Even though the Iran war continues to be an overly dynamic situation, with both fog of war and fog of propaganda impeding getting solid readings, we’ll focus on some high level issues to help with navigation. Even with that aim, there are also so many good accounts and helpful tidbits that our presentation may not be as tidy as we like. So please bear with up.
We also deeply appreciate the intense engagement and very helpful input and as warranted, corrections and calibration from our esteemed commentariat.
The Iran war is, as predicted, going pear shaped. As we will soon unpack, it is not simply, as the New York Times and Times of Israel reported, that the US and Israel entered into this conflict with only enough armaments to sustain a four-day-intense or perhaps seven-day-less-intense bombing effort. That was never going to come close to subduing Iran. This is a level of operation akin to the 1998 Desert Fox in a much smaller Iraq, which succeeded only in busting up some stuff. There was no way, even if the US attained air superiority, that it could achieve missile suppression.
Iran’s unexpected decision to strike hard at US assets across the region and close the Strait of Hormuz, even though it warned it would do so, on top of attacking Israel, has put the US and Israel very much on the back foot. And even though Israel should have learned its lesson in the 12 Day War, even with drone and missile launches at Israel not coming as fast and furious as some expected, the settler colony is taking major damage already. Importantly, Iran seems to be keeping up a high enough level of strike frequency on Israel so as to force citizens in its major cities to stay much of the time in bunkers, crippling the economy and unnerving them.
The multi-front retaliation is almost certainly depleting US air defense stocks even faster than expected, as attested by a Jerusalem Post story, US considering moving additional THAAD and Patriot air defense systems to Middle East, experts say on how the US is considering raiding its already-understocked defense cupboard in other theaters to bolster Operation Epic Fury.
The US and its allies and innocent bystanders are also suffering economic damage from the impact of suspension of air travel and other disruption across Middle East economies, and the prospect of oil and gas prices staying at their new higher level and perhaps rising further. And the closure of the Strait of Hormuz does not affect only energy cost and availability. Per TASS:
Citing statistical data, [Kirill] Dmitriev [head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund] said that a significant share of global flows of key components for fertilizer production passes through this route. In particular, about 44% of global sulfur trade, around 31% of urea, 18% of ammonia, and 15% of phosphates are linked to logistics through this region.
Again, as we will unpack a bit more, Trump is becoming even more unhinged as he makes wild claims, even by his own hyperbolic standards, about US capabilities and is lashing out hard against perceived turncoats, the latest being Spain and UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer. A sign of desperation is his nutty idea of having the US provide naval escorts to tankers in the Strait, as well as have the US provide what he called political risk, actually war risk, insurance. The convoy scheme makes the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a dandy idea.
It isn’t just Trump that is coming unglued. The New Republic flagged Pete Hegseth’s Crazed, Angry Tirades on Iran Give Dems a Big Opening. Even the normally buttoned-down Marco Rubio has been captured on camera struggling to come up with coherent-seeming answers to not-terribly-difficult media questions.
But citizens in the West are being spared as much as possible a good picture of what is underway. Not that the fantasy of a US/Israel success can be maintained all that long, but the spin-meisters are working overtime. We noticed, for instance, mainstream live blogs taking up almost the same language in their headlines. I wish I had screenshot a series from a few hours ago, but the current Wall Street Journal banner headline, Israeli Strikes Aim at Crippling Iran’s Security Forces, is a close echo.
The headlines were more of the form of “Israel strikes Iran security forces” which serves to imply that Israel and the US are focusing on military targets. My sense is these “security forces” are often actually police stations; but I confess to not knowing if policing is local or under the control of the IRGC.
But as you’ll see from a Janta Ka video below at 5:50, in keeping with the slaughter at a girls’ school and a neonatal hospital, the US and Israel are hitting many if not mainly civilian targets, such as hospitals. This implies that the objective is to terrorize the population to force a regime change, as opposed to prosecute a war and conquer the state.
In keeping, as I was drafting the section above, when I went to the Journal to get a link for the headline, it had been updated to read Israel Is Blowing Up Iran’s Police State to Clear the Way for a Revolt. So at least the Journal has put the regime change objective front and center.
Now to details. Some very good substantiation comes in videos, but they often address multiple observations above, so forgive the fact that what comes next may not be as well ordered as might be ideal
While the Western media has been for the most part averting its eyes from the punishment Israel is taking, Indian mainstream media is providing solid coverage, as the Times of India illustrates below:
And:
Yet another Times of India presentation, Iran BOMBS CIA Facility In Saudi Capital; Drones Hammer American Base In Riyadh As IRGC Goes Nuclear, highlighted that the Iran strike on the US embassy in Saudi Arabia appeared to be targeting a CIA station there.
On the impossibility of the US and Israel achieving their aims via an air campaign, as has been often discussed by experts in independent media, a must-read analysis from Middle East Observer explains in detail why even when the US and Israel obtain air superiority in Iran, which it treats as achievable, it will not be able to suppress missile fire. Iran with its huge stocks of missiles and drone will still be able to pound Israel and US assets.
⚔️ Battlefield Assessment: CENTCOM vs Iranian Strike Capabilities ⚔️
CENTCOM's objective is clear: destroy Iranian TELs and launch platforms. To do that, they first had to degrade Iranian air defenses with standoff munitions to gain airspace access. That part is working. What… pic.twitter.com/clYwfRXZsF
— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) March 4, 2026
Please click through and read the entire tweet. Key bits:
CENTCOM’s objective is clear: destroy Iranian TELs and launch platforms. To do that, they first had to degrade Iranian air defenses with standoff munitions to gain airspace access. That part is working. What comes next is where it gets complicated.
Iranian launch rates will decrease as U.S. air presence grows. They’ll use decoys, disperse launches across multiple locations, and tighten operational security. But the missiles will keep flying….
The strongest evidence isn’t theoretical. It’s Lebanon 2024. Israel surveilled 4,500 km² of Hezbollah territory for 24 years without interruption, drones, satellites, spies, mapping that geography to the last grain. Hezbollah still generated 100-200 projectiles every single day for 66 straight days through an estimated 8 to 15 actual launch events, made possible by modified systems carrying 20-30 rockets per vehicle. A handful of vehicles. Every day. Total surveillance couldn’t stop them.
That theater was 0.002% of Iran’s total area….
Now add the TEL replaceability problem, and this is where Iranian doctrine is particularly well thought out. The Kheibar Shekan, one of Iran’s most capable solid-fuel MRBMs, is deliberately designed to launch from commercial-style 10-wheel truck chassis that blend into civilian road networks. The Sejjil, Iran’s longest-range solid-fuel system, rides on standard 6×6, 8×8, and 10×10 heavy truck platforms. This was not an engineering compromise. It was a deliberate doctrinal choice. The truck is replaceable from any commercial fleet. What CENTCOM needs to destroy is the missile on top of it, not the launcher itself. This means Iran’s effective TEL inventory is far larger than any satellite count of purpose-built military vehicles would suggest, and attriting the launcher without the missile is a strategically meaningless kill….
After more persuasive detail, it concludes:
Bottom line: CENTCOM can achieve air superiority over Iranian skies. It cannot achieve missile suppression. Those are two completely different objectives and conflating them is a fundamental analytical error that dominates mainstream coverage of this conflict. Iran fires for as long as it chooses to fire. The only military variable is the rate, not the duration.
Chicago professor Robert Pape explains, using historical evidence, why bombing campaigns alone never win wars. From The Air Power Illusion: Why Bombs Break Buildings — Not Regimes (emphasis his):
In international politics, 100 percent patterns are rare. Military outcomes vary. Leaders miscalculate. Technology shifts balances. But here the record is uniform. From Hamburg to Baghdad to Belgrade, strategic bombing has inflicted devastation without producing regime collapse.
That uniformity demands explanation.
For more than a century, air power has carried a seductive promise: strike leadership → cripple infrastructure → paralyze command → trigger political collapse. The machinery evolves; the faith remains…
The record tells a harder story. Strategic bombing has destroyed armies and shattered cities, but it has not by itself toppled a functioning regime. Political collapse happens when ruling coalitions fracture under internal pressure, not when buildings burn.
Bombs can devastate states. They do not, by themselves, disintegrate regimes.
Regimes Fall When Insiders Defect
On the defensive side, Larry Johnson explains why the picture is even worse than the scramble to find more THAADs and Patriots indicates. I am doing Johnson a bit of a disservice by truncating his fine and detailed analysis; please read his post in full. From The US Missile Defense Shortage is Worse than Imagined:
I will now show you conclusively that Trump is gaslighting the public, at least with respect to the PAC-3 MSE missiles. The PAC-3 MSE (Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement) is effectively the primary missile used in the modern Patriot system for most high-priority threats, particularly in current U.S. Army and allied operations as of 2026….
When the PAC-3 MSE is employed against an incoming threat, a minimum of two are fired….Assuming that the US and Israel have NOT fired any PAC-3 MSE missiles in 2025 and 2026, the US only has 3,773 in its inventory. We know that is ridiculous, but play along with me.
During the 12-day war Iran fired at least 600 ballistic missiles into Israel. In theory, the Patriot system is designed to work against ballistic missiles while Israel’s Iron Dome is designed to defeat short-range counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) defense, plus capabilities against drones, cruise missiles, precision-guided munitions (PGMs), and some ballistic threats in certain configurations. So let’s assume that the Patriot was fired at 500 of the Iranian missiles — i.e., at least 1,000 PAC-3 MSE missiles were fired. That shrinks the US inventory to 2,773.
In just four days since the start of Epic Fury, Iran has fired an estimated 200 missiles at sites in the Gulf nations and Israel that have Patriot batteries. Conceivably, that means that another 400 PAC-3 MSE missiles have been launched, which shrinks the inventory to 2,373. If Iran fires 60 ballistic missiles per day, and the Patriot system uses 2 interceptors per incoming missile (a common conservative engagement doctrine for high-confidence intercepts against ballistic threats), the inventory would be exhausted after 19 full days, with enough left on the 20th day to handle roughly 46–47 Iranian missiles before depletion…
Note that I am assuming that the entire inventory of US Patriot missiles have been deployed to Israel and US bases in the region. That is a false assumption because there are Patriot missile batteries with a full complement of missiles in other theaters.
Note that the UAE denied a Bloomberg report that it had only four days of air defense missiles left, which as Alexander Mercouris notes, was so vigorously done as to be in “the lady doth protest too much” category. Trump was similarly over-the-top in a Truth Social post:
Latest Trump posting on Truth Social claims he has plenty of munitions to keep going . But reading between the lines he is unhappy with Ucainian clown Zelensky and needs now money for his Iran war not for golden Ucainian toilets pic.twitter.com/Jv8WLWdjSF
— Winfried Eamon Scheidges (@celticarab) March 3, 2026
On other military issues, Trump threatened to cut off all trade with Spain for refusing to allow the US to use its airbases for Iran-related operations, and then later said Spain could not stop the US anyhow. Wellie, they probably won’t but they sure could. All they have to do is cut off the electricity. Similarly, he attacked Kier Starmer three times in one day, the first by declaring him to be no Churchill, over the UK’s similar refusal to let the US operate from its bases.
Now to the economic front, where some of the material overlaps with the sightings of Trump’s even-more-erratic-than usual behavior. One of the efforts to manage market action is yet more narrative control. Asian stocks sold off badly yesterday, with South Korea even having to stop trading. It is just about certain that a new report that Iran has attempted to contact Washington but has been rebuffed is fake news to moderate oil prices, as you can see from the headline in the Bloomberg live feed:
The detail is less than convincing:
• European stocks and US futures are trading higher, avoiding an earlier selloff in Asian markets that saw South Korean equities post their biggest one-day crash on record.
• The move up accelerated after a report that Iran had made indirect contact with the US to discuss an end to the war — even if it appears the offer is being brushed off in Washington.
The earlier “calm the markets” move came from Trump, via his scheme to break the closure of the Strait of Hormuz via US naval convoys plus insurance. This is obviously a lame-brained idea from a military perspective and would make it trivial for Iran to sink lots of ships and capture sailors. Daniel Davis was close to beside himself:
While the convoy part is affirmatively self-destructive (not that that is new for this conflict), the insurance part is merely silly. Getting procedures (how to apply for coverage, get approved, and receive legally binding confirmation) and ops (as specs for coding and the code writing on the government side) together for a totally new maritime scheme would take well over a year even if you put a highly competent team on it on a high-intensity work schedule. There is no off the shelf software for this. That is before adding in legislative approval time.
Contrast these considerations with the unduly polite Financial Times coverage:
At least six tankers have been hit in the Gulf since the war began, forcing marine traffic through the strait to a virtual halt…
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that “if necessary”, the US Navy would escort tankers through the strait “as soon as possible”. The US Development Finance Corporation would also provide risk insurance and guarantees for tankers travelling in the Gulf “at a very reasonable price”.
Oil prices fell slightly after Trump’s announcement, but details of the plans and how they could be executed in time and at the necessary scale to avoid a new energy shock were scant.
Helima Croft, a former CIA analyst now at RBC Capital Markets, dismissed Trump’s proposal as “likely in the concepts-of-a-plan stage”.
Naval warfare experts said the destroyers and jets needed for the escorts would not be available immediately, given their role in the attacks on Iran.
Joshua Tallis, at the Center for Naval Analyses, said it was “unlikely” that the US Navy would be able to defend commercial vessels “over the next seven to 10 days”. Escorts would come “only after the initial phase of major hostilities”, he added, and when more Iranian anti-ship capabilities had been destroyed.
An escort operation would be “hard but doable”, said Mark Montgomery, a former US aircraft carrier strike group commander. He estimated it would take up to two weeks before conditions were favourable and would “cause a reduction in the amount of strike[s] the US could carry out”.
This illustrates that the MSM and too many soi-disant experts are not willing to say that Emperor Trump has no clothes. To spare overloading this post, we will skip over the more realistic Bloomberg commentary on this scheme.
We have mentioned before how many countries are expecting soon to take hits from higher energy prices. CNBC goes through the expected effects across regions in The Strait of Hormuz is facing a blockade. These countries will be most impacted. The ones most at risk:
South Asia would face the most acute disruption, particularly when it comes to supplies of LNG, analysts said.
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates account for 99% of Pakistan’s LNG imports, 72% of Bangladesh’s and 53% of India’s, according to Kpler data.
With limited storage and procurement flexibility, Pakistan and Bangladesh are especially vulnerable. For one, Bangladesh is already running a significant structural gas deficit. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the country is running a shortfall of more than 1,300 million cubic feet per day.
“Pakistan and Bangladesh have limited storage and procurement flexibility, meaning disruption would likely trigger fast power-sector demand destruction rather than aggressive spot bidding,” said Go Katayama principal insight analyst at Kpler.
India faces the largest combined exposure in the region. “More than half of its LNG imports are Gulf-linked, and a significant share is Brent-indexed, so a Hormuz-driven crude spike would simultaneously lift oil import costs and LNG contract prices. That creates a dual physical and financial shock,” he said.
Similarly, about 60% of India’s oil imports come from the Middle East, according to UBP. A sustained blockade would therefore amplify both energy import costs and current account pressures.
By contrast, CNBC deems China to be better positioned:
China: large exposure but sufficient buffer
A Hormuz closure would test China’s energy security, but stockpiles and alternative supply offer some buffer.
Most Anglosphere readers don’t assign much weight to what is happening economically in the Middle East, but both the Strait of Hormuz and airspace closures are devastating blows. The Wall Street Journal reported from a British expat perspective on the considerably diminished attractions of Dubai under the new normal in They Went to Dubai for Sun and Low Taxes. They Wound Up in a War Zone:
For more than two decades, Dubai has sold itself as an expat paradise, a global crossroads between East and West known for its low taxes, high salaries and luxury lifestyle. More recently, it has also emerged as a premier destination for U.K. residents in search of a sunny, uncomplicated alternative to modern Britain.
The emirate, now home to some 240,000 Britons, represented a place to start afresh, far from the rising costs, political upheavals and overbearing class system back home. It also became a magnet for entrepreneurs in the engagement economy spawned by reality TV shows such as “The Only Way Is Essex” and “Love Island.” British influencers are now among its loudest and most visible residents.
And a further sign of the world of hurt in Gulf economies:
Reports from Dubai confirm that banks in the UAE have completely shut down. Only cash is in circulation!
The culprit is Iran's precision strikes on data centers.
Among the affected facilities are Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in the ME-CENTRAL-1 region (UAE),… pic.twitter.com/O1AG6Lfl07— EMPR.media (@EuromaidanPR) March 3, 2026
And some useful-seeming tweets.
🇮🇷‼️ IRGC informed official: The rumor of an F-35 fighter jet landing at Mehrabad is ridiculous and baseless
Following the spread of rumors on social media about an Israeli regime F-35 fighter jet landing at Mehrabad Airport, an informed official in the Islamic Revolutionary…
— dana (@dana916) March 3, 2026
Hezbollah is not taking the Israeli attacks lying down:
3 heavy rockets were launched from Lebanon toward the center of occupied Palestine, with explosions heard in Tel Aviv and its surrounding areas, while shrapnel fell in occupied Haifa and reports indicate Hezbollah targeted the Jalilot base north of Tel Aviv.
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) March 3, 2026
Channel 12 citing a senior security official: Hezbollah is single-handedly turning Lebanon into a central arena alongside Iran
— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) March 3, 2026
Zionist media just reported Hezbollah launched an anti-tank missile targeting an IOF force at the border, casualties were confirmed. Zionist media also reporting a coordinated missile attack launched from Lebanon and Iran toward occupied Palestine. https://t.co/WwEaI3Id7t
— Calla (@CallaWalsh) March 4, 2026
Apologies for not yet considering the prospect of Kurdish involvement. The reactions before it was official suggested this would not come out well for the Kurds:
NEW: Kurdish leader Hassan Sharafi confirmed that the decision has been made to support the United States in operations against Iran. The Kurds, originally from Iran but now based in Iraq, say they plan to move into Iran to fight the regime and ultimately aim to overthrow it.
— GeoInsider (@InsiderGeo) March 4, 2026
And some fresh sightings:
BreakingNews:
Sirens in Israel in over 200 locations. This is the first time in the modern history of Israel where explosions are heard in different locations and incoming missiles are coming from two countries. Loud and strong explosions are registered in different parts of the…
— Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) March 4, 2026
Regional fallout from the joint American–zionist attack on Iran is now hitting Western tech infrastructure. CNBC reports that major U.S. tech firms have begun shutting down their Dubai operations.
Nvidia told staff its Dubai office is closed and all work has shifted to remote…
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) March 4, 2026
See you tomorrow!
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It seems to me that the trajectory of this conflict can be deduced if we know two numbers. The first is how many missiles Iran has. The second is the net change in their stockpile on a daily basis—that is, how many missiles are being added versus how many are being destroyed or fired.
Once you have those numbers, or at least reasonable estimates, you know the endgame. Unfortunately, I don’t know those numbers, and trying to look them up led to wildly varying estimates. Still, someone must have reasonable guesses somewhere. One would hope the US knew these numbers before starting this war.
oliverks: You write, “One would hope the US knew these numbers before starting this war.”
