Pepe Escobar – Strategic Culture June 9, 2026
On Monday, June 1st, on Power Shift, a new independent geopolitical platform, Zulfiqar Ali, Larry Johnson and myself revealed what for all practical purposes is an uber-bombshell piece of information: if long dark clouds keep coming down, Tehran is ready to pivot from nuclear ambiguity to actually detonating a nuclear device on Iranian soil.
Less than a week later, the Power Shift page was censored on YouTube – with no explanation and no appeal. Yet what we revealed had already been detailed in several podcasts and interviews throughout last week, as in here and here (with myself and Larry); here; and at the St. Petersburg forum, here.
I published a detailed background preceding the release of the information, written just before Iran’s negotiating team suspended the exchange of all (italics mine) texts and messages with the U.S. via mediator Pakistan.
When it comes to the redaction of perhaps the final draft of an endlessly debated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Iran and the U.S., it suddenly became crystal clear that it’s all about Lebanon.
Iran repeatedly reiterated it was ready to ditch the already comatose “ceasefire” if the death cult in West Asia proceeded with its threat of bombing Dahiyeh, the Shi’ite-majority suburb of southern Beirut.
Confronted by Trump, the leader of the death cult was forced to back down. For only a few days. Trump desperately needs an MoU and an extended ceasefire to be marketed as “Victory”. His (italics mine) Victory.
All that was happening, fast and furious, on the trail of a fateful, extremely sensitive, 105-minute phone call on Thursday, May 28, between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Islamabad is the sole functioning and trusted head-of-government back-channel between Tehran and Washington. Our sources revealed that during the phone call, Pezeshkian delivered a formally structured, three-step ultimatum to be communicated to the White House with absolute clarity:
- No more nuclear talks. As in the priority is the end of all wars, against Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
- No more prospective nuclear treaty framework. As in no discussions leading to a possible, diluted JCPOA 2.0; only after settling the end of the wars and the status of the Strait of Hormuz.
- If U.S. threats persist, Pezeshkian said, that would lead to the “detonation of a nuclear device on Iranian soil” – executed not as an act of war, but as an irreversible, sovereign demonstration of capability to control escalation dominance.
What is particularly stunning is none of the above is about diplomatic posturing. What we had is the President of Iran relaying what is essentialy a decision by Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, signaling that if Washington crosses the next threshold, Tehran would pivot instantly from nuclear ambiguity to undeniable demonstration.
And that would imply a permanent rupture of the global non-proliferation system – with unforeseen consequences.
The China-Iran-Pakistan strategic alignment
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif obviously did the math on the scale of such intelligence. He immediately told Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar – who was in New York for UN Security Council sessions – to deliver the information to Washington.
Dar bypassed the whole bureaucratic apparatus, directly calling U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York. The message, from Tehran to the Trump administration, was stark: the escalation ladder now features a terminal rung.
Rubio “may” (and that’s the operative word) have recognized the supreme gravity of what is in fact a formal nuclear ultimatum. He briefed Trump. The day after, May 29, Trump abruptly stopped any further kinetic action. And his incendiary rhetoric was instantly toned down.
This had nothing to do with a sudden fit of strategic restraint in the War-a-Lago/Oval Office axis. It was the direct, downstream result of the Sharif-Dar-Rubio back-channel.
On the morning of May 29, Dar arrived in Washington for a one-day official visit.
Sitting across from Rubio, he delivered the detailed briefing that the New York phone call had only previewed.
He placed two massive bombshells on the negotiating table:
- Iran will not surrender any of its Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Nothing. Zero. And that’s final.
It’s all about sovereign independence (two concepts at the center of the recent Russia-China joint declaration signed in Beijing during Putin’s official visit to Xi Jinping).
So Tehran will not surrender its stockpile, whatever the terms, temporarily or not, just to comply with a face-saving mechanism designed for a U.S. domestic audience. From the point of view of Iran’s leadership – with Mojtaba at the helm – HEU goes way beyond a technical asset; it’s the ultimate fusion of sovereignty, deterrence, leverage, and political survival.
