This Iran war update will be skeletal due again to Links and competing obligations. The final version should be done by 8:00 AM EDT so please refresh your page then.
Despite the Trump Big Lie of being engaged in negotiations with Iran, Israel and the US are escalating against Iran. Keep in mind that these attacks again show the utter untrustrworthiness of the belligerents. After the first attack near the Iran nuclear site at Beshear, Trump said he told Israel not to do it again. The US could easily cut off satellite and other ISR data to Israel to enforce compliance. We are now up to not one but two more Israel attacks near Iran nuclear sites.
💢 BREAKING: Coordinated strikes have hit all three of Iran’s largest steel plants simultaneously – Mobarakeh, Esfahan, and Khuzestan – the backbone of the country’s non-oil economy.
Together they produce roughly 70% of Iran’s steel output. Iron and steel is Iran’s… https://t.co/DwA8et5VjG
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) March 27, 2026
☢️🇮🇷❗️Atomic Energy Organization: Based on the conducted investigations; the attack on the Khondab Heavy Water Complex did not result in any human casualties, and given the safety measures previously taken, there is no risk of contamination to the local population.
_______…— dana (@dana916) March 27, 2026
As with the Iran retaliation after the strike on its North Pars gas field, which included the Qatar Ras Laffan LNG facility, pretty much talking out all of the Gulf-sourced LNG for years, Iran is striking back ferociously for the attack on critical productive capacity:
Tehran has announced that it will attack and completely destroy production sites of the Israeli arms industry (including steelworks) this very evening and/or during the night (TurkishTV). This is intended to unequivocally destroy the entire Zionist weapons and ammunition… https://t.co/IR1kPZTNkE
— Ignis Rex (@Ignis_Rex) March 28, 2026
The BBC live blog headline show Yemen has quickly gone to work:
More detail from Aljazeera:
And providing more evidence of the escalation dynamics taking hold in a worrisome way, in a new talk with Daniel Davis, Alastair Crooke makes some key new points.
One is that Iranians culturally are sensitive to the need for a counterparty to save face. But they are so enraged by the murder of 175 girls and their teachers at the Minab school and the ongoing assassinations, most of al of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, that they are outraged and no way, no how will make anything easy for the US. Second is if the US attacks Kharg Island, it won’t give them control of Iranian oil. They can cut transmission from the shore. Third is that many Shia clerics have declared fatwas calling for support of Iran.
See for instance:
Sistani fatwa declares supporting Iran a 'collective duty'
——
On Sunday, 8 March, Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa (religious ruling) declaring that supporting and showing solidarity with Iran is a “collective duty”, amid the escalating US–Israeli war on… pic.twitter.com/gbT3iBTU40— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 10, 2026
Reader Ann provides some links showing that the Gulf States, which could press the US to moderate, are instead all-in with the fantasy that they can vanquish Iran. See:
Saudi Arabia urging US to ramp up Iran attacks, intelligence source confirms Guardian. Subhead: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is said to view US-Israeli war as ‘historic opportunity’ to remake Middle East
Gulf states tell US ending the war is not enough, Iran’s capabilities must be degraded
Gulf States increasing support of US escalation, yet Iran hitting airports, refinery ports; note at end locals want war over:
Alon Mizrahi has an important new talk. I find him to be a low-bitrate transmitter, but he also provides a transcript. He has a very important discussion at the opening, where he discusses the temperament, faith, quiet dignity (even in the face of incredible abuse) and tenacity of Muslims. Because he encountered it as an IDF soldier, he initially found it to be incomprehensible but now understands how it is not just an impressive sign of character, but a source of great power.
His discussion of the Gulf states comes towards the end:
…the Houthis…. only today announced that they will join the war. They are probably because also today we’ve seen news of Iran targeting some potential landing ships that the US was intending to invade some parts of Iran with in Saudi Arabia….this was my forecast from a couple of weeks ago, that the next set stage of escalation is going to be against Gulf monarchies and not Israel…
Netanyahu is the last prime minister of Israel. There’s going to be no one else..He prefers actual apocalypse…
And the U.S. at this moment, in this moment in history, the U.S. doesn’t want to stop this war….And if it doesn’t secure something that looks like victory, they feel like they will be humiliated. They can’t stop this war.
They have to have some kind of a feeling, something that they can market as victory. And Iran is not going to give them anything like this. Ever. They don’t have the resources. They don’t have the power. They don’t have the manpower. They don’t have the will, the focus, the energy. the heritage, the depth to really challenge Iran…
Iran is not waging a defensive war anymore. But again, this is hard for us to see, and I’m going to repeat this many times until we get this. It is hard for us to see for all our racist stereotypes. Iran is now actively working to reshape West Asia and recreate itin its image, in the image of freedom and independence and decolonization. And what this means is Iran has a plan in place to get rid, listen to what I’m telling you, to get rid of the House of Saud. to get rid of the Gulf monarchies of the UAE and Bahrain and Kuwait.
And Iran’s plan, they will exist not much longer. Iran is not going to stop the war. When these countries, these regimes, which are owned and run and controlled by the US, by Iran’s enemies Iran is not going to be patient and allow them to exist anymore…ordan will also not be allowed to continue existing. This is it. The age of treachery is ending.
…what happened today was critical because Iran attacked boats that were docked in Saudi Arabia and airplanes that were parked in Saudi Arabia…and the US and Israel are on the retreat, this is going to work on the psychology of people in this region, like a lightning strike. This is going to be electrifying….And I expect this war to escalate a lot and not end in any agreement soon
If Israel which has been a militarized/terroristic society since its birth, has finally bitten off more than it can chew, that goes double for the US armed services. Stanislav Krapivnik, either in the talk on The Duran embedded further below, or with Glenn Diesen, discusses how most of the US armed forces are not combat ready, as in are obviously too fat and out of shape. This History Legends gives a long-form discussion of a point we had raised earlier, how US ground forces could be readily hunted down by Iranian drones:
Hindustan Times reports that Iran hit Prince Sultan airbase, targeting US refueling tankers, wounding 12 soldiers:
And on the not-much discussed Lebanon front, where things are not going at all well for Israel. Hindustan Times describes how Hezbollah is engaging in a Merkava massacre:
:
And from the Mizrahi presentation above:
So two weeks into the war with Hezbollah, the Israeli chief of staff is already talking about potential collapse. This is something we should make a note of. Because when Eyal Zamir, that’s his name, when he talks about the IDF potentially collapsing, it is because of Hezbollah. It’s because…of the war that is waiting for the IDF in southern Lebanon. It’s not because of Iran. It’s not because of the West Bank or Gaza. The kind of manpower they need to go into Lebanon and the potential of damage that Radoan forces and other Hezbollah forces can inflict on the IDF, on IDF forces, is immense, immense, immense.
Already they have casualties now every day, and this has only begun. When they amass forces on the northern border, and try to ready them to go into Lebanon, to start this invasion, they are going to be exposed to drones, motors, missiles, stinger missiles, anti-tank missiles, any kind of… of catastrophe, basically, that foot soldiers can encounter foot soldiers and tanks and armored vehicles can encounter in modern warfare. Israel is looking at potentially an actual bloodbath. in Lebanon with an organization it told its people and the world was finished after the Pager attack and after Nasrallah was murdered, assassinated.
So when the IDF chief of staff is warning the Israeli government that the IDF may collapse and you have to understand It’s almost mathematical. There’s a certain percent of any fighting force that if you eliminate, the structure collapses. Now, Israel doesn’t have a professional military. Its fighters are amateurs, basically.
Some of the more elite units have better training, but most of the fighters are just amateurs. People who, civilians, who go once a year into reserve service, they do some basic, basic training. They are not in great physical shape, and they are not soldiers. They are civilians who wear uniform and go into battle. And Israeli…
The normal, most IDF soldiers are between 18 and 19 and 20 years of age. So a little more than children. So you have an army of little more than children and the big chunk, the largest part of the IDF is those civilians. were uniform and go into battle in Lebanon, into Gaza, into the West Bank, wherever they are sent. And in this war, they are fighting an enemy that can and is bombing their homes. They are in Lebanon or on the Lebanese border, but their family in Haifa or in Tel Aviv or in Hadera or wherever, it’s not safe because Iran is firing missiles and Hezbollah is also firing missiles and rockets.
And after two and a half years, they lost friends. Maybe they witnessed some terrible incidents themselves. And if they saved in Gaza, they definitely did. So many of them are hardly fit mentally, physically, psychologically. This is too much of a strain. This is too much…..
They [Hezbollah] know how you drive your tanks. They know where you stop. They know every drill and every routine that the IDF has. Hezbollah knows. They know. They watch. They listen. They see. And they have so much firepower and precise weapons and drones that this is going to be crazy.
In a country like Israel, in 2026, they don’t need to suffer 100,000 casualties for the society and the military to break. They need a tenth of this. And it is totally my expectation that if they pursue this, and I think that they will, and I’m going to talk about why in a second, why no one is backing out of this war.
In two or three months, they may actually be in a state of collapse.
Two or three months mean thousands of casualties, thousands. It’s going to mean every unit, every company, every battalion is going to lose some people. It could be one or two or five or 10 or 20 or 50. And this is why the Israeli chief of staff is talking about the idea of potentially risking or facing collapse.
And then on Iran’s impact:
They are breaking the wheel of the Israelis because Israelis basically operate on a COVID level. Children don’t go to school. almost anywhere in Israel for four weeks. It means many parents can go to work and can’t work normally. It’s very hard to work when you have to go somewhere safe every hour, when you don’t sleep at night, when it’s not safe to drive, when it’s not safe to be on a bus or on a train. This has become very stressful and difficult, and this is only the beginning of this. This is the soft beginning that Iran has prepared. This is not the peak. Far from it.
So Iran is breaking the wheel and breaking Israelis psychologically, and it is breaking Israel. It is breaking infrastructure. It is breaking streets and roads and homes and… factories, and so on. And Hezbollah is taking care of the IDF. And the result for Israel in two or three months, and this is the timeframe now.
On the economy front, this is a must-watch video. Stanislav Krapivnik provides a lot of granular detail, particularly on the impediments to rebuilding damaged energy facilities:
Iran is moving forward with its plans to charge tolls for transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Even though some officials mentioned this idea, legislation is now being drafted and is expected to be presented to parliament next week, per CNBC in Iran plans to charge ships for safe passage through Strait of Hormuz, report says
Reader Sibiriak helpfully cited an article in The Hill which quoted Secretary of State Rubio having a mini meltdown. Key bits:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday warned European allies that Iran could set up a “tolling system” in the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran ends…
“I did describe to our allies, however, that immediately after this thing ends, and we’re done with our objectives, the immediate challenge we’re going to face is an Iran that may decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz ,” he said. “Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable, it’s dangerous for the world. And it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it.”
Many in crude-short countries like Pakistan, Spain, and Thailand have taken cheer from their governments securing agreements that their carriers will have safe transit. But that won’t result in meaningful oil and supplies to them. There are still too many impediments, starting will ship owners and crew being unwilling to operate in a war zone, and insurers not being willing to extend coverage. At best, this means that ships stuck in the Gulf will be allowed to depart. That will provide only an itty bit of supplies relative to the ever-escalating shortfall.
Lloyd’s List confirms that just about no Western-insured ships have exited the Strait of Hormuz, and none have entered:
Marathi is just the 10th non-shadow fleet* tanker tracked to have made an outbound voyage through the Strait of Hormuz since March 8, illustrating how transits have plummeted amid Iran’s attacks on shipping.
The only energy flows relatively unimpacted by the war are Iran’s own exports, with shadow fleet oil and gas carriers dominating transits through the strait.
Kevin Walmsley is way out over his skis again in claiming that Chinese insurers could step into the breech. That is many many years away from happening if ever.
Keep in mind that insurance merely is the right to go to court to get your claim paid. Insurers are in the business of denying or at best underpaying claims.
Yes, Chinese insurers do extend cover to Chinese ships….which already operate in a Chinese legal system, where companies understand norms for contracts, their rights in courts if things get ugly, and presumably already have competent counsel.
Do you think non-Chinese will have much faith in claims payment or fair treatment of foreigners in Chinese courts? Pretty much no no-Chinese vessel owner will go there until there is plenty of court precedent.
An analogy: before the 2013 Cyprus banking crash (which we only stoopidly and years later realized was an early move in the Western escalation against Russia) inbound investment into Russia was virtually all via Cyprus with the contracts under English law and adjudicated in what were effectively English law courts in Cyprus. No US multinational woulld trust Russian law and Russian courts.
On top of that, if you have to fight, you will be severely disadvantaged in getting decent counsel (unless you already do business in China at a firm with a good litigation team) by virtue of being a one-off client.
And stories like this are misleading once you get past the headline: Iran war restores King Dollar’s crown, for now Asia Times.
If you read the opener, you would think Thailand was about to go tits up:
News of currency troubles in Thailand has a way of raising blood pressure amongst even the most battle-tested Asian investors.
The baht’s dubious honor of being Asia’s worst-performing currency amid surging oil prices is making headlines and triggering more than a little PDST. It was Bangkok’s devaluation in July 1997 that set in motion the Asian financial crisis. The baht’s 6% drop in March has investors scrambling to connect the dots to where things are heading.
The threats, of course, come from abroad. As the US-Israeli war in Iran drags on, surging oil is becoming more of a feature than a bug. In Thailand’s case, a heavy dependence on imported crude has traders betting on the implications of additional commodity swings and capital outflows.
Yet exacerbating that is the surging US dollar, which once again threatens to suffocate Asian currencies. This double whammy of risk has governments across the region scrambling to sandbag financial systems as best they can. Back in 1997, the rallying dollar also played an outsized role in the crisis.
Does this five year chart of baht to USD look like the baht is in crisis? Higher levels on this chart = stronger baht.
The baht has been overvalued to the degree that it has hurt tourism and foreign buys of real estate. Even YouTube videos on “life in Thailand” for the last year plus have been complaining about it. My contacts say the central bank rejected many calls from the business community the lower the baht (if you look at its daily movements, it is clearly managed) because prestige (I am not making that up).
Now could the baht go into crisis? Absolutely. Thailand has a very high level of private debt for a late-stage developing economy. So does pretty much all of Southeast Asia but Thailand is a tad worse. But the recent fall from an elevated level to ]] well within recent norms does not prove a crisis is imminent. The 1997 crisis included food riots. We may get there but so far, the stress in most other Asian countries is more acute:
Starting at 2:10, a commentator echoes a point we made earlier: so for, the Iranian transit scheme is just an exit scheme. Save perhaps Iranian tankers, no new vessels have entered the Gulf.
Must stop now! See you tomorrow!
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we will possibly see the mother-of-all fiscal speedballs: upper from USD shortage on American consumer weakening (lack of outbound USD, irrespective of war) + global USD-denominated debt + war-induced global demand for US hydrocarbons + basic materials.
then massivie downer from MMT-esque war spending and recession-contingent fiscal stimulus package. in 2024 we were running +6% of GDP federal deficit during the “good times”. fy25 = only 5.9%
Simpsons were right again: President Lisa Simpson has to clean up Trump’s outgoing fiscal mess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtparSnQhFc
Thanks for making the MMT point; they all believe in MMT when it comes to financing war. Meeting crying human needs, not so much.
This is the tell: maximum fiscal policy space is only allowed when it serves the interests of the elites and NEVER where the well-being of the majority of the citizenry is concerned.
I came across this site earlier in the week and have been impressed – if what he says is true and not AI slop.
This segment on the shooting down of an US AWACS was new information I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiSW7nNPkYw
I’m pretty sure that dude is AI and so is the whole channel. Published a gabillion videos, all in the last month. Looks like AI. Sounds like AI. Has the sentence structures of AI. All the graphics are AI.
I clicked on his oldest video, and the AI speech is more obvious.
It’s definitely a clanker. Wasn’t sure when I first watched one, but then a few minutes in fake Asian guy glitched and mispronounced a few words badly. Appears that the clanker is also using multiple channels. Not to be trusted!
AI, indeed. Yesterday, his accent changed briefly to Australian. Wonder who and why someone would waste time producing this stuff.
OK, just for what it’s worth, whether the guy is AI or not is immaterial. Deep Dive Defense channel is obviously AI and yet the information presented on Iranian missiles is absolutely stellar.
Maybe. Provide correlated data.
I haven’t found any, but active information is messy.
I partially agree with your point here Paradox.
I agree mostly about Deep Dive Defense and it falls in an awkward category:
Guy with imperfect English but very good knowledge using AI production.
It’s awkward because I can never be 100% that the AI stuff he publishes faithfully represents what he wants to say. Is the AI voice just reading his words, or has it been generating its own? I don’t doubt his intention is good. And he is trying to share information not well covered elsewhere. But still I can’t trust it’s hallucination free.
Also, personally, I cannot abide AI produced stuff so I cannot watch/listen anyway.
