Due to the timing of Trump’s deadline and my prior commitments, this Iran war will launch before our normal 6:45 AM EDT time i and won’t be back till much later. Iran has made clear what US action would mean; among other things, Professor Marandi warned that people in the Gulf States should leave immediately given that an Iran retaliation would take out desalination plants across the Gulf.
Even if this is a false alarm, the degree of crazy on the US end off the charts.
Stanislav Krapivnik with Nima describes increasing Israel vulnerability, including at Dimona, the mass casualty event that would result from destruction of Middle East desalination plants, and a detailed recap of the extreme difficulty of landing and sustaining operations on Kharg Island, and of rebuilding just the Middle East energy infrastructure damaged so far.
This set of fact calls into question the centrality of oil exports to Iranian economic survival and therefore the strategic value of Kharg Island:
But Iran has weathered long periods of ultra-low oil exports. Back in 2020-22, Iran endured American "maximum pressure" on its petroleum industry, with exports at times down 90% from today's levels. And Iran didn't buckle then. Thus, it's unlikely to do so now.
🧵9/10 pic.twitter.com/fOlyoCZMzL
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) March 22, 2026
Given that a Kharg Island operation looks nutty, many have suggested that the talk about it is a deception. Reader hk flagged the History Legends talk, and gave a recap of a key assessment:
Basically, the argument is that, if US does send ground forces, it would be into Baluchistan, via seizing a couple of ports in the south. I found this quite convincing: the area has good infrastructure (ports and an airport) in a small area surrounded by underdeveloped badlands, with mostly minority population with issues with Tehran, and easy access to the open sea. Seemingly very little operational downside, but with political downsides–I don’t think this works without at least tacit Pakistani collaboration, for example. Now, given the convoluted politics in the region, there is no good reason to expect Pakistan would not stab Iran in the back. But that only opens up a Pandora’s box whose contents I can hardly imagine–but I imagine that’d be exactly why they’d want to jump into this.
History Legends also focuses on how shambolic the planned military operation looks:
Ben Panga flagged a Washington Post article that described what Israelis are saying. They expect Trump to Do Something with the forces he is mustering. From Trump threats, U.S. troop build-up raise specter of battle for Hormuz in the Washington Post:
Reopening the strait — a critical conduit for global energy supplies — has emerged as perhaps the paramount objective of a war that security officials now believe is unlikely to achieve goals that briefly seemed possible at the outset of the U.S.-Israeli military operation, including overthrowing Iran’s theocratic regime and putting a nuclear weapon permanently out of Tehran’s reach.
Instead, breaking Iran’s stranglehold on the strait could enable Trump to wind down the war while claiming victory, halt an expanding global energy crisis and deprive Iran of a potent deterrent against future strikes — which senior Israeli officials described as inevitable if Tehran resumes ballistic missile production or moves to develop a nuclear weapon.
In Israel, Trump’s online threats have raised expectations that a new phase of the war could soon get underway with the arrival of additional U.S. firepower.
A contingent of 4,500 U.S. sailors and Marines is heading to the Middle East, including an infantry battalion landing team backed by helicopters, F-35 fighter jets and armored landing vehicles. The Pentagon also sped up the deployment of a similar unit, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, from San Diego, defense officials said last week.
“Those Marines aren’t coming for decoration,” said an Israeli official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military and intelligence issues.
As Panga said, “Remind me why the family-blogging Strait is closed?”
He flagged this section, that Israel intends to keep punishing Iran, just as Iranians fear:
The outcome in Hormuz, however, has additional strategic implications for Israel, where security officials increasingly expect that the need to conduct follow-on strikes against Iran will persist beyond any declared end to the current conflict.
Israeli officials said they could regard such measures as necessary if the U.S. or Israel detected efforts by Iran to reconstitute its ballistic missile program, degraded by hundreds of strikes in recent weeks, or seek to recover its buried uranium in a rush to develop a nuclear weapon.
