The Law of Unintended Consequences

I listened with fascination this week to President Trump’s press conference after the NATO meeting at The Hague in the Netherlands. It was a masterclass in communication. Trump was serious, he was funny, he was compassionate, and he was the master of the press conference art. The video of the conference should be used as a teaching tool in all schools of communication.

I have included a link below to the video for Sons of Issachar readers and believe it is worthwhile taking the time to view. There are 15 minutes of remarks by President Trump, mainly related to the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, followed by 30 min of questions from the U.S. and European press.

As I watched the extraordinary communication skills of President Trump, I was reminded of a lecture I heard from a U.S. business guru, Pat Murray, about 25 years ago. He said: “The result of all communication - is misunderstanding!”. He made the point that no matter how effective you are as a communicator, when you stand up and give a presentation there will be different interpretations of what you said.

And so it is with President Trump: there are many interpretations of what he says and the media generally have the worst possible assessments. However, Trump has mastered the art of making it difficult for people to guess what he will do next.

My interpretation of Trump’s bombing of the Iran nuclear sites, stemming from hearing press conferences and talks by the president over the past few days is as follows:

• Trump has been saying for 15 years that Iran should not have a nuclear bomb because their core philosophy is death to the U.S. and death to Israel;

• Many U.S. presidents have declared that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon but then they have, in effect, facilitated the progress of Iran’s nuclear enrichment. President Obama even gave Iran $1.7 billion including $400 million in cash, sent in suitcases by plane;

• Trump offered the opportunity for Iran to negotiate and he sent his real estate buddy, Steve Witkoff, for several rounds of talks. He said this window would be 60 days, and Mr Witkoff told him that the Iranians were just “playing him”. Day 61, Israel bombed Iran and took out various key figures in the Revolutionary Guard.

• Trump , in effect, gave the go ahead for the Israelis to attack various nuclear sites and to hit senior Iranian defense personnel and also nuclear scientists. He was aware of the potential for the U.S. to be drawn into a wider conflict.

• Because of the Iranians intransigence, Trump authorised the use of bunker busting bombs to wipe out the Iranian sites that had the nuclear facilities deep underground - Fordo and Natanz - and Tomahawk missiles fired at the third site - Esfahan from U.S. submarines (Figure 1).

• The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Caine said: “In total, U.S. forces employed approximately 75 precision-guided weapons during this operation. This included, as the President stated last night, 14 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance penetrators, marking the first ever operational use of this weapon”.

• Trump then called a ceasefire - and in effect said: “Now there’s been a punchup, we can all settle down, be friends, and do a deal”. Of course - he’s dreamin’! The Iranians are implacably opposed to Israel and the West and won’t stop until the world is blown up and the Mah’di returns (see post from last week).

Figure1. US Deparment of Defense map of the U.S. strikes on the three Iranian nuclear sites. Source.

As I have contemplated all the issues in relation to Israel, the U.S. and Iran plus the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, I once again thought about the law of unintended consequences.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

The law of unintended consequences flows on, in a certain way, from the observation that “the result of all communication - is misunderstanding”. The law is at work in almost all areas of life and is true in commercial companies where a new policy or product is introduced.

One of the classic examples is the introduction of “new Coke” by the Coca Cola Company in 1985. This is how history.com describes the company disaster:

“New Coke left a bitter taste in the mouths of the company’s loyal customers. Within weeks of the announcement, the company was fielding 5,000 angry phone calls a day. By June, that number grew to 8,000 calls a day, a volume that forced the company to hire extra operators….Seventy-nine days after their initial announcement, Coca-Cola executives once again held a press conference on July 11, 1985—this time to announce a mea culpa and the return of the original formula, which hardly had time to gather dust in its Atlanta bank vault, under the label “Coca-Cola Classic.”

Similar unintended consequences have been found in international affairs and are notable in decisions taken during the Vietnam War and the Iraq and Afghanistan “wars on terror”. Robert Brent Toplin outlined some of these unintended consequences in his article “War and “The Law of Unintended Consequences”written in 2001:

“Consider what happened in the past under what some people call the “Law of Unintended Consequences.” This rule is a variant of Murphy’s Law, the familiar notion that if anything can go wrong, it will. Unintended consequences seem to occur with the gravest results in war. Large-scale military engagements can shake up political, economic and social conditions profoundly. Big wars often produce extraordinary changes over the years — changes not foreseen by those who planned the initial actions.

Examples of unintended consequences can be seen in the record of three conflicts in the 20th century: World War I, the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War:

Shooting in 1914 began after leaders and citizens in a few countries enthusiastically demanded action in response to perceived insults and grievances. But the fighting did not produce quick and glorious victories. Instead, it burned on for four years and resulted in the death of tens of millions. The Great War (as it was called) created chaos in Russia, and offered an opportunity for a communist minority to seize power and begin a nightmare of dictatorship and oppression. These repercussions not only brought misery to the Russian people but led eventually to a dangerous Cold War. In Germany, similarly, serious postwar economic dislocations and a troublesome peace settlement contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s.

