Jeffrey Sachs

violates not only the American conditions of defending its imperial strength, but the Israeli dream of full control over the region.

And that's why the off-ramp is so hard.

I have to say one more thing, just because it is a little bit of a complicated picture.

It's not incidental, and I don't want anyone to think I'm naive in this.

When we talk about why the United States wants Iran within the U.S.

empire, why it overthrew Mossadegh in 1953,

Remember the oil, so I don't want to forget to mention that.

That's not only a 1953 issue that was aimed to ensure that Iran would not take back its oil from British and then American interests.

Trump absolutely, without question, no doubt, 100%,

is as strongly beholden to the oil lobby as he is to the Zionist lobby.

And he said so vividly, vocally in 2024.

He said, raise a billion dollars for me.

It's a deal.

You'll get all the benefits from this.

What he did in Venezuela, he thought he was about to do in Iran as well.

So this needs to be understood as just one more piece of this.

Yes, he wanted to fight with Iran for 46 years, at least since 1980, probably 47 since 1979.

But what he thinks he learned from kidnapping the Venezuelan president and then suborning the Venezuelan government is I can do a decapitation and then own the oil of that country.

And so part of the motivation now was revenge, bring Iran back into the empire.

But part of the benefit of bringing Iran back into the American empire is you get the oil.