But this sentence, which seems like a simple description, popped me in the eye: “Iran’s unexpected decision to strike hard at US assets across the region and close the Strait of Hormuz, even though it warned it would do so, on top of attacking Israel, has put the US and Israel very much on the back foot.”
Is it hubris? Is it incompetence? Is the much vaunted “intelligence community” failing? All of the above, plus a good dose of Anglo-Israeli racism? (“We’ll just bomb the wogs into submission.”) Plus Anglo-American cover-your-assery.
There is no strategy for this bloody adventure. If the U S of A wanted a new government, it should have prepared a government in exile, with the shah-let and some other Chalabi types. But it didn’t even do that. This hand-wavy business of “we’ll bomb you and you can revolt” is nonsensical and immoral, given the past war crimes of the Israelis in Palestine and the U.S. treatment of the American Indian Nations.
Our betters display no understanding of tactics. What the hell are they teaching the officer candidates at the service academies? Well, we find out that the Air Force Academy is all insane readings of Revelations, with a dash of Salvation by Faith Alone thrown in. The other academies, once known for excellence in engineering, now seem to be all about grifting and cost overruns. And layer upon layer of brass.
No strategy. No tactics. No wonder that the result in Ukraine has been the destruction of that country. No wonder that in Palestine the result is genocide.
The sooner the U.S. citizenry sends the bipartisan U.S. elites to prison, the better. It will be like Marat / Sade, with Trump and Biden in their cells slobbering and clawing at hallucinations of nubile young women even as Toria Nuland bakes poisonous cookies and Hillary Clinton keeps bawling, “Inflict pain, inflict pain, inflict pain.”
> This hand-wavy business of “we’ll bomb you and you can revolt”
From recent DJT remarks, it sounds like the hope may have been to kill the top-tier leadership and hope that the next tier, not wanting to also be killed, would cooperate. That would comport with reports that DJT wanted to do something like what was done in Venezuela.
The line of thought raised by the Tariq Ali tweet from Saturday is very pertinent here. Ali reported Iranian friends telling him that leaders of the Iranian opposition had been targeted. I assume those referred to included Mousavi, who had been the opposition presidential candidate in 2009 and who, luckily, was bombed but escaped. The election results then were challenged and a crisis very quickly developed, with opposition supporters putting up to 3 million people in the streets. The conservative behind the anointed winner Ahmahdenijad attacked them severely. If you look at the range of people who were either killed in the streets or in immediate detention (several hundred, not “tens of thousands”) or sentenced to long prison terms you see a full range of opposition forces, running from students through bazaaris to dissident members of the clergy. The regime was very hard pressed, they could not fully count on the Revolutionary Guard and had to draw on the paramilitary Basij as more likely to remain loyal.
The point here is that in crystalline fashion this shows that the Trump-Netanyahu golem wants to avoid replacing the conservative mullahs with someone Iranians might well be expected to rally around. As others are pointing out, they want to prevent the emergence of, to use the phrase, legitimate institutions capable of forming a “national will.” So we’re not looking at a simple political hierarchy organized around the clergy that gets knocked off by the golem layer by layer, but a more differentiated political order that the golem wants to homogenize.
The weird thing back then was that, socially and “culturally,” Moussavi was more in line with the clerical establishment than Ahmedinejad was. The latter was “conservative,” but slso anticlerical and populist, in a rather “Trumpy” way. If anything, I always thought Ahmedinejad represented the the “real” (as in more widely and deeply held) opposition sentiments to the clericalist government than Moussavi, both then and now.
Of course, now, Ahmedinenad has been assassinated, too, as you probably know.
DJG, Reality Czar: Our betters display no understanding of tactics…No strategy. No tactics..
No, they’re in a hurry and up against the wall. But I’m afraid that there clearly is a strategy, though arguably it’s insanely stupid.
Firstly: Trump couldn’t do all this on his own, without buy-in from factions of the US deep state, whatever pressures he’s under re. Israel. Recall, after all, that Kennedy could be removed as president — granted, in a time when the US and its deep state were more functional — when he became a problem for deep state US policy.
Secondly: the US has gone into Venezuela and Iran, both suppliers of oil to China, in hurried succession.
Why the hurry? Because in April — next month — Trump will visit Xi for a summit in China, which Washington hopes will set the stage for the next few decades of US hegemony much as Nixon’s 1972 visit to China for a summit with Mao set the course for the half-century after that.
It’s hard not to presume, therefore, that the policy of Elbridge Colby, the current defense strategist on China, and other like-minded types in Washington, is that at this summit Trump will tell Xi that the US will trade oil for rare earths — and China is still restricting its RE exports so that the US MIC can’t build new weapons — and continued Chinese acceptance of second-banana status to the US hegemon.
Do we see real-world evidence to corroborate that this is what’s going on? Very much so.
Firstly: the US has just greatly increased its efforts to weaponize Taiwan against China as it weaponized Ukraine against Russia. From late December 2025–
US approves record $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/taiwan/2025/taiwan-251218-presstv01.htm
US approves massive arms package for Taiwan
https://www.asianmilitaryreview.com/2025/12/us-approves-massive-arms-package-for-taiwan/
Secondly: Xi has been purging China’s peacetime generals to replace them with military leadership prepared for war. That’s because he and the CCP have recalled the last historical instance of a militarily aggressive empire placed in a situation where its access to the necessary resources to maintain its aggression was denied — which was the denial of oil to the Japanese empire by the US in 1941, which led to the Japanese surprise ‘preemptive’ attack at Pearl Harbor.
So there is a US strategy here.
Insanely stupid indeed. Where do they expect to get all these promised weapons from when they appear to be firing them off much faster than they can manufacture them?
And why would China agree to any deal with the non-agreement capable US?
If I were China at this point and the US came forward with this oil for rare earth idea, I might just blow the US out of the water with the oil I had on hand. And then hand the US a shovel and tell them to get digging if they need some rare earths to keep their economy running.
Sell them the shovel.
lyman alpha blob: And why would China agree to any deal with the non-agreement capable US?
Well, indeed, China almost certainly won’t. Not only is the US agreement-incapable, as you say, but more relevantly it wants the REs from China precisely in order to build the weapons with which it will then threaten to attack China — and China’s supposed to go along with that?
If it wasn’t real life, it would be far fetched for anything but an absurdist black comedy about a really stupid gangster state. And that’s why Xi and the CCP are prepping their military leaders.
Aha, this does make sense….or at least created a confluence of both interests and the sense of timing between the Iran hawks and the China hawks.
With Trump’s arrogance they may send him back out through normal customs like they did Ursula once for her arrogance. if things get really bad, the Chinese might just cancel the meeting altogether.
The Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and probably the Gulf States will happily sell China all the oil it wants. So I don’t see any real leverage there.
I thought the Leeroy Jenkins gambit was a bold opening move.
Unfortunately, Lockheed Martin’s Lightning Bolt weapon system seems to have under-performed in a non-LARPing conflict.
Thank you for these. We all need a little levity right now, and this was perfect.
Proverbs 29:18
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”
Lots of lawlessness and perishing these days, isn’t there? Not particularly religious myself, but these dusty old books do contain some wisdom.
There is no way to know how many missiles Iran has. Nearly all are in deep underground bunkers distributed all over the country. And Iran makes them underground too.
I have seen MSM estimates of 1.500, which seems very low. Independent sources IIRC say more like 6,000. And the independent media sources also believe Iran more than replenished its expenditures during the 12 day war.
On top of that, it has a shit ton of drones.
And I seem to remember it was one of those slow, buzzing drones that hit the billion-dollar, long-range radar used for command and control of the airspace. Imagine that, if it is true!
The president with the attraction to the color gold should have paid attention when he read about his favorite King Croesus and the Sybil. But does he know that Iran is also Persia?
And the same Iranian king who defeated Criesus also liberated the original Palestinians from captivity, for which he was hailed as the Messiah.
Current demonstrations of the effectiveness of the slower drones is, I think, underappreciated. The idea that Iran will go through a progression of old and less capable drones and missiles to drain AD before using the more recent and powerful weaponry makes sense. Some commentators get stuck on this idea and then wonder just how many of the larger weapons Iran has and whether that dooms them to exhaustion. But if the AD is largely gone then the drones, in their thousands, will become more effective.
Numbers like these are always hard to come by. For example how do independent media sources come to their figures? I’m pretty sure the Iranians haven’t told them. Which likely means they are more or less educsted guesses.
I’ve seen 80000 Shad drones being banded about with an ability to build 400 each day. However, it appears Mossad has provided that number and there area. Anumber of reasons that could be wrong. Either through mistakes or even deliberatly – ” look at how many drones they have. We must attack now!”
The nest question is now self sifficient is Iran in building drones. Do they have all the resources to build them for scratch. Or do they import large amounts. If the later that is surely far harder now.
Then question is also, how many more can it get from China and/or other partners. If they can be launched from commercial trucks, getting them smuggled in should be possible and the rate those can come in is an unknown as well
Don’t forget China also now has cargo ships/containers with radar and missile launchers.
https://www.twz.com/sea/chinese-cargo-ship-packed-full-of-modular-missile-launchers-emerges
I’ve been wondering what their aim is with those. Is it to rapidly increase missile capacity by slaving some armed cargo ships to a warships control. A way to get past the issue with long reload times for VLS sytems. I’d think that would only be uaeful on convoy duties or close to Chinese shore as cargo ships tend to be much slower than warships.
Or is it as an armed merchant man/Q ship idea. They suspect eventually America will try to seize a ship and it will have teeth.
Or is it just to see if it is feasible.
John Helmer, parsing the responses from Russia and China has conjured that the Russian Security Council likely noded yes on the idea of resuplying Iran if need be, while the Chinese are dicking around and mostly upset that Hormuz Straits are being closed. Couldn’t even clear their throats to firmly and unequivocally condemn USA and Israel.
Huh? Both Russia and China condemned the attacks on Iran in separate statements, at the UN and in a call with FM Lavrov. As for the Straits, the report of Chinese executives pressuring Iran is based on a single bloomberg report citing anonymous sources in China as far as I can tell.
In any case Iran has said they’d allow safe passage to ships from friendly countries.
A third unknown: Iranian production rates. Probably safe to assume it’s greater than US rates of production for interceptor missiles, maybe by one or more orders of magnitude.
If Iran has enough replaceable, mobile launch platforms, as Yves describes, then how many missiles they have may be the limiting factor. If the Empire is able to suppress launches by quickly destroying anything located where launches are originating, Iran may falter. I guess it depends on how dominating the Empire’s air dominance is, given the size of the country and how dispersed launchers may be. From what Larry says, it appears that if Iran can keep the attacks going for 22 days, Israel may become a lost cause, since Iran can switch to saturation drone attacks at that point. And US bases may become prohibitively expensive to rebuild. March 21st may be when all becomes clear, if it’s not decided earlier. Much nail-biting until then.
I have no doubt the Pentagon is trying to run that calculation right now, but I’d push back against reducing the entire war to the missiles.
They’re obviously some of Iran’s premier weapons, but they’re still primarily strategic. They provide deterrence / escalation control, and allow shaping the battlefield through strikes on strategic assets. But they aren’t really meant to engage enemies en masse. If they have caused a lot of casualties, that’s more a function of the US & Israel stupidly basing their forces like the Ukraine War never happened.
War is uncertain and this is still the opening, but what I find shocking is how much USrael & Western media seem to talk like Iranian ground forces don’t exist. And now if the US really tries this Kurdish mercenary army plan, we may see a rerun of Operation Mersad.
Yes. Haven’t the Persians been having an on and off war with the Kurds for ever? The Iranians won’t be caught unprepared. The potential of tribalist frictions built into the Kurdish forces seems mentionable.
Maybe Iran cedes some turf up there in the NW corner to the Kurds, semi-autonomous, or fully for that matter, to build a coalition on goodwill. End the land war before it begins.
Disclaimer, everything I know about this region I learned from my modest library on islamic carpets and textiles, and they are a bit dated.
Compared to Turks and Arabs, Iran has had fairly good relationship with its Kurdish minority, afaik. Yes, there were insurgencies and other conflicts, but nothing on big scale the way Turkiye and Iraq had.
But then, I also remember Syrian Kurds supposedly doing better vis a vis Damascus than not, but we’ve had issues there….
Like hk mentioned, traditionally the Kurds probably have better relations with the Persians than any of the other neighboring ethnicities. AFAICT of all the Kurdish separatist movements, the Iranian PJAK has always been by far the weakest precisely because their grievances are much more contrived. I think even the fact that many are Sunni isn’t a huge friction point; they tend (like the Turks) to the Hanafi branch that IIUC is functionally pretty similar to Jafari Shiism.
There are several theories on who the Kurds descend from (Medes, Hurrians, very Iranized Mesopotamians, etc.) but they’re definitely part of the Iranian cultural sphere, and I think most Persians see them (and the Armenians) as sort of brotherly nations.
I can also say first-hand, in every convo I’ve had with Middle Easterners where Kurdish individuals came up, Turks (with 1 exception) and Arabs were pretty negative, while the Iranians were always sympathetic.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean that USrael couldn’t round up a force of really shameless or gullible fighters. But I doubt they would get very far, or even receive much support in the Kurdish areas of Iran.
I was reading Larry Johnson (I think) and he indicates that Iran’s missiles are from mobile launchers, and the launchers deliberately designed to fit into a standard, large commercial truck chassis. This makes it impossible, without X-ray glasses, to tell if a particular truck is in fact a mobile missile launcher or just a commercial truck. As such, there is no good way to estimate the missile capacity. Further, the claim is being made that there are caves and bunkers all over the country storing munitions, most of which have not been breached yet. Last, Iran has been planning for this at least 20 years and stockpiling for that rainy day.
I do not believe anyone has a good handle on the number of missiles, which is probably only known to a handful of officials in Iran given the sensitivity of the question. I suppose it is possible that it could be discovered by human intel, but it could also be misrepresented if Iran were wise to the identity of the human intel. That is, even if you got some info., it could actually be misinformation.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/sri-lanka-rescues-30-people-board-distressed-iranian-ship-foreign-minister-says-2026-03-04/
Also Israel claims to have shot down an Iranian fighter over Tehran. Headline currently at times of israel
With the US blowing up ships in intl. waters and the assistance of so many Western and Gulf Arab nations in this conflict and the ones in Ukraine and Venezuela, which are all connected, I think its safe to say we are well in the middle of WW3 at this point.
One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that the phrase “going nuclear” seems very divorced from what nuclear war actually means. For a linked article headline to say the IRGC is going nuclear in a time when there are real concerns of Israel and US going nuclear for real shows people not properly respecting the meaning and risks of nuclear war.
Thanks for the continued excellent war coverage.
I’m all for going conventional, but not as if I have a say in the matter, which kind of feels like this clip from one of the early Planet of the Apes sequels…
BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES Clip – “Warhead Worship” (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G9xmV3wiEo
Since everybody mispronounces it, maybe we should say “going nukular, new-cue-ler” to mean doing the extreme option as opposed to the correct pronunciation, new-klee-ur, which would refer to fission or fusion bombs. Dubya would pronounce it nook-ya-ler.
Bad-Boyz Bad-Boyz,
Watcha’ gonna do when the come for you?
>>>Iran’s unexpected decision to strike hard at US assets across the region and close the Strait of Hormuz,
Iran and the Gulf states is exactly like Russia and Ukraine. Iran has no strategic depth and got burned by 2025’s good faith decision for a quick peace.
this is existential for Revolutionary Shia. and the only exit is a lasting peace with two countries who can’t be trusted regardless of identity (Obama-Biden/Ukraine, Trump).
which means that the only rational “war is a continuation of politics” goal for Iran is to destroy all US, Israeli infrastructure. Salt the earth so the US can’t be in the Gulf for the next 20 years. otherwise, you and your family will be droned by the IDF
And I think Iran has suffered enough from sanctions over the years that they are inclined to let everyone else know how it feels.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it Revolutionary Shia, I think that is a misnomer. Republicanism with (normatively speaking) ethical supervision as the most important and necessary ingredient for a polity. Of course, the selfish and corrupt Arab leadership, be they monarchs or generals do not appreciate such a set up. That would be revolutionary indeed. As such, if we use the label “Revolutionary Shia”, we also need t to spcify the substrate, revolutionary in respect to what, rather than just agitate this malefic word, “revolution” which the American class only likes when it pertains to oligarchic revolutios, like theirs…
Republican Shia, or Shia Republicanism, then?
Per OP: Per TASS:
‘Citing statistical data, [Kirill] Dmitriev [head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund] said that a significant share of global flows of key components for fertilizer production passes through this route.’
Potential international food shortages later this year, too, with planting season coming up now??
Great.
It’s these “secondary” effects that keep me up at night more than anything. Does anyone realize how much money is cycled from the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. in to the Western markets for purchasing stocks and bonds? I expect this money will slow significantly in 2026 (and beyond) as this money isn’t flowing (no boats) and the monies will be needed to repair their own countries.
Also, as I understand it, 90% of the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar’s food is shipped through the Straights of Hormuz. That is not happening now. How long until the lack of food supplies cause serious problems to their populace? At a certain point a starving population will look to lash out at anyone. I expect it would take no more than a month (estimating a two week supply on hand) before it starts to get ugly.
I have begun to wonder that if this war goes on long enough, that it will induce a global recession. There are way too many vital links being broken and a lot of financial and economic assumptions that have been made that are now revealed to be faulty. As for the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar’s food situation, they could always arrange food convoys from Egypt. Yes, it will be expensive but still cheaper than civil riots over no food.
US markets up across the board this morning. It’s the usual market trajectory for the third day of war.
add to that the El Nino that’s brewing this year. Food production might be in trouble even more so.
Good, lack of food is the main ingredient for a sucessful revolution.
inshallah
Would politely disagree. The masses can suffer basically forever, and that leads to social strife, but what makes a successful revolution are intra-elite battles.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-tells-all-civilians-in-southern-lebanon-to-move-north-of-litani-river-in-sweeping-evacuation-order/
Israel ordering civilian evacuations south of the Litani
(Apologies for poor link formatting I am on mobile)
The above analysis of Patriot depletion rates doesn’t take into account airplanes using air-to-air weapons to take out incoming ballistic missiles.
If Patriots were the only way to provide long-range AD, then you’d see Iran fire their best missiles first, as these can score a hit while evading multiple interceptors/depleting the Patriots stock faster, leaving the older less capable ballistic missiles for later.
The US is restricted to stand-off weapons. It is not going into Iranian airspace.
I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever evah in Israel of use of air-to-air weapons to parry inbound missiles. Please provide some. The US had planned to use F-16s in Ukraine in that capacity but NEVER did due to the fact that they would make for easy targets as soon as they took off
Air-to-air missiles may be used to defend naval assets along with missiles on board vessels. But that is not what Johnson is discussing here.
I believe there is strong evidence of F-16s shooting down cruise missiles in Ukraine. With respect to ballistic missiles, it’s possible to attack them while ascending with A2A weapons but this assumes US/Israeli air superiority over Iran’s skies, as you said.
