[As has seemed to become necessary given the intense news flow, this post launched before complete. Please either come back at 8:00 PM EST or refresh your browsers then for a final version]
Today’s Iran war overview will of necessity be a bit sprawling, which means in giving information to either explain or substantiate some key points, we will be a bit heavy on videos and long tweets where readers will benefit from digesting the source content. So apologies for not having distilled this recap so as to make it easier to digest. The flip side is you will be better informed if you do dive into this material.
The major development is that the US is doubling down even harder on its pretense that it will carry on the conflict as long as needed to overthrow the Iranian government, and has voiced the idea that it might go as long as 100 days, meaning into September.
Our comparatively optimistic view is that it will last nowhere that long, not due to what many predict, the US and Israel becoming exhausted militarily, but a serious market swoon and potentially a full bore crisis.1 We anticipate that will start to happen when investors stop listening to the deranged patter from the Administration and digest the implications of a mere additional month of closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the odds that it could go on well beyond that. And unlike the state of the kinetic war, where fog of war plus propaganda can keep them significantly in the dark, the state of tanker and other vessel movements through the Strait is highly visible. I am not one to engage in forecasts, but it seems inconceivable that investor denialism about the inability of the US and Israel to open the Strait of Hormuz in any reasonable time frame (never, but the “topple Iran” fantasy is still in play) and the considerable and compounding real economy consequences of that cannot hold beyond mid-April, and could start to take hold in a more serious way as soon as next week.
We will turn later in this post to more information about the systemic impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure, including why energy supplies would not quickly go back to their pre-conflict level, which means a more durable impact than most investors seem to be considering now. We will also explain the Trump scheme to have the US provide or backstop war risk insurance is not even remotely achievable on any relevant time frame.
Now to the kinetic war and related political developments.
US and Israel fans were taking considerable cheer yesterday from the fact that Iran has slowed its tempo of missile attacks. That did not last long. The banner headline at Bloomberg later in the day:
From the body of that account:
Iran launched a fresh wave of missile and drone strikes across the Gulf on Thursday evening, with attacks reported in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.
Bahrain’s oil refinery was hit and set on fire, and there were reports of explosions near Abu Dhabi’s international airport. The UAE earlier warned Dubai residents of incoming projectiles, urging them to seek immediate shelter, before signaling the all clear about an hour later. Qatar also told residents to remain indoors, while the US said it’s suspending operations at its embassy in Kuwait.
After a period when the intensity of Iran’s missile and drone attacks had waned, the latest assaults showed that Tehran still has the capability to hit targets across the region simultaneously. The attacks keep the pressure on the Gulf states’ air defenses and make it unlikely that airspace will reopen to commercial traffic anytime soon.
With Iran continuing to thin US/Israel/Gulf State air defenses, it can do more damage with smaller attack waves as more of its missiles get through.
This very recent TRT segment recaps the pounding on both sides. The reporter managed to film in Tel Aviv and show damage there as well as other fronts:
Despite the fact that the US and Iran are continuing to exchange blows, with Tehran and other Iranian cities taking real damage while the situation in Israel is largely hidden due to the effective operation of military censors, the fury and desperation from the Administration are rising as the Iran government remains intact and continues to pound targets across the region. Trump is managing to reach even higher notes in his register of insanity with his demand that he participate in the selection of Iran’s next Supreme Leader.
And if you thought I am being hyperbolic as depicting the Administration as more and more visibly unhinged, consider:
‘No more rules and political correctness’ – Hegseth stated that the US will do whatever it wants with Iran.
‘If you think you’ve already seen something – just wait. The amount of military power we can project over Iran is many times greater than what we have now – if we combine… pic.twitter.com/d3ETJH6GKA
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) March 6, 2026
I hope readers do not see this reference as degrading our reporting, but yours truly has invoked mythology to explain some of the behavior of the Trump team. This segment from V for Vendetta seems fitting:
Back to this conflict. Daniel Davis has given an good overview of the insanity of a ground campaign in Iran, even a limited Kurdish incursion scheme. He also contrasts that with the increasingly empty Administration escalatory talk as proof of the lack of a Plan B.
We featured Davis’ earlier explanation of why the idea of a naval convoy to escort ships thought the Strait of Hormuz was simply asking form them to become easy targets for Iranian missiles and drones. To see how desperate the Administration is to keep up the fantasy that there is a path to victory, see the Fox clip with Keith Kellogg, starting at 18:23. Kellogg suggests that the US take an island in the Persian Gulf. I am not making that up. Needless to say, Davis takes that apart:
At the very end, Davis shows footage of a US strike in Iran purported to have destroyed one of its underground bunkers. The size of the explosion is consistent with having hit something of value, at the very least munitions or fuel storage.
Scott Ritter gave a long-form debunking of the idea that Kurdish or other irregular forces would be effective two days ago, with Nina at Dialogue Works. Starting at at roughy 37:00, he also covered a point that readers have made, that Turkiye would be extremely unhappy about this operation and would stomp on it.2
Max Blumenthal on Judge Napolitano describes the punishment inflicted on Tehran. The entire talk is valuable but one part explained the pathological hatred that Trump exhibited towards Iran at the State of the Union address. Blumenthal contends that the Israelis convinced Trump that Iran was behind the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Blumenthal also depicted the idea of sending in the Kurds as a vehicle for introducing US special forces, and that Netanyahu was particularly keen about getting US boots on the ground. As numbers increased, it would lead to casualties and deaths, leading to even firmer US commitment, such as the need for vengeance or the belief that only an eventual victory will legitimate their sacrifice.
Larry Johnson provided an update on a key element of the war, which is how far along Iran is in degrading US and Israel air defenses. Do read his post, The Failure of US and Israeli Air Defense, in full. Some key bits:
Since February 28, 2026, amid escalating US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Iranian retaliatory attacks (including drone and missile strikes on US diplomatic facilities and regional bases), the US State Department has ordered the closure or indefinite suspension of operations at several US embassies in the Persian Gulf and broader Middle East region. These include:
Saudi Arabia….
Kuwait….
Lebanon…
Operations at the US embassies in Doha, Dubai and Manama also have been dramatically scaled down. The videos posted during the last five days show Iranian missiles and drones hitting targets in the six Gulf countries virtually unopposed.
The real damage is being done to US military bases/installations in the region. The following US military bases/installations in the Persian Gulf (or directly associated with Gulf states) have been confirmed or reported as attacked/hit since February 28, based on US military statements, satellite imagery analyses (e.g., Planet Labs), media reports (NYT, CNN, Al Jazeera, Stars and Stripes), and official confirmations from host nations. Here is how the Western media sources are spinning these attacks:
- Naval Support Activity Bahrain / U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet Headquarters (Manama, Bahrain)….
- Al Udeid Air Base (near Doha, Qatar) — The largest US military facility in the Middle East….
- Ali Al Salem Air Base (Kuwait) — Struck by ballistic missiles and drones. Satellite imagery showed damage to buildings and structures. Kuwait confirmed interceptions and hits; part of multiple strikes across Kuwaiti sites hosting US troops.
- Camp Arifjan (Kuwait)…..
- Camp Buehring (Kuwait)….
- Al Dhafra Air Base (Abu Dhabi, UAE)….
The damage that is being inflicted is far greater and more severe than the Pentagon is reporting. The most damaging result of the Iranian attacks has been the destruction of critical radar systems that are supposed to provide an early warning of Iranian missile launches…..
To avoid over-hoisting from Johnson’s post, I have skipped over the detail on the embassies and the bases, and most important, the damage to radars thus far. While some of what the US calls bases in some cases might be more accurately called installations, as Johnson shows, Iran has made strikes of real consequence on our biggest operations in theater as well as critical radars.
Another sign of things not going according to US plans:
Tomahawk Reloads
With Omani ports under attack and completely exposed to the Houthis, as well as the ports in the Horn of Africa, the American fleet can only be reloading its Tomahawks to the east, most likely in Pakistan or India.
This procedure has to be done in ports,…
— Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) March 6, 2026
Now to the systemic economic/financial market risk. The Administration has effectively admitted that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will be longer rather shorter via its messaging to the US public that this could be a 100 day war. In the meantime, traffic in the Gulf is at a standstill From the Financial Times
Yesterday, the Financial Times provided another key element of why the downside of a Strait of Hormuz and LNG production halts are even more serious than they seem: that for the LNG, the longer the operations are shut down, the longer it will take to get them to full operation. And it isn’t just LNG; oil players will have to shut down once they run out of storage. From the pink paper in Gulf oil producers face race to resume exports before storage fills up:
The Gulf’s biggest oil producers are facing a race against time to resume exports before their storage tanks fill up, with Saudi Arabia estimated to have as little as two weeks before it would have to cut production.
Iraq on Tuesday became the first major exporter to begin reducing output, announcing it was winding down production at three of its largest oilfields.
Further oilfields across the region are poised to shut down over the coming days, taking millions of barrels of crude off the market, unless energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are able to resume….
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has the most extensive storage in the region, but satellite imagery suggests that some facilities are becoming stretched…
Richard Bronze, head of geopolitical analysis at consultancy Energy Aspects, said Saudi Arabia’s buffer was likely to last longer than those of its neighbours. In addition to domestic storage, the kingdom can divert several million barrels a day through its east-west pipeline to a Red Sea terminal, bypassing Hormuz. That could give Riyadh three to four weeks before it needs to trim production…
The cost of shutting down oilfields can be significant, said Fraser McKay, head of upstream research at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie…
McKay estimated that if the shut-in is brief and orderly, the field could be brought back online in a week or two. “However, the longer it is shut in, the more likely it is that the wells will need some work to be restored,” he said. Since Rumaila has a mix of old and new wells, its operators may leave some wells running if they think they will be hard to bring back online….
Producers may start to wind down even before storage capacity is exhausted, keen to make sure they close fields in an orderly way to avoid damaging their reservoirs.
We are already seeing the cost of the loss of oil revenues, physical damage, flight of some high income residence, and air space closures leading Gulf States to consider pulling back on investment commitments (including those to the US) as well as liquidating investments to make up for the loss of oil and tax income. From Reuters:
Gulf states could start to review their overseas investments and future commitments as they consider options to ease the pressure on their budgets following the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, the Financial Times reported on Thursday….
For decades, the Gulf’s rise rested on two core assumptions: that its rapidly growing cities offered safe haven in an unstable region and that vast wealth from uninterrupted energy exports would keep flowing. Recent events have shaken both pillars at once.
“A number of Gulf countries have begun an internal review to determine whether force majeure clauses can be invoked in current contracts, while also reviewing current and future investment commitments in order to alleviate some of the anticipated economic strain from the current war,” a Gulf official told FT.
From the original Financial Times story:
An adviser to a Gulf government said the prospect of an investment review by the wealthy states had caught the White House’s attention. They manage some of the world’s largest and most active sovereign wealth funds, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar last year pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US after President Donald Trump visited the region.
They are also big backers of sporting events around the world and have all been investing heavily domestically to develop their nations and diversify their economies.
Any move that affects investments in the US or other western states may raise the pressure on Trump to seek a diplomatic strategy to bring the war to an end.
We also mentioned another systemic risk, that of higher food costs and potential reduced output due to the impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure on fertilizer supplies. While reader PlutoniumKun contended in comments that there are big reserves of fertilizer, that may only be true in the EU. OilPrice suggests otherwise:
Global food production is structurally vulnerable because roughly half of all food depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, a substantial portion of which is exported from the Gulf region through the threatened Strait of Hormuz. Unlike oil markets which have a strategic buffer, fertilizer trade operates on a just-in-time basis with no equivalent strategic stockpile to offset a prolonged disruption. A sustained disruption would not cause an immediate price spike but would lead to reduced nitrogen availability, lower crop yields months later, and ultimately result in tighter inventories and elevated food prices.
Finally, to the other Trump “hail Mary” scheme, of having the US provide war risk insurance to carriers. This from the absolutely must read The Invisible Siege: How Insurance Markets, Not Missiles, Closed the Strait of Hormuz by Shanaka Anselm Perera. It explains why shipping (not just tankers but any carrier) will not pass through the Strait of Hormuz without war risk coverage, includes an impressive, in-depth discussion of the structure of the market, and how already unduly thin reserves for war risk were depleted thanks to the Houthi attacks. The buffers are now so thin that the loss of one tanker would wipe out what little remains.
Perera also covers in depth why there is absolutely no way the Trump Administration will be able to step into the breach. Before you reject his idea, consider: advanced economies have developed very extensive mechanisms to backstop banks, since the payment system is essential for commerce. Even so, with ample warning of the accelerating 2007-2008 crisis (there were three acute phases prior to the Lehman implosion), authorities in the US, UK, and Europe failed to get in front of the problem. And they failed to impose adequate reforms afterwards, as proven by the way the collapse of a merely pretty big, purely domestic Silicon Valley Bank, forced a large scale emergency intervention.
There is nothing remotely like that sort of pre-existing supervision and rescue infrastructure in insurance.
Key bits from Perera:
The structural implication is stark: the Hormuz actuarial blockade will persist not for the duration of Operation Epic Fury’s kinetic campaign, but for the duration of the insurance market’s reinstatement process. Those are two fundamentally different timelines. The kinetic campaign may last four to eight weeks, as the administration projects. The insurance reinstatement, based on the only available reference classes, will require six to eighteen months under even a favorable scenario. The gap between those two timelines is where the alpha lives…
What makes the current timeline particularly intractable is the nuclear overhang. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that 440.9 kilograms of sixty-percent enriched uranium has been unaccounted for since June 10, 2024, the last date of human verification. Director General Rafael Grossi stated that the loss of continuity of knowledge needs to be addressed with utmost urgency. This quantity is sufficient for multiple nuclear weapons if further enriched. Regardless of how the kinetic campaign resolves, no reinsurer will restore Gulf war risk capacity while nearly half a metric ton of weapons-proximate uranium remains unaccounted for in a country undergoing simultaneous military bombardment and leadership succession. The nuclear tail risk, priced at approximately zero in current markets, is the factor that could extend the insurance reinstatement timeline from months to years.
