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* Kaj pa slovstveni del poti? Ha, te nesmrtne konverzacije pa so ostale zapisane v nas.

Hasan Ahmadian, professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Tehran, laid out Iran’s view of the current negotiations during Al Jazeera’s discussion on the upcoming US-Iran talks in Geneva:

His main arguments:

Why close Hormuz:

Ahmadian said the closure came on the second day of peak “Israeli savagery” in southern Lebanon. Iran had actually shown restraint, he suggested, holding back from a larger military response it could have launched, and instead using the strait to make a point: the agreement “cannot be divided” into pieces that each side picks from.

Why not boycott talks with U.S.:

Asked why Iran didn’t simply refuse to attend the upcoming talks in Geneva, Ahmadian said that would have sent the wrong signal, letting Washington think “Hormuz is over and we’ve moved on.” Closing the strait, by contrast, makes clear that if one side reneges on any single clause, the other will suspend a clause too, before talks can advance.

The deal is binding:

Ahmadian pushed back on the idea that the MOU is just a loose statement of intent. He said it contains, in its Article 13, five specific steps both sides must complete before negotiations even begin, one of which is a ceasefire in Lebanon. The US, he acknowledged, had met some obligations, lifting its naval blockade and letting Iranian oil exports resume, but Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continued, so Iran responded by suspending another of the five steps: keeping Hormuz open.

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Nedavni intervju s slovenskim ekonomistom Jožetom Damijanom o prihodnosti električne mobilnosti je bil oster glede industrijske ekonomije – prevlada kitajskih baterij, evropski proizvajalci, ki so bili presenečeni, vrzel med regulativnimi ambicijami in proizvodno realnostjo. Prav tako pa, podobno kot večina poročanja v glavnih medijih o prehodu na električna vozila, ni omenjal globljih strukturnih problemov. Romantična faza, ki jo je opredelil, je resnična. O tem, kar sledi tej romantiki, govori ta esej.

1. Odvisnost od baterij

Standardna razlaga kitajske prevlade na področju električnih vozil se osredotoča na proizvodne stroške. Kitajske tovarne so bolj avtomatizirane, delovna sila je cenejša, obseg proizvodnje pa večji. Vse to drži, vendar spregleda, kje dejansko leži prednost.

Položaj Kitajske v dobavni verigi baterij ni v prvi vrsti povezan s sestavljanjem. Gre za nadzor nad predelovalno stopnjo – industrijsko kemijo, ki se nahaja med surovinami v zemlji in končnimi celicami v vozilu. Za izgradnjo te stopnje je bilo potrebnih približno petnajst let premišljene, državno usmerjene industrijske politike: zaščiteni domači trgi med učenjem, potrpežljiv kapital državnih bank, zagotovljeno povpraševanje domačih avtomobilskih proizvajalcev, ki so bili pogodbeno zavezani k lokalnemu nabavljanju. Rezultat je, da podjetji CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology, vodilni kitajski proizvajalec baterij) in BYD (največji kitajski proizvajalec električnih vozil) skupaj nadzorujeta približno dve tretjini svetovne proizvodnje baterijskih celic, kitajska podjetja pa nadzorujejo večino predelovalnih zmogljivosti, ki jih oskrbujejo.

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Trump just turned on Netanyahu, and Alex Jones argues the shift is real, but the reasons behind it are darker and more dangerous than almost anyone is saying…

In this conversation, Alex makes his case that Trump was manipulated into the war with false intelligence promising the Iranian regime would collapse in 4 days, and that once it backfired on the economy and his midterm numbers, he started hunting for an exit ramp that Israel keeps blocking.

He points to JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and Joe Kent warning against the war from the start, and to the 2027 NDAA provision merging the US and Israeli militaries as the line that finally snapped.

The part that will get the most attention is his theory on the leverage.

Alex doesn’t think Trump is simply blackmailed over Epstein.

His more provocative claim is that Trump tied himself into that network for power and survival, and is now enraged that the people he partnered with refuse to take orders.

He also gets into Ben-Gvir’s “all of Lebanon must burn” rhetoric, the positioning of Marco Rubio as the next pro-Israel favorite, and his fear of a major provocation designed to keep America in the war.

His warning is one I keep hearing: a cornered Likud is at its most dangerous, and Israel is gambling everything on keeping the US in this fight.

A magnificent interview by Emmanuel Todt

Every day I pray that the Russians will not get nervous.

I highly recommend it!

Europe has chosen war. This is a curious, partly imaginary war, that is, it will not die, but will provide the Ukrainians with everything they need to kill as many Russians as possible. It seems that Europe and the USA have decided to fight to the last Ukrainian. Every day I pray that the Russians will not get nervous. I think the Russians are intelligent, I think the Iranians are intelligent, I think the Chinese are intelligent, and I think they have understood the rules of the game they have to play. So logically they should play for the collapse of the enemy’s system in order to be calm, says the French historian, demographer and anthropologist Emmanuel Todt.

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Ukraine is finished. This is a country that will not exist. Ukraine is a country that will disappear in the long term. The big difference between Westerners and Russians is that they do not have the same concept of time. That is, Russians think long-term, like historians of long time. Now Russians are expecting the final crisis of the European Union. And from the moment the European Union enters into a crisis – it could be a crisis from country to country or within different societies, the Ukrainian regime will be left to itself, it will collapse and that will be the end of Ukraine, of Ukraine as we know it.

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Noah Smith, ki se je odpovedal akademski karieri (na Brown University), ker je ocenil, da ima večji vpliv na javni diskurz kot bloger, kot pa bi jo imel kot profesor ekonomije, v zadnjem komentarju lamentira o zmanjevšanju vpliva blogerjev oziroma sebe na javno mnenje. Navaja tri razloge. Prvi je porast političnega populizma, ki inherentno ne mara objektivne analize, diskusije in eksaktnih podatkov. Drugi je množičen prehod blogerjev na platformo Substack, ki omogoča finančno lukrativno monetizacijo avgtorskih prispevkov in blogerje nevidno sili v hiperprodukcijo, da bi zadovoljili razpršene naročnike. Tretji razlog pa je razrast uporabe umetne inteligence, ki omogoča relativno dobro (čeprav močno filtrirano) informiranje zainteresirane radovedne javnosti prek povzemanja množice javno izraženih mnenj ekspertov, kar pa seveda zmanjša interes za branje specifičnih oziroma “relevantnih” blogerjev in vpliv njihovih mnenj. V dobi UI so lahko vsa mnenja enakovredna, čeprav objektivno seveda niso.

Spodaj je nekaj odstavkov iz zapisa Smitha na to temo. Naj pred tem omenim, da sem Smitha kot blogerja vednp cenil zaradi odličnega znanja ekonomije in sposobnosti koncizne analize. Vendar sem Smitha “izgubil” kakšnih 5 let nazaj zaradi njegove izrazite ideološke obremenjenosti s Kitajsko, Rusijo in nasploh z nezahodnim svetom, kar Smithu v mojih očeh jemlje sposobnost objektivnega razmišljanja o naravi stvari, ki tangirajo polje geopolitike. Ampak to seveda ne vpliva na to, da se mi njegovo mnenje o tej konkretni – apolitični – temi ne bi zdelo zanimivo.

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