No that is false. That was the plan but it never came to pass
The Ukraine war is very well reported and I follow the updates on a daily basis. That includes commentary by Alexander Mercouris (who is all over that wor) in the last month noting explicitly that the F-16s not being deployed after so much noise about them. The onus is on you to prove otherwise.
I’ve no idea where Mercouris got his information, but verified recent footage of Ukrainian F-16’s taking down drones, mostly with AKWPS II rockets have all over military aviation sources for some time, including (so far as I recall), Russian Telegram sources. They’ve been used against Gerans and other slow drones/cruise missiles. Its unclear from the sources as to the geographical extent of where they are operating (possibly only western Ukraine), but they are certainly active up until very recently.
The Aviationist is, so far as these things go, a reputable source and it has videos, although it labels one as 2025 when the source says 2026.
The claim was missiles, not drones. Johnson was working off missile firing estimates. This even if correct is off point.
Aamrams are going to do diddly against ballistics. Against drones or cruise missiles probably decent.
They also work extremely well against big Chinese balloons lazily drifting with the current..
Have you heard about Operation Outward? It was a campaign using balloons in wW2 by the UK to attack Germany. Possibly one of the most cost effective strategic bombing campaigns in history.
Or the Fu-Go washi paper bombs that Japan successfully dumped on the US and Canada in WWII. They floated across the entire Pacific and killed a few people.
One of them even hit a genuine strategic target: power lines supplying Oak Ridge lab.
s, I recommend you listen to Scott Ritter. When you fire a new missile, US intelligence assets record its signature and characteristics to begin developing solutions. This is why the US never used F-35s in Ukraine.
Once US aerial recon and surface radar’s are neutralized (10 Reapers per day is NOT sustainable), then you will see the new stuff. Especially when drone waves are quite effective at overwhelming AD and then targeting specific key components (radar, interceptor storage, etc.).
Russia used Oreshnik, because it wanted to warn the US there is nothing you can do for a generation and we can kill you no matter how deep you bunker.
I really hope Russia shipped a few dozen Oreshniks to Iran and they are saving them to wipe out Dimona and zionazi nuclear threats.
No one takes into account using fighter planes to fire air-to-air missiles to destroy ballistic missiles because it’s close to impossible. An air to air missile is much slower than a ballistic missile except during the launch phase. Even then, Israel has so far been unable to shoot down a single Hezbollah missile with an air-to-air missile during launch phase.
Note that Israel has complete command of the air over Hezbollah controlled territory and that Hezbollah’s territory is much, much smaller than Iran. Meaning that Israel had much better opportunities to successfully fire air-to-air missiles against just launched Hezbollah missiles than it ever will against Iranian missiles. Yet it could not bring down a single Hezbollah missile. Simply put, no one considers using air-to-air missiles to bring down ballistic missiles because it hasn’t happened yet, even under extremely favorable conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-174B_Gunslinger
The best that article says is that variants of the predecessor missile had anti-ballistic missile capabilities, it could retain similar capabilities. That implies to me that realistically it would need a variant that is designed to facilitate that.
Them saying it can, even potwntially, intercept a hypersonic immediately reduces their credibility. Unless it was written by the vatican, where miracles are much more common.
Air to air interceptors would work fine on drones and cruise missiles, but can do nothing against incoming ballistic warheads, and fwiw, Iran has far more cruise missiles and drones than ballistics to the point where air to air missiles may as well not exist given their miniscule effect if large numbers of drones and cruise missiles were fired by Iran
As Cyrus the Great has little recent experience in fighting, I think Sun Tzu and Ivan have helped to clarify targets and suggest a deadly war economy.
I expect rail connections from China may suffer disruptions, slightly delaying inevitable resupply at the cost of further strategic losses, as panic takes hold.
Iran has no incentive to surrender or even seek terms.
They suffered cruel sanctions for decades, just because the cartel wanted to extract $$$.
I hope Americans enjoy the show, it could be retained by popular demand!
Tanker escorts in the tiny Persian Gulf! That’s like hiring bodyguards to protect you from an assailant who gets to shoot from point blank range with an assault rifle. Someone is still going to end up dead.
the data center attack is interesting as (like many other infrastructure widgets), a 12 y.o. flying a FPV can’t miss the cooling infrastructure of a standard data center. I visited one….and the exhaust coming off the building created a foggy microclimate even in the dead of winter, lmao.
what a rung on the escalation ladder. essential, but not life threatening…..unless your heart-lung machine is a “software as a service”
Scary stuff. Frankly I’m surprised that low hanging fruit hasn’t been attacked stateside, by both domestic and foreign agents. It’s a very brittle element affecting every aspect of any society.
I remember when workers on the Longfellow Bridge renovation mistakenly cut ‘just’ a fiber line between Boston and Cambridge and it shut down the Cambridge tech industry.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
Telefon
I’ve been following the war as minutely as I can, and there is a (possibly naive) question constantly niggling away at me:
US/Israel seem to have maintained air superiority, in the limited sense of being able to make stand-off attacks willy-nilly. OK, Iran has been attacking radar and other targeting facilities, etc. But why are they not (as far as I can tell) trying to deny the US/Israel the ability to “launch” aircraft at all? They have been attacking airbases everywhere. Is the number of planes in the air actually decreasing?
I’m making a lot of assumptions and logical connections here. Where are the holes?
Thanks.
The aim is “life as a service” and that illustration is simply a stark example of what it could mean.
I work in tech, and both yesterday and today we are experiencing pretty sizable technical problems with our Docker nodes in Microsoft Azure related to the attacks.
In the scheme of things, it’s nothing compared to food shortages or Bangladesh and Thailand running out of LNG, but this is just to say that there are ways in which this war is already reaching the West which surely Trump and co absolutely never planned for. This tech is VULNERABLE
Yeah, as a mechanical engineer, I’ve been saying for a while now that if you ever want to take down a data center, take out the HVAC system. Electronics and servers don’t react well to heat.
As the great Lambert Strether would say, “news you can use”.
https://timesofmalta.com/article/russia-blames-ukraine-gas-tanker-explosion-malta-libya.1124936
Russia says Ukraine launched suicide drone from Libyan coast to hit Russian gaz tanker hit off Malta yesterday. I was worried it was Britain launching from a Maltese location. Mentioning only because it came up in the Iran war thread yesterday.
‘EMPR.media
@EuromaidanPR
Reports from Dubai confirm that banks in the UAE have completely shut down. Only cash is in circulation!
The culprit is Iran’s precision strikes on data centers.
Among the affected facilities are Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in the ME-CENTRAL-1 region (UAE), including zones mec1-az2 and mec1-az3.’
I’m given to understand that the reason that the Iranians targeted those data centers was because the CIA were also using them for their own operations. I guess that the calculation was that being in the UAE, that they would always be safe from attack.
“Reports from Dubai confirm that banks in the UAE have completely shut down. Only cash is in circulation!”
I wonder if the “war on cash” will suffer setbacks because of this.
Claude runs on AWS.
WSJ reported the girls school was targeted using Claude.
Oh, that would be fitting.
And it is humans that decided to employ AI for the task of targeting and then decided to go with it. Not for maximizing societal well being…
Unfortunately the Claude application is named for the late Claude Shannon, a Bell Labs employee known for two very significant technical papers (digital logic design-boolean logic, and information theory) of the 20th century.
Maybe his memory is being dis-honored.
That sucks, I did not know that, these people are reprehensible.
Having said that, Claude Shannon worked on defense-related projects during WWII. Given his focus on noise in signals and accuracy of data transmission, he would undoubtedly look askance on 2026 AI BS.
Sorry to ask a profane question. But is there any advice on how to invest to hedge against all of this? I would think going long on oil, picking up Exxon and other oil companies not based in the area, shorting countries dependent on Straight of Hormuz oil like South Korea, shipping companies that are going to have windfall profits from the rise in rates? I’m curious what this community thinks on that front given it’s the only place I can seem to fine that is thinking clearly about this situation.
We do NOT give investment advice. I do not like sounding harsh but we have been very clear about that since the inception of this website.
Readers, do NOT indulge him.
Sorry all!! I have been reading/lurking for a long time and really appreciate this community and the thoughtful people in it, but missed that rule somehow. Thanks for taking the time to set me straight Yves, and it won’t happen again.
Thank you for your readership and being a good sport about my chiding you.
Shame that. I was going to suggest that if this war goes on long enough, to go long on shotguns and cans of backed beans. :)
Preppers of the world will having the last laugh.
Maybe rewatching “The Road”, or the “Book of Eli” are in order.
There are many others too.
I’d rather die partying at ground zero than live out “The Road”.
ahhhhh…..Lou Reed has you covered –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StdD1z6Qh0M
Fishbone has you covered!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEyNlt8wDag
Wackadoo wackadoo!
God, I loved those guys in the 80s!
Fantastic show, great music and Angelo Moore was crazy as hell.
There’s also Danny’s suggestion for a Dead Man’s Party:
https://youtu.be/mreTg2Dibl4?si=8tfXURQvCdEFUSQy
dang – tight – a dash of Zappa & a sprinkle of Kid Creole in their musical ska stew – like it! – playing St Andrews in Detroit next month – may go –
I hope they’ve given up stage-diving at this point in their careers!
Don’t forget Steely Dan “King Of The World”
There’s a hole in the ground where they used to grow….
I love that song and that’s my favorite lp of theirs.
Meh, I don’t think they’ll be laughing for long. I’ve encountered some of these guys in rural California and, IMHO, they severely underestimate how dependent on civilization they are. They fantasize about being like our “pioneering ancestors” living off the land (while driving an old pickup truck, which those same pioneers did NOT have. I’ve often wanted to refer them to the Little House on the Prairie books for a more realistic take on those pioneers (how many times Pa went to town, a not short trip, for supplies?), but I thought better and would just smile and nod.
John Michael Greer has said that if the SHTF, that these preppers have no idea of growing food which is a cornerstone skill and in years to come you will find their skeletons in attempted gardens.
Reverend,
I guess this Greer fellow does not agree w/ Bloomberg, the Dwarf: “The agrarian society lasted 3,000 years and we could teach processes. I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer,… It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn. You could learn that. Unbelievable. Typical clueless oligarch.
Seriously speaking. the problem is not growing food. I grew up on a farm and know many SHTF folks who grew up on farms. We can grow food alright, but for a very limited number of people. Without machines and diesel to power them folks have to go back to subsistence farming. Backbreaking work. Not only do you have to farm, but you have to be your own goatherd, carpenter, plumber, tailor, cobbler, wheelwright, candle-maker, cook…And you have to protect what you have. There will be lots of skeletons by the time this system settles down. Among those who grow food, and among those who try to take it away. Sad state of affairs.
We can’t find sardines anywhere for the last three weeks. Wegmann, Market Basket, Trader Joe, Ocean State.
i was gonna say, “buy garden seeds, and lots of them, ”
thats my hedge.
and live near a water source.
Yesterday I spent an hour transplanting seedlings. Very relaxing and centering – compared to listening to news 24-7 – plus you can think about how good it is going to taste come harvest and how much money you are not going to spend at the grocery store!
Second this. Start a garden — one of a limited number of mental health therapies that also feeds you.
Agreed. Grow something. We planted peas yesterday. Early alaska and oregon sugar pod 2, our usual two. You dont need much room to grow something, and it feels good.
Yes! Grow something! Just bought seed potatoes, onions and garlic. Will plant this week. Will start pruning plum and apricot trees tomorrow. Costs much less than a therapist. ;-)
Anyone and everyone can grow kale. Super easy. Grows right into the winter, and puts out.
Easy braised greens, sauté in olive oil in a hot cast iron skillet with dried onion flakes, salt, and paprika stirring the pan to cover all the leaf surface in the oil. Add a generous double dash of balsamic vinegar, cover and let steam over medium heat until tender. Delicious, and all the ingredients besides the kale are usuals in the larder.
In early January I started growing “mini-greens” (letting them get a bit bigger than “microgreens”) and am now harvesting a daily Broccoli (leaf) and Arugula salad out of a single 20″ by 48″ shelf of a DIY indoor grow rack. Kale is next on the plan. When it’s a bit warmer, I’ll start outdoor plants.
PSA: True Leaf Market has reasonably priced microgreens seeds.
And save and trade the same! Spiking oil prices and short supplies for any length of time would show up in angels falling dead from the sky all over the world in short order in our oh so tightly coupled world. With Yves forbearance, I would say look to building as much of your local community strength as you can. Even if it isn’t this time (but it might well be) soon we may be forced to more local self-support than we are prepared for.
And only buy heirloom seeds, and most importantly, learn how to successfully save seeds!
John Auther’s Bloomberg column “Iran optimism may prevail, but it’s not free money” this morning doesn’t give advice, but it is interesting about how picking winners/losers of wars pays out. His conclusion is:
It is hard to consider this a “good” buying opportunity, especially from a Bloomberg columnist!
unless you have a 9-digit portfolio or your net worth is in illiquid, overly-leveraged widgets, “hedging” is for institutions, not individuals who have options (ironically) unavailable to the Harvard Uni. endowment. people are watching too much CNBC
Invest in vests, get a bunch of different colors, stripes going every which way, checkered patterns and polka dots-why not?
Chicks dig a well-vested man…
“The name? Bonds. Strong Bonds. I like my economies shaken, not stirred.”
LOL, ambrit!
Don’t forget the spoof cash-in, “Bonds, Junk Bonds: The Return of Milken”
Secret Agent .007%.
unconfirmed footage of a possible F35 downing over Tehran.
standard disclaimer: fuzzy resolution, unknown provenance, all sides will lie. have to wait for the wreckage/pilot to be paraded, if any
https://x.com/zhao_dashuai/status/2029163329168830639
Regarding the war risk insurance scheme, perhaps it would be simpler and quicker for US to contract with insurers to provide reinsurance at low cost to cover their claims losses. Such contracts might be simpler and quicker to implement than USG itself replacing current insurers.
I’ll add that both the convoy proposal and the insurance proposal sound to me not like adaptations to the current high-intensity conflict, but something more along the lines of a proposal for ways to maintain hydrocarbon flows out of the less hostile parts of the Persian Gulf region under conditions of lower-intensity “forever war” with Iran.
There is still a problem here. A commenter – who I hope will speak up – made the astute observation yesterday that even if a scheme could be rigged to insure that ship, the shipping companies would still hold back. The reason being that if a ship of theirs was sunk, that it could take years to replace and they would miss out on any generated profit until that new ship could be delivered. Better to keep their present fleet safe from attack.
Perhaps, but there’s a cost to keeping a potentially cash-generating asset idle. If the expected cost of leaving a tanker idle exceeds the expected gain of putting it at risk by a sufficiently large margin, the owner might either sell it to someone who is willing to put it at risk, or put it at risk himself.
Problem is that trying to get a ship through those narrow straits is like trying to drag a balloon across a packed shooting gallery. If the drones don’t get those ships then the anti-ship missiles will. And do we even know if those waters have been mined or not?
That is a good point.
Plus how long to get the insurance payout?
Also, how about the ship’s crew who would be killed? Or am I naive to think that would matter to the shipping company?
Maritime insurance is out of London. No way will we do that.
Hmm, perhaps the real cost of reinsurance from USA USA is writing the policies out of NY with more than just a brass-plate office?
Refusing to insure a large number of tankers is bad for business. You could see the insurers, er, jumping ship to NY.
Also, per Samuel Connors point, you could hire the insurers to write policies as agents of USA or, quicker still and setting a poacher to catch a thief, do the same with the reinsurers or even the retrocessional insurers, to unjam the market.
The latter sectors comprise global businesses. It is only the maritime syndicates writing policies that are so wedded to London and you don’t need to apply USA’s insurer of last resort there, you can just backstop the backstops. It’s like the Fed swap lines…..
Erm, I hate seeming rough, but are you kidding me? You need to be able to handle measure risk, which here the US is backstopping, and process claims. The latter is non-trivial and requires physical inspection. That is true all across what amounts to property and casualty insurance. You have to verify the extent of damage to determine the proper reimbursement level. That happens even with roofs for wind damage.
I had a colleague who used to worl for Lloyds as a ship inspector. Travelling all over to visit ships writing reports about them that would be used to determine if they could be insured and at what rate. Would also include items that had to be fixed before any insurance would be granted.
I’ve learnt from today’s 12-steps of doom post that the retrocessional insurers exclude war risk but I still think my point about reinsurers is valid: the place to apply the financial muscle of the USA is to the reinsurers, to take their war risk off them. The insurance clubs can then go back to primary underwriting and deal with the nuts and bolts work you cite.
I don’t think the ship owners may wish to take the chance though, unless they can find customers willing to pay in advance for multi-month hire, I.e. to put the price of a new vessel on the table. If you lose the vessel and have to claim the insurance, backstopped by trustworthy Uncle Sam to boot, you spend years in claims and litigations and still don’t have a vessel because the new one is being built. The real options analysis dictates that even months of idle time and losses are better than years of being shipless and out of pocket in the rebuild. I’d wait it out….
After about 25 years I wonder what’s in the TRIA cookie jar – and where is that cookie jar for acts within the U.S. since 9/11. Of course terrorism and war are separate exclusions on a commercial insurance policy and marine is its own separate world in the P & I Clubs.
If we had our own merchant fleet anymore, Trump could say we’d just haul with our own stuff; not that they wouldn’t all get sunk. But talk about a lack of capability this country has…
A Youtube channel called “What’s Going on with Shipping” showed up on my feed, and I found this video informative. The host:
Some of his points:
1) Full tankers are piling up in Persian Gulf and empty ones pile up in the Arabian Sea. Unless empty ones can get through the Straits, oil producers in the Gulf will have to start shutting down wells because storage is limited.
2) There was a flurry of shipping activity in anticipation of the war, so there’s quite a bit of crude and refined product currently on tankers outside the area, e.g. the Straits of Malacca. That’s buffering prices for now to some extent.
He also talks about insurance, escorts, etc. Pretty interesting.
I have not seen any mention of naval mines in this discussion regarding convoys or escorted tankers.
Please refresh this page and re-skim if you read the post before the time of this comment. It is now complete.
We will provide updates, as has become our practice with the Iran war, in comments.
“In just four days since the start of Epic Fury, Iran has fired an estimated 200 missiles at sites in the Gulf nations and Israel that have Patriot batteries.”
I think more can be said about Iran’s strategy of attacking the Gulf states. Obviously, it’s about oil which is crucial. However, imo Iran is directly attacking the US economy.
The Gulf states, specifically Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar sell their oil for dollars and those dollars are invested in the US. This is a massive investment in the trillions.
This from TRT World, “During President Donald Trump’s Middle East trip in May 2025, which included visits to key Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, the Gulf states pledged investments in the US totaling more than $2 trillion across various sectors like defense, aviation, artificial intelligence (AI), energy, and infrastructure.”
https://www.trtworld.com/article/a7b84839da49
Furthermore, the US spends billions on Israel which then attacks Iran which then attacks the Gulf States and they, the Gulf States, must wonder why they invest in the US in the first place if they’re not defended.