IMHO, another monster market uncertainty is that Israel has never honored any ceasefire. So insurers cannot be certain if the conflict has really stopped. Continuing:
The third precondition is the absence of government backstop infrastructure. When aviation terrorism risk became commercially uninsurable after September 11, 2001, Congress passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The legislative process took fourteen months. During that interval, terrorism coverage for commercial property was essentially unavailable in the private market. In the maritime domain, the equivalent backstop does not exist. The US Maritime Administration possesses dormant authority under Title 46, Chapter 539 to issue war risk insurance binders, but this requires Presidential activation and covers only US-flagged vessels, a negligible fraction of global tonnage. The United Kingdom’s War Risks Club, government-reinsured since 1913, provides cover for UK-flagged vessels. Japan created a 7.6-billion-dollar sovereign guarantee during the 2012 EU sanctions-era insurance disruption, but the process took approximately two months.
No government has ever created a comprehensive marine war risk reinsurance facility from scratch during an active crisis in less than several weeks. The fastest precedent is MARAD activation, which could theoretically produce US-flagged vessel coverage within days. The slowest is new legislation, which requires months. The relevant question is not whether governments can act, but whether government action can replace the global reinsurance architecture that just withdrew. The answer, based on every historical precedent available, is that it cannot. Not within the timeline this crisis demands.
And in the “too important to miss” catchall: Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base New York Times.
____
1 Forgive me for channeling my inner Tom Friedman, but my taxi driver today (who I have had before, a chatty and inquisitive young man) volunteered that Thais are hoarding cash, out of concern that bank networks could go down and they would not be able to make payments by app, which is very popular here. If people this far from kinetic action are taking protective measures, it suggests that many consumers and businesses around the world are or will soon start hunkering down, which is a recessionary force operating independent of energy price increases. He also volunteered that China was supporting Iran.
2 Forgive me for not having well cleaned up the machine-generated transcript of the relevant parts. I will do that after the post is otherwise complete:
Well, you remember I told you I was pulled out of amphibious warfare school to go on a planning staff for the comm of the Marine Corps to plan amphibious operations. This was in uh September of 1990. United States was in the process of moving 700 plus thousand troops into the region to fight a war with Iraq, including hundreds of thousands of ground troops, ground combat troops, many divisions worth of troops. Um, back then we were geared to do this…
Just remember, we got to go to Iran…
Logistically, this would be a nightmare, but we could do that. Move through to get to the Iraqi Iranian border where we then would have to cross in. Have you looked at a map of Iran? Have you seen the mountain ranges that separate um Iran and Iraq from say Thran, the seat of power, or from anywhere?…the Iranians have been preparing for decades to receive us and destroy us and annihilate us. Uh so we have that option. It would take us nine months to more than a year and a half to build up the forces capable of carrying out such an operation.
Or we could get the Marine Corps and say you need to do a uh a seizure of a port.
We used to train for that. 1985 I actually helped write the plan for the seizure of Chabahar and Ponder Ababas…
We’re not geared to do that today. How do we get um, you know, it would take we we’d have to use at least three brigades in the initial assault. How do we get three brigades on the ships? I don’t think we can anymore. Um, but if we could, how do we get them close to the Iranian shore without getting sunk?
So now we get to you know plan B where CIA paramilitaries join special operations and special forces start to work with uh you know indigenous forces to create um you know indigenous proxies uh militias resistant groups etc. We know some exist. We have the Baluchcci Liberation Army working out of Pakistan. CIA has a long history of working with them. We have the Kurds. We’ve been working with the Kurds forever. Um we got Azeris that could come in lore. I think you’re familiar with the Lord people sort of in the Kurdish area but separate from the Kurds.
We got the AAZ Arabs. We got MEK. It’s always out there. Although I don’t think the Iranian people will rise up and uh and rally around me, but they’re very good at being used to disable, blow up, and destroy things. Um and we got the monarchists that can always raise a flag, shout at the Kmen, and then run away. Um, you know, so now we we right now the decision apparently has been made to um arm the Kurds. I don’t know, are you familiar with Kurdish history?
It’s never a good idea to arm the Kurds because two things always happen. The Kurds lose and then they get betrayed and abandoned….What is Turkey going to do? sit there and go, “That’s a good idea.”?… So Turkeykey’s not going to let the United States come in and arm 10 20,000 Kurds and say march and uh and take over.
That’s just not going to happen.
Meanwhile, I think the Iranians are already on top of this and they’re already launching preemptive strikes in the Sullemania and other areas. Uh you know, breaking up these Kurdish groups as they build up.
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Thanks much for this update. Adding to the videos of the kinetic war… from ParsToday Russian telegram:
US base in Kuwait burning out of control
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/195500
Extensive damage to the Ali Salem base in Kuwait
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/195526
US military personnel being smoked out of residential towers in Bahrain
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/195567
(As @ThirtyOne noted in the previous report: just follow the black Caddy Escalades ;)
Thank you for sharing the TRT segment. 8 minutes in they show the skyline following the interceptions. The left side of the shot with the two blocky white and black towers and the partially finished tower is roughly where the IDF HQ is (the blocky residential towers are those that were struck in the 12 days last summer at the edge of the HaKirya grounds). The reporter is standing on a roof in a very very tony part of central Tel Aviv called Sarona.
Today is not a work day in Israel so I will not have any updates from colleagues.
Thanks for all your updates so far raspberry. Has been great hearing you report what people in the area are saying.
Philippines mulls shorter work week, less air-con to save energy (Bloomberg article syndicated in Malaysian site)
(Not sure how much is due to Hormuz, and how much due to pre-existing issues, but Philippines seems particularly vulnerable)
The Philippines is looking at ways to save on energy as tensions in the Middle East push global fuel costs higher, with the government suggesting people use their air conditioners less and shy away from non-essential travel.
The Southeast Asian nation imports nearly all of its oil requirements, and the war in Iran could spur inflation that already hit a 13-month high in February.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration this week ordered government offices to set their air-cons to no lower than 24°C and adopt flexible work arrangements to help conserve fuel. Marcos, who plans to seek emergency authority from Congress to slash taxes on petroleum products, is also entertaining the idea of a four-day work week.
Japan and Philippines get over 90% of LNG through Hormuz.
On the homefront, it’s mostly still business-as-usual, but I’m pretty sure this’ll grab their attention (in a few weeks):
Kuwait Shuts Production, Qatar Warns Oil Could Hit $150 in Weeks
Regular gasoline at my local station in CA is up $0.50 per gallon since the closing of the Straight. Likey to go higher.
Up 10 cents per litre here in Southern Ontario
If the Zionist entity really did convince Trump that Iran was behind the Butler assassination attempt, that just solidifies my belief that the Zionist entity was behind the Butler assassination attempt, given their proclivity of these psychopaths for assassinations and the constant projection of their own beliefs and actions onto others.
I think I heard Trump say that they nearly got him twice but he got the Ayatollah the first time. That would mean that somebody has convinced Trump that both assassination attempts last year were backed by the Iranians which is insane. Like you said, it’s all projection.
as alon mizrahi always says, every IDF accusation is an admission.
Thanks for all the info Yves!! I also channeled my inner Friedman with a babysitter here in America. I asked her what her friends and family thought about what’s going on with Iran. She didn’t seem to know much about it, other than everyone said “to be safe and not go out to public events as more things like the shooting in Austin, TX could happen again”. I asked if she knew about the Straight of Hormuz is, and she had not heard of it. I think the public at large is not ant all aware of what is coming as economic fallout. It all seems to be thought of as the same “Middle East troubles” as news of Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, etc that doesn’t have any salient impacts in their material conditions.
I would be astonished if more than 5 Americans out of a randomly selected 100 could locate Iran on a world map within one minute. The only way this war will be felt by Ms./Mr. Average is by images of bodybags or $5. gas.
Images of body bags can be censored. And they can just blame high gas prices on Antifa or something.
As a relatively newly minted hellion on wheels in ’79, it wasn’t price, twas all about availability.
The longest gas line I participated in stretched 1/2 a mile~
If this happens again, its essentially forced rationing.
p.s.
The must have car of ’79 was a diesel VW Rabbit, as there were no controls on diesel at gas stations, have as much as you’d like!
i remember that. Solved it with a gas can and piece of garden hose.
We’ll have $5 gas next week.
Is that in Texas or Hawaii? Or in Illinois… outside of Cook County or within? I guess after a certain point, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Well, anyway, we’ll be leaving $100 a barrel in the rearview soon enough– Brent, WTI, or whatever. I have zero-doubt that we’ll see $130-140 or more by summer.
My summer travel-plans are now going to be much more local, but fortunately I invested in a bicycle and a trailer for it (easier to haul gear… and dog!) last year, and better still, am close to a network of trails that run adjacent/through state and national forest lands… Inshallah.
already $5+ in parts of California
Thank you for that uplifting, mythical scene from V. As fantastical as it is, it gave me the resolve to delve into today’s reality.
Seconded. The local movie theater has been showing older movies recently along with the new releases, and coincidentally, next week’s cult film is going to be V for Vendetta. Looking forward to seeing it on the big screen, and a tip of the hat to whomever chose that film.
Maybe my favorite film of the century so far-so good.
IDEAS ARE BULLETPROOF.
– V
Looking forward to more mythology from Yves!!!!!
Remember Remember The 5th Of November….
Re Iranian attacks on Tel Aviv, yesterday Elijah Magnier reported they have struck with four heavier missiles. Turkish media says they are hypersonic IRBMs, Khorramshahr-4s, that carry a 1500 kg warhead. Iran doesn’t appear to be sticking closely to a progression from lighter, interceptor soaking missiles to heavier ones. While the mix does tilt in that direction, interspersing heavier weapons must make it much harder for the Israeli population to believe the situation is stabilizing.
I’ll add my recurring question: why is Ayatollah Sistani apparently holding off on a fatwa against the US and Israel? He has only issued a broad appeal to the “international community.”
hemeantwell: I wouldn’t rely on Ayatollah Sistani to solve the problems caused by the Western Powers.
Iraq always had internal fissures. Not everyone in Iraq is Shia. Then there are the Kurds, whose autonomy is more de facto than de jure. So he has the problems of Iraq and his own flock uppermost in his mind. Iraq is also a predominantly Arab country of about 30 million hemmed in between two big countries that aren’t Arab — Iran and Turkiye. Geography matters.
My recurring question: Where is the opposition in the US of A? What does the opposition plan to do besides posture?
What opposition? It’s sort of obvious to me most of the Dems are on board now with Trump and Israel. The actual left is pretty small.
When it all starts turning to crap in about a week it will change.
It’s more a matter of Sistani being capable of adding to the problems facing the western powers.
I can appreciate that during the US occupation of Iraq — hardly over yet! — he decided to encourage the US focus on the Sunnis. The current situation might tempt him to play a long game in which he against seems like a relatively pliable Shiite leader to the US. However, with a genocide under way and being broadly extended such a long game risks becoming increasingly detached from mass sentiments and encourages others, like Moqtadr al-Sadr, an Iraqi Shiite contending for leadership, to draw support from him.
DJG, Iraq always had internal fissures., this is just scratching the surface. I get the feeling most USians don’t understand the complex tribalism that lies behind national borders that usually don’t align with tribal populations, some of which are historically nomads.
A long history of complex relationships between multiples of peoples brings the baggage of a long list of inter-tribal grievances. The idea of a “debt jubilee” of sorts here should be a pillar of Iran’s long game. That’s a big ask, but now is the time, as it offers a potent tool for unifying the commons at large.
This snippet from a spoken word piece by the inestimable John Trudell entitled Terminal Neon, circa 1999ish,
Terminal Neon
The Third World War
The third world is poor
The Third World War
Against the poor
The Ruling Class Rich
The Third World War
Against the poor.
The commons fully understand this.
Well, our elected representatives in the House and Senate just decided that we should not have a say in the President committing us to a war with global consequences. So “We the People” have no chance to express their opinion democratically or otherwise using established processes. As for why using other means hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t gotten bad enough for the petit bourgeoisie. It also isn’t lost on us that the prisons they’re erecting for immigrants will hold dissenting citizens just as effectively.
Life here isn’t anywhere as good as it could be. But it is not yet so miserable for so many that chaos and civil war are preferable. If the current crises create more inflation, more food insecurity, more energy price gouging, then we may get there. Especially if the climate delivers us a summer season as cruel as the winter has been. Or another series of tornados and hurricanes.
A lot of the problems with opposition, at least on the street, is lack of awareness.
On my errand travels Monday morning here in a town that exists only because of the China Lake Navy Base, I asked 5 different people what they thought of the war we just started with Iran.
Two said, “What war?”, and three said, “Yeah, I heard something about that.”
I am assuming many are starting to wake up by now, or at least I hope so.
How depressing. We have been at war with Iran for a week now, but being at war has been so normalized, and the news media so captured by the warmongers, that people are ignorant.
Some people still see Trump as a god who walks the earth.
Rather than get into a conversation with one of them, it is better to hold one’s tongue.
To your comment about the mix of Iranian missiles, Theodore Postol may have an answer (in a video interview posted yesterday): Israel’s interception rate might only be around 5%. They don’t need to send a mass of drones to exhaust interceptors first; the interception rate is so bad they don’t need to do that.
The US may want to stop come April. But Iran gets a vote. I would suggest April is when it may be widely obvious that we have lost but not when the war ends. Unless the US withdraws and severs ties with the colonists, but that seems very unlikely.
Iran will stop the kinetic war if the US and Israel stop shooting.
But they have no reason to lift the closure on the Strait of Hormuz before they have broken America’s will.
Have seen any signal from Iran that supports that? I’d think the lesson of the June war was that any pause will just allow for the other side to rearm and come back, similar logic as at play in Ukraine.
