How Vance becomes President and stops a Nuclear War.

I've long thought there would be a coup d'état in the US during Trump's second term. I still think that will happen. Not that it will look like a coup to the outside world. My best guess is that the White House will, sadly, announce that Trump had a 'pillow event' and suffocated in his sleep. 

I'm beginning to wonder if there won't be a different type of 'coup', a fully legal and constitutional removal of Trump from office. How might this work?

The simple answer is the 25th Amendment to the Constitution (Section 4), which allows the President to be removed from office by a majority of the Cabinet. They would have to plan it carefully, but Vance and the cabinet could pull it off. There are some pesky requirements, such as requiring two-thirds of the House and Senate to agree (within twenty-one days), but nothing insurmountable.

After all, Trump is demonstrably batshit crazy. And as we've seen time and again, when public opinion and the threat of retaliation are removed, irrevocable change can happen very quickly. Trump is a mob boss, and when his power to threaten is removed, his ability to keep those he's insulted in line will also disappear. 

What can Vance do?

1. Very, very quietly, sound out, through unconnected intermediaries, I'm sure, the views of cabinet ministers, and what would be their price. They've all proven that they are for sale, so ignore any calls to conscience or 'the good of the country', and find out what their price is. For most, it will be a promise to keep them in post while also providing them with a pre-signed, undated pardon.

2. Sound out various leaders in the Republican Congressional representatives (and Senators) who are known to be disgruntled with Trump, or who are a serious risk of being thrown out by voters in November. Find out their price. There's always a price.

3. Wait for Trump's next visit to Walter Reed to spring the trap. When he is being treated or infuses, or whatever is happening that results in his monthy two-day trip and bruised hands, that is when to convene the cabinet, and with all documents pre-prepared, land "transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office". 

All presidential authority immediately transfers to Vance, but he'll have to move quickly, including the backup documents for when Trump (through his lawyers now doubt) "transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists". Those can be prepared in advance, and also "transmitted".

Now begins the twenty-one-day period for Congress and the Senate to decide.

That's plenty of time to arrest Don Jr. and the sychopants who didn't go along with the plot for various forms of corruption, and to release some of the worst of the worst Epstein Files. Explicit corruption allegations would get big play, and Fox News would be told (again, person-to-person between Vance/others and Murdoch) what the new script is.

Palentir (and others) will also be promised windfalls from a new regime, and will no doubt be able to produce, on demand, enough damning material on almost any Representative or Senator who does not go along with the plan once it is underway.

That's three weeks for the scales to fall from their eyes, and the payoff deals with the required Congressional reps and Senators to be agreed upon. There are enough Representatives and Senators who hate his guts and have been publicly shamed by him into subservience, all of whom will be happy for the chance to 'clear their own names' before November.

It would be a rough three weeks, but during that time, Trump will be held, probably heavily sedated. After all, he's been declared "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office", possibly with the initial argument that he is unwell, thereby justifying the sedation.

Will it happen? Sadly, probably not.

Ah, to dream.

Hormuz is the new Suez

I’ve seen more than one report suggesting that, since the US Navy escorted ships through the Strait of Hormuz in the 1980s, it can do so again now. That is a mistake, and a very dangerous mistake. The situations are not analogous at all. Maybe we should be looking at the Suez Crisis instead.

 

In the 1980s “Tanker War”, Iran and Iraq extended their land war to each other’s oil export capabilities, including both terminals and ships. Iran mined the Straits, and Iraq attacked ships. To restart the flow of ships, the US raised its flag on tankers and escorted them through the Gulf and the Straits. Both sides avoided attacking US-flagged ships, because to do so would have been an attack on the US, and that was something that neither side wanted to allow, at least not allow themselves to be viewed as the one attacking the US Navy. 

 

That is not the case today. 

 

Israel and its puppet, the United States, are at war with Iran. There is no other word for it, no matter how President Trump might want to dance around it to avoid breaching the US Constitution. Nonetheless, this is a war. And in a war, the opponent's military assets are fair game. Likewise, economic assets are equally ‘in play’ if it hurts the opponent's ability to sustain military action. 

Today, Iran wants nothing more than the US Navy to saunter through the Strait of Hormuz. I suspect they would even allow one or two ships to pass on the way in. Maybe even more. They can wait. They can wait until those ships want to leave.  