I think Iran’s goal is shutting down Gulf oil, as well as a direct attack on the US economy.
Aside from the AI question, I wonder what the images show.
I compared the TOI video with Professor Postol’s analysis of images from the June 2025 strikes on Israel, where he shows how to tell incoming missiles from interceptors, shows how to read the behavior of interceptor contrails, and what failed and successful intercepts look like. I also looked again at Richard Medhurst’s compilation of images from the current attacks on Tel Aviv, which shows successful impacts — and failed intercepts.
It looks to me that the TOI video mainly shows interceptors, and one successful daytime missile strike with multiple warheads, and maybe a nighttime strike (without showing an impact). Most of the nighttime images seem to be of failed intercepts, with the interceptors expiring in the air. There were very few inages, if any, of actual missile strikes. I am just reading the images against Postol’s account, not judging if they are AI confections.
That second Times of India video is obvious AI
Big claims require evidence given Times of India’s stature:
The voice is probably AI to get an American English rather than Indian upper caste English accent. But that has become acceptable with many foreign language news broadcasts being re-dubbed with an AI translation to English.
Sorry to be harsh, but the video looks like unverified garbage – I can’t find it anywhere else – would be glad to proven wrong though:
https://www.facebook.com/toiworldnews/videos/israel-eupts-in-fiery-blitz-explosions-shake-tel-aviv-as-iranian-missiles-bypass/2096441991209443/
Anything from TOI should have at least 1 other source for verification – as they aren’t averse to repeating nonsense. I understand the value of hearing the propaganda from multiple sides, and trying to parse tidbits of info, but it’s not worth burning credibility on with dramatic videos that are unverified – and then looks bad later.
NC is a great resource for getting non-MSM views on the wars and such – but it was also among many big names that e.g. played down potential of Russia invading Ukraine years ago – so shouldn’t really be that fast and loose with sources.
You demand perfect clairvoyance? Seriously?
Russia massed troops on the Ukraine border in Jan-Feb 22 as it had in March-April 2020 (as in in similar numbers), which was mere threat display.
As we know now, Russia did not decide to launch the SMO until the Munich Security Conference, when Zelensky asked for nukes and then no one voiced opposition then or later. That was Feb 15. The other factor that led to the decision was a big increase in shelling of the Donbass at that time, recorded by the OSCE, but IIRC not generally public at that time, plus Ukraine troop movements consistent with Ukraine launching a big offensive in early March. Putin recognized the Donbass republics and entered into a mutual defense agreement on Feb 21, which triggered the shock and awe sanctions on Feb 22. That is very tight timing and suggests that the earlier force concentration was intended to deter or if necessary pre-empt a Ukraine attack.
I will not use Times of India again but it is most assuredly a mainstream source. So you are out of line in chiding me as if Times of India was not a well-established, high circulation outlet, as opposed to presumed-scruffy independent media.
My view on predictions:
Predictions are hard, particularly about the future, and only more so when you don’t have access to classified data or inner workings of decision makers. And my personal belief is that they are useless unless your business involves active trading in certain markets like currencies or commodities. As in project management, it’s useful to think about worst cases and best cases and be prepared for both.
In “overly dynamic situations”, the value of sites like NC and alternate media sources is to get a better sense of what has already happened, to cut through the “male bovine excrement” that dials up to eleven on a scale of one to ten.
At the start of the Ukraine conflict, former NATO head Wesley Clark opined that Russia had the capability to defeat Ukraine is six months. I think he was right. That was a statement about facts, not a prediction. Other former generals announced the impending collapse of Putin’s “regime.” That was a prediction. They were wrong.
I trust CNBC to accurately report current price levels on the equity exchanges, on a delay. I don’t trust anyone who tells me they know what the S&P 500 level will be at year’s close, or even tomorrow’s.
John McLaughlin used to asked guests on his show for predictions and a degree of confidence ranging from zero to ontological certainty. I think that’s a good way to think about predictions.
I saw this video yesterday on the TG Slavyangrad (I think) channel.
Commenters were about 70% AI and 30% not.
I think as Americans we have all been spoiled with the quality and level of information we were able to read and watch in the MSM over the last fifty years. Part of that was because it’s a strength when your society is able to report as close as possible the facts on the ground. Part of it was because it was necessary to manufacture consent. Even during W’s wars there were embedded reporters, and every day there were briefings, every night there were news clips. This was not the norm. The norm such as in WW1 and WW2 was heavily censored news. I think we’re going back to that world with respect to the level and quality of information available.
The American MSM quality has spent the last two decades sliding into almost criminal levels of irrelevance. I do still watch the MSM, but I trust it much less. You can draw your own conclusions as to why this is happening, but mine is – the facts on the ground ain’t too good.
It is extremely hard to get good solid information on the war in Ukraine, and I suspect getting solid information on the Iran war is going to be even worse. I trust NC to provide information where possible that is important and gives additional insight. But, as I was taught in high school, all news reporting is biased, and critical thinking is required. The mere fact that NC embraces this is what makes it so important.
Thanks NC crew, I’ve learned a lot here, and I value your hard work!
back when there were only 3 channels to watch on TV for news (we in Detroit had channel 9 CBC from Windsor Canada too), ABC-NBC-CBS – and when the Fairness Doctrine seemed to be effective in the 60’s & 70’s – i cannot remember any of the newscasters being animated with their hands like we see in any presentation today – Walter Cronkite was a patriarch of the news as were Huntley & Brinkley – their presentation of what is going on today would have been a bit different – most of the news-folks from that era had some semblance of character – critical thinking is always required no matter the era –
https://takesmeback.com/12-newscasters-from-the-60s-and-70s-who-were-practically-on-air-royalty/
I noticed that YouTube is flagging those Times of India videos as synthetic or altered content. Thumbs on the scale, perhaps?
I don’t understand the fuss about this video. I saw it at least 24 hours ago (3/3, morning, PST) and it was obvious to all the commenters then that it was AI.
Sorry I did not check the comments. I do that for tweets but sometimes the AI alerts come up late. I assumed as I said repeatedly because it was the channel of a big mainstream pub in India that it was legit. I will do so with future war porn vids.
Both videos have this in the “More…” section under the video window:
“How this was made
Altered or synthetic content
Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated.”
Not clear to me whether that is put up by Google or the original video authors. Everything else in that section is obviously from the latter.
Pretty sure it’s google marking them. Just watched a video on a completely different topic and it had exactly the same message.
Well, when you hover over it ,a “Altered or Synthetic Content” banner pops up, and if you click on the banner, a link to the following appears “Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated“, so there is that.
I did not get that in my Orion browser. It has an ad blocker and also blocks all tracking. Perhaps it suppressed that.
Again I do not know why you are continuing to hector me. I told you I did not investigate because I assumed as an Indian MSM site with nearly 6 million subs that it would not run fake content. Keep this up and I wlll never embed a video again. Is that what you want?!?!
On the embed, under the title area toppish left It clearly says Altered or Synthetic content.
When one pulls the videos up to view on Youtube. At the very bottom of the descriptions is:
It may be that it’s only a voice edit. I didn’t watch because I want to know what was altered. Perhaps that’s their standard disclaimer.
As indicated, the voice is likely an AI redo.
Perhaps the visuals were genuine but sexed up.
Unfortunately there will also be pressure on media outlets to get the most hits. Posting the most dramatic looking stuff will do that. So we can probablt expect a lot of false images and video by csreless editors that won’t ask too many questions. And that’s before the deliberate propaganda.
Congressman Seth Magaziner (D-RI)
https://x.com/shafeKoreshe/status/2029071811389079849 (0.50 secs)
No justification for our actions. No plan for what happens next. Sounds about right.
And yet still no articles of impeachment drawn up. Instead they are looking for a way for Congress to authorize the war after the fact.
Because the “opposition” already has and wants to be able to continue to start wars without consulting Congress themselves.
It was pretty obvious in early 2024 that the Democrat party had nothing to offer, were likely to lose the election to Trump, and yet they did nothing to roll up the conflicts that Biden started. And then they confirmed Rubio with zero opposition. That tells me they had no problem handing all this violence off to Trump.
Please allow me to join the chorus of Gratitude to Yves and the NC crew + commentariat for the outstanding analysis of this tragic series of events in western Asia. Check is in the mail!
Hear! Hear!
Does anyone know if a torpedo from a US submarine really did sink an Iranian warship? Can’t find news on it and anything Pete Hegseth says is not to be believed.
There are comments on Twitter taking that up, see below, but that is not independent verification.
Trump is unhinged, if that doesn’t frighten you it should.
I expect something dramatic on the home front to distract from the War.
Maybe we’ll get lucky…
you mean like the War is a distraction from what’s happening on the home front, aka war on we the people?
Exactly. We need this war to distract us from what is happening at home, but then we need something at home to distract us from what is happening in the war. How far down the rabbit hole should we expect?
So an Israeli F35 pilot defected to Iran and everyone, including Iranians, are covering it up? (This comment is obv a joke!)
What a pity it isn´t real. Would have loved it…
Old axiom: a photo is worth a thousand words
New axiom: a video is worth a thousand doubts
Word!
So an Israeli F35 pilot defected to Iran… he had to take a bus.
But seriously folks,
The pilot brought top US technology to Iran as part of a plot to cripple the Iranian aviation program.
I’ll be here all week!!!
I hope that if any shipper decides to use Trump insurance they at least get the money up front.
There had been earlier discussion of an expected shift in (non-combat) approaches after the (shorter 3-day) mourning period for Khamenei, which presumably would be in the very immediate future if true. Does anyone know if such a thing would be contingent on a successor first being named, or are there other high-level leaders in a position to, for example, issue fatwas in the neighboring countries?
From 2 days ago I believe:
Col. Jacques Baud: Middle East on Fire — Is This the Start of Something Bigger?
58 min.
https://rumble.com/v76ixb6-col.-jacques-baud-middle-east-on-fire-is-this-the-start-of-something-bigger.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_a
Baud made this statement (I am only at half point of the show):
If he were Iran he would do what Iran probably in fact is planning:
Escalate and hit beyond the point US/ISR find it unbearable and ask for peace, no ceasefire. Because only if they really are in a dire state can Iran be sure they have no other choice and that they do not just try to play the Ukraine/NATO game to delay and gain time to rearm.
So this has to end in a strategic defeat – whatever that may include. If it goes as far as chasing the US out of the region or something else he doesn´t know of course.
Or in his words: “You really have to bring them down on their knees so they have no other choice than asking for peace.” TC 24:50
However puzzling, he claims the US/ISR are irrational. He calls it an obsession. And sees no sane explanation behind Israel´s 2005 decision to suddenly regard Iran as an enemy.
Hmm. Why puzzling? Do you see strong evidence they are both rational actors? Or even one of the two…?
In their own twisted way (meaning interest limited to a small coterie of elites) I assume they are rational.
Irrational would mean the people who are in charge are trying to hurt their own interests.
That´s not gonna happen.
Instead I would simply say “corrupt” or sick in the way that it´s without any regard for anybody else.
I don´t know how Africans on the ground see these matters. But when sanctioned Nathalie Yamb was commenting last year on the state of the West she smiled: You know that´s the way we have been living for ages – under your boots.
But I highlighted it because Baud usually gives a sane explanation for all these events. Whether or not he believes they are sane or not.
Because: What is the difference to Ukraine?
The group of people who profit from this may not be the same.
But they do profit if Europe has no LNG, or if the US Army needs 1000 new Tomahawks per year.
And even some forces in Israel may well profit from Iran building nukes – I am still not sure Iran will.
I think nobody in public really knows it will happen. I doubt the Chinese or Russians would be happy.
But if it does many in the US too will be satisfied.
Eventually – just like with Ukraine and NATO expansion – only the attack to allegedly preempt Iranian nukes has possibly brought about them being produced by Iran in the first place.
You could make an argument this possible outcome was considered too by US and ISR.
I can´t believe it wasn´t, frankly.
So there will be no need to argue over this any more: No more DNI who contradicts any POTUS in coming years with “ahem, Mr. President, Iran has NO nukes.”
That problem may possibly be out of the way.
But just a historic note:
Before the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001 the CIA issued a report to POTUS where it stated clearly that the “War on Terror” would achieve one thing: Increase terror and make US less safe.
What Baud calls obsession is systemic to empire. In this regard he is way too old-fashioned and cultivated to really assume such pathology is rationally pursued. But this is not new. We only get more into its crosshairs.
p.s. Just remember STRATCOM – to this very day they still argue 2 nuclear wars – against RU and CHINA – can be conducted and won. This is not some hillbillies talkin´. This is core US national security state of the highest level.
Is STRATCOM insane? Of course.
“Before the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001 the CIA issued a report to POTUS where it stated clearly that the “War on Terror” would achieve one thing: Increase terror and make US less safe.”
Well, it’s been obviously true ever since, that’s for sure.
I used to have a sign in my office:
“the war on terror gave us more terrorists and the war on drugs gave us more drugs. Next year, let’s have a war on money and jobs and see where it goes?”
Ron Paul has been saying this about our foreign policy putting a bullseye on our backs for like – forever – before the “War on Terror” even –
Laughingsong, that made me laugh. Thank you.
This makes sense. It is just hard to see how the leadership in Israel/America “get down on their knees” without trying a nuke first. Given the damage Iran is likely to sustain, it will need an end to the conflict to have sanctions lifted so that it can rebuild from damages in the war. That is a precedent I can see the US/Israel not wanting to set no matter what the pain.
Trump has been pretty open about the top job in Iran. I’m fairly certain the powers that be were taking a page out of the colonial playbook without considering Iran is a nation-state. Kurdish separatists may tell tall tales, but Iran isn’t an oppressed peasant population where the British might not be the worst option on the table or able to be paid off by arming one side in tribal grievances. Keeping in mind the actors in the US are “white supremacists,” this is their reasoning.
I sort of suspect a great deal of non-political Israeli elites know the alternatives to Bibi are just incompetent versions of Netanyahu. They would take actual dumps on the Oval Office rug, or they would begin a reign of terror against the Arab-Israeli population which would make the Algiers comparison from yesterday particularly apt.
Given how “competence” has been expressed here, I would gladly accept the gift of an “incompetent version of Netanyahu.” Perhaps that would result in blackmail more artlessly performed and more people inefficiently unkilled.
I would too, but tht is why I mentioned the non-politico Israeli elites. They know how the alternatives would play on outlets such as Fox News.
So he doesn’t think like others that Israel would resort to nukes in the end rather than have such an outcome?
Middle East Observer analysis, “Bottom line: CENTCOM can achieve air superiority over Iranian skies. It cannot achieve missile suppression.”
If that is accurate, that CENTCOM can (eventually I guess) achieve air superiority over Iran – and I wonder with the three planes shot down by someone recently – however let’s say that CENTCOM is likely to eventually have air superiority. If so, I would think that air superiority will change the timing of the launch prep and response timing (in their post they dicuss how many minutes each type of middle takes to prep for launch), such that it may then become more difficult for Iran to fire missiles, as the response time would, perhaps decrease.
Might not be all critical or accurate but seemed like a possibility.
If you look at the breakdown of the Iranian air force a large number of the aircraft are from the US (so pre 79). Most of those aircraft will be in poor condition due to lack or parts. And even if they have managed to get or make parts then they are old air frames. Going to be pretty weak by this time.
They also have some French aircraft. I suspect they would be in a similar condition. Some old Chinese fighters, that sre heavily outmatched. And russian aircraft. Those should be in better condition. But there are not a huge amount.
1. Per Iranian human rights group HRANA: since February 28, in Iran there have been 1097 reported civilian deaths, including 181 children, and 5042 reported civilian injuries, including 100 children. Yesterday afternoon the IRGC on Iranian TV was talking about ~700 civilian deaths through the morning of March 3, so we had something like +400 in 24 hours. With a 5:1 wounded to dead ratio fairly typical of modern conflicts.
Russian channels today are showing videos of Teheran being bombed incessantly, so I don’t think we’re going go lower on this daily casualty rate.
2. Russian prankers Vovan and Leksus have apparently phoned up “little Shah” Pahlavi and got him to spill on everything. They promise to post the full convo up at some point today, but in one early snippet Pahlavi talks about how Iran will be brought low by a “crusade” (very charged language for muslims), and how he’ll be handing over Iranian assets to the West as soon as he is made leader.
This will probably be way under-reported in Western media, but all over Russian and (probably) Iranian news when fully released.
Here is some more.
Wow – the guy pranking him even calls himself Adolf and wears a Hitler moustache. You’d think Bibi’s little whore Pahlavi might have picked up on that.
https://caliber.az/en/post/iran-s-exiled-prince-voices-support-for-bigger-crusade-against-tehran
https://www.bitchute.com/video/smVsq4itKjpB/
Enjoy more India coverage
Lifted from MoA comments where Macfarlane posted yesterday about Scott Ritter with Nixon where Ritter said US already relies too much on AI:
“Ritter’s interview with Garland has some important points. Part of the American problem is military doctrine inherited from WWII. It is atavistic. However, another part is unquestioning faith in systems, especially AI, which really means “Artificial Idiocy”. AI is a way of not thinking but no AI can actually think and rely on datasets which are abstractions not necessarily connected to reality So the Americans used AI in Caracas, which resulted in a lot of civilian casualties, precision weapons hitting the wrong targets We see that in Iran also. The school that was hit and two hospitals were AI-marked as IRGC properties which indeed they once were since the IRGC has a lot social infrastructure covering health and welfare AIs provide for heuristic response — and require critical thought and questioning to be useful. In a wartime system reliance on such systems leads to defeat.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/03/war-on-iran-regional-participation-u-s-blames-israel.html#comment-1293624
This makes the most sense of any explanation I have heard so far.
While AI may be misleading, the profile of targets mirrors Gaza – target residential housing, hospitals and schools, with the goal of causing as much physical and psychic pain as possible on the civilian population. All war crimes but the US head of Depart of War has stated “No stupid rules of engagement…” Just to be clear, yesterday a neonatal hospital was hit…a real world mirror of the propaganda that led to the Iraq invasion.
Thanks to the proprietors of this site in giving voice to those who are relaying accurate information regarding how this war is being carried out and /viewed by the rest of the world, information which will never grace the pages of western mainstream journalism.
I haven’t watched the video, but I think that highlighted explanation is a little too generous. Either they deliberately used overly permissive targeting criteria to provide plausible deniability for doing precisely what they were going to do anyway, or they are genuinely dumb as rocks and don’t know how ML works. Maybe some of both. In either case, you can be sure the Israelis know how it works and it’s a feature, not a bug.
you can be sure the Israelis know how it works and it’s a feature, not a bug.
Quite.
also from MoA:
The commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, Ismail Qaani, has been detained on suspicion of espionage for Mossad.
Military observer Vladislav Shurygin, citing sources, reports that Qaani was detained based on intelligence provided by Chinese military intelligence. He was identified after the interception of a conversation between a high-ranking CIA official and the Israeli General Staff.