Iran will likely continue hitting Israeli military targets after the ‘incoming’ phase ends. If they continue with civilian destruction KneeTanYahoo may select the Samson option.
They said before the war started that if they were attacked, they would close the Strait for at least two to three months.
They have delivered on all their promises of what they would do.
Two to three months would break the world economy.
Ok. I took that as a warning to the US of consequences, not a statement of victory conditions, but time will tell.
>>>>Forgive me for channeling my inner Tom Friedman,
soliciting random people for their thoughts is great, it’s Tom Friedman who’s the hack….who seemingly always find taxi drivers who agree with him, what a coincidence!
FWIW, I did not solicit. My driver volunteered.
I believe that Louis Fyne’s comment, in spite of him using the word “solicit” a little loosely, acknowledged that. Perhaps he would better have said “Listening to random people sharing their thoughts (and passing them on) is great.”
I am pleased to read about any thoughts that you choose to pass on, and am certain that Mr. Fyne would concur.
I can tell that a couple of late-20s age plumbers working at my house in Idaho – from conservative largely rural backgrounds are deeply are opposed to all the BS going on — Iran, Round Up/Glyphosate madness. Opened up when they saw my little Palestine flag.
Thanks for all the info Yves!! I also channeled my inner Friedman with a babysitter here in America. I asked her what her friends and family thought about what’s going on with Iran. She didn’t seem to know much about it, other than everyone said “to be safe and not go out to public events as more things like the shooting in Austin, TX could happen again”. I asked if she knew about the Straight of Hormuz is, and she had not heard of it. I think the public at large is not ant all aware of what is coming as economic fallout. It all seems to be thought of as the same “Middle East troubles” as news of Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, etc that doesn’t have any salient impacts in their material conditions. It feels like everyone is sleepwalking.
The US MSM isn’t going to inform them. / ;)
It’s just a war that violates the UN charter and US law.
Nothing to see here
Since we’re sharing anecdotes… Here is my son’s (28) summary of the confusion of many of his contemporaries:
Trump killing Iranians is an obvious bad, but immigrants are an unbiased good. Most Iranian immigrants are happy to see the regime change, but we did it with Israel which of course we know is bad.
Friedman Event:
My conservative day-job employer is convinced this is going to be over in a couple of days, due to America’s unmatched military might. Let’s see if that updates in line with whatever new timeline the Administration starts touting.
As for the loss of life and destruction, well, they are all terrorists and Muslims are inherently evil so he’s fine with all that.
He’s a surprisingly decent guy and a good boss. But when it comes to politics…
Also having a similar experience (though I’ve avoided bringing it up with most persons).
Thanks for this post.
Louis Rukeyser, host of the old PBS tv series Wall Street Week, used to quip, “The markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
My worry is this admin can remain irrational longer than the markets can stay solvent.
Hate to be a finance pedant, but Rukeyser was quoting Keynes.
Thanks for the info. Now that you mention it, Rukeyser did credit Keynes. I’d forgotten that part, only remembering the quip.
Just to indicate the kind of people in Anglo-America who we are dealing with:
Today’s NY Times
Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base
The Feb. 28 school strike in Minab, which killed dozens, including children, appears to have been part of an attack on an adjacent naval base in southern Iran, where officials said U.S. forces were operating.
Now, the NY Times may have decided to take the lead in opposing (but not too obviously) this colonialist war. But the effect is likely to be demoralizing for an already demoralized U.S. citizenry.
As many commenters have pointed out here, Gaza is the prelude to wars and to how populations are going to be treated.
I detect some moral problems, in a country with a government that now has no moral authority (nor do many of the tottering institutions and political movements within said country):
Has J.D. Vance, recent convert to the Francisco Franco phalanx of Catholicism, commented on murdering a couple hundred children? Will he take the route of feminist icon Madeleine Albright? It was worth it! Where is notably religious turdnip Speaker Johnson?
the NYT, the empire’s warmongerer of choice for decades, has been at pains NOT to describe the 150+ as schoolgirls age 7-12. “…believed to be children…” for days. FFS!
i would expect nothing less, but even those witless americans who strive to be “informed” end up stark zionists.
That clip from Fox with Keith Kellogg – starting at 18:23 – where Daniel Davis does a demolition job on Kellogg is well worth watching. His idea would be akin to an enemy force trying to seize Manhattan Island to win a war against America. And I would remind readers that Keith Kellogg was the person that Trump was taking his military advice on the Ukraine all of last year. Time to send that old war horse off to the glue factory.
You’ve got to wonder how an officer with the extensive combat experience that Kellogg allegedly had could be so clueless regarding the challenges to be faced when attempting to occupy that island.
Right. Concentrating forces in the era of FPV drones and precision missiles is beyond stupid. Has he not been watching the action in Ukraine?
And how he could have missed an earlier warning:
“Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I would not advise you to try to invade.”
— Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca
Sounds like Churchill’s thoughts around capturing Heligoland in WW1. Though that was less insane than his early WW2 plan to send a fleet into the Baltic (Operation Catherine).
>Forgive me for channeling my inner Tom Friedman
So, we know what a Friedman unit is, what amount of time is an Yves Smith unit? Days, weeks, months?
Sorry, just had to ask amidst all this chaos. LOL
8PM?
Sorry, I am in Southeast Asia, 12 hours ahead. I put local time :-)
re Gulf states reviewing investment commitments
Aren’t they the big money behind the Ellison’s buying Warner Brothers? Would be funny if that went sideways.
It’s not a done deal. The state of California also has antitrust laws that can challenge it.
And Gavin Newsome is just the man to enforce them!
Thinking about that. Are they not also beind a lot of date center investment?
It’s ok though. If that money is kept in US banks they will just sieze it if needed.
Heard on Bloomberg on my drive yesterday that Oracle will be laying off thousands because of debt piled up for data centers.
I suspect they will end up close to going under, but will be bailed out
Apologies, we were behind schedule in getting done. Please refresh the post and skim again. Complete as of now, updates will be in comments.
Thanks for providing such a flow of reality based information of this highly volatile situation.
It almost seems as though the worse things get the less we are being told about it. I don’t follow the MSM on the theory it’s a waste of time anyway. But you’d think they’d have wall to wall coverage going by past wars. Sifting through foreign news there’s a report that another F-15 has been shot down over Iraq and the pilot so far missing after ejecting. Those latest Youtubes brought out that the Iranian ship sunk off India wasn’t even armed and was participating in an Indian naval exercise set up before the war. Our Dep of War had it torpedoed out of spite or to provide a headline.
The narrative is going all wrong for the admin by killing little girls and an old man. If Trump was a real Hitler he’d have a competent propaganda department. Instead we have the Three Stooges Hitler ranting that despite being denied by Spain he will use those bases anyway.
Even villainy isn’t what it used to be.
There is a second Iranian ship in this area and Sri Lanka has evacuated the 200 sailors aboard before Hegseth has a chance to kill them as well. The Sri Lankans are taking custody of that ship and are bringing it in to Trincomalee where it will be safe-
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/5/sri-lanka-evacuates-crew-of-second-iranian-vessel-after-us-sunk-iris-dena
Much respect for the Sri Lankans.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/sinking-iran-ship-war-crime/
The article says that even U-Boats surfaced sometimes to help survivors. But then Hegseth has already said we will not be worrying about petty war crimes objections in our pursuit of “unconditional surrender.”
Up until the Laconia incident they did. At least if it was an unescorted ship they had sunk. They wouldn’t for ships in convoy because the other ships could do it anyway and the escorting warships would attack them.
I have a series of books my grandpa left me that are a collation of a British WW2 weekly magazine. In one of the early ones it shows the funeral the British held for the first German aircrew jilled over the UK. Full military honours. Coffins were even draped with Nazi German flags. But as with the u-boats resucing survivors, these noceties diminished as the war went on.
Civilian merchant ships, yes. Warships in war zones, no. Although I don’t know if it was a legal question or practical question: warship crews were hostile military personnel after all and “rescuing” them, in practice, would have constituted taking them as PoWs which introduces additional complications. Having said that, as ISL pointed out, whether there is a state of “war,” and thus a “war zone” exists seems a thirny problem.
Occasionaly warships too. Though the problem was often that u-boats were very small, had a crew if 40 to 50 and were crammed with that. They didn’t really have much space for anyone else.
However in this instance it’s fair to day there would have been no risk to the submarine coming up and despositing life rafts. But i susoect operational orders forbid it.
You asked for it:
https://youtu.be/mTBWkMQz6nY?si=nPaKB5dl9Esp6i8T
Good morning and thank you Yves. I hope you are fitting some sleep into your schedule.
Hegseth looks way in over his head. The body language speaks of things gone wrong for someone who’s used to getting (bullying?) his way. “Unhinged” is spot on.
It had a certain ‘send in more divisions!’ feel to it, if you were in a cloistered bunker in Berlin in April 1945.
Dammit, where’s Steiner when you need him.
(Ep)Steiner?
Boy, we really do have everything, don’t we?
Did someone say bunker in Berlin? My favorite parts are towards the end with the two women commiserating each other and Trump wanting to build another golf course.
Don’t worry, he will be impeached soon.
Damn, that was most excellent~
We need a Last Words Polymarket…
a) Et tu, Vance?
b) Get me a Diet Coke!
c) [watching mushroom clouds on television] I won!
Re: unhinged Hegseth
I am masochistic enough to have watched Tucker’s deep dive into the rock-obsessed 3rd temple millennialists yesterday.
The clip of Hegseth speaking in Jerusalem in 2018 is at 34:58 and puts him firmly in the nutbag basket for me.
Tucker’s claim is this is a religious war (which seems at least partly true).
I am as secular as can be and these people scare me.
Heifers all the way down….
This video from yesterday seems to backup Mr Carlson’s point.
Trump hosts NATION’S PASTORS in the Oval Office for a PRAYER GATHERING
This picture is….I don’t have words…
Trump being blessed (?) by a bunch of pastors.
https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2F76f9812b-bbc2-46a0-bf64-ba8652bf639f.jpg
I can’t even.
I wish that this was AI.
If you needed a ideology or religion that would encourage firing nuclear weapons, you would be hard pressed to find one better than apocalypse obssessed Christians. After all nuking the world would bring back Jesus and the building of heaven on earth. They almost have a moral duty to do it.
If that religion did not exist it would have to be invented. Or strongly pushed within society from the 50s onwards. Maybe it was.
Before 1954 the Pledge of Allegiance ended in ‘One Nation’ and then they added ‘Under God’
In 1957, In God We Trust was added to banknotes including 1935 series Silver Certificate Dollar bills still being issued.
See!, we were godly back in ’35!
We had to defeat those godless commies somehow!
Add in a charismatic dogma man in the guise of Billy Graham right at the time the USSR is now our sworn enemy in the Cold War and like so much Kudzu, it spread-the evang menace… and here we are.
Very good points. So perhaps there was an element of planning?
I find it hard to see how Communism could persuade someone to take part in a nuclear holocaust. After all the basic premise of that was making the world a better place off the back of mankinds efforts. An idea fundamentally opposed to nuclear war.
But Christian Zionism (which is older than Jewish Zionsim) works pretty well with it.
Actually, there’s even a Japanese game from the early 90’s where the US amabassador reveals himself to be part of a Messianic cult.
He threatens to blow everything up for YHVH, but on defeat, he does it anyway, raining ICBMS to usher in the Millenium Kingdom.
It’s All in Your Head is the twelfth studio album by experimental band Negativland, which was released on October 13, 2014.[3] The album is based on the live album, It’s All in Your Head FM. Like the live album, it deals with humans and certain types of religions humans believe in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_All_in_Your_Head_(Negativland_album)
Some here on NC thought I was being flippant some time ago when I pointed out the long historical perspective of a 3rd Jerusalem agenda. Sadly there is always some feral wingnuts always trying to bring about prophecy by hook or crook and operate like sleeper cells in the broader religious background. Not that in the run up, during, post the first ME war Corp media/various religious figure heads on fire/gnashing teeth on YT blaming every moooslum for the worlds dramas …. fast forward a few decades and here we all are …
Not that Ukraine banned the eastern orthodox church or countless other opposite shirts whack each other at home when economic stresses occur.
Lastly it reminds me of an on NC post YS did where I provided a YT link where Anon contacted the legal head of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Where regardless of all the logical fallacies or categorical errors she flat out refused accede on anything. For these sorts of people its all a test of faith aka there is no plan B or off ramp …. as this is a battle between good and ev’bal … and their place for the rest of eternity … its just so Carl Sagan wrt technology and religion ….
It’s only religious IMO because that’s how the Rich Pedos plan to wipe us out and then take over.
It’s all a fucking scam.
It’s we the patriots against the global Epstein devils as far as I’m concerned.
Man, if Lambert were here, then he’d be deep diving the Epstein Files rn. Prolly drive him crazy.
wonderfully clarifying….
Fitting almost exactly with Tucker’s prediction:
Iran warns of possible Al-Aqsa false flag attack (Al Mayadeen)
“The official also pointed to what he described as a gradual evacuation of settlers from areas surrounding the al-Aqsa Mosque, reportedly beginning on Thursday, suggesting the move could be linked to preparations for such a plan”.
Back during the 2008 GFC and the subsequent ARRA stimulus, it was mooted at NC (and doubtless in other forums) that it would be prudent for USG to develop a posture of ongoing preparation for infrastructure investment by pre-planning projects that could be quickly funded and put into motion during times when stimulus was needed. I don’t think that anything like this has ever been done in the nearly two decades since.
The idea of government-provided marine reinsurance is an example of another foreseeable problem that could have been prepared for long in advance but never was. The alteranative reinsurance could have been built into the structure of the current contracts, so that withdrawal of private reinsurers would trigger the backup, with no loss of insurance cover.
