[This Iran War update yet again is launching before finished. I will be done by 8:30 AM EDT, perhaps sooner. If you arrive before then, please do remember to refresh this page as of then and re-skim]
Even after Trump came as close to contrition as he ever does, in trying to throw Israel under the bus for attacks on Iranian energy facilities that led to swift, brutal retaliation, including most importantly, destruction at Qatar’s vital Ras Laffan LNG operations that will take years to repair and promising really, truly, Israel will never do anything like that again. Even though Netanyahu said the Israel “acted alone,” Reuters joined Axios in reporting that the settler colony coordinated its attacks with the US.
The fact that Trump and Netanyahu seem momentarily chastened does not change the underlying dynamic. This war is a test to destruction. Reader ISL pointed to ISL March, 16-19: diplomatic impunity by NO1. This section summed up the state of play:
Iran’s declared terms are: reparations, closure of all US bases in the GCC, guarantees against future aggression.
The US’s declared goal is: regime change, denuclearisation, dismantlement of the “Iranian terror regime”.
Neither side has moved an inch. The only people who might have found a middle lane are either dead or sidelined.
The US cannot voluntarily swallow the epic level of defeat that accepting Iran’s terms would amount to. We have repeatedly said that even if Trump and Netanyahu were to have Damascene conversions and show genuine, credible movement to an exit ramp, there are too many powerfully placed factions and individuals who are deeply invested in the Iran hatred project for that to happen. The one measure that could impress Iran of US sincerity would be to turn over the $100+ billion of Iran’s frozen assets, which Iran could treat as meeting its reparations demands. Please tell me in what alternative universe you think that might happen.
Netanyahu has made clear that Israel intends to press on. From YNet News in Netanyahu: ‘You can’t make a revolution from the air, there are ground options’, courtesy reader Ann:
In a statement with foreign media present, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to a journalist’s question that “you can’t make revolutions from the air. We are doing many things from the air but there must be a ground component – I won’t share with you all the options.”
And Iran has no reason to back down. It has stood alone for decades, with no friends save perhaps North Korea. Readers recounted long form how Russia has a history of broken promises1 and can at best be regarded as opportunistic in backing Iran now (not that that is unhelpful).
Iran has been demonized, sanctioned, and subjected to repeated attempts to break it as a nation and even a culture. Yet the Persians have a long and storied history of defeating seemingly far more powerful military opponents by careful study of their weaknesses and extensive planning and preparation.2 At best, they were never going to go down without an extremely bloody fight, the opposite of what the high-on-their-misplaced-sense-of-power-and-superiority belligerents assumed.
The Gulf States, they are starting to grapple with how dire their situation is becoming. Notice the quiet emotional exhaustion of the presenter and his use of the expression “breaking point”:
However, the Iran strikes, triggered by the Israeli bombings of energy assets, seem to be hardening the tendency of Gulf States to stand with the US even though they recognize intellectually that it was the US and Israel, without their consent, unleashed this volley of destruction against them. The Qatar Prime Minister states: “Iran has destroyed the nation’s [Qatar’s] trust with its aggression.”
The reason that posture matters is that it represents a failure to deal with the new reality, and if it holds, closes one dimly conceivable de-escalation path: that individual Gulf States capitulate to Iran, by committing to neutrality, expelling US forces,3 and providing reparations by agreeing to accept payment for their energy, circumventing dollar payment systems, and adding a 10% toll as reparations. That could still be the way this ends, via an oil state revolt against the US, but events seem to be moving away from rather than toward that path. A sighting from reader Ann at Aljazeera:, US approves $16.5bn arms deal to Gulf states amid rising Iran tensions: “The proposed deal includes the sale of drones, missiles and radars for Gulf allies, including UAE, Kuwait and Jordan.”
One of the big reasons it will be close to impossible for influential actors in the Iran-attacking states to reverse course isn’t simply personal complicity and ego investment. It is that powerful players in adjacent spheres of power, even those who have not drunk the Kool-Aid, are having extreme difficulty in processing what is happening before their eyes. This means that self-preservation behavior that would lead them to take urgent action to try to prevent worst outcomes is not kicking in.4
For instance, traders and investors should see the potential for making big bucks by being ahead-of-the-curve on the trajectory of events and placing wagers accordingly. So this report from reader kriptid before the market opening yesterday, which illustrates the depth of learned passivity, or what is more formally called normalcy bias:
A sense of goings on inside Wall Street…
For the most part, everyone is MSM-captured at mid- and senior-level management. There is some noticeable confusion from those types about why we haven’t just ended this already. Last week, a senior guy was recounting a golf course meeting with a highly placed general, recently retired, who assured him that US tech was “at least 30 years ahead of what they’ve got.” That gives you a sense of it.
Inside my shop, we have been getting daily missives from our energy trading desk about the war. The tone has shifted markedly from “this should be over soon” and “don’t see how Iran can sustain against the combined might of US/Israel” towards the realm of “the sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz could wreak havoc” and “we think Trump will soon seek an off ramp.”
Myself, I’ve been telling everyone in my little corner of the office that the LNG situation is precarious given (1) the number of tankers bottled up in the gulf is a large proportion of the global fleet (2) LNG has lower stockpiles and less marine infrastructure to support it than oil and (3) the gas field shared between Iran and Qatar is the most easily accessed escalatory lever, and as this drags on, someone will be tempted to use it.
I did not expect it to happen this quickly. I expect this will sharpen the focus a lot of minds in the energy markets today.
After the initial spike in gas and oil prices, both retreated a bit. I wish I had screenshot it, but during the say, I saw a Bloomberg banner headline which said something very close to “Markets Chipper Up After Soothing Words from Trump and Netanyahu.”
Mind you, that recovery occurred despite evidence of reality starting to break through, as shown in the Financial Times in ‘Armageddon scenario’ for gas markets as Qatar hit by missiles (hat tip reader Acadia):
Before the attack, traders assumed that the flow of LNG from Ras Laffan would resume once the Middle East conflict eased and the Strait of Hormuz was safe for tankers to pass through. Gas prices, having risen last week, had stabilised far below the levels seen during Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
But that assumption has now been shattered.
One trader said that gas prices in Europe would be pushed higher “through 2027” and that Europe would find it harder to refill its gas storage tanks this summer as Asian buyers snapped up LNG from the US to make up for the lost supply.
Asia was already facing shortages and rationing due to the loss of supply from the Gulf.
Europe, which has become more reliant on LNG since Russia slashed pipeline exports during its war with Ukraine, is now expected to be pitched into direct competition against countries such as Japan and South Korea for limited cargoes.
Laurent Segalen, a clean energy investment banker, said: “It is apocalypse now. The coming months for gas importers are going to be a bloodbath.”
Now how can that be? Decades of momentum trading being far more lucrative than fundamental analysis, exacerbated by faith in the Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen-Powell put, plus indoctrination that if you hold financial assets long enough, they will work out in the end, seems to have produced cognitive stupor, an inability to recognize the black swan that just landed on your desk.
But it goes even deeper. In the early 1980s, in a short print article I have never been able to locate again, management guru Peter Drucker noticed that the symbol economy, as in profiting from finance and other non-material products, was assuming primacy over the real economy. He could sense this would produce bad outcomes in the long run but could not articulate why.
Now the world is run almost entirely by professional-managerial class symbol manipulators, who like Ursula von der Leyen, think if they can make things work on paper or in a PowerPoint and get approving nods at meetings, their schemes are viable. Admittedly, current divisions over what to do about Iran shows that at least some EU leaders have sobered up, per a new Politico story, EU leaders find themselves incapable of action despite wars so close to home.
For an extreme but not entirely surprising heated rejection of the harsh new realities of Iran’s power, be sure to watch the closing part of this Janta Ka segment. The Newsmax reporter’s conduct is astonishing (see starting at 11:10). He cannot process what Professor Marandi is saying:
But it’s not just Trump loyalists who are having trouble staring the awfulness of where we are headed in the face. I hate to make an object lesson of the normally terrific Larry Johnson, but today he slips into hopium in Are Bibi and Trump Looking for an Exit Ramp From the War in Iran?:
I think Trump’s best option to end the war with Iran is to resurrect the JCPOA, only call it something else. If Trump agrees to lift sanctions on Iran and withdraws US forces from the Persian Gulf by proclaiming they are no longer needed because Iran has been totally defeated, and Iran agrees to full IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities, he could declare victory. I think this is farfetched but I’m trying to come up with something that is in the realm, albeit a distant one, of possibility.
Now in fairness, Johnson does concede that this is “farfetched” “but my reading is that he depicts is as farfetched because it is almost vanishingly impossible to see Trump retreating that much. But Iran won’t accept that even if he did.
Or consider a key section from an interview of John Mearsheimer at Daniel Davis’ channel. Many of you have seen this already:
From near the end:
Davis: I’m not going to put you back on the hot spot again to ask you uh you know, how’s this going to end? Because you’ve already told me you don’t have it and nobody has a good answer for it. The one question I will leave you ask you at the end here is uh how long do you think that this can go on before something has to give? How long can we muddle along with where we’re in now at on day 18 or 19?
Mearsheimer: It’s hard for me to imagine it going on much beyond two or three months just because of the damage that is likely to be done to the international economy.
It it would just seem to me that President Trump at some point uh you know maybe two or three months out is going to have no choice but uh to end the war. But who knows for sure.
You know it’s just what’s so difficult Danny is to tell is to determine how fast we’ll go up the escalation ladder. If we go up the escalation ladder at a rather rapid pace, it could end pretty quickly uh because the damage that would be done to the international economy uh would be great. But if things pretty much stabilize in terms of going up the escalation ladder and neither side does uh anything uh terribly provocative, you know, the war could go on probably beyond three months, maybe for a really long period of time. But my guess would be, you know, after three months, this one will probably come to an end.
Again, Iran demands that the US exit the Middle East and pay reparations. It will need to see concrete action that that is happening before it will let up much on its Strait of Hormuz chokehold. That is operationally, let alone politically, impossible in three months.
Mercoglino is not in the same universe as Mearsheimer in terms of understanding the bigger forces in play. But look at his sense of disbelief at US impotence (note also that Twitter is now blocking a lot of embeds):
Some short kinetic war updates. Janta Ka also covers another development we are late to profile due to wanting to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Here he discusses Iran presenting evidence that it did indeed down an F-35:
Israeli oil refinery operator says most facilities operational after Iranian attack
The operator of an Israeli oil refinery in Haifa says it is has been damaged in an Iranian missile strike on Wednesday, but that most of its production facilities remain operating, reports news agency Reuters.
Oil Refineries Ltd says that essential infrastructure was damaged in “localised hits” in Thursday’s attack, but reports that there were no injuries or casualties.
It adds that the production facilities that have stopped operating are currently being restarted.
The refinery, located in northern Israel’s Haifa Bay, is the largest oil processing facility in Israel.
One of only two refineries in the country, Haifa is a critical facility as it supplies around 60% of Israel’s diesel and 50% of its gasoline, according to a report from S&P Global.
And earlier (also noted in the Aljazeera video above):
Kuwaiti oil refinery hit in drone attacks
Despite calls on Iran to halt its attacks, Kuwait’s state oil firm KPC has said its oil refinery has been hit by multiple drone strikes. So far, there are no reports of casualties.
Emergency crews battled a fire at the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, and some units have been forced to shut down, according to the state news agency.
This is the nightmare scenario that Gulf countries had hoped to avoid – their energy infrastructure becoming a repeated target in the war.
After Israel’s strikes on Iran’s South Pars facility, Iran has retaliated, with Gulf countries’ on the frontline of its fury.
The war shows no sign of abating, even as countries across the Gulf mark Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Hindustan Times provides its daily dose of evidence of Iranian missile prowess at Israel’s expense:
ISL cited this tidbit from NO1 in March, 16-19: diplomatic impunity :
Iran’s launch rate hasn’t declined. It’s stable, and in the past week, increasing.
The coalition has lost 10% of its entire MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet.
The US has zero combat vessels actively present in the Persian Gulf – the Littoral Combat Ships based in Bahrain, whose entire purpose is to engage IRGC speedboats and sweep mines, were spotted in Malaysia three days ago. I have been told the beaches are lovely this time of year.
And some sobriety on the economic front. Fresh landing page at Bloomberg, the first from about four hours ago, the second one fresh:
Huge caveat: This channel is very uneven. The publisher, Jeff Snider, is a permabear and also does not understand banks and financial markets as well as he thinks he does. But this is an extremely solid presentation of the poor state of the American consumer, particularly lower income cohorts, before the energy price shock started. Notice he also uses the breaking image, such as “breaking the back” of the consumer.
Done for today. See you tomorrow!
_____
s1 From protectourfreedumbs:
i don’t say this with any pleasure, but from an iranian point of view, russia has proven to be a very unreliable and untrustworthy partner over many years. russia supported genocidal us sanctions against iran. iranian children died as a result. simple statement of fact. iran contracted with russia to purchase s300 missiles. russia refused to deliver these – for many years. iran developed the bavar system as a substitute. russia refused to complete work at bushehr it was contracted to carry out. russia did all these things in return for worthless us promises (never kept) not to put missile bases on russia’s borders. russia has a very bad record of doing sordid and very ill advised deals with its enemies which involve selling out its friends. putin often talks in gushing terms of israel and its right to “defend itself.” sometimes it sounds like lindsey graham talking. putin seems to have an unhealthy relationship with jewish oligarchs. going further back in time, russia was the main arms supplier to saddam hussein in the iran-iraq war (half a million iranian dead?) or how russia invaded iran in 1941. for all these reasons, i take reports of concrete russian assistance to iran with a very healthy dose of salt. or maybe the annual output of a siberian salt mine. sorry, but sticking your head in the sand ostrich-like is just self delusion. on numerous occasions, russia has shown itself to be a bit of a snake that cannot be trusted.
And Pearl Rangefinder:
The Iranians have every reason to be suspect of Russia, that’s for sure, especially over the Putin years.
To expand your point on the S300 system, the Iranian’s paid for them in 2007 and only started getting delivery of the systems they had paid for in 2015(!), with a lawsuit or two thrown in for good measure.
Armscontrol.org: (December 2016) Russia Completes S-300 Delivery to Iran
Russia completed delivery of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran last month, concluding an $800 million deal signed between the two states in 2007, state-run Russian press agency RIA Novosti reported. The S-300 mobile surface-to-air missile system can counter multiple aircraft at a range of 195 kilometers and ballistic missiles at a range of up to 50 kilometers.
In September 2010, following pressure from the United States and Israel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suspended the agreement in compliance with a stricter UN arms embargo passed in June of that year.
Iran protested the decision, filing a $4 billion lawsuit against Russia’s defense export agency and embarking on the manufacture of its own long-range, mobile air defense system, the Bavar-373, which President Hassan Rouhani unveiled in August.
After Iran and the six-country group known as the P5+1 agreed on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to constrain and roll back Iran’s nuclear program in July 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban on weapons sales to Iran and signed a new agreement with Tehran, sending the first shipment of parts in April.
2 The closing section of Kevin Kirk’s Armageddon Now! Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program
Back in 63 BC, a very wealthy property mogul, politician and a member of the ruling Triumvirate in Rome, Marcus Licinius Crassus, decided to attack Parthia (Iran) because the presumed easy military victory and the immense wealth it would bring, would help with his re-election chances. At his command was the might of the world’s biggest military super power; namely, the power of the combined Roman empire. He marched with 7 of the best legions of Roman infantry, equipped with the very best weapons paid for by Crassus himself, expecting an easy victory.
Roman military doctrine at that time was geared towards putting down insurgencies and was resistant to change. It consisted of massed ranks of infantry, supported by cavalry on the wings, smashing through any opposition arrayed against them. The relatively small size of the Parthian army of around 10,000 men, against 40,000 or so Romans, also augured well for a stunning Roman victory because they’d be overwhelmed in a direct clash.
Except…
When the two sides did clash, in the battle of Carrhea, the Parthians, under General Surena, had no infantry and so he adopted a mosaic strategy, where small groups of archers acting under their own volition and mounted on fast horses, swooped in for lightning attacks on the ponderous squares of Roman infantry, shooting blizzards of arrows before racing off when the Roman cavalry closed in on them. These archers were trained extensively in shooting both forwards while attacking and backwards while fleeing and this caused the Roman cavalry to back off, at which point the Parthians swooped back in to attack the main body again. These Parthian arrows were heavy enough to pierce both Roman shields and body armor thus pinning the shields irretrievably to the soldiers. As this battle of attrition unfolded, the Roman strategy was to hunker down and wait until their adversaries had run out of missiles before they proceeded on their planned ground assault on Parthia. Unfortunately for Crassus, Surena had arranged for huge convoys of weapons to be brought in from the East (by caravans of camels in those days – the equivalent of a direct railway line, say between China and Iran, today).
The end result was a crushing defeat for Rome who lost over 30,000 soldiers (20,000 killed and 10,000 captured) and Crassus, himself, was killed. The Parthians on the other hand lost, according to some estimates, less than 100 men.
