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Authored by Economic Prism's MN Gordon via Acting-Man.com,

Past the Point of No Return

Adventures in depravity are nearly always confronted with the unpleasant reality that stopping the degeneracy is much more difficult than starting it.  This realization, and the unsettling feeling that comes with it, usually surfaces just after passing the point of no return.  That’s when the cucumber has pickled over and the prospect of turning back is no longer an option.

On Friday, we reported that in the latest snub by President Hassan Rouhani to the Trump administration, on Friday the Iranian president said Tehran would continue its missile program in defiance of US sanctions, and to underscore the determination, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard unveiled its newest long-range ballistic missile during a military parade in Tehran.  The newly unveiled missile is capable of reaching most of the Middle East, including Israel, with a range of 1,200 miles. It's also capable of carrying several warheads.

Authored by Andrew Karybko via Oriental Review,

Oriental Review is publishing the English original of Andrew Korybko’s interview with an Iranian newspaper from earlier this month.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Recently, US Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin stated, "If China doesn't follow these sanctions [against North Korea], we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the US and international dollar system."

The moment the first Russian jet landed in Syria at the invitation of the Assad government in 2015, Putin placed himself in the driver's seat concerning the international proxy war in the Levant. From a strategic standpoint the armed opposition stood no chance of ever tipping the scales against Damascus from that moment onward. And though US relations with Russia became more belligerent and tense partly as a result of that intervention, it meant that Russia would set the terms of how the war would ultimately wind down.