Well, to each his own, I guess. I think I would distinguish between AI being used to hide identities/make translations and AI as a means to draw conclusions, but maybe I am a bit more sanguine about AI in general (so long as you know it’s an imperfect tool, it can be very useful, IMO) and resigned to its growing use in any case. But either way, I prefer being “cautiously awkward” towards an AI source than outright dismissive, but maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, after a bit of prodding, my LLM has just told me that US/Israeli joint standoff munition supplies and anti-ballistic missile supplies will both run out at more or less the same time (within the next 3-4 days). So let’s see if that prediction pans out :)
The photos on the video are not an E3.
Engine nacels are wrong
Main body shape is wrong
Rivets are wrong.
Not saying it didn’t happen but those pictures don’t line up with an E3.
E-3s are a modified Boeing 707 (like KC-135s) only with original engines dating from 1957. The problem is not with them being shot down, it is keeping them in the air because of their age.
I am skeptical of the high level of detail about, for example, debris washing up on the shore. What are the sources?
This presenter appears in other videos on different channels. Some of these are transparently fictitious [unless there has been a worldwide conspiracy to suppress what actually happened] reports (for example, the destruction of Ben Gurion airport on 14 March, here)
I would be skeptical of anything featuring this presenter. Listen to the above link and how authoritatively and with great detail the events are asserted. I think it’s fiction.
Suggestion — develop a list of “probably trustworthy” channels and regard with skepticism sensational reports on other channels. And even trustworthy channels can have likeness and voice cloned to present fiction or slanted analysis (this has happened to Alexander Mercouris, for example).
>Suggestion — develop a list of “probably trustworthy” channels and regard with skepticism sensational reports on other channels.
I strongly agree with this. It goes equally for Twitter etc as well.
If something is only on random accounts and doesn’t appear in the trustworthy account after some time, then it’s almost certainly engagement slop or deliberate misinformation
“This presenter appears in other videos on different channels.”
Right—this channel has the identical presenter with the same AI-generated-style graphics. That in itself raises questions. (Both channels at least disclose that they’re made with “altered or synthetic content” per YouTube guidelines.}
GODDAMMIT THIS IS THE SAME GUY DEBUNKED TWICE ALREADY!
Airgap has no previous posts. If not intentionally misleading, functionally so. The previous times, established commentariat got tripped up. Please don’t let bots ruin posting privileges.
Thanks for the catch. Will ban him pronto.
Geezz, this is pretty harsh, really, I’m not a bot for crying out loud. I just don’t post very often and have never ever been debunked or flagged for any past infraction. Where did that even come from?
I’ve been contributing to NC and reading NC daily ever since discovering it during the early years of the GFC.
In the case of this AI channel I only watched a few of the videos and found the barrage of information plausible and reasonable food for thought. Yes, the visuals were randomly weird and left me wondering if the speaker was an AI avatar reading from a script. I’m no AI expert and rarely stray far from the links at NC. This YouTube channel appeared in the right side column when I was watching a NC linked Ritter interview.
In summary I agree with both Samuel Conner and Ben Panga, respectively, on this type of channel;
Suggestion — develop a list of “probably trustworthy” channels and regard with skepticism sensational reports on other channels.
I don’t doubt his intention is good. And he is trying to share information not well covered elsewhere. But still I can’t trust it’s hallucination free.
AI is against our written site Policies. You admit to knowingly posting AI, so the reader surmise was correct.
And no, I am not taking your assignment to do even more work when I have no time and no life as it is.
This AI persona has been a conundrum for me as its been used in multiple videos that people I find credible were impressed by.
Simply using AI to create content doesn’t automatically discredit the content but it does indicate that the source and its claims should be scrutinized very closely.
And given the signal to noise ratio of the info-environment overall, might be most efficient to simply ignore.
A thing that worries me is the possibility that someone could cultivate a following using not-fictitious and more-or-less reasonable content, but synthetically presented to disguise his identity, and at some point present information intended to move a market (which, in this scenario, the channel creator might hope to front run).
It may be worthy of note that the earliest VantageLedger posts are about silver prices.
It is difficult to impossible to discern the motives of many YouTube uploaders. I feel most comfortable with “real name” presenters who monetize through subscriptions or advertisement.
And, after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but
The truth in masquerade.
* * *
These are very well-done professional lies, intentionally credible and garnished in facts. On 3/13 I commented on evidentiary vs artistic applications of AI, and a lot has happened since then. Debunking machine generated bs has all the problems of fighting a Gish Gallop, upgraded by industrialization. We’re losing valuable sources of information, and wasting critical thinking capacity, trying to get a handle on this.
In the past, NC has regulated posting during hot discussions/flame wars. This is more than that. Reddit has been a source of consoling schadenfreude, but lately the comments on ‘Am I The A**hole’ and ‘Malicious Compliance’ have been full of accusations of AI, which has sucked the life out of the outlet. Simply banning previously unconfirmed sources would have probably denied us the recent Craig Tindale masterpiece.
Where I get to is that, for evidential works, any AI indicates an outsourcing of critical thinking that could have hidden flaws inherent. At least with confirmed sources, we can hone in on when a good source goes sideways, as with Trita Parsi recently. Perhaps Airgap was a genuine person, but discredited themself straight out of the gate. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Nate Hagens had Tindale on before he was Linked here, and that’s a strong indication of seriousness in my experience.
I’m now pretty well limited to sources I know already. Even then, I misclick occasionally. The other day, there was a headline with some wild claim combined with Alexander’s photo. I clicked, and after he neither jumped his shoulders or picked his nose during the first minute, I knew it wasn’t the Alexander I “know” and love.
Not vouching for that Youtube channel, but the WSJ is now reporting that an “E-3 Sentry” aircraft, a/k/a an AWACS, has been destroyed at the Saudi air base.
I think it’s unrelated — the questionable channel was claiming a shoot-down over water with parts washing onto the shore.
That is obviously a bot. In the first video I saw of its, there were many stuttering pauses, just like Max Headroom.
The recent Iranian strike on U.S. tankers on a Saudi airfield demonstrates the slow attrition of U.S. theater air assets. Despite defensive shuffling of aircraft among multiple airfields, the Iranian missile attacks eventually hit dispersed parked aircraft, and the longer the war continues, the more planes will be lost. The tankers and AWACS aircraft are too big for hardened shelters, so they are easily destroyed when caught on the ground. Add to this the heavy wear imposed by high tempo aircraft operations, and it is clear that time is not on the U.S. side.
I am wondering about the Israeli tanker airplanes. The Israeli air force is supposed to have 8 to 15 air refuelling airplanes (Boeing 707 and Lockheed C-130) that presumably play an important role in the aerial raids against Iran.
However, I have not read anything about Iran having attacked the aerodromes where those airplanes are based, nor about Israel having lost such aerial assets.
I read somewhere reliable (lordbebo, armchairw, etc) that the US tankers are refuelling Israelis. I suspect the Israeli tankers may have gone to the great rendezvous in the sky.
I wonder how much of it was luck (as in they targeted a large base and just happened to hit some planes) vs. they had the precise coordinates of the planes at the base. Also I have not seen a info about whether some or any of the missiles in this case were intercepted or whether this was a failure in that regard as well.
They have very precise coordinates as has been demonstrated in strike after strike. The targeting of the specific elements of the Qatari refining facility was the most clear example of that.
Russian radars, unlike US regional radars are functioning. Combined with satellite assets, one can presume Iran is continuously receiving targeting information; however, moving assets have a lower kill probability than stationary assets, and there remain many higher-priority stationary assets to target (beyond kills of opportunity). For example, right now, I would say ensuring US area bases are incapable of supporting US troops (except the one base Iran leaves semi-functional). A masterful class in shaping the battlefield – this war will be one for the history books
David versus the big, dull, uselessly-armed, ugly, perfidious, Goliath.
Evidently, the US has demonstrated its incapability to learn from the Ukraine-Russia war despite a ringside seat. Iran is well inside the US OODA loop. Israel, too, is incapable of learning. Columns of Merkava’s? Really.
Nice irony, there…
The Merkavas don’t even have Cope Cages on them.. They have paid no attention to UKR. Same point History Legends makes about the US tactics.
Saw a pic of an alleged downed Hezbollah fiber optic FPV drone, so Hezbollah appears to have been attentive to current trends in warfare.
Air bases often have fuel pipelines under the pavement. If you know what the vaults for the fuel hydrants look like it’s easy to figure out where the plane needs to park to access fuel. Tanker aircraft in particular aren’t going to load up via fuel trucks.
I’m honestly not sure why the tanker base fuel tanks haven’t been hit.
Curious if that’s because, without fuel, tankers win’t be there and tankers are the more valuable target? Destroy enough tankers, US ability to project airpower might be seriously degraded for a generation.
Although it still begs the question why USAF continues to operate tankers and AWACS out of such vulnerable bases.
> it is clear that time is not on the U.S. side.
This is one of the most important conclusions that emerges from reading NC’s daily covfefe. So much points to it. And it goes as much for Israel if not more so.
Yes, and the Israelis are aware of the obvious. They know the US will leave them to fend for themselves. They just don’t know when. Sooner rather than later probably. In my opinion, based on what I have read and what I have learned professionally, this next period is the most dangerous time. Either the Israelis succeed in escalation and involvement of other parties to reinforce them if the US leaves, or, the Israelis accept they are alone and decide to end the conflict on their terms. I am concerned now is when we face serious risk of nuclear weapons being used.
It may seem harsh to write this, but given the current situation, I just want this all to stop, and if that means Israel is no longer an enthnostate and its people are international pariahs tied to a nation that has to pay reparations… so be it. I used to think the fate that awaited Israel was more like what happened to South Africa following the end of apartheid. I don’t think that is the case now. I don’t see any possibility where Israel’s neighbors will permit them to recover and threaten them again. Their violence has finally come home to them in ways they cannot mitigate. If reports coming from the IDF are accurate, whether or not there are sufficient soldiers to protect the country will soon be irrelevant. There will be insufficient soldiers to protect the settlers. There will also be insufficient will from the IDF to assist these petulant people who continue to cause trouble even in this awful time.
The US will not escape this situation even if they were to turn over their Israeli allies to the Iranians. The world is coming for us. If Ukranians aren’t currently training Mexican dissidents how to use drones to attack us, they will be soon. My country is going to pay in blood or in coin. Probably both. There is no escaping that now.
But if we could stop this madness from spreading further, the payment would not be wasted. A new world order is coming whether we like it or not. If we are lucky only thousands of people will die before the old world passes away.
Slow attrition? It’s barely been 4 weeks. Imagine another month of this, and with anti-missile/drone defenses threadbare such that more gets through. Not clear to me the us will be in this for another month. And markets seem to be waking up, induces falling/rates rising.
Off topic:
Iranian journalist Ali Alizadeh has said that the Iranians will fight like they are weaving a carpet.
Had Hezbollah acquired kamikaze drones two years ago, more Palestinians and Lebanese would be alive today.
I remember to have seen videos published by Hezbollah of what appeared to be kamikaze drones homing on and then crashing on Israeli military vehicles and telecommunication installations. Not many, but they seem to indicate that Hezbollah was already integrating drone warfare in its tactics.
I think those were Iranian Almas missiles, “unlicensed” copies of Israeli Spike missiles captured by Hezbollah in 2006. As Spike is an improvement over TOW, which the Iranians had already reverse engineered, it was relatively easy for them.
Instead of a “dumb” missile and smart targeting device attached to the launcher, both Spike and Almas have cheap-ish optical seeker in the missile and a fiber optic back to the launcher, so the videos do look a lot like a drone, while it is “merely” a missile using semi ballistic trajectory for good visibility and vertical strike (to hit more vulnerable parts of the target).
Yes, I saw the same videos. But recall that, at the time, Iran was unenthusiastic about Hezbollah’s entry into the war, and would not allow them to use the best Iranian-supplied weapons. They did not want the war to generalise before they were ready for it, and especially before the US started military operations. An all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, which would probably have destroyed Lebanon, was therefore not welcome at that point. And anyway, whilst Hezbollah use of drones in the South would have exacerbated the conflict and led to more deaths, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome, because Hezbollah was destroyed by drones and airpower, against which Hezbollah had no defence.
But that’s changed now, and as far as I can see Tehran has decided that this is the Big One, the final battle for supremacy in the region, against the US, Israel and the Gulf Kingdoms. Thus, it’s mobilising Hezbollah and enabling them to use their best weapons, directed, if reports are to be believed, by IRGC Commanders sent to Lebanon. What state Lebanon will be at the end of this I shudder to think.
That’s interesting. When Hezbollah was fighting Israel in support of Gaza before Nasrallah’s death, many in alt media were talking about how Hezbollah has an enormous arsenal of weapons (rockets) well dispersed and bunkered that we haven’t seen yet. I wondered why these weapons were not used. Perhaps they never existed, I wondered. People in alt media say a lot of things. Maybe it was a meme that circulated on the podcasts and youtubes and nobody had primary sources, or at least I didn’t know if someone did.
But reports of unprecedented moves Hezbollah is now making correspond to your account that Iran was holding Hezbollah back and the weapons were no fantasy.
Glad this isn’t just a training exercise!
Even before Hizb’ullah picked up its guns again, Israel was practically bombing Lebanon at will and made transparent its intent to annex territory up to the Litani one way or another. So the only choice Lebanon had, imho, was to be eaten up without resisting or at least take a chance with a gun and a rocket. Regardless of Hizb’ullah, no, Lebanon, fighting back or not, Lebanon couldn’t have escape serious hurt, I strongly believe.
That’s not the difference maker, for me. They had them back in 2024 (not sure about the numbers). The electronic intifada showed lots of videos of Hezbollah picking off small radar installations in northern Israel.
Hezbollah had no air defense in 2024 and still doesn’t have anything much more meaningful than it did, then.
Hezbollah was right to go into turtle mode because 1) their communications network had been penetrated and 2) because of 1) their top several layers of leadership had been wiped out and they needed to reorganize and come up with something new.
Hezbollah seems to have fixed the two problems listed above, but here’s still the air defense issue. However, the big difference seems to be Iran’s involvement in the war. 2024 Iran was desperate to avoid conflict. Recall there was reporting that described serious conflict between Iran and Hezbollah because Iran sat on its hands while Hezbollah (and Lebanese society) took a beating from the Israeli Air Force.
Now, Iran has rolled out a well-executed strategy to degrade the Israeli Air Force, as well as the broader Israeli war machine. They’ve hit the big radar/radome installations and depleted air defense. Hezbollah’s rockets hit harder now, unimpeded by the worn out Iron Dome. Israelis air fields are getting the Khorramshahr treatment with multiple warheads doing damage all over their air force bases. Hangars, runways, ground control infrastructure, etc.
Hezbollah has always been able to match up well in a straight-up fight, man-to-man with the IDF, but the Israeli air power was a difference maker. Now, that airpower is tired from 2.5 years of war, distracted hitting Iran, and is much more banged up by Iranian missiles.
Thanks for that. Very useful since there’s little reliable reporting on the erosion of Israeli air force capacity.
If I may expand, tired from 2.5 years of war, actually means a level of maintenance and stress on airframes that were never designed for the level of wear and tear of long-term war. Old airframes, e.g., F-16, were built for abuse, but are very old (think microfractures in structural components). The F-35 is a prima donna, requiring 30 hours of maintenance for each flight hour and new readiness rates of less than 30% (with only specialized Lockheed Martin technicians permitted to perform repairs).
F16s and F22s cannot launch from a runway with debris. Reports are that missile waves are hitting Israel every few hours. How many runways does Israel have? Unending supply of loitering munitions (4 days) can target cleanup crews, and you only need a few cluster munitions per airport per week.
All that plus the physical availability of spares, and the cumulative strain on the pilots and ground crews.
Done now! There was a bit of earlier mis-ordering, so please do refresh this post and re-skim if you arrived befor the time of this comment.
Hi Yves, minor correction to an error in the raw transcript of Mizrahi. After some puzzlement that I had forgotten an Israeli retreat from Europe and Bibi having Calais engraved on his heart, I realised that
“And after two and a half years, they lost France.”
Should read
“And after two and a half years, they lost friends.”
Aha, that did make no sense. Fixing. It is in his own transcript
Congratulations for figuring it out. I was just plain stumped.
I wondered if we had suddenly been transported to Algeria, where the French eventually lost.
Thanks for the correction!
Right now Iran is setting up a toll way for ships wanting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz – kinda like you have for the Panama Canal and the Suez canal. So the thought occurred to me that what happens when Ansar Allah will announce the same for all ships wanting to pass through the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the end of this war.Their country was devastated by some of the Gulf States and the West rampaging over that country for several year. Might they not want some compensation as well?
Rubio’s “immediately after this thing ends, and we’re done with our objectives, the immediate challenge we’re going to face is an Iran that may decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz” seems to mean the enemy intends to declare victory and go home (he says elsewhere this will be “in the next couple of weeks”, or in “weeks, not months”), leaving Iran in charge of the Strait. So what were the enemy’s objectives? I doubt Rubio or Trump want to answer that.