- China has delivered state-of-the-art strategic defense systems to Iran – including shoulder-fired MANPADs – routed covertly through third countries (and that’s why I could not get any official confirmation two weeks before in Shanghai).
The breakdown: a total, operationally active China-Iran-Pakistan strategic alignment is in effect.
Is an Islamabad Accord still possible?
As it stands, none of us – including our sources – know whether a nuclear weapon detonated on Iranian soil would have been developed exclusively by Iran [they do have the scientific capability]; or with possible Russian, Pakistani or North Korean help. All options are plausible.
According to Prof. Ted Postol at MIT, Iran could easily convert 450 kg of 65% uranium hexafluoride into approximately 85% weapons grade: all that is needed for a low yield weapon, to be mounted into at least 10 missile delivery systems capable of reaching Israel. That means, at a minimum, 10 nuclear bombs.
Technically this sort of low yield weapon can be designed, Postol explains, with the use of a neutron reflector made of depleted uranium – or beryllium/tungsten carbide – and positioned immediately around the fissile core. It reflects escaping neutrons back into the nuclear material to increase fission efficiency, and reduces the required critical mass. In a nutshell: less material and more bombs.
Very important: a draft of this column was submitted earlier last week to a top Iranian official, part of the extremely tight circle around Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. His reaction: “I won’t comment on this matter”.
Beyond this no-response response, what became instantly clear is the verified transmission of the most consequential back-channel communication of the no war/no peace crisis.
It goes like this: Pezeshkian talks to Sharif; Sharif talks to Dar; Dar talks to Rubio; Rubio talks to Trump; Dar talks to Rubio face to face (during his Washington briefing).
All that throws new light over the – subsequently broken – 60-day ceasefire, the fragile off-ramp desperately needed by Trump. This framework has been organized by Pakistan and structurally backed by China – as I confirmed in Shanghai.
Tehran has insisted on the order of the proceedings, over and over again. First, all wars must stop, especially the offensive by the death cult over Lebanon. Then enter the modalities to restore trade traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The third and last stage is to resume some sort of meaningful nuclear dialogue.
On The Big Picture, a serious structural rewrite is already on – whatever nasty ceasefire-breaking surprises may lie ahead.
As it stands: the Abraham Accords are for all practical purposes dead; Saudi Arabia has frozen all back-channel Israel “normalization” discussions; Qatar and Oman are quietly drafting military transition timelines to phase out the U.S. from West Asia. And most crucially, a new West Asia security architecture is rapidly coalescing outside the American “protective” umbrella, driven by The Four Sunnis: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt.
Last Thursday, again on Power Shift (our YouTube page was still active), Zulfiqar Ali, Larry Johnson and I identified a possible Islamabad Accord as the emerging framework for ending the U.S.-Iran war – way before Western MSM had recognized it as the organizing architecture.
We also identified the mechanism driving it: non-stop Pakistani shuttle diplomacy, quietly but decisively backed by China.
We laid out the two-phase roadmap: first, an immediate ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (Iran agrees with both); second, a short negotiating window to finalize the broader political and financial settlement.
We reported that the extremely contentious release of Iran’s frozen assets was not a speculative talking point, but an active lever in the process. That asset release and possible sanctions relief were being treated as concrete confidence-building measures.
We also reported that a high-level Iranian delegation – including Parliament leader Ghalibaf, FM Abbas Araghchi, and Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati – would travel to Doha in connection with the frozen-funds track.
That was later confirmed across the spectrum, including the fact that the central-bank component was tied directly to frozen assets.
We also advanced that Islamabad could become the stage for the final political act, including a possible Trump visit, alongside Pezeshkian: yet now that possibility seems as remote as ever.
China is just watching the river flow
These are the facts, as it stands:
Iran is far from isolated and is positioned for a prolonged war, with meaningful material and strategic backing from China, Pakistan, and North Korea, and carefully calculated support from Russia, as I confirmed during the St. Petersburg forum.