Israel would have few constraints on its ability to conduct such strikes if Iran is no longer able to target ships in Hormuz or rain missiles on its Gulf neighbors, officials said.
“But if Iran can block Hormuz, they have a deterrence tool” that the regime could wield in retaliation and mobilize global opposition, said Amos Yadlin, former head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
Again per Panga: “They DNGAF that billions around the world will suffer. They want the Strait opened purely so they can attack Iran again.”
HuffPost describes how US servicemembers are understandably worried about what is obviously a poorly planned operation. This piece also contains a key issue: that the Gulf States had been seen as a safe posting. Recall that Stanislav Krapivnik expresses his astonishment that there were no bunkers at the US base in Saudi Arabia. It’s all of a piece. From ‘Do Not Want To Die For Israel’: Doubts About Trump’s Iran Strategy Spread Among Troops:
The possibility of an American ground operation in Iran is growing, but one service member familiar with troops in the region told HuffPost the prospect would be “an absolute disaster.”
Interviews with active duty soldiers, reservists, and advocacy groups focused on service members found some U.S. troops who are caught up in the war are reporting vulnerability, overwhelming stress, frustration and disillusionment to the degree they may leave the military….
A military official who is treating service members evacuated from the Middle East to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany amid Iran’s retaliation said troops are suffering from “inadequate force protection and planning” and already reporting a severe, destabilizing toll from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones that have been repeatedly striking American military facilities. Thirteen troops have been killed amid the war so far, seven due to strikes, and at least 232 have been wounded.
A ground operation would be “an absolute disaster… we don’t have a plan for that,” the official said earlier this week. “We can’t even fully defend a single land base in the theater.”
A veteran and reservist who mentors younger officers told HuffPost her contacts are expressing a loss of faith to a new degree.
“I’m hearing out of service members’ mouths the words, ’We do not want to die for Israel — we don’t want to be political pawns,” she said. Another reservist in touch with current troops separately reported hearing similar comments.
“I’ve shared conscientious objector information six times in the past two weeks and I’ve been in the military almost 20 years — I’ve never had people reach out this way,” the first reservist continued….
Iran’s retaliation has pummeled wealthy countries in the Persian Gulf that host U.S. forces and have for decades been largely spared large-scale conflicts unlike their regional neighbors, which include Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Deployments to the Gulf States were, until last month, considered low-risk and, according to former Army Maj. Harrison Mann, almost laughable.
“It does not enter your mind that that becomes a warzone,” Mann, now at Win Without War, told HuffPost.
Since those facilities started facing fire, military commanders have struggled to address troops’ heightened sense of exposure, the service member said, noting worrying patterns among some personnel, like refusing to answer calls to go to a bunker amid attacks.
Consistent with the considerable upset of Daniel Davis over the US sending soldiers for a probably suicidal ground operation on behalf of Israel, I have yet to see any indication that Israel contributing even a single soldier to the invasion of Iran.
This sort of thing is not a confidence builder:
US winning as usual:
The USS Gerald Ford is expected to be out of service for 14 months. Which probably means a minimum of 2 years.
— The Sirius Report (@thesiriusreport) March 23, 2026
And a depressing part of the story as to how we got here. From the Independent in How Trump’s army of the religious right is preparing for the apocalypse:
Rachel Bitecofer, a Democratic political strategist who has been warning of an authoritarian threat from the Trump administration in her newsletter The Cycle, tells me, that while it may sound “insane to a European audience”, she believes Hegseth “thinks he’s been chosen by God to go on a divine mission to usher in the second coming of Jesus”. She adds, “Not all evangelical Christians are white Christian nationalists, but all white Christian nationalists are evangelical. And they believe in the rapture, the apocalypse, and the Second Coming.”…
Bitecofer says many Christian nationalists also espouse what’s known as the great replacement theory – a white supremacist conspiracy that falsely alleges a deliberate, globalist plot to diminish the political power and cultural dominance of white populations through mass non-white immigration and falling birth rates….