The replacement of strategic materials stockpiles and domestic supply chains with JIT supply chains that originate in the economies of actual or potential adversaries looks like another example of this pattern of unpreparedness.
We seem to have a policy of “assumption of ‘best case’ outcomes.”
How would the automatic backup be priced?
TRIA was simple by comparison. It was just a matter of shoring up confidence; there was never a loss to be paid. I wouldn’t expect the same this time around.
Maybe that’s overstating the case with the benefit of some hindsight; there was real if small tail risk of another Twin Towers that nobody wanted to underwrite. But I’d suggest losses are a lot more likely here.
Presumably, were such a system to be implemented, the implementation would include procedures for re-pricing the risk the “reinsurer(s) of last resort” would take on (and it may be noted that governments as last-resort insurers are far better positioned to absorb possible losses due to mis-pricing than are private insurers and reinsurers). Shipping through the Strait would become more expensive, but would not cease altogether due to unavailability of insurance cover for a prolonged period after the end of the “hot” phase of the conflict.
A point made in the “actuarial blockade” analysis is that even after active hostilities end and it becomes relatively safe to resume passage through the Strait, no ships would be able to do that due to lack of insurance cover because of lack of reinsurance and retrocession cover for the reinsurers. A sovereign backstop of maritime reinsurance would not solve the problem of the physical danger of sailing into active military threat in the Strait, but would accelerate the resumption of vessel movement after the active military threat had diminished due to de-escalation or resolution of the conflict.
This might be a good idea, which might warrant prediction that it will never be adopted.
I have one question related to that essay – why is the loss of nuclear material significant to ship insurance? The essay said it was last publicly accounted for in 2024, meaning it’s been ~2 years, and ships were insured and operating as expected during that time even with the material unaccounted for. After the kinetic war is over and has been for long enough that people aren’t concerned about a near-term flare-up again, why would reinsurers be concerned about the nuclear material in terms of insuring ships through the Straights of Hormuz?
I wondered that too. If anything, the existence of an Iranian deterrent might make a ceasefire agreement actually stick for once.
Good/spot, Hickory! The mysterious missing nuclear material was another passage of that scenario exercise that didn’t convince.
On the back-up insurance point etc, I think there’s a bigger question. If you were a shipowner, would you (1) risk your asset being blown up and sunk for the faith of a promise of compensation by the US government and enforcement in US courts and having to pay over the odds to have a new one built in a couple of years or (2) wait a bit longer? Thought so….
Also, the British government passed retrospective legislation in the 1960’s (massive constitutional scandal, hadn’t been done before) stripping private parties of their right to claim for loss of property occasioned by HMG action in WW2. The House of Lords had found war damage by one’s own side an actionable tort (I think the specific circumstance was the bombing of refineries in Burma to deny them to the Japanese). The point being that the USA can promise to pay today then pull the cheque back across the table later….
The major development is that the US is doubling down even harder on its pretense that it will carry on the conflict as long as needed to overthrow the Iranian government, and has voiced the idea that it might go as long as 100 days, meaning into September.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Hundred Days (French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]) marked the period between Napoleon’s return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days). This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition (French: Guerre de la Septième Coalition), which includes the Waterloo campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days
Hypothesis: There’s an attempt by the US/Israel to open up an Azeri front and get Azerbaijan at war with Iran. Turkey is intervening to try to prevent it.
Known: Drones struck Azerbaijan. Azeris blamed Iran but Iran denied [and many speculated false flag]. Azerbaijan has in recent years been ‘courted’ (choose your own verb!) by US and Israel. Azerbaijan pulled it’s diplomats from Iran today.
Reported:
Drones Over Nakhchivan: How a Border Incident Between Azerbaijan and Iran Became a Test for Regional Diplomacy (Times of Central Asia)
….Azerbaijani security forces were placed on high alert. According to Aliyev, the country’s armed forces were instructed to prepare countermeasures.
However, according to some regional sources, Baku’s rhetoric became more restrained after consultations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Instead of an immediate military response, Azerbaijan focused on diplomatic pressure, demanding an investigation, an apology, and punishment for those responsible.
It should be pointed out that during the 12 day war, that there was evidence that Israeli attacks were being launched from Azerbaijan who have Israelis running around their country. If Azerbaijan did try a military invasion, then Russia might economically yank their chain hard to stop this war spreading further. Has Azerbaijan even considered the possibility that it was a false flag attack? It would be something that Israel and the US would do.
Is it even relevant? If Iran wins (defined as surviving) at some point they must take care of the open sore (that likely allowed their former president to be shot down) – its just a matter of when – first blind the US, then eliminate the ability of the US to use any of its area bases, and then . . . settle scores (first Israel, then….
This would be applauded by Russia, especially if the trouble Azerbaijan keeps causing for Russia with Armenia can be outsourced. Removing US influence from central Asia – given the stated and demonstrated US intention to use it to destabilize and then break up China and Russia – must be a high priority for Russia and China.
My supposition would be Aliyev knew it was a false flag and this is part of a pre-existing plan he was privy to.
My first thought as well, but let’s see.
Apposite trivia: the recently martyred Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an Iranian Azerbaijani, from the city of Khamaneh, East Azerbaijan province. There are more ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Tehran than in Baku. Just sayin’.
Obviously the Azerbaijani media is assuming the “southern” (read: Iranian) Azerbaijani are about to revolt, because of these drones (for some reason), but in reality it seems more likely – should there be a conflict – that the “historical error” of separating Azerbaijan from Persia would be corrected, at least regarding the Nakhchivan region. That would solve many of Iran’s problems in the region, too.
Pezeshkian is also half Azeri and half Kurd, or so I heard. Iran does not seem to be an easy place to stick Western “multiculturalist” racism at and hope that it starts a race war–most major ethnic groups seem quite well integrated.
Iran could reply that it is already punishing those responsible–Iranisn missiles are hitting Mossad installations.
I hope Giulio Douhet is burning in Hell.
On another note, my Son in Law loves cars , He sold his ’65 Mustang and an Audi earlier this year and planned to buy a very nice 20 year old sports car by putting $35K down and financing another $40K.
That plan is on hold, probably forever.
I doubt he is alone in postponing major purchases.
Interesting India left conversation with KJ Noh, about how inadequate the first phase of the war, informational to get the population on the side of the war, fell flat and was clearly inadequate, essentially the same as the lack of planning in the military phase. He also asks, “Who is learning faster?” Iran has demonstrated significantly improved capacity since June – the West is following the same plan as before.
Also, the video by Daniel Davis with Ted Postol shows that missiles are launched from tunnels with several feet of loose dirt covering the roof – so an area looks like a sandy desert until the launch, and moreover, afterwards, too. Likely, the US has not destroyed more than a handful of launch sites (despite thousands of launches) and there could easily be thousands of these sites. It’s well worth watching as it clearly shows that working David’s sling has 5%-ish intercept rate.
Lastly, Russia always follows several days of intense bombardment with damage assessment before new targeting. Thus, waves of higher and lower attacks are 1. typical, and 2. signs that central military control persists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90FoTOxcx9w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2yQ3kBAQIk
Ditto on the Postol interview with Danny Davis. Impressively careful analysis of interception, and failed interception, footage. There’s also discussion of how the lowly Shahed drones can use the Iridium phone network in target acquisition.
Postol has been at it for years, I first came across his work in 2015 or so debunking White Helmet claims that Asad, who at the time was doing quite well, with Russian help, against the Salafist opposition, was dropping chlorine gas containers on Syrian villages, needless inviting US intervention.
> Forgive me for channeling my inner Tom Friedman
Oh, Yves … LOL
> They are also big backers of sporting events around the world and have all been investing heavily domestically to develop their nations and diversify their economies.
More than just backers, they are hosters!
Formula1 is scheduled to run races in Bahrain starting April 10th, and Saudi Arabia a week later (via formula1.com).
I think bets are off if the US/i5r continue to escalate and the US does not withdraw support and presence from the region.
Our good friends at WWE have been hosting large events in Saudi Arabia for several years. It’s still just grown people fake fighting in their underwear, but the women must wear the equivalent of long johns to avoid causing lustful thoughts in the general populace.
Wow … did not know that! #TIL
They also were supposed to run a tire test at Bahrain the weekend of the attack. Seem to have gotten all their people out, as they are running in OZ this weekend
Kym Illman, an Aussi photographer who covers F1, mentioned how flight disruptions in the Arab peninsula was so disrupted that many teams had support staff delayed as much as 50/60 hours in getting to Oz! (via YouTube.com)
Also, I didn’t realize he had dropped another video asking about the Bahrain and Saudi races:
Will the MIDDLE EAST F1 races be CANCELLED? (via YouTube.com)
Uh-oh …
Looks like Crude Oil (via Google Finance) just crossed over the $90 real pain threshold Yves mentioned (via NC) the other day.
Anyone here watching this channel? “Whats going on with shipping”?
In the video i linked he mentions that the insurers have established new war risk rates. Went up from preconflict rates of .15-.25% to 1-3%. He makes it sound like it’s basically up to the companies to start making a run for it. There is clearly an edit in the video where I imagine he had begun to discuss the circumstances under which they would to so but was edited out. Without some sort of military escort i dont see them moving. Ofcourse the u.s does not have the capacity to make that happen considering the number of ships that transit daily. Later in the video he mentions contracts that have been drawn up throwing obscene amounts of money for the shippers to incentivize them to make a run for it and put the ships and crews at risk. Anyways it seems like a useful channel . Pretty neutral, no jingoist nonsense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwSLe1qWpSs
Someone linked to the channel a couple of days ago in an older thread. Thought it’s pretty interesting.
‘Twas me. I’m checking it regularly now.
‘Patricia Marins
@pati_marins64
Tomahawk Reloads
With Omani ports under attack and completely exposed to the Houthis, as well as the ports in the Horn of Africa, the American fleet can only be reloading its Tomahawks to the east, most likely in Pakistan or India.’
Much more likely Diego Garcia as it is much closer. Even then it is three days steaming there, then they have to get more fuel and missiles loaded, then three days back to rejoin the fleet. That is a long time for a ship to be away from where it is needed. If the fleet went close enough to get into action, would the whole fleet have to head to Diego Garcia then? They could hardly leave the carrier behind unprotected.
As Marins points out, Diego Garcia is much further. Pakistan is closest, but too risky. North-West India seems plausible.
The take home point here is, of course, that by day 6 of this Special Combat Operation, Iran has managed to drive the US 5th fleet away from it’s designated area of operations.
It has almost blinded the US/Israeli big radar stations and is close to depleting the Gulf region’s air defenses while the global economy is already starting to feel the first implications of closing down the Gulf region.
Where in the World is Carmen Diego Garcia?… game show pitch:
This game show was thought of partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey indicating little knowledge of geography among some of the American populace, with one in four being unable to locate Russia or the Pacific Ocean, and one in 14 could locate Iran on a map
The claim is Americans learn geography vis a vis war, I know speaking for myself, I’d have never heard of Fallujah until we blew it to smithereens, for instance.
Contestants earn points by locating as many military bases as possible, kind of like the MIC!
Make it an online game and voila!, a “crowdsourced” mass drone airforce!
Come up with a “cool” nickname for the ‘players,’ such as “Trekfiris”: “To boldly go and blow up where no one has blown up before!”
I sense a business opportunity. A Privatized Air Force.
Stay safe and keep ’em flying!
Beat the Reaper?
That’s a winner
Does anyone know if Diego Garcia is in range of any of Iran’s missiles?
The most proximal aspect of Iran (SE corner) with respect to Diego Garcia is about 4000 km. The stated range of the Khorramshahr missile is 2000 km, but I have seen it suggested that the max might be twice that. So that is a definite maybe.
For anyone interested, you can go to Google maps (or your preferred online mapping tool with a satellite view) and take a look at what Diego Garcia has on offer (located in the British Indian Ocean Territory). Provided the imagery is current/accurate, there is a landing strip with a handful of hangars and a number of presumable fuel tanks, most located north of the strip. I imagine those tanks might be the target (especially given the apparent clustering capability of the Khorramshahr), but others more conversant in military matters may have a more reliable opinion.
I suppose the Diego Garcia Officers Club, an “Indian sizzler” restaurant with a 4.1/5.0 rating, may be another option.
I think that Larry Johnson did a breakdown of Iranian missile ranges a short-ish time ago, but I can’t turn it up.
Going by Google Maps it’s ~2,500 miles from the South-Eastern end of Iran. If it is in range, it’s only for their longest range missiles.
It is not – but it is too far for airplanes like the F35 .
https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2021/feb/17/iran%E2%80%99s-missiles-infographics-and-photos
soumar has 2500 km range (500 km beyond the above map)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/what-are-irans-weapons-as-it-fights-the-us-and-israel
so Italy is in range wrt aircraft maintenance.
See Larry Johnson, the us will shortly run out of tomahawks, and then what use are naval ships that have to remain 1000 km distant? China has a land bridge and air bridge to Iran. The ships are just targets if they get closer to use shorter range missiles
note all ports in western India are in range
Indi Samarajiva over at Indi.ca is at it again. He’s spirited and witty. (Watch for the joke about the Obama Library.)
Yes, he is influenced by his interest in Islam. But as a Sri Lankan, he is used to observing the world from the borderlands, which gives him advantages. As someone educated in the West (Canada, by and large), he knows the weaknesses all too well: Our drunken, drug-addled, malnourished (Trump’s diet ??) elites keep trying to hide the liquor cabinet and the skeletons in the closet.
Read on:
https://indi.ca/iran-war-march-4/
Note the list that he reproduces of the civilian facilities such as hospitals and schools that the Anglo-Israelo-Americanos have bombed.
And, finally, his intriguing analysis of tactics: “The Rebels had to take out the Shield Generator on the Ewok planet before going for the Death Star. In the same way, the Resistance has to take out the Gulf Shields around ‘Israel’ before getting to the Death Colony. Which is precisely what they’re doing. These radars get blown up every day and their crews get blown out of the hotel rooms they’re hiding in too.”