Lesson to be learned: never underestimate Iran.
3 They can cut off water and power.
.4 I do not mean to sound like a Pollyana, but Asian countries ex captured Japan, South Korea and Taiwan know they are in a lot of trouble and are scrambling to find ways to mitigate damage. They will probably take much deeper initial dives than the US and Europe, but have the potential to start pulling out sooner.
354 comments
Comments are closed.
Re: Trump’s criticism of the attack on Iranian energy facilities
Russian telegram lolz about “center libertarian left” Tim Pool’s reaction getting millions of views:
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/198311
‘Re Trump’s criticism of the attack on Iranian energy facilities’
Funny thing about this. Trump threw Israel under the bus and said that it was all on the Israelis and it had nothing to do with him. Then the Israelis said not so fast there, pardner, and that Trump was briefed about this attack beforehand and approved. I would guess that the Israelis would have had to have used US assets to carry out this attack but whatever. Now the Israelis are saying that it was their bad and Trump had nothing to do with it. Things must be getting tense behind the scene.
Yes. I saw the Netanyahu clip (I assume it was him; who knows these days), which was a pretty clear “we did it, the US didn’t know” statement. I said this yesterday; if Trump is lying it is worrisome as an indication of just how reckless and clueless he is. But if he isn’t lying that would be worse. It would mean that those in control of the action are not surreptitiously trying to rein Trump in but working to undermine any attempt at de-escalation.
That said, I assume Trump is lying.
of course Trump is lying.
He and his compatriot believed the Persians would capitulate after the strike.
Because they didn’t,he and his partner will hit them harder.
As Yves has proven. Iran can out live Naro in an extended war. Good luck world economy. Nuclear option destroys it for decades. Thanks Israel and its Puppet.
And we’re arguing about micro-penis’s
Stop the World, I want to get off…
I’ll believe things changed when US aircraft bomb IDF bases and destroy their WMD and airpower totally.
Oh, The Tension and Drama!!
Brings to mind my realtor brother -in-law’s description of Commercial Real Estate:
“It’s a god-damned pirate ship!” looters working in a shared goal, said looter’s being entirely self-serving, me first, and quick to a remorseless back-stab.
I picture Trumps cabinet and the Executive this way, and by extension their overtures to ambivalent luke-warm or former allies. A finite world, bubbling population, and The Ramadan War perhaps being the last symphony when The Music Stopped, as everyone scrambled for a very scarce chair.
Relentlessly optimistic, I remain, steadfastly, Mister Happy.
” i have totally destroyed eye-ran. i am destroying eye-ran. i will destroy eye-ran. i don’t need any help to destroy eye-ran. i need help to destroy eye-ran. ”
trumpy lies every time he breathes in, and again when he breathes out.
Probably unfair to pose a question on a work still in progress, but it’s hard not to react to this:
OK, ignore that we can’t deliver large quantities of air defense hardware quickly, but let’s consider that the Gulf states seem to depend principally on US troops for their defense and those troops seem to have been evacuated (or at least removed from service): WHO is going to apply those arms to pacify Iran? And how soon? Or is this from the get-go a 100% pure MIC boondoggle?
It’s a self licking ice cream cone. The main US exports these days are dubious financial instruments and weapons of questionable effectiveness. A bunch of the latter just got blown up so time for some new ones so they can be blasted again. Rinse and repeat. They’ll be a lot of dead brown people as a result, but just think of the megayachts and multimillion beachfront fifth homes that the defense CEOs will be able to acquire. Totally worth it! If you happen to be a psycopath.
“Nine women can’t make a baby in one month”
Regarding the Russian-Iranian relationships. It is worthwhile to listen to Doctrows talk with Judge Napolitano about what the talking heads are saying about Iran: that they lost the war from the first day. Having had a look at some articles from vz.ru one doesn’t see any positive articles but mostly in the vein of “Iran lost the war already the first day”, “Iran is infected with traitors and that’s why the top leaders were killed”.
I’ll push back here.
1. If you look at other Russian media sources, you get a different picture. Because Russian media, just as the Russian political landscape, is not monolythic in the slightest – different sections represent the views of different groups.
The VGTRK sources (state-owned media part one), like the 8 o’clock nightly news, have been “neutral” to “pro-Iranian”, toeing the government line (aggression bad, Iran sovereignty good, damage to world economy bad). But they never, ever showed – to date – anything like “Iran lost this from the first day”. And the Western-facing RT had, from the start, been a bit more strident in its coverage.
Solov’ev’s media mini-empire, which is more on the nationalist side, has been emphatically on the “brave Iranians bravely fighting back against stupid American aggressors” kick. And their commentators have said from almost day one that Iran is fighting and has advantages in the long war.
“Mass newspapers”, both national (Komsomol’skaya Pravda, Izvestia) and regional (e.g. Fontanka in St. Petersburg) have ranged between pro-Iran-anti-American and simply reporting chunks from Iranian news agencies with US and Al Jazeera mixed in for fun. The RIA news agency has also been closely following every single Tucker Carlson utterance, for what it’s worth.
I refuse to watch or follow the far-right-monarchist-looney-tunes at Tsargrad, for mental hygiene reasons, but I can’t imagine that here they went “anti-Iran” in the slightest.
Yes, there are also papers like VZ, Kommersant, etc. And John Helmer, of course, who is a bit like Seymour Hersh in that he gets one source to talk to him, and assumes this one source is god’s gospel and EVERYONE else on the ground feels, thinks and acts the same way as that one source. But on the whole, I certainly did not get the feeling of any “defeatism” in the way the war is being presented to the Russian public.
Not to mention the popular bloggers and news aggregator channels (Mash). I mean, the top ones, they’ve been nothing but PRO Iranian, and convinced (largely) of Iran’s ability to win this out, from since before February 28. But that’s a whole other ecosystem to survey…in fact, one of the biggest critiques there, from, again, before February 28, has been that Iran should ask us for more missiles and drones to help them viz. the Americans. Not exactly defeatist.
So the error here is – by the way – the same error that many “Americanists” on Russian TV make. For years, most of them have, for news of US developments, have relied exclusively on conservative US media – Fox News, Tucker Carlson, etc. If you think that might give them a skewed picture of US politics and thus mess up their analyses, you get a gold star…
2. Doctorow specifically. I’ve read him. I’ve listened to him. And then I stopped. He clearly has some people in Russia that he’s talking to, that’s a plus. But as he himself admitted, it is a very particular and specific slice of people – and, this is from one of his posts from a few years ago, decidedly on the affluent-liberal-pro-western side of the ledger. Incidentally, I myself have contacts like these. The problem is that their perceptions of what’s going on whether inside Russia or around the world are…well, they’re in their own little world, let’s put it this way. And Doctorow nevertheless goes into received-wisdom-god’s-gospel mode, which sometimes leads him in completely the wrong direction in his analysis.
3. More broadly on the topic of Russo-Iranian relations. We are behaving as if Russia has been this unchanging monolithic beast for the past X years. In fact, there have been several drastic transformations since 2000 both economically and politically – not all of them good – one of which we’re in the midst of right now, and that is necessarily reflected in foreign policy. Yes, in the 2000s the Russians were actively trying to get buddy-buddy with the US, and the Russian economic model, in fact, was “sell raw materials to West, buy everything else from West”. Naturally, they screwed the Iranians on the S-300 deal.
Then multiple inflection points happened – 2011-2012 political crisis and reforms, 2014 sanctions, 2020 constitutional reform, 2022 SMO, those are just the ones that come to mind first. You literally get the same political actors, like Medvedev, swinging from rabidly pro-American to rabidly nationalist, but that’s just the surface symptom. The underlying cause is that it has taken nearly two decades to convince a big enough chunk of Russian key stakeholders (I dislike the term “elites” in this context), which are many and varied, that the pro-West era is done, that a limited form of autarky is necessary, and that the foreign policy and trade should be re-oriented East and South.
Now on the Iranian side, I don’t think Yves went far back enough. The Iranians are still sore about their World War II occupation – a joint British-Soviet enterprise, and some in the USSR (though not Stalin) were even hoping for a permanent stay in South Azerbaijan. They are also sore about the Iran-Iraq War, where the USSR officially backed Iraq (though, after a few years, began to tacitly sell the Iranians spare parts for captured Iraqi equipment). Not the least because one of the first things Khomeni & Co. did after the 1979 Revolution was clean out the Iranian leftists, which the USSR did not much appreciate. And only after these issues do you get to the 1990s (US lap dog), 2000s (want to be US friend though not lap dog), 2010s (still hope to some day be US friend though not lap dog). You can, by the way, get this just from carefully listening to Marandi, though in recent times he’s started to airbrush himself a little (e.g. a couple of years ago he’d say “British and Soviet invasion” during World War II, now it’s only the British that get mentioned, at least usually).
And it’s not just a “Russian resentment” angle. The Iranians, in my impression, genuinely want to be more of a self-sufficient regional power than a vassal of a great power (even though in reality, they rely a lot on the Chinese, for oil sales, for example). But again, that’s a whole other discussion.
“Now on the Iranian side, I don’t think Yves went far back enough.”
Dare I suggest you did not go far back enough yourself?
Russia cooperated with the UK to intervene militarily and overthrow the constitutional order that the Iranians had fought for during their Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), subsequently reinstating the previous autocratic monarchical regime. They did that not just once, but twice: in 1908 and 1911.
I can therefore understand that Iranians are especially wary of both the British and the Russians…
For details, see the irreplaceable Michael Hudson’s most recent nc article (last week?)
I don’t think you went far enough.
Somewhere between 1820 and 1845 Russia was mostly helping Persia to combat the British influence, but the Crimean War made Russians very suspicious Britain would try to attack Russia trough Central-Asia and/or Caucasus, so they started intervening seriously in Persia.
Russian fear was such that even in 1914 Russia was preparing to fight two-front war; one against Austria and Germany in Eastern Europe and the other against Britain in Caucasus/Caspian Sea region.
But the October Revolution was in 1917. The episodes you cite are from the Tsarist Russian era. I guess I’m a little confused about why they might be relevant to current Russian/Iranian relations.
Is your point that the Iranians believe there’s continuity between Tsarist, Communist, and current Russian foreign policy? If so, being generally ignorant of the historical politics and policy structure, I’m still confused about why they’d believe that.
The Brits, of course, have more or less the same government they’ve had since 1688….
Russians are acutely aware of their history. Putin regularly talks about events before the time of Peter the Great.
Thank you for an excellent post. I’m amazed how much I learn from the NC community.
Great insights, thank you.
Great job in all respects, SF. My dab in this direction from earlier today is now a panorama.
Learning a lot from this post, will read again. Please keep contributing.
China has a long history with the Iranians, may I point out. Between 7th and 8th centuries, China sponsored the remnants of the Sassanids in Central Asia (Peroz III, the last Sassanid crown prince, took refuge in Tang China after the Arab conquest and he and his son were pretenders to the Persian throne with Chinese support.) until the Chinese themselves were driven out of the Middle East (and Central Asia west of the Hindu Kush) by the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 8th century.
I think yesterday Mercouris mentioned some information he gets from an inside source that provides him with tidbids from Russian Duma message board. Apparently Duma will be asked to consider ways to support Iran with foodstuff… For what it is worth.
Re Russia and Iran, context, context, context. Much has changed since the mid-2010s, when Russia was hoping for a treaty-based resolution of the Ukraine issue. Diddling with Iran on the s300s must have been an attempt to curry favor with the US. That’s not much of a priority now.
Putin spent the past twenty-five years trying to establish normal relations with Europe and especially the US while spending enormous amounts of political capital doing so. So in that time he tried to, for example, make nice with them by voting sanctions on Iran and delaying delivery of the S-300 systems. All of it was in vain when he had his nose rubbed in the fact that Europe and the US only want to see Russia destroyed and pillaged. But when Trump tried to murder him at the beginning of this year I think that at that point he was finally done. It was not so much the murder attempt on him personally but the fact that he is the serving President of the Russian Federation. Iran has a lot of reasons to be mistrustful but this is changing as the Russians have brought all sorts of equipment into Iran, provided them with real-time intelligence and gone to the extent of signing official treaties between the two countries. Relations between countries do change. As an example. Fifteen months ago America’s greatest ally was probably Canada. And now?
Canada has always been a strange case as America’s greatest ally. Our creation myth seems to be Laura Secord leading her cow through the fields shouting the Americans are coming!
Creation myths are not the same thing as reality. Perhaps this would be closer to the truth https://www.donstuart.ca/homage/33-LAURA-SECORD.pdf Even this ignores what is almost certainly the most important part, namely the resistance the the native tribes.
Be that as it may, “we are not Americans” lies deep in the heart of what it means to be Canadians. I have read that if the US had not invaded the colonies in 1812, the country of Canada may well have never existed. This war created a nation and a strange identity. Perhaps like a younger child asserting themselves against an older sibling. We are not Americans, but the presentation of “The Americans are coming!” is both an irony and a similarity. We are family. I don’t think that Trump has fundamentally destroyed the family aspect of our identity, but he has certainly reminded us of the things our older brother does that grate on us.
English speaking Canadians at the time were loyal to the British crown (very loyal). It makes a lot of sense that we would distrust the Americans, who had just fought a war with the British crown.
A bunch of them came to what is now Canada from what is now the US because of their opposition to the Revolution — the United Empire Loyalists.
How much does a long war benefit Russia? Benefit number 1 is that the U.S. is less able to pursue Project Ukraine. Number 2 is a general sapping US military might. Benefit 3 is everyone (or at least lots of folks) get more reliant on Russian Energy. Benefit 4 is that the war is showcasing the military-technology advantage of buying Russian and Chinese weapons instead of US and European ones. Benefit 5 is general degradation of the American state, the confidence that Americans, or anyone else, has in it or its imperial ambition. Benefit 6 the accelerated collapse of the dollar and the degree of control that Wall Street et al, have over the world economy.
Also, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the democratic structures that were created which included an ethical/moral overseeing body that was more than a figurehead definitely sent a shockwave through the spine of ossified Soviet Union, with its huge Central Asian Muslim Republics… So they tried to squash it, embracing Stalin’s anti-Trotskism, as well as good old Czarist conservatism, that helped quash the 1848 European Revolutionary year in most of Eastern and Central Europe…
Is this the Peter Drucker article? https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1986-03-01/changed-world-economy (paywalled). Also found this Time article about the foreign affairs piece: https://time.com/archive/6705892/world-in-flux-drucker-dissects-global-change/
“The Changed World Economy” is available via Anna’s: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20042687
Thanks!
btw FOREIGN AFFAIRS published and left it “avaiable” via archive.is
https://archive.is/PbqNo
No, the article I saw was from much earlier, 1981 or so, and never put on line
Might it be this from “National Affairs” special issue 1980?
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/towards-the-next-economics
Fits your time frame and only recently digitized.
Good find. This seems to be the money quote:
thanks, also for the quote
lots of stuff free to read on the site…
No, the article was very short, three pages tops, and the symbol economy was one of the main if not the main topics.
1) At any given time every Human Being is doing the best they can with what they have.
2) Someone is that stupid.
I am 72 years old, every time I have said or thought that “No one could possibly be that stupid” I have been wrong.
Without exception.
On a positive note, sales of Lemon Pound cake have more than doubled in the last Month and Ka$h Patel’s custom Nike’s are setting a fashion trend.
Slightly OT but the Afroman/Lemon Pound cake thing has been one bright spot for me in this moment in time.
Why not have another slice?
The story has been a nice little ray of sunshine this week. Every so often the good guys do win.
I suggest you watch the famous documentary “Idicracy” released in the early 2000s to see where the bottom is.
CENTCOM reports that the laundry room of the F-35 caught fire.
Early morning humor if that’s not obvious.
More seriously, there is evidence of a helicopter flying yesterday in a typical search and rescue pattern over Saudi Arabia. Likely that the official “emergency landing” was a euphemism for a crash. A second F-35 was damaged but made it to an airbase. 2 F-35s in one day, pretty good for the 100% degraded, absolutely obliterated Iranian air defenses.
A Russian telegram ParsToday post refers to the F-35 as a “Flying Coffin” and has a long flashy description of how the plane works, ending with this cryptic statement:
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/198313
“This war is a test to destruction.”
I absolutely agree with this. Just as the starting date for the attack on Iran was planned last December by Trump and Netanyahu, I believe the date of the battle to take control of the Strait of Hormuz has been finalized by Trump/Netanyahu and will commence when the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit arrives (just left San Diego this week) near the Persian Gulf. Feels like Gallipoli all over again.
A very small Gallipoli.
I will be utterly shocked to learn that some type of mechanical failure prevents the marine boats from reaching the Gulf.
Gallipoli was colonial troops, so it was easy for British leadership to expend lives in vast quantities. The same will not be true for the USA.
I don’t think US elites don’t think Americans are their own people.
More British than any other group.