Rev Kev posted the Powell Doctrine a couple days ago.
> 2 Do we have a clear attainable objective?
I thought it was regime change, but found this (March 27):
> We’re going to destroy Iran’s navy, destroy their air force. We are going to basically destroy their ability to make missiles and drones in their factories. And we’re going to substantially – and I mean dramatically – reduce the number of missile launchers so that they cannot hide behind these things to build a nuclear weapon and threaten the world.
John Robb was a harbinger on drones, and Ukraine has shown the degree they can be created in basements. Not Shahed-level (yet), but enough to continuously re-open the wound and expose the… If not a lie, then delusion, that this malevolent genie can be stuffed back in the bottle.
I suppose “we’re done with our objectives” could be taken to mean they’re fed up with them and they’re abandoning them. Not that anyone – probably including Trump, Hegseth, Rubio et al – ever had a clear idea of what the objectives were in the first place.
That was an odd statement, an admission against interest. Given he is admitting that Iran will still be in a position to dictate terms in the Persian Gulf after the war is over, the only takeaway from that is that the US will lose its’ sway over the region as the logical consequence of failing to meet its’ objectives. Sounds like he is the one saying that we will be leaving in a few weeks and taking whatever balls we have left with us.
The Iranian government only needed to survive to win, but the US had a list of objectives that it has failed to meet. I am left wondering how those reparations demands are going to be met by a Congress that only a couple of months ago gave Trump standing ovations for being an Iran belligerent.
US had a list of objectives? You make it sound like a clear and coherent set of aims. I recall different ideas every time one of them tried to articulate the war’s objectives. Heaven knows what they’re like if they ever go shopping: “A pound of tomatoes. No, wait, no tomatoes. Oh, hang on, a sun-dried tomato if you promise you’ll have parsley next week. Or next month. …” But I guess they never do go shopping like us plebs and proles.
Iran has to survive to win but Iran has to win to survive, in the sense that this time has to be the last time, anything short of total victory and all this is certain to repeat, once the US and the zionist entity and the proxies have rearmed and found new terrorists and spies, the latter taking less time than the former. The proverbial West cannot be trusted. How do you win a war to your satisfaction when the enemy cannot be trusted at any point? And the USA is safely behind the Atlantic.
…but the US economy is not self-sustaining. Much needs to cross the oceans to make America livable.
From a vantage of ignorance, I have doubts about the IDF story. I suspect that this narrative is an attempt to push the need for conscription of the Haredim more than “the IDF is going to collapse.” Another historic pattern is that the IDF goes on the offensive, then suffers a bloody nose and retreats. This creates the expectation that the IDF will go into Southern Lebanon, get a bloody nose, and retreat.
I’m not sure that this time, no one will follow. My guess is the Resistance views this war as the opportunity to finally finish off the Israeli State. If true, once the Israeli’s realize they just can’t run away and negotiate some kind of ceasefire, I think this will change the character of the IDF. After all, if the view of the war shifts from a glorious exercise in lebenstraum to keeping Hezbollah out of the neighborhood where the IDF soldier’s parents live, I would imagine you might see more spine.
This war will test the mettle of the IDF. If the IDF fails, in all likelihood, Israel will be wiped off the map. Yes, Israel started this war, and its clear they put Iran in a place where Iran is cornered and has no real option but to fight to the death. However, if things don’t play out in accordance with Bibi’s master plan, Israel will find that it has its back up to the wall. My best guess is that Israel will end up going nuclear, but rather than this move producing security, it will result in the total destruction of Israel, and perhaps more important, in a level of historic infamy akin to Nazi Germany. This troubles me, as I think it will have serious consequences for Diaspora Jews, including those which opposed the Zionist project.
I do think that if the Persians manage to make the Persian Gulf Persian again, I think they should seriously consider renaming the Straights of Hormuz the Straights of Trump, as Trump, like Pharoah in the Quran, has become an instrument of delivery for the Persians. God has clearly hardened the heart of Trump from a certain point of view. The Straights of Hormuz, or Trump, look to be the graveyard of the American Empire.
Mizrahi is Israeli and ex IDF so I think he has contacts.
Ritter was critical of the IDF even before the war got going. Super young people in officer ranks, meaning insufficient experience even at low-ish levels.
Widely reported that many young people who could left Israel to avoid service. Others just ignoring requisitions
And pray tell, what kind of fighters do you think those refusnik Haredim would make? If you suspected the toilet problems on the Gerald R. Ford were sabotage, just imagine what soldiers gang-pressed into service would do. In Ukraine, they had to put in Ukro-Nazis in the rear, as “stiffeners” to shoot deserters. Think Israel would to that to Haredim?
In Ukraine, they had to put in Ukro-Nazis in the rear, as “stiffeners” to shoot deserters. Think Israel would to that to Haredim?
Oh Bibi will if Hezbollah starts marching to Tel Aviv (after he touches down in Miami). The de-humanization of the enemy generally results in a similar de-humanization of your own population, and Bibi’s coalition was sociopathic before October 7 and his great gamble of the existence of his nation on this war. They just need the Haredim for votes, and as SHTF, there aren’t going to be any more elections in Israel if Bibi has any say.
The only out for Israel is if the Israeli deep state figures out this is a colossal f-up and does something about it before its too late.
Why not send the Settlers north to defend Israel? It was only a year or two ago that the government was handing out assault rifles to them like they were bags of popcorn. True, they would not be use to people being able to shoot back at them but since every inch of Israel is holy to them, they should have the motivation. For the sake of an easy organization, each illegal settlement could send a company or even a battalion of volunteer Settlers, depending on the size of that Settlement. Just to sweeten the pot for them, tell them that if they win, they get a free farm in southern Lebanon at the end of the war. They are sure to believe that promise.
I reckon the settlers are only tough when they’re going up against unarmed to lightly-armed farmers and children with rocks in the West Bank. Going up against a mere paramilitary group might more than they can stomach.
The “problem” is the same for the IDF. For years, serving in the IDF meant brutalizing Palestinians in West Bank. More recently, it means mass murdering civilians in Gaza.
The IDF is great at fighting civilians. However it is completely unprepared to fight an organized opposition that fights back. This is the seventh time Israel has invaded Lebanon. This time Hezbollah is stronger than ever and Iran is also in the fight. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result, then we know this invasion is insane.
There was a segment on Breaking Points this past Friday that discussed the IDF members are not psychologically well. Repeatedly doling out abuse to other humans, constantly dealing with threatening situations, killing children – there is no way that doesn’t affect you. Many were described as having PTSD and other pathologist. All of them were described as being tired of stretching themselves thin to support more and more settlements. Many of these IDF soldiers are kids. The current situation is not something the IDF can sustain on its own for much longer.
The more IDF soldiers experience what they once dealt out, without consequences, after decades of generational ideological grooming, expect the worst. Their minds years just don’t have the abilities in processing they are not omnipotent.
I remember how this mob rolled all the way back to the late 70s early 80s, bumping into them internationally post my service, only to run into a pack of young ones on holidays in Noosa Bch, Qld 10 yrs ago. I was fishing at the spit, they rolled up for a play in the water. In my head I was like wellie this is the last thing I expected on a family holiday half way around the world from Israel – lmmao – spotted them a mile away thingy …
Of course I had to start up a convo with them, how was training, having a good time here, its really a nice place eh … I could see the gears in their heads trying to understand how some random guy fishing pegged them out of nowhere. A mix of anxiousness with a side of subdued aggression. Me chill as the surrounding environment. I wished them a good time with the hope they respected the laid back vibe of Noosa.
I was done fishing and walking back to the Q7 when their handler, spotted him but did not let them know, came up to me and started a seemingly random convo. Yeah … then we had to have that convo … a lot of alluding to my past life and some Jewish family back drop. Basically it was a dress down to identify my potential risk threat due to identifying who these kids were and what they were doing.
I feel so bad for these kids, they are not their own master,
hearkens to OT level stuff which works one day/battle and then the next get totally wiped out. yet one will stick ….
Because they already handed out guns to the settlers?
Also, Israeli tends to get “settlers” after a conflict. They didn’t sign up for that, and the unspoken part of the deal for immigrants in the 21st century is they are there to “keep Israel Jewish” not to have a Kibbutz or anything like that. Those settlers probably have some family willing to put them up in the worst-case scenario. Earlier ones are stuck because people live where they live.
Even the Ultra-Orthodox and the Orthodox cosplayers weren’t favored in years past, but the fear of the Arab-Israeli population reaching critical mass changed Israeli elite thinking on their approach to immigration and the Orthodox population. The Orthodox have been encouraged to grow their population which wouldn’t have happened.
Yup, a life of prayer on state support makes a good soldier!
Warfare has moved on from cowboys and indians (aka Hollywood, Johnny grab your gun) – See Ukraine and imagine no Israeli air support (per Ukraine), and put the IOF against Hezbollah or the Iraqi resistance. Sorry, but a warm body with a gun at the Ukrainian front lasts 4 hours until that body is cold. Even with the stiffeners. And the IDF has shown no institutional strengths in two years of genocide outside its ability to bomb women in tents against Hamas (not Hezbollah) – see numerous videos on Electronic Intifada about inability to fight even very lightly-armed opponents.
Lastly, the US/Israel-Iran war is existential for Russia (per Stanislav in inteview above). Please, everyone, consider what that means.
Adding in the Israeli bit:
Mizrahi “ The normal, most IDF soldiers are between 18 and 19 and 20 years of age. So a little more than children. So you have an army of little more than children and the big chunk, the largest part of the IDF is those civilians. were uniform and go into battle in Lebanon, into Gaza, into the West Bank, wherever they are sent.”
This gels with what I saw late last year in Dharamshala where I was surrounded by young Israelis. They were, to put it bluntly, f***ed-up.
I was there 3 months and mentioned here at the time my attempts to understand them better.
Many (nearly all) had very obvious signs of PTSD (something I can clearly identify due to my day-job working with trauma). Many were dysfunctional to the point of just staring into space, sitting quietly with colouring books, as well as more expressive symptoms like drug abuse, outbursts, etc. Everyone I spoke to wanted the hostages home, a lot supported the genocide but regardless had suffered great moral injury (not a light thing). Even the confident on the outside types looked close to cracking. Many suffered visible cognitive dissonance when talking about Gaza etc. They are not well.
And this is away from the wars, in a beautiful peaceful place. Imagine what they are like when they get home.
These are not soldiers, these are kids. There’s minimal trauma treatment, their society is still insane, they are still force fed propaganda, and they have been in a full war mindset for years now. Now they are stuck in bunkers as the illusion of invincibility shatters.
Add in the trauma that Jews carry from history (and how Israeli self-identity magnifies this into a deep neurosis).
These are not capable war-fighters. They are out of shape, broken kids. Both the people and the story of Israel are cracking.
Is Israel creating the next generation of Daniella Weiss and Bezalel Smotrich?
Are there any tools you can recommend that we can use locally when meeting genocide-supporting Israelis to ensure the psychological break-down and drive these child-murdering zionists into at least akinetic catatonia but preferrably to a suicidal state-of-mind?
I can’t endorse this kind of thing, but seems like making sure they all have access to ChatGPT would be a mental health disaster.
They are kids.
They are genocide supporters. But they are kids. The hardest truth to swallow is that if I had been brought up in that society, I would probably be just the same way. Ask a thoughtful German about the nazi times and he might say the same.
I don’t know if they can be saved from the Zionist mind virus. I tried and failed with those I did sessions with.
Driving them to suicide is no answer at all. In fact it would poison my heart and soul as much as their’s has been. There is no victory or progress in giving in to those desires.
This isn’t to say I think Israel should not be militarily defeated; I very much do. But never with hatred, just with the sense of necessity to protect ourselves and each other from them.
It can be very hard to not give in to hate, but it leads nowhere good. Ultimately, only a desire for peace will get humans as a whole out of the calamities we are in.
And by peace i do not mean submission, weakness or giving in. It doesn’t mean never taking up arms. It means having the desire for peace, the knowledge that love is the only real way, to burn in your heart brighter than the ear and hate.
It’s all so fucking sad.
I do not hate the zionists, I just look at the them as the cockroaches they are, a sanitary problem that needs to be dealt with in one way or another. They are the ones that hate.
Also, I believe that you are a pro so if you haven’t been able to cure them, it is they who are the problem. It is difficult to accept that you are not the chosen one and do not have the divine right to be a racist swine (ask any tour guide around the world who the worse customers are and chances are that they will answer Israelis) with the right to genocide.
At 18 you are old enough by law to draw the consequences of your actions. No kids at all.
Maybe castration then? Most important is to stop the spread.
I strongly disagree with what you’ve written.
Disarming them is enough.
The problem is the violence they are committing. This is what we need to stop.
I don’t think viewing them as cockroaches and the rest of your suggestions lead anywhere good.
thank you for these humane and insightful posts. you are right that the cycle of trauma will continue
“I and the public know
what all schoolchildren learn,
those to whom evil is done
do evil in return”
It really is. They are monsters. But that’s because they grew up in a monster factory. And the US paid for the factory and makes sure production levels meet quota every quarter. As in Ukraine, we gave the worst people everything they wanted and now we have to deal with the mess we’ve created. There does need to be a Nuremburg style reckoning for what my country has done over the past several decades. How else can we prevent other countries from trying to coup and sanction the world? How else can we try to prevent the spread of so many wars of choice?
There’s no need for that. Living under the apartheid regime alone increases the risk of suicide.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/10/how-the-us-far-right-bought-into-the-myth-of-white-south-africas-persecution
Yes, I do. Young IDF and ex-IDF have a worldwide reputation as troublemaker tourists. With that personality stereotype, it won’t take more than a few deaths of buddies due to Haredim not doing their job to see seasoned soldiers protecting their teams. Also, remember fragging in Vietnam…
Israel is a small country where sons are revered. Word would get out. I don’t think Israel society would survive that.
There are now armed Haredim: https://www.jns.org/israel-news/haredi-jews-take-up-arms-form-civil-defense-groups-to-defend-communities
That article has the following sentence-
‘Haredim are also prime targets for Arab terrorists, as it’s well known that they are overwhelmingly unarmed—at least until now.’
Frankly I would have reworded that-
‘Arabs are also prime targets for Haredim terrorists, as it’s well known that they are overwhelmingly unarmed—at least until now.’
It’s remarkable the number of videos showing one or two people being at the center of a Haredim mob and being bullied by them. Not just in Israel but London and America as well. And it is worse if that person is a female.
That would be one of many things that would cause the demise of the Israeli stare: I mean, the hatred between the seculars and the Haredim were such that there were talks of a civil war already.
Seen often in Europe recently as violent football hooligans/thugs. When the “fans” got banned from a Tel Aviv Maccabi game in the West Midlands, based on a track record of hatred and violence, all you got on the news was “Antisemitism!!, Antisemitism!!, Antisemitism!!”
Larry Johnson showed pictures of the USS Gerald Ford. That was either one helluva laundry fire, or the carrier took a couple of drone whacks, or something.
Frankly, I’m not sure which is worse from a US military standpoint. Sabotage/mutiny is a sign of terrible morale. But, air defense failure is horrid, too.
Damage to what appears to be steel frames on the port quarter near the fantail. Probably hangar deck.
I wonder if the vacuum toilet system contributed to the intensity of the fire, combat related or not. The vacuum compressors need to expel air somewhere, and compressing air is how a bellows works. Discharging that sewer air at the stern would be ideal to avoid stinking up the entire ship.
Fire on a ship with munitions can cause explosive damage that mimics a missile hit. Obviously, the USAF prefers morale to air defense inadequacy, as there is zero reason for truth to underlie the official story (note, one narrative hurts sales – the paydirt for retired admirals on a board of directors).
It’s currently in Split, the city where I grew up. This is from local newspaper:
https://slobodnadalmacija.hr/split-i-zupanija/split/video-u-split-uplovio-americki-ratni-brod-koji-je-sudjelovao-u-napadima-na-venezuelu-i-iran-1546628
That one was discredited as AI, I think (they did both add the ‘if this is real’ qualification but I was disappointed that they spent the time, since a little due diligence would have revealed it).
Quoth Yves: just imagine what soldiers gang-pressed into service would do.
Do I have to imagine, when there are all those interesting historical examples out there?
I wonder if they’ll be as refusenik if it were a matter of “keeping the [insert Muslim soldier pejorative of choice] out of Ma and Pa’ neighborhood.” Even if they have the will, will they have the ability? Plenty of Wehrmacht troops were trying to keep Allied soldiers out of the ol’ Nachbarschaft, but that didn’t work out so well in 1945…
-Israel has approximately 7.5 million Jewish citizens.
-the total population is surprisingly young, but much of that is among Arabs and the Ultra-Orthodox.
-1/4 of the population is 14 and under.
-1/4 is too old to fight or stay alert under duress.