According to a second version, Qaani has long been under suspicion because he miraculously avoided death on three separate occasions. First, he left a meeting of Hezbollah leaders in Beirut on September 27, 2024, just before an Israeli airstrike destroyed the underground bunker where the meeting was held. The strike killed Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and several senior Iranian commanders, including IRGC deputy commander General Abbas Nilforushan. Qaani was supposed to attend—he had flown to Lebanon specifically to join the meeting with his chief of staff—but reportedly apologized and withdrew minutes before entering.
The second incident occurred in June 2025 during the Israeli operation “Roar of the Lion,” which involved massive strikes on military and government targets in Iran. According to The New York Times, citing Iranian sources, Qaani was initially listed among high-ranking officials killed. However, it later emerged that he had again left the IRGC office where the meeting was held moments before the strike destroyed the building.
Most recently, Qaani avoided death once more by leaving the residence of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei just minutes before it was struck.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/03/war-on-iran-regional-participation-u-s-blames-israel.html/comment-page-10#comment-1294705
Weird. No links in that comment so I did a search. Saw a few recent posts mentioning the same as the MoA comment, but also this one from 2024 after that 2nd attack that says he was detained by Iranian authorities then on suspicion of espionage for the Zionist entity – https://www.iranintl.com/en/202410101144 Check out the memes of him dressed in Israeli garb.
If this MoA comment is true and so is the article I just posted, then someone in Iran really fell down on the job here. It could also be that someone picked up on the 2024 news and is conflating that with current events.
This reads as highly plausible and even gives a specific name of a very senior officer who would have been present at command meetings. He replaced Soleimani which shows what a huge blow to Iran that was – yes, he was quickly replaced – but by a traitor.
Western media, like this from Le Parisien, have even run stories about him the last couple of days wondering if he was lucky or an Israeli spy, which may be to cause doubts among the Iranians – if western media think he may have been a spy, then maybe he wasn’t?
Personally, I think once is lucky, twice is providence, but thrice is in-the-know.
From MoA:
Assessment on the current state of Iranian air defence by Military Chronicle. Fog of war is too thick IMO to say if it is realistic, too doomer, or not.
Which Iranian air defense systems might still remain combat-effective under conditions of air supremacy by US and Israeli tactical aviation?
It is widely known that even the “deep” echelon of the IRGC’s air defense today is largely deprived of the capability for full deployment and sustained combat operations, given the de facto control of the air situation by manned and unmanned tactical aircraft of the US Air Force/Navy and the Israeli Air Force.
Most medium and long-range air defense systems, which rely on detection, illumination, and guidance radar — including the Arman, Sevom Khordad, S-300PMU-2, Bavar-373, 15th Khordad, and others — were compromised and had their positions revealed by their own radiation emissions within the first day. Their operation is detected by US signals intelligence aircraft like the RC-135V Rivet Joint, as well as the onboard radar warning receivers of F-15Es, F-35Is, and F/A-18E/Fs. Once positions are identified, they are struck with anti-radiation missiles, cruise missiles (such as the AGM-88E, AGM-84H), and other munitions.
However, completely eliminating the threat of intercepts hasn’t been entirely possible: there have been recorded instances of successful, albeit isolated, shootdowns of Israeli Hermes 900 drones and even American MQ-9 Reapers.
In many episodes, such intercepts are attributed to the use of the Missile 358 (“Product 358”) loitering air defense missile. With a relatively low speed of about Mach 0.6, a range of up to 100 km, and an intercept ceiling of approximately 8,500 meters, it is capable of acting in a “free hunt” mode against US and Israeli drones. However, using radio command guidance creates a problem of revealing its position: the transmitting antenna or control point can be pinpointed by enemy electronic intelligence assets.
Against this backdrop, mobile short-range systems operating in a “shoot-and-scoot” manner appear more survivable — notably, the AD-08 Majid. Their key advantage is that target detection and tracking are accomplished via an electro-optical channel (including thermal imaging), not radar. Consequently, such systems are significantly harder to detect based on emissions, and the airborne radar warning receivers on US and Israeli aircraft are practically useless against them.
The AD-08 missiles have an infrared seeker, a stated range of about 8 km, an intercept altitude of up to 6 km, and a speed of around Mach 2. There is a version suggesting that a Majid might have been involved in shooting down a Tomahawk-type cruise missile — photographs of wreckage have been published to support this claim.
The IRGC may also have a certain stockpile of R-73 and R-27T missiles with infrared seekers, which could be employed from mobile ground platforms equipped with thermal imaging sighting systems. It is known that such improvised air defense systems are in the possession of the Houthis and have, in the past, demonstrated the capability to intercept not only American drones but also a Saudi F-15S. This specific incident was recorded in 2018.
https://t.me/geromanat/72703
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/03/war-on-iran-regional-participation-u-s-blames-israel.html/comment-page-10#comment-1294719
“Most medium and long-range air defense systems, which rely on detection, illumination, and guidance radar — including the Arman, Sevom Khordad, S-300PMU-2, Bavar-373, 15th Khordad, and others — were compromised and had their positions revealed by their own radiation emissions within the first day.”
The unexamined premise to this sentence would seem to be the assumption that in the face of attack the Iranians simply turn on every available radar and then leave them immobile until their inevitable destruction by American missile. Is that really how Iran conducts its air defence ? My impression is that that’s a very over-simplified picture. I don’t, for example, think that if that was how Ukrainian air defence operated, that they would have managed, for the most part, to keep the Russian Air Force out of their airspace for 4 years and counting.
FWIW, my simple test is that if all medium and long range AD has been destroyed or suppressed the US would be using B-52s dropping massive bomb loads on everything. They’re not, so still AD around.
Actually, they’ve used B-52s for the last two nights
The US has been desperately trying to convince everyone that they have air supremacy and are dropping gravity bombs. They are trying to paint the use of heavy bombers as a flex, when the reality is that B52s are being employed because they are the only carrier for a specific cruise missile that was actually removed from service (on paper, but still stocked apparently- I forget which system this was, but if you do some digging you’ll find reporting) because Iran’s area denial strategy has pushed the bulk of US fighter/attack aircraft basing outward beyond easy reach of Iran by systematically targeting airfields (mainly operations/planning/maintenance buildings on the airfields- difficult to plan, arm, and launch sorties when a missile comes in every 30-40 minutes, let alone perform basic maintenance on maintenance heavy aircraft). The fact that retired air launched cruise missiles are being brought out of retirement should be a huge, blinking sign that people should notice here as an indicator of how this conflict is proceeding.
Air space over Iran is clearly very heavily contested.
Source for B-52s being used: https://hexbear.net/comment/6969642
Have a read of Martin Wolf’s article in the FT today. He begins:
“Sic semper tyrannis” (thus always to tyrants). This well-known tag evokes the proper fate of despots. That Ali Khamenei was a tyrant and his theocratic regime tyrannical cannot be doubted. There is little doubt that it killed thousands of protesters in early January. Decent people should welcome its decapitation.
So I presume he would welcome decapitation of Netanyahu and Trump.
A hypocritical white supremacist yearning to jump out of Wolf’s little brain
It’s what John Wilkes Booth yelled after shooting Lincoln.
Little brain indeed.
Funny how there are so many accusations of Khamenei being a tyrant or some such, but there are never any examples of his tyranny given. The Western propaganda firehose is on full blast.
Just before the Iranian revolution there was an American general in Tehran advising the government. There were massive protests going on and this general advised the government to just shoot them. Now protesters are sacred, so long as they protest for the right side.
Good news for Russia and China.
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/iran-to-allow-only-chinese-russian-vessels-through-strait-of-hormuz-citing-beijing-moscow-s-support-in-ongoing-conflict
Maybe India can pick up a load or two.
India kinda burned some bridges with Iran. First was the visit to Netanyahu last week. And then no condemnation of the attacks on Iran or the murder of the Supreme leader. Meanwhile they have spoken to Netanyahu and Arab leaders and condemned the attacks on their territory but have not openly reached out to Iran.
Even the Indian opposition is lambasting Modi for his silence and have condemned Israeli and US actions.
So I’m not sure if Iran will be that forgiving.
I think daily rates for oil tankers have increased 4by 4 (can’t remember where I saw that, but that was the figure I read).
Now if you have an oil tanker yoy can sail between different points for that increased rate then why send it to there and possibly get sunk.
But most countries have an ability to commandeer flagged merchant ships in time of war. Howeever, as the US has deliberately made it’s merchant fleet smaller and smaller for financial reasons. That isn’t so easy.
This channel is originally in Arabic, by journalist Youssef Fares, it is supposed to be Palestinian with quick snippets on events.
Hezbollah starting to participate:
google-translated:
https://t-me.translate.goog/s/youseffares19?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Fares on The Cradle:
“Youssef Fares is a freelance writer and journalist from Gaza. Worked as a reporter for a number of international newspapers and channels. He specializes in resistance affairs.”
https://thecradle.co/authors/yousef-fares-76
Came across something in a video that has me wondering. The US would have wanted all the Arab powers lined up behind the US and Israel in their assault on Iran. And here I note that the Al Qaeda President of Syria really loves this idea. But then Tucker Carlson came out with the Huckabee interview where the damn fool said the quite part out loud. That the US was perfectly happy for Israel to expand and take over neighbouring countries. As he was never recalled or criticized by Trump, this showed those Arab countries where exactly they were on the totem pole which undermined any support that they had for the US.
Re: Activating Kurds, another opportunity for an end-goal, nothing is more likely to get Turkey to side with Iran than arming Kurds. There were reports that Incirlik is being hit – assuming true, one wonders if Turkey even bothered to stop the missiles, which have a lot of Turkish territory to cross – but if the US loses Incirlik ot access to Incirlik, it will soon have to prosecute this war from Italy.
Turkey is always on the fence – which means as the war goes more and more pear-shaped and the US (but not Russia) run out of munitions, Turkey will line up against the losers.
McGregor mentioned Incirlik being hit very casually in one or two of his interviews, but, as far as I know, no one else brought this up. I’m not sure what to make of this: McGeegor has excellent connections and know his business, but I’ve seen him talk out of his ass more than once, especially about where Turkiye fits into the grand scheme of things. If Incirlik is in fact being hit, that’s huge. If Turks are actively keeping that hidden, that’s huger. but I don’t think it’s believable without more data points.
Mohammad Od (hard to listen to as he inserts unending advocacy – I listen at 1.5X) also noted Turkey was hit, and I know I saw it mentioned somewhere this morning (as in Turkey was not going to take it personally). I believe MacGregor on facts, less so on predictions – for a while he seems 5% politician (never uses the word genocide, for example), and to date, has predicted a more oppositional and active Turkey that has not come to pass.
My bad – I got caught up in this thread and only just read Connor’s excellent summary of the complexity of the Kurdish (and Turkish) question. Important SWAG from Connor’s article is most likely a US special ops with a Kurdish facade trying to penetrate northwest Iran (in January – Turkey informed Iran, and 500 or – who knows how many – invading Kurds were killed). I wonder if the US actually conceptualizes how large Iran is? If they are going to try and stir up local trouble, well, again, Iran is very large, and local trouble at a distant border is not militarily significant to the actual war.
This is a case again, of the US reliance on police operations (special ops) to the extent of atrophying its actual military doctrine and strategies and technologies – evidence – Ukraine.
There are also reports in Iranian telegram channels of strikes against Greece as well, so indeed Italy it may be…
Turkiye has denied the Incirlik attack story.
A story today had Turkiye confirming the interception “over the eastern Mediterranean” of an Iranian missile fired at it. Now look at a a map of the region — does that look like the route an Iranian missile would take? The two nations share a border! It smells funny. Somebody wants to bring Turkiye in, perhaps.
Doesn’t Incirlik house US nukes? Maybe it wouldn”t be a good idea to attack it from Turkie’s point of view?
Both embedded videos are flagged altered or synthetic, and both clearly are! Please be more careful with your choice of sources, which is admittedly very difficult at the moment. Otherwise, you undermine NC as an otherwise very valuable source that I have appreciated and read for years.
As I said, this was from Times of India, a VERY well established publication, MSM in India. Its YouTube account has nearly 6 million subscribers. I do not have time to inspect videos, particularly since I mainly listen to them while putting together posts. If this is your demand, I will be unable to run any, ever.
In this case a quick glance would have been enough! Both videos have «altered or synthetic» written on them.
We all have to learn to cope with the AI stuff. Visual material basically has lost its power to convey information and prove evidence. That’s just the new reality, and obviously also challenges respected publication with millions of subscribers – even before accounting for censorship, propaganda and «fog of war»
But anyways, thanks for your work! And for at least trying to clear the fog a bit:)
As I ALSO said, I pretty much do not watch YouTube vids. I mainly listen to them. I look only when they have charts or have a part where it sounds like the visuals will be interesting. For instance, in the Richard Medhurst presentation yesterday showing many clips of drone and missile damage in Israel, the two bits I viewed were one part showing missiles raining in and not being intercepted, and another showing an absolutely insane number of ambulances on a big highway.
That’s twice already, DOUBTING THOMAS!
Care for a Third?
Indian media seems to make heavy use of AI. I don’t think it’s realistic to successfully screen all content for it, and blocking Indian media sources would remove an important perspective.
We just all need to keep our critical faculties honed.
Not an expert on AI infection of video, but ‘voice over’ translation is not de facto deception. And that is what gets many video ‘flagged’. It would be nice if the video would be in a language I understand, but then English is spoken by only 20% of the world population. And only 1/4 (5%) are native speakers.
We’ll find out whether the video was accurate in time.
but ‘voice over’ translation is not de facto deception
Agree– especially if it’s not an attempt to alter content, context or message and is for the sole purpose of translation. This is one of the cases where AI can actually be beneficial.
If Iran continues to bomb the Gulf States, which seems likely, it might turn the tables and cause regime change specifically in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain.
Meanwhile, Trump is open to boots on the ground but before more Americans die, we should recall that Trump is personally heavily invested in the ME and he has a personal financial interest in protecting his assets and the status quo. And US soldiers should know if they’re protecting America or Trumps net worth.
Here from The Guardian May 2025, is an outline of Trumps ME finances, and likely more since May 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/13/trump-organization-middle-east-trip
United Arab Emirates:
In the UAE, the Trump Organization already operates Trump International Golf Club, Dubai…
But the Trump family business is moving ahead with other projects in the UAE, including a $1bn, 80-story Trump International Hotel and Tower [Dubai]. The Apartments at the unfinished luxury tower …are already selling for up to $20m each.
On 1 May, Eric Trump, the president’s middle son, who runs the Trump Organization, and a business partner, Zach Witkoff (who also happens to be the son of Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy to the Middle East), revealed a major new cryptocurrency deal with a venture fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi, the richest emirate in the UAE. The fund would invest $2bn using a form of digital currency offered by World Liberty Financial, the Trump’s family crypto business.
Qatar:
The project, called the Trump International Golf Club & Villas, will include an 18-hole golf course, a clubhouse and beachfront Trump-branded villas about 40km from the Qatari capital, Doha. Qatar is a longtime US ally, and it hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East. This is another branding deal for the Trump family business, where it won’t put up any capital but will earn millions of dollars in branding and management fees once the golf resort is operational.
Trump accepted, “a $400m luxury jet from Qatar’s royal family notwithstanding…and as the family business ventures operated by his two sons are making more foreign deals like the ones with Gulf Arab states.”
Saudi Arabia:
In Saudi Arabia, the Trump Organization has signed branding deals for two real estate projects, including a Trump Tower in Riyadh, the capital, and another $530m residential tower in the coastal city of Jeddah.
The deals, announced a month after Trump was elected to a second term, won’t require the Trump family business to contribute funds toward building the towers, but they will earn millions of dollars in licensing fees.
If there’s regime change in the Gulf. Trump and the US are in trouble.
It makes me wish we had an actual opposition party, that would point this out in more mainstream sources and get some momentum around this.
“And US soldiers should know if they’re protecting America or Trumps net worth.”
Sadly, that realization hasn’t worked since 1946. Aside from Korea, which may or may not have been money-related, US soldiers have been protecting corporate profits and CIA drug money every time.
There are no troop rotations set up, and the bases are under attack. The US hasn’t experienced this since Korea on a large scale. It’s an open question what happens when rear guard soldiers start dying. That one women was a mother of two.
The base TGIFridays won’t be open.
Thanks for the link to The Air Power Illusion. Good article, and timely.
For a more historical perspective, that general destruction of the countryside can bolster support for the leader was described by Machiavelli in The Prince in the 16th century.The futulity of bombing to control was predicted by HG Wells in The War in the Air, published in 1908. From Wikipedia:
Not that anyone in the current crop of leadership reads books.
Various links from stuff I’ve seen today. Figure it’s easier to put it all together rather than spam comments.
—-
Per (pro Iranian) Middle East Spectator Telegram
Turkey restrained in it’s response to Iranian ballistic missile fired at a Turkish NATO base. It was intercepted. Later in same telegram thread:
“The Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, called the Iranian Foreign Minister about the ballistic missile incident and asked Iran not to do it again”
—-
Mearsheimer w/Judge Nap yesterday was excellent.
—-
Greg Stoker w/Haiphong also v good (although Haiphong’s sensationalism annoys me)
—-
Supporting Yves points about Dubai in the post:
Dubai influencers’ lives of luxury interrupted by Iran strikes: ‘The image of safety has been shattered’ (Guardian)
—–
Energy markets will force Trump to end his reckless war very soon (Ambrose Evans Pritchard remains the only sane human at the Telegraph)
—-
Nuggets I read but can no longer remember where:
•Iran claimed it shot down another f15
•US pulls non-essentiial staff from Pakistan embassies
•I’ve widely seen that Iran has been targeting the Kurds in Iraq pretty heavily.
Regarding Energy markets will force Trump….., yesterday I saw a dispatch from the IRCG referring to the closure of the Strait as an energy embargo on the us, “not one drop…” etc.
The closure of the Strait has put a hard time cap on team z’s machinations.
This is very helpful, particularly the confirmation of the attempt on Incirlik and Stoker, who I like and had missed.
According to AFP a Turkish official stated the missile was aimed at Cyprus, but was off course and intercepted by NATO air defenses in Turkish airspace. It was not aimed at Turkey.
So, whether it was a stray missile or an aimed message, I gather Turkey is receiving it rather well.
Before the war Iran listed all those US billion dollar x band radars they were going to destroy and one was at Incirlik.
They’d be mad if they did that and turkey is keeping out of it. Turkey is really the only military in the region that could perform some sort of ground invasion of Iran.
December 8, ’24, Assad overthrown.
May 1 ’25, PKK declare ceasefire with Turkiye
Kurds, the once and future proxy.
archive.ph version
Energy markets will force Trump to end his reckless war very soon (Telegraph)
Been wondering when Taco might unleash the strategic reserve; Biden did it for less, heading into the midterms to try to keep the Senate.
Bit more on Iran targeting Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan, reasonably close to the Iran border)
Violent explosions rock Erbil (Shafaq news)
A series of explosions was heard across Erbil on Wednesday, a security source told Shafaq News, as uncertainty persists over whether the blasts were caused by drones, missiles, or air defense interceptions.