In 2024, I detailed for The Independent how the New Apostolic Reformation and its “Seven Mountain Mandate” had moved from the theological edges to the centre of the Maga establishment. Spearheaded by figures like pastor Lance Wallnau, it has at its heart a Dominionist theology that posits Christians are divinely chosen to reclaim the mountains of societal influence…to transform America into a functional theocracy.
The movement is partially bankrolled by Ziklag, a secretive, invitation-only network of donors, each with a minimum net worth of $25m, who view their wealth as a weapon to be used to help realise Wallnau’s apostolic visions. An investigation into the group by ProPublica revealed a multi-pronged strategy designed to deliver swing states to Republicans.
Ziklag was founded by entrepreneur Ken Eldred, whose 2009 book, God is At Work, teaches how to convert people to Christianity around the world through business ventures. Operating as a tax-exempt charity, Ziklag brings together wealthy Christian donors to support initiatives aimed at shaping culture and society in line with their religious beliefs. Investigations by ProPublica and other outlets show that the organisation has explored strategies to mobilise voters through church networks, issue advocacy, and outreach to conservative communities. Some of its backers include billionaire Christian families with ties to companies such as Hobby Lobby and Uline….
According to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, the connections between Ziklag and Project 2025 — the transition plan authored by the Heritage Foundation to provide a conservative roadmap to centralise executive power under Donald Trump – “run deep”. It says the two have “overlapping networks of supporters and allied organisations”.
The long-term, “250-year” strategy being pushed by The Heritage Foundation today reads like a generational successor to Project 2025 and seems designed to ensure the Trumpian revolution becomes a permanent restructuring of American life. This involves establishing that marriage between a man and woman are the cornerstone of civilisation, rebuilding the nuclear family, replacing the welfare and cultural legacy of the 1960s with a model of faith-based governance, and encouraging high birth rates as a vital defence against demographic decay and moral decline, citing the rise of births outside marriage in Black communities as the original catalyst for this national social decline.
The roadmap explicitly states: “Without families, a country … lacks a storehouse of strong and brave men to protect itself from hostile aggressors at home and abroad.”
What a lovely future. Men as cannon fodder and women as breeders.
More on the kinetic front. Bloomberg’s top headline as of just before 6:00 AM EDT is Gulf Strikes Intensify as Trump’s Hormuz Deadline Nears.
Similarly:
Israel continues to take a pounding:
Even DW takes note of the failure of the Iron Dome in Israelis are shocked as Iranian missiles evade air defenses and hit cities near a nuclear facility. Very early in the segment, it has a clip of the Iranian missile hitting the Dimona research facility.
As an aside, DW takes up the claim, that Iran disputed, that it fired a ballistic missile that got all the way to Diego Garcia.
Israel “carried out a James Bond-like operation infiltrating Pager supply chains rigging them with bombs”- British journalists
🚩fake Iranian drone fired at Cyprus
🚩rockets that “didn’t come from Iran” fired at Diego Garcia
🚩ambulances set on fire in London.Zero curiosity?
— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) March 23, 2026
To economic matters briefly. Mr. Market is finally getting rattled. From the Financial Times in Middle East war live: Stocks tumble as Trump and Iran step up threats, as of 5:00 AM EDT:
- Stock markets tumbled and oil rose as the US and Iran warned of bigger strikes on energy infrastructure.
- European stocks entered correction territory as the Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1.7 per cent in early trading. Asian markets dropped sharply, with Japan’s Topix down 3.2 per cent.
- Brent crude climbed above $113 but remained below its conflict high of $119. European gas prices rose 3.1 per cent.
- Gold fell more than 8 per cent, wiping out gains for the year amid expectations that inflation will keep interest rates higher in the US.
The markets may chipper up (or get less sad) by virtue of a new measure, sighted by Acacia and reported in OilPrice: IEA Signals Readiness for Another Emergency Oil Release.