-3.75 million is the potential fighting population.
-60% females and 70% males go into conscription service. I don’t know, but this feels high. The ones who aren’t are probably useless for the war effort for a variety of reasons at least at scale.
-2.44 million.
-let’s say 30% of that number can be mobilized while things run, that leaves us with 720K. 15% is the max for a country, but 30% from that group is reasonable.
This is where we start getting into issues of labor allocation. What percentage of that 720k is engaged in the industries necessary to run a country: manufacturing, agriculture. The Israeli emergency services have approximately 40k people already engaged and working non-stop at the moment. They can’t be pulled. 30k are in the “navy.” The defense industry represents something like 20% of the Israeli manufacturing workforce.
How many are engaged in controlling Gaza/the West Bank/currently engaged in the North? How many fled?
What is IDF training really like? Stress is still stress. People who are supposed to be monitoring need breaks too. Are the people who are trained in thuggery trained in air defense? This is another problem.
Half that 720K number is pretty much already engaged in full time, war service in some capacity.
The Israeli agricultural sector was already under shortages as the cost of importing workers soared since October 2023. I imagine its worse now. Non-emergency healthcare doesn’t stop which is also apparently in a shortage. Those kids need minding, so you can’t pull education/childcare.
I bet the Iranians have spent a couple of hours on this, hence the strategy of consistant bombing, but Israel doesn’t have more people. Critical personnel have been engaged around the clock. That doesn’t make for good soldiering.
Hence the mobilization of US troops? As their use as an invasion force in Iran proper has been pretty much universally panned as a fools errand, could they be used as a home guard in Israel?
The US has the same problem with its bases and genuinely important places. Israel is mostly an excuse to justify smash and grabs from the US perspective, but Haliburton assets are way more important. We are discussing 30k soldiers with no logistics support. As long as Iran can fire missiles, the troops have to stay alert.
Everything is so radically different from the Desert Shield days, and the Iranians can hit specific targets whereas the Iraqis pretty much needed wind to get their Scud to go near Israel.
What will US troops do in the absence of a TGIFridays on the base? This is really important. We haven’t prepped for that in quite some time. Other than marines and spec forces in the wake of 9/11 in Afghanistan, deployments haven’t come against too much discomfort. Why we fight? has to be answered. With Vietnam, many things were getting better at home, and troops could go to Saigon.
Then of course, there are the “contractors.” Mercenaries are problematic because they like to win or else they can’t spend the money. We would have the same problem as the Israelis are having with foreign workers. There was a flurry of videos of Western mercs going to Ukraine and complaining how the Russians shoot back.
And that’s not even taking into account that a large portion of the 7.5 million Jewish citizens also hold other passports and many own homes in other countries where they tend to reside when things like this are going on in Israel.
I don’t know if Hezbollah has any expeditionary capability. Running an irregular army conducting defensive guerrilla warfare within your own territory and people with short supply lines is one thing. Infiltrating the enemy is another. They lack any cavalry equipment (APC’s, tanks) other than pickups with machine guns, AFAIK.
They could certainly make a mess of border settlements by taking them on foot and then fighting hand to hand and with drones.
However, without air defences the Israeli’s can bomb them. The footage of evacuating Israeli territory and then destroying homes might be a disaster for Israel. However, it might harden Israeli popular resolve: decrying invasion of Israel is a lot easier than supporting an expansionary war of choice on Lebanon.
I’ve never heard of Hezbollah having any capability like that. Their orientation has always been of a defensive force employing guerrilla tactics, and experience suggests that it’s difficult and time-consuming to turn guerrilla fighters into regular soldiers operating in much larger units in a proper command structure, which is what you’d need. I don’t know if there are any figures for the largest tactical unit Hezbollah deploys in, but for other similar groups I can think of, it would be 10-12 men.
There are a couple of possibilities, though. One would be small-scale incursions into Israel by the Radwan units, which is something that is believed to have happened in the past. The second would be if the IRGC sent not only officers to Lebanon but also NCOs, in an attempt to establish regular units that might be able to take and hold ground.
Good point. So, instead, the Resistance could refrain from invasive assaults and maintain corrosive pressure with missile attacks. Come and get me and see what happens.
I suspect that this narrative is an attempt to push the need for conscription of the Haredim more than “the IDF is going to collapse.”
I also see the statement as a call for conscripting the Haredim while attempting to keep the IDF non-partisan in the secular vs religious split in society and governing coalition. In the same 24 hours that Zamir made the statement, the Knesset passed a law late at night to legalize religious courts to be used to arbitrate civil disputes. This came after the Haredim exemption failed to be included in the budget yet again. The budget needed to be passed or the government would fall and the war needed to be funded. (Exemption law explainer here)
It’s worth pointing out that the most widely-accepted frontrunner to replace Netanyahu right now in the elections later this year is Naftali Bennett who has been very vocal about the need to draft the Haredim and appears to be staking a very strong nationalist (but not religious) position contra the Kahanist (religious and expansionist, but not nationalist) and religious factions holding up Netanyahu’s government.
Passover starts in a few days and the Knesset will take a 5-6 week recess. We here expect (and sounds like based on the last few days of statements around the various countries participating or observing the war also expect) that there will be another big escalation imminently and then a state change of some sort. I agree with Aurelien’s statement elsewhere in this thread that Iran has apparently decided This Is The Big One and is positioning and responding accordingly. So I doubt that the IDF or Trump’s stated “plan” to end things in the next few weeks will actually come to pass, but given that the wartime restrictions have been in place for a month now in Israel and everyone is already primed to “get on with their lives” as much as possible it would make sense for the next crescendo to occur during a multi-week period when people are already dealing with other closures.
An update from my Israeli colleagues. The experience of the people I am interacting with in Israel right now is all over the place. I have many colleagues who live in houses in exurbs in Tel Aviv (so they have their own shelters within the home) and their experience seems mostly unaffected. I have a handful who live in the heavily urban area of central Israel around Tel Aviv and they are experiencing significant disruption but for the most part not enough now to prevent them from going to the office (in downtown Tel Aviv) multiple times a week. There are at least 2 who have been living in what amounts to a public community shelter for weeks now with ~60 others (they have shared their screen so we could see the conditions – looked like a school basement – not as bad as a parking garage but very unpleasant post-hurricane like conditions). There are also some up north, which is where most seem to agree is getting the heaviest attacks. They have their own shelters and while they seem to be getting more shelter alerts none have been driven from their homes.
It is my opinion that Iran is in for the long haul and has planned their escalation strategy to coincide with this very slow increase in attacks on civilian infrastructure. Since the Dimona/Arad strike there are more reports in Israeli MSM about AD failures leading to civilian deaths.
Finally, I’ll share something that isn’t exactly news but may be of interest. I like to watch videos of people walking or driving in various places on another screen while I work. I have been watching this channel to see what Israel looks like currently. There isn’t any commentary and there isn’t a date posted so take it with a grain of salt but there are some interesting bits in this video of a drive around Tel Aviv sometime this month. For a starter, the lack of traffic in Tel Aviv is incredible if you’ve ever been. There is a siren that goes off in the video during the drive and you can see the process of pulling over (but not the walk to the shelter or interior). When we follow the wars at a high level we see the holistic view and the big strikes but it is hard to imagine why the Israelis haven’t capitulated yet. If the civilian destruction is not so significant yet that only 5% of my sample set has been driven to emergency housing after a month – if one can walk in Haifa and get a coffee and sure it seems a little unlively and there are sirens but other than that a normal-ish spring day – maybe this begins to explain why 78% of polled Israelis say they support the ongoing catastrophe. It’s still not real at the ground level.
Appreciate the kind comments from those who noticed I haven’t been commenting but I am a very busy woman and this is not my blog so I will at times need to step away. Let it be known I am not scared of a little harsh commentary from our esteemed hostess. :)
Glad to know that comments regarding your departure were greatly exaggerated.
Hey, welcome back!!! We missed you!
I second that!
Same here. Your reports are of much interest.
Your field reports (so to speak) have been most insightful, thanks.
Really happy to see you back raspberry.
Welcome back, RJ!
Missed reading your informed reports and observations regarding the on the ground situation in Israel.
Rubio’s objection that Iran asserting control over the passage of commerce through waters close to its territory would be illegal and unacceptable seems a bit rich. They would just be doing in their sphere of influence what US does in its.
—
As I have grown old, I’ve reflected on how I didn’t learn enough wisdom when I was young. Every generation seems to repeat the mistakes of its predecessors (perhaps its predecessors a generation or two removed — the three generation pattern, perhaps related to the “fourth turning” that Wukchumni often mentions).
People don’t live long enough to have time to become wise (and, ideally, public-spirited) before they become powerful. And they don’t live long enough to experience and learn from the longer-term consequences of their bad decisions — IBGYBG. Perhaps this is part of why tech accelerationists imagine that AI can help us.
—
I’m thankful for NC and its community, but I might be happier if I were more ignorant. As it says somewhere in the Old Testament Wisdom Literature, “the more understanding, the more sorrow.”
It’s difficult not to feel woefully over informed these days
Not a fan of Rubio, but the charging of tolls on a natural waterway is something that hasn’t been done before (at least I can’t think of one instance). Transiting canals, rivers (where dredging is usually needed), or inlets into ports are one thing but to charge to pass through a strait is another. I don’t begrudge Iran for employing this tactic, however, as being unprovokely attacked gives rise to circumstances where novel approaches are needed for the maintenance of the Iranian state.
But war reparations have been done before.
Iran will never get reparations by asking politely.
The tightest portion of the strait has to be dredged regularly to accomdate modern super tankers and container ships.
“to the shores of Tripoli”
It’s been done before. The wealth and power of the former British Empire and the US was both powers were heavily invested in actual free trade, hence the drive to keep the trade routes open. Removing those obstacles made these empires popular despite other sins.
The Commerce Clause exists to stop the individual U.S. states from this kind of garbage.
Danes did it for centuries in The Sound. Entrance to the Baltic.
Thus Nelson didn’t see a thing, so he shot up everything in the port of Copenhagen–without declaration of war, starting the Anglo Saxon tradition of infamy–but you call it infamy only when your erstwhile ally does the same to you…
If you are unwilling to pay a toll, what’s the difference between a toll and a blockade?
The US enacts blockades all the time on unfriendly countries when they are unwilling to enact the US agenda.. this could even be labeled an exorbitant toll if one were so inclined
The St. Lawrence Seaway charges tolls as one example. Regardless, someone is going to have to pay for all the damage caused to Iran by the US and Israel and you can be sure that Trump will never agree to that one. So an international toll for the passage of oil tankers it is.
Lost a cup of coffee when I watched Rubio say that blocking/controlling Hormuz was illegal under international law. Little Marco, you owe me!
Wasn’t it John Donne who said, “Youth is something only the young have but only the old know how to use?”
I like Shaw’s version, “youth is wasted on the young.”
Zaphod’s (dead) grandfather: “‘Life is wasted on the living”
Yesterday there were reports that Trump is “bored” with the war.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-iran-war-bored
The Iranians don’t play right and he wants to take his toys and go home. It shouldn’t be surprising if he acts like a two year old because he’s been doing that for months now or even before he was elected. There’s also a report that the MC at the CPAC conference joked “who wants to impeach Trump” and they cheered.
https://newrepublic.com/post/208293/cpac-attendees-confused-cheer-trump-impeachment
Of course those Gulf monarchs like MBS are merely Arab versions of Trump who were never elected to anything. It’s reality versus extreme entitlement and entitlement is losing badly.
The latest jibe from the Iranians is that they don’t want to assassinate Trump because he is their most effective weapon against the US. Perhaps Russia and China–who one might expect to intervene–have concluded the same thing. Comeuppance is finally at hand?
Good Larry/Ray from last night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DIu6AOesTU
One ray of light is Johnson’s claim that the Russians are starting to get involved behind the scenes to put an end to this. International chaos is always the thing they are trying to avoid.
And while the Israelis may control Trump like a puppet, here’s suggesting they are much more afraid of Putin who presumably isn’t on any Epstein tapes. Larry has said in the past he doesn’t think Putin will allow the Israelis to go near those nukes of theirs and Putin–along with the rest of humanity–would have every reason to demand a say.
Johnson, like Mercouris, has an Orientalist bias and sees Iran as much more influenced by Russia than it is. Readers long-form described how the history with Russia has not been great (a nasty feature in the JCPOA was devised by Lavrov!) and thus they have not been keen in general (cultural predisposition) and in particular (not great history) of becoming beholden to Russia.
I think what I’m trying to say in this case though is that Russia wants to avoid international chaos and the Israeli desire to turn Iran into a failed state. Recall that Russia intervened in Syria for years for just that purpose because–as it was said at the time–they wanted to tamp down the kind of terrorism that arose out messing with the Muslim world. It was said that a lot of it had to do with their history with Chechniya. And I think Johnson’s point is that they are not going to stand by and let nukes be used on their doorstep.
Of course this is just speculation—a possible “ray of light.”
If Carolinian wouldn´t have mentioned, I would have.
Johnson repeated this RU info on the latest show with Nima and Wilkerson.
Which altogether has a few rather important points.
Larry Johnson & Col. Wilkerson: US–Iran Ground Conflict Could DEVASTATE Israel & UAE
63 min.
https://rumble.com/v77pxa4-larry-johnson-and-col.-wilkerson-usiran-ground-conflict-could-devastate-isr.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_v
This one claim by Johnson appears to have nothing to do with Orientalist notions.
1) TC: 25:00 The story Carolinian was referring to, I assume:
Johnson said that he was supposed to visit Moscow in 4 weeks or so as part of some “Unity Project”. That was canceled. And rumour has it – and this is what he actually meant – that Russia and probably China too going to get involved to put an end to this whole shitshow. Not that they are actually going to fight but to strengthen Iran´s position in ways which would shift the balance even more, not least due to calls from nations in the region to Moscow that they are not going to survive this war. Without any particular details given by Johnson. Nima reacts as if he knew about this already. No follow up discussion.
2) TC 53:00 – shortly before Wilkerson left the show early he had to relay an info/assessment by Ted Postol which he promised Postol to make public – Postol with a probability of 60-70% (fwiw I say) says that Iran is currently finishing a nuke deep down where nothing can hit it. They will then put it onto a hypersonic and if need to be do a test for everyone to see. Which of course would change the game.
Now Postol has been making this claim for a few weeks now. I don´t know if his encounter with Wilkerson was a mere repetition or was based on more evidence.
3) TC 52:00 Nima put up that map where Iran pointed out the targets in the region.
This in relation to them talking about how deep in trouble UAE is. 25% income comes (came) from oil. Another 20% from its biggest port which however has no ships to load.
4) Wilkerson in between again mentions Israeli videos being smuggled out which show how everything Iran shoots, hits. “Everything is going down, nothing is going up” to quote Wilkerson.
5) Johnson in the first half names the various US domestic bases where Special Forces have been put in motion. And adding to that, the info he got from a former Seal, a friend of his, they are on the move. So it appears to not be an exercise (the only alternative for this kind of thing happening), but an operation. It is unclear as to where exactly. But he argued that the 5 day, now 10 day deadline by Trump was in reality connected to these troops being ready to strike. i.e. that they were tardy. So, my guess, they were not ready, because not prepared to go in. Which would again confirm the lack of planning.
RUSSIA & IRAN – THE PODCAST EXPOSING THE MISCALCULATIONS THEY’VE BEEN MAKING TOWARD EACH OTHER FOR 200 YEARS
2-4-25
by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
On January 17, when the Presidents of Russia and Iran, Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian, signed the Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, they were standing at the front of a line of Russian and Iranian (Persian) tsars, shahs, generals, ministers, and ambassadors stretching back for two hundred years.
Putin and Pezeshkian are the novices, the new names. Their predecessors on the Russian side include Tsars Alexander 1 and Nicholas I, Ambassador Alexander Griboyedov (lead image, top left), General Alexei Yermolov (top, right), Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and Yevgeny Primakov. The new document must be understood in the context of the precedents these Russian leaders have made in making war and also in making peace with Iran over this long period.
https://johnhelmer.net/russia-iran-the-podcast-exposing-the-miscalculations-theyve-been-making-toward-each-other-for-200-years/
Though Russia has been historically untrustworthy towards Iran, Russia now has selfish reasons to support Iran–Ukrainians are reportedly sending drone teams to the Gulf. For the time being at least “the enemy (Iran) of my enemy (Ukraine) is my friend.” Same is true of Israel, which has been attacking Bushehr and also threatening the eventual North-South trade route.
State’s are not generally “trustworthy” towards one another.
Iran could break the Gulf monarchies and Israel, but it too could be broken. Nevermind an Armageddon Nuclear response from either Israel of the USA; how much infrastructure damage to food distribution, power, desalination/water and sewage can it take before it to becomes crippled, and large scale death by hungers or thirst occurs? Do they have redundancy or have plans to mitigate the inevitable problems? Will all the warring states stay focused on military and military/industrial targets, while sparing infrastructure necessary for a population to live?