The Vietnam War also had unintended consequences. American engagement in Indo-China began as support for a popular struggle to stop communism, but it produced outcomes that took American strategists by surprise, even though they might have known better. When President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated America’s combat role in Vietnam in 1965, he did not anticipate that U.S. participation would stretch for eight more years, leaving 58,000 Americans dead and a third of a million wounded. He did not imagine that his commitment would quickly split U.S. society into bitterly contending ranks of “hawks” and “doves.”

Nor did Johnson envision that the fighting in Vietnam would affect conditions in neighboring Cambodia and push that neutral nation into years of communism and mass murder. And, of course, the president did not expect that ultimately American intervention would undermine rather than strengthen America’s international image.

The admirable struggle in 1991 to defend Kuwait from Iraqís invasion in the Persian Gulf War also produced surprising developments. The American enthusiasm for military engagement achieved a quick victory over Iraq, but Saddam Hussein remained in power and became more eager than ever to sponsor terrorism and develop weapons of mass destruction.

Further, American military engagement also provoked some extremists in the Middle East to declare a holy war against the United States. These zealots cared little that the principal American aim in the Persian Gulf conflict was to rescue a Muslim society from the grips of an aggressive, invading neighbor led, ironically, by a secular government. Instead, their distorted interpretation of the events led to the conclusion that the West, especially the United States, was a violent enemy of Islam. Their warped arguments, not shared by most Muslims, grew more influential through the 1990s. These reactions demonstrated once again that wars often create unexpected effects.”

Undoubtedly, the Washington and Jerusalem planners will have considered many likely options in the responses by Iran and the Muslim world to the attacks on Iran. Certainly, they will have taken into account the support for Hamas in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia - particularly among brainwashed university students. Who knows what these supporters will do? However, unintended consequences are just that - outcomes that are unforeseen.

President Trump has called an end to the conflict but the strikes by Israel and the U.S. have released a genie from a bottle that cannot be returned. The most foreseeable events are the activation of terror cells across the West but undoubtedly countries like China, Russia and North Korea will see opportunities from the current chaos. In any case, I don’t think we will have to wait long before some of the unintended consequences become evident.

Articles That Caught My Attention

Schliemann’s Trench in Turkey

I subscribe to Seymour Hersh’s substack and it is always interesting. This week Hersh (the reporter who unearthed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War in 1972 - see this link) has a fascinating insight into the U.S. strike on Fordo, the nuclear facility hidden deep underground in the Iranian mountains.

The Fordo Site - called the Shahid Ali Mohammadi Nuclear Facility - is located 30km north of the Iranian city of Qom in a very mountainous region. The issue has always been - how to be able to attack a site buried very deep and out of the prying eyes of the International Atomic Energy Commission? The solution - a lateral approach, gleaned from archeology.

THE BURIAL PLAN

Hersh writes:

“A White House team working closely with Israelis struggled with that issue throughout the first months of the Trump administration. Everyone involved supported the Israeli insistence that Fordo had to be eliminated. The solution that became policy—blockading any entrance to the nuclear site—arose because one member of the secret group remembered what he had learned, perhaps in college, about Schliemann’s Trench in Turkey.

Heinrich Schliemann was a wealthy German amateur archeologist who spent nearly twenty years in the late nineteenth century trying to find the ruins of Troy. He was convinced they were buried in the hills near Hissarlik, Turkey. Stymied by rocks and debris at his immediate target, he carved a huge 56-foot-deep and 230-foot-wide gash in the side of an adjacent hill until he hit bedrock. In the process he destroyed much of what turned out to be part of the original walls of Troy.

The member of the joint American-Israeli study group brought Schliemann’s folly to his colleagues. Why not deal with the buried nuclear materials not by trying to bomb the working site—even the US’s feared bunker-buster bombs would not be effective at the depth of the nuclear complex at Fordo—but by repeatedly striking the entrances and air holes there until there could be no way in or out. In other words, avoid an attack plan that had little chance of working and instead seal the Iranian centrifuges and the store of enriched uranium.

Studies at the time demonstrated that US bunker busters, even if precisely targeted, could not get within 60 feet of the depth needed. As a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran was accurately reporting the constantly growing amount of uranium enriched to 60 percent—now fixed at 900 pounds—that was generated and stored at Fordo. Twenty pounds of uranium enriched to 90 percent is enough for one bomb. It would take days, not weeks, at Fordo to enrich its uranium from 60 percent to weapons grade.