Plenty of details. You may not agree, but it is worth your while to take a look.
Thanks for the link! Sampler:
“The attrition of American arms, like the dinosaur they are. It is just a matter of time until America runs out of ammo and, as the Afghan saying goes, you may have the watches, but we have the time. ”
Perhaps NC needs a betting game for how long before “unconditional surrender” goes down the memory hole.
Two weeks?
Well, I asked the White House Twitter account whose unconditional surrender we should be expecting and they blocked me.
heh heh, tell me this is true! (Tips hat)
‘Tis the truth. Feeling quite accomplished 😇
I would say you win the internet today but there is strong competition from Y’ves “Forgive me for channeling my inner Tom Friedman”, lol, it’s a tight race.
I concede to our gracious hostess :)
LOL
#Snowflakes
VERY brave of you!
Lawyer up for the probable 10+ years of IRS audits ..
Me being a veteran, seems more likely they will opt to break my arms 🤷
I have been reading indi.ca for a few months. I think it’s very well written, sometimes lyrical or poetic. It is also refreshingly straightforward and sharp, similar to Caitlyn Johnstone.
My prediction, after the A/D attrition and blinding of US ISR (radar and Reaper), the next target is airplane repair/maintenance facilities, including Cyprus and Diego Garcia, in range of Iranian long-range missiles. Given the repair / maintenance requirements of US jets (17 hrs/flight hour of an F-35!!), the US flyable air fleet will rapidly decrease to inutility if maintenance occurs in Europe.
And as it becomes clear that the US is going to lose, more euro countries will, like Spain, refuse to partake – if the US refuses to retreat in time and husband its resources (the dollar is backed up by its military and its military control of energy in West Asia), it may have to retreat from Europe.
…and meanwhile back in the states
Rationing started in earnest in 1942, by the middle of the year, you could only get 5 gallons of gas a week, with limited amounts of many foodstuffs as well. Forget about getting a new car, or new tires for your old car, not gonna happen.
From 9/11 onwards we were told to shop our way out of a bad stretch, anti-rationing if you will. Get more stuff! It doesn’t matter that you can only live in 1 house at a time, buy 5 and rent them out!
We’ve suffered the slings of war not whatsoever here while piling up an impressive string of losses since 9/11, undefeated at home in a similar way to post 11/11/18 Germany when comeuppance see thee sometime…
The stab-in-the-back will have come from within as we watched it happen~
That is the first allusion to “Stranded in the Jungle” I’ve ever seen online … I suppose because most anyone who remembers the 1956 hit by the Cadets that deploys that line is too old to use the Internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h9PbMucPXU
I’m glad I’m not the only one to spot that allusion. I’m not old enough to remember that version, but I am old enough….the same age as Wuk, I believe….to remember this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZM7F7e28QM&list=RD2ZM7F7e28QM&start_radio=1
I can’t get anything past you guise…
The supply chain for direct aircraft support as well as the supply for aircraft servicing equipment has been a Dept f War weak spot, sustaining the “surge” will further deplete the supply chains. Then they can put Claude on it and it will deliver Chinese washing machines to cannibalize for chips.
Attrition works on both sides in the universe of logistics.
In a real war, logistics (including the industrial base) is often the determining factor and the US has atrophied both before one even gets to weapons systems that do not work, no real plan – just a tactic or two (no plan = planning to fail), and military doctrine from the pre-drone days (shown as outdated and a loser in Ukraine).
And that’s before one considers the US is dumping sh-t on its vassals non-stop (does it even have allies anymore – Canada went to China).
ISL
> Given the repair / maintenance requirements of US jets (17 hrs/flight hour of an F-35!!) …
Presumably that is 17 man-hours of work.
Those dang WOKES, trying to thwart the Trump administration at every turn. If only they could shake loose of the specter of Sleepy Criminal Joe Biden and those rascally DEI, victory would be theirs!
This may have been posted in the comments or in the main body of Yves’ posts before. If so, I apologize. If not, the post linked below describes the war crimes the U.S. and Israel are committing in choosing civilian targets to bomb in Tehran.
https://the307.substack.com/p/report-us-and-israel-are-targeting?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
Is this what the War Secretary meant by “no more rules or political correctness”?
Okay, doomer! A Duran convo with Alex at Reporterfy and Cyrus Janssen. Listen for the Jared Kushner epithet. The talk begins with Reporterfy Alex sounding like Scotty warning, “The engines canna take more!” Except instead of Spock, Chekhov, and McCoy we’ve got Hegseth, Rubio, and Besant, and rather than Kirk at the helm we find Captain God-Emperor Trump fatulating (if I may neologize and verbify a mashup of fatuous and flatulent) not only “This is fine!” but “On a scale of 10 this is a 15! People say it hasn’t been this good in 1,000 years, maybe ever!” Interesting perspectives on Chinese energy imports and China as both a global mediator and a potential J.P. Morgan (the magnate, not the bank), a lender of last resort. There is something is to be said for maintaining calm when encountering road/’roid rage.
“…fatulating (if I may neologize and verbify a mashup of fatuous and flatulent)…”
Thanks for the humor, I like the custom terminology.
Speaking of roid rage: we do seem to have the Sec. of War/Defence who is ‘Roid Raging for Jesus, complete with Knights Templar tatoos and all. It’s Twilight Zone time…
Some updates:
Bloomberg landing page. Notice particularly oil reaching $90:
We were thin on Lebanon, so some catch up here:
A philologist, a data analyst, and a graphic artist walk into a bar. The philologist sorts out the key quotes used by Trump and Hegseth per day starting Saturday Feb 28 and assigning a desperation quotient to each indicative statement. The data analyst computes the time series of daily desperation values, figures the slope and intersect thereof, and produces a chart extrapolating out to the point on the desperation scale (y-axis) corresponding to the phrase “Fire the nuclear weapons!” (Toast, YT 1:45). The graphic artist animates the graph, annotating with the text, soundtrack cut from the President and his secretary’s actual speech to produce a TikTok/YT short/Reel.
Honestly, I went over this hemi-demi-semi-joke with a friend yesterday and now Trump drops “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER“. Our desperation analytics team better get cracking.
Lebanon is developing in an interesting direction. Hizb’ullah was never defeated militarily, but was cornered politically in the Lebanese arena due to loss of the political leadership. If Israelis messed with Lebanese politics too much–and its high handed and violent behavior past year certainly did–the penalty box that Hizb’ullah got trapped in would loosen and if IDF tried to invade Lebanon again, they’d have to fight Hizb’ullah mano a mano again–to latter’s advantage. It seems like Israelis drank their own kool aid and convinced themselves they actually won for reals last time.
How the propaganda wheel has turned: “Assad has bombed the last remaining hospital in Podunk, Syria” has been replaced with “Israel has bombed and killed the last remaining senior Iranian leadership”
Iran seems to be delivering the military technology surprises it promised:
1. High accuracy of strikes by both ballistic missiles and drones, sufficient to take out important point targets like early warning radars
2. Decoy equipped missiles that defeat even the best interceptors
3. Cluster munition missile warheads that greatly amplify destructive effects on area targets like airfields and port facilities.
4. Effective concealment of missile launchers in buried sites
5. Disciplined prioritization of targeting with effective decentralized control
It all adds up to bad prospects for the U.S. military campaign. Add to this the economic pressure, and this may well bring down Trump’s presidency.
Also effective use of long range drone technology (and a near unlimited supply – Russia is shooting 2400 drones per month – likely making double given how Russia is building reserves for fighting NATO – if Iran can make 2400/month – that is 80 per day, they can pound every military target in every military base in the Gulf region every day. And Iran has had every incentive to have such capacity, with Russian presumably helping in the manufacturing scaling (Russian Shahed improvements have been added to Iranian Shaheds) if needed
* https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/27/europe/russia-ukraine-war-drones-alabuga-factory-intl-invs/index.html
Trump is so, so many things, but he’s not just (or not always) a random word generator. We can see how this is going now and we should probably fast-forward to the big issue.
Here is the final paragraph of the Potsdam Declaration:
There is no good way forward for Trump and Netanyahu, so at some point Trump is going to announce “they [the Iranians] are crazy”, “they cannot be allowed to hold the world hostage”, or more simply “we’re just done here.”
Trump has already called the Iranians crazy and now “unconditional surrender” is the only acceptable outcome. We should probably turn our attention to that.
I found it odd that the only nuclear tail risk Perera seemed concerned with was from Iran. Of the three belligerents, they seem by some distance the least likely.
Tulsi Gabbard said that Iran had no nuclear weapons. All serious observers know that Iran has no nukes. Of course we are not supposed to acknowledge Israeli nukes. I guess the Samson Option is just a figment of our imagination and wild conspiracy theory.
In the June 2025 war, “unconditional surrender” rhetoric preceded a spectacular but limited strike followed by mutually-agreed de-escalation.
This language now might indicate a US search for an off-ramp.
It does not seem likely that an easy off-ramp will materialize.
The Trump admin should call this guy
I took this as a nuke threat, and the biblical nuts in us israel might be dumb enough to do it.
But imo this continues to misjudge Iranians, they’re quite fatalistic, if we nuke Tehran after killing the ayatollah my guess is the guys controlling all the remaining missiles will use the for revenge, not just against us/israel but the Arab sycophants and all gulf fossil infra.
And if those stocks are well provisioned they might take potshots at any ship daring to pass Hormuz. The world might just have to do without 22% of world oil.
Markets might be annoyed.
Torah! Torah! Torah!
Concern is raised, not regarding the level of Trump’s delusion, but the message would suggest that whomever is exerting pressure offers no degrees of freedom in any direction. Just a wild speculation – while he has white matter disease, producing considerable dementia, this level of response in concert with his demand to select the next religious head of Iran, appears at a different level altogether. If there is any degree of accuracy in this, anticipate that equal levels of pressure were placed on Congress persons on the votes regarding War Powers Act.
While Iranian FM Araghchi
(NBC Interview), on “Truth Social”, the Rabid Leiter of Team Western Civilization appears to be green lighting the dropping of nuclear bombs on Iran through his ‘Unconditional Surrender’ predictive dog whistle!
Updates to follow.
AH
Alexander the Great conquered Persian only cuz Darius arrogantly sallied forth to fight him in Iraq (and lost)—instead of going full scorched earth and falling back into the Persian heartland…(like the Russians v. Napoleon),
“…IMHO, another monster market uncertainty is that Israel has never honored any ceasefire. So insurers cannot be certain if the conflict has really stopped…”
I think this statement hits at the core.
On the most basic levels, the US not capable of agreement, hypocrite EU vassals going along with lawless genocide, wars etc., and Israel notorious ignoring and mocking the law, how can any TRUST be established in international relations in general? Without basic trust, without basic institutions, without reliable trade routes etc. how can there be any intl. trade, and intl. economy?
Not to sound over the top, we have a lawless regime in Washington that appears unhinged, irrational or even insane. Russia, Iran and many other countries have bent over backwards to placate the Mad Dog empire in order to prevent escalation. However, it is not possible to placate a Mad Dog.
What can be done? Folks waiting for “midterms”? Even if the insane emperor is removed, is Vance really any different?
Yves, are you seeing any analysis of the ability of the Iranian economy to sustain a long war? Doesn’t Iran, with the Gulf States, lose its ability to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz?
Not Yves, obviously, but Extroverted Intorvert just posted a video from CNN below talking about all shops being open and well stocked.
Iran can export oil via train to China and likely has a swap credit line with China. Also, they are allowing Chinese and Russian vessels to pass – will the US risk a shooting war under its current depleted state with China, when it is depleting Pacific military assets for the middle east?
My local Republican Rep, Mike Thompson has come out against this War and will be holding a Town Hall featuring a number of anti (This) War US Veterans this Friday.
I occasionally visit a firearms site that has archived material not available elsewhere (5.56 timeline, history of SCHV developments) that has become more racist over the last year.
It’s run by a Vet and he was, in the past, a supporter of Israel.
He is bluntly opposed to this War and the Zionist entity.
Trump has very little support for this War and what support he has is diminishing rapidly.
Which, to my mind makes Martial Law more likely.
If Jihadists don’t supply the excuse I’m sure the FBI can.
Don has a feeling
A beautiful war ceiling
The smell of grasp
Just makes you pass
Into a dream
You’re here today
No future fears
God’s reign will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
You look around you
Things they astound you
So breathe in deep
You’re not asleep
Open your mind
You’re here today
No future fears
God’s reign will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
Do you understand
That all over this land
There’s a feeling
In minds far and near
Things are becoming clear
With a meaning
Now that you’re knowing
Pleasure starts flowing
It’s true lies fly
Faster than eyes
Could ever see
You’re here today
No future fears
God’s reign will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
Dawn is a Feeling, by the Moody Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVSh568-82k&list=RDqe7m1VzD2Fk&index=5
Thanks Wuk, I”m kind of laughing and crying at the same time.
Strange days indeed.
I second that, Cheers Wuk!
Corey Lewandowski out at DHS after rumored affair partner Kristi Noem is fired by Trump
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/corey-lewandowski-dhs-kristi-noem-b2933532.html
Additional info tidbits:
From Aljazeera live feed:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/3/6/iran-live-trump-says-iran-being-demolished-tehran-keeps-up-gulf-attacks
There are a lot of dogs not barking.
ISL, above, brought up the issue of F-35s needing repair after too many flight hours, and the vulnerability of the repair facilities to Iranian attack.
There has been just about zero reporting about strikes on either Prince Sultan or Muwaffaq Salti airbases, yet China-supplied images from right before the sneak attack showed big concentrations of US fighter, AWACS, and tanker aircraft at these bases. They must be key targets for the Iranians. A report on the recovery of the F-15 crews shot down in Kuwait showed their helmets marked with the insignia of a unit stationed at Muwaffaq, in Jordan — what were they doing in Kuwait? What about the fuel dumps to refuel the air tankers?
