I Why you should read this report
“For the American government, war is a money maker. War is a way you return favors to your donors.” Karen Kwiatkowski, Pentagon Analyst, on the Glenn Diesen Program August 6, 2026
About 2,400 years ago, a guy named Socrates, one of the smartest guys ever, observed that “All wars are fought for money.” He claimed there was a connection between extreme violence and extreme greed.
About 90 years ago, a highly decorated US Army officer named Smedley Bulter also warned us that “all wars are about making a huge amount of money for a small group of people.”
Of course, most folks would not support wars if they knew that their main purpose was making money for a small group of people. It is therefore important for War Hawks to come up with a convincing excuse for starting a war. There have been many wars started under false pretences that we later learned were really about making money. The “Gulf of Tonkin” incident, which was used as an excuse to launch the Vietnam War, we later learned was completely fake. The Vietnam War was really about making money for the War Machine. The “Weapons of Mass Destruction” claim used to justify the Iraq War, we also later learned was not true. The Iraq War was really about making billions of dollars for the War Machine. Here is a picture of the War Machine in action:
It appears that similar false claims and hidden motives might be true for the Iran War. The excuse used to start the Iran War was orginally about “regime change” - but since that did not work, a more recent excuse is “to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” The problem with this excuse is that Iran had already agreed to not getting a nuclear weapon. In addition, their spiritual leader had issued an order explaining that to develop a nuclear weapon would be a sin. But he was killed as part of the failed regime change plan. So the Iran War actually increased the odds of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.
In this report, we present evidence that the real purpose of the Iran War is to help the War Machine make a massive amount of money. To be clear, we are not merely talking about military contractors and bomb makers. They are just the visible part of the War Machine. We are talking about a more hidden group. Also, we are not talking about normal corruption. We are talking about Mega Corruption – or corruption on a scale that is perhaps the worst in human history.
A brief summary of the Iran War so far
The Iran War started on February 28, 2026. Within days, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Supposedly, the Iran War ended in June with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the Strait of Hormuz was briefly open. But in July, the US violated several provisions of the MOU and the War was back on with Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz again.
It is now August and the claim is that, any day now, the war will be over and the Strait will be open. Or will it? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Read the section of our report on what the MOU actually says and you will quickly realize that there is almost no chance that the US will actually comply with MOU. Iran knows this. Trump knows this. So the only ones being kept in the dark are the American people. It is highly likely that any opening of the Strait of Hormuz will be very brief and then the Iran War will be back on again.
On August 5, 2026, Iran's announced a 7% toll on all commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. This will generate more than $100 billion yearly for Iran to help them recover from all the bombs dropped by the US. However, US ships will not be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Ironically, at this point, whether or not the Iran War is over or the Strait is open or whether or not there is a 7% toll or a 50 cent increase in the price of gas matters much less than most people think. While the Iran War certainly started a mega energy crisis, ending the war will not magically end the mega energy crisis.
The Mega Oil Debt
Closing the Strait of Hormuz meant the world lost about 20 oil tankers a day – 20% of the world’s oil needs. Each tanker carried about a million barrels of oil. So the world lost 20 million barrels of oil a day or 6 billion barrels a month. Thus, the oil “debt” from six months of lost oil is about 36 billion barrels of oil – an amount that will take years to make up. Even worse is the damage done to oil refineries in both Russia and the Persian Gulf. In many cases, it will take years just to repair these damaged refineries. Think of every day of this war as putting billions of dollars of damages on our world’s credit card. Ending the war might end the increase in the credit card balance. But it will take the world years to pay off the “Iran War” debt.
Imagine the world’s oil supply as a giant interconnected organism – with a network of blood vessels consisting of thousands of wells and pipelines and super tankers and refineries – all built over a period of the past 100 years. Then imagine the Strait of Hormus as the world’s most important artery being suddenly closed. Every connection in the network collapses like every organ in our body would be affected by a heart attack.
Reopening the strait is like a doctor getting the heart pumping again. Even after the heart starts working again, there is still a massive amount of damage done to our organs which may take years to heal.
As if this War Debt was not bad enough, there is an even greater danger whereby our entire economic future has been placed at risk. This danger comes from the hidden damage caused by Mega Corruption – corruption on a scale that is worse than your worst nightmare. Yet almost no one in America is aware this extreme corruption is even happening. Here are just a few examples.
The First Example of Mega Corruption… Stealing $27 billion from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve or SPR was started back in 1975 to protect the American people from OPEC blackmail. But in the past few months, it has been almost completely drained. In January, 2026, the SPR was at 415 million barrels of oil. As of August 7th, it has been robbed of 115 million barrels of oil and is at 300 million barrels (MB) of oil. The 4 contracts given to oil traders total 135 million barrels – all of which will be stolen in the next few weeks. In our report, we explain how this 135 million barrels of oil – our oil – was not sold fairly at a public auction. Instead, it was “loaned” to 14 “Lucky” Oil Corporations. At least that is what we were told. But in reality, these oil corporations will never have to pay it back. At $100 a barrel, that is a transfer of $13.5 billion dollars from the American people to a few oil corporations – money we likely will NEVER get back. At $200 a barrel, it amounts to $27 billion. But this is just the beginning of the Mega Corruption.
The Second Example of Mega Corruption… Oil Traders or Oil Traitors?
The claim was that our SPR oil was “loaned” to oil traders to help lower the price of gas in the US. But that is not what happened to the SPR contracts for 135 million barrels. For the past several years, US oil corporations have exported about 120 million barrels a month to Europe and Asia. But in April, May and June, 2026, oil corporations used their 135 Million Barrels of SPR contracts to export 126 million “extra” barrels of oil to Europe and Asia - over and above the 120 million barrels a month they normally exported.
In plain English, these oil traders robbed us of 135 million barrels of oil – and then sold 126 million barrels of our SPR oil to be shipped to Europe and Asia. This does not inclue whatever they shipped to Europe in July (which has not been reported yet) or will ship to Europe in August 2026.
The Third Example of Mega Corruption… Using Billions of Dollars in “Insider Trading” to Rig the Oil Price Market
We will also show in our report that there has been a huge amount of rigging and manipulation of “paper” oil contracts to artificially hold down the price of oil through massive but irregular “short selling” - likely by using the billions of dollars in profits from the 135 million barrels of oil contracts that were given to these oil traders.
The Fourth Example of Mega Corruption… Record Profits being made – double the historic average
Another oil industry crime leading to an impending energy disaster is a measure called Crack Spread. That's the gap between what a refinery pays for crude and what it earns selling the gasoline and diesel it makes from it. For most of the last decade that gap ran from $20 to $30 dollars a barrel. It is now more than double at $60 dollars a barrel and recently hit $70 per barrel - the highest Crack Spread ever recorded.
In plain English, oil refineries are currently making record profits off of selling gas to the American people.
The Fifth Example of Mega Corruption… Hiding SPR Doomsday
But the worst and most financially devastating problem is how we are being lied to about the amount of “usable” oil actually left in the SPR. We will show in our report that 260 MB to 280 MB is not actually usable (due to a factor the oil industry refers to as Tank Bottom). This means that the actual amount of oil left in the SPR is NOT 300 million barrels but only 20 to 40 Million Barrels. At 3 MB a week, the SPR could be out of oil in as little as 7 weeks (or about September 25, 2026). Here is the probability graph from our report:
This SPR Doomsday Time Bomb is ticking and most Americans are not even aware that there is a problem.
The maximum time we have left is about 10 to 14 weeks before the end of the SPR. Shortly thereafter, gas and diesel prices are likely to explode – along with the price of almost everything else – costing the American people trillions of dollars and driving our economy into a Mega Depression that will take a decade to recover from.
How can corruption associated with the Iran War cause this much economic damage?
The truth is that the coming Economic Mega Crisis is not merely due to corruption associated with the Iran War. As we explain at the end of this report, our economy was already on the edge of collapse before the Iran War even started. Our government was already deeply in debt. Most Americans were already deeply in debt. Political corruption – including billions in bribes and kickbacks – was already rampant. The Iran War was simply the final nail (or missile) in our Economic Coffin.
Questions and Answers
This report began as an attempt to answer one simple question:
Why did the US start a war against Iran?
If you are like me, you have read a lot of articles about the Iran War and why it was started. Lots of reasons have been provided. But at a very basic level, none of these reasons made any sense. In this report, we will dig more deeply into this question and provide a few reasons that – while they may sound crazy - they make a lot more sense than the superficial reasons we have been given so far.
The first question we need to address is why this report is over 100 pages long
The short answer is that we will make some incredible claims - and incredible claims require a large amount of evidence. The second reason is that, for way too many years, we have all been swimming in an ocean of lies and subjected to a massive amount of propaganda.
Getting to the truth requires exposing and refuting many years worth of lies. A key purpose of this report is to expose the actual truth underlying the Iran War.
A third reason this report is so long is that I spent nearly 20 years teaching courses in Problem Solving and Peaceful Conflict Resolution at Bellevue College, near Seattle Washington.
One of the first and most important steps in problem solving is determining the underlying causes of problems. In this report, we analyze the underlying causes of one of the worst problems in human history, namely, an ever increasing War Machine. We will not cover all of the components of the War Machine. But we need to cover some of them if we are to understand the connections between the Iran War, Mega Corruption and the coming Economic Mega Crisis.
A fourth reason this report is more than 100 pages long is that it includes more than 100 images. As a teacher, I learned long ago that many people are not able to make much sense out of a bunch of words. I therefore try to include images and graphs to help these visual readers understand important points.
A fifth reason this report is so long is that, to understand Mega Corruption and why and when it will lead to an Economic Mega Crisis, we need to analyze the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve – or SPR - which was started in 1975 to provide a “cushion” in the event of another Oil War. The SPR is supposed to have more than 700 million barrels of oil stored in 60 Salt Mines in Texas and Louisiana. However, it currently has about 300 million barrels of oil – of which only 20 to 40 million barrels are actually useable. The SPR is being used to rig the price of oil in order to hold down the price of gas. The price of gas is important because most Americans buy a tank of gas every week to get to work. Once gas hits $10 a gallon, Americans are going to start wanting to know why. In this report, we explain why – which requires an understanding of the Strategic Oil Reserve.
In rigging the price of oil, the War Machine is also hiding the true cost of diesel, fertilizer, food and many other things. Shortly after the SPR runs dry, the rigging will end, and the cost of nearly everything will explode – which is why we refer to that date as the SPR Doomsday.
If you do not want to learn about how the Mega Corruption works and how it is related to the SPR, feel free to skip the first few sections and just read the sections you are most interested in. But please be warned. You are not likely to believe what is there can possibly be true. Instead, without reading the whole report, you will likely just think I am crazy.
The next question we need to consider is why the current “explanations” for the Iran War do not make any sense
On February 28, 2026, Trump started a war against Iran – a war that was never declared by Congress – and a war that did not involve an “imminent threat” from Iran. It was a war that was obvious that we could never win. Right from the very beginning - and even before the beginning - it was obvious we could never win. No matter how many Iranian leaders the US assasinated, new ones – and even more militant ones – would take their place. Killing their leaders would only turn them into martyrs and galvanize their millions of followers to hate the US even more.
No amount of bombs dropped from US planes were going to cause Iranians to surrender their country or cave in to our demands. No amount of missiles launched from US bases were going to eliminate Iran’s own missile and drone systems – which we have known for years are buried deep inside of Iran’s many mountains.
A ground invasion of Iran would have been a suicide mission. They have 90 million people – half of whom seem to be in their thousands of highly trained and well educated militias.
We have known for years that if the US attacked Iran, they would close down the Strait of Hormuz and thereby stop the flow of million barrels of oil out of the Persian Gulf. This closure was not a “surprise.” Iran first threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in 1983 during the Iran-Iraq War. In December, 2011, Iran again threatened to shut down the Gulf of Hormuz in response to US economic sanctions. It was also predictable that closing the Persian Gulf would lead to higher oil prices and gas prices and food prices and severely harm the US and world economies.
If all of this was known, why did Trump start a war against Iran?
Some have claimed that the reason for starting this war was because “Iran was about to create a nuclear bomb” and we needed to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. This excuse was remarkably similar to the false “Weapons of Mass Destruction” claim used to start the oil war against Iraq 20 years ago – another claim that was eventually found to not be true.
Our own Intelligence agencies have stated that this claim that Iran was making a Nuke was not true. In fact, years ago, the spiritual leader of Iran issued a spirtual order to NOT build a nuclear weapon. He asserted (correctly) that making a nuclear weapon would be morally wrong. By assassinating the very person who prevented Iranians from making a nuclear weapon, the US greatly increased the chances that Iran will make a nuclear weapon in the future. It does not take more than 10 minutes of research to realize that the claim that we started the war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is ridiculous. Starting the war and continuing the war only gives Iranians more reasons to get a nuclear bomb.