Storied commentator and investor Mohammed El-Erian focuses on an important issue in the Jeff Currie post, A Crude Awakening, Iran war is a risk to the flow of Gulf funds around the globe. I find the hopium and normalcy bias to be astonishing (as well as him not understanding that sovereign currency issues do not need to borrow to fund deficit spending, but the Gulf States have either explicitly or de facto dollar-linked currencies):
But there is a risk that increased domestic need for funds in the wake of the war may have a temporary impact on those flows even if the long-term position of the countries is not in question. This would have implications for global interest rates and the distribution of funding, as the world has come to rely on GCC capital more deeply than many realise….
Now, with the energy sector experiencing a near “sudden stop,” the region faces unanticipated near-term revenue pressures. While some expenditures will fall, they will not keep pace. In fact, Gulf governments will rightly increase spending to protect their populations from the impact of the war.
Needless to say, the GCC region is not a monolith. Across the six nations, three variables will determine individual trajectories: the depth of accumulated financial buffers, the speed at which primary revenue recovers and the degree to which outward capital deployment is offset by domestic commitments…
Any change in global capital flows would come at an already challenging time for markets. Large budget deficits in advanced economies and the need to refinance maturing debt are driving up global bond issuance. At the same time, the AI revolution has huge financing needs and a wall of corporate refinancing looms elsewhere.
More hopium from the Bloomberg live feed (contrast with the end of the talk between Stanislav Krapivnik and Nima, embedded at the top, where Krapivnik describes it will take to repair even the current level of damage and what that means for output).
Oil prices are pushing higher as the clock ticks on Trump’s deadline: Brent rose above $113 a barrel, up for a fifth day, while West Texas Intermediate traded below $100.
Goldman Sachs raised its 2026 Brent forecast to $85 a barrel from $77, saying flows through Hormuz are now expected to be 5% of normal levels for six weeks.
“On the physical side, the largest oil supply shock ever is still mostly a local shock, leading to extreme declines in oil in transit and tightness in Asia,” analysts including Daan Struyven said in a March 22 note, which didn’t address Trump’s ultimatum.
We’ve raised the question of what helium and other shortages will mean for chip production and in particular, AI related demand and data center buildouts. Kevin Walmsley. As if this is the least of your worries….unless you are very exposed to this sector. Bizarrely, he makes no mention of the effect of helium shortages on chip manufacture.
A very cheery sighting from Acacia in comments, which I am hoisting close to in full. The concern about supposedly-well-oil-buffered Japan for the effect of the loss of plastics on food applies to many many many parts of the world:
Are Japan’s oil reserve days really “long”?
https://media.rakuten-sec.net/articles/-/51849Many media reported that “Japan has a longer number of days of oil reserves than other countries”. The number of days in stock is calculated by diding the inventory by the domestic consumption per day. According to that calculation, it is true that Japan’s oil reserve days are 254 days, the longest among major countries.
However, the dependence of crude oil in the Middle East varies greatly from country to country, and this point is often overlooked. While the supply of crude oil in the Middle East has decreased significantly due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, in the current situation where crude oil production in other parts of the world does not interfere, it is necessary to adjust and compare the number of days in stock according to the degree of dependence on the Middle East.
Specifically, we will compare the numbers of the “adjusted reserve days” divided by the percentage of the number of inventory days in each country divided by the Middle East dependence (the image of taking down oil inventories as much as the decrease in the amount of Middle Eastern crude oil procurement in each country).
If you compare this calculation, Japan has 267 days, Korea has 297 days, China has 500 days, Britain has 1,100 days, and France and Germany has 867 days, which is longer than Japan. Therefore, although the apparent number of reserve days is short, Japan cannot afford to wait for the response of major countries with a long actual reserve days. Japan needs to take the lead in responding.
In addition, for Southeast Asian countries, even after adjustment, the number of reserve days is shorter than Japan, and Vietnam, which is especially short, has been asking Japan and South Korea for support in securing crude oil.
And later in the same comment from Acacia:
Foreign Minister Araguchi explicitly states, “We are prepared to allow passage of Japanese ships.”