Earlier today, Erbil Governor Omed Khoshnaw said the number of drone and missile attacks targeting the city has exceeded 100 since the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, adding that strikes remain ongoing.
Plenty of photo and video floating round too.
Note on source: Shafaq News is new to me but seems to be pro-Kurdish based in Iraq.
If the operation prolongs with higher fuel prices, recession, and US casualties, how would Trump hold onto power?
I am guessing Trump could attempt a coup or cancel elections but that regime would last a year tops.
He needs more popularity and this is wrecking his popularity.
The Times of India often makes exaggerated and alarming claims that are not verifiable.
That is a better criticism.
I had been using Republic on Russia matters at points early in the SMO, and they were good. I did not realize that Times of India was not on the same level.
What about Hindustan Times? They also have some topically relevant YouTubes.
New tidbits:
Neglected to include this FT lead headline:
And an indirect response to a query above:
Heh, no one will ask how we’re going to build those Tomahawk missiles, either. And can it be done without rare earths?
No problem. Hegseth will get down on his knees today, along with other prayer warriors inside the pentagon, and ask King Jesus to get busy right away so that the anointed one, djt, will have more tomahawks to throw into Iran, and be better able to kill more young girls because, you know, god and the second coming etc., etc. That second coming ties in directly to You, King Jesus, so get on it, pronto. Will be a lot more fun than those loaves and fishes (boring.). We’ll have a blast, and as always, we ask it in your holy name.
And that will be that!
The War Prayer
Mark Twain
~ 1904-05
https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/War%20Prayer%2C%20Mark%20Twain.pdf
Even if we could, at this boosted rate we’d still only be building one week’s supply per year.
“How will we pay for it” seems the least of our problems.
if things ever get so bad that Visa is knocked offline, i bet so will most retailers’ point-of-sale systems.
no national retailer will open the doors for cash purchases if they can’t track the money and inventory
And I thought retail businesses in Sweden generally do not accept cash!
Yes they will open for cash purchases. What choice will they have?
Do business in cash or go under.
Thanks for this post.
As for US Navy ships ‘opening’ the Strait of Hormuz by convoy escorts, has anyone in the admin read history? Even a little bit of 20th century history? Doesn’t sound like it. If T says to the Navy, “Do it!”, they’ll have to attempt to do it.
See the British Navy in the Dardanelles campaign in WWI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_operations_in_the_Dardanelles_campaign
Then there’s this one although in that case it was an Iraqi missile during a Reagan era effort to–wait for it–take out Iran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_incident
Now Iran has the latest Chinese anti ship missiles per reports.
Has anyone in the US regime read history? Excellent question. Do they even read? The tragic humor is everywhere. Gotta laugh to keep from…
Scott Ritter went on a rant yesterday calling the unhinged emperor the stupidest president in modern history. Bush Jr. maybe close 2nd?
At least dubya could read. Remember, he was reading The Pet Goat when mossad did 9/11.
Laith Marouf just gave an informative interview with Nima where he said Iran won’t sink US Aircraft Carriers unless a nuke is used against them because they don’t want to pollute the waters with nuclear radiation from the nuclear powered ships.
Interesting, I wonder if this is part of the sort of ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ that is in place about hitting oil infrastructure, too? It may be a moot point since the US is keeping the carriers well out of range.
It’s worth keeping in mind, this can “feel” out of control, but the situation is very much still being managed and can ABSOLUTELY get worse if not managed well.
Based on what can they say that? Has the Iranian government told them or is it mere speculation?
I don’t buy the justification for Iran not targeting US Carriers (nuke pollution). I suspect that the real reason is fear that sinking a US Carrier would lead to direct US nuclear attacks on Iran.
I’m guessing that Iran understands the USA much better than we understand Iran.
The US public is widely skeptical of this war – so far. Sinking a Carrier would probably kill more people than the 9/11 attack. Like 9/11, tragic videos would be replayed – and watched – endlessly by millions of Americans. Skepticism would evaporate, replaced by lust for vengeance. “Remember the Maine”. “A Day That Will Live in Infamy”.
Also, there are hard practical – logistical – limits to the damage that US Carriers can deliver to Iran. Iran *has* attacked two US supply ships (I think), but I agree with Marouf (and Skeptical Scott) that targeting Carriers would be a big escalatory step that they will avoid if they can.
Unfortunately, this gives Israel two new ways to manipulate the US to escalate, though both are drastic and risky: (1) a false flag attack on a US carrier, or (2) Israel nukes Iran to provoke them to attack US carriers.
(1) – USS Liberty – the Israelis have experience in that realm –
2x NEUTRALITY STUDIES
Pascal Lottaz with STEVEN STARR
Total War Strategy Unfolding | Prof. Steven Starr
54 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVydGDvszeo
Pascal Lottaz with SEYED MARANDI
War Update: Iran Withstands Attacks, Punishes US & Allies | Prof. Seyed M. Marandi
14 hours ago, March 3rd
41 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaMRxXYd69s
+
2x DIALOGUE WORKS
Nima with LARRY WILKERSON
Col. Larry Wilkerson: US Warplanes Downed, Tel Aviv & U.S. Bases ROCKED by Missiles
13 hours ago, March 3rd
62 min.
https://rumble.com/v76leuu-col.-larry-wilkerson-us-warplanes-downed-tel-aviv-and-u.s.-bases-rocked-by-.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_v
Nima with SEYED MARANDI
Mohammad Marandi: Tehran Under FIRE & Israel Faces OBLITERATION
14 hours ago, March 3rd
55 min.
https://rumble.com/v76lc3g-mohammad-marandi-tehran-under-fire-and-israel-faces-obliteration.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_v
I wonder how the world would treat a statement from Iran of this type: whatever happens to us, we will respond in kind on Israel. So if Iran has a hospital hit, they match by hitting a hospital in response. Given the difference in the number of power plants, police stations, schools, etc between the two countries I wonder how effective that would be? Then anything Israel try’s to claim as uniquely awful to them, everyone knows why it happened.
It is interesting to watch the Daily Mail coverage of the war. It changes and updates very slowly, and includes old and implausible chestnuts re things like “sleeper cells.” Of course every war administration provides the press with its preferred propaganda, but now that there are so many news outlets this time the ability to provide credible ongoing rah rah-ing and coherent “information” seems very poor. It does suggest that things aren’t going well, or that they just don’t have a narrative because it is all in flux in a way they don’t want to share.
In ‘yes, but not in the way you mean’ news, this Hegseth quote:
“We are only four days into this, and the results have been incredible, historic really”
I have heard similar sentences from Danny Davis, Doug Macgregor and Karen Kwiatkowski in the last 24 hours.
Btw: Kwiatkowski w/Judge Nap yesterday was a good listen.
From the WSJ piece about Dubai above –
“The emirate, now home to some 240,000 Britons, represented a place to start afresh, far from the rising costs, political upheavals and overbearing class system back home.”
Yes it is sooooo much easier when it’s reduced to just rich people and slaves. No working class getting uppity to worry about in Dubai.
Yes, the class system in the UK is overbearing because they aren’t high enough up on the ladder, in their estimation.
Ah, thx, makes more sense now. So, Brit expats in Dubai are [generally] New Money, butthurt because they don’t get the respect and perks of Nobility?
(but presumably also dismissive of the hoi-polloi who are “beneath” them)
From Fox News via Yahoo at 8:13 am today.:
“US ‘winning decisively’ against Iran, will achieve ‘complete control’ of airspace within days, Hegseth says”
and “America is winning decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,”
What to make of this?
Let the X axis = evil liar, and the Y axis = f*ckwit
Where to place Hegseth?
Seems very high on the Y axis to me.
I assume he just repeats what he’s told to repeat and then goes back to drawing Crusader pictures with his crayons. Probably believes what he says is true?
Hegseth is ‘Roid Raging for Jesus! And Jesus has anointed the commander in chief as his representative on earth.Deus Vult!
https://newlinesmag.com/essays/pete-hegseths-tattoos-and-the-crusading-obsession-of-the-far-right/
I think they had to take the crayons away. He wouldn’t stop eating them.
He is not a Marine. They are the crayon eaters.
Don’t do steroids?
He is actually a human-sized Ken Doll, and he says that sometimes when you pull his string in back.
Mattel should make a Hegseth Crusader Ken doll, and a Kristi Noem ICE Barbie doll, collectors limited edition (made in China of course). They would probably sell quite well among the fan base.
I’d buy a set, and rest a can of Billy Beer on top.
Hold it. Didn’t SNL, when they were still funny, do a fake ad for “Trailer Trash Barbie?” So, that set is already designed.
(Off color joke. Mods should block this comment if you deem it improper).
Ken dolls don’t have, umm, the assets that matter. That would explain his hyper aggressiveness, eh?
Trying to anticipate likely media reporting on success or failure of Operation Epic Fury, which has three missions according to War Dept:
1 “Destroy navy.” CENTOM reports today that 17 Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) warships destroyed, which amounts to most of regular navy: https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/blown-up-17-iranian-navy-ships-including-1-submarine-says-us-admiral-1.500462632
So mission accomplished? Hmm. What US ignores is thousands of small attack vessels in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), which can swarm and harass shipping in Persian Gulf. In other words, US can declare mission success but only at cost of permanent semi-closure of Strait of Hormuz. New normal?
2 “Destroy missile threat.” As Yves says, there is no way to know how many missiles Iran has. Even less way to know (as per Middle East Observer) how many trucks in shadow fleet of mobile launchers. So yet more unknowns. Can US declare mission success while Iranian missiles continue to fly? Only if objective changed to diminution of media reporting on missile strikes. Actually, this objective could be achieved by simply waiting for media to move on to next news cycle. Boredom.
3 “No nukes.” Measurement of mission success likely to follow pattern of conflicting reports (Trump vs Pentagon) on whether June 2025 bombing destroyed Fordow nuclear facility or not. In other words, mission can be success and failure at same time. Let media argue it out. Noise.
Debordian scenario. Operation Epic Fury plays out according to media trends of normalisation (“let’s talk about Hormuz naval escorts”), boredom (“missile strikes in Gulf are just cost of doing business”) and noise (“Middle East doesn’t make sense, so what else is new?”).
Alastair Crooke (as others before him) have pointed out that the Iran side has cliffs or some sort of promontories that are honeycombed with caves and many have missiles in them. So no need for ships to do the heavy lifting
Thanks, Yves. Fleet-in-being strategy, but with cliffside missiles. They don’t have to be there, just believed to be there.
Have we seen any credible video of those putatively destroyed Iranian warships?
Or is the only evidence that CENTCOM says so?
BBC Verify says 11 Iranian ships destroyed, FWIW:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxzzkkkwjqo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKzBTuE8h4o
Hi NC community,
Military Summary channel has a good video up which is a bit unique to what you see elsewhere in that his updates rely heavily on mapping. He’s geo-locating where each of these events have happened like missile strikes on radars and air defense batteries.
No one else is providing this kind of a geographic overview of the situation. It’s a big help.
He’s mostly accurate, but often persists with speculations that turn out wrong.
I have been chided for criticizing Common Dreams, however they do indeed have some great reporting. I saw this posted on Consortium News just now.
We have heard of fanatics who call themselves “Christian” like Huckabee, but this just sickening. I thought my stomach would be stronger but…
A comment above asks if the US leadership is “rational”.
‘…the commander-in-chief was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth….” ‘
https://consortiumnews.com/2026/03/03/us-commanders-invoke-biblical-end-times-in-iran/
A very interesting interpretation of “turn the other cheek.” (Matthew 5:39) What concerns me most about this is what it says about any hope that the military would serve as a restraint on Trump’s use of nukes, tactical and otherwise.
If you think about it, it is genius in a very twisted way. How can you persuade any human being to partake in nuclear armageddon? Well persuade then it is God’s will and will bring about heaven on earth. Perhaps the growth of Armageddon loving Christianty has had some subtle pushes.
DC says only 6 US deaths so far, IRGC allegedly claim 500 American dead per their intel methods.
I don’t trust either number…but DC would not so blatantly dishonest as to slow-walk say 30 US deaths to date?
holy Hades to pay if they did.
I’ve mentioned it before, but they’ve almost definitely been covering up casualties against Iran since at least the mini-war when Soleimani was killed. Even to this day, nobody seems to have questioned why Centcom said nothing for almost 2 days after the Al-Asad attack, then claimed “100 TBIs but everyone got better” and “the Iranians totally told us, it was just to save face”.
The press & the populace just went along with it probably because even now, they genuinely can’t process that Iran is an ascendant, peer-power. I think it was Mintpress later that even gave names & faces for 2 special operators killed at Al-Asad, but that didn’t even penetrate through the narrative bubble.
In the sprawling low morale leviathan of the US military, it would be interesting to know what the normal daily peacetime casualty rate, both dead and wounded, looks like.
I’d wager sheer scale and lazy incompetence have given them a high enough baseline to bureaucratically conceal a pretty good number of deaths and injuries for a couple of months.
This suggests something like 60-70 deaths a month was normal in 2022: https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/summaryData/deaths/numberServe
My spooky contact was reporting lotta American deaths being hidden days ago, as in right after Day 1.
The US hid lots of deaths in the Iraq occupation as well. Soldiers would be kept “alive” long enough to fly to Cyprus or Germany when they would then officially die. Those deaths no longer counted as combat deaths as it was out of country but I do not know if this effected benefits paid to families or not.
Hard to keep them alive in those high rises to which they snuck them offbase if Iran drones hit the intended floors.
Are Israeli & USA aircraft actually flying over Iran? I’ve yet to see any video evidence. My impression is that the aircraft are firing missiles and/or standoff glide bombs (JDAM?) into Iran.
My impression is that they are dropping gravity bombs. The explosions are larger, more frequent, and denser from what I’ve seen.
Y’all might want to read the post and comments. Do you have any credible evidence of dropping gravity bombs on Iran from US/Isr aircraft?
There is some possible evidence
Patricia Marins has good analysis
Could be, who knows? The situation can change quickly. Even if true, air “superiority” won’t be enough to stop Iran launching missiles and drones. And air power alone won’t do “regime change”, and won’t guarantee the US a strategic victory.
One of the credible YouTubes on this topic (maybe Ritter, the Middle East is his stomping grounds, or perhaps Wilkerson) said there was no credible evidence that US or Israeli planes were operating within Iranian airspace
Alastair Crooke said this as recently as yesterday. We’ll stay tuned
I’m thinking it this way: In four days Iran has shot down at least 30 Israel and US drones and multiple cruise missiles (with images of the wreckage) over Iran. Kuwait has shot down four US fighters (so they are vulnerable to AA missiles).
So far Iran has not shot down any US or Israeli fighters (they would make a big fuzz about that) nor have US or Israeli air forces given any real proof whatsoever of entering the Iranian airspace (they would make a big fuzz about that).
So the odds are that this is still a stand-off battle. Especially given the statements today by Hegseth that US will now begin the battle for air superiority and reach it in a few days.
I do find it odd, though, that those strikes on Tehran look like FAB-3000 hits…
Three F-15s confirmed down, and the Iranians have claimed at least one of them.
We’re in a heavy fog of war situation.
Arnchair warriors thinks if SAM’s were involved all 6 crew would not have survived. Because damage was to tail and airframes were all intact, he thinks it was air to sit sidewinder type heat seekers flying up their exhaust. Plus us admitted an Iranian fighter was in the area.
Maybe an Iranian ace in the making.
I saw video of two of the interceptor missile strikes on two F15s. There was no exhaust trail from the rocket motor visible. This means that the missile was in it’s glide phase after exhausting it’s fuel. Air defense missiles/air to air missiles at launch enter the boost phase, gather a very significant amount of velocity, then when the fuel runs out they glide, and can travel a considerable distance in the glide phase.
At any rate, the lack of rocket exhaust indicates that the missiles were not fired locally, and had traveled a considerable distance, so I don’t buy the friendly fire story. My guess is the missiles were launched from across the border in Iran, or possibly Iraq.
I have many friends and family in Tel Aviv that I’m in constant contact with.
Unless they’re missing something, the reports of missiles getting through are hugely overplayed.
“Everyone is in coffee shops and bars and hopping to neighbors’ houses to hand out Purim baskets. The park across from my window is full of kids playing. Occasionally empties for a few minutes when a siren goes off, just to fill back up after a few minutes”
I find reports to the contrary hard to believe versus this first hand evidence.
That may be, but I would be careful to rely on anecdotal reports from family and friends. Your post makes it sound like a picnic, no problems, no damage in the entire city? It looks like many here would disagree and I find that hard to believe as well. If you look at Yves posts and those of the commentariat, you will find credible evidence that Iranian missiles have indeed done damage, just like in June of 2025.
The fog of war is thick, the Israeli govt. is suppressing and censoring info, and the Israeli public are propagandized, just like in the US and elsewhere.
As always, we’ll have to wait and see.
They are not firing that much (perhaps dozens per day) and they are targeting military or other valuable assets, not random coffee shops and parks.
So far.
But most of Tel Aviv’s military targets, incl cyber and intel assets, are mixed in and around civilian structures especially higher buildings.
As with everything else, when zionazis accuse they are advertising. In this case human shields.
With respect, as JJ points out in a different way, it is only first hand if you observed it yourself.
This is hasbara.
Janta Ka has a clip of Steve Bannon and an interlocutor Brandon Weichert. Each say they have a lot of contacts in Tel Aviv and they both say the polar opposite. See at 4:27:
Our reader raspberry jam, who has many professional colleagues in Tel Aviv, has also reported that the sirens are so frequent that they are spending a lot of time in shelters, contrary to past air attacks.
Our hostess rang, so I will add an update from today.
It’s end of Purim today, so indeed there were a lot of public parties (against the shelter in place orders, see here for a news item) .
Yesterday the hfc alerts kept colleagues in shelters for hours at a time in Tel Aviv and Haifa, to the point they preemptively cancelled some calls.
Today things did not seem as bad compared to yesterday – no cancellations. On several calls US attendees asked how things were. Israelis all more or less shrugged.
I have yet to see an event like last summer where intercept occurred above a colleague’s residence (only time I have seen them visibly shaken)
Both views can be true and this contributes to the feeling of invincibility displayed by Israel
If Straits oil is about 20% of supply, how, besides gouging, do prices rise by more than about 20%. Please excuse my naïveté.
No, that is an astute question.
No one has a good answer. The impact depends on how long the Strait stays closed, since many players have inventories, particularly China.T hey don’t need to buy much or as much on a current basis, so demand immediately will fall back a bit for those who can hold off and bet on prices falling back to the old lower level.
Also if there is a REAL crisis, say financial market upheaval, that will kill a lot o commercial and discretionary consumer spending like travel. That is what happens in bad recessions.
We discussed it longer form in this post, keying off a long Bloomberg article on the topic: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/02/bloombergs-108-oil-as-worst-case-iran-war-scenario-too-optimistic.html. Comments good too.
appreciate Q&A!
Thank you Yves!