What’s interesting to compare is market behavior to 2022, when US elites were anticipating a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Brent crude started the year at $80/barrel. By the time the invasion happened, it had already reached about $100/barrel, despite the lack of any supply disruption. It peaked over $130/barrel. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILBRENTEU
Meanwhile, the value of Russian oil exported also peaked. By year end, the markets were chastened, and Brent returned to $80/barrel while Russian crude oil revenues peaked!
https://energyandcleanair.org/february-2026-monthly-analysis-of-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-and-sanctions/
This time there has been a huge disruption, and markets are treating it as ho-hum. It seems that market are more driven by propaganda than fundamentals…or maybe they’re just being manipulated for political purposes.
I was watching the futures last night, and they were up over 1 percent. Typically, those sorts of overnight moves aren’t always reliable … and lo and behold, the futures are red now (if barely.)
The usual screamers tried to attribute the move higher to Netanyahu calming the markets with his false and misleading statements (and who knows if it was even really him, and not some body double), but I have done enough trading to know that markets generally don’t follow the news. So, your theory on manipulation could have legs.
(Other readers with more knowledge than I can chime in, but I think it would be easier to manipulate the futures than the actual indices because the former are more thinly traded and not as deep in terms of liquidity.)
I am ignoring this as mostly noise and focusing on the bond markets, where we have an emerging problem for Taco. The 10 year treasury is now 4.30. That will have a lot more real-world effects than the Dow Jones.
Agree on the lack of any major hysteria. At the same time, bizarrely, my light bill jumped a little over 10%
Many commentators have noted that prices for the delivery of physical oil are in the $130-$160s for Gulf crude by refineries relying on it for their feedstock blend. It takes years of non-production to retune a refinery to a new feedstock blend with yields that make a profit (no profit = refinery is shuttered).
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#Indian-Basket
I’m not sure the reports of an Israeli/US split are entirely bogus. Hedges did an interview with Max Blumenthal that goes into more detail about the Trump/Netanyahu relationship.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/how-israel-convinced-trump-to-wage
He points out that in his 2016 campaign Trump actually made jokes about helping the Palestinians which brought on threatening reactions from the Zionist big fish like the Adelsons. His view is that Trump doesn’t even like Netanyahu (who does?) and is afraid of him–that the golden pager gift stunt was more of a threat.
So here’s suggesting that Trump is entirely capable of stepping away if he sees continuing the war as a threat to him personally. In the end he only cares about the welfare of Trump and quite obviously very little about “making American great.”
And helping such a decision along is the practical reality that Iran has already won the war and the Israeli and US public are feeling big negative effects.
No, I beg to differ. Zionists would eat him alive. And he has to know or would be told that that was why Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Even if not true (which I highly doubt), showing him that horse’s head would check Trump.
Mossad was able to convince Trump, per Blumenthal, that Iran was behind Butler assassination attempt. Do you seriously think they would have any trouble getting allies to tell Trump they whacked Kirk?
On the other hand candidates are now swearing off AIPAC money and a majority of the US public now have a negative view of Israel. It’s this threat of losing US support that is why the Mossad took out Kirk, if they did. If tiny Israel destroys Iran but loses the US they might as well close up shop.
There is a view that Netanyahu’s obsession that led to the Ramadan War was not with Iran but with keeping and enlarging US involvement with Israel. That is the real goal.
Trump’s inner circle are neocons. And he is also surrounded by evangelical crazies, a core group that wants Armageddon.
Fox which is what he watches is still all in for the war. Only the occasional dissenting voice
The Republicans face a bloodbath in the midterms. No amount of donor money will change that.
So one has to assume he expects to cancel the midterms.
See an analogous situation, admittedly fictional, but we are so far outside the old normal that this better conveys what is possible than other perspectives:
It’s part of my reality check news hygiene routine to check in on what FoxNews is saying on any given event, because from my experience, this is what the average GOP voting American believes to be true, nearly without exception. Newsmax is the all in MAGA version (no heretics like MTG permitted), and goes for a younger more radical market.
Do see the first Janta Ka video at 11:10 for a Newsmax meltdown. Epic But still probably went over well with the true believers.
My 80 year old mother was addicted to FoxNews for 20 years. Last year, she announced that Fox had become way too “liberal” and has been a devoted Newsmax viewer ever since. I guess shes young (and RRRRadical) at heart?
So one has to assume he expects to cancel the midterms.
Or … just doesn’t care? Après moi, le déluge and all that? Particularly because it involves other people.
Alternatively, doesn’t believe that anything could go wrong – which seems to be his ground state of belief anyway.
He will be impeached if the midterms happen. He does care about that.
Quite likely, completely agree – though I’d still have to wonder if he even believes that consequence is possible.
Maybe it’s because I’m (mostly) retired from law and working as a teacher now – but the whole “I won’t suffer any consequences, regardless,” is strong in current American culture.
PS: Thank you for your work here in general, but HUGE thanks for the daily Iran War segment!!!
My gut sense of it is that Trump will try, but like with all of his most outlandish ideas it’ll be a kind of “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it” version of it. This is how he was with Greenland. If it looks like it’s going to end badly and doesn’t have much support he can walk it back and pretend he was never serious.
This is another way of saying, will anyone in power, either Democrat or Republic, make a serious attempt to stop Trump if he tries to suspend midterm elections? I don’t think the odds are great, but unfortunately a whole lot of what happens to us in the near term is dependent on the answer to that question.
We’ll have our answer soon enough. November will be here before we know it.
He could declare martial law.
It might even be dimly defensible by then. We could easily have domestic unrest between suddenly higher food and energy prices and drug shortages.
I think a post gaming out what that would look like might be worth writing. He’d declare it in all 50 states? I doubt that would fly (in that, I be that would exacerbate any existing unrest) and there definitely aren’t the troops to deploy to lock down the whole country. But I don’t know, maybe it’s realistic. Analysis would be interesting!
There’s the sniper and Anthrax attacks in the wake of 9/11, if someone needs a template.
It was suggested yesterday by one of the dozen or so reliable commentators (Ritter, Freeman, etc calibre) that the Dems would be shrewder to not impeach Trump after midterms but rather to systematically impeach his “lieutenants” ie. Blondi, Patel, Miller, Jared, Witkoff, etc. No truer adjective would apply to DJT than “lame duck”.
Israel can probably get him a false flag “Iranian” terrorist attack on Congress that wipes out half the Senate around when the impeachment trial would be set to begin. Enough so they’d lack a quorum anyway. Everything unthinkable before the 21st century is now easily envisioned.
Or, putting my tinfoil hat on, that Missad was behibd it and their agents were in place to “credibly” pin the blame on Iran if Trump goes off the reservation? (Not too serious a comment)
Trump has been a zionist asset since the beginning. His ties with Epstein go back to the 1980s. Before that it was Roy Cohn. Even without the Adelsons, there’s the Kushners, Lutnicks and others whose fortunes he is intertwined with. There is no Trump without zionism.
One-word response. Epstein. Funny how it’s no longer THE news topic.
Of course, in blackmail, unlike desalinization, Israel maintains redundancy, per Yves below.
Someone online was saying that the news out of the Gulf for Trump is so bad, that it might be better if he released the unredacted Epstein files as a distraction from it.
If there are genuine splits they may be more a generational issue ie younger gen. MAGA/GOP vs. established as was pointed out for succeeding younger personnel in Pentagon e.g. who allegedly are way more critical of Israel.
(I know I am alone in this, but eventually there is no way to know what Trump truly thinks. But eventually that of course does not matter, only his actions do – except short of the decision for a nuclear war which would come down to private musings too – or would he put his life on the line just because Netanyahu says so? I doubt even Mossad or IDF would really opt for nukes because it is not rational militarily or politically. Also there is the “parent” in Moscow still with some moral leverage over Israel – ? When it comes down to existential question we still fall back into tribalism and “family values” – mafia style “live and let live for sake of business”. You kill and intimidate your biz opponent. But you don´t exterminate. Or am I mistaken?)
The idea that Zionist lobby is manipulating Trump on Iran War through blackmail (eg Epstein ‘gotcha’ file) or threats (eg golden pager) is groyper conspiracy theory. As Michael Hudson argues, US Dept of Defence has since withdrawal of forces from Vietnam in 1973 been using proxy armies to achieve its war aims. As Azov Brigade is to US war aims in Eastern Europe, so IDF is to its war aims in ME: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/richard-d-wolff-michael-hudson-middle-east-exploding-ukraine-crumbling-the-us-take-action.html
Hudson’s point is that DoD aim to take over ME dates back to “Scoop” Jackson in early 1960s and precedes adoption of Israel as military proxy. Implied logic is that Israel is expendable. If Netanyahu insists on doing his own version of Hitler’s Nero Decree, then US can always switch proxies. There are more options available now than in 1973 eg Sunni regime in Syria.
…also there was a “Draft Memorandum to President Truman” provided by Dean Acheson already in October 1945 where the ME was addressed with obvious claim for control:
“5. In Saudi Arabia, where the oil resources constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history, a concession covering this oil is nominally in American control. It will undoubtedly be lost to the United States unless this Government is able to demonstrate in a practical way its recognition of this concession as of national interest by acceding to the reasonable requests of King Ibn Saud that he be assisted temporarily in his economic and financial difficulties until the exploitation of the concession, on a practical commercial basis, begins to bring substantial royalties to Saudi Arabia.”
Originally drafted in the summer 1945:
“Prepared by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Merriam) and submitted to the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Henderson) early in August 1945.”
See as part of:
890.50/10–945
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Acheson) to the Secretary of State
[Washington,] 9 October, 1945.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d20
…of course understanding of how important the region would be dates back further before hegemonic aspirations by the US would be in near reach and their hatred was still directed much against the British Empire.
Sorry to disagree, but this campaign (not others like Venezuela) is likely to push the US into depression, while strengthening its enemies (especially Russia), and degrading/finishing-off the Russian attrition of the US military to the breaking point where the only thing the US has left is nukes and subs (sort of). This is NOT in the US empire’s interest – Trump just lifted the Russian sanctions!!! In contrast, it is in the interest of Israel.
When Medvedev was president of Russia, he was very much an Atlanticist trying to make nice with the US. Maybe he is eyeing a possible run to succeed Putin, but either way, he and Russia realise that was a big mistake. Yesterday, there were claims that Israel had destroyed Iranian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea. Presumably because they could as that is far from the war zone. It will, however, have alerted Russia, that shares the Caspian Sea, that if Iran falls, the enemy will be even closer at the gates to Russia.
Yours truly has pointed out for some time that Russia does not want Iran to fall because that would give an unfriendly regime access to the Caspian Sea.
I wonder which country is breaking the 2019 Caspian Sea convention. I am sure Iran and Russia will remember.
There has been discussion of US leaving the Gulf as part of Iranian demands, but it is hard to imagine that Iran would stop without de-militarization of Israel. As far as the Gulf monarchies, its hard to see how those regimes can survive if this war goes on for 3 months, and so what they think, do, and say diplomatically is probably irrelevant.
That is fair, I have not said much about that as a separate demand even though Iran has put something along those lines on the list. But no US bases in the Middle East (as in no radars, no AWACS planes flying around for ISR) makes Israel very very vulnerable.
This is where it gets interesting.
How much damage can Hezbollah do? Things are playing out very differently now that there’s not a ton of air support from the Israeli Air Force. Sure, southern Beruit is getting the odd residential tower levelled for inexplicable reasons, but the IDF is TRYING to orchestrate an invasion of Southern Lebanon and they can’t seem to get it together. Every time they mobilize a ground force, they get hit. When they try to advance, they get ambushed, and when they try to send in a rescue team to extract the casualties, they come under more rocket fire.
The Shia PMUs in Iraq just threatened Jolani’s wrecking crew in Syria. Again, how serious are these guys? With little air support, can Jolani’s Al Qaeda forces beat the Iraqi PMUs in a straight up fight? Could either Syria or Iraq get overrun?
Does anyone think they have answers to these questions? There’s a lot of possibilities that have been opened up in the past few weeks that didn’t exist previously.
I would expect the Gulf monarchies, even those not consulted or thrilled about starting this war, to push the US to finish the job. They still command considerable financial resources and could e.g. bankroll a Pakistani-sourced ground force to complement the US/Israeli air and naval attack. An ascendant Iran is a worse outcome for them than a few more months of destruction.
Perfect time for India to get all of Kashmir. Bring the popcorn.
However, it won’t just be “a few more months”.
Even that one strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan will take at least five years to repair.
Do they really want more punishment that takes years to repair?
I wonder if they have gamed out a future in which their energy infrastructure is mostly wiped out, all expats and influencers gone, never to come back. Empty apartment towers. RE market crashed for many years.
If they don’t evict the US bases and back off, Iran can deliver.
…could e.g. bankroll a Pakistani-sourced ground force to complement the US/Israeli air and naval attack…
Mmm, no.
Pakistan’s leadership… faces a delicate diplomatic balancing act. On the one hand, maintaining positive relations with Saudi Arabia remains important for economic and security cooperation. On the other hand, Islamabad must avoid steps that would severely damage relations with Tehran.
The linked article mentions Pakistan being forced to enter the conflict on the side of KSA as a distinct possibility. Even if that doesn’t happen, one could draw a sizable mercenary army from Pakistan (guessing at least an order of magnitude larger than the Colombian contingent in Ukraine).
Even if that doesn’t happen, one could draw a sizable mercenary army from Pakistan
THAT could be true. And Pakistan might even be happy to see them go away.
Ukraine, world wide sanctions, Gaza, now Iran trump is a full war monger.
If Iran can keep up missiles for the even a few more weeks damaging Israel but more importantly the gulf oil systems, Israel/US will end this by nuclear attack. And yes BIBI and Trump will nuc Iran, they just don’t care.
Even Col Wilkerson has stated this with saying some 15-20 bombs. Or does Iran fold and submit to overthrow by the US before or after that to save as many of their people as possible?
The only way I see Iran possibly staying in one peace is with their own nuclear bombs. Unless trump decides to nuc them anyway.
I don’t know what happens after that. Yes they can defeat Iran, but what happens around the world?
Absolutely terrifying
When this started at the end of February Trump thought he would only be in for one week. So now he’s going to nuke Iran back to the stone age just to save face? Larry Johnson says that if nukes are threatened Russia and China will step in and prevent. Putin may have sympathies for Israel but I at least don’t believe he is going to sacrifice Russia’s interests to please his oligarch buddies.
And Iran reportedly has a doomsday device where large missiles will be automatically fired–perhaps at Dimona leaving tiny Israel irradiated and down wind countries vulnerable.
Why would the US and Israel announce their intention to nuke? They will just do it and present a fait accompli for Russia, China and the world.
My feel here is that there will not be an Israel left after such an attack. Iran’s “dead hand” response plus possible third party actions against Israel would guarantee that. Millennialists would welcome that outcome. The “Second Coming” would be important enough for the Ultras to sacrifice the entire world for.
We are dealing with insanity on a grand scale.
An obvious irony here is the West has long touted its “rationality” in word and deed, and contrasted it with the supposed fanaticism of the Iranian mullahs. In fact, it’s Israel and the US that are hostage to irrational religious (and secular Neo-con) fanatics who are driving the bus toward a nuclear catastrophe: Chabadists hoping for the Messiah, Christian Zionists praying for Armageddon and the Rapture. Which reminds: Lambert would periodically post the Rapture Index. It must be going up, along with energy prices.
Rapture index is at 179, ten points off its all-time high. Persia [Iran] is only allocated five points, though it currently gets the full five!
What I hate about all this nuke discourse, and I agree, it is a huge worry, is that it normalizes the very idea. Every time it gets mentioned – and see today’s links for some more articles stating it – it makes it less unthinkable. It horrifies me that they are likely to get away with it.
100%
It’s as if People Magazine had a headline, Lady Celeb feeling stress in marriage with Man Celeb, friends report she’s considered killing him, the kids, and setting the neighborhood on fire. Others say the marriage is just Ina rough patch.
How is it an “option” or even a taboo?
Cheese and crackers.
Escalation still applies. They will first of all attack military targets with tactical nukes. Or something symbolic like the uncompleted nuclear reactor. Or maybe Kharg Island (but I think they want to capture this intact).
I am not sure that they would attack Natanz or Fordow in case the sub-kiloton warhead then became a gigatonne warhead when the enriched uranium went up (or maybe they would, to prove a point?).
Or, they would use them on the GCC as a false flag in an effort to get Pakistan/Saudi/USA to nuke Iran.
“became a gigatonne warhead when the enriched uranium went up”
It doesn’t work that way. Enriched uranium doesn’t just explode like poorly stored fertilizer.
Agreed, not to deny the possibility but to say the name is an invocation.
Once upon a time, the nuclear shadow was so thick in the US you could barely see.
My childhood home had a bomb shelter. People joked about how high their cities were on the Soviet target list. Fatalism reigned, the big one was inevitable.
And yet, it didn’t happen. Maybe it didn’t happen because people thought about it more, because that mass physic energy trickled up to the elites, lending them their fear.