The U.S. is paralyzed. The Trump administration may appear to want an off-ramp; but it is totally constrained by pressure from the death cult in West Asia – as we’ve seen this weekend; exhausted escalation pathways; and the absence of a decisive military option that can alter the chessboard without creating an infinitely more unmanageable crisis.
The Gulf petro-monarchies are terrified about a possible resumption of the war – with the principal exception of the UAE.
The leaves Islamabad as the only exit route in town, with Field Marshal Asim Munir positioned as the indispensable intermediary; and Beijing and Moscow following everything closely, in some respects actively shaping the outer frame.
The bombing of southern Beirut on June 6 was perpetrated once again at a critical moment in the negotiations, as pointed out by Mohammad Mokhber, a top advisor to Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and a member of Iran’s Expediency Council:
“By bombing Lebanon during the presence of the mediator in Iran [he was referring to Asim Munir], the enemy set the negotiating table on fire for the third time to shout about the repeated violations of the ceasefire in all areas. We speak to the violators with the language of ‘power’; the axis of resistance is a unified body, and they will definitely receive a heavy and painful price for this aggression in the field.”
The death cult bombing of southern Beirut led to a frankly surrealist spectacle: the Trump administration scrambling after the Pakistani mediator in Tehran, begging him to intercede with the Iranians for de-escalation. The Emperor who wanted to destroy Iranian civilization had to ask Pakistan to salvage what could still be salvaged.
That means, as we reported, that with Iran setting the terms of escalation and raising its deterrence potential, and with Trump left with no cards at all, the only possible solution lies with diplomacy via Islamabad.
This week on Power Shift, in three consecutive shows from Monday to Wednesday, we will dig deeper into the intel and the diplomacy beneath these tectonic twists.
And then, of course, there’s the intriguing Chinese angle.
U.S. Think Tankland will become totally paralyzed when they finally realize that by injecting advanced military hardware into the Iranian theater of war, Beijing is actively road-testing the limits of American hegemonic coercion.
And if push comes to shove, and Iran is forced into a nuclear demonstration for all the world to see, China will acquire an inexorable proof-of-concept that U.S. deterrence is hollow.
One has to marvel at the engineering of such a massive strategic masterclass – without firing a single shot.
LOL..
peepee escobar…
you have to be aware when reading anything scrawled by this miscreant and his intel buddies..that this is the man when confronted with the stark realities of the clusterfuck that is the russian ukraine ‘campaign’..
created the term …lol wait for it…’snail offensive’..yes I shit you not, snail offensive, to mask not just the paucity of support for any of these intel clowns lol, predictions..but also the fact that the russians have spent longer trying to secure the donbass than they did steam rolling gerry’s with yankee dollars in WW2…
so, as usual ,when you drill down passed the superficial claims, you see that the narrative supports the propaganda the yids and yankees have blathered for decades..
the mullahs have got nooks…. it’s what’s known in the trade as co-intel-pro..
and if you believe any of this bollox..well, you’ve been ‘ad my son..
Sick of hearing what Iran will do when it can do it but lacks the will to. Or is it the balls? Just like Russia. They will piss into the wind until defeated. They would both have to have a major change of doctrine to do otherwise. As they near victory not defeat neither seems ready to change, and if they come close to defeat that may be too late to change anything.
Showing you can win if you want to but don’t want to is the same as showing you can’t win.
The new reality is Iran has claimed the Persian Gulf, and Iran is prepared to fight to keep it, preferably free from American military bases. And Trump keeps talking about making a deal.
The deal Mr Trump is you have to get lost. But you won’t and America is going to be a pain in the ass for Iran for quite some time.
Probably won’t be long before Iran sinks something big…
And Pepe is going on about an Iranian ‘nuke’.