It would be wise for everyone to do so; but in a state of war and rage, rarely do people stay wise..
The comment does not in anyway negate the necessity for Iran’s course of violent action; it is dealing with enemies who are perfidious and malicious, who would be happy to see the nation fracture into warlords and factions, like afghanistan, Iraq or Libya or Congo.
I would not be surprised if the Isil prisoners that were moved to Iraq from their syrian prisons are ‘rehabilitated’ as US ground troops/cannon fodder/terrorist inflitrators…
Iran gets very little of its water from desalination, unlike Gulf states.
I suspect that given how big and mountainous Iran is, its food production is significantly localized.
Iran has prepared for this war for 20 years and had an 8+ year war with Iraq where they lost 1 million people. Your assumption that they do not know what war amounts to is not well founded
I have read (not first-hand knowledge!) that Iran has been on the verge of severe water crises for many years, mainly thanks to low rainfall and decaying dams and reservoirs. It’s a desert country with 90 million people, so the water situation can’t be that great.
I loathe the thought that the Persian Gulf war will start being a war on water systems, even though that’s an easy and obvious strategy. Desalinization has allowed arid countries to grow their populations far beyond what their climate can support, which is obviously incredibly dangerous if wars are breaking out all the time.
Giant countries running for short on potable water and irrigation water will be a humanitarian crisis that doesn’t even bear thinking about.
That still does not translate into them being dependent on desalination, or even large users of it, unlike the Gulf states.
Professor Marandi asserts that that issue is exaggerated. Serious in some areas but far from nation-wide.
Latest figures I have seen for Iranian desalination is around 3–5%.
My uneducated guess is that getting water from the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, or the Caspian Sea over mountain ranges like the Zagros in the west/southwest and the Alborz in the North would be as difficult as shipping water from from Vancouver to Calgary or from San Francisco to Denver.
Cities on the coast such as Bander Abbas look like they may be vulnerable and either the US or the Israelis took out the desalination plant on Qeshm Island near Bander Abbas..
Remember, we (in LA) have had schemes to take water from yhe Columbia River basin for decades now. ;)
The little figure re: Iran dependence on desalination was confirmed by Nima himself and Jacques Baud, last week.
Iran is not a desert country. It is classified as an arid to semi-arid geography. (Much like New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and N. Arizona in the American Mountain West.) Like California 30% of its atmospheric precipitation falls as snow. Unlike California, Iran doesn’t have the same level of water storage and transport capability. Much of Iran’s mountain snow infiltrates into groundwater basins; and high-flow years into saline playas that evaporate rapidly in it’s warm climate. The Caspian Sea is the largest freshwater sea in the world and not far from Tehran. Altough it is lower in elevation, I imagine using this source is a possibility for drinking water. Re-proportioning water from agriculture to potable is an option, too.
Caspian Sea is saltwater (1.2% salinity, or about 1/3 of seawater.) Northern parts where the Volga flows into it has fairly low salinity, but the areas near Iran would not be usable without desalination, I should think.
Tehran is wetter than East Anglia in the UK!
Admittedly, this is distortion through statistics. Tehran’s precipitation falls mainly as snow in winter because of its altitude. Whereas East Anglia is
sea-level (or below!) and, while dry, receives rain year round.
Idle thought for the morning, before second coffee (as opposed to second breakfast):
I wonder if we will eventually see a lot (or even all) of the ME US-backed regimes gone (due to internal or external pressure) and an Iranian dominated, oh, let’s call it some sort of “federation,”* running the Gulf region. Even with war damages, there’s a lot of wealth available to improve living conditions for all-and-sundry there, not just the top end.
I suspect Israel would wreck the region with mushroom clouds before that was allowed to happen, but it’s still an interesting though.
*Achaemenid Persian Federation?
The Achaemenid Empire included Anatolia, Egypt, parts of Balkans, and all of Levant, plus much of modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. You only need to go back a few centuries to find an Iranian Empire controlling all of the Persian Gulf one way or another.
They could just call it Greater Persia.
Oregon Lawhobbit Crooke argues this in the above Davis video.
“the Isil prisoners that were moved to Iraq from their syrian prisons”
Good that you mention it. Does anybody know what happened to them? I have not seen any information about their fate since they were freed weeks ago.
Again, one of those threads that gets swallowed by the memory hole.
Iran seems to be well prepared in terms of food production and has (in comparison to neighbouring countries) ample water supply (though climate change and irrigation make agriculture in Iran unsustainable) see: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772427123000190
I wonder more about long-term capacity for arms production, considering that US/Israel/Gulf are destroying basic industry – steel etc.. There’s arguably a lot in storage; BUT, at the same time: supply lines are precarious (ie. via sea to Russia) and if the war lasts for many more months…
If they have underground missile cities and factories, would they not have underground food stores spread across the country? Iran has thousands of years of experience in warfare in an arid climate.
Would Iran not have put in stores of steel, aluminum, etc., everything needed for military production underground for years of war (As Marandi repeatedly states Iran is ready for)? All indications to date are for careful planning. Can the US last for years when it will run out of many munitions in months, with NO resupply without (banned) Chinese rare earths?
There is a Russian story of two guys in a tent who hear a bear roaring. One gets up to run, the other puts on his running shoes. The first guy says don’t waste time, you can’t outrun the bear. The second guy says I only need to outrun you. Attrition warfare.
BUT, at the same time: supply lines are precarious
I doubt it would be all that difficult to defend the Caspian Sea route especially if cargoes were in Russian hulls.
Iran does NOT look like a society that is anywhere close to being broken. Quite the opposite, they’ve discovered a sense of purpose, religious purpose, unlike, really any country I can think of in recent memory.
The hits they’re taking aren’t depressing them into despair and sapping their will to fight. The hits are actually pumping them up more. They’re brushing off the fear and discovering a reservoir of bravery they may not know they had.
All indications seem to be that this is a society that believes in Revolution, again, and has rekindled the spirit of 1979 and now has gotten the ambition and confidence to spread that Revolution throughout the region.
Their self-belief and confidence is now backed by open, visible support from Russia and China.
Like Yves says…there’s almost no conceivable way this war ends soon.
Trump Tower @ Surah 40:35-37:
35. Those who argue against God’s revelations, without any proof having come to them—a heinous sin in the sight of God, and of those who believe. Thus God seals the heart of every proud bully.
36. And Pharaoh said, “O Hamaan, build me a tower, that I may reach the pathways.
37. The pathways of the heavens, so that I may glance at the God of Moses; though I think he is lying.” Thus Pharaoh’s evil deeds were made to appear good to him, and he was averted from the path. Pharaoh’s guile was only in defeat.
The Israelis should read Jeremiah; plenty of warning about heeding the false prophets who promise success or prosperity.
> “Alastair Crooke makes some key new points … Third is that many Shia clerics have declared fatwas calling for support of Iran.”
Yes, and iirc he was talking about Shia clerics in Iraq too. There’s nothing quite like a common enemy to help unify a fraternal split.
“On Sunday, 8 March, Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa (religious ruling) declaring that supporting and showing solidarity with Iran is a “collective duty”, amid the escalating US–Israeli war” – above.
Yes, I had to click through to get the Nitter and then read it, which I did after commenting. I don’t get X embeds owing to all the privacy blocking in my browser.
Ah. I usually have two browsers on the go. One with Javascript disabled by default, so no embeds. I trust NC, and it isn’t full of annoying ads and videos constantly popping up, so I read it in the other browser.
Privacy Badger from the EFF is an essential browser extension. By default it blocks twatter embed, but gives you a warning. You can unblock just for that session, or whitelist an entire site, like NC. Very highly recommended.
I’m definitely no expert on these matters, but I read somewhere that 50% of malware attacks come via Javascript, which was why I originally got a blocker. No ads and pop-ups was a bonus. I’m not too bothered about them tracking me, so long as they do it discreetly!
As we used to be trained, “If you can be seen, you can be hit. If you can be hit, you can be killed.”
Military life in the era of drone combat is … intense.
His point about Iraq possibly invading Kuwait again was interesting.
The irony is … well, ironic.
That was exactly my reaction.
Irony indeed. Old George Bush will be turning in his grave.
‘On the economy front, this is a must-watch video. Stanislav Krapivnik provides a lot of granular detail, particularly on the impediments to rebuilding damaged energy facilities’
Damn right. Watched this video before Links came online and there is a lot of detail on what is and isn’t possible with getting those wells back online. Also a lot of details on fertilizers and their critical importance. It makes we wonder if we may be seeing food riots not in Middle eastern countries but in Europe and perhaps the UK. To avoid this happening you need competent leadership. Unfortunately we have people like Merz, Macron, Starmer, Ursula, Stubb, etc. in charge who cannot see the violent changes starting to happen right in front of their faces.
A thing that I find most disheartening is that the senior leadership of so many nations seem ignorant of the structure of the systems on which the stability of their societies depends. They don’t perceive how fragile and interconnected these systems are (or, perhaps, as DJT sometimes asserts, they “don’t care”). They seem to have lost an awareness of the material realities that underpin civilization, perhaps imagining that “The Market” will fix all problems that arise.
As I previously noted, humans don’t live long enough to become wise before they become powerful (or before they become responsible, as voters, for the kind of governance they get).
Their societies are not the people of their geographic countries though. They are leaders of the Empire, a transnational caste of the wealthiest that expects to survive the destruction of whatever countries they happen to be currently occupying. They’re in the same social group as the US billionaires that think they can survive nuclear war by building luxurious enough bunkers on some Pacific isle. For some years now they’ve already been talking about how to cull the poorer people from the nations that the Empire is occupying, so collapse of those nations is viewed as an opportunity to buy assets low and kill off the useless eaters. But, yes, they are out of touch with the physical, non-symbolic reality that impinges so much on the rest of us, so they won’t recognize that they’re killing themselves off, along with us, until it’s too late. These are the vampires Putin was talking about when he said, “The vampire’s ball is coming to an end.”
Like a pot of soup, the scum rises to the top.
What can I read to think like this…because I already think like this?
Any recommendations (other than Marx) that might be in a university library?
In the same vein as the Men In Black movie postulates that the truth is actually on the cover of all the fringe Sci fi and UFO magazines, my theory is that venture capital puts money into disaster films to spruik the ending of choice and then TPTB can just chatter freely about movies with cover, and ask for that ending IRL. (TPTB don’t say ‘please’)
So many movies about viruses…. yes its about a new sub-genre…yes its about omnipresent fears of ordinary people…. but did anyone notice how ‘Contagion’ (2011) was so similarly structured to 2020 CVD pandemic? ‘Twas kinda like someone said I’d like that one.
And Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War 2018 just states outright, there is too many of you, and then ‘click’ half of all die, not knowing who it will be… Actually Thanos echoes Mesopotamian Gods deciding to get rid of the noisy humans, and brings on the flood. Oldest written story has humanity squarely in the firing line…huh..who da guessed?
I feel like I trust Stas more in the nuts and bolts of the energy industry and military stuff than I do when he talks about internal European politics. I’m not saying he’s wrong, just that it’s less his area of expertise.
I believe Krapivnik was definitely including Europe. However I also saw him discussing the issue with Glen Diesen so he might have been more specific there.
Sub-Saharan Africa is not looking good.
Sad news: Today Israel killed Al Mayadeen journalist Fatima Fattouni along with her colleague, Al Manar correspondent Ali Shuaib, in southern Lebanon in a targeted attack. RIP. I pray that Iran will put these rabid dogs down. Israel needs to be treated like the Third Reich.
Maybe Hezbollah should bomb one of the Israeli TV stations just to show them that two can play at that game. Make it during a live broadcast. Murdering journalists is almost as popular a pastime for the Israelis as murdering paramedics, doctors and nurse. Maybe the time is now when they should see the consequences for doing these sorts of war crimes.
“They are not our teachers!” – Omar Mukhtar
It all goes under the rubric of murdering unarmed civilians. I don’t think there are any people in that category that the Israelis would think twice about murdering.
the only purpose of that would be vengeance and the resistance would need to make the calculus on whether that missile would have been better used for a strategic objective
This is the attempt at justification:
IDF kills Hezbollah-linked journalist, says he was part of elite Radwan Force
The IDF said Shoeib “served as a terrorist in the Hezbollah terror organization under the guise of a journalist for the Al-Manar network, while consistently working to expose the locations of IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon and along the border, and maintained continuous contact with other terrorists in the Radwan Force unit in particular, and within the terror organization in general.”
Not buying it.
I couldn´t believe my eyes when I saw Israeli Markava tanks going into battle against Hezbollah without drone cages. The IDF has obviously gotten so used to fighting people with hardly anything more than hand guns that they forego the most primitive anti drone defense. I am not a military specialist but just like anybody who has been to Ukraine and closely followed the war there I know that a tank has little chance of survival against FPV drones unless fitted with anti drone cages. Furthermore the war in Ukraine demonstrates that even then tanks are sitting ducks. There’s a wholly new way of waging war and how the IDF can send dozens of tanks against into Libanon is beyond me. I expect that Hezbollah will copy the Ukrainian and Russian methods and infiltrate in small groups behind Israeli lines. In fact I fully expect Hezbollah to invade Northern Israel.
It might be that there is resistance to employing passive measures that have the side-effect of impairing the situational awareness of the crew.
My impression from videos produced by Electronic Intifada is that Israeli armoured vehicles tend to operate “buttoned up” in order to reduce crew (commander, especially) vulnerability to small arms and shrapnel. Visibility from within the vehicle is limited. “Cope cages” might further limit visibility, making it more dangerous for the vehicles to approach locations occupied by enemy infantry.
Maybe the key here is whether the IDF is a ‘learning organization’ or not. One that takes up the lessons of modern warfare from their own experiences as well as watching other militaries. Your comment shows that they are not. The same can be said of the US military as well as the NATO countries who have refused to taken the heart the lessons of the Ukrainian war. Those that have a military that is ‘learning organization’ include Russia, Iran obviously, Hezbollah and even Hamas. So if you see tanks being sent into battle without cope cages, then that tells you all that you need to know about them.
He who gets inside the enemy’s OODA loop wins.
For a deep dive into military OODA Loops:
https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/ooda-loop-for-strategy/
John Boyd was a historian and meant for OODA loops to be an analysis tool at levels from tactics to doctrine. US Doctrine is corrupted by the MICC everwhelming profit motive. Israeli doctrine requires very short wars with no solution to attrition warfare (no strategic depth).
Even more surprising: looking at the videos of fighting in Gaza, Israeli tanks clearly featured “cope cages”.
To be precise: a flat grid atop the turret, to protect against attacks by grenade- and bomblet-dropping drones.
This is the very first version of “cope cages”, used in the initial year of the Russo-Ukrainian war, when one-way attack drones, controlled by optical fibre or wireless communications, did not yet exist. Then, the danger was the drone hovering over its target and dropping a mortar shell, not the drone that would manoeuvre around the tank, find the most vulnerable spot, then accelerate to impact and detonate.
The Israeli army is going into battle with a concept of the fight that, after just 4 years, is already out-of-date…
Israeli military industry and therefore Israeli military leadership is fully committed to their Trophy active protection system for armoured vehicles, hence no cages. They probably see this as an opportunity to demonstrate its effectiveness and market it for export.
It’s interesting that Russians have not used their own similar system (Arena) in Ukraine, opting for cages instead. I suspect it has to do with active vs. passive nature, active systems require power, which means running the engine or a generator to provide protection, which creates an easily spotted thermal signature.
As a matter of fact – cages or no cages – tanks are rarely used in the Ukraine war anymore. Even on the Russian side which has air superiority. The reason is total ISR on both sides. The Russians use small groups that try to get through the front lines undetected and then assemble in the rear of the enemy. I would guess that this kind of war suits Hezbollah perfectly.
I’m not sure that cope cages can be used with reactive armor. I think it’s one or the other.
For many years, Israel had successfully prevented Hamas from acquiring drones. The few drones Hamas had acquired could easily be countered with jamming devices and air defense systems. Because of this, Israel underestimated the threat drones posed.
https://archive.is/TJZEI
It is interesting to me that the Trump administration cares so little about public support for this War, it is widely, and rightly seen as Israel’s War.
For many decades Israel has counted on US backing, the genocide weakened that support greatly and this War is destroying what public support Israel still had.
The only supporters that will be left are obvious nut jobs who want to destroy all life on Earth because Jesus Loves Us.
Add in Trump’s very obvious physical and mental decline and things on the Home Front are likely to get right lively.
Given the character of America;s “Leadership” I believe that using American troops to quell civil disorder is inevitable.
We really do need a word that captures the insane degree of stupidity that we are experiencing, it is off the charts.
The media is basically behind it.
NPR last week had an expert on Iran who was a second generation US Iranian, he’s never lived in Iran. His parents left Iran after the shah was removed. That is the onlyexpert person NPR could find to talk about how screwed up Iran is.