The nuclear shadow IS BACK. No use pretending we can see. Better that we be very careful where we tread than stride ignorantly and fall in a chasm.
It gives me some hope that people are talking about it more. The world’s waking up.
They are unspeakable. There can be, must be, no war between nuclear powers. I thought we knew this. I was shocked to learn that we no longer do when, at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there was a push to fly NATO missions in Ukraine.
I like to imagine that the soldiers responsible to attack would, like any sane human, simply refuse. Bluff, yes, bluff hard: but never launch. Train your soldiers to obey, but train also their hearts to be strong. Unrealistic, but I can hope. There is no outcome to which nuclear war is preferable. Not totalitarianism, not genocide, not the domination of one like Hitler or Stalin. None.
I remember in the 1980s a friend who said the fear kept him awake at night. I was not afraid. I figured I would simply die. Nukes are not something to fear. They are worse. Unspeakable.
Nukes won’t end the war, at least not for the US/Israel. Israel/US can’t nuke the South of Iran or the fallout will go West. If they nuke North, it goes to Pakistan and India, which will have serious consequences for Israel. I saw a Chinese academic on one of these Alt-Media program state “Israel will NOT use nuclear weapons in this war.” When pressed, he acknowledged that they could use nuclear weapons, but that would make them the enemies of all humanity and the State of Israel would cease to exist. Now, he wasn’t official foreign office, but he speaks good English, and he obviously is probably coordinating with official sources.
As pure speculation, it would not be surprising if China and Russia knew about this well in advance, and this might be part of the deal, no nukes, and might explain the recent UN security council abstention.
But circling back, Israel nukes part of Iran. Millions die, whole sections of Iran are unlivable (although it is unclear if Israel has hydrogen bomb or can just lob tactical bombs). The rest of Iran will fight on, and now Israel will have made itself the enemy of humanity in the words of the Chinese Academic, and Iran will still be sending drone swarms and missiles, and Israel, not Iran, will be wiped off the map.
If I remember a comment from a few days ago correctly , Israel would have to bomb Iran for a hundred years to achieve the level of destruction Iran could visit on Israel in (a few ?) months. It just comes down to geography. If and when that happens, will it even be able to be rebuilt ?
Larry Johnson.
But that was calculated with conventional explosives.
I think it was Crooke who asked rhetorically: “what was Modi doing in Tel Aviv” just before the first attack?
Would Pakistan/India truly get themselves entangled WWI style due to alliances and promises?
On the other hand I am not sure at all that IDF/military leadership in Israel would follow such an order by the Prime Minister.
How does the Constitution organize this also re: Herzog who would not go along with such a scheme.
The nature of nukes and their strategic ambiguity goes both ways…
All done. If you read this post before the time of this comment, please refresh this page and re-skim.
Thanks, Yves. How could we manage without you?
Is it too much to hope that, barring total social collapse, the people insisting we plough ahead on this are ruined? Recent events would suggest it’s a fool’s errand, but the consequences of this pair of new clothes may catastrophically eclipse that of any prior “mistakes”.
There’s already a push to blame Trump alone, that being said. Moreso, it’s an easier pill to swallow, that the movers of influence were innocently misled by the Bad Orange Man, rather than that they’re all high on Copium Grift.
Is it too much to hope that, barring total social collapse, the people insisting we plough ahead on this are ruined?
Unfortunately that will ruin a alot of uninvolved people as well but I suppose thats baked in at this point.
Sorry, I should have been clearer that what I meant was being reputationally ruined/run out of town, forced to change their identity and work a blue-collar job to avoid starvation, though I’d settle for being run/laughed out of anything with influence.
To your point, global suffering looks pretty baked in and I hope, as much as possible, we’re all able to ride it through with enough grit and suppies.
While I agree that at the moment it looks as if the gulf states are remaining aligned with US interests, I do think there is an avenue where that could change and change very quickly. I see two similar scenarios… those in power are removed and the new government agrees to Iranian demands OR things get so bad that the current powers agree to Iranian demands in order to avoid loosing their heads to a revolting population.
There was an article posted in links here a couple of days ago that went through the gulf state investments in the US, in particular Texas. The Saudis have one play that was worth $69 billion, for example. That seriously limits their options.
I’d hate to be a gulf despot right now.
Daniel Davis is now discussing that the US might use nucs.
Israel bombed Iran nuclesr power plant.
It has gotten out of control and Trump is truly nuts
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sLh3AffR1ds&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VUw%3D%3D
If the US uses nukes, then there is nothing stopping the Iranians from launching their own Sampson option where they destroy all the oil & gas facilities plus the water treatment plants in all the Gulf States and obliterate Israel from their water treatment plants, fuel depots, port facilities and anything else that will turn Israel into Gaza north. The Iranians will have to make this clear to Trump as Trump’s advisors would be telling him that Iran would never do that.
The situation has the feel of a solution to the Fermi Paradox being illustrated for us in real time.
Political Science by Randy Newman
No one likes us, I don’t know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
And all around, even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one and see what happens
We give them money, but are they grateful?
No, they’re spiteful and they’re hateful
They don’t respect us, so let’s surprise them
We’ll drop the big one and pulverize them
Asia’s crowded, Europe’s too old
Africa is far too hot and Canada’s too cold
And South America stole our name
Let’s drop the big one, there’ll be no one left to blame us
We’ll save Australia
Don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo
We’ll build an all-American amusement park there
They got surfing too
Boom goes London, boom Paris
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world ’round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it’ll be
We’ll set everybody free
You wear a Japanese kimono, babe
There’ll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let’s drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPlsnV4L2qs
The song (and the entire album) is satirical; here it’s about American culture and attitudes, especially about U.S. foreign policy at the time. The song was written after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and attacks by the U.S. on Laos and Cambodia. At the time, the U.S. was getting a reputation of being something of a bully.
Though the song tackles some pretty grim subject matter–namely, the prospect of global nuclear annihilation, Newman treats the subject with a high degree of dry humor and irony. The song is one of the more upbeat numbers on the album, and it serves as a sort of palate cleanser after the truly sad “Old Man.”
Randy Newman is a national treasure. I have been a lifelong fan.
He wrote that in ’67, and nothing has changed.
me, too. my dad turned me on to him in the 70’s when he was still a thing.
a most arid wit.
sail away is still my favorite of his albums.
“rednecks” is a hoot…and “he gives us all his love”
my fave song of his is “1903 in dayton, ohio”
The Israeli bombing of the Bushehr plant could be interpreted as a “Don’t touch Dimona” message.
More like “I dare you to smash Dimona,” it seems to me.
‘One of only two refineries in the country, Haifa is a critical facility as it supplies around 60% of Israel’s diesel and 50% of its gasoline, according to a report from S&P Global.’
Gee, if the Iranians concentrated on taking those tow refineries, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon would be over pretty quick. Iran would be doing Hezbollah a solid. Hmmmm, I wonder how much Israelis are paying for their gas and how it compares to other countries.
If reports are to be believed (and they might not be credible), the damage to the Haifa refinery was not major. But if the Iranians could hit the refinery, why didn’t they go big? Is there some kind of signalling going on?
That’s my impression, too, i.e., signaling. I posted some video of the Haifa attack earlier, and the damage did not appear severe. The Iranians also posted a map showing a bunch of missile targets around Dimona.
These could be calibrated reprisals for the attacks on the South Pars gas field and Bushehr nuclear power plant, to suggest how things will escalate of Israel continues attacking energy and nuclear infrastructure.
Somewhat off topic, but concerning the Twitter embeds, was anybody else not able to read full twitter posts, after clicking through (while viewing without an account), for a while, about a month ago? I started religiously using twitter alternatives after that, but since March, I’ve been able to scroll on twitter again. I had to wonder if I wasn’t the only one affected and that the change led to a fall in their anon-engagement, but I can’t say for sure.
I also had this issue and have also noticed it is resolved. But for searching the site I now use Nitter exclusively.
1. The latest from no01 follows a strategy that I had identified – keep the main air defenses silent until the US is out of standoff munitions and first turn them on when the US tries to fly into Iranian airspace to drop dumb bombs. Ukraine used this tactic successfully to keep most Russian manned airframes at a distance for nearly three years. Given the US loss of Reapers, radars, and even EW planes (if Asian guy is correct), the US’s ability to characterize Iranian air defenses now is heavily degraded – Russia has demonstrated this – Storm Shadows intercepts went from low to now nearly 100% after a few months – because Russian radars and EW were intact.
https://no01.substack.com/p/an-f-35-just-got-damaged-over-iran
2. Given US airframe maintenance requirements (30 hours / flight hr !!! for the F35 per Col Wilkerson = 97% US fleet is in maintenance), when US runs out of standoff munitions, most US airframes will be in long-term maintenance (or canibalization given a lack of rare earths – No rare earths = no new planes/ many parts).
3. Its worth noting that an Iranian missile with a 3000 pound warhead equals ten 500 pound bombs (300 pounds explosive) except damage non-linearity (quasi quadratic), is equivalent to ~50 to 100 bombs – which cannot (see point 2) be delivered by jets – only big, lumbering, easy to shoot down, ancient airframes (maintenance! logistics!) B2s.
Time is not on NATO’s side even from a military point of view (Russia / China can replace attrited Iranian Air defenses, the US cannot – rare earths again).
Yes, I wondered, since pretty much no one has very good air defense ex Russia and ironically Ukraine for a while with Soviet systems, that Iran might accept a bit more punishment by acting like it was more depleted than it was so as to lure some prized US planes in for a kill.
Yves, like you I was puzzled at Larry Johnson’s article, because the issue isn’t if Trump wants to negotiate but if both sides want to. And Iran has seen the US repeatedly relying on fake negotiations to hit hard various leaders and targets in the Middle-East.
At least the Gulf States haven’t the blind crazy hate of their big neighbour that Eastern Europe (Poland, Baltics) have. Yet even then, when they see how dire things are in Ukraine, how bad they fare against Iranian retaliations, they still stick to siding with the USA. They’re hopeless and foolish, and it can only end one way. Looks like there’s after all a real chance that I’ll see the Burj Khalifa brought down by Iranian missiles. What a time to be alive…
As for “It can’t last too long, it would be too terrible, *someone* is going to do *something* to stop this.”. Well, I may still have such a delusion, had I not seen how eerily similar this trainwreck is to Covid, when I first thought “No way our governments would let people in lockdowns for months, they’ll react and will take measures to ensure it goes over fast, even if some harsh measures are required” – but nope, they let it simmer and fester for 1 year and half, basically, and didn’t give a fuck that it wrecked the global economy during that time. So I don’t expect better policies and management and better outcome here.
The article could have used a once over, but this is in the next sentence after he proposed renewing JPCOA:
withdraws US forces from the Persian Gulf
That is colloquially what Iran is demanding.
Noting: “The reason that posture matters is that it represents a failure to deal with the new reality, and if it holds, closes one dimly conceivable de-escalation path:”
This failure originates from the continuing failure of the so-called Western elites. It may be that the U.S. elites are even more deluded from having two oceans to protect them, lack of labor unions, and their rotted-out Calvinism — in which they are the elect. The elites cannot accept a new reality, because they will not be part of this reality. And the embarrassing behavior (if they ever suffer embarrassment) of Macron, Merz, and Starmer simply reinforces the decadence.
Hillary Clinton would have to give up chanting “inflict pain” on Russia and go back to Chautauqua to knit potholders. If she wants to hold on to her head.
The failure of these elites is so serious that the least that may happen to them is ending their careers. Don’t forget that the “ethic” I quote above is in play in Ukraine (Western defeat) and China (end of Western leverage). The so-called West can’t take anymore of this kind of winning.
Contrariwise, because they have sensed the delicacy of their circumstances, the oppression of the populace goes on. In the US of A, the war has come home in the form of ICE, TSA, and the Department of Homelandt Sekuritei. Class warfare consists of looting and pillaging the passive middle classes and the beaten-down working class.
The so-called Western elites know that they themselves have no off-ramps. Sooner or later, they too are going to receive the same treatment that they just gave Ali Larijani.
Larijani died a hero and a martyr. I hope they share the fate of Andronicus Comnenus.
That’s harsh.
But too much to hope for.
Think of the children:
At the news of Andronikos’s death, his son and co-emperor John was murdered by his own troops in Thrace.
That’s one way to nip legacy in the bud.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theuaob/p/the-south-pars-pulse-why-the-energy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=319lal
If temperatures in the middle east surpass the 35°C wet-bulb threshold because of the methane releases that are happening, then this war will be even more catastrophic than I expected.
Between this and the massive oil rain even in Tehran, among others, the environmental impacts of this war are sickening.
If you look at satellite data there is a massive hotspot if CO over the gas field right now.
Peter Drucker.
Yves Smith. I believe that this is the article you are looking for. Insightful.
https://cooperative-individualism.org/drucker-peter_the-changed-world-economy-1986-spring.pdf
Noting: ‘The third major change that has occurred in the world
economy is the emergence of the “symbol” economy-capital
movements, exchange rates and credit flows-as the flywheel
of the world economy, in place of the “real” economy-the
flow of goods and services. The two economies seem to be
operating increasingly independently. This is both the most
visible and the least understood of the changes.
‘World trade in goods is larger, much larger, than it has ever
been before. And so is the “invisible trade,” the trade in
services. Together, the two amount to around $2.5 trillion to
$3 trillion a year. But the London Eurodollar market, in which
the world’s financial institutions borrow from and lend to each
other, turns over $300 billion each working day, or $75 trillion
a year, a volume at least 25 times that of world trade.’
No it is not but thanks for trying. This is what he came to at least 5 years after the article I read.
Thanks for the link. This is a topic, the relationship between currency and the physical world of goods and services, that I routinely puzzle over.
Hmmm… any news about Egypt? Al-Sisi has been doing an invisible man act much better than Vance, I’d say.
Egypt is super-vulnerable to disruption in the supply of fossil fuel and derivatives from the Gulf. They’re armed to the teeth and should know Israel is the culprit for this whole mess. While under normal circumstances a direct confrontation would probably end with Israel’s victory, right now it’s is more vulnerable than ever, with depleted air defences, facing a showdown with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and with much infrastructure gone or degraded. And they’ve cut gas supply to Egypt, thus rubbing salt in the wound. Surely the Egyptians (meaning, the people on the streets) know their food security has been critically endangered by USrael?
Never mind Turkey, now Al-Sisi could allay popular anger and paint himself as a new Nasser. And who knows, if Egypt knocks out Israel’s gas platforms at sea, whether Iran manages to hit the refineries becomes much less important. And Israel won’t respond with nukes, not just because making Suez a fallout zone would invite the wrath of the entire world (though Zionutters get a kick of being hated and fuelling their self-victimisation shtick), but because Israel is downwind of the fallout and would be gone as well.
So why don’t we hear about Egypt?
Doesn’t Egypt buy its arms from the U.S.? Wouldn’t it find a lot of kill switches and all manner of other sabotage activated if it actually attacked Israel?
I had thought of that, but then I remembered of the Exocet kill switch controversy during the Falklands War.
If kill switches do exist in US-supplied materiel, and this is exposed in dramatic fashion not even against the US but against Israel… it’s over for the US weapons industry. It didn’t happen in the case of the Exocet because Aérospatiale and the French government managed to keep it under wraps, but if Egyptian F-16 or worse yet, a Rafale (not even made by the US!) fails to lob a missile at an Israeli asset live for the whole world to see, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin can kiss their stock valuation goodbye.
Anticipation of such won’t particularly energize the likes of Sisi or Erdogan, however.
True, but that implies the two are aware their weapons are compromised. Which means they signed away on their sovereignity. That’s not gonna go down well with angry Egyptians when the next crop fails.
Just judging by the trajectory I’d say the health of the MIC will be secondary. As a side, and above my pay grade, I’m under the impression that their production will be limited by the current state of affairs.
If indeed the kill switch is a thing, the conundrum in its usage is alerting all the Clinton Foundation donors/Gulf Coast royalty that their toys only work in one direction.
And then there’s Erdogan. Think what you want of him, I’ll argue he’s capable, and I’ll argue he’s got a plan to land safely as allies with the east.
For the past year or so, Egypt has been quietly, very quietly, fortifying the Sinai with more troops and advanced weapons.
Officially this is to fight Al Qaeda / Daesh; less openly, to prevent Palestinians from receiving military help via Egypt; tacitly, to prevent Israel from simply expelling masses of destitute Palestinians to Egypt. But does one really need 40’000 additional soldiers equipped with the latest Chinese AA units for all that?
This may help explain things.
Interesting, but it can only be part of the picture. It’s talking about IMF positions, current deficit accounts and the like, when the situation might rapidly move towards material scarcity. The canary in the coal mine analogy the text draws is probably more apt in the sense that Egypt might be the first country to lose its patience with Israel and start breaking their stuff. At least, I think this is not a far-fetched scenario.
Iranian missiles hitting a power station and oil refinery in Haifa (video)
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/198314
Seems minor at first, but lots of smoke.