Mirror
582.8K Followers
Hundreds of UK-bound migrants ‘tortured and threatened with kidney removal’
Story by Dan Warburton • 21h • 2 min read
Captives said they had been tortured and kept in cramped conditions, with nearly 180 people sharing a cell
Captives said they had been tortured and kept in cramped conditions, with nearly 180 people sharing a cell
© Kurdish Regional Government
Hundreds of UK-bound migrants were kidnapped, tortured and threatened with forced organ removal, a report claims.
A BBC probe found more than 300 young men from Iraqi Kurdistan were held in Libya where militia demanded £3,700 from each of their families. They were told that if they did not pay, the captives’ kidneys would be harvested.
Some hostages who have since been released provided photo evidence suggesting that forced operations did take place. The former captives said they had been tortured and kept in cramped conditions, with nearly 180 people sharing a cell. At least one hostage is known to have died and it is unclear how many remain captive. The militia was supposed to be guiding the migrants through Libya to the Mediterranean coast. However, a dispute over payment had broken out with the Iraqi Kurd people-smuggler, Noah Aaron, who had organised the migrants’ journey.
kidneys fetch good money in israel
Escobar nor strategic can now be “outed” as the propagandists they are. Pretending that some fake country has now (fake) nuke bomb. We cannot believe anything coming out his ass now. Or is ths an AI written piece of snot?
The US has more problems back home. It seems investors are not as keen on AI as its developers and the US government wanted. There’s been a $1.3trillion loss in AI stock sell-offs (or refusals to buy shares offered in Initial Price Offerings, I’m not sure which). I used to watch the markets to get a better idea about political intentions like a planned invasion or a war, but they became so rigged and corrupted only insiders really understand them now, but clearly the markets don’t yet want AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA_WC4EKAhA
they better spare their material + develope
plutonium-neutron mikronukes like the
demons in demona did . but it takes more time
“Everything we are being told is a lie.”, says Tucker Carlson.
Without the truth there is no freedom. Without it there is no basis for rational or even reasonable choice for the individual person. Yet, we live in THE AGE OF DECEPTION where all information is being more and more fudged, fabricated, faked, controlled and centralized by the globalist ownership class, without any intention to disclose knowledge and the truth far and wide to enable any real free choice and personal powers but rather to do the exact opposite – to control all of our choices, even what we think and believe, and every aspect of our lives and deaths.
Do truthers not see the scam going on with the fake polarity between the unipolar and multipolar confines they have arranged for us? We have the totalitarian communist nation of China being trotted out by the unipolar “one world government” globalist prodigies of the WEF as the model nation of the world, the very people deconstructing national sovereignties and cultures (which Escobar opposes), but at the same time China is a nation which is central to the Sino-Islamic and “multipolar” block of nations (which Escobar supports). Escobar, however, is mainly opposed to the “imperialist US-led” nations of the West, and he has no problem using or being used to push the multipolar globalist model on first centralizing the financial and corporate powers in the superpower nations, based on the pretext that a multipolar world order will protect the sovereignties of the lesser nations in their spheres of control, which I say is total crap.
The alleged Trump-MAGA reaction to the unipolar BS and abuses of the unipolar globalists, promising to ban the forever wars and focus on restoring US freedom, integrity, and prosperity at home and abroad, turned out to be just another mass deception committed against the people everywhere, in order to usher in their multi-polar world order now taking shape in which each “zone” of the once-independent nations are to be controlled, dominated and exploited by the Controller-ownership class using the military and AI housed and operating from the 4 or 5 superpower nations under their commands.
The real guru of the globalist ownership-class remains the US political scientist, the late Samuel P. Huntington, together with his famous 1996 book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”. It is like a road map for the globalist Controllers not just to control the developing polarity between East and West, predicting a Sino-Islamic unity, but also to fuel mass immigration “one-way” to the West to temper the predicted polarity and economic decline of the West, perhaps also for a more-even distribution of low-cost labor.
Earlier today after reading this TTS post I asked AI Overview on Googel the following question: “What is Pepe Escobar’s track record on globalist centralization vrs. the resurgence of national sovereignties?”