One might hope this brings us closer to a ceasefire,
but we should calmly examine the structure.In structural terms,
・Trump won’t stop because “we can still win”
・Netanyahu can’t be controlled because he “acts independently of the US”
・The Iranian government won’t agree because “a ceasefire isn’t enough”
・The IRGC sides with disruption because “prolonging the war benefits it”None of the four parties has a “reason to stop.”
What can Japan possibly do in this situation?However, the biggest risk is Israel’s re-escalation and the IRGC’s on-the-ground deviations. Both are variables Japan can’t control.
The clock on the roughly 20-day naptha inventory continues to tick.
This is the order in which Tokyo will go hungry.
First, processed foods will disappear.
Food trays, plastic wrap, Ready-to-eat meal packages.
Since packaging materials are petroleum-derived,
once naphtha stops, shipments will become impossible.Next, hoarding will break out.
Rice, root vegetables, canned goods.
Think back to the 2023 rice riots.
Even though rice was available then, the shelves went empty.
This time, it won’t be anything like that.Then, restocking won’t be able to keep up.
Tokyo’s 14 million people are sustained by bringing in about 20,000 tons of food from outside every day.
All by truck.
All on gasoline.If gasoline prices explode, farmers in the regions and wholesalers will start to think.
“It’s better to sell locally than transport to Tokyo.”
If that happens, Tokyo will be isolated. This has the same structure as the Irish famine.
There was food.
There was logistics, too.But it didn’t reach “there.”
Disappearance of processed foods
→ Hoarding
→ Transportation costs explode
→ Regional defection
→ Tokyo isolatedThese five stages will probably unfold in a chain reaction within a few weeks of the naphtha cutoff.
And here: Fuel panic spreads as pumps run dry Bangkok Post. Only some shortages where I am but this has to affect logistics all oer the country.
Finally, a media watch note.
I am disgusted by Diesen’s cowardice and lack of decency. Diesen invited Marandi to be on Diesen’s show. Marandi has a bounty on his head and may not be alive for much longer as a result:
Clearly, @ElonMusk and @X are allowing what appears to be a Zionist/Ukrainian group to put a bounty on me. It is even a “paid partnership.”
Not a single Western media outlet has shown outrage that X is openly supporting terror to permanently silence me.https://t.co/AfTDxi20Bi https://t.co/JDIVhT3Qfr
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) March 21, 2026
Marandi is taking physical risk in continuing to give these interviews. He has only a comparatively small number of places he uses; it might not be hard to establish his pattern of life, with these comings and goings as a meaningful part of that picture, to facilitate his murder.
Yet does Diesen once mention the peril that Marandi is in, explicitly for acting in the way he does for the benefit of Diesen’s audience, as in explain the thinking of Iranian leaders, Iranian people, and their likely responses to further US and Israel aggression, and thank him for his courage? No. It is Marandi who has to bring it up, which he does briefly at the very end.
Contrast Diesen’s appalling conduct with that of George Galloway in his latest interview of Marandi in INTERVIEW: Evacuate the Gulf.
Done for today. See you tomorrow!
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Yesterday a commenter posted this video by Richard Medhurst about the US trying to corner the LNG market. He portrays the attack on Iranian gas fields and Iran’s retaliation as steps in that direction. I’m not so sure those were deliberate steps so much as short dighted opportunism, but who knows?
On a related note, if you live in TX and need some LNG, they will pay you to take it off their hands – https://fortune.com/2026/03/22/natural-gas-prices-negative-west-texas-permian-basin-burn-off-europe-asia-shortages-iran-war/ The rest of the world is seeing price spikes and turning to coal. Not so sure that setting the world on fire is really winning.
Conner posted an informative explanatory article on Medhurst’s thesis in today’s Links: ‘America is Achieving Full-Spectrum Energy Dominance — And Nobody is Paying Attention.’ It is well-worth reading in my opinion:
https://bettbeat.substack.com/p/america-is-becoming-the-master-of
My son had insisted I watch and respond to Medhurst’s youtube presentation the other day. I do see limitations in his argument beyond those mentioned in the Links article. But I also agree that critics have neglected this element of elite interests behind what appears to us to be an irrational, even suicidal policy. There has been much discussion of Zionist interests in destruction and balkanization of the last state standing in the project for Greater Israel. We’ve considered the apocalyptic wet-dreams of Christian Zionists. The deluded beliefs of Western military planners have been examined in detail. Each of these appear to us irrational in relation to their stated goals. But Medhurst posits a geopolitical strategy that is extremely beneficial economically for specific elites powerful enough to shape global policy. That it could lead to death and destruction for the nations of the Middle East, not to mention US forces sucked into the quagmire, and vast economic chaos, would not matter to those pushing this “irrational” policy since they would come out on top.
As I say, there are limitations to Medhurst’s argument. But he does provide an additional reason for the emergence of what appears to us as policy insanity.
Thanks pjay. Medhurst isn’t wrong necessarily, but I do think NC readers were probably aware of this situation already. The US blasted Nordstream over 3 years ago now and it was clear then that it was done to promote US LNG use, albeit at a greatly inflated rate over what the EU had been paying Russia.
So yes, this is quite clearly happening. But I do think it’s worth noting that it is happening due to guns being pointed at the heads of the reluctant, which Medhurst and Bettbeat don’t emphasize enough. It has only succeeded to date due to the forbearance of the enemies of the Epstein class. Sure, the US sent a message by blasting the Russian LNG tanker. Does the US honestly think that Russia couldn’t respond in kind if it chose to? And the desire to attack Iran and Venezuela are not something new that came along with the MAGAs – it has been on the US wish list for decades. It has always been about US energy dominance. Previous administrations took a more measured approach toward this goal, whereas Trump’s weakness as an executive has allowed the nutters (was it Poppy Bush who referred to the neocons as the crazies operating in the Pentagon basement?) to try for the whole enchilada right now.
All of these conflicts are about putting a halt to China’s Belt and Road Initiative which would link all of Eurasia in peaceful trade. Of course Western media would never admit that, or even note that it was a thing. I bet 95% of USians have never even heard of it. Last time I checked a map, the US was not on the Eurasian continent, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to dominate the globe for the benefit of the ‘golden billion’. I may be wrong, but I truly don’t think China is going for domination and would much rather cooperate. They would likely be happy if certain nations who had injured them in the past were brought low, in a ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ type of way, but judging by their actions they aren’t really interested in grinding other nations to dust. That makes trade very difficult when all the other country has to offer is rubble by the ton. It’s the US that can’t abide peaceful cooperation. Remember that in the run up to the US-sponsored Ukrainian coup in 2014*, the US/EU had offered Ukraine a trade deal. Russia came in with their own offer with better terms. If I remember right, Yanukovych considered partnering with both of them, and it was the US who forced him to pick just one, and Russia was not a valid choice. And even though Yanukovych saw the writing on the wall and called for early elections, they ousted him anyway and brought in the right wing nationalists.
It does seem to me that China is trying to create a more equitable society, having brought untold millions out of poverty in recent decades judging by reports one hears – I’ve never traveled there to see for myself. But I do live in the US, and the ever increasing poverty and despair is hard to miss. We have let the true psychopaths take power in the West.
I do think Bettbeat nails it at the end. Even if the US dominates fossil fuel energy globally, it is still short term opportunism. China dominates the solar industry bigly right now. There would be no solar industry at all in the US without China, as they manufacture a large majority of the infrastructure. The sun will run out someday according to current cosmological models, but all the LNG will be spent many orders of magnitude more quickly.
*I searched for ‘Ukraine 2014 coup’ so I could get the correct spelling of Yanukovych, and the first thing that came up was a wikipedia entry titled “Revolution of Dignity”. Imagine that. The propaganda just never ends.