Also curious that the Israelis lifted the censorship restrictions to show the “mildly smoking” Haifa videos floating around.
I’m sure there is a reason.
Are you suggesting that refinery was sitting there smoking to pass the time between a nice cup of coffee and a kill-list chat with Mick Huckabee? And that the real refinery is in a coma?
On CNBC, I’d expect a divergence of outlook between the Atlantic Council types and oil analysts and specialists, and that is happening and the gap widening as the oil people are more openly expressing alarm at events, much to the confusion of most of the CNBC hosts.
Most striking to me is Halima Croft. Croft is an energy strategist at RBC and former CIA. From the start of this war, she has been expressing views that would fit right in on this site. Before this, her comments have been reliably hawkish and aligned with whoever occupies the White House, so much so that I have wondered how “ex” ex-CIA people truly are.
Watching this dynamic with interest.
We hit the one-month mark on this “kinetic action” (don’t call it a war!) next week. I am thinking that the delusionalists will be able to keep suspended in mid-air like Wile E. Coyote for about that long before gravity hits.
There was an article posted in links the other day, I think, on the countries that will run out of oil first:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2026/03/17/the-countries-most-in-danger-of-running-out-of-oil/
One month is the timeline given. The countries mentioned are:
Phillipines, Myanmar, Vietnam
Also Singapore at 40 days, and Yves stomping grounds (Thailand) at 50 days.
Lots of US multinational corps have call centers in these countries. What happens when that agent on the other end of your Citibank, American Airlines, or other co. can’t get to the call center because they’ve run out of petrol?
(The accelerationists will probably not let that crisis go to waste and replace them with AI.)
I’ll have to look up Halima Croft, thanks for the tip.
(The accelerationists will probably not let that crisis go to waste and replace them with AI.)
Absent any rational explanation for this foolishness I have to think this is the plan. Disaster capitalism. There is no amount of suffering to be inflicted that can’t be easily justified by making “a lodda money.”
Question for anyone living in Thailand *Yves, or Vietnam (Ben Panga) … I’m not looking to create homework, just curious on your off-the-cuff opinions and observations, being local.
To what degree is the telecom/internet infrastructure set up to allow remote work? I’m assuming for the poor folks who work in these offshore call centers, it is not up to snuff, but I could certainly be way off base.
I am in a secondary city. I have fiber optic. It is down a bit more than in the US but not very much, particularly compared to the tony suburb I lived in in Alabama (yes, I know that is an oxymoron). Bigger issue is occasional power outage but again more due to overly-long times for scheduled maintenance. I do have both a backup hotspot as well as my phone for additional connectivity.
Thanks, Yves. My prediction of mass disruptions to offshore call centers and yuge wait times might be off base then … I think this is going to play out like COVID lockdowns did, except the shock is on the supply side, not the demand side.
I’m in a major city in Vietnam and it’s excellent. Loads of international “digital nomads” work from here. I think here is more reliable than when I stay in Bangkok. Similar to Yves, there are sometimes issues with power for a few hours due to maintenance.
I just use the standard internet in my apartment and get 50-300MB up and down. Very occasional slowdowns for a few minutes.
Most cafés, bars, etc also have very fast WiFi.
I also have a phone with 4g which I use as a backup and is plenty fast enough to use as a hotspot for any kind of online meeting or streaming.
Could not speak to the very rural places. I think internet/WiFi is a bit less reliable. 4g coverage is good here, but there are areas without in the countryside.
—
In general better than my experience living in US and especially Germany.
We are getting some oil from Russia but not sure how soon or how much.
Waiting for the squeeze to hit us in Korea. The government has already made plans for fuel rationing.
Most expats here seem fully unaware of what may be coming. Someone told me their summer vacation plan is two months or road-tripping around New England.
In addition to being a board member at the Atlantic Council, she’s also a member of the Trilateral Commission and a Life Member of the Council of Foreign Relations. As deep state as it gets.
Netanyahu: “We are doing many things from the air but there must be a ground component – I won’t share with you all the options.”
To revise and update a joke popular in the military during the Gulf Wars:
Q: What do Israel and Saudi Arabia have in common?
A: The same national anthem: “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
Daniel Davies was riled up by that comment for a simple reason. It won’t be the IDF taking part in a ground component although the Iranians would be giggling with excitement if they did. No, Netanyahu is talking about sending American troops in to invade Iran. And that would end up as a blood bath, not that Netanyahu would care. It would just mean that the US would be even more committed to Israel’s cause.
Bumped into this (not sure if it’s over in Links, haven’t gotten there yet, apologies if it’s a dupe):
https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-planning-to-invade-irans-kharg-island-report#google_vignette
And had to wonder “how the [familyblog] do they think they’re going to make THAT happen?”*
As you say, though, it’s not like the IDF is going to participate.
*Also, that headline can’t possibly be correct** – there is no way Trump and his bone spurs are hitting the beach at Kharg*** Island.
**Recognizing that headline writers are a different office from the story writers.
***As I’ve said elsewhere, “Kharg” is just Farsi for “Dien Bien Phu.”
I think Larry Johnson said it could be a diversion while Special Ops tries to retrieve the uranium. I have reason to believe Russia has cracked encrypted US communications, plus Russian and Chinese satellites and radar and observation boats will give Iran a heads up.
This is my view as well. Naval/amphibious sortie build-up is a feint for a major Special Forces operation, i.e. thousands committed. Where or for what purpose that would be is unclear. Isfahan for ‘nuke stuff?’ Liquidation attempt on Iranian leadership? Liquidation of the Hezbollah leadership?? Who knows. The US has no logistical pipeline to support any such insertion in Iran even if its air transport survived to a targeted site. Lebanon would be a more probable destination, not least because that would be less likely to provoke Iran to waste the oil infrastructure of Arabia. Hezbollah also does not have the scale of air defense to make such an operation suicidal from the get-go.
The entire idea is beyond delusional, but Special Forces in the American military have been built up to become now a cult unto themselves, the Super Wunderwaffen Corps that is supposed be so exceptionally better than any other echelon in the world—no, in the HISTORY of the world. Those joes likely think they have the substance enhanced stones to pull off something like this. I think Russian and Chinese observation would track anything of this scale long before they touched down enabling an indigenous welcome party to be mobilized and waiting. I can think of historical comparables for such a storming party–called a “forlorn hope” for good reason–and all of them go extremely badly for a force insane enough to try something like this.
They would do a massed air-assault with helicopters. An airborne assault would be a no-go given the altitude the planes have to fly for the airdrop. Helicopters would come across the gulf at about 10 feet above the water. First wave would likely be MH-60’s at night bringing in special forces- Delta and Rangers. Once they have a toehold, a larger wave of UH-60’s would bring more in (more Rangers probably). All backed by AH-64’s and A-10’s. Not much on the island other than pipes and tanks on the western half, but the eastern half has a lot of civilian homes and businesses. I don’t think there is much Iranian military there, judging by the aerial imagery. This would just be another terror op.
They will never be able to hold the island, but if they try to put troops on it, this is the only way I think they could realistically do it.
Did you mean this article?
https://cooperative-individualism.org/drucker-peter_the-changed-world-economy-1986-spring.pdf
No, it was years before that.
I found this one from 1983.
https://www.druckerforum.org/peter-drucker-texts/modern-prophets-schumpeter-or-keynes/
No, it was not about that. And I would never have read Drucker on big name economists. Outside his wheelhouse.
Iran fought the Greeks and Romans for, what, 1000 plus years? I suspect they can do another round for another 1000 years… I don’t think anyone in the West can even imagine that.
Coalition of the Unwilling
https://airlive.net/military/2026/03/19/us-air-force-b-1b-bombers-denied-access-to-european-union-airspace/
Switzerland halts weapons exports to US due to Iran war, citing neutrality
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/switzerland-halts-weapons-exports-us-due-iran-war-citing-neutrality-2026-03-20/
Britain dragged into Trump war as Iran says allowing US planes to use RAF bases is taking part in ‘aggression’
Sir Keir Starmer has also angered Donald Trump by refusing to allow US forces to use UK bases for offensive bombing missions on Iran
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/britain-aggression-iran-us-planes-raf-bases-trump-war-b1275737.html
Sri Lanka refused U.S. request to land warplanes: Dissanayake
They wanted to bring in two warplanes armed with eight anti-ship missiles from base in Djibouti to the Mattala International Airport and we said no, says Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/sri-lanka-refused-ground-access-to-us-warplanes/article70764656.ece
U.S. says Cuba is prohibited from taking Russian oil as two tankers head to island
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/20/cuba-crisis-fuel-tankers-russia-oil-gas-energy-us-trump.html
uh, oh
Wonder if there are any Russian subs trailing those two tankers….
excuse m for asking a silly question…but it really bothers me. what give usa the right to deny cuba fuel?
is it the dollar as reserve currency/world bank/imf, etc?
for that matter, why does the entire media assume its normal for the usa to ‘sanction’ russian oil?
let alone commit high seas piracy?
The part about Starmer and UK bases seems ludicrous since it’s a well known fact that B1s are operating from UK (and, apparently, have to fly around Europe via Gibraltar and the Mediterranean on the way to Iran because continentsl Europe wouldn’t allow overflights.)
I’m at the point where the day-to-day madness of the war just seems locked in – no off-ramps, sporadic escalation, permanent nuke worries. In a way, not much to think about.
I keep pondering, and it’s completely beyond my limited mind, what this will look like in, say, 3 months?
Hormuz will still be closed seems the most certain.
Trump may have TACOed in some form, or not.
Red Sea route may/may not be open?
Gulf infrastructure/production may be offline or destroyed?
Iran will still be potent, even if it’s had the crap bombed out of it?
Israel will be…? Under nightly attack? An ex-state? Something else?
The Gulf States will be?
I don’t really care about what’s going on the US (except how it affects the outside world)
Europe will still be having meetings while their societies fall apart?
And how does this ever end? If Iran cannot be defanged, and the US can’t be kicked out of the Gulf?
regarding your final question, I think that the longer this lasts, the more the daily balance of “battle damage inflicted versus battle damage suffered” will shift in Iran’s favor. Iran seems to have a large and replenishable supply of single-use precision munitions. US/Israel seem to be running low on theirs, and their delivery platforms for “dumb” munitions may be wearing out with all the use they are being put to. At some point, US defeat in the conventional war may be impossible to ignore. I cannot guess what will happen then.
In the US conflicts, we haven’t seen the “right sort” of people inconvenienced. Take the troops. US troops vibe when there is no TGIFridays on the “forward base?” We haven’t prepped for that kind of deployment since 1990 and Bob Hope still did a show because we could operate outside the range of retaliation.
Interesting point, and we saw this in Ukraine, is American howitzer tubes eventually wear out, after enough fires. I’ve wondered recently at what operational tempo can Israel and the US maintain with a limited number of functional airframes? Eventually these things are “consumed” and need maintenance and refurbishment. When do the air-to-air refueling planes wear down? What’s the stock of aviation fuel?
And people. People wear down, as well. How many sorties are pilots flying each day? That’s a lot of air time to base out of range of Iranian missile range.
Iran just needs to build and launch their single use stuff. No X million dollars and 1,000s of hours of flight time per pilot training.
And where is the aviation fuel?
We can assume, that along with the radars, the fuel storage must be targets. From images posted by Richard Medhurst, we know at least one tank was hit early in the first week. How many more can we guess have gone up since then? Resupply must be a huge and vulnerable effort. Any in-country fuel production has to be high on the target list. Everything stops without that fuel.
The fuel presumably, is in UK or wherever they are operating from. I doubt there are a lot of US planes operating out of Middle East (especially the Gulf) bases now.
By the end of the summer, I expect
Global air pollution caused by burning hydrocarbons equivalent to several supervolcano eruptions
1.5 years shaved off the global life expectancy
Most of the world on a 4-day work week with a commensurate drop in world GDP
How does it all end? Poorly I imagine. Authoritarianism and austerity everywhere to one degree or another, and cascading global climate collapse, already baked in and now fueled by the masters of war, will backdrop the last act.
…ask Mr. Natural
How does this endless? Badly.
There are multiple stressor comjng online to make things worse. For a minor example, consider that very soon many jurisdictions in the US mandate the switch to a summer blend of gasoline, putting additional price increases on the per gallon price at the pump. For a major example, the western world appears to have a record breaking summer of high temperatures in store for us. Where are we going to get all that natural gas to fuel power plants? We might OK in the US with only high levels of inflation. But Europe? Asia? What are they going to do?
I could go on and on about the knock on effects of these shortages.
The idea of this situation continuing is too horrible to imagine. I’m going to call it a week and watch some dumb basketball to focus on something else.
Iran’s military warns ‘parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations’ worldwide won’t be safe
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/mideast-conflict/article/irans-military-warns-parks-recreational-areas-and-tourist-destinations-worldwide-wont-be-safe-for-enemies/ (via AP)
China calls for end to war in Middle East warning of economic impact
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/china-calls-end-war-middle-130025932.html?ncid=redditnewsus
Venezuelan leader replaces senior military commanders
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn43914zx31o
Re: AP, I’m not buying.
Agreed. When I have time, I can have a gander on Iranian official media.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/03/20/765609/Assassination-of-Iranian-officials-commanders-exposes-enemies-desperation
He’s talking specifically about US/Israeli officials, and in context of retaliation for assassinations of Iranian officials [as far as I can work out].
It’s a “nowhere is safe for these officials” NOT “we are gonna terrorism Disneyland”
—
Times Of Israel gives this quote which I’d guess to be accurate
“We are watching your cowardly officials and commanders, pilots and wicked soldiers,” armed forces spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi says, quoted by state TV.
“From now on, based on the information we have on you, the promenades, resorts and tourist and entertainment centres in the world will not be safe for you either.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/iran-threatens-to-target-israeli-us-officials-in-global-tourist-and-entertainment-centers/
Seems more in keeping with the recent Iranian rhetoric than the Artificial Intelligence Press headline.
thanks
that´d be more aligned with US/ISR conduct – all military personnel is now fair game of sorts. (leaving out the essential killing civilians and children part, of course.)
No wonder AP had to spin…I could say these people are insufferable and unbelievable and so on but that´d be naive. It´s what them media prostitutes have been fabricating for years. So nothing new.
p.s. Apology to all prostitutes.
yep first thought
The one particular tiny paragraph the headline for this entire multi-faceted piece is based on:
Iran’s top military spokesman, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies. The threat renewed concerns that Iran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic.
Assuming this General did say these particular words this particular way still doesn´t suggest the story as AP spins it. If he did mean what AP adds “worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies” why did he not say so in his actual quote?
p.s. Asking as non-native speaker – why do they write “won´t” instead of “wouldn´t” if it is intended as a genuine quote from the evil dude?
AP is known to be dishonest. Even among MSM circles they have a rather bad reputation.
btw contributing reporters:
By Jon Gambrell, Sam Mednick and David Rising
Mednick reported from Jerusalem and Rising from Bangkok. AP journalists Konstantin Toropin and Michelle Price in Washington; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Lorne Cook in Brussels and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.
So how many are actually in the region? The Jewish guy from Jerusalem…
The difference between “won’t” and “wouldn’t” in this case would be the implied certainty of an outcome – in this case insecurity at the listed locations. “Wouldn’t” implies ambiguity, that something may or may not happen, whereas “won’t” implies it will happen.
Because it’s not part of the given quote I expect that he didn’t say either won’t or wouldn’t, but the person reporting wants it to appear as a more clear-cut threat so they use “won’t”.
I hope all of that makes sense! The amount of “won’t”, will, etc. makes it fairly confusing I’m afraid.
I’d be interested to hear if there is another interpretation of the wouldn’t/won’t question.
“Won’t” is typically used to imply a higher degree of certainty and/or a more personal active decision. Eg. “I won’t go”
“Wouldn’t” implies a higher degree of uncertainty, often contingent on other events. “He wouldn’t go if x happened.”
Theres no hard and fast rule though. Theres never a situation where one would be correct and the other wouldn’t. The usage is more of a narrative control device
My odds on this going Nuclear, 2 out of 3.
My odds that the mid terms will be cancelled ( Barring Armageddon) 3 out of 4.
My odds that American Troops will be stationed in American cities to quell civil unrest (Barring Nuclear Armageddon) before the end of the year, 8 out of 10.
I am one of the more than 200,000,000 Americans who is right on the edge financially, without the food bank I would go hungry for a few days at the end of each Month.
When 200,000,000 Americans can not afford to feed their children, or the gas needed to drive to work, it’s going to get right lively.
That’s where we are headed on this highway to Hell, all the off ramps are closed, the accelerator is jammed to the floor and the brakes don’t work.
Oh, well, at least it’s a heck of a show.
I’m still wondering about the how of cancelling US elections, which are held by the states.
Trump can demand it, but how many Secretaries of state will honor it? They can still print ballots, send them to the precincts, and voters will still show up to vote. Would they bring in federal troops to prevent this? And where would they go – to every single voting precinct or nip it at the bud at state capitols? And if so, would state national guards just sit by and watch?