The dems have said and done nothing because either they are too scared to or they are believers. Either way vote them out.
Who cares about what the people want?
Most of the world’s Muslims are Sunni. But half the world’s Shia live in Iran. You have to go outside of West Asia to find the largest Sunni populations which are Indonesia and Pakistan. Shia are a majority in Iraq and Bahrain, and present in every WA country.
Though the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordon, UAE, and a few other countries support the US, I find no evidence there is any country in WA in which the majority, or near majority, of the population supports the US in the current war.
I would not underestimate how important is the support of the Muslim people of WA for Iran, and the likely difficulty of the Gulf monarchies will have to restore the status quo or even survive this war.
The division of Sunni/Shi’a here is and has been irrelevant. Things are political: Iran is ultimately a Republic with a modicum of democracy where the clergy is supposed to act as ethics/moral commissioners with teeth. The ARab countries around are either authoritarian monarchies or military dictatorships (Pakistan is not Arab but is in the same mold). So the elites do loath Iran’s form of polity, but not their populations, who might see in Iran a model to follow. This is why Iran must die. And this speaks volumes about the US and Israelis and their “values”.
Popular idea in early 20th century: while Sun Yat sen was not out tocreate a “theocracy,” his idea for the Five Yuan system gave the “Control Yuan” a function similar to Iranian religious authority. (Of course, Sun was drawing from the tradition of “Censors” (poor translation–always thought “Moral Guardian/Inspectorate” might be a better translation, but the terminology varied rather weirdly even in course of Chinese history) in Imperial government.)
If one day a high level Israeli official decides to make good on previous threats and destroys the Al-Aqsa Mosque, I think more than politics will emerge from the dust.
Saudi Arabia and a few other states publicly did not support the war but it later came out they privately wanted the US to attack Iran. That was a religious decision.
And currently Iran has been attacked by a Jewish state that is an apartheid state and committing genocide against Muslims and wages war against its Muslim neighbors.
According to the Iranian constitution, the Supreme Leader, a religious figure, is the head of state and in control of foreign policy and the military, and he decides who can or can’t run for president. If religion were not crucial, why have it in the constitution.
Politics is, indeed, important but religion is ever present.
“Saudi Arabia and a few other states publicly did not support the war but it later came out they privately wanted the US to attack Iran. That was a religious decision.” Says who? There is a rational, pragmatic, realistic argument in my hypothesis. The statement that KSA privately supports US for religious reasons has no fundamentals and I do not see it as being a valid and sound argument.
Israel is on a rampage for the good reason of conducting ethnic cleansing and enlarging their remit and put the fear of God in their neighbours’ hearts. The excuse that God willed it works for US Christian fundis, not for the broader world.
For Iran religious is important in the sense of upholding not only the articles of faith (that are unfalsifiable) but those that have a social, ethical, moral component… Not the case for the Arab prienclings in the Gulf, who have no problem in cutting journous to pieces.
Regarding Mizrahi’s interpretation that Iran is aiming at removal of the current Gulf state regimes and ejection of the West,
I’ve noticed in recent reporting about public statements by Iranian government figures mention of rhetoric that has the character of a mass appeal to Muslim sensibilities — why are Westerners/US (presumptively infidels) occupying Muslim lands and using Muslim territory to stage attacks on Muslims? Unstated in what I have seen but I suspect implied is that the Gulf state regimes are traitors to the worldwide Muslim community.
I get an uneasy feeling that the conflict may take on, from the Iranian side, an openly religious character that complements what has been reported about US military leadership thinking about the religious significance of the war.
This is exactly what Professor Marandi called for in 2024:
The ordinary people in these countries do not want these wars. The question is how much they blame the US and Israel v. Iran
I get an uneasy feeling that the conflict may take on, from the Iranian side, an openly religious character that complements what has been reported about US military leadership thinking about the religious significance of the war.
It not just religious, there is an element of nationalism. These Gulf States are brutal autocracies acting as puppet states for the US and the Zionists. They will never be allowed to be democracies because the Arab street will never do the bidding of the Zionists. If the people of the Middle East want to recover their sovereignty and freedom, their national liberation can only be achieved through joining the resistance. You may see an 1848-style moment.
That didn’t take long!
Iran’s military says it targeted Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in UAE (via Times Of Israel)
By AFP
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s military says it had targeted a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in the United Arab Emirates, which it said was used to assist US forces.
“As the hideouts of American commanders and soldiers in Dubai were targeted… a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot that was located in Dubai to assist the US military … was targeted and destroyed,” Iran’s military central operational command Khatam Al-Anbiya says in a statement carried by state TV.
Earlier on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on an unannounced visit to the UAE that the two countries had agreed to cooperate on defense
—-
(fwiw the Ukrainians denied the story later)
Just for a bit of general information. There has been a lot of talk recently about Marines being sent to take some Iranian beach although it may never happen. Found a short video showing an exercise in South America of a beach landing by US and South American Marines-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDq_lH0poDE (2:42 mins)
The reason I show this is so that people can watch it but imagine the Iranians hitting back with Shahed drones, FPV drones, ballistic missiles and whatever else they have. It would be carnage.
I think that missiles and large drones without terminal guidance may not be a major problem, at least during dynamic phases of a landing, but the FPVs would be murder. Per a recent description of the “gray zone” in the Ukraine conflict, each side has the zone under continuous surveillance by small drones, and anything that is noticed can come under attack by other drones, all of it controlled from positions some kilometers to the rear. This induces a great deal of “friction”, which I think is why there are claims, among Ukraine sympathizers, that the situation is in “stalemate”.
It’s hard to imagine that, if the Iranians have similar capabilities, it would be possible to suppress enough of this, prior to a landing at a site protected in this way, to prevent high casualties among the attackers.
The only relatively safe thing to do might be to land where such defenses have not been deployed.
Munitions without terminal guidance will be quite effective against a massed soft target such as a LZ or logistics hub, based on my experience as a field artillery officer. Consider:
1. The location of the firing points and LZ/hub are fixed and known, probably within 10 meters or less. That’s close enough to be effective.
2. The targets are fairly large and exposed. A direct hit isn’t necessary to cause considerable damage.
3. Just the act of receiving fire will reduce the combat effectiveness of the targeted force over time even if the fire isn’t especially damaging. This is called suppression fire if it’s accurate and harassing fire if it isn’t. Both are valuable, even if it only wastes the attackers time.
4. Time in combat, especially in a landing op, is critical. Shit has to get off the LZ so that other stuff can get on, not to mention that top cover fuel is time-limited. This is why is a soft target- a commander doesn’t want the troops to dig in as it takes time and space in the LZ.
5. The unguided munitions act as an interceptor sop, which is by itself valuable.
I hope this clarifies matters. A battalion of regular artillery could make a mares nest of an LZ as long as the attackers can’t find the guns. Hiding an artillery battery in mountains is possible, just as moving an artillery battery quickly in mountains is impossible.
My god, look how they cluster. A few missiles with cluster munitions and they would be decimated. The FPVs would pick off the survivors and any armor (no drone cages!). They better pick a cloudy day (that is a joke, Satellite radar sees through clouds and is excellent at seeing boats and metal on a beach).
To be fair, that exercise was four years ago just as drones were coming on line. Maybe the US military has learned something since then.
When I did my basic training four decades ago, two things were constantly drilled into us: always know where your rifle is (preferably on your person), and don’t flock.
In the barracks we moved in closed formation, outside barracks it was always at least 5 meters distances – during the six weeks I heard the yell “keep the [family blog] distances” enough to last me a lifetime.
One man is a fighter, two men together are a combat team, three men together is a good target.
As we used to be trained, “If you can be seen, you can be hit. If you can be hit, you can be killed.”
Military life in the era of drone combat is … intense.
The first thing I thought of when I saw that was July 1, 1916.
Thanks for the primer on insurance complexities, Yves. It seems to me that such issues, with enough time and effort, could perhaps be overcome. As such it reminded me of Krapivnik talking about the time and effort needed to fix up natural gas production.
But even given enough time and effort, shipping may be the primary mode of NATO vs BRICS war going forwards and insurance throws a lot of gravel in the gears.
I was thinking on our hike with the dogs this morning that with not enough soldiers for ground war and almost no more stock of bombs and missiles, how does NATO fight on after losing to Iran? The remaining weapons would seem to be control of shipping, pipelines, and international bank transactions. US control of petrocapital is existential so even with all the time and effort BRICS+Iran can muster the West will fight to prevent them setting up an alternative shipping and insurance systems.
Even if the US would retreat from the Gulf and if Israel were destroyed and the GCC states would align to Iran, it’s gonna be … I don’t have words for it … different.
It is not a matter of time and effort. It is whether non-Chinese policy holders can feel confident they will be treated fairly if they go to court, which I guarantee will happen often.
Insurance is in a backwater from a policy perspective. Lloyds is private. We don’t have TBTF as in a regulatory architecture paying a lot of attention here. So even if the effects are harmful to the Global South, it’s by accident and big economies are suffering too.
Thanks. I see what you mean. I had tried to imagine that China attempts to set up shipping services so that it would be only Chinese ship owners that have to deal with Chinese insurers and courts. But this won’t work for big cargo like a supertanker full of oil unless that imaginary Chinese shipper chooses to absorb risk for the cargo up to delivery too. I’ll stop now before imagining Temu or AliExpress for bulk crude, sulfer, etc…
And let’s not forget that the West can start amping up piracy using various excuses…
My biggest worry now is that Israeli use of nukes on Iran is becoming inevitable.
Mizrahi’s scenario is plausible: the IDF collapses and Israel is physically overrun by Hezbollah, etc, triggering Israel’s Samson Option (aimed at who???).
But Israel is likely to choose to use nukes long before that occurs. Their strategic framework is based on making sure that *all* of its neighbors are too afraid to put up any real resistance to Israeli expansion. Iran has resisted Israel; if Israel doesn’t absolutely destroy Iran, this will show that resistance is possible (even if still very costly).
All Iran has to do to “win” is survive; but Israel’s leaders (and probably a large majority of its [Jewish] voters) believe that Iranian survival inevitably leads to Israel being overrun. (In this, they may not be wrong).
Of course, Iran’s leaders (and probably a large majority of its voters…) view this war as existential, for good reason – precisely because Israel really is hell-bent on destroying them (and has convinced US to help).
So, it now seems that the only thing which would prevent Israel from resorting to nukes would be for Iran to capitulate or collapse. Right now, that does not appear likely; ergo, Israel is likely to go nuclear.
I see only two options for preventing that.
The first would be for the USA to cut them off, but AIPAC influence is still strong enough to make that impossible. That level of control won’t last much longer, but sadly, that fact just makes Bibi’s trigger finger even itchier. That in itself may be why Israel pushed for this war /now/; US Midterm elections may make the decline of AIPAC obvious. So, I don’t consider this to be a viable solution.
The other possibility would be for [pretty much] ALL other countries in the world to make a joint statement that using nukes would make Israel a pariah nation, and cease ALL trade, travel, and contact with Israel. Israel could survive for a while with support from the US alone, but not for long; even if the US doesn’t turn against Israel, the US is obviously a declining Power.
But the recent UN vote shows that even this is a fleeting hope. It’s no surprise that the feudal monarchs of the GCC have chosen to side with Israel & USA, of course. But sadly, Europe seems to have made the same choice.
Please, somebody, tell me that there’s another way out of this???
I think that Iran has demonstrated ability to disable critical civilian infrastructure. Shut-down of electrical grid and freshwater desalination, which Iran could do with its high-end conventional strike weapons, would kind of end the Israeli economy. There may already be a MAD-style deterrence to each side employing its last-resort escalatory option. It is conceivable to me that there could be a “frozen conflict” in which each side picks at the other with long-range strikes. I suspect that Iran is better situated to both deal and absorb damage if this is the eventual “equilibrium”.
I think that there is a notional off-ramp for Israel short of destroying Iran, but it would require making peace with its neighbors, and it may be that the Israeli people cannot imagine that their neighbors would be willing to not seek vengeance for what has been inflicted on them over nearly a century.
Israel doesn’t really need an economy, at least not in the short-to-medium term. American taxpayers will be perfectly happy to fund all of Israel’s needs. they will just need to find a way to get the goods in.
Jeffrey Sachs is pleading for Xi, Putin, Modi and Lula to tell Trump to back off.
My gut hunch is Trump still would not listen. To me, Trump’s situation evokes tropes of the mad emperor, Roman or Chinese, walled off in his palace and fed a steady diet of crap by his courtiers, who are only pursuing their own agendas. These situations NEVER end well.
I heard Sachs talking the other day about Trump’s mental health in quite some detail and none of it was good. So here it would be a forlorn hope to get Trump to back off.
KD noted above that Israeli use of nuclear weapons “will have serious consequences for Diaspora Jews, including those which opposed the Zionist project”, and TimH that “Young IDF and ex-IDF [already] have a worldwide reputation as troublemaker tourists.” Jews worldwide might suddenly want to be in the safety of Israel, but if Iran is retaliating for nuclear strikes, there won’t be much safety there either.
So the apocalyptic evangelicals’ wet dream will be fulfilled…
Well, not if Jews prefer to take their chances outside The Promised Land …
And that promised land never seems to have any recognized boundaries, too, but just seems to grow larger and larger, an unending, expansive zionist dream of the entity’s own “manifest destiny.”
Zionists: “We’ll always have Uganda.”
Yes; if Israel uses nukes on [non-nuclear] Iran, Jews outside Israel will get blamed and attacked, regardless of whether they personally deserve it or not.
But does Israel care about that? Does Israel – collectively – consider Jews outside Israel to be “real Jews”?
Israelis seem to have fallen into a cycle of self-fulfilling paranoia; “Everybody’s out to get us, so we have to attack them first”, then “They shot back, that proves they hate us!”. I understand how the Holocaust (and the longer history of Pogroms, etc) fed into that paranoia, leading Zionists to desire a “safe haven”, but in the last few decades, that has snowballed into, well, more of an iceball; harder and colder.
If Israel nukes Iran, and Jews outside Israel get murdered by mobs, Israelis might just view that as *justification* for using nukes! Such circular reasoning is all too common among humans…
I guess that aspect – ex-post-facto self-justification – doesn’t matter. What matters is what Israel’s leaders think *right now*, while the choice to use nukes is being considered. Will they consider the “serious consequences for Diaspora Jews”? Will that really keep them from pushing The Button?
Bibi doesn’t care about anyone other than Bibi. He has to stay in power as long as he can to stay out of prison. He doesn’t care about anything else, and if he thinks using nukes will keep him in power longer, with some forlorn hope of pulling things out of a disaster, he will use nukes. Its not clear what he has on Trump, but Israel is driving the bus on this war, and Bibi is the bus driver.
The only other way out I can see is Iran kills Bibi and the other current crop of leaders and saner people can be put in charge in Israel, with the UN mediating some kind of long-term stand-down that involves Israel finally following the UN resolutions it’s been ignoring all these years and retreating back to its pre-1967 borders and guaranteeing civil rights for the non-Jewish population. Long-term meaning it could take a decade or more to get the final shape of things hammered out. And the US would probably have to be evicted from the UN for that to work, which I think is long overdue given the record of the US in waging wars of aggression since 1946.
Just as in the US of A, in Israel there are no political leaders with the courage and vision to stop the slow motion car wreck we’re now witnessing. Neo-con thinking dominates the foreign policy establishment in the US (a quick perusal of titles in “Foreign Policy” or “Foreign Affairs” betrays a serious divorce from reality), while messianic Kahanist sentiment drive Israeli politics. It’s warmongers all the way down. Whether sanity returns before either Israel or the US resorts to tactical nukes should be the question of the hour. As the scale of the strategic defeat for the US sinks in, who can imagine a man sick as Trump is resorting to the final roll of the dice, the nuclear “option”.
If Zionists believe that they are God’s Chosen People, then no amount of pressure will deter them. End Times christians will cheer them on to Armageddon, which they see as an achievable goal at this point.
These nutters require physical removal from the room where the levers of power can be manipulated, and no amount of voting can accomplish that in the next few weeks.
re, “These nutters require physical removal from the room where the levers of power can be manipulated…”
listened to Larry Wilkerson with Prof Diesen today and in the latter half Larry comments that there seem to be forces in the background that really do want a world wide bonfire.
one such place where the thinking caps are tuned in to keeping the empire myth alive and well is at the Atlantic Council.
published at https://nationalinterest.org by a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council,
(some of his: )
In every generation, the West has faced a defining adversary…Today, that opponent is the powerful, authoritarian, resource-rich Beijing-Moscow axis and its allies…It is a war of necessity. Neutralizing Tehran’s capabilities, at minimum—or achieving the long-overdue regime change that the tens of thousands of Iranians have sacrificed their lives for, if possible—will disarm the primary pro-Chinese and pro-Russian power in the Middle East…This is a war of ideas as much as it is one of missiles. To contain and eventually defeat the China-Russia axis, the West must regain its strategic confidence, defend its integrity, and protect its sanity.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/in-iran-victory-is-non-negotiable
“The West.”
