new & even more moderate jihadi headchoppers.

Powell was one of the main players who facilitated Britain’s WMD dossier against Saddam Hussein, which facilitated the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, aimed of course, to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. Today however, it seems that British intelligence, secret services and a slew of NGOs are running Syria’s government. As Vanessa Beeley reported, all 4-star hotels in Damascus are chock-full of British officers. The ultimate objective of their work there is to reclaim Britain’s colonial dominance of the country.

Below is an interview Tony Blair conducted earlier this year with Syria’s Foreign Minister Assad Hassan al Shibani in Davos (where else). Al Shibani comes across as a perfectly nice, reasonable young man, speaking of empowering women and of democracy and freedom for the Syrian pipel, all as Blair nodded approvingly with the gaze of benevolent concern. Of course, that fine young man was the founder of Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra) in his previous incarnation, but hey, if Al Nusra delivered Damascus to Global Britain, they’re all jolly good fellows and so say all of us!

The American interest got lost in the process; US representatives demanded elections for Syria as soon as possible, but this was rebuffed. American proxies in the region (Syrian Kurds and whatever is left of the Free Syrian Army) are now largely disenfrenchised and the relations between the US and Turkey (Britain’s junior partner in the whole deal) have soured to the point of borderline hostility. This is why Secretary Marco Rubio recently stated that Syria could soon slide into a bloody civil war.

If I were a Zionist, I wouldn’t trust Trump

In all, behind the façade, it seems that there is a growing rift between the United States and the core imperial guard in London and their collaborators in Ankara, Damascus, and also in Tel Aviv. This, in part, gives me the impression that not all is what it seems. As I said in a few podcasts, if I were an ardent Zionist, I would not trust Donald Trump as far as I could throw him. Yesterday I had the privilege of once more joining Professor Glenn Diesen to discuss these things in the context of recent escalations which has apparently attracted quite a bit of interest, reaching almost 190,000 views in only 24 hours:

Are we sure that Trump is Netanyahu’s faithful servant?

On Friday 5, June, CJ Wellerman posted a brief report titled, “Why Does Israel Suddenly Want President Trump Dead?” Of course, 5 June was full 11 days ago, well outside many observers attention spans, but still, in historical context, this is all relatively recent and represents important context that should be taken into account by anyone hoping to arrive at a valid interpretation of what is transpiring today. CJ Wellerman opens with the statement that Trump is, “not only killing the Zionist movement, but also the state of Israel itself.”

The full 13-min. report is a scathing rebuke of Trump, the mendacious narcissist… but it is a useful resource as it puts together a compilation of news stories that suggest that Trump’s supposed devotion to Israel and subservience to Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t exactly what it looks like.

My point is that not everything is quite as clear-cut as it seems. As I told Professor Diesen, I believe we’ll only know for sure with time. The relevant tests will be whether Trump will join Israel’s war on Iran or not. So far, this isn’t happening, but the pressure on Trump will continue to build. Another test will be in how the Russians and the Chinese will treat Donald Trump: will he be included in strategic discussions in the future, or will he be sidelined? I don’t know the answer to these questions, nor to Trump’s true motivations with regards to Israel or Iran, but the obvious conclusion at this point in time appears simply too stupid to believe.

Meanwhile, the markets are shrugging the conflict

In the mean time, the markets seem to be shrugging the escalating war: this morning, Brent crude oil spiked to nearly $80/bbl, but has quickly pulled back and is now trading below $74/bbl, more than 1.5% lower than Friday’s close. Gold and Silver are also trading lower so it seems that all is nearly well, as far as the markets are concerned.

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Today’s trading signals

With Friday’s closing prices we have the following changes for the Key Markets portfolio: