Riley Waggaman | Russia, Iran and Israel

The war in Ukraine has become a static, grinding slaughter with no clear objectives achieved, while Russia faces escalating internal repression and energy crises despite being a major oil and gas producer. Riley Waggaman argues that the real story is not the front lines, but the deliberate expansion of the kill zone through drone warfare and the psychological toll on civilians. He contends that the war is an 'intra-oligarchic feud' where ordinary people are sacrificed for geopolitical games. The pivot to Iran has been orchestrated, not by necessity, but as a calculated act of destabilization—especially given Russia’s silence on the U.S.-Israel strike on Iran, which Waggaman sees as a sign of deeper collusion. He reveals that Iran implemented Western-style lockdowns, surveillance, and IMF loans, undermining the myth of it being an 'anti-Western' outlier. The energy crisis triggered by the attack on Iran is not a surprise but a desired outcome: a global energy lockdown that could collapse economies, drive inflation, and force Western markets to reopen to Russian oil—ironically, the same energy Russia is supplying to NATO while being bombed. Waggaman concludes that the entire conflict, from Ukraine to Iran to Israel’s regional expansion, is a theater of control, with the real winners being the global elite who profit from chaos.