Israeli censorship has allowed the western media to remain supine on the subject of war impact on Israel. But in the few images of missile strikes that have leaked, you often see the flashes occur over the horizon from the urban locations of the cameras, which oddly complements reports from Israel that city life is going ahead without change. Is that because the Iranians are concentrating strikes on military bases, not urban areas? There was also a single report of strike on Dimona.
There was the question of what the dog did during the daytime.
We can almost guarantee the damage in Israel is much much worse than is publicly known at the moment. After the so-called 12 day war, photos and video eventually came out that revealed some of the damage. If that is any indicator, we can expect Israel to be hammered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFTONTxiZGE
How much will Israel be sacrificed in order to try to achieve “victory” over Iran?
Michael Hudson appears to be correct so far: they are willing to fight until the last Israeli, as well as the last Ukrainian. This is all part of the same war in a desperate attempt to maintain USD hegemony and what is left of the US empire. It looks like it’s all going to blow up in their faces. I certainly don’t want to visit Tel Aviv or Dubai, for example.
CNN is in IRAN
No chaos anywhere they have been, shops well stocked.
They also showed a classroom that had been bombed. Wait, what?
That’s why I posted, could not believe they showed that.
In WW2 Germany invaded the Soviet Union across a broad front with three army groups. In 42 they could only manage an advance with one army group. In 43 they could only gather the resources for a large but localised offensive.
Looking at the USA. In the first Gulf war they mustered a very large army to invade Kuwait, along with large allied contingents. In the invasion of Iraq they could only manage a much smaller army, with comparaitvlry few allies who all provided far fewer troops.
And now they are limited to air power woth a small naval contingent. And very little direct allied support, basically one country at this time. It doesn’t look like they could invade in any meaningful manner, partially as the US military seems to have largely changed it’s focus to be special forces centered.
…and as discussed here passim, US special forces take all the top dogs from the regular units, leaving them weak.
I was going to add something or other about the “Learned Helplessness” of Americans but that condition can be remedied through therapy. What we are experiencing is Actual Helplessness. The U.S. is under the dictatorship of a sociopathic madman who appears to be acting solely to distract attention from the allegation in the Epstein Files that he raped a young teen.
The U.S. Congress has abandoned any semblance of honor when that madman and his slicked-back dry-drunk Secretary of Warmongering refer to “war” in every utterance yet the congress-critters claim that it is otherwise. The U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law have been trampled into the Foggy Bottom swamp.
The economy cratering isn’t the only way that this insane bombardment of 90 million people can be ended. Hopefully the so-called “Christian” millennial-dispensationalist crusaders won’t get their way and launch their whack-a-doodle pagan Revelation fire-storm. I can’t imagine anything less Christian, but Vance, Hegseth, and Huckabee are just the clowns to do it.
Pakistan’s military has promised to retaliate in kind if a nuke is unleashed on Muslims. The late Daniel Ellsberg constantly reminded us that it will only take one or two H-bombs to bring on a Nuclear Winter that will likely starve a large portion of humanity to death. Perhaps that’s Our Billionaire Overlords’ plan to deal with the global over-population problem? The Epstein Files tell us that in their hubris they think that they can survive the apocalypse.
You think all of this, this entire war, the movement of billions of dollars, upheaval in the geopolitical order, is to “distract attention from the Epstein files”? I appreciate the anti-government sentiment but this is simply a kindergartner’s conception of how the world works and why war happens. They really don’t care about how much “attention” you’re focusing on the Epstein files. They know you aren’t going to do anything.
>What we are experiencing is Actual Helplessness
You said it yourself. That’s why they were comfortable to release part of them in the first place.
The “Distraction from the Epstein Files” rhetoric is the Liberal’s latest way of exonerating the capitalist system for its crimes by redirecting the blame.
Enough with the ersatz Marxism. I don’t think for a minute that Donald Trump cares a whit about “the capitalist system” or anything other than his personal image. This man has lived his entire life trapped in his pathetic family dynamic of maternal abandonment and paternal sociopathy.
This war is just as terrible for “the capitalist system” as it is for Islamic theocracy. It’s being driven by the unfettered personal greed of a caste inhabited by a handful of very selfish individuals who are mostly scions of inheritance, dumb luck, or grift who couldn’t recognize capitalism if it bit them on the nose — and by the desperation of a walled racist settler apartheid island whose inhabitants have deluded themselves that they can kill their way to security.
In an abstract, general way, US foreign policy aims to maintain dominance and USD hegemony. The Epstein Class is a part of that, but as you say, not the prime motivation. Iran has been the focus of UK, then later, US foreign policy for many decades. For example, Mossadegh was not overthrown for the benefit of Israel. There is much more to the picture of course.
Michael Hudson has written a couple articles recently I recommend.
https://michael-hudson.com/
It’s the latest liberal attempt to avoid talking about the Democrats support for the state of Israel. It is tragic that we can’t even discuss how messed up our politics are because any criticism of Israel is considered antisemitism. I wonder if we were to see Israel launch a nuclear weapon, would we then be allowed to discuss our politics and their influence over our country?
Much more likely to get a nuke from North Korea, Pakistan is a broken reed. Seems like a tacit understanding is starting to circulate that the way to stop this is to bring large parts of the world economy to a halt. I expect a lot more exports to be curtailed and credit to be circumscribed.
With the US airforce, its main weapon, tied up in the Middle East for an open ended time the rumours of General Armageddon meeting with Mr Putin are interesting. Is he going to get command of the reserve armies for a push to Odessa with the USAF busy elsewhere ?
Australia is at the end of the line and remoter areas are already seeing fuel supply gaps, supermarket shelves are starting to look like the early days of COVID and smaller land developers have already got the message and put their blocks up for sale.
Today’s economic figures are a sign of things to come, negative jobs, GDP turning and Mr Trump will be after his $ 500 billion when markets least like it. Modern day Luddites are starting to see how central and vulnerable these data centres are, hoard cash.
Here in Moruya on the NSW South Coast I paid $1.68 for a litre of diesel last weekend.
Yesterday it was $1.85.
That’s a little over 10% up in less than a week.
The wholesalers act because the gov. doesn’t want to admit they have a problem yet. No diesel in Biggenden a couple of days ago and wholesalers are getting cadgey about orders. Saw a Facebook post today showing diesel over $ 5 per litre in Cessnock but it was probably AI.
Some retailers are letting farmers and graziers fill big tanks at ordinary stations, gov. needs to start prioritising but doesn’t want to start a panic. The massive and long term flooding we are having is going to need a lot of diesel for recovery.
David
I think it would take more than 1 or 2 h-bombs to cause a nuclear winter. The US and Russia have already tested dozens of these bombs.
Nuclear winter would be caused by mass fires fom burning cities. As I recall, Lynn Eden’s Whole World on Fire speculated that a ‘small’ nuclear war between India and Pakistan would loft sufficient soot into the atmosphere to bring about that mini-ice age.
Re-reading Ellsberg, I can see that you’re correct about a “limited” nuclear war not causing a Nuclear Winter; I misunderstood his distinction between fission and fusion weapons in a potential India/Pakistan conflict. It would all depend on how many cities are set on fire.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that the Pakistanis only posses a couple of dozen compact tritium-enhanced fusion bombs that could feasibly be detonated over Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, plus a few hundred Hiroshima-style fission weapons. We don’t know whether Iranian hypersonic missiles have been adapted to deliver these warheads. Even if they can be delivered, the Pakistanis are not likely to allow all of their fission bombs to be launched on behalf of the Iranians and to lose deterrence against India. Probably not enough soot for a true Nuclear Winter.
What a relief! Let’s drop the Big One and see what happens…
If you have accurate (Small Circular Error Probable, CEP) conventional ballistic missiles and good target information, do you really need to launch a nuke against military targets? Early ICBMs had large CEP, in the 1970s CEP got tight enough to go after silos, leading to mobile launchers.
Russia’s Oreshnik could be an example of moving past a need for nuclear warheads.
re: nuclear winter
One of the most up to date studies on the subject (this study being done shortly before the SMO I did find slightly racist in choice of countries – India vs. Pakistan):
Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe
Oct. 2019
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay5478
Abstract:
Pakistan and India may have 400 to 500 nuclear weapons by 2025 with yields from tested 12- to 45-kt values to a few hundred kilotons. If India uses 100 strategic weapons to attack urban centers and Pakistan uses 150, fatalities could reach 50 to 125 million people, and nuclear-ignited fires could release 16 to 36 Tg of black carbon in smoke, depending on yield. The smoke will rise into the upper troposphere, be self-lofted into the stratosphere, and spread globally within weeks. Surface sunlight will decline by 20 to 35%, cooling the global surface by 2° to 5°C and reducing precipitation by 15 to 30%, with larger regional impacts. Recovery takes more than 10 years. Net primary productivity declines 15 to 30% on land and 5 to 15% in oceans threatening mass starvation and additional worldwide collateral fatalities.
+
NC had a post last summer compiling a few other sources:
Nuclear Winter from a Pakistan-India War Could Kill 2 Billion
May 19, 2025
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/05/nuclear-winter-from-a-pakistan-india-war-could-kill-2-billion.html
The most recent work on nuclear winter is the NAS study last year, which you can read for free online.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/27515/chapter/1#xiii
The biggest uncertainty is in how much soot is produced by burning cities and cities vary quite a bit. I am of the opinion that no one should ever use nuclear weapons for any reason, but we don’t need to be certain about nuclear winter for that. As we have been reading here, even a conventional war involving the Strait of Hormuz could have cascading cataclysmic effects.
Thanks!
Hmm, Nature is healing. Is nuclear winter the Bunker class’s preferred solution to AI-induced unemployment *and* global warming? Why not both?
As war days go this looks increasingly amateurish by the part of the US/Israel. Improvised stuff like,”let’s send the Kurds”. From amateurish down to a bad joke when Hegseth intervenes. Even MSM outlets are asking questions. Imagine the stenographers! Unbelievable. El País is asking whether ¿Tiene Estados Unidos munición para tanta guerra? (Has the USA munition for so many wars?) showing some scepticism about US officials asserting everything is right and well. I wouldn’t have suspected such a headline in a MSM outlet in the past. Ground invasion? unprepared. Nukes? Better not even think about it. That would be a fatal mistake for Israel and I suppose there is someone saying this repeatedly to Netanyahoo. Thinking of nukes is part of that amateurism. Bombing and bombing? Not like “nuking” but this will also have unintended consequences and achieve nothing but destruction.
Karoline Leavitt: “US is on its ways to control Iranian airspace within 6 weeks”
I thought they said they already did?
Karoline’s from the future, dontchaknow.
😂👍
I have to say, after all the talk about Putin being wrong that he was going to have a quick weekend victory in Ukraine despite zero evidence that he ever said any such thing, it’s rather hilarious to see documented US estimates from various officials go from a quick decapitation strike, to needing a couple weeks, then a month, now six weeks. The amount of projection coming out of the mouths of these clowns!
Interesting bookends, the 6 Day War and what looks to be the 6 Week War.
The former set Israel on their course of expansion, this is the death knell of it.
Has anybody else read about Handala Hack? Apparently, the Axis of Resistance has a capable team of hackers. This link to a Thomas Keith repost on nitter. If real, this could be big as they have made a number of claims over the last few days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS_9Jp0Htg4
Excellent discussion between Col. Daniel Davis and Ambassador Chas Freeman
thanks
p.s. Wilkerson – in the discussion which Yves recommended yesterday – speaks about a fun episode when US and Chinese were participating in some war game – Freeman was present too as the only US who spoke Mandarin fluently – which the Chinese counterparts did not know.
So when the Chinese were discussing Freeman would understand every word and report to the US side. Eventually they told the Chinese who were stunned.
Because it´s Wilkerson I am willing to buy the story.
Yves, good morning from Oregon. I wanted to add to the chorus of thank-yous for creating and maintaining this place. I can’t imagine the time and effort it must take. Most days, the incessantly dreadful info presented here is too hard for me to ingest, and affects my mental health, so I mostly peruse the headlines, then go outside and garden. I’ve been reading all of your posts on Trumps War however, and all of the comments, for obvious existential reasons.
A local anecdote: I’ve lived here since April 2025, and we had been treated to almost daily fly-overs of F-15E Strike Eagles, in groups of two to four, but often two, pursued by one more. About ten days before Trump killed all those Iranian girls, the flights stopped (I’m always home, so I know). Because I read here, I knew exactly why they stopped. There have been zero fly-overs since the war started. When the flights stopped, I had wished, and wrote in my journal, that the F-15’s would never return to my country. As we all know now, very early in the war, three F-15’s were were shot down…….I got chills.
Another anecdote: We’re doing a small renovation in our kitchen, and I’ve been talking to contractors. The first one was a dapper young man of clearly middle-eastern descent, with a heavy accent. Halfway through our discussion (which wasn’t going great, he was pressuring me to make a decision) he stopped and asked, where do you think I’m from? (he made me guess) I made a couple incorrect guesses before he said, “I am from Israel….I am an Israeli”.
One of the few bright sides of this conflict is the F-35s have all departed. I’d be delighted if they never returned.
Gas is up 30 to 50 cents per gallon around here.
Same in Washington State. I see (but first, I hear!) the low flying fighter jets practicing when driving through the mountain passes. It made me wonder what mountainous terrain they were training for. From AI:
Key Details About the Crash:
Aircraft Type: The EA-18G Growler is an electronic warfare aircraft variant of the F/A-18F Super Hornet.Location: The wreckage was located on a remote, steep, and heavily wooded mountainside east of Mount Rainier.Crew: Two U.S. Navy aviators—Lt. Cmdr. Lyndsay P. Evans and Lt. Serena N. Wileman—died in the crash.Investigation: The cause of the crash is still under investigation
The crew belonged to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130, known as the “Zappers,” which had recently returned from a combat deployment in the Middle East.