Its answers change from hour to hour likely do to sleuth monitoring according the “flavor-of-the day” interests of the controllers. This is the initial answer:
“Pepe Escobar has a highly consistent track record of fiercely opposing Western-led globalist centralization while championing the resurgence of national and regional sovereignties via a multipolar world order. Working as a veteran independent geopolitical analyst and roving correspondent, his coverage of international relations frames global events through a distinct, anti-imperialist lens.”
In this first query I received points 1 & 2 with a great deal of information (too much to past here), and a point 3 which was totally missing in the search with the same question 2 hours later.
“ 3. Critical Reception of His Track Record
“While highly popular within anti-war, anti-globalist, and Global South circles, Escobar’s analytical track record faces significant external criticism: [1]
• Allegations of Biased Alignment: Mainstream critics and geopolitical analysts argue that in his eagerness to see the collapse of Western globalism, Escobar frequently overlooks the authoritarian centralization and imperial ambitions inherent within the states he praises, such as Russia and China.
• Conspiracy Accusations: Because he frequently uses alternative political framing, mainstream watchdogs (such as Conspiracy Watch) and Western platforms have occasionally flagged or restricted his commentary, accusing him of spreading state-backed disinformation and unverified conspiracy theories. [1]
• The “Controlled Opposition” Critique: Interestingly, even from within some deeply anti-globalist circles, Escobar faces criticism from alternative theorists who argue that “multipolarity” is a trap. These critics assert that decentralized regional blocs (like BRICS) are actually just the next logical phase of globalism (“World Government 3.0”) designed to absorb the East into a unified, digital economic system—a reality they argue Escobar’s optimistic reporting glosses over.”
Interestingly, in the second search, Point 3 is entirely missing. Also, on a ChatGPT search at the same time there was no suggestion of Escobar being “controlled opposition”, which indicates, at least to me, he is either a useful dupe or controlled opposition of the globalist Controllers presently trotting out the multipolar model of their NWO using the FAKE pretext that the Sino-Islamic unification with the other BRICS nations of Russia and India, which is exactly what they want to occur, along with the controlled withdrawal of the US from the Gulf, all with no disparaging revelations about these actual plans in the works. Meanwhile both the magnates of the US and Israel also have bought into the multipolar model with Isreal to be expanded to superpower status over the Levant. Hence, the persistent invasion of Israel in Lebanon with the war against Iran being the pretext but never really resolving until Isreal attains the goals over the resisting Arabs.
This indicates that the view of Kit Knightly, on Off Guardian, about the war against Iran being contrived and fake is most likely correct (except, of course for the actual destruction of various installations and the killing of duped participants which he acknowledges).
In any case, the only thing which will save any of us from their totalitarian machinations is the OUTLAWING of LYING, CHEATING, STEALING, AND KILLING INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS, which can only come about for our protection with the FULL & IMMEDIATE DISCLOSURE TO EVERYONE OF ALL FACTS AND INFORMATION RELATIING TO OUR BASIC AND VITAL INTERESTS, which interests include the preservation of our basic rights and freedoms, and all things relating to the governance of our nations and our lives. The wide distribution not just of the ownership of assets, money, land among the people, AND REAL FREEDOM can never come about without the wide and equal distribution of the FACTS [i.e.,“the TRUTH”], also making it a CAPITAL OFFENCE for anyone in a position of power or authority over the people to deceive them. This is our ONLY REAL DEFENCE AGAINST TOTALITARIANISM, THE CONTROLLER BEASTS S AND THEIR MACHINES.
quote “One has to marvel at the engineering of such a massive strategic masterclass – without firing a single shot.” Pretty easy to do considering the morons they are out manuevering.Tis harder than killing a bunch of unarmed people.
Hey Persia, don’t detonate it your home Country. Just detonate in that Shitty Little State where those filthy Kike scum live and kill every piece of vermin living in that stolen land. Tod Dem Juden.
Difficult to glean any truth in all this. Even “alternative” media are of little help and often they are part of the play.
Only entertainment value.
NUKES DO NOT EXIST…
Its the classic BLUFF