True
True
True
True but not entirely surprising. Imagine having a "friend", then antagonizing that friend for almost 2 years(tariffs) and it's screwing with their ability to be economically stable. Afterwards, doing something that completely craters their economy and increases the rate of inflation(attack Iran). Now we're surprised they don't want to help?
True
True. America got baited into attacking Iran with improper planning, resource procurement, etc. Literally the most incompetent people who you would never want heading up this venture are in charge.
Iran: From proxy networks to state-level commercialization
The dual-use procurement challenge extends well beyond Russia. Sanctions-constrained actors, including Iranian defense entities and Iran-aligned proxies, need components subject to export controls. Drone parts fit this profile precisely, and Iran's own Shahed drone program has relied heavily on commercially available components sourced through third-country procurement networks.
A January 2026 Financial Times investigation found that Iran's Ministry of Defense Export Center (Mindex) was publicly advertising advanced weapons — including Shahed drones, ballistic missiles, and warships — for sale to foreign governments with cryptocurrency as an accepted payment method, in what appears to be one of the first known instances of a nation-state openly advertising strategic military hardware for crypto. Notably, Mindex's website explicitly addressed buyer concerns about sanctions evasion, stating that Iran's policies ensure contracts "can be executed," underscoring crypto is increasingly viewed by heavily sanctioned actors as a deliberate, institutionalized tool of sanctions circumvention, not merely a niche workaround.
As shown in the Reactor graph below, a wallet purchasing drone parts from a Hong Kong-based supplier has direct and indirect liquidity flows from the Iranian exchange Nobitex, IRGC wallets, and OFAC SDN Alireza Derakhshan, an Iranian national designated for facilitating crypto transfers on behalf of the regime.
Against this backdrop, it has been instructive to monitor drone-related transactional activity in real-time, including during periods of active conflict. As depicted in the chart below, inflows to a small subset of drone vendors spiked during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, then returned to pre-war levels when the ceasefire was concluded. While this activity is consistent with a war-time surge in drone-related procurement, it represents only a snapshot of limited vendor activity at a specific moment in time and should not be understood as representative of Iran's entire drone payment landscape or broader global patterns.
The shipping is going to Asia so it would be Asia bends over.
I wouldn't take any of their statements too seriously. We are clearly gearing up for a ground invasion of some sort. I don't know who these statements are for, maybe just to cause confusion.
Absolutely.
It still boggles my mind that the Conservative government in the UK sold off all our gas reserves in 2017 as if we would never need a back up.
The problem in Europe is not strategy but the fact that it is so slow and there are so many smaller actors and so many vetos or objections to doing anything. This is why I suggested something like a war economy is needed to make something happen in energy supply. Otherwise Europe is just dependent on US for fossil fuels or China for more modern tech.
At the surprise of absolutely nobody rational.
www.bbc.co.uk
lol, the hard part is done.
Big "I give up," energy.
Amazing strategy from Hegseth et al. as expected.
Throw in Poland and Ukraine and it looks more like a deal.
agree, this is also intend of putin that would drastically reduce aid for ukraine.
Yes, I managed to forget about Poland. Shame on me.
You keep saying that.