What does that phrase even mean anymore? The only people you hear invoking it are militarist genocide apologists, or even the criminals themselves. Only “Rules-Based Order” has worn worse.
Thailand negotiates agreement with Iran to use Strait of Hormuz
https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/energy/2026/03/28/thailand-negotiates-agreement-with-iran-to-use-strait-of-hormuz/
Shia protestor in Bahrain tortured to death in first days of Iran war: Opposition group
https://www.turkiyetoday.com/region/shia-protestor-in-bahrain-tortured-to-death-in-first-days-of-iran-war-opposition-grou-3217009
Rubio slams Zelenskyy’s Donbas comments and says US may divert Ukraine arms to Iran
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/03/27/rubio-slams-zelenskyys-donbas-comments-and-says-us-may-divert-ukraine-arms-to-iran
Pakistan to host talks with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt amid Iran war diplomacy
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-host-talks-with-saudi-arabia-turkey-egypt-amid-iran-war-diplomacy-2026-03-28/
As we said in the post, all those agreements do is allow for ships in the Persian Gulf to leave. No one is going to risk their vessels and crew to send ships in a war zone, save Iran.
See:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-17/iran-war-hormuz-reopening-looks-unlikely-without-a-ceasefire
The US is ferociously opposed to Iran controlling the Strait. It’s a no-brainer to allow exits. But to allow ships to go in and out? I can see us attacking a bulk carrier to make the point.
I could see them attacking ships that tried to use
And, as I think you’ve pointed out before, it isn’t just a question of scaring ships away – there’s insurance, or rather, a lack thereof.
Not to mention the availability of willing captains and crews, or rather, a lack thereof.
Rather than read MSM slop on Pakistan to host talks with SA, Turkey, Egypt – I ask the question, what of value could they even talk about? Then I decided to read the propaganda piece, which presents the view that negotiated de-escalation (per Trump hallucination) is a reality.
Consider: “Iran has been reviewing the 15-point U.S. proposal, although one official has dismissed it as “one-sided and unfair”. Its demands range from dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme to curbing its missile development and effectively handing over control of the Strait of Hormuz, according to sources and reports.”
Iran is NOT reviewing the unconditional surrender demand. They could have quoted Iran’s foreign minister, but Reuters chose unnamed (Trump official?) to push the lies (not even propaganda) of serious negotiations. The idea that Pakistan can host talks is laughable – why would Iran trust the Pakistani generals who are close to US intel (see Imran Khan) as neutral?
I am going to shower and then listen to John Meersheimer to clean off MSM muck.
Egypt imposes energy-saving curbs as Hormuz closure hits fuel supply
https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20260328-egypt-imposes-energy-saving-curbs-as-hormuz-closure-hits-fuel-supply
Ukraine’s Zelenskiy agrees defence cooperation with UAE, Qatar during Gulf visit
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/ukraine-uae-agree-cooperate-defence-zelenskiy-says-2026-03-28/
Today I am thinking Trump is either going to have a Steiner moment in his near future or all along he’s been secretly an eco-warrior and just destroyed a chunk of oil infrastructure in a way which will cause the whole world to realize its unsustainable dependency on oil, or the major negatives of that oil dependency, on top of the environmental/climate damage we’ve normalized.
And will taking out x% of that oil output for the next few years translate into reducing world carbon output by a significant y% in way which establishes an undeniable causal relationship?
As Crassus probably said: “Who could have imagined they had so many arrows?”
As a Persian reportedly asked Crassus after Carrhae: general, how did you enjoy the performance of Bacchae?
ref: after Crassus was killed during or after the battle of Carrhae, his head was cut off and allegedly used as a prop in the performance of the Euripides’ play, the Bacchae, with the king of Persia attending.
Kuwait airport suffers ‘significant’ radar system damage in Iranian drone attacks
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/kuwait-international-airport-suffers-significant-radar-system-damage-after-drone-2026-03-28/
Drones assistance in exchange for diesel: Zelenskyy reveals details of his visit to Middle East
Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about the threat of a diesel fuel shortage in Ukraine
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/drones-assistance-in-exchange-for-diesel-1774641631.html
I can see why the Gulf Gangsters want Ukraine’s drone expertise, and I can see why Ukraine wants diesel – but how’s the diesel supposed to get from the Gulf to Ukraine? Nothing in the link about that, unsurprisingly.
How is he going to get the diesel out?
Maybe Mizrahi’s statement foreshadows US troops in Lebanon?
There’s already US troops in Israel and Gaza:
I had not taken the time to beat up on your comment before last, where you volunteered ideas about where the war might end up. I disagreed strongly, with specifics, and you said you agreed completely.
If you “agreed completely,” why did you offer such wrong-headed views in the first place? Sophistry? To cause a kerfluffle?
I don’t have time to waste on your games-playing or attention-seeking. This is another strained-to-the-point-of-being-ridiculous extrapolation that I am not about to YET AGAIN waste my time addressing. This if the fourth incident in as many days. I told you at #2 to stop. You have been warned yet persist.
I trust you will find your happiness on the Internet elsewhere.
Now that Trump is bored with this War I expect he will be spending more time at Mar a Lago golfing and getting his Triumphant Arch built quickly.
He can hand the War stuff over to people he can trust absolutely, people who won’t bother him with niggling details.
People like Jared Kushner…
One important factor to consider… historically, one of the major schisms of Islam, which caused much inter-muslim fighting, was the Shia Sunni split. There are some Sunni groups (saudi Wahhabis (and Wahabbis madrassas, and ISIL, ) which would consider The Shia as apostates; hence their hatred of Shia peoples and Iran. (Note that the Isil slogan ,during Iraqi/Syria wars, ‘Christians to Lebanon, Shia to the grave.’ ) I do not know how much of this hatred still exists at the ordinary mosque and the common street, but depending on the local flavour of Islam, it could be significant.
Aside- Certainly the Split had been been a major factor in history as to why the Ottoman Turks never made more progress into Europe after the Battle of Vienna (1680… the Sunni-Sufi Ottomans had many wars with the recently reconstituted Persians after the new ruling dynasty had declared fir Shiism in the 1500’s, sparking centuries of frequent intermittent wars between the two countries.
Be that as it may. However, I personally think that the biggest split (coming from the purse holders) is political and pits autocratic monarchies, military dictatorships, authoritarian “republics” (Sunni) vs some more populist republics (Iran, Iraq and used to be Syria) in the area. Algeria is too far away to matter for GCC, but we have seen the acrimony btw Algeria and Morocco. I had an Algerian firend who’s father fought against and was tortured by the French big time. He had an abismal opinion about the Gulf monarchies and he said that he, being Algerian, would very likely never receive visa to travel for Haji. He wasn’t well inclined about Moroccans either, but that was personal bias: he was engaged with a lady in Morocco and provide ~2 kg worth of gold in dowry (he says), and he was then ditched, with no possibility to recover the investment…
I don’t know about you all but I am getting tired of all this winning. I paid almost 4 bucks a gallon to fill my tank yesterday and that was with discounts. Of course, what I did when I saw that bill was emit a glorious ear splitting “huzzah!” . It woke the roosters from three miles away, I tell you.
This is of course just joshing (although true) about the MAGA loyalty to Trump, and their loyalty through him to the Israelis, and, it’s stunning that even after all this time the Dembots still have no brain and no mind to plot any kind of alternative course whatsoever, but who am I to ruin the party of Winning (r)
I saw a list yesterday of the Democrat stable of potential 2028 leadership material. I cannot tell you but that I was inspired. Especially when it comes to convincing the Iranians, when the time comes, that America(tm) is, um, serious —- sorry, holding back laughter here —- about, um, peace.
Who better than a McKinsey Associates assclown to convince Iran that the United States can be trusted to behave like a Good Global Citizen.
I may even write poetry over this.
Perhaps now would be a good time to collectively sing songs like that scene in the movie Aliens.
Full of sympathy here for your 4 buck gas pains, I paid 6.09 here in ca last week at cheap Costco.
Yes, dem 2028 hopefuls seem to be beacons of hope for world peace and the common billionaire – er, man. I guess I might have been wrong re the greater evil last time, but went for lesser and went green.
Green? Why vote for the lesser evil, when the OG green candidate is running?
Yikes! And I thought Colorado was expensive.
In reality though, I’m cosplaying. We ‘murcans have a mass murdering 5 year old raper spree (serial?) killer in the Oval. And he’s the good guy. Who wants peace(s) and all that.
I thought it only appropriately American to shriek about gas prices in the face of all that. If all this goes on much longer I just might sarcasm myself to death.
[family blog] me.
just paid 2 EUR/L here in france
Four bucks a gallon? Living in California, where local gas prices are currently in the high fives, I shall not weep for thee. Well, maybe a little bit.
https://x.com/drhossamsamy65/status/2037875541911413083
Has anyone seen a confirmation of this? The Twixt contains nine photos with names and ages.
Just did a yandex search and nothing came up. I didn’t see anything at PressTV or Al Mayadeen either.
The operators in the x post photo also look surprisingly similar to each other…
Yes, I noticed the similar faces – and no source given, let alone Tasnim/etc, just “IRGC confirms …”.
We westerners all look the same? Toothy grins, cloven hooves, horns and a serpentine tail?
I don’t mean to throw shade on the report, maybe it’s true, but if you look at the photos, they are duplicated and any changes are very slight — they all look the same.
The photos are all of the same one or two individuals. Names are a different matter. Perhaps that can be followed up on.
Oh — and all the names are White Bread American.
I am essentially calling [family blog] on this report.
That account is George Galloway level of slop: meaning some true stuff mixed with random reposted rubbish.
This particular tweet is rubbish.
1. AI graphics
2. Dramatic claim that appears on no credible sources
3. “Iran spox” “IRGC confirms” is too vague. A more credible report has a named source OR video from a press conference.
4. The content also just reads like vague rubbish “delta force or CENTCOM soldiers with high tech weapons”.
As usual, your posts are on the mark.
“Critical Thinking for today’s
media consumersDummies” would be a useful topic of it’s own.Hmmm, Al Jazeera posts include an info bubble pointing out that it is supported by an Islamic government. But posts from WaPo and the NYT don’t have a bubble indicating that they are owned by billionaires who suck Trump’s dick. Why is that, do you suppose?
Family blog, please.
Ok, so I’m going to jump in on the Hindustan Times “Merkava Massacre” report. Since I’ve done a lot of reading into calculations of vehicle losses by various sides in World War II, among other conflicts.
I have no doubt that Hezbollah HIT around 100 Merkava tanks since March 2. In fact, a number of videos, maybe not 100 quite yet, have been posted to various non-Arabic Telegram channels; I can only imagine what goes on in the Arabic-language section of Telegram.
However, when any projectile (or drone) hits a tank, you have several possible outcomes:
– Ricochet. No damage.
– Reactive armor activates. No damage.
– Non-penetrating hit. No damage.
– Non-penetrating hit. External damage (gun, tracks, sensors).
– Non-penetrating hit. Internal damage from the shock, including possible concussions (or worse) for the crew.
– Penetrating hit. Damage of varying severity, but the tank is repairable (or, sometimes, even still mobile).
– Penetrating hit. Fatal damage (ammo, engine, etc.).
Here, one recalls an interview from 2015-ish with a DNR volunteer claiming that on average it takes 7 RPG shots to down a Ukrainian tank – two will miss, two will ricochet or not penetrate, one will knock it out, and two more will set the knocked-out machine on fire. But note that this scenario entails five separate hits on the same vehicle. [And it gets a lot more confusing once you start trying to track vehicle losses during the Battle of Kursk…]
Similarly, the damage levels are:
– No damage, though the crew may sometimes still abandon the tank (you saw this a lot in Syria, by the way).
– Minor damage. Tank effectively knocked out of action, but can be repaired within 1-2 hours, sometimes without going back to the repair depot (e.g. if it’s just a thrown track).
– Moderate damage. Tank knocked out of action, but can be repaired at the frontline depot (1-3 days).
– Severe damage. Tank still repairable, but requires the equivalent of factory replacement of major components (weeks/months).
– Total write-off. Tank is scrap metal.
Incidentally, one incredible source of annoyance in tracking German aircraft losses, for example, is that they’ll say something like “60% damaged” and then NOT record the thing as actually lost. Even though it obviously cannot fly, and needs significant repairs, probably not at the forward airfield either. German tanks are a little easier, as long as you focus on “net available” each morning, because again, they won’t record a “loss” so long as a tank can be hypothetically repaired and returned to action, even if it takes a month to repair it.
Anyway. As I said, I have not seen all 100 videos of Hezbollah hits on Merkavas. But the videos I have seen universally cut off just before the hit, and do not show subsequent effects. By contrast, when Russian MoD-adjacent channels upload hits, they’ll often splice in shots from an observer drone, showing the effects of the strike – which is how I know, for instance, that in one incident the Russians hit a moving Bradley with five FPVs in the space of a minute and a half to little effect, and only the sixth one, which arrived when the thing stopped and started to disgorge its passengers, actually got a damaging hit in and knocked it out (by flying into the now open rear hatch). Good thing they only claimed one Bradley down, rather than six…
So without any damage control data, and if anyone has any please do link it, it is theoretically possible that all 100 Merkavas are total write-offs; it is also theoretically possible that all 100 Merkavas are in the no damage or minor damage category. Sight unseen, I would conservatively assume 25 are minor to no damage, 50 are knocked out but repairable, and 25 are serious damage or total write-offs, though these are just guesses. Which is still fairly significant – even spread over time, it basically means on any given day, net of replacements and repairs you’re still minus a couple of tank platoons, one of which is turned into scrap metal.
Put differently, if Hezbollah were to maintain 20 hits per day rate for a full month – 600 hits – let’s say that’s 100-150 factory repairs or total write-offs, and you start out with only ~400 Merkavas not in storage. Not a good attrition rate, hypothetically speaking.
Another thing to keep tabs on are crew losses. For various conflicts you often end up averaging 1-1.5 dead per knocked out or destroyed tank, though this somewhat depends on the particulars (e.g. if drone operators are hunting bailed-out crewmen, the rate goes up significantly). So if 100 Merkavas were hit and let’s say 75 of these hits were damaging or fatal…somewhere, there should be at least a couple of dozen dead Israeli tankers, or significantly more. Unless, of course, they weren’t in the tank at the time, and from the videos at least a few Merkavas were stopped with the rear doors open just before impact, so who knows. Still, if the IDF claims something like only 4 deaths in Lebanon thus far, I think, and we assume a few dozen tanks knocked out or destroyed, both of these statements are highly unlikely to be true at the same time. [And no, the Merkava is not some “special-super-secret-sauce” tank that magically protects the crew much better than other vehicles due to its engine-front-crew-back configuration, IDF propaganda notwithstanding. Maybe in conventional head-on tank-on-tank engagements, though even there I have some quibbles, but almost certainly not against current-generation ATGMs and especially FPV drones, whose operators typically make a point of hitting the side-top-rear weak spots.]
The BNE Intelligence editor in chief also reported on the Merkava tank kills. He specifically said how shocking it was that they had not protection in light of the need to create turtle tanks in Ukraine war.
Defense Security Asia, which is careful, points out that his is a Hezbollah claim but notes that they supplied a lot of visual evidence:
https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/hezbollah-merkava-losses-almas-kornet-atgm-trophy-system-israel-armor-war-analysis/
And tank crews are harder to replace “from inventory” than the tanks themselves. Plus the IDF’s infantry tends to be overly reliant on its tank support.
Unless the tank can drive, it is out of the fight – S. Lebanon is not (logistically for Israel) the same as Gaza – recovery exposes more tanks to destruction.
Not only logistics, but the physical geography is much more difficult.
To repair a vehicle, armored or not, it has to be moved off the battlefield. If the recovery teams can’t get to the damaged vehicle or remove it from the battlefield it’s a kill no matter how light the damage actually is. I suspect that this is a problem IDF is facing in Lebanon.
This reminds me of the difficulties in counting destroyed tanks using historical records from WW2. Obviously, there are all sorts of incentives to bias the numbers one way or the other, even if they are not outright lying, but one bizarro story that I (think I) read claimed that the first Tiger that fell into the hands of the Red Army was not listed as a loss by the Germans for a long time because it sank into a swamp and the guy in charge of tank recovery claimed that his people could eventually pull it out for months, not knowing that the Russians already pulled it out.
I’ve seeing (unconfirmed) reports that IDF is sometimes abandoning their Namer APCs, which either means breakdown of the discipline or breakdown of the machine. Or maybe they are just way too heavy and slow on the modern battlefield.
Might this spell the end of the idea of the heavy APC? Maybe there is some value for them in (certain kinds of) urban combat, but seems dangerously cumbersome in a lot of other settings–like in mountains and hills.