It also depends on the oil composition. I’ve noticed some American benchmarks have actually been going down. I wonder if they are ones that get bought by Middle eastern countries or are blemded with those oils.
The oil indutry could do with higher prices to be frank. The oil majors have been hammering the services companies that sctually do most of the work for years and it is getting near impossible to keep going.
Maybe substitution costs and cost to retool refineries.
Also worth mentioning is that substitutes like solar make countries less reliant on oil for fuel but petroleum is also feedstock for many fertilizers and all plastics. Different price elasticities. I recall a professor of mine saying petroleum is used for so many products he hated to see it burned.
This is just an elasticity question. Theres no rule stating a good goes up x percent given y decline in supply. It can range anywhere from going up zero percent if the good is easily substitutable to infinite percent* if it is not substitutable and is absolutely required. Insulin is often used as one such example
*This assumes no monetary consumer constraint. Obviously there is a constraint, so some people die even though they would pay an infinite premium if they could
I think it’s all about time.
There are lots of ships already in transit, countries have storage. But when you stop 21% of the worlds oil at some point, probably past 2 weeks but less than 4 ( I’m sure someone has a breakdown by country) that storage is running out and there is no ships enroute to refill. Then the price will go through the roof as there will be an actual shortage of oil.
And when the war ends and it will end, the damage will take time to fix in the gulf states with both LNG and oil. Which pushes out the timeline of availability even further not to mention the 1-3 weeks of ocean transit.
Everyday it’s about 21 million barrels lost to the world’s market. Not an easy thing to catch up with
Narcotic drugs may be another.
Gasoline a third (remember the mid-70s)
Just saw QatarEnergy announced (5 hrs ago on X @qatarenergy) it has formally declared Force Majeure to its affected buyers following its suspension of production LNG and associated products such as urea and polymers. This suspends all of QatarEnergy’s contractual obligations/liabilities during the Force Majeure period.
Nov. 2024 essay by James Carden on what to expect from Trump
Carden reposted it now. (Carden was Obama RU-advisor for a very short time until he realised it would make no sense.)
Trump’s America First: Neoconservatism in Realist Drag
Trump’s fealty to Netanyahu has produced its predictable end-product: war with Iran
https://landmarksmag.substack.com/p/trumps-america-first-neoconservatism
This is interesting because so naive at the same time also accurate:
Naive on the Bush Jr. Administration:
“(…)
About a quarter of a century ago around this very time, a newly elected Republican president who campaigned on a promise of a more humble, less arrogant foreign policy was assembling his foreign policy and national security team. By the time he was finished, even the new president’s critics had to agree that the team he had assembled was an impressive one.
The new Secretary of State – Colin Powell – had previously served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was so popular among the American people that he had been often urged to run for president himself.
The incoming Secretary of Defense – Donald Rumsfeld – had previously served as a congressman, Ambassador to NATO, White House Chief of Staff and secretary of defense.
The young, reputedly brilliant national security adviser – Condi Rice – had previously been the principal Soviet expert on the National Security Council, and at the age of 39, was named provost of Stanford University.
And yet.(…)”
accurate on Iran:
“(…)
Ultimately, it is up to Donald Trump to decide whether to allow the neoconservatives to drag us into a war with Iran – a war which has the very real potential to ignite a world war. I wish I had a happier scenario to present, but having come all this way, there is no point in not being honest with you.
(…)”
Drop Site News currently live, interviewing the Iranian Deputy FM. 30 mins into the interview and still going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pU9x3sQ2-s
Israel’s objective may simply be to create chaos in Iran. Refer to:
A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the “Clean Break” report) is a policy document that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu.
And to; an interview with General Wesely Clark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNt7s_Wed_4
The US objective is probably to secure domination over key oil navigation routes and prevent connectivity between Russia, China, and Iran.
Iran may have different plans. Maybe one should study Soviet “Deep Battle” and Russian: “Active Defense’. Along a 1500 mile ‘front’, Iran has created two pockets. One is the Arabian Pennisula which is surrounded by the Suez Canal,Yemen, the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Economic pressure is being applied to the Gulf States whose standing is threatened – this akin to the Princely States in the British Raj who lost favor with the local population when their prestige of the vassals failed to provide both protection and prosperity in allegiance to their colonial masters. The analogy, if the US can’t provide protection for the sheiks; they will stand naked and exposed. The other pocket is with Israel in its center. The objective there will be to degrade it’s infracture and to demoralize the population.
It’s impossible to predict the outcome at this point. All depends on available resources: How many missles and drones does Iran have? How robust are the air defences of Israel, the Gulf States, and the US? In addition the fog of propaganda is quite thick, so who knows exactly what is going on at any point in time.
It would be a mistake to make bets on the fragility of any of the participants. Is the society of the US any more fragile than that of Iran’s. Imagine the sequence of events, if Iran had ‘sleeper cells’ in the US who were able to initiate sabatoge. Does anyone in this country think that Trrump and Miller wouldn’t use ICE to round up Iranian Americans for concentration camps and then suspend elections due to a ‘internal national emergency. It wouldn’t take much much for the proverbial scat to hit the fan.
Long range anti-submarine planes from Diego Garcia turned up in West Australia yesterday unplanned. Have they been chased out of Gulf bases or are they helping protect the Lincoln in the edge of the Indian Ocean ?
Time will tell if this is the new normal but I hope they don’t need much fuel because we don’t have much to spare. No more odds and evens number plates means QR codes for rationing liquid fuels after a few months here in Australia.
I found a good article that takes a deep dive into the details regarding the looming crisis facing Australia:
706 Tankers, Three Oil Price Scenarios, and the 48 Days Standing Between Australia and a Fuel Crisis
Israel’s objective is, I believe, to remove the obstacle Iran presents to their Greater Israel plans. A failed state so disorganized, damaged, impoverished that it cannot significantly project resistance (direct military, proxies, allies, diplomacy, propaganda,…) like Syria would do. Exhibiting, together with the Americans, the same kind of obscene cruelty as they show in Gaza would, I suppose, be an objective too but not the main strategic goal.
Apparently Iran will allow ships of friendly nations to pass through the strait of Hormuz (China, Russia) unmolested.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/iran-to-allow-only-chinese-vessels-through-strait-of-hormuz-sources-11167611
Saw similar post on the intel slava feed on telegram.
Updates:
As anticipated, the claim that Iran had attempted to contact the Administration was bogus. Current Bloomberg landing page:
Also as anticipated:
BWAHAHA:
And:
Re: rumors of peace talks
I presume these are fakes meant to give Mr. Market a good shot of adrenaline. Roughly analogous to the “Warren Buffett to buy Citigroup” rumors during the GFC.
Indeed.
Where is China in all this? Toward the end of January news came of a trilateral agreement with Iran and Russia. It covers mutual defense. China likes to stay aloof, but it’s as clear as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times that Elbridge Colby & Friends want to wreck Iran to cut off China from energy and trade and threaten Russia with instability in the south. Yet apart from a tepid statement from Wang Yi there’s been barely a peep. Perhaps China will let things play out and bide its time while quietly supply BeiDou data. But will it supply Iran, which truly is a victim of unprovoked aggression, with means to defend itself while insisting, like the U.S. re Ukraine, that it is not a “party to the conflict”? As John Helmer said toward the end of his conversation with Nima, I would like to hear from a China expert on that.
Oh come on. What does a statement matter? Nada plus zilch. What matters is weapons. And radars and hardware – Alistair Crooke has reported planes non-stop flying to Iran for months. and likely Chinese pilots flying planes (MacGregor on the Judge today).
The West thinks Narrative solves problems. Ask Kaja Kallas how much good the NATO talking points have achieved on the battlefield. Or all the western political (&^*&*& promises to do something about climate change. Meanwhile, Chinese solar panels and EV cars, with no talk, are actually making a dent in global fossil fuel usage.
Here’s an article from the Cradle about just how extensive satellite support by China to Iran has been.
Get used to the fact that even more than the Russians, Chinese prefer to let actions speak rather than words. If anything, it seems to me that Westerners have an unhealthy obsession with speech acts a la Chomsky.
https://thecradle.co/articles/chinas-satellites-over-west-asia-a-silent-shield-for-iran
Your last sentence is particularly astute.
Interesting username. “Voice” in bilingual?
Re the sinking of the Iranian ship off Sri Lanka. How wriggly is this open can of worms? Can, for example, a Russia or China sub hit an American ship with plausible deniability?
Ooops. I should’ve hit refresh before posting about Putin … :) #Oopsie
… but yes, LOL
Iraq slips into darkness following electricity grid failure
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Iraqi Ministry of Electricity confirmed on Wednesday that a widespread interruption in electricity has disrupted the entire power grid.
https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq/iraq-slips-into-darkness-following-electricity-grid-failure/
Judge Napolitano and Col. Macgregor. Macregor estimates Iran’s missile and drone capacities. utube, ~31+ minutes.
COL. Douglas Macgregor : Trump’s War: A Mess of His Own Making
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3v_awsA7bs
Illusory kills
Patricia Marins, Twitter (Twitter)
Yves gets shoutout in this RT piece.
https://www.rt.com/business/633789-americas-achilles-heel-in-iran-war/
Wow! I was on RT TV way back in the day, but never in print. Thanks!
“the excellent Yves Smith”
Nice!
From RT: “…the excellent Yves Smith”, no less.
Had to tell buddies it’s a must read.
well deserved, amazing coverage!
Huzzah! 👏👏👏👏👏
There have been a great number of commenters and analysts who note the finite number of air defense options Israel and the United States have available compared to the unknown large number of missiles and drones in Iran. It is obvious that the current situation cannot last and the planning has apparently changed. The press conference today outlined the new plan, take the fight to the Iranians. If the battle is in Iran the ‘settlers’ of Israel will be spared. We will throw Kurds into the fight in the north in Kurdistan and later attempt a landing on the Gulf of Oman on the shores of Baluchistan. Unfortunately it seems the troops dying in the waters and on the beach will be Americans, not the precious Orthodox Israelis studying scripture in their homes. The poodles in Washington D. C. cannot allow their meal tickets in Tel Aviv to be destroyed.
https://aje.news/uusl7b?update=4364935
https://aje.news/uusl7b?update=4364813
Debunked by Spain since.
Note to Mod: not to complain, but every single one of my comments is getting sent to the moderation purgatory lately. Any suggestions on what might be the issue on my end?
Having to use a VPN (DTW), mine also get moderated every time but nearly always show up after a few minutes.
Sadly no.
A ton of comments are going into mod for not obvious reasons, as in no clear trigger. I have asked the mods to investigate but that won’t happen quickly.
Thank you Yves. Hate to create more mod work, but it is what it is.
noticed as well when everything went to moderation – but thought it was very strange that a one word response to a comment – “Absolutely” – went into moderation – just figured y’all were being extra careful – everything eventually showed up including the “Absolutely” – learned a while back never to be offended or take personally – but if it is taxing the moderators, hope you find the glitch –
It’s not just you. I’ve been experiencing the same with every comment, but they are being freed quickly. Thanks to whomever is doing that!
same here for at least a month, I figure it’s some backend thing, everything gets posted in a timely way so not an issue in the greater scheme of things
I just figured there was some hasbara attack, and moderation was dealing with it.
Spain responds:
https://elpais.com/internacional/2026-03-04/ultima-hora-del-ataque-de-ee-uu-e-israel-contra-iran-en-directo.html
That base is 20 mins by air from Haifa. Cui bono.
Not quite right. Having been through Rota a number of times back in my US Navy days, it’s a lot longer than a 20 minute flight to Haifa. There’s enough noise right now that that muddles our understanding so there’s no need to make clearly insupportable claims with nasty insinuations.
Another – and perhaps more important – British asset on Cyprus is a “listening post” at the top of Mt. Olimbos, conveniently marked on Googmap as a B&B named “RAF Troodos”. There are some big domes there, presumably including fancy radar and whatever tech they use to snoop on everybody in the region.
What does Limassol do to become “sprawling”? It looks to me to be a rather compact city of 100,000.
Thanks for all you do, Yves! NC is so much better than the others for UTD info.
It must be super late for you and the first comment was posted 7 hours ago.
Hegseth criticizes media for making US deaths in Iran war front-page news: The Hill
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5766791-iran-drone-strike-kuwait/amp/
More updates:
Maersk suspends bookings in Gulf ‘until further notice’ Middle East Eye
Click through, good detail:
And:
Yikes. Israeli F-16s over Tehran means that Zionist air superiority has already been established.
Yes, says “footage showing”. But has the MSM made that claim? Would like more sourcing
And please see the tweet at the very top of the underlying post. It anticipated that the US and Israel would establish air superiority but that would not suppress missile fire. The most it could do was slow the rate of missile fire.
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else. I’d say this requires significant confirmation before it’s taken seriously – remember the Ghost of Kiev?
From The Cradle: https://xcancel.com/TheCradleMedia/status/2029308605493563448#m
” Fox News is reporting that thousands of Iraqi Kurdish elements have launched a ground offensive into Iran.”
Mark Ames raises the point that this is the most public CIA coordinated uprising in history: https://xcancel.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/2029301064118235489#m
“Never seen a covert CIA separatist military operation so heavily advertised as it’s happening, as widely and loudly as they can PR it. You’d almost think CIA was running a deception operation here, to stoke IRI paranoia and get them to massacre local Kurds”
Only pro-Israel sources so far. Could be true, could be a way to encourage other Kurdish groups to get involved. Smells a bit fishy at this point.
——-
Israeli i24 news also claiming it.
Thousands of Kurdish fighters launch ground offensive into Iran against regime, official says
An official from the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (CPFIK) says Kurdish armed groups based in Iraq have already begun a military offensive against Iranian regime forces.
According to the official, Kurdish fighters affiliated with the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) began taking combat positions inside Iranian territory on Monday, March 2. (?!?)
-_—–
Guardian blog
Reports claim that Kurdish Iranian militias have launched a ground offensive in north-western Iran
Reports are coming in that Kurdish Iranian militias have launched a ground offensive in north-western Iran.
Israeli news television channel i24News says a US official has confirmed the offensive in Iran. A correspondent for Axios also reported confirmation from a senior American official, and a correspondent for Fox News wrote on X that “thousands” of Iraqi Kurds have launched a ground offensive in Iran according to a US official source.
—-
The Axios reporter deleted his tweet (?!?)
The Hamidreza Azizi tweet indeed has good detail.
Assuming it’s all true, these bits stand out:
•The tempo of Iranian missile strikes against Israel appears to have decreased in the past day. It remains unclear whether this reflects successful targeting of missile launchers or deliberate conservation of missile stockpiles.
One to watch? If the Iranian missile capacity is compromised/limited the whole calculus of the war completely changes. A tiny voice in my head says “do we know Iran has a huge stockpile of missiles?”.
•Footage showing Israeli F-16 aircraft operating over Tehran suggests that Israeli and U.S. forces may have achieved significant freedom of maneuver in Iranian airspace after suppressing parts of Iran’s air defense network.
Fits with simultaneous statements from US/ISR that air superiority over all of Iran is “hours away” (although they would say that)
•At the same time, strikes have targeted western Iranian provinces, raising Iranian fears that insurgent groups could attempt to enter the country from Iraqi Kurdistan.
•Iran has responded by striking Kurdish militant positions in Iraq and increasing IRGC deployments along its western borders.
It seems pretty clear that a ground invasion from Kurdish Iraq is coming and that this is the entrée. I assume this has been planned long in advance by Mossad/CIA (although maybe moving forward the war start date upsets that), and will also include the ISIS dudes who were transferred from Syria a few weeks back. Plus Isr/Is special forces. Plus…?
Quite what they will be able to achieve we will see, but the Syrification part of the plan is beginning in Western Iran. (I’m betting nobody told Trump about this part).
Stories around (sorry forget where) that Trump has been working the phones to other Kurdish groups to join the invasion. I imagine Turkey is watching closely.
Hegseth says US/ISR going “downtown” over Hanoi…… oops Tehran.
Kurds, Baluchs, MEK’s….. rhymes with Hmong. Maybe CIA/Mossad can set up strategic vills and send in Delta Force A teams to protect them.
Nah, Op Epstein Farce ain’t like Vietnam……..
re. that IRGC press release that they shot at 2 US Navy ships in the Gulf of Oman.
the plot thickens… we won’t know the real answer until those ships return to port or someone releases a very-high resolution sat. photo. this is alone could theoretically double the current US death toll, to >12
https://x.com/AMK_Mapping_/status/2029271589301453218
Satellite imagery suggests that a fire broke out near the communications headquarters of the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer after it was attacked by Iran.
We would need to see higher quality imagery for a better damage assessment, though.
🤡
Spain ‘has agreed to cooperate’ with US after Trump ire, says White House (Guardian Live Blog)
During the White House press briefing on Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt said that Spain had agreed to cooperate with US operations in the Middle East.
“With respect to Spain, I think they heard the president’s message yesterday loud and clear,” the White House press secretary said. “And it’s my understanding over the past several hours, they’ve agreed to cooperate with the US military. And so I know that the US military is coordinating with their counterparts in Spain.”
But, shortly after, Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, said that the Spanish government’s position “on the war in the Middle East the bombings in Iran, and the use of our bases has not changed one iota”.
“She may be the White House press secretary, but I’m the foreign minister of Spain, and I’m telling her that our position hasn’t changed at all” he added.
A government spokesperson added: “It is not true. We categorically deny any change it. Spain’s position has not changed.”
“She may be the White House
press secretarychaff dispenser, but I’m the foreign minister of Spain, and I’m telling her that our position hasn’t changed at all”This is remarkably deranged.
Local comment. Last 2 days I’ve taken my “No War” sign out to a busy street corner here in Medford OR
Day one, lots of happy honks and waves, 2 thumbs down and one “Dumbass”
Day two, lots of happy honks and waves, one “Effing Idiot’
Seems to agree with national polling, but this is a blue-ish city in a red county.
thank you for your effort. the neg. response is so sad. we are so used to war, and so used to things “kinda working out” that Normies have 0 grasp of the Pandora’s Box trump opened, and the DC Dems. rubber-stamped (even with their procedural “no” votes).
DC Dems are not some profile in courage….but will claim that mantle once the caskets show up
Reza Pahlavi fell for a prank call from Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus, who pretended to be German officials – with one identifying himself as “Adolf” and dressed to resemble Adolf Hitler (video)
It’s information war stuff, but effective.
#BREAKING
Putin suggests that perhaps Russia should turn off gas supply to EU now ahead of planned 2027 cut off … (via X)
LMAO
If Ukraine (and their enabler Britain) has its way, the Blue Stream and Turk Stream pipelines will soon be gone. TurkStream is now the sole pipeline route for Russian gas to EU markets. Putin may not have to do anything at all.
More on the Iranian warship torpedoed in the Indian ocean. Reuters quote 87 dead, 32 rescued by Sri Lanka.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/sri-lanka-rescues-30-people-board-distressed-iranian-ship-foreign-minister-says-2026-03-04/
Eerily similar amount of deaths and wounded compared to the Destroyer USS Reuben James, torpedoed by a Nazi sub on October 31, 1941…
Sinking of the Reuben James, by Woody Guthrie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICy5P1pKy5A&list=RDICy5P1pKy5A
87- below decks
32-above decks
2nd order effect that I wasn’t aware of (but it’s self-evident)
https://x.com/robert_ivanhoe/status/2029120079695138870
>90% of sulphur imported into Africa is from the Middle East… and therefore passes through the Strait of Hormuz
Let that sink in.