 

Once Iran has ‘allowed’ the US Navy into the Gulf, with maybe a token missile fired or drone attack (designed to fail), hubris on the American part will take over. A convoy will be put together, made up of a few US Navy vessels and a couple of tankers that have been reflagged as US ships (possibly even purchased by the US government to force them to attempt the Strait). 

  

What happens then is anyone’s guess. Does Iran let it pass again, with a few token attacks to lull others into risking a larger convoy? Or does Iran take this as the opportunity to attack US Navy ships with the intent of sinking them in the Strait?  

  

Either option works to Tehran’s benefit, not to Washington’s. 

  

Gaza and Southern Lebanon are the most heavily surveilled areas on the planet. Yet still the rockets fly, and still they are fired into Northern Israel. The combined military might of Israel and its offshore military industrial complex (the US) has been unable to stop the missiles, even with years of suppression. 

  

Does anyone have any confidence that Iran, with decades to prepare for exactly this event or circumstance, has not developed exactly the capability needed to keep the Strait closed and to sink anything that goes through without its permission?  For many years, it has been clear that there would be a war with Iran. Even in 2013, when I was in the Gulf, the talk then among expats (of all sorts) was when there would be a war with Iran, and what their individual plans were to mitigate such a possibility. Maybe those expats and the ones who followed all had such plans, and maybe they are working. But I equally suspect that too many either did not have plans, or bought the image of the Gulf as a new land of peace and tax-free prosperity for all (well, all the white-collar workers and ‘influencers’).  

  

And so the war has come, and each side (all sides) is acting out their plans, hoping to contain this. But containment for Iran means the defeat, yes defeat, of the United States and its ejection from the Gulf once and for all.  

  

That only happens when the US Navy has been proven to be unable to open the Strait and keep it open. The price to the GCC countries and Saudi Arabia will be high. The price to Iran will be higher. But the payoff for Iran will be decades of real peace, a seat at the table, and a region devoid of US military bases.  

  

Israel will be contained and forced to negotiate with its neighbours.  

  

How will this happen?  

  

Keeping the Strait closed for six months or more will bankrupt the United States. Even “boots on the ground” will not open the Strait. It will only highlight US impotence in the face of drones and missiles. Cheap drones swarming missile defences. Even when the US (or Israel) is able to effectively deploy powerful enough laser systems to shoot down drones and missiles, there will still be mines, torpedoes, speedboats, and more drones and missiles. There will be the munitions held in reserve, and the longer-range artillery that can be driven close to the coast, firing three or four shells before scampering away. 

  

This is without Iran going full scorched-earth and sinking three, four, or more of their own tankers in the middle of the Strait, creating hazards to navigation that would take months to remove in the best of circumstances. 

  

Asymmetric warfare is on Iran's side. 

  

They know it. 

  

Washington knows it (well, those who plan and understand capability). 

  

China knows it. 

  

Yes, most of the world knows it. And while Trump will lose interest and be distracted by something else (Cuba?), the Strait will remain closed. Oil will flow. Fertiliser will flow. To China, and a few other countries willing to pay the price. It is a price they’ve wanted to pay for years but have been unable to. Now they must, or their people will starve. Enough oil will stop flowing to countries like India, Indonesia, and Thailand. 

  

The price will be breaking from the US alliance system. Selling US Treasuries. Rejecting US Navy visits and bases. Dealing directly with Tehran. These countries understand that picking the US over Iran will be picking the US over their own people, and their people will let them know that.  

  

This could be the US’s Suez, when Great Britain became the “Island formerly known as Great Britain”. Because when the UK (and France, to be fair) invaded Egypt in 1956 to seize the Suez Canal, the US threatened to call in the UK’s debt. At that moment, the British pound stopped being the global reserve currency (though that was arguably already well underway), and the US dollar began its 70-year run. It doesn’t matter if you have the largest navy today if you cannot pay for it tomorrow. 

The era of US hegemony is coming to an end. It will not happen overnight, but the process is now fully underway.

  

And Israel cannot have the world’s biggest military if the US component of its military cannot pay for itself. When the US can no longer afford its own military and the American people are losing their houses and jobs in the coming Greater Recession, they will reject perpetual and unlimited support for the “Israeli Dream”. US money will stop flowing to Israel, and Tel Aviv will be forced to do the unthinkable: negotiate with its neighbours.  

  

Only then will peace be possible in the Middle East. 

  

Or maybe the US can keep the Strait open.  

  

Maybe.