Others claim that the real reason the US started the war was because the Israeli lobby has used massive amounts of bribes to control Congress and the White House. It is true that Israel began the Iran War by launching an unprovoked attack against Iran on February 28, 2026. But this initial attack was followed by months of attacks by the US military under direct orders from President Trump. Just because Israel attacked Iran did not mean we needed to do the same.
Recently, a Trump insider claimed that Trump “did not intend this to be a long drawn out war.” But in our report, we review five SPR oil contracts made in the Spring of 2026 with delivery dates into September 2026. If Trump really wanted a short war, then why were five SPR oil contracts issued with dates extending all of the way into September 2026? Clearly, Trump insiders knew in the Spring that this war was going to keep going at least through the Fall.
Some people put the blame on Congress for forcing Trump to go to War. OK. So Congress and our entire government are corrupt. But they must certainly know that, even before the war started, it would be the most unpopular war in American history. This should have been – and likely was - obvious from the beginning. Many polls have since confirmed this fact. Even the most corrupt of politicians can read a poll. There is a General Election in just a couple of months. All of the War Hawks are running the risk of being voted out of office. Moreover, we have had political corruption for years and never before have we gotten into a war capable of causing a Mega Depression.
So, again we need to ask, why did Trump start this war, why is he continuing it and why is Congress supporting it - even though it is extremely unpopular, unwinnable and likely to lead to a Mega Depression?
This may sound like crazy talk - but we need to at least consider the possibility that this war was deliberately planned. We need to at least consider the possibility that the Iran War has almost nothing to do with Iran – that Iran is just a destraction. It is not about protecting US military bases in the Middle East either. Iran has already destroyed most of the US bases within range of their missiles. It is not about protecting Israel – because they are about to be destroyed too. It is not about stopping Iran from getting a bomb and it is not even about opening up the Gulf of Hormuz – which the Iranians closed because of the war!
So what is the Iran War really about?
In this report, we will provide a mountain of evidence that the Iran War is ultimately about money. Lots and lots of money. Trillions of dollars of money. We will explain how the Iran War was turned into a crime wave whereby an extremely corrupt and greedy group, we call the War Machine, was allowed to rob trillions of dollars from the American people.
In this report, we don’t just follow the money, we follow the oil money to see how every day that the war continues, it makes billions of dollars for a small group of people. That is why the War Machine started the Iran War and that is why it will continue – regardless of the harm it inflicts on the US economy or Israel or Iran or the world.
Some commentators have said that that Trump accidentally or mistakenly got on an Escalation Ladder Trap and does not know how to get off without losing his base. They claim that he wants to end the war. This may or may not be true. But what is true is that the War Machine does not want to end the Iran War and that is why the Iran War will keep going for as long as the War Machine gets away with it.
The War Machine will keep the Iran War going as long as possible – just like they kept the Vietnam War going, and the Iraq War going and the Afghanistan War going and the Syria War going and the Gaza War going.
How many more times will we fall for this nonsense before we see that all wars are about making money for the War Machine? Just look at the new War Budget for 2027 which totals $1.5 Trillion.
This war is not about getting a “better deal.” It is not about making sure Iran doesn’t get a nuke. It is about making hundreds of billions of dollars. And that is what we will show in this report.
We have been warned about the War Machine many times
Smedley Bulter tried to warn us about the War Machine – but we did not listen.
George Orwell tried to warn us about the War Machine – but we did not listen.
President Dwight Eisenhower tried to warn us about the War Machine – but we did not listen.
President John Kennedy tried to warn us about the War Machine – and was killed for it – but we did not listen.
Robert Kennedy tried to warn us about the War Machine – and was killed for it – but we did not listen.
Martin Luther King Jr. tried to warn us about the War Machine – and was killed for it – but we did not listen.
Julian Assange tried to warn us about the War Machine. He was put in prison for exposing War Crimes – but still we did not listen.
Most recently, Edward Snowden tried to warn us about the War Machine – and he was exiled to Russia – but still we did not listen.
Now we and our children and our communities and our nation are about to pay a staggering price for not listening.
Hopefully, after what is about to happen in the coming months, at least some of us will wake up and start to listen. Because it is the only way we will ever end the War Machine and take our country back.