Or maybe they just refuse to seat newly elected Congresspeople? That might be easier – after all we saw a whole group of Congresspeople flummoxed by one rent-a-cop at a building entrance in early 2025.
I guess my point is that a lot of people would need to agree to cancel elections for it to actually happen. And I think the reasons for the current conflicts are becoming readily apparent, even to the MAGA types. I don’t think there are many in the US who would throw away what’s left of democracy to satisfy the febrile and fascist dreams of an ugly, evil, sorry excuse for a human being like Netanyahu.
Agreed
Canceling elections isn’t a thing unless it is shorthand for martial law, because the 50 states run their own elections
There are a few paths that I can see, but they all rhyme with martial law. I will point out a troubling possible scenario on the “enforcement” portion. The enforcers are ICE, in place and ready to play their role. The troubling part is the possibility that many state’s national guard will be emasculated from the war effort, leaving Governors with lack of muscle to push back.
Bullets or ballots? An old bogart film from the thirties. A remake this year, around November?
I’ve been following the betting on Polymarket. I started watching it a couple of weeks ago and there’s only been a slight change in the odds for “will the midterms happen as scheduled“, down from 90% to 89% (so,cancelled is up to 11%).
slice of life/apolitical documentary about the first 20 days of the Iran war from inside Iran by the Korean state broadcaster.
I don’t speak Farsi/Korean, but the video speaks for itself; and when possible the locals use English.
In Iraq, the US would’ve never used the Israeli tactics of target assassinations as the collateral damage/civilian radicalization risks are too high. (as the video shows). Lots of CCTV footage that didn’t make it to telegram/Twitter.
we are in full info war; one reason why the only videos of strikes in the emirates are from grainy videos shot by Gujuarti laborers uploaded to India’s version of Facebook messenger
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uYqPjwl7hw
Related, Dimitri Lascaris, who is sometimes included in Links, is in Iran with several other members of the independent media. Seems the Iranian state broadcaster invited them to do some on the ground reporting. His first video here:
https://youtu.be/g1K8tPiYZjk?si=0LSbVGde-ys9Kaj1
I have just made the following comment on Rob Urie’s latest piece on his substack, Apocalypse Now— West Asia Edition.
‘ Almost exactly the same viewpoints and conclusions as held by Brian Berletic as expressed in his recent conversation with Glenn Diesen.
Which strongly implies you have both independently analysed information and came to the same point.
Unfortunately for us all , you both appear to be correct.’
The Diesen/Berletic exchange was very interesting. Berletic makes accurate analysis by reading decades old policy papers. Diesen (and many of the rest of us) think Berletic is ‘off” because even an idiot can see that conditions have changed since those policy papers have been written. Changing conditions would require new policies. But Berletic is correct, Diesen admits it. I think what Berletic can see is that the US just CAN NOT CHANGE TRAJECTORY. (Sorry Yves for the all caps, but I think this comment deserves it). When we once were flying high we wrote up all sorts of plans of what we would do someday. And now we just can’t see ourselves for who we are, we can’t look ourselves in the mirror, we can’t come up with new better approaches. Amazing that Trump who would have been so profoundly shaped by Vietnam, and who ran as the most anti war candidate (in the general) that we have seen in decades, did not in any way change our war mongering trajectory. No.
Berletic’s super high level of cynicism seems the only appropriate mind set for our current times.
I think Berletic is making a variation of John King Fairbanks fallacy on historical Chinese foreign policy.
Fairbanks was a famous and, in many ways, the foundational scholar of Chinese history in US and his (and his immediate students’) problem was that he took pointy headed Chinese scholar-theorists too seriously. These guys wrote about how China is the center of universe, has no equals, snd everyone is a vassal of China in some fashion. So, based on reading these goofballs, Fairbanks and his people concocted the myth of “the Middle Kingdom” in foreign policy that still persists in msny quarters. More modern scholars took a different approach: they looked at how imperial China conducted its foreign policy, over border disputes, etc, with its neighbors that were alleged vassals–Korea, Vietnam, etc, and lo and behold, there was nothing “Middle Kingdom” about them. They were just run of the mill diplomatic engagements that would not be unfamiliar to contemporary Europe.
I don’t think the US think tank types are any more grounded in reality than the Chinese foreign policy theorists of a few centuries ago trying to gain imperial favor through ludicrous sycophancy–kiss the emperor’s a** by appealing to his vanity. So the emperor thinks he runs the universe and there should be a grand plan on how it should be done. The real foreign policymaking starts by locking these away in the suitable loony bins.
While that may be true, it won’t keep them from digging through those old policy papers Berletic reads and, seeing their depth of analysis, follow their escalation scenarios and recommend, again, what their raging boss wants to hear.
The question is how much linkage there is between the courtiers and the real policymakers. Historians (at least the more modern ones) have established that actual Chinese foreign policy vis a vis its neighbors, Korea, Vietnam, and Russia(!) have been mostly grounded in reality. One place where Chinese foreign policy flew off the wheels as time went on was, I think, thst towards UK in the run up to and during the early phase of the Opium War: the early conduct, not conducted by Beijing, but by local officials vis a vis local British representatives, was realistic and grounded, but once things started falling apart, I think one can say with certainty, that policymaking began to spiral out of control. If my sense is true (do mind it’s been a while since I studied these things seriously and I was never a professional Sinologist), that bodes poorly for us: presumably, the think tank nonsense matters for little when people in charge are familiar with their jobs, but it becomes important when ignorant grand poobahs join in because things have gotten “serious” because they need some orientation and the think tank nonsense is literally written for them.
thanks for the insight
I question how much of Trump’s bs he really believes. He’s always selling and trying out arguments to ‘close.’ Blumenthal says what he really is about is making a lot of money and getting revenge on Democrats. While he doubtless shares many of the prejudices–racial and otherwise–of his ruling class it could be he won’t let those interfere with job one.
Alternately he’s quite willing to bash Mexican immigrants if that will advance job one including the key job of making himself president. It’s all id and very little brain work involved.
Blumenthal says that Witkoff has constantly been trying to engage the Iranians so Trump can find an escape hatch. In the end we may have the ultimate TACO.
Tbf, I’m not writing about just Trump, but pretty much every Cold War and beyond US president (although more emphasis on the “beyond.”) Many, if not most of them, fancied themselves presidents of the world. Along with this delusion came the demand for advice on how they should be ruling the world, and so came the nutty Think Tank publications.
Cynical no, skeptical yes. Berletic advises people to keep their eyes on actions rather than state spin/narrative.
“Test to destruction”
Zionist Trump is almost certainly all-in. For ideologues, only total victory is acceptable.
Today on Truth Social, Zionist Trump rages about NATO allies unwillingness to participate in Iran War.
Concluding his unhinged rant, he screams: “COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!”
Zionists have been claiming that its the moral and patriotic duty of the Christian West to ensure that Israel prevails.
Trump is a Zionist.
> Trump is a Zionist
I think it’s hard to discern any ideological orientation in DJT. The present behaviors may indicate that behaving like a Zionist serves DJT’s self-perceived interests, at least for the moment.
That this does not appear to serve the interests of many Americans will presumably lead to interesting tensions in coming weeks and months.
“Hard to discern . . .”
LOL. Don’t believe your lying eyes:
Trump has lied so much about who he is (“populist”, “self-funding”, “peacemaker”) PERHAPS his biggest lie is a lie of omission: that he is a Zionist.
This could explain a lot:
Aljazeera Liveblog, about an hour ago:
Trump says he thinks US, Israel on same page about war timeline
Asked whether Israel will be ready to end the war when he is, Trump replied: “I think so.
“The relationship’s a very good one,” he added. “We want, more or less, similar things.
“You know what we want? We want victory, both of us, and that’s what we’ve got,” he said.
my mom’s covert narcissism is a different animal entirely from the overt, malignant narcissism we see every day from trump…but there are perhaps useful analogs.
especially when dementia sets in.
its often hard to tell.
is this their normal passive/aggressive bullshit, or do they really believe what theyre saying.
with mom, as with trump, i often find that i cannot tell.
similarly, do they believe their own lies?
i really dont know.
as she gets older, the lies become much more overt and forceful, especially when she has a rage event.
for instance: im selling chicken scratch that i get from feedstore on her acct on the black market to fuel my heroin habit, etc.
(yes! she told eldest this,lol…im like ‘ wait! theres a black market for chicken scratch?!”..and, “theres heroin?”)
i see th same sort of insanity in the leader of the free world(sic), and that scares the shit out of me.
never accepting responsibility…always requiring a scapegoat…anyone to take the blame for their ruinous actions.
shrinks say “run away!”…but i cant…and with trump, neither can the rest of us.
so everybody is now in the leaky boat i have been in, waiting for the lunatic to die.
My sympathies. It’s harder when its family.
This was not on my bingo card, but in hind sight I am not surprised – a group in Poland invaded Israel’s newly built weapons factory in the Czech Republic and smashed equipment and burned at least one building down very early Friday morning. Here is a tweet (X?) about it:
https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/2034970657193087044?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2034970657193087044%7Ctwgr%5Ebe68b76340dd2b9eee60e83cd4eee13d5b34b568%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.godlikeproductions.com%2Fforum1%2Fmessage6149612%2Fpg1
“A new challenger enters the ring.”
Funny no one seems to have any info on The Earthquake Faction.
A little more from Andalou – https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/israeli-weapons-firm-elbit-systems-factory-set-ablaze-in-czech-republic/3873022
” “For as long as the land continues to bleed under Israeli bombs in Occupied Palestine and across West Asia, ground must continue to shake under the feet of the sponsors of occupation,” Earthquake Faction further said.
They added that every weapon developed by Elbit Systems is first “tested” on Palestinians, before being sold on to international governments, “expanding the empire built off the destruction of Palestine.”
“Wherever Elbit Systems and their accomplices obscure and hide their business of bloodshed across the world, we will come for them,” the statement added.
The group also stressed that there is no time to “beg the complicit international governments,” vowing not to “waste their breath asking nicely.”
“Instead, we will take necessary action to quash their means to kill,” it added.”
Where the bit about “group in Poland” comes from? AFAIK nobody knows anything so far, “security expert” talking heads are trying to pin it on the official baddies – Russia or Iran.
An Iranian man has been arrested with a woman after trying to enter the Faslane naval base, home to the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80mej47xz0o
Ukraine deploys units to five Middle East countries to intercept drones
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-deploys-units-intercept-targets-middle-east-2026-03-20/
Reza Pahlavi asking for a lift?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese heckled, protester thrown out after commotion at Lakemba Mosque
https://www.9news.com.au/national/prime-minister-anthony-albanese-heckled-lakemba-mosque/8492774d-2843-46c2-be1e-71fa75fbfa72
What else did he expect? Albo is in tight with the Zionist and makes laws to protect them specifically under the law while restricting everybody else’s right to protest. The man is a muppet.
Oz Liberal is a damp tea towel wrapped around the FIRE sector …. Penny Wong has seen too many Xena warrior princess episodes on girls night … that is the good news as their political opposite numbers is a dogs breakfast … mate …
Canadians in Middle East warned not to record or share war videos
‘Doing so could lead to fines, imprisonment or deportation,’ Global Affairs Canada says
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gac-warning-video-middle-east-9.7133723
Pakistani government wants to ‘create anarchy’ in Afghanistan, claims Hamid Karzai
https://news.sky.com/story/pakistani-government-wants-to-create-anarchy-in-afghanistan-claims-hamid-karzai-13521135
War Clouds Over Global Trade: WTO Warns Iran Conflict Could Drag Growth to 1.9% in 2026
https://www.thebroadpost.com/blog/war-clouds-over-global-trade-wto-warns-iran-conflict-could-drag-growth-to-1-9-in-2026
‘Stand in solidarity with Afghanistan’: India sends 2.5-ton medical aid to Kabul after Pakistani strikes on rehab centre
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/stand-in-solidarity-with-afghanistan-india-sends-2-5-ton-medical-aid-to-kabul-after-pakistani-strikes-on-rehab-centre/amp_articleshow/129701714.cms
Thanks for all the links Ann.
Thanks, .Tom. I do this for myself every day, so I thought others might want to see what I find.
I certainly do. Thanks Ann.
Operation Lemming news
Trump mulls risky Kharg Island takeover to force Iran to open strait ( ̶M̶o̶s̶s̶a̶d̶.̶c̶o̶m̶ Axios, archived)
The Trump administration is considering plans to occupy or blockade Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, four sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios.
Why it matters: President Trump can’t end the war, at least on his terms, until he breaks Iran’s chokehold on shipping through the strait. In the meantime, global energy prices are surging.
But an operation to take over Kharg Island, which sits 15 miles offshore and processes 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports, could put U.S. troops more directly in the line of fire.
Thus, such an operation would only be launched after the U.S. military further degrades Iran’s military capacity around the Strait of Hormuz. “We need about a month to weaken the Iranians more with strikes, take the island and then get them by the balls and use it for negotiations,” a source with knowledge of the White House thinking said.
Such an operation, if approved, would also require more troops. Three different Marine units are on their way to the region. The White House and the Pentagon are considering sending even more troops soon, a U.S. official said.
What they’re saying: “He wants Hormuz open. If he has to take Kharg Island to make it happen, that’s going to happen. If he decides to have a coastal invasion, that’s going to happen. But that decision hasn’t been made,” a senior administration official told Axios.
“We’ve always had boots on the ground in conflicts under every president, including Trump. I know this is a fixation in the media, and I get the politics, but the president is going to do what’s right,” a second senior official said, adding no decision had been made.
Welp. I hope this isn’t the case, but the only reason I can think it’s not, is that I hope it isn’t. It absolutely follows the train of thought we’ve seen for the last few weeks.
A land war in Asia will do wonders for military recruitment.
In the realm of The Princess Bride memes, me thinks there is a lot of material for “inconceivable!” exclamations on the part of Administration officials contemplating Iran’s unexpected but predicted responses to the war.
A month is the new Friedman Unit.
It looks like they may be trying ling from lawyers guns money
it had a bunch of stuff at the end so you may have to search
wsj u-s-war-planes-and-helicopters-kick-off-battle-to-reopen-hormuz
~15 kilometers from Iran and over 100 kms from the coast of any allies of US, i.e. Kuweit or KSA.
How are they going to get there and how many? The island is a triangle 2×1 km . Are the americans going to use Ospreys? Helicopters? to put maybe 300 people there, max? They think they can do some beach landing? There will be a lotery among Iranians wanting to go to fight because there will be sooo many volunteers…
Peter Drucker quote:
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday’s logic.”
As for the symbol manipulators in who think spread sheets represent reality: the map is not the terrain.
But the biggest question for McDonalds is … can they get back to the 70s advertising that I grew up with: “Change back from your dollar.” Back when a burger, fries, and drink were 98 cents.
Oh, and an extra large pizza at Renna’s, in the strip mall, was three dollars. The five dollar large at Alori’s was tastier, but when you’re in high school and minwage is $2.35, quantity matters over quality. Not that there was anything wrong with Renna’s….
How about Day On The Green #2 & 3: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Band, Joe Walsh, Jesse Colin Young (July 13 & 14, 1974)….
I went on the 13th. A smokin’ $18 ticket.
All the US actions are so short cited and i mean that literally. Like 30 day relief from Russian sanctions for India, maybe the same for in the water Iran oil. Comments meant to but just a few more days. I can see Trump doing a round of stimulus checks like Covid to cover increased gas costs, and other things. The fact is the matter, the straight seems trivial for Iran to keep closed. Even a nuclear attack wouldn’t change that fact. And as long as the straight is closed the US will exhaust itself with short term fixes (and maybe nukes) until it comes to the realization. I really see the US being so stubborn about admitting defeat, that they won’t admit defeat at first. They will try to just “freeze” the conflict like North Korea and let Iran send oil out of the straight to allies and say it’s open again and we didn’t really lose. As I don’t know if they can do that however with the economic damage to follow. Time will tell, but this is going to go on for years certainly till the end of the Trump term.
Oh and expect something big(ie dumb escalation) after market close today if the past two weeks have been any indicator.
Thinking wishfully, I suppose that “burying the news in the weekend” could also be used to conceal or mitigate the embarrassment of a humiliating climb-down.
Vocabulary question for Yves:
“The publisher, Jeff Snider, is a permaear…”
“Permaear?” Mr. Google is not helpful for resolving my ignorance.
Permabear. Will fix, thanks!
Makes WAY more sense now. I was worried it was some sort of neologistic word I was unaware of, despite much time spent here, and was feeling sad and outsiderly, like I’d let the NC Commentariat Team down by my ignorance…. :-)
More on the US “consumer”
The U.S. Economy Is Insulated From High Oil Prices. Americans Aren’t. (NY Times via archive.ph)
Amusing that Ben Casselman, who has reported on economics for 20 years, thinks that American citizens and “the economy” are separate animals; never the two shall meet.
but we can’t get hurt
well, no, someone gets a recession
And it’s really just policy discontent
So I guess we’ll see, then?
