Sanctions Circus: 86 to 12. The Senate just cleared the path for the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, as the real world demands and continues to buy Russian oil. Zelensky sat in the gallery, smiled for the cameras, and declared it a “big signal of support.” Of course he did.
The whole performance was staged around a dead warmongering senator’s funeral. Here’s what the bill actually does. It hands the White House power to slam up to 100 percent tariffs on the five biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas. It goes after the shadow fleet, the banks, the businessmen, their families. It rolls Iran sanctions forward another five years so nothing expires. Secondary pressure aimed straight at China, India, and anyone else still buying Russian crude. Just look at the headlines of who demands and still buys Russian oil.
It will not work the way they think. Russia already rerouted its energy flows east and south years ago. The "shadow fleet" is larger and more experienced than ever. China and India are not going to kneel over a tariff threat from a country that still needs their manufacturing and their markets. Every new secondary sanction just accelerates the construction of parallel payment systems, parallel logistics, parallel insurance. The same pattern we have watched since 2022.
This is escalation theater at its most pathetic and desperate.
The real multipolar world is already pricing in the next round of Western self-harm timed perfectly with the strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb under Iranian and Yemeni control. Moscow will keep selling to the real world and the buyers will keep buying. Boomerang sanctions will continue to hit these fools hard.