A beautiful vision from the days of Woodstock:
Joni Mitchell “Woodstock“
Chinese satellite monitoring the Ford carrier strike group entering the Suez canal.
Well this will be fun.
Did they ever get those toilets fixed or are the sailors crapping off the poop deck (I’m sorry I just couldn’t help myself).
One thing for sure, no shortage of tragic humor and irony lately. Cheers!
I wonder whether the Houthis won’t have something to say about that before Iran does.
it would be wild if the US has its “Suez moment” right on the doorsteps of the Suez, lmao.
it’s like poetry, it rhymes
epic trolling by China.
They’ve been showing skills in this department, lol.
Imagine if the Suez Canal gets shut down.
Best place for Iran (or Houthis) to hit the Ford would be near the South end of the Canal (single “lane”, in a less populated area, to minimize deaths to Egyptian civilians). There’s a nice straight stretch of Canal there, with a great view of the “Evergreen Grounding Memorial”… !!!
Not sure that Iran has the capability to reliably hit a moving target at that distance though. Ford would be moving slowly, in a predictable line, but from what I’ve read, ballistic missiles are targeted to a geographical point (Longitude/Latitude), so the timing would have to be *very* precise.
A handful of hypersonics (with inert ‘warheads’ even) aimed in a line down the Canal *might* guarantee that one would hit. I’d bet that a heavy hypersonic could go right through a Carrier to the mud below (admitting I have no engineering background to back up that guess). That would clog up the Canal *way* longer than the Evergreen mess did (especially if the Ford’s nuke plant was breached).
Another option might be to send a formation of cruise missiles Southward down the Canal, with the idea of hitting the stern. Loss of propulsion and/or steering would lead to a grounding, which would be easier to clear than a sunken ship. This kind of attack might have less risk of nuclear contamination (I assume that the reactor is midship, not near the stern).
I hope Iran does *not* choose to try any of this. As I’ve noted in previous comments here, sinking a US Carrier would probably enrage enough Americans to give Trump an excuse to push The Button, which would make long-term closure of the Suez seem trivial.
Hit the leading ship and force a traffic jam, with the following ships all rear-ending each other.
Injured in an accident? Call Saul Goodman on …
Wouldn’t the funniest thing be to bomb the canal at both ends when the Ford is in the middle and strand it in the desert? Look on my works ye mighty and despair! It could end its days as the Queen Mary of Sinai (a very long beach), providing power, pleasure flights and occasional toilet facilities to the Egyptians on shore.
I agree, i hope they don’t.
Better to just harass them to stress out the crew, then push them as far away as possible. If they can keep it roughly as far away as the Lincoln it will be basically a non-factor.
Edit: i’m shocked they’re using it – the crew seemed to be sabotaging it just a few days ago, how can they trust it in battle?
Perera posted a comment on SubStack about Iran’s attack on Microsoft data centers in the Gulf, which are heavily used as the operational backbone of NATO, U.S. DoD, and major financial institutions in the Gulf. It is the “digital connective tissue between American defense architecture and Gulf sovereign AI ambitions.” He goes on to catalogue the infrastructure domains Iran is methodically attacking: “Hormuz for maritime insurance, BAPCO and Ras Tanura for oil infrastructure insurance, Manam hotels for corporate presence insurance, AWS for basic cloud insurability, and Microsoft for the tier of cloud infrastructure that carries defense adjacent and government workloads. Each successive target has moved one layer deeper into the critical infrastructure stack.” His conclusion: “[Iran] is methodically repricing every assumption the American-aligned economic order made about the Gulf as a safe jursidiction for permanent infrastructure.”
Link here: https://substack.com/@shanakaanslemperera/note/c-223744309
If your country’s military relies on a platform for its operational infrastructure, well, you don’t have a military then.
Thanks for this! Can’t depend on MSM! All this they will try to suppress so everything appears to be coming up roses.
The Azerbaijani State Security Service has accused the IRGC of plotting a terrorist attack on Azerbaijani soil.
The agency stated that counterintelligence operations thwarted terrorist provocations and intelligence gathering attempts.
Among the possible targets, the SSS named the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Israeli embassy, and a leader of the Mountain Jewish community.
According to the intelligence service, three explosive devices were brought into Azerbaijan.
———
Azerbaijan continues to prepare the ground for an attack on Iran. Following the propaganda about an “Iranian attack on Nakhchivan,” a fake story was launched about “IRGC terrorists” allegedly planning to blow up a pipeline in Azerbaijan. The question of why Iran would need this, given that the pipeline and other oil facilities could easily be destroyed by missiles and drones, is purely rhetorical. One can observe how pretexts for an attack on Iran are being fabricated in order to justify an attack on a neighbor in the interests of the United States and Israel.
Red Sea Corridor Slips Back Into Crisis as Houthi Threats Resurface
https://gcaptain.com/red-sea-corridor-slips-back-into-crisis-as-houthi-threats-resurface/
March 2, 2026
And now the Ford carrier group is looking to test the waters.
A bit father south and the Ford will become the Dodge.
Or Pinto?
getting your rear blown up
Massive fire at a U.S. logistics facility in Basra after Iranian drone strikes.
https://nitter.poast.org/DD_Geopolitics/status/2030030397116166222#m
Attacking US supply bases (and ships) is smart, especially in a place like Basra (which would normally be resupplied from ships coming up the Gulf from… the Straits of Hormuz). US logistics tail is long and complex, and much of it is contracted out these days, to maximize “efficiency” (and campaign donations).
Bonus: most Americans will shrug off (and some might openly cheer) the destruction of a KBR warehouse/profit center, whereas killing US soldiers reinforces the idea that Iran is our Enemy.
What happened to the ex-US Marine Brian McGinnis after yesterday’s scuffle in the senate hearing? And more importantly, when is Senator Tim Sheehy being expelled from the Senate?
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/watch-ex-marine-brian-mcginnis-dragged-out-of-senate-after-anti-iran-war-outburst-senator-tim-sheehy-seen-assisting/ar-AA1XxKs9
Speaking as a Montanan, Sheehy cannot be expelled fast enough.
Paging Remo Williams … (via YT)
Trump admin announces $20 billion reinsurance program for oil tankers during Iran war
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/trump-reinsurance-oil-iran-war.html
Here’s the US press release.
I do wonder if it will have any effect.
There was a real estate agent who tried to get into the insurance business… 🤡
These programs seem enormously complicated to set up, and the Trump administration lacks the competence and the capacity. Trump likes to announce Big Numbers.
USEFUL IDIOTS had a good completely free show today:
Iran Update with Iran Experts Negar Mortazavi and Trita Parsi
Plus, watching the craziest clips from Jon Stewart, Chuck Schumer, Jake Tapper, Lindsey Graham, Dave Rubin and more
84 min.
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/iran-update-with-iran-experts-negar
My one problem as often with meaningful political criticism by serious progressives nowadays:
Together with Trita Parsi, one of their guests, they seem to believe that one way or the other US/ISR will prevail and eventually bomb Iran back several decades.
That Iran has quiet the leverage, that it possibly could sink a few nuke-worthy flagships, the altogether damage inflicted to US infrastructure so far and ultimately that Iran has strategic resolve which neither US nor ISR seem to be prepared for – none of this is seriously reflected upon.
especially the fact, that – as much as they may hate the Israeli establishment and mainstream – Israel has not one of the world´s most powerful armies – and eventually as we know is quite fragile would Iran fancy to test Israel´s limits.
In this sense involuntarily – not unlike the German peace movement – they affirm the propaganda of strength spread by the very subject of their contempt and confirm that subject´s imperial narrative: “We cannot be defeated” – which is eventually the core idea that bolsters and so far ensured US rogue behaviour.
So literally, a tiny bit, they are useful idiots 🙄…?
re: Iran girl school bombed
This is what you get with dumbed-down so-called “neutral reporting”:
DEMOCRACY NOW shamefully on March 4th still did an interview with a reporter (NYT & WaPo), Nilo Tabrizy, who from 10.000 miles away, via everybody´s darling – osint – researched who bombed and killed the 160+ girls.
“(…)NILO TABRIZY: The U.S. said that it was looking into this incident. And Iran has said this was on the fault of Israel, this is what happens in an air campaign. And we’re still trying to figure that out. So, as it stands, we need more information. Either we need remnants of the weapons that was used from the scene. We haven’t been able to obtain that. Or what would — another visual clue that would be helpful is to see the moment of impact. If we saw the missile hit, we could maybe look at the angle where it comes from and get more information.
So we still don’t exactly who did what. Some of the claims coming out, as well, just about the general operation, have said that Israel is mostly responsible for Tehran, you know, western Iran strikes, and that the southern Iran strikes are being done by the U.S., which is why some reporters have gone to the U.S. and asked for answers.(…)”
Who Bombed Girls’ School in Iran? Reporter Nilo Tabrizy on What We Know About Massacre, 175 Killed
March 04, 2026
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/4/nilo_tabrizy
Would Amy Goodman ever ask a reporter if a US school were bombed if the US Army did it?
By comparison USEFUL IDIOTS´s female guest Negar Mortazavi – see above – made it clear that it was obvious that this was either USA or ISR.
Eventually there is no such thing as no bias in reporting. At some point you have to make a decision. And often in real life the later you make that the less a good reporter you are.
There is an inherent contradiction here:
While common wisdom suggests that media is the 4th estate – that is: media´s main role is scrutinizing and criticizing the government and the other two estates – at the same time it is supposed to be non-biased and non-political? Well that doesn´t work. And the more is at stake the more crucial media are and the less a choice of non-bias they have.
(Consider the damage Taibbi and Kirn might have done in regard of Israel/Gaza within their viewership. Of course a probably more complex matter.)
p.s. Here is the original piece by Nilo Tabrizy from March 2nd for NEW LINES MAGAZINE.
I have not yet read it.
Investigation Debunks Claims IRGC Bombed Iranian School
https://newlinesmag.com/running-notes/investigation-debunks-claims-irgc-bombed-iranian-school/
Kuwait has begun cutting production at some oil fields, WSJ reports
By Reuters March 6, 2026 6:01 AM PST
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kuwait-has-begun-cutting-production-some-oil-fields-wsj-reports-2026-03-06/
An organized criminal group preparing a terrorist act in Baku has been neutralized, says the State Security Service of Azerbaijan (SSS).
https://news.az/news/azerbaijan-exposes-irans-terror-plans-in-baku
Not sure about this source.
It’s time for Iran to target desalinization plants throughout the Golf region.
Why limit it to desalinization plants? Why not take out the electrical supply? Anyone in one of those glitzy glass towers would soon find out what it’s like to be trapped in a car with the windows closed on a hot, sunny day.
Perera, who has been very busy, has posted about the Gulf states’ desalinization plants, noting that due to lack of fresh water alternatives their destruction would immediately make many of the Gulf states uninhabitable. Iran struck a power station in Fujairah that feeds one of the world’s largest desalination plants, but spared the plant itself. The message from Iran: “we can turn off your water whenever we decide the cost of restraint exceeds the cost of escalation.”
The link: https://substack.com/@shanakaanslemperera/note/c-224170566
Exclusive: US pressing Sri Lanka not to repatriate Iranian crew and survivors from sunken ship, memo says
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-pressing-sri-lanka-not-repatriate-iranian-crew-survivors-sunken-ship-memo-2026-03-06/
even the Times of Israel is admitting the consequences of the loss of the radars (without admitting to the loss of the radars, of course) because it cannot be hidden even under censorship
Home Front Command issues shorter alerts for Iranian missiles this evening
Sigh, CIA´s Substack affiliate Spytalk
preview, but that is more than sufficient
Iran’s Mighty Missile Threat Falls Flat
Tehran’s surviving leaders are betting they can wait out U.S. and Israeli air attacks
by Jonathan Broder
https://www.spytalk.co/p/irans-mighty-missile-threat-falls
Intro:
For months, the Iranians had warned that if the United States and Israel launched major attacks that sought to bring down the Islamic Republic, they would unleash their arsenal of 3,000 missiles and countless drones, striking U.S. military bases across the Middle East and plunging the entire oil-rich region into a war that would devastate the global economy..
US-Israel-Iran war: ‘Wake up’: Israel calls on Australia to join Middle East war
‘The war is now escalating on all fronts.’
https://7news.com.au/news/us-israel-iran-war-wake-up-israel-calls-on-australia-to-join-middle-east-war-c-21846828
Hey Cobber be a smarty, come and join the Zionist party!
The Israelis can go and get stuffed. It’s bad enough that we have a base in the Middle East and our soldiers scattered around there. Would you believe that there were three Royal Australian Navy sailors aboard that US sub which sunk that unarmed Iranian ship?
Any goy in a war.
Many here at NC are (unlike the MSM) thinking about the once unthinkable, i.e. the tail risks of this war. So far I see no evidence that Trump and Netanyahu have considered the worst case costs to them of achieving “victory.” If the fog of war turns against them, “winning may well be losing.”
Trump’s demand for Iran’s “Unconditional Surrender” sounds like he has deliberately put himself in a corner with no exits. To me this is escalatory code for 1) we are in control, 2) we WILL keep this war short, and 3) we’ll use nukes if necessary to assure this outcome, 4) so stop fretting over the oil price and fertilizer supplies you ninnies — the end is near and “victory will be ours!” Where does this confidence come from?
Please see Prof. Steven Starr’s “Total War” scenario and Lawrence Wilkerson’s fear that Israel will “open the nuclear box.”
Is this confidence justified? I suspect not. We should consider the possibility that Iran doesn’t need nukes to deter Israel. First, as Prof. Starr points out, Iran’s population is spread out over the size of Western Europe while half of Israel’s population is concentrated in three of its cities (Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem). A barrage of Iran’s conventional heavy missiles could turn these cities into Gaza-like ruins. With time, Iran’s missile deterrent value (penetration to targets) keeps getting better as Israel and U.S. run out of air defense (Patriot and Thaad missiles) — already in short supply.