Does mention that not just oil, but fertilizer, natural gas, transportation costs, all in play.
I guess regardless, NY Times readers are going to be okay. Nothing to worry about. Meanwhile this might be the debacle that finally pushes many Americans over the edge, with ongoing inflation year after year, and a weakening job market.
Wrong. The US imports 40% of it’s crude oil from Canada. The US refines that crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and other refined petroleum products for resale at a profit. Most of that refined product is used internally. Only a small amount is exported to other places.
Canada will readily sell us crude oil at an increased price. And USians will pay the price at the pump. No free lunch!
Markets are getting a dose of reality in the US today, long bonds blowing out finally and stocks falling with the option expiry. We are starting to see Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies in real time. The example is of course the Ford carrier, it became too complex to operate away from its home port and the specialist mechanics available there. I seem to remember that one of the battleships chasing the Bismark took Dockyard workers along because it wasn’t finished in time, this may happen again.
System analysts in the Empire think tanks are aware of this problem and their remedy is the AI sub culture to handle a complexity that has become too much for humans to handle. This is of course the wrong method, they need to simplify things while they still can because the resources to reverse things are disappearing at an astonishing rate. I believe we use the basic resources at 10 times the rate we used to and the world population has doubled since the 1970’s. The maths is against us.
Best comment on our time I saw this week:
“Claude, open the strait of Hormuz. Make no mistakes.”
LOL
Code review:
Claude! you forgot to remove support for Zion.
Mearsheimer: It’s hard for me to imagine it going on much beyond two or three months just because of the damage that is likely to be done to the international economy.
It would just seem to me that President Trump at some point uh you know maybe two or three months out is going to have no choice but uh to end the war. But who knows for sure.
That last part: Who knows for sure…
Looking at the previous articles and comments regarding the strange bedfellows consisting of accelerationist and people with apocalyptic ideologies of various sorts, it can’t be discounted that there are people in power that only care that they are themselves positioned for economic downturn. Not a damn is given about how most of the world wades through any destruction.
They are just as arrogant about their (ruthless?) ability to control narratives and outcomes when things go wrong. Still too much lack of accountability and failing upward happening in the halls of power.
I did not address this but intend to in posts soon. The rich will not be able to insulate themselves from drug shortages and the loss of consumables needed for surgeries. And little people will do passive aggressive versions of Madame Defarge. For instance, pharmacists will prioritize family and friends over rich assholes, many at any price.
Their arrogance comes into play and the suffering because they think in terms of their own invincibility.
I just read that! I know that reference! A Tale of Two Cities was among my dad’s books; My sister left some annotations in the copy from when she was in middle school.
I’ve been thinking where is Charlot Corday when we need her.
Chuck Norris, martial arts master and actor whose toughness became internet lore, dies at 86.
Damn, who will lead those Marines into the Straight?
Steven Seagal, reporting for duty!
I believe SS resides in Moscow and holds US, Russian and Serbian citizenship.
Dudikoff, Lundgren, Kove
Sly, Arnie, VanDemme on the bench
(in the real world however I wouldn´t be surprised these people, including SS, to be more knowledgable about the events than the current US SoW – which admittedly is not a big achievement. After all geopolitical truths were often buried in B-movies of yesteryear.)
Isn’t the this the just another sequal in the “Expendables” series of movies?
The franchise title might be a little too on the nose.
👍🙃
LOL whut
(typos in the original)
BBC
I don’t even know; Trump is gotta be the worlds biggest moron. Played by Israel and in a war he can’t win or even easily appear to have won. Toast. Trump is cooked. American exceptionalism is cooked. Little Trump ain’t getting so big now I guess.
When Israel killed Larijani analysts wrote that Israel was deliberately removing “off-ramp” opportunities.
This “analysis” seems bogus (propaganda) though because USA/Trump KNEW that Israel intended to eliminate all the Iranian leaders it could.
Then Israel attacked Iran’s oil infrastructure and Trump claimed he didn’t know Israel was going to do that.
Beware good-cop / bad-cop pretense from US-Israel.
The main objective: pretend that Trump’s hands are clean and his options are open so as to keep the war going (until total victory).
“We haven’t won enough yet.”
Apropos Epic Fury and apologies if I missed it up-thread: This week’s Economist cover is hilarious (well sort of). Title Operation Blind Fury showing the Donald with a kevlar helmet turned the wrong way covering his eyes. Also illustrates the Larry Johnson post.
The Economist is neocon central so this may be the start of a campaign to blame Trump for this war and not the neocons.
There is I think another factor that doesn’t get much credit but has to be decisive among the various players, and that is this: For this war to end, there has to be some kind of agreement between the major players. There is no way out of this that does not ultimately come down to trusting the other side to follow through on whatever war-ending conditions are put forward.
However, we are long past the point where any foreign nation, allied or enemy, trusts the United States or Israel to keep their word on anything. There has just been too much bad faith, deliberate lying and contempt towards their opponents, for anyone to take these two countries at their word on anything. Even if they very much want to!
If you are playing poker with someone who cheats every single time you play with them, after a while you have absolutely no choice but to stop playing. Anything else is batshit crazy. I think global politics is in this situation right now, and the only things that are going to happen are things that don’t require putting the slightest bit of trust in the western powers. Very hard to think of anything like that.
Mentioned to friends that Iran terms are us out of ME. They said no way, I said they’re being bombed out, what is us gonna do about that?
Seems they either leave or israel nukes Iran, and in that case gulf oil/gas plus israel get bombed to sand by the Iran survivors. And maybe somebody nukes israel. And trump surrounded by warmongers isn’t helping.
Any chance israel sees the results of all that as unacceptable? Better to live to fight another day?
Are we seeing the obvious parallels between the Ukrainian war against Russia and the Persian Gulf war against Iran? In each case, the US confronted an opponent that turned out to be equal or superior to the US, and found it had no obvious way out.
Russia has (a) certain bottom line demands for it’s Ukrainian conflict that it won’t back down an inch from and (b) in many ways sees this war as an existential one where the country’s political survival is at stake vis-a-vis a ruthless opponent who wants to slowly invade via NATO, ultimately breaking the country up. Russia is determined to keep fighting and is obviously prevailing in kind of a slow motion sense.
Iran has (a) certain bottom line demands for its Persian Gulf conflict that it won’t back down an inch from, and (b) in many ways sees this war as an existential one vis-a-vis a pair of ruthless opponents who want to overthrow the existing government and install one of their usual ridiculous puppets (as they have been trying to do for many decades). Iran sees this as an opportunity to gain the strategic and military upper hand against an increasingly weak Israel and US, and is obviously prevailing in the sense that it can do tremendous economic damage and the US has no obvious moves.
Seems eerie.
Yesterday there was a bit of discussion about why: Why this US decision to attack Iran? There are of course a number of reasons, some obvious, some not so. Perhaps all apply.
I put forward that one reason is sheer mindless vindictiveness, dating all the way back to 1951 when Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The US government, at the behest of the oil companies of course, has never forgiven Iran for this. And so, today, here we are.
Another example: Cuba. Little, poor, trying-to-mind-its-own-business Cuba. Not much of a threat to anybody. And yet, because it kicked out all the American corporate interests in the revolution of 1959, has been subjected to a never-ending vendetta by the US government. (See: Marco Rubio)
Back to vindictiveness. If there was ever a time to use the well-known Talleyrand quote vis-a-vis the Bourbon royalists in revolutionary France two centuries ago, it is during this attack on Iran. Simply substitute US corporatocracy for Bourbon royalists:
“They have learned nothing, they have forgotten nothing.”
And yet, because it kicked out all the American
corporate interestsMafiathere, that’s better.
“never-ending vendetta by the US government. (See: Marco Rubio)”
Can’t discount Roy Cohn’s protégé sharing some of the same sentiments.
Perhaps an alternative explanation to “unforgotten lust for revenge” is simply that the US political/economic system does not like the existence of alternative kinds of systems. The reasons for this can be debated; I suspect that the existence of alternative ways of organizing production and distribution might encourage discontent among those who are not happy with their experience of the US system. In a notionally representative system of governance, discontent among the governed could become problematic.
yeah,lol. its like Highlander, “there can be only one”.
the ruling class hates competitions, whether its from other companies, or nations, or their own frelling people(ie:unions).
all of their ideology…even as it has morphed, over time…confirms this.
our way, or no way…we will destroy any challengers to our rule, or destroy the world.
its pathological. they should be in care, if not hung and made into compost
John Bolton, man of reason, voice of sanity. I did not have that one on my bingo card for 2026. But regardless of the past, the man is suddenly making a lot of good points.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5793064-john-bolton-donald-trump-iran-war-objective/
My take is that this says more about what a lunatic Taco has become, rather than any redemption arc for Bolton.
NATO withdraws troops from Iraq mission to Europe as Iran war rages
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/nato-withdraws-troops-iraq-mission-europe-iran-war-rages-2026-03-20/
Putin offers to stop sharing intel with Iran if US cuts off Ukraine
https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-offers-stop-intel-iran-condition-us-cuts-off-ukraine/
Iran threatens world tourism sites and says it is still building missiles 3 weeks into war
https://apnews.com/article/iran-iraq-us-israel-trump-march-20-2026-28202423a66327455e898deab2fde88c
‘Putin offers to stop sharing intel with Iran if US cuts off Ukraine’
Probably more a hope than anything else. But the Chinese will still continue with their intelligence.
As for ‘NATO withdraws troops from Iraq mission to Europe as Iran war rages’, what about those contingents from other countries that are in Iraq? Were they evacuated too? Or were they left to hang out to dry like when US forces retreated to Kabul airport without telling any of their allies.
Which Iranian Air Defense System Targeted F-35 and Why russia Was Clearly Involved
https://en.defence-ua.com/news/which_iranian_air_defense_system_targeted_f_35_and_why_russia_was_clearly_involved-17891.html
Not sure about this site.
Exclusive: Iraq declares force majeure on foreign-operated oilfields over Hormuz disruption, sources say
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iraq-declares-force-majeure-foreign-operated-oilfields-over-hormuz-disruption-2026-03-20/
UAE Arrests More Than 100 As Crackdown on Filming Iran’s Attacks Ramps Up
https://time.com/article/2026/03/20/uae-arrests-more-than-100-as-crackdown-on-filming-iran-s-attacks-ramps-up/
As the US shifts missiles towards Iran, officials raise concerns of gaps in European air defenses
https://apnews.com/article/patriot-missile-europe-iran-middle-east-ukraine-29a199d083318ed8610f11dbdd0288f2
MAGA has been swooning over a beautiful Army soldier and her pro-Trump message. She is AI
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/maga-ai-us-soldier-instagram-account-trump-b2942600.html
I hope we can still have whiskey in this timeline. Articles like that make me want to sip something strong to burn the images out of my brain.
I watched a video debunking the whole thing the other day and there are all sorts of giveaways labeling it as AI. Such as the fact that her jacket has her first name on it and not her surname. Or that she would be giving speeches in places that somebody of her rank would never be allowed to. But MAGA types want to believe and ignore all the evidence of their own eyes.
Some history
Patricia Marins, Twitter
Also,
Hegseth Invokes Divine Purpose to Justify Military Might (NY Times)
Fun.
Linked article sans paywall: https://archive.ph/HNlQB
Fun, indeed.
I guess we became a Theocracy during the term of 47? Sure has come to bumphuc Montanny in a huge way- esp racist Evang White Christian Nationalists.
I don’t get the faith/ religion thing, at all, and I really resent that we are angling to be a Christian Nation. I object – strenuously, actually .
We must entertain the possibility that Trump is a Zionist ideologue. Not just an “asset” but a true-believer and activist.
Trump has lied so much about who he is (“populist”, “self-funding”, “peacemaker”) PERHAPS his biggest lie is a lie of omission: that he is a Zionist?
Wouldn’t that explain a lot? And it is also predictive: Trump will not end the war before total victory.
I wrote more about this earlier in the thread.
He must mean another Jesus Christ, not the one who said if your enemies smite you on one side of your face, offer them your other cheek to smite, and if people don’t want to listen when you proclaim the gospel to them, shake the dust from your sandals and go on your way without further botheration to those nonreceptive folks. Yeah, that guy was a wimp. Has to be some other Jesus Christ that Pentagram Petey wants us to pray to.
More leaks from inside the US War Machine. Again, intelligence saying one thing and White House refusing to listen.
US furiously seeks to avert potential monthslong closure of Strait of Hormuz (CNN)
[Excerpts]:
A recent internal assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that was circulating inside the Pentagon in recent weeks determined that Iran could potentially keep the passage shut for anywhere from one to six months, four sources familiar with the document told CNN. But White House and Pentagon officials insisted that the assessment — particularly the longer end timeframe, which some consider a worst-case scenario — was not being seriously considered.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had not seen it, and Trump has not been briefed on it, nor was he using it to inform his policy decisions, one senior White House official said.
Parnell [Pentagon spokesman] said. “I have been present for every briefing on this matter, and the six month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary of War.
US troops are flying into Baghdad airport right now with the transports under full wartime fighter cover. How many and for what purpose is not known yet. Is it for action in Iran or is it just to re-establish the Imperial business in Iraq, which was losing traction ?
Iraq is a lost cause. They have been pulling people out like crazy.
I have been present for every briefing on this matter, and the six month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary of War.
Petey may be in for a disappointment.
If you look at what it might take to open the Strait, all you need is a few months bombardment, maybe 50,000–75,000 mixed marine and army troops and, very likely, a willingness to lose a few ships possibly including an aircraft carrier or two. That might give the USA a bit of a chance.
At the moment the US Armada is standing off 7000–1,000km to be out of range of Iranian missiles. A round trip op ~1,200 miles for every air sortie looks like fun. Oh and every time the destroyers need rearming they have to tootle off to Diego Garcia.
These idiot writers and it appears Hegseth don’t seem to have even looked at a map. BTW, capturing Kharg Island is just as stupid an idea. Look at a map.
Whenever I hear someone use the word “unacceptable” like that, I can’t help but think of Leslie Jones’ “Inner White Girl”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhSSLZpl-Vg
Picturing Reese Witherspoon playing Hegseth makes it even better.
Indeed, sending ships up there for a ground assault would mean a few get sunk — maybe all of them.
Pete could try sending in helicopters, though that hasn’t exactly been the winning ticket in the past.
Trump: ‘I don’t want to do a ceasefire’ in Iran war
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/20/trump-iran-war-ceasefire.html
Man, these people are re-tarded.
US furiously seeks to avert potential monthslong closure of Strait of Hormuz (CNN)
(bold mine)
America is cooked.
The Trump administration long ago took leave of any senses it might have had, which were likely none.
It’s too bad no one in the Trump administration even bothered to look at a map before this wet dream.
W. Bush looks positively a genius by comparison.
Trump got one thing right; It is the Department of War.
This is just a report from rural Vermont on how diesel prices will affect us.. Vermont town have town meeting the first Tuesday of March. That’s when we elect town officers and vote on the budget for what it takes to run the town. We just voted $35,000 for diesel fuel for the coming year.
I paid about $43.00 for 10 gallons a couple of weeks ago. So that would be $4.30/gallon. Dividing the $35,000 by 4.30 would be about 8,140 gallons and at today’s price that will cost $45,580. So, sometime between now and tax due date we’ll need to convene a special town meeting to get the money needed. And that’s probably the same for every town in VT.
And since the USA is now making momentous decisions by haruspication (Trump’s gut) who knows what’s going to happen.
Truly confused by the fixation on Kharg Island. Aside from the difficulty of seizing it, what does it get the Americans? An ability to stop Iran from exporting oil? But Trump waived sanctions on Iran so that Iranian oil can enter the market and keep oil prices down. If they were truly serious about stopping Iranian oil, much easier to attack Iranian tankers traversing the Strait starting immediately. Iranian ships allowed through only if Iran allows all others through too.
Maybe Trump thinks he’d get to keep the island afterwards and charge the Iranians a fee/toll for use? Nah. That’s too dumb, even for Trump.
Blame Game: Tel Aviv
Mossad chief told PM before war that he thought Iran’s regime could be toppled – report (Times of Israel)
Mossad head David Barnea, in meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government prior to the US-Israeli attack that started the ongoing war with Iran, assessed that it would be possible to topple the Iranian regime, Channel 12 reported Thursday.
The TV network, citing multiple unnamed sources, said that Barnea told the political echelon that if the military goals of the operation were achieved – decapitation of the leadership, as well as serious harm to regime institutions and its capacity to repress its own citizens – then the Mossad and the CIA would know how to ensure that Iranians would again take to the streets, and to find an alternative to the regime.
The report stressed that the Mossad chief provided disclaimers and qualifications, and noted both that the situation was developing and that achieving the desired ends could take a long time.