In the beginning, APCs were intended largely as delivery vehicles to the “front”, with the grunts then deploying in front of them. The apc’s role was limited to using its heavy machine gun for fire support, when the gun wasn’t also dismounted and used with a tripod.
The idea that it would be a great idea to use them as fighting platforms in their own right came later, and was never that great an idea against serious opposition.
Thus the difference between the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier – aka the “battlefield taxi” (which is a hoot to drive) and the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle which is sort of an … ultralight tank, I guess you could call it. APCs are lightly armored and drop off the troops* and provide maybe a bit of support. The IFVs are expected to be more likely to fight.
The Russians appear to think the Bradley is not all that bad….
*yes, yes, there are variants that carry mortars and antitank weapons, and the execrable M901 “Improved” TOW Vehicle.
The M113 really was a fun vehicle to drive. But it was a huge target.
Namer is in a class of its own: it’s a turretless adaptation of the Merkava IV tank, which is already a part time APC to begin with (rear door and theoretical ability to sneak onboard a few infantry). The darn thing weighs 60+ tons–a ridiculous design for an APC…but some people seemed to think it a good idea.
And those recovery teams become secondary targets, especially in an era of drone warfare…
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/commodities/articles/middle-east-top-aluminum-maker-152103677.html
More supply chain issues forthcoming… “Emirates Global Aluminium’s biggest metal-producing plant sustained “significant damage” during an Iranian missile and drone attack on Saturday”
Pentagon asks for pre-made bunkers that can be quickly shipped to the Middle East
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-03-28/pentagon-exploratory-call-premade-bunkers-middle-east-21201414.html
JD Vance rips into Netanyahu in phone call over Iran war: report
https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/jd-vance-rips-into-netanyahu-in-phone-call-over-iran-war-report-white-house-middle-east-fox-news-jesse-waters
US ambassador: UK’s closer ties with EU are a problem
Britain pursuing closer ties with the European Union will “not be viewed favourably” in the White House if it in any way affects the trading relationship between the UK and US, Washington’s ambassador to the UK has warned.
https://www.cityam.com/us-ambassador-warns-against-eu-realignment/
Scoop: Rubio and EU official had heated exchange on Russia at G7 meeting
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/28/rubio-kallas-ukraine-russia-argument-g7
IDF detains CNN journalists in the West Bank, one crew member injured, cameras damaged
IDF soldiers detained a CNN crew covering settler violence for at least two hours. One photographer was injured, and his camera was damaged.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-891464
From the bonkers, sorry, bunkers link:
“Interested vendors were asked to submit three options for different estimated time frames: 3 days, 15 days and 30 days. All of the options had to be deliverable to King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, Jordan. Each response was required to identify the level of protection provided by the bunkers, including the highest level of threat that the bunker is designed to withstand, such as a ballistic impact.”
I guess three days would get them bunkers that can withstand rifle fire and grenades. Fifteen days might get a few that could resist a little light debris from intercepted missiles.
And I doubt if thirty days is enough for a portable bunker that can take a direct missile hit.
But if Rubio’s to be believed, they’ll have gone home by then anyway.
I wonder what this may imply about US ability to build protective structures on site right now. Maybe there is a shortage of materials, or of personnel with the right skills.
How will the pre-fabbed structures be moved to their sites of emplacement? By ship is slow; perhaps on heavy lift air transports?
Who could have known that US forces might need protective enclosures?
I guess the idea of pouring cement into holes dug in the ground is just too LOW PROFIT. So the obvious solution is to just make them out of sophisticated ceramics and plastics and fly them across the globe for airdropping in place**.
**they will be installed into holes dug into the ground that have cement poured into them.
I smell money. Lots of it.
I guess it would make sense to have prefabbed steel/aluminum/wood/plastic molds with reinforcement bars already in place as interconnecting modules to put in the hole and then fill the mold with rapid-set concrete, wait 12 hours and cover the brand new bunker.
With some standardization even the electric cabling and the ventilation shafts could be preinstalled.
Gosh, in a war of choice you’d think this would have been accomplished BEFORE kickoff?
Why bother, if you expect the opposition to just roll over and die after a couple days? See further examples at the Wehrmacht not taking their longjohns for their trip to Moscow in 1941.
This is what makes it a “war of whim” rather than a “war of choice”.
Janet suggests shipping containers with “BUNKER” painted on the side. Two million per.
Here’s a 1-day option: get a backhoe and get busy.
Thank you for all the links you provide!
You’re welcome, Rex
Here’s why: US wants to push it’s chlorinated chicken and hormonal beef onto the UK market.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/03/24/keir-starmer-to-bring-back-76-eu-laws-kings-speech/
US says naval group with 3,500 Marines enters CENTCOM region
US Central Command said Sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli arrived in its area of responsibility on March 27, deploying a force that includes roughly 3,500 personnel.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603284940
The MEU’s have arrived in theatre and are slowing down now while command makes up its mind. Iran is apparently expecting a helicopter and Osprey lifted assault on Yemen out of Djibouti, but US is hoping to monster Oman into hosting these forces.
What this would get them in the context of the wider conflict building now is puzzling since command of the Bab el-Mandeb can be negated by destroying the loading and eventually the production units in this direction with all the consequences for the world this would mean.
Marine sources are saying that no heavy gear is being loaded in the US for preparing a large invasion force, instead ship loads of bombs are being sent. This shows that a ceasefire is no more likely here than in Ukraine and Iran must persevere. Those extra B1 planes didn’t go to the UK for nothing.
Iran has missiles in a container systems that will let them get close to UK airfields and US gas plants using Q ships sourced from ships slipping out of Hormuz with AIS disabled from among the detained vessels. They will hopefully take the fight to the enemy homelands.
Mr Xi should sign up now for Power of Siberia 2 and stop haggling about price, the Straight of Malacca is next and gas and oil tanker piracy will spread now.
UK ‘weeks away’ from medicine shortages if Iran war continues, experts say
Concern that supply chain disruption could hit health essentials – and prices – from painkillers to cancer treatment
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/28/uk-weeks-away-medicine-shortages-iran-war-impacts-experts-warn
meanwhile……
Taxpayers’ Tab for Donald Trump’s Golf Habit Crosses $100 million
This is Trump’s 56th visit to his course in West Palm Beach and 110th golf day in just over 14 months in office, keeping him on track to spend $300 million on golf.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-100-million_n_69c6e1dde4b041837420f5ad
‘Suddenly energy independence feels practical’: Europeans are building mini solar farms at home
https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/26/suddenly-energy-independence-feels-practical-europeans-are-building-mini-solar-farms-at-ho
Can anyone do a regression analysis with these metrics? 1) The actual price of physical oil & other key commodities; 2) the 10 year treasury rate vs. the bond market; 3) the sale of US treasuries by other countries, e.g. Japan; 4) Trump’s approval rating, 5) US inflation, 6) trends in the stock market; & 7) With-drawl of ‘promised’ US investments by GCC states, 8) Amount to credit card exhaustion, & 9) US/Israeli anti missile amount versus Iranian missile & drone amounts.
can you venmo me first? :)
I do not know if this is real, but I trust the sentiment, lol.
“[MBS] didn’t think he would be kissing my ass, he really didn’t…and now he has to be nice to me….he better be nice to me, he’s gotta be..”
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/179567#
I would love for MBS to be nicer to Trump. In the usual way MBS is nice. And he could be nicer to the super nice guy that Trump is.
Is MBS carrying a bone saw?
You ask impolitic questions, my friend. Surely Trump’s sometime visit via Qatari Air to Riyadh will come off without incident.
Someone bombed Iranian water infrastructure.
American retards are in charge by active or passive management, either: 1) Trump is being duplicitous by saying he wants peace but allowing/ordering escalation; 2) Trump is not in charge and letting US underlings go amok; 3) Trump is not in charge, and Israel is intentionally escalating, trapping Trump
Al Jazeera: “An attack by the US and Israel has targeted a major water source in the city of Haftgel, located in Iran’s western Khuzestan province, reports Iran’s Fars news agency, citing a local security official.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/3/28/iran-war-live-trump-again-slams-natos-lack-of-support-for-war-on-tehran?update=4442654
I think it might be entirely possible that DJT wants escalation some of the time, and de-escalation some of the time. There doesn’t seem to be a plan.
Trump obviously can’t be fully in charge, because he’s incapable of caring enough about the specifics to even know, in any meaningful sense, what’s going on.
He can look at options on a menu, and pick one with no idea of what it actually entails.
Americans are pulling money out of their 401(k) funds at record rates
https://www.businessinsider.com/401k-hardship-withdrawals-record-retirement-savings-investment-accounts-stock-market-2025-3
Trump ‘has no military way out of war and Iran has better cards’: Experts warn 15-point peace plan is doomed to fail
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-us-peace-plan-war-b2945373.html
CNN crew say troops assaulted them, detained them, then trumpeted far-right ideology
Soldier guarding illegal outpost tells reporter he’s executing ‘revenge’ for settler’s death because state is failing to do so; army condemns incident, vows to investigate
https://www.timesofisrael.com/cnn-crew-say-troops-assaulted-them-detained-them-then-trumpeted-far-right-ideology/
Amusing video:
A highly unusual interception of a Ukrainian FPV drone “Darts” by a Russian anti-aircraft FPV drone armed with two prongs.
https://t.me/zoka200/49217#
https://x.com/yousefmsafr/status/2037933679842836703
I know which option I would take:
‘MBS Would Be Kissing My A*S!’: Trump ‘INSULTS’ Saudi Crown Prince In Iran Speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PauEV8xNqao
Somebody on Trump’s cabinet better get a handle on this situation before every ally America ever had is gone.
Bannon at CPAC warns Iran war just starting: ‘Your sons, daughters … could be on Kharg Island’
https://thehill.com/homenews/5804953-bannon-cpac-us-iran-conflict/
IDF strikes infrastructure in Iran; reports: senior nuclear program official killed
According to Iran International, Ali Fouladvand, head of research at Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), was killed along with members of his family in an airstrike in Borujerd
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syc7d3ssbg
IDF says up to 90% of Iran’s weapons industry could be hit within days
Israeli defense officials said Saturday that most of Iran’s military-industrial infrastructure has already been damaged and that further strikes could push that figure to 90% within days.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-891471
I don’t suppose there is anyone that can “be Walter Cronkite” in either US or Israel.
I watched the nightly body count and damage reports all through high school, by the collapse in 1973 I was an Air Force lieutenant!
I’m catching up on Youtubes including this one with Judge and Wilkerson from two days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq32fmNwp9A
Wilkerson said Postol told him of his belief that the Iranians are making a simple nuclear weapon as we speak and could make a surprise announcement when finished. If, therefore, they have a deliverable weapon via missile the the entire war would suddenly be different.
It seems very far fetched and yet the claim, if made, would have to be taken seriously.
Wilkerson also said that the country of Israel is living underground now because their missile defense is over and they are being hit a lot.
I like Wilkerson’s indignation. As for his claims and speculation—we shall see…
Today this video about Kharg Island appeared in my Youtube “Recommended” feed. It didn’t disappoint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyf8nAlIvCk
I have no idea how trustworthy the source is, but I’m taking retweets from ArmchairWarlord and PolicyTensor as signs of trusteorthiness:
https://xcancel.com/BabakTaghvaee1/status/2037766590343631338#m
It’s pretty remarkable that USAF is still deploying valuable assets like AWACS and refuelers out of Saudi bases which seem eminently vulnerable.
There are photos of the damaged AWAC now (click through to tweet).
OSINTdefender
Pictures show the total loss of 81-0005, an E-3G “Sentry” Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) Aircraft with the U.S. Air Force’s 552nd Air Control Wing based out of Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, following yesterday’s Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The strike appears to have purposefully targeted the most important part of the E-3, that being rear of the aircraft which holds its rotating radar dome, containing several sensitive instruments including antennas for the E-3’s AN/APY-2 Surveillance Radar System.
That should buff right out that.
So I’d been looking over other tweets by this guy and, well, they are pretty colorful! Having said that, though he clearly hates the Islamic Republic (although he’s no fan of the Netanyahu regime either–he seems to hate everyone), he does have some legit insights, but…
The picture of the air war he paints is quite a bit different from what we hear from elsewhere: he suggests that Israeli air force (but not necessarily US) is much more active over Iran than I would have figured, with the support of US tankers. How much activity by Israel over Iran can we track from other sources?
Thousands protest across Israel calling to end war
Five detained in Tel Aviv and six in Haifa, while about 250 gathered near the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, as protests led by former lawmakers drew support from dozens of civil society groups
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hknn7qsjbx
Iran allows 20 more Pakistani ship to pass through the Straits of Hormuz
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2026/03/28/iran-allows-20-more-ships-to-pass-through-strait-of-hormuz-pakistan-says-meaningful-step-toward-peace/
Missing aid boats have safely reached Cuba, US confirms
Two convoy vessels that were supposed to get to Havana by Wednesday have made it to Cuba, says US Coast Guard
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/27/cuba-aid-boats-missing-en-route-mexico-our-america-convoy
Thank you so very much for your updates.
Israeli strikes hit two Gaza police checkpoints, killing six, medics say
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strikes-hit-two-gaza-police-checkpoints-killing-six-medics-say-2026-03-28/
White House app found tracking users’ exact location every 4.5 minutes via third-party server
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/white-house-app-found-tracking-users-exact-location-every-4-5-minutes-via-third-party-server/ar-AA1ZCI79
sorry if this is a duplicate
Re: White House App. Lol, that checks. I wondered why I got a text strongly suggesting it was my patriotic duty to install the app. Very glad I deleted it along with all the other spam I get from political sources.
Finally. Somebody using their brains-
“Victorians and Tasmanians get free public transport as state governments seek to ease surge in fuel demand” at-
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/29/victoria-free-public-transport-april-petrol-prices
In a brilliant summation of the current situation Mearsheimer on Glenn Diesen declares at minute 101:28, “We’re basically screwed.”
Until tomorrow: That’s all, folks.
Someone (Israel?) bombed Iranian universities.
The reckless rulers of the White House should know that from now on, all universities of the occupying regime and American universities in the West Asia region are legitimate targets for us,” the IRGC said.
The IRGC set a deadline of 12:00pm Tehran time on Monday, March 30, for the United States to issue an official condemnation of the strikes on Iranian universities – including the latest strikes on the Isfahan University of Technology and the University of Science and Technology in Tehran.
https://www.rt.com/news/636572-iran-us-israel-war-updates/
Wowzers
BBC
I don’t think these guys (light infantry) can last for weeks if they actually have to fight. No knock on the troops, but light infantry, afaik, just isn’t built for stuff like that.
China Hits Back at U.S. With New Trade Probes Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Beijing responds to investigations by the U.S. that could raise tariffs
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/china-initiates-probes-into-u-s-trade-practices-f02a8951?st=7JbQT3
Welcome to a Multidimensional Economic Disaster
The AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/ai-boom-polycrisis/686559/
Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn’t working
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo
Pentagon prepares for weeks of ground operations in Iran
If President Donald Trump approves the plans, such an effort would mark a new phase of the war that could be significantly more dangerous to U.S. troops than the first four weeks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/28/trump-iran-ground-troops-marines/
Trump ratchets attacks on NATO, saying it’s not needed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/27/trump-nato-iran-war/
IRGC declares US, Israeli universities legitimate targets
Oops. As I recall a great many Ivy League universities have campuses in wealthy Gulf countries. I guess that’s the end of that.
I have quite a few friends, colleagues, and acquaintances at NYU Abu Dhabi. Hope they are (and stay) safe. :/
🇶🇦 QATAR
▪️ Carnegie Mellon University
▪️ Georgetown University
▪️ Texas A&M University
▪️ Northwestern University
▪️ Weill Cornell Medicine
🇦🇪 UAE
▪️ NYU Abu Dhabi
▪️ American University in Dubai
▪️ American University of Sharjah
🇱🇧 LEBANON
▪️ American University of Beirut
▪️ Lebanese American University
🇮🇶 IRAQ
▪️ American University of Iraq — Baghdad
▪️ American University of Iraq — Sulaimani
▪️ American University of Kurdistan — Duhok
🇰🇼 KUWAIT
▪️ American University of Kuwait
🇯🇴 JORDAN
▪️ American University of Madaba
These make my blood boil
DOD IG: Neglect of Military Working Dogs Caused Disease, Mold, Deaths
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2026/03/27/dod-ig-neglect-of-military-working-dogs-caused-disease-mold-deaths.html
Black farmers shut out of Trump White House farmers event: ‘Why can’t we be at the table?’: As President Trump hails his administration’s efforts to support farmers amid rising costs, Black farmers facing foreclosure continue to get the cold shoulder.
thegrio.com
This is utterly fascinating:
https://nitter.poast.org/LNGFrankie/status/2037769080900378883#m
E-3 AWACS airplane (likely) destroyed on the ground, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine (semi-official magazine of the US Air Force)
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/key-e-3-awacs-aircraft-damaged-iranian-attack-saudi-air-base/