Why Wars always make our Worlds Problems Worse
There are two characteristics about all of the wars that the War Machine has dragged us into during the past 70 years. The first is that they have all made a massive amount of money for a small group of people. The second is that going to war has never solved any of the problems they claim to solve. Instead, they have ALWAYS made our problems and the world’s problems worse.
There are ways to solve problems and resolve conflicts. But War is not one of them. I know this because I spent nearly 60 years studying all of these wars. I spent 20 years teaching courses in Constructive Problem Solving and Peaceful Conflict Resolution.
The first step in solving problems is to understand the actual problems and their underlying causes. As long as we keep rewarding the War Machine by giving them a trillion dollars a year, they will keep funding the elections of pro-War Machine hawks who will keep funding wars that harm all of us.
This report is an attempt to help more people better understand what is really going on with the Iran War and why it is likely to keep going on – even after the US runs out of missiles and even after it destroys our economy and the world economy.
In this report, we expose how this War Machine Mega Corruption was carried out and why it will lead, like a series of dominoes, to an Oil Crisis, a Gas Crisis, a Food Crisis, a Monetary Crisis, a Job Crisis and a Debt Crisis.
We explain how these factors will lead to an Economic Mega Crisis on a scale that will severely harm the entire world. It will keep going on because of Mega Corruption that exists on a scale so huge, it is difficult for most people to even imagine.
The fact that the Iran War is going bad and will likely cost the Republican Party the 2026 election does not matter to the War Machine – because the War Machine also controls the Democratic Party. So the War Machine wins no matter who wins the election or which party controls Congress.
Join us as we follow the transfer of Mega Money – literally billions of your tax payer dollars – through a maze of hidden contracts, unsecured loans, false promises, insider trading, shorting “paper” commodities and manipulating the oil market – all to help 14 “Lucky” corporations make a hundreds of million of dollars AN HOUR – and repeat this robbery day after day – all while telling the American people that we are getting a “Good Deal.”
Discover how “Big Ag” monopolies have been allowed to rig the US Fertilizer market – making massive profits while driving thousands of farmers out of business and driving food prices so high that millions of Americans will be pushed to the edge of mass starvation.
Learn as we “connect the dots” to explain why lying lobbyists were able to bribe Congress into voting for a $1.5 trillion dollar sell out of our nation’s future to a group of genocidal maniacs.
This report exposes not just destroyed US military bases and billion dollar blown up radar stations – it exposes a tidal wave of crime so vast that it is almost beyond comprehension – and racketeering so diabolical that it will go down in annals of our nation as the Mega Corruption that caused the worst Mega Depression in human history.
In this report, we provide answers to the following 12 questions:
#1 How could Trump claim on March 11, 2026, that he would drain 172 million barrels of oil from our Strategic Oil Reserve without costing the American people anything - and in fact that we would get back 200 million barrels of oil?
#2 What happened the last time our government (aka Joe Biden) “loaned” 30 million barrels to “Lucky” oil corporations – and how much that fiasco wound up costing us?
#3 Why would any oil company agree to “borrow” even a single barrel of oil from our Strategic Oil Reserve knowing that the Iran War is almost certain to double or even triple the price of oil and thereby double or triple their cost when it comes time for them to pay back the oil they were loaned?
#4 How was more than a hundred million barrels of oil “loaned” to oil companies used to manipulate and artificially depress the oil market?
#5 Who profited from this epic oil market rigging and how much did they make?
#6 Why did Trump say on June 17, 2026 that “We run out of reserves in about four weeks” – and why did we not run out of reserves in four weeks?
#7 When will we actually run out of reserves from our Strategic Oil Reserve – a day we will call the “SPR Doomsday”?
#8 What will happen to oil and gas prices after there is no longer any SPR oil which can be used to manipulate and hide the true price of oil and gas?
#9 What will happen to the price of food in the coming weeks and months as oil, gas and fertilizer prices skyrocket?
#10 What will happen to our jobs as businesses close due to skyrocketing inflation and the collapse in the value of the dollar?
#11 How much will Seniors lose in their retirement accounts as the purchasing power of their life savings plunges into the abyss?
#12 How we can use the coming economic mega crisis to reunite America, end the mega corruption and restore a government of the People, by the People and for the People?
This report is extremely long. But there is no other way to get past our Normalacy Bias and understand the real threats we are facing. So if you want to know the real reasons the Iran War was started, then please take the time to read this report. Our future depends on it.