“My friends, this is it. America isn’t going to win this war, unless they use nukes, but even if I’m wrong and they squeeze out their .01% chance of success, it is over. The army is exhausted and can’t be re-armed in less than a decade, with Chinese help. The Middle East will be in ruins. The AI bubble will crash out without money and resources from the Gulf. Everyone’s going to turn hard from hydrocarbons to renewables, especially solar, and that means China is going to make absolute bank.”
https://www.ianwelsh.net/
A second F-35 downed…
This is the latest Nima with Larry Johnson/Wilkerson via Martyanov´s site
March 20th
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2026/03/nima-larry-johnson-and-colonel-wilkerson.html
New year’s present to the heroic Iranian people!
p.s. since my disclaimer “F-35” may have been misleading – this is an excellent new discussion about the shortcomings of the US MIC in the current sit. and the unsurmountable odds to pull off a ground invasion/ground troops operation of any sort.
Larry Wilkerson: Israel won’t just use one nuke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0zYb3bX_S0&list=WL&index=3
7 minutes
Developing . . .
In remarks just delivered, it seems that Trump wants to declare victory while Straits are closed …
… knowing that allies affected by the closure will plead with him to “do something”.
The Plan: Trump will help open the Straits if they join the effort and/or pay USA?
=
Trump, only days ago: “We did the world a favor.”
LOL
Will the world really be fooled by the pretense that a new phase of the war is fundamentally different from the war that Epstein Regime began in the middle of peace negotiations?
As I wrote earlier: rabid Zionists have been saying that it’s the moral obligation of the Christian West to support a war for greater Israel.
Trump may need to act faster in declaring victory:
How countries are cutting deals with Iran to move oil through the Strait of Hormuz – and undermine Trump
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-strait-of-hormuz-oil-tankers-trump-which-countries-b2942345.html
Or all of the “allies” that Trump has been threatening for the last year may just decide to cut deals with the GCC states and Iran. After all, they need oil and gas, and at this point, Trump is just in the way.
I have been wondering for several days whether Iran might tolerate transit of vessels through the Strait at a lower level, sort of “life support” for critical industries worldwide, and only for “friendly” vessels.
Perhaps it’s just hopium, but I think Iranian decisionmakers may be concerned about relations with the non-West. If there is food scarcity in large parts of the world due to shortages of Nitrogen fertilizer due to closure of the Strait, the fact that US/Israel started the conflict may not entirely deflect blame from Iran for how it responded.
20 minutes ago:
Trump says US getting close to meeting objectives in Iran war
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-us-getting-close-meeting-objectives-iran-war-2026-03-20/
Prepared to end hostilities but still sending marines into the theater?
Trust people by what they do, not what they say.
Trump took a look at the stock & bond markets today.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran: (1) Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to them. (2) Destroying Iran’s Defense Industrial Base. (3) Eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including Anti Aircraft Weaponry. (4) Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability, and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation, should it take place. (5) Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others. The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Is Trump daring the Europeans to start using Yuan? Cuz the Iranians said they’d let tankers pass through if the oil onboard was paid for with Yuan, right?
Sadly it may be so. Charlie Kirk discussed the determination of the US to defend the dollar in trade transactions. As Keynes wrote in the General Theory:
That’s an amazing quote. Bad ideas have their day, and if the timing is not good, it’s catastrophic
I think Keynes was being cheeky and alluding to how elites throughout history fund such self serving endeavors. Especially when it factors in generational environmental biases, H/T Koch docs. Gosh I mean just the occasion of an old NC post on the foundations of the ideological think tank FEE and what rolled around in that collective mind agenda is something to behold. Heck even Raygun understood the whacknuts at the time needed to be on a short leash – Pat Roberson as a AIPAC wedge – so America would not be sucked down some religious black hole of utopia is just around the corner thingy … yet he suffered them for votes lmmao … what a game~~~~
Russia warns Japan against remilitarization, urges adherence to pacifist principles
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-03-20/Russia-warns-Japan-against-remilitarization-1LF1KxiDcVW/p.html
Sputnik Japan reported a bit of this statement from Maria Zakharova on X (in Japanese):
And here’s the top comment (translated):
Nagatacho 2-3-1 = the Prime Minister’s Office 😁
We Are Hated as a Nation. There’s One Man to Blame.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a70790567/united-states-reputation-falls-democracy-trump/?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=69bbf3647de225000195fc4f
I push back on the “one man has done this” trope.
Both sides of the US’ rancid duopoly are responsible for this.
• The democratic nominee for president in 2024 said “Iran is ‘greatest adversary’ of US” (via Al Jazeera)
• The previous Democratic president allowed Israel’s Genocide in Gaza to continue unabated
• Even Soi-disant Left Bernie Sanders and AOC called Nicolas Maduro a ‘dictator’
• Obama refused to end the Cuba embargo
As a child of the global south, I can assure you … the US regime has been hated all through this. It just didn’t matter much to western media because, well … it wasn’t “western denizens” suffering.
Now that gas is $6/gallon in Sausalito; and petrol is up 20% in the UK; and Trump wanted to invade a Nordic nation’s arctic colony; and the entire energy (and fertilizer!) supply chain US/UK/EU is threatened …now it feels, like “the world” hates the US regime. But when writers for US periodicals like Esquire use the term “the world” (via geopoliticalfutures.com), we from the global south know that they mean … :)
Chinese Warship Locks Fire Control Radar on Philippine Warship, Manila Says
https://news.usni.org/2026/03/20/chinese-warship-locks-fire-control-radar-on-philippine-warship-manila-says
US Issues 30-day sanctions waiver for sale of Iranian oil at sea (13 minutes ago)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-authorizes-temporary-delivery-sale-oil-originating-iran-2026-03-20/
Regime collapse needed to end Iran’s threats, Israeli ambassador to US says
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603209988
Brent crude briefly tops $119 per barrel, before receding, and shakes stock markets worldwide
https://www.boston.com/news/business/2026/03/20/brent-crude-briefly-tops-119-per-barrel-before-receding-and-shakes-stock-markets-worldwide/
A great empire will fall.
In Dune, a small planet brings a hegemon to ruin by threatening to destroy the substance on which it runs. “Whoever can destroy a thing has absolute control over it.”
Chas Freeman – Nima
Amb. Chas Freeman: Ground Troops in Iran? This Could Collapse Netanyahu’s Strategy
1 hour ago
60 min.
https://rumble.com/v77edae-amb.-chas-freeman-ground-troops-in-iran-this-could-collapse-netanyahus-stra.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_v
After Israel talks, French minister sees no obvious short-term end to Middle East war
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/france-sees-no-obvious-short-term-end-middle-east-war-barrot-says-2026-03-20/
Judge Rules Pentagon Restrictions on Press Are Unconstitutional
A federal judge tossed parts of the Pentagon’s restrictions on news outlets, saying they violated the First Amendment, in a lawsuit brought by The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/business/media/pentagon-press-restrictions-new-york-times.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UlA.U4Qd.9sPk18dO3CQK
From X/twitter:
Kate from Kharkiv
@BohuslavskaKate
Hegseth: “We’re still dealing with the environment Joe Biden created—depleting our stockpiles and sending them to Ukraine instead of our own military. Every time we face a challenge, it traces back to ‘Well, sent it to Ukraine.'”
I don’t have a better source for this, sorry.
____________________________________________
Grimacing Trump struggles to sit down in chair with leg bending in alarming position
Trump spoke at a ceremony honoring the 2025 Navy football team for their wins over the Air Force and Army.
https://www.themirror.com/news/politics/grimacing-trump-struggles-sit-down-1749554
>I don’t have a better source for this, sorry
My method is
1. See quote from source I’m unsure about/or somewhere without giving attribution.
2. Google all or part of the quote. In this case I just googled the whole quote from your comment.
3. Scan down the Google results for an MSM source which is more likely to have attribution. In this case the first one is MSN
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/hegseth-blames-biden-for-drained-us-stockpiles-amid-iran-war/ar-AA1Z0Mv4
4. Scan that article for more context and attribution. In our MSN article we get the opening paragraph:
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the Daily Caller on Thursday that former President Joe Biden depleted America’s military stockpiles to back Ukraine against Russia when asked about Iran war spending.
5. If we scan further down the MSN article we find it links to the original Daily Caller interview
https://dailycaller.com/2026/03/19/pete-hegseth-pressed-pentagon-requesting-200000000000-iran-war/
6. If there hadn’t been a direct link, I’d Google: daily caller Hegseth Biden. This would usually give me the original source. Sometimes it’s necessary to specify time: within last day, or last week.
The actual footage of Hegseth was shown by Nima in his conversation with Johnson/Wilkerson a few hours ago:
TC 41:30
https://rumble.com/v77efs4-larry-johnson-and-col.-wilkerson-second-f-35-down-iran-war-spirals-into-dev.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_v
Fuller footage also in the daily caller link in my comment above.
My thanks to the both of you!
Whiskey Pete, you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.
– some old warmonger from a generation ago
Blame cannons being loaded/fired everywhere from Kyiv to Tel Aviv to DC certainly does not suggest #hashtagWinning. Iran is the West’s “Gruffalo” … they spun tales of Iran’s power as an imminent threat to manufacture consent for regime change … and much to their surprise, Iran’s power was more real than they had imagined.
Big if true. Iran just fired 3 missiles at Diego Garcia (4000 km away). As Mark Ames is guessing , courtesy of Russia.
https://xcancel.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/2035163857572827428
The Orientalism, it burns.
No, Iran has been working on advanced missiles for a very long time. FFS, Russia had to get drone tech from Iran at the start of the SMO.
Iran ready to help passage of Japan ships in Strait of Hormuz: Araghchi [Kyodo News]
TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said Tehran is ready to facilitate the passage of Japanese vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global energy shipments, and that negotiations with Japan on the issue are ongoing.
“We have not closed the strait. It is open,” Araghchi said in a telephone interview with Kyodo News on Friday. He also stressed that Iran, which was attacked by the United States and Israel in late February, is seeking “not a cease-fire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war.”
Araghchi said Iran has not closed the strategic waterway but has imposed restrictions on vessels belonging to countries involved in attacks against Iran, while offering assistance to others amid heightened security concerns.
He added that Iran is prepared to ensure safe passage for countries such as Japan if they coordinate with Tehran.
Japan relies on the Middle East for over 90 percent of its crude oil imports, most of which travel through the strait.
The issue of navigation through the strait by Japanese vessels was discussed in his recent talks with Japan’s foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, Araghchi said, noting that discussions are continuing but the details cannot be disclosed.
Iran has rejected calls for a temporary truce, insisting that any resolution must include guarantees against future attacks as well as compensation for the damage inflicted during the conflict.
Araghchi described the war as “imposed on Iran,” saying Tehran had been engaged in negotiations with the United States when the attacks began.
“This was an illegal, unprovoked act of aggression,” he said, adding that Iran’s response constitutes self-defense and will continue “for as long as it takes.”
He called on the international community, including Japan, to take a stand against the attacks, while expressing appreciation for Tokyo’s traditionally “balanced and fair” position and long-standing friendly ties with Iran.
Araghchi noted that several countries are attempting to mediate an end to the conflict and said Iran is “open to any initiative” and willing to consider proposals.
At the same time, he suggested that while diplomatic efforts are ongoing, the United States has yet to demonstrate its readiness for a genuine resolution.
The war has escalated into a broader confrontation that has raised concern about regional stability and the security of energy supplies passing through the Strait of Hormuz
—-
Original source of a story that’s doing the rounds. Not sure how to parse it. Is Aragchi just relating his general “renounce the US, come out against US aggression and THEN we’ll let your oil through?” or is it suggesting something more imminent will happen? Selfishly, I’m hoping it’s the latter and that East and SE Asia won’t get screwed because the Zionists wanted a holy war. My logical part suggests the former though. I’d assume China would have an interest in any deals Iranians do in East/SE Asia, and no free lunches will be on offer.]
This is one-sided. This is simply Aragchi trolling Japan with an offer Iran has made generally.
Takaichi has joined herself by the hip to the US with her commitment to escalate v. China.
Report: Iran fires missiles toward Diego Garcia in rare long-range strike
Neither missile hit the base, with one failing midflight and a US warship firing an interceptor at the other; attempted strike suggests Iran’s missiles may reach about 4,000 kilometers, farther than it has publicly stated
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/h1tpodi9ze
Not reported whether intercept was successful as far as I can see at this time. Still, US will have expended some more missiles and will have to think about use of Diego Garcia.
FT Uncovers $90 Billion Russian Oil Smuggling Operation
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/FT-Uncovers-90-Billion-Russian-Oil-Smuggling-Operation.html
It’s smuggling only if you think the sanctions against Russia are legal. They are not. They were not approved by the UN.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/03/war-on-iran-u-s-losses-strait-opening-oil-price-dilemma-expanding-the-war.html
“People may already complain about the prices at the gas pump but we are still far from experiencing the real problems this war will create.
The Trump administration would like to have compliant but still resourceful Iran. Israel, and its U.S. based lobby, is aiming much further. It wants to destroy Iran and, if possible, the whole Gulf region. That is why we are seeing attempts to incite the Arab Gulf states (and Turkey) into directly joining the war on Iran.
I expect these attempts to intensify until at least some of the Gulf state will take the suicidal step to fight Iran with their own means. That may then become the moment where the U.S. retreats from active participation in the conflict to limit itself to deliver expensive weapon supplies. This is what the Trump administration has done in Ukraine and there are good reasons for it to repeat that scheme in other regions.“
“That may then become the moment where the U.S. retreats from active participation in the conflict to limit itself to deliver expensive weapon supplies.”
Absolutely wrong here–the US has no supplies to give, and it has no ability to make them quickly.
Maybe it can temporarily sell monthly subscriptions of “spy satellites as a Service”, but that’s about it.
Hmmm
“That may then become the moment where the U.S. retreats from active participation in the conflict to limit itself to deliver expensive weapon supplies.”
Absolutely wrong here–the US has no supplies to give, and it has no ability to make them quickly.
Maybe it can temporarily sell monthly subscriptions of “spy satellites as a Service”, but that’s about it.
SIMPLICIUS´s post yesterday – in Iran update links – contained an interesting (actually insane) find with Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan talking, 4 min. excerpt. Them being unsure over Israel?!
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/things-go-haywire-as-israeli-escalation
To see these two completely useless and destructive bloated and incompetent idiots in this laughable position and grown fat with age angers me even more.
These assholes just retire to then stroll through their gated neighbourhoods undisturbed like once Nazis did in West Germany under new identities. Those German war criminals who escaped persecution mostly grew old and died as well respected individuals.
Norman Finklstein has a good story to tell from when he accompanied his mother to a give testimony in court in Germany, Düsseldorf I believe, in the 1970s. And when it was over they left the court building and were passed by one of the German women who had tortured the mother and the other concentration camp captives…
BBC has a helpful graphic of the weapons that might strike a ship as it transits the strait
Nearly 100 ships pass the Hormuz Strait – who is getting through? (BBC)
Maybe Trump should take a peek.
And in today’s clown world segment-
‘A French Navy officer using a smartwatch and the Strava fitness app to track his running activity has exposed the location of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, according to Le Monde.
Le Monde reported on Friday that it was able to identify the approximate real-time position of the 262-meter warship through publicly available data from the Strava platform. By analyzing geolocation data from the young sailor’s public profile, the newspaper matched it with a satellite image from the European Space Agency showing the Charles de Gaulle and its accompanying strike group around 100 km off the coast of Türkiye.
The jogging route recorded on March 13 appeared as a zigzag pattern, suggesting the individual was running laps on the deck of a moving vessel, although the specific ship was not directly identified, the report said.’
https://www.rt.com/news/635646-french-sailor-fitness-app/
That keeps happening to the French. Wasn’t it Macron’s bodyguard last time?
Speaking of Diego Garcia …
Yet another angle the Epstein regime coalition didn’t consider?
Anecdote and experiment time, I told someone in the first week, we were going to lose this and that this time it wouldn’t take decades and just fade away so America could keep its dignity. The person I said this to now isn’t in as much denial about how it is going as they were but still thinks I am crazy when I say this is going to start costing Americans millions personally. That it is going to send inflation on fuel for heating, transportation and even electricity along with fertilizer costs on food skyrocketing. They have done a good job of tamping down the markets, but I think that by mid July it will be obvious to everyone that this is destroying the fragile economy. Yet I also expect my friend will be complaining about how expensive everything is getting by Easter.
I fully admit I am him as a barometer. This person is not political, just a gun loving keep the government out of my life but don’t touch my Social Security and Medicare type. He doesn’t approve of this war but when he gets how destructive it is to him will be as close as I have to know when the middle, the non tribally aligned population have probably also gotten it.
Iran announces strikes heading towards Dimona
Israel’s NPP.
https://t.me/Alsaa_plus_EN/20343
Yet another missile-system breakthrough by Iran that devalues and endangers all existing F-35s:
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-majid-heat-seeking-take-out-f35
ya know, I haven’t thought about it since Water Cooler (R.I.P.), but what’s the Rapture Index at these days? Have we finally hit a new high above 189 or whatever it was?