As we’ve discussed here at NC, Iran’s ability to inflict damage goes way beyond Israel, e.g. damage to “friendly” Arab oil assets (refineries, ports, pipelines and oil extraction facilities) and the global economy. In the meantime it is inflaming the Arab population’s anger at their regimes for tacitly supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. So Iran’s deterrent — political and economic — keeps getting stronger with the passage of time. Finally, nukes only work if they bring about the desire result — regime change. Suppose using them only strengthens the resolve of Iran’s theocratic leadership to retaliate against the “great satan.”
Trump’s and Hegseth’s fire-and-brimstone threats only confirm what Wilkerson says again and again: these guys are utterly ignorant of the realities of this war. Especially the tail risks.
Netanyahu got what he wanted: U.S. commitment to war in Iran. It is developing into a “Total War”. He may well have led Israel down the primrose path to its destruction no matter the end game. The possibility of another “ceasefire” to spare Israel the worst seems low, given the failure of that tactic last year to accomplish anything positive.
Will Israel be happy with the outcome, whether it is victory or defeat? Wilkerson thinks Israel’s answer would be “yes” — as Israel thinks “chaos” benefits it. We will see!
On Judge Napolitano’s Intel Roundtable late today, Larry Johnson, citing a blood drive in Germany reported in Stars and Stripes and the suspension of obstetric and pediatric services at an American hospital there–a hospital that often handles casualties–raises the possibility that casualties are higher than Americans have been told. That would (taking account of the fact mentioned by Yves that combat death reporting has such a strict protocol that it would be hard to conceal those deaths for long) mean wounded, but would also mean that severly wounded American personnel would begin to die in Germany and in hospital. Such deaths might be less immediately visible. Even taking into account that American military bases contain vast stretches of unused space and unoccupied storage, I find it difficult to square the extent of physical destruction of American bases with the light casuality reporting.
Help Wanted: Proxy army – hiring immediately!
Job description: Must be willing to work long hours for low pay. Stateless version preferred. Chances of survival low. Outstanding candidates will show bravery and willingness to be stabbed in the back. We are an equal opportunity employer – criminal history not a problem. Previous experience with Epstein Island is welcome.
Benefits: Opportunity to work with the latest wunderweapons in the field. Possible lebensraum.
Full Dental Plan, 401k (BlackRock), and death benefits. Please notify next of kin upon interviewing.
Send Resume to:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
C/O Donald J. Trump
If you consider Trump´s claim that “1000s of Iranian soldiers wrote to him” because they wanted to surrender – that mail address must really be an all-time favourite these days.
Adjusting your employment ad for other venues:
How could the proxy army you currently work for hope to distinguish their job opportunities from the opportunities we offer, … available here … and NOW? Consider a chance to work “long hours for low pay”, and add “willingness to be stabbed in the back”, then add, “opportunity to work with the latest wunderweapons in the field”, with full dental benefits, 401K, and death benefits!!!!! How could you say no?
Criminal history, or previous experience with Epstein Island not a problem.
Condoleezza Rice spotted going to the White House: report
https://abc7amarillo.com/news/nation-world/condoleezza-rice-spotted-going-to-the-white-house-report-george-w-bush-iran-military-israel-middle-east-donald-trump
They’re getting the band back together again.
Another sign the current crew is way out of their depth.
Iran’s Guards challenges Trump to have US Navy escort oil tankers in Strait of Hormuz
By Reuters March 6, 2026 3:05 PM PST
“A spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards challenged U.S. President Donald Trump to deploy U.S. naval vessels to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media reported on Friday.”
Cancellation of Army exercise fuels speculation about Mideast troop deployments
“The elite 82nd Airborne Division, which specializes in ground combat and other fraught missions, is awaiting new orders after the unexpected change of plans.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/06/army-82nd-airborne-iran/
Fits with:
Trump has privately shown serious interest in U.S. ground troops in Iran (NBC, 6pm Eastern time)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has privately expressed serious interest in deploying U.S. troops on the ground inside of Iran, according to two U.S. officials, a former U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the conversations.
Trump has discussed the idea of deploying ground troops with aides and Republican officials outside the White House while outlining his vision for a post-war Iran in which Iran’s uranium is secure and the U.S. and a new Iranian regime cooperate on oil production similar to how the U.S. and Venezuela are, the sources said.
The president’s comments expressing serious interest in deploying ground troops have not focused on a large-scale ground invasion of Iran, but rather on the idea of a small contingent of U.S. troops that would be used for specific strategic purposes, the U.S. officials, the former U.S. official and the person with knowledge of the discussions said. They said Trump has not made any decisions or given any orders related to ground troops.
The man is an idiot
Is a shallow, unmarked grave ‘a specific strategic purpose?’
in Iran?
Good place for ‘em. Does it really come with a shallow unmarked grave?
Iran War:…..Trump Team Doubles Down on Hare-Brained Schemes to Prevail via THE Force
There, fixed. What could possibly go wrong?
Trump says defense CEOs agree to quadruple production of ‘Exquisite Class’ weaponry
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/iran-war-trump-defense-companies-pete-hegseth.html
“Key Points”
– President Donald Trump met with CEOs of major defense industry companies at the White House as the war against Iran ended its first full week.
– After the meeting, Trump said in a social media post that “we discussed Production and Production Schedules” and “they have agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity.”
– Trump did not explain what he meant by “Exquisite Class Weaponry.”
What a moron; he loves his executive orders, why not immediately nationalize the armaments industry? Set whatever production schedule you want. No profit concerns.
Reality does not impinge on his thinking.
He understands nothing.
It’s not possible to suddenly magic up any kind of materiel, much less the exquisite type.
Perera’s observation: this ramp up announcement is only for offensive weapons. The THAAD defensive weapons require a seven year ramp up to reach maximum capacity. The asymmetry is that America can produce offensive munitions faster than Iran can rebuild what they destroy, which favors America, but it cannot produce interceptors faster than Iran can produce missiles aimed at those bases, which favors Iran.
Link: https://substack.com/@shanakaanslemperera/note/c-224183356
It has the feel of “saying something big-sounding for public consumption”, along with “unconditional surrender.”
If US production of urgently-needed weapons such as Patriot interceptors could be readily increased, it would have already have happened, months or years ago, to help address the problems in Ukraine.
This.
Useful summary of shipping risk in the Middle East. Especially given the analysis that was shared here yesterday. Looks like 2 ships went through the Strait today. Seems like the shipping collapse predicted in that paper has occurred.
Speaking of that proxy army, @ChrisFromGA …
Polish mercs in Iraq ?
https://t.me/SabrenNewss/185925
Photos of their passports, i.e., they have been captured or killed.
Between national and some private reserves, Japan claims to have 254 days worth of oil in reserve (per PM Takaichi), but there is talk already of releasing some of this. The aim may be to buffer domestic prices, but it may be also to sell the oil at a profit.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/03/06/japan/japan-oil-stockpiles/
LNG is another story, as the Japanese supply is much tighter (only a few weeks, apparently). Following the 3/11 disaster and shutdown of a number of nuclear plants, Japan increased the share of LNG for generating electricity, and it is now the largest single source of power. IIRC, most of the LNG comes from Australia and Malaysia (a little over 50% combined), with about 10% coming from Qatar. Another 10% comes from the US, and I would expect some horse trading around that this month.
Bringing shuttered nuclear plants back online might be possible, though apparently some of them were closed also because the operators decided it would be too costly to renovate them to meet current standards. Of course, that decision depends on the cost of other energy sources, which is now changing.
NY Times
Are Israeli civilian airports now fair game?
> Are Israeli civilian airports now fair game?
Apparently so … (Dimitri Lascaris via YT)
I think most airports in ME are dual use. Historically, civilian onlh airports, even in the West, are only a faitly recent phenomenon, afaik.
It’s not a reciprocity issue. Airports normally used for military operations, or pressed into service for military operations, are legitimate targets.
I really shouldn’t post this, but the US government stupid is so strong.
Operation Epic Furry”
Alastair Crooke and Chris Hedges:
Can Israel & the U.S. Sustain Iran’s Military Power? (w/ Alastair Crooke) | The Chris Hedges Report
The Iran War has just begun — but already, Iran’s military prowess, and America’s and Israel’s impulsive imperial hubris, is on full display.
61 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/can-israel-and-the-us-sustain-irans
It´s a new piece so not listened yet.
I have glanced into the transcript.
On air defense I ran across:
Crooke e.g. (who is not a military specialist however):
“(…)
I’m talking about the Khorramshahr-4, for example, which is a hypersonic missile. It flies at Mach 14. It has multiple submunition warheads in it, which are steerable and like it’s a multiple arrival of 80 of these small, if you like, warheads.
But each of these has a warhead of about nearly 20 kilos. So they’re not huge bombs, but they’re really significant. But if you have 80 of these arriving together, they come more or less bunched, but they come bunched within, say, a radius of about 15 to 16 kilometers total, so wide area. And it’s like being shelled, artillery shelled, by 80 guns at the same time. So it’s very, it’s devastating. And the Israelis, it seems, from all the evidence we see that they cannot down missiles that are traveling at a speed above Mach 4.
So they are not being able to destroy those. They can take down some of the slower missiles, but those slower missiles were fired precisely to draw on the intervening, the ability to fire intervention missiles to try and bring down those.
It’s also very evident that Israel is now using those in prodigious quantities. You can see from some of the videos that have gotten through the censorship that as the Iranian missiles come in, Israel is firing perhaps eight, 10, 12 intercept missiles to try and bring it down. That cannot go on for very long.(…)”
I have serious doubts Israel can take down Mach 4 missiles.
If Ukraine can´t why can Israel.
After all how many Mach 4 missiles does the West have to train their AD on besides their nuclear ballistic missiles?
LRHW are not operational.
Drones can pose a problem too, since they have a smaller radar cross section and radars are being destroyed.
On damage in Israel and info:
“(…)
The censorship, I mean, it’s absolutely tight. Anyone trying to film is immediately arrested or stopped. It’s very hard to get facts. But I was listening to Colonel [Lawrence] Wilkerson just recently, who was Colin Powell’s chief of staff in that time, a military man with much experience. And he said he had witnessed some real videos coming out of Tel Aviv.
And he said, you know, this is not AI. This is the real stuff that has come through. And he watched a 15 minute video and he said it is absolutely devastating what is coming. It is relentless and it is continuous and you see at the end of it, there aren’t even any intercept missiles firing at that point. So I think we don’t know the extent. This was Tel Aviv, but we know that missiles are being fired across Israel.
But it seems that the damage is huge. What the consequences will be in Israel is not clear. We get very contradictory messages. You’ve probably heard them. Some people in these things, as in every war, you can be in one part and you say, well, nothing’s happening. Everything seems normal. And then you go 500 meters in another direction and it’s mayhem and it is a disaster.
So it’s difficult to get an overall concerted picture
(…)”
If these are our best sources from inside Israel that is rather limited. Which on the other hand confirms the extreme level of censorship and unlikelihood of any official news being reported on any such military incidents.
Chris Hedges and guest Alistair Crooke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL8rXeNkXsQ
Center on Conscience and War
https://x.com/mikeprysner/status/2030062850392326339
Came across this, the Pentagon is planning for the war last to September, 6 to 7 months (compared to the 4 to 6 weeks of the regime mouthpieces).
https://news.antiwar.com/2026/03/05/pentagon-prepares-for-possibility-that-iran-war-will-last-through-september/
In any case plug into Tinsdale.
A lot of buzz about Pezeshkian saying “we will stop attacking neighbours” but I think it’s open to interpretation.
1. Most MSM seems to be hearing “we won’t attack Gulf states” (with some thinking about the “unless they were used to attack us” bit). This could be true.
2. However, I think it could be more specific and mean: “oops we are sorry Azerbaijan, Turkey and Oman (and maybe Kurdish Iraq?), we will chill out” and not apply to the Gulf states.
Even if 1, it seems to be an invitation for Gulf states to demand the exit of US???
Can’t find a full transcript, the longest quote is from Iran Intl
In a video message published on Saturday, President Masoud Pezeshkian said the directive followed a decision by what he described as a temporary leadership council.
“The temporary leadership council approved yesterday that neighboring countries should no longer be targeted and missiles should not be fired unless an attack on Iran originates from those countries,” Pezeshkian said.
“The armed forces have so far acted with a kind of ‘fire at will’ authority, but they have now been notified that from now on they must not attack neighboring countries or target them with missiles,” he said.
He said that he “apologizes personally” over the matter.
“To groups in neighboring countries who may think of using this opportunity to attack our territory, I send this message: do not become tools of imperialism,” said Iran’s president.
—
Guardian had a qualifying statement from an Iranian Army Spokesman
Strikes against the US and Israeli assets will continue. So far, we have targeted every base that was the origin of aggression against Iran and we remain committed to this matter. Countries that have not provided space and facilities to the United States and the Zionist regime have not been our target so far and will not be targeted in the future.
—–
What does this all mean?
Further to comment above (in Moderation)
This from Tansim News makes me think it’s about Azerbaijan, and is an acknowledgement and apology.
Pezeshkian further conveyed his apologies to neighboring countries that have been attacked by Iran. He explained that Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei as well as many military commanders and ordinary people have been martyred due to the brutal aggression of enemies, noting that when commanders are absent, the brave Armed Forces act decisively to defend the homeland with honor.
Pezeshkian clarified that Iran has no intention of invading neighboring countries, reiterating that they are considered brothers.
He called for collaboration with the neighboring nations to establish peace and tranquility in the region.
Pointing to a decision made during a recent meeting of the temporary leadership council, Pezeshkian reported that the Armed Forces of Iran have been instructed not to attack the neighboring countries or launch missiles unless the enemies intend to attack Iran from those countries.
He also emphasized the importance of resolving issues through diplomacy rather than conflict with neighboring states.