It was finally decided the US armada of bombers and attack planes, when it did get the presidential order to attack, would not try to penetrate Iran’s nuclear enrichment area but would aim its bunker busters—at least thirteen of them—at the mountain. All of the known entry ways and air tubes that reached above ground were directly targeted, leaving a huge amount of rubble above the working levels that would be nearly impossible to penetrate.

None of the US bombs was meant to strike the enriched-uranium storage facility or the centrifuges spinning away. The measure of success came later when American sensors reported no increase in the atmospheric radiation levels after the attack. Iran’s uranium was intact and simply buried.”

There is still a long way to go with the challenge of the Iranian nuclear sites but Seymour Hersh’s article provided a fascinating insight into how the issue of the Fordo site was approached by Washington planners.

Follow the Money - Cash and Global Health Policy

The Australian Medical Professionals Society (AMPS) is the alternate professional group to the woke Australian Medical Association, the long-standing medical association that no longer seems to represent the interests of doctors and their patients.

The AMPS describes itself as “defending doctors for the benefit of Australian patients”. The group was at the forefront of raising alarms about the COVID-19 vaccines and published the important book: Too Many Dead. I wrote about the book just over one year ago:

The AMPS has just published a new report titled: Follow the Money: WHO’s Directing Global Health Policy.

Figure 2. Front cover of the Australian Medical Professionals Society report.

The report examines the financial and governance structure of the World Health Organization (WHO), focusing on its top-100 donors to specified projects during 2022–2023 period. The report highlights that many of these donors—including pharmaceutical companies, UN agencies, research institutions, and philanthropic foundations—have clear links to the pharmaceutical industry. It raises concerns that WHO’s funding model, which allows donors to earmark funds for specific purposes, creates potential conflicts of interest and opens the door for undue influence over global health policy. Notably, the report alleges that these arrangements contravene WHO’s own guidelines, which caution against accepting funds from organisations that stand to benefit commercially from WHO activities.

The AMPS report further notes that some of WHO’s largest financial backers—such as the Gates Foundation and GAVI Alliance—also maintain deep connections with pharmaceutical firms and are positioned to shape market demand for medical interventions like vaccines. Follow the Money concludes with recommendations that the Australian Government reconsider its participation in recent WHO-led treaties, including the revised International Health Regulations and Pandemic Treaty, citing a compromised governance structure within the WHO that may prioritise industry interests over public health outcomes.

James Roguski writes a substack that highlights problems with the WHO and the intention of this organisation to gain more global control. Mr Roguski highlights the new report from the AMPS in his recent substack article (link below). It is clear that similar to national government health departments, the WHO cannot be trusted to be an independent source of public health recommendations.

WHO's Directing Global Health Policy?

The report can be obtained at this link which has a report summary and a link to download the 48-page report.

Bilderberg 2025

With all the drama between Iran and Israel in the last few weeks, it is important to remember that the annual Bilderberg meeting took place in Stockholm two weeks ago. The meeting was described by the Daily Mail as the “world’s most secretive society”

Dr Jacob Nordangård provided some insights into the meeting in his recent Pharos Chronicles:

Bilderberg 2025: Invoking the AI-powered War Machine

He pointed out that the meeting was a gathering of “war profiteers” as well as a number of Big Tech moguls. Dr Nordangård writes:

“Some of the subjects discussed at the Bilderberg meeting in Stockholm were:

• Authoritarian Axis

• Defence Innovation and Resilience

• AI, Deterrence and National Security

• Proliferation

• Geopolitics of Energy and Critical Minerals

• Depopulation and Migration

This means WAR! Can we assume that the reference to “depopulation” concerns an ethnic cleansing of Gaza and maybe the West Bank, or does it indicate a major devastating event in the near future? It certainly fuels speculations.

The defense industry is about to secure lucrative contracts anyway. After the meeting the approximately 150 attendees celebrated their successful gathering at the Wallenberg villa “Täcka Udden”, a short boat ride from Grand Hotel. Oscar Stenström, the former secretary of state who negotiated Sweden’s entry into NATO and now is employed by the Wallenberg sphere (!), was in charge of the arrangements.”

Shortly after the Bilderberg meeting, the G7 gathering took place in Canada, under the watchful eye of Mark Carney the globalist and new Canadian Prime Minister. Then all the globalists jetted off to the Hague for the NATO meeting that concluded yesterday, Dr Nordangård concludes:

“An escalating war in the Middle East is now on top of the agenda. A war to be fought with drones, robots, and the latest AI-powered machinery. Delivered by Karp and Thiel’s Palantir”.

Dr Nordangård’s book The Temple of Solomon (now in its second edition) outlines scenarios which now seem much closer than they once were. It seems likely that the globalists will want to build on the current conflicts and perhaps throw in a pandemic for good luck!

Be very careful about various global “crises coming our way”. However, President Trump is a wild card and probably noone knows what he will do next - even Trump himself!