I have heard that traders are already struggling to source any. Sulphuric acid prices will therefore significantly increase across Africa… and if the disruption lasts longer than ~3 weeks, copper oxide operations will have to close as they’ve run out of acid.
Oxide copper is the dominant ore source of copper produced in DRC… and the DRC is the world’s 2nd largest copper producer.
This is an interesting find. If accurate, then in addition to a disruption of copper supply, it will also disrupt cobalt supply as most cobalt being extracted is a by- or coproduct to copper mining. And DRC is the dominant supplier of global cobalt.
https://engineerfix.com/what-is-cobalt-mining-and-how-does-it-work/
…and Cobalt is a key ingredient in most high-temp steel, like what is used to make jet engine parts, like those needed for all modern military planes…
(I worked for a Corp which made such parts)
Daniel Davis is the first guy I know of who whipped out a map and showed the actual and potential mountain hideouts for anti-ship weapons. One of the first things anyone should do is whip out a map.
Nobody knows what Iran has in those mountains or what may wind up there.
The Gulf ports sitting there like ducks.
“Operation Provide Targets,” as the US troops during the Iraq occupation called themselves.
Spectator Sport Militarism is part of manufactured consent in the west and a way of disorganizing opposition to war.
Thanks to AG (above) for a link on the implications of “Total War” with Prof. Steven Starr. Starr expresses a concern that I don’t believe has yet been discussed much (except glancingly) in this thread so far: the possibility that Israel could resort to its nuclear weapons against Iran.
Many here in the NC commentariat (like many others, Ritter, Wilkerson, Johnson, McGovern) are rather confident that the U.S. has under-estimated X, Y and Z and may have already “lost” this war (Ritter has already proclaimed this). Could it be that Trump and Netanyahu are dumb like foxes?
Consider that the killing of Khamanei was not a blunder but a feature of the plan, i.e. to ensure that patriotic Iranian elements would be aroused and NOT rise up to bring about Regime change, guaranteeing that more dire and permanent methods of regime change would be required — specifically, the method used to force Tokyo to surrender in 1945: Nuclear catastrophe.
Consider that the closure of Hormuz and other responses by Iran so far is consistent with what war gamers in the U.S. and Israel have been analyzing for twenty years. Consider that the Iranian missile barrage around the region is priming the region to so fear the Iranians that extreme actions against Iran would be tolerated by friendly Arab states. Do you really think the current state of play has surprised Trump and Netanyahu so far? Or has it very successfully “prepped the battlefield” so the world will swallow what will come next?
So, let’s consider this scenario: Trump and Netanyahu were fully briefed on CIA and Mossad risk assessments and concluded that 1) the regime change gambit (via domestic insurgency) could be foreclosed by killing Khamenei; 2) the Strait of Hormuz would be closed, imperiling the global economy; 3) Iranian missiles would be raining down on Israel’s cities and U.S. military bases; and 4) the U.S. and Israel would eventually run out of air defense missiles. They knew all of these things in advance. Knowing these risks (as I believe they did), why bomb Iran? No matter what happened, they knew they could improvise with the tools at hand and “win” anyway.
Keep in mind that Trump and Netanyahu want (and demand) a short war. Consider that both are of a mindset to “win” convincingly and permanently, come what may, given the huge political and economic stakes, as Prof. Starr rightfully worries. This scenario is admittedly “unthinkable” — and that’s an advantage. It means that Trump and Netanyahu always knew that they had fool-proof and fast-acting hedge.
To me, all the signs point to Israel being very motivated and well-prepared to use its nukes against Iran in this war from day one. In this scenario, the U.S. will say it “didn’t know!” “or “couldn’t restrain that crazy Netanyahu” (excuses the U.S. has used before). In short, Trump and Netanyahu 1) are not bluffing; 2) Israel has shown the world it will engage in genocide to defend its interests (Gaza); 3) Israel WILL use nukes against Iran (probably in a phased manner) if necessary to “win”; and 4) Israel may be communicating this to Iran as we speak.
Consider that Israel (according to Starr) has submarines armed with 16 nuclear tipped ballistic missiles, which may well be getting into position as we speak. Consider that Israel is already moving quickly to expand its territorial perimeter (e.g. in Lebanon) to be ready for the time when a ceasefire arrives with a “freeze your positions” order.
This is the “Total War” scenario. If Iran doesn’t surrender to the first diplomatic ultimatum, I can envision Israel launching “demonstration” nukes (e.g. at Natanz and Fordow) and escalate from there until Iran surrenders.
What then? What are the downsides to Israel to deter such an option? What has Iran done to prepare for such an option? What will Russia and China do?
If nuclear war is now seen as winnable, what are the implications for Ukraine and Taiwan?
This is how Trump’s and Netanyahu’s “sure hedge” could backfire: it is in Russia’s and China’s existential interest to demonstrate to Trump that nuclear war remains both unwinnable and unthinkable.
What card will Trump and Netanyahu play? It’s their move.
I would greatly appreciate any reassurances by the NC commentariat that my fears are totally unreasonable!
I think that your fears are well-founded and quite reasonable.
It’s abundantly clear that the goal of Netanyahu and Trump is the dismemberment of civil society in Iran via the total destruction of the infrastructure of the country via conventional weapons.
Should Iranian retaliation against Israel become effective, I have no doubt that Netanyahu or Trump will unleash nukes in some form. The crazy-pants apocalyptic statements attributed to American military leaders suggest that the Americans may well be the ones to unleash hell on earth, not the Israelis.
Trump is clearly as mad as a hatter, but the hypocrisy of the grifters of the American GOP congressional delegation is on naked display in their refusal to take up their duty under Article I sec 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This is clearly a “war” and to suggest otherwise is to forfeit all credibility.
What happened last time:
“Pakistan has told us that if Israel uses a nuclear bomb on Iran, then Pakistan will also attack Israel with a nuclear bomb” –IRGC General Rezaei
“World should be wary and apprehensive about Israel’s nuclear prowess, a country not bound by any international nuclear discipline not signatory to NPT or any other binding arrangement. Pakistan is signatory to all international nuclear disciplines, our nuclear capability is for the benefit of our people and defence of our country against hostile designs of our enemies. We do not pursue hegemonic policies against our neighbours which are being amply demonstrated by Israel these days.” —Pakistani Defense Minister Asif
I don’t know how it would play out but there would be some possible downside to the strategy.
I suspected at the time that the June 2025 attacks on Iran were prompted by RAW/Mossad receiving intelligence on Pakistan moving their tritium-enhanced fission warheads to an Iranian “safe haven” during the dust-up with India over Kashmir.
They used to call Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program “the Islamic bomb.” The murder of the Twelver Shia Marja’ and his family during Ramadan may resonate with the Ummah in unexpected ways for non-believers. Could get ugly real fast if one of those tritium-enhanced fission warheads has found its way onto a hypersonic missile.
Israel would need enough iron dome left to keep paki nukes away from tel aviv
One potential problem could be the dispersal of nuclear fall-out. Apparently the prevailing winds in Iran this time of year are from the West and North West. So Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan potentially, and then India and China. The latter three may have something to say about that.
Karl – the Israeli nuke option has been discussed in some detail here. Have a look back through the last few days of Iran war posts and search “nuclear” and you’ll find discussions with input from Yves and knowledgeable commenters.
Thanks Ben, I’ll take a look!
I should have known that NC would have discussed this at length! I missed the last few days….
NC and its knowledgeable commentariat are vital for keeping up with this fast-moving issue!
The US and Israel have repeatedly shown that they have complete contempt for international law, morals, norms, rules, so the only thing keeping them from using nukes is whether or not they think they can get away with it. My worry is that they may think they can, which means this is something to worry about.
Pakistan has previously said that they would respond in kind if this happened, but if the nukes are used only on Tehran, it may be far enough from Pakistan for them to think better of it.
From Times of Israel via Reuters
Now the rovin’ gambler, he was very bored.
He was tryin’ to create a next World War.
He found a promoter, who nearly fell off the floor.
He said, “I never engaged in this kind of thing before.
But yes I think it can be very easily done.
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun.
And have it on Highway 61.”
Dylan, “Highway 61 Revisited” (original lyric)
Having not seen it mentioned here as of yet, I draw your attention to the following presentation from Professor Jiang that was posted in the MoA comments a day or so ago:
Professor Jiang: Game Theory #9
The professor’s argument goes something like this:
– The GCC countries claim neutrality yet host US bases
– As a consequence, they are legitimate targets for Iran
– GCC countries consume more water than can be naturally sourced (Jiang quotes a figure of 60% coming from desalination plants, with water stress levels off the charts)
– Iran is also dependent on desalination to meet their water needs
– GCC countries import 80% of their food
– By closing the Straits of Hormuz, Iran is not only stopping oil revenue, it is also stopping the importation of food by sea
– The US / Israeli plan is to destroy Iran’s water facilities, incite conflicts between various ethnic groups, thus fracturing the country into ethnic enclaves, and let these groups fight over water forever
– The Iranian plan is to call for Jihad, unite the Sunni and Shia factions of Islam, thus resulting in a Pax Islamica, and thereby overthrow the US empire in the region
He covers other things as well, notably the need for the GCC countries to sell down their US stock market holdings, thereby creating a financial crisis of sorts. His presentation style is quirky, but it is well worth a watch if you have the time simply to gain a different perspective on the current conflict.
The main reason why Gulf oligarchs buy US financial assets is because they get paid in USD for the energy they sell. What else are they going to do with the USD? The necessary step for them is de-dollarisation, and since no other currency can step in as the global reserve currency, the currency will need to be defined on a transaction by transaction level, which is much more messy since it requires trust that the currency will still be worth as much when the seller wants to spend it.
alistair, from today:https://braveneweurope.com/alastair-crooke-the-end-to-deceptive-trumpian-diplomacy
un otro cerveza, and i am to bed, dammit.
try not to let em blow up the world in the mean time…
More thug behaviour on the part of Trump officials, this time by US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz. So he and the Iranian rep got into a verbal stoush at the UN. Afterwards when he was on Fox Business he said ‘I’m a Green Beret, not my first firefight… He should be careful, with his words sitting on American soil… I’ll just leave it at that.’
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/he-should-careful-his-words-waltz-warns-iranian-envoy-after-un-clash
Even when John Bolton was US Ambassador to the UN did he ever say something stupid like that. And should it be pointed out that the UN building is not technically American soil?
Too True Thug Life Administration.
I’m waiting for someone to wear an “Oathbreakers” tee shirt on national video feed.
Time for this bunch to put up or shut up.
Stay safe.
The real Green Berets should be ashamed and infuriated that their outfit is being defamed by thugs and criminals.
Wake up, little Susie, wake up.
Wake up, little Susie, wake up.
You musta been sound asleep. Wake up, little Susie, and weep.
Shock ‘n’ awe’s over, the Strait’s cut off, and we’re in trouble deep.
Wake up, little Susie.
Wake up, little Susie.
Well, what are we gonna tell dear MAGA?
What are we gonna tell the Hague?
What are we gonna tell Judiciary
When they won’t just let us be vague?
Wake up, little Susie.
Wake up, little Susie.
Well, you told Chris Whipple you were no enabler.
Well, Susie, baby, you sure ain’t made things stabler.
Wake up, little Susie.
Wake up, little Susie.
Too late to bail now.
Wake up, little Susie, wake up.
Wake up, little Susie, wake up.
The tariffs weren’t so hot.
Epstein’s files were full of rot.
You fell asleep.
Bibi’s such a creep.
Our reputation is shot.
Wake up, little Susie.
Wake up, little Susie.
Well, what are we gonna tell dear MAGA?
What are we gonna tell the Hague?
What are we gonna tell Judiciary
When they won’t just let us be vague?
Wake up, little Susie.
Wake up, little Susie.
Everly Brothers, “Wake Up, Little Susie, Wake Up“
Iran’s Large Missiles Are a Challenge for Interceptors
There was a beautiful, and yet painfully sad, photo of a bear the other day in links. It was sitting on a stretch of sand just watching a lake and the green expanse of trees lying beyond the water, and above it all, and I might be wrong, a grey slice of sky. I wondered if the bear was only watching the scene, as though lazily, as in a dream, or whether the bear, in fact, was in wonder at the quiet and serene beauty lying all around him.
But then I considered the possibility that, at some level, the bear was looking at a beautiful world that it understood to be disappearing right in front of him, that everything would be gone, the trees and the water and the sky, all gone forever. How could I, a human being, ever know what a wild animal knows or thinks. I felt a sadness then that hasn’t left me.
And when I consider the horrific state of the world now, teetering, as they say, in the balance, because of the preening greed of a certain violent people, believing that some tribal deity gave a certain part of the world to them alone, in some holy book that they themselves wrote centuries ago, it becomes all too much to understand. They want that place. Give it to them. Give it ** *** ** ****. Let them *** ** ****** there.
Thanks for this. Once upon a time, humans spoke regularly with the other animals, the great trees and mountains and Gaia herself. Maybe that time is returning as the civilization that has divided us from the rest of life on our one and only home is disintergrating.
Remember that those violent people, back in the days that their book purports to memorialize, were perennial losers to every empire in the neighborhood. It is only out of their final and total defeat that one of their exiled prophets made the fantastical claim that the tribal god was the God of the universe.
Many years ago, early in the morning, I was walking along the foreshore near my home. The tide was fairly high, but there was still a goodish area of sand showing. Right at the water’s edge a rabbit was seated, looking out to sea. It was still like that a few minutes later when I left it to it.
As the ground war seems to be kicking off:
The plan to topple the regime – and how Iran is fighting back (Telegraph and archived)
Pretty good article. Detail on the situation with the Kurdish groups, and Iran’s response. Detail on the other ethnic groups and overall strategy.
I’d quibble with the following part. I don’t believe this would be “backfiring”, I think it would be “going to plan”:
And analysts warn of risks that the endeavour backfires – and Iran is plunged into chaos and civil war that upends the Middle East for years to come.
I don’t doubt that we (US/CIA/Israel) would goad/pay Kurds to fight in Iran, but I find it hard to believe that it would be more than a side-show in the larger war. IRGC must have larger and more effective ground forces than anything the Kurds can put up, and any such conflict would be limited to the mountains of NW Iran. US/Israeli air power might be able to kill a bunch of IRGC there, but not enough to enable the Kurds to attack Teheran or other targets deeper into Iran.
OTOH, “chaos” would be considered a complete success by Israel, because it would end Iran’s ability to support Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. (See: Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc).
I suspect it’ll be Kurds+ISIS+any other mercenaries the spooks can get to the border
There’s something coming from the Azerbaijan side also. Iranians droned an Azerbaijan airport near the Iran border today.
They don’t need to take Teheran. Damascus didn’t fall in that dirty war, but the country still got wrecked.
There’s no regime change plan; just chaos, bloodshed, destruction of infrastructure and civil war. [See the bolded quote on my comment directly below].
It’s a bit complicated, but yeah, IRGC is about 150,000 strong, with around 600,000 Basij-militia volunteers available immediately (and some 24 million in reserves).
Meanwhile, Artesh, the actual Iranian army responsible for fighting invasion*, is a conscript army with a strength of some 500,000, half of which are conscripts** with an immediate stand-off reserve of about 750,000 men and a bigger second echelon reserve of about 5,000,000 men.
* as far as I understand, IRGC is more focused on internal security and foreign interventions, whereas Artesh is responsible for the national defense. So, IRGC special units would enter Iraq to fight the CIA-Kurds there, Artesh would meet the CIA-Kurds on the border and the Basij would secure the Iranian Kurdish regions. IRGC actually has a battalion of Kurds in it’s ranks, and it also does a lot of social work in the Kurdish regions.
** 18 months of service if one is positioned in an “insecure” region and gets fired at, 24 months otherwise. Meaning at least a fraction of Iranian conscripts and reservists have combat experience.
Polar Scientist – thx for details. It was lazy of me to use “IRGC” rather than something longer like “Iranian forces”; worse, I hadn’t bothered to really dig into the details of those forces. Glad your deeper analysis confirms my simpler thoughts – that Iran would be able to blunt any Kurdish attacks.
Bonus: your details got us promoted to next day’s OP!
Israel expects weeks-long war against Iran (FT archived)
Israel’s endgame was the “total destruction of this regime, of the pillars of this regime, of everything that holds it together: the IRGC, the Basij [grassroots militia], its strategic capabilities”, said Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert and senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies.
Removing Iran’s ability to threaten Israel — primarily via missiles and a nascent nuclear programme — was the “obvious” endgame, but even more important to Israel’s government, Citrinowicz added, was “undermining this regime [so] it has to deal with internal problems”….
…Summarising the Israeli government’s position, Citrinowicz said: “If we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel couldn’t care less about the future . . . [or] the stability of Iran….
…A person familiar with Israeli government thinking said: “Israel wants to destroy the Iranian regime’s capabilities to such an extent that it will not have to fight another round. They don’t want rounds two, three and four. They want to finish the job now.”…
BP: Syrification.
IMO the earlier mentioned “destroy the desalination plants and create a civil war battle over water” seems in keeping with this. It is profoundly evil.
The clip of the Iranian military coordination center spokes-entity in the first TOI video (“500 military positions bombed”) indicates the English is from translation, which would explain the lip-sync mismatch, but the spokes-entity never blinks, and the eyes never move. What are we supposed to think about that? I suppose it doesn’t make much difference if information is delivered by a person or a cartoon of a person, but they are definitely different media, and I think the medium certainly shapes the message in this case. The video does mention the possibility of digitally generated content, but it does so in a way that runs perilously close to being a dark pattern, which is behavior I would not expect from a news organization wishing to be considered reputable (I have no idea if TOI has such considerations).
Interesting analysis of the insurance reasons behind the hormuz shutdown and the economic fragility it reveals:
https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-invisible-siege-how-insurance
Did the yanks not acheive regime change when the nuked Nagasaki, from the air?
Japan had been suing for peace privately for months via Switzerland. So the nukes were unnecessary. We did that for demonstration purposes with the USSR.
And we did not prosecute the Emperor for war crimes.
Been in landscaping and lawn care over 10 years, Im glad someone finally mentioned the fertilizer aspect of Hormuz. Fertilizer shot up 2x and 3x when COVID first hit, it has come back down to Earth but stayed significantly higher than pre-2020 prices, up to 40%. The company I was with at the time (8 employees total, roughly 800k revenue/year) immediately doubled the rate of fertilizer applications as our costs immediately doubled if not tripled on some products. My old owner is VERY concerned about what this year is going to look like as gas has already jumped up about 15% in my area since the war started. A massive portion of this industry is small businesses, COVID has caused a LOT of consolidation and its hard to imagine how this wont produce more assuming the closure is not short term.