In the long run we’re all dead
Solar power does not efficiently solve the petrochemical and Haber process need for natural gas and entirely fails to win sulphur or helium or other bulk gases for industry.
>Due to the timing of Trump’s deadline and my prior commitments, this Iran war will launch a couple of hours before Trump’s deadline of 7:44 AM
I’m pretty sure you’re 12 hours ahead of yourself and the deadline is US evening, ASEAN morning :)
Yes, fixing. I have messed up AM and PM before in posts for that reason :-)
Never mind. The TACO is thoroughly discussed below… ;-)
Saw a tweet today which made me wonder if eventually the US will have to bring back conscription. Check it out-
‘Molly Davis
@MollyDavis543
Mar 22
Replying to @_ecotech
I was born on an Army base.
I was a military spouse for years.
My husband was in the Pentagon on 9/11.
Every man in my family has served.
None of our children will.
We. Are. Done.
Let Israel fight their own fucking war.’
https://xcancel.com/MollyDavis543/status/2035548490147766522#m
Recruitment was down even before the war but so many troops now are resentful that they will be maybe dying for Israel in an unnecessary Epstein war. You get high casualties, then expect future recruitment to drop off a cliff if this woman’s family is typical.
I’ve Been.Done since Vietnam and can’t wrap my head around how Iraq I and Iraq II/Afghanistan didn’t do it for them back then.
It depends on whether the Gerald Ford really was the victim of a 30-day ‘laundry fire’ and why the Abraham Lincoln is a long, long way away from Hormuz, yes?
I’m kind of influenced by the too-much-talk-of-Kharg-there’s-another-target-in-mind. You’d probably send the Marines as being more hard-nosed and less prone to reluctance anyway, yes?
But if it *is* Kharg, the example of Psytalleia island at the battle of Salamis comes up – apparently the 82nd is ready and could para in, plus there is a runway on Kharg. But the Iranians could just let them invade the island and destroy any evacuation?
A few thousand Marines/Paras would make useful hostages…
Flight of fancy here, but wouldn’t it be ironic if a bunch of marines were captured and Trump lost the election for not being able to get them back. We could circle all the way back to the betrayal of Carter that launched the neocon juggernaut all those decades ago and watch it’s current iteration take down the apotheosis of all that fraud and treachery before he even has time to finish renovating the White House.
I know. I know. Not gonna happen … but I can still dream.
Something like the crew of the USS Philadelphia in 1803 being captured and enslaved in Tripoli?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Philadelphia_(1799)
Such an ambitious undertaking needs an appropriate name…Operation Hotel California.
There does seem to be something going on. Look at the comments on this Fox News clip:
BREAKING: Israel UNDER FIRE amid Trump ultimatum to Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqAAD_d-7VE
Israel is getting no sympathy at all.
PM, not AM.
According to Reuters:
“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump posted on social media around 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 GMT) on Saturday.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-trade-threats-over-energy-targets-war-escalates-2026-03-22/
Oh, sorry. I did think I read AM somewhere but should have rechecked. Trump is a very early riser so this was not impossible.
Trump postpones strikes for 5 days. Prolly waiting on the Marines? https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-postpones-military-strikes-iranian-power-plants-2026-03-23/
NYT
But in another update:
‘but in another update’ is obviously the truth – this situation is beyond negotiations –
Golly! Trump lying about “negotiations”. From Al jazeera this morning:
Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has denied talks have taken place between Iran and the US, echoing the Foreign Ministry’s statement.
“No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” he wrote on X.
Iran demands “complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors”, the speaker said in a second post.
Iranian officials “stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved”.
Iran’s parliament speaker says ‘no negotiations held’ with the US
He must have had a laundry fire over the weekend…
Ha, that gets us a new version of the old “pants on fire” phrase:
“Laundry fire amidships!”
But he’s probably lying. Basically he’s in full Israeli mode now, where everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. The Iranians and other world majority nations should, at this point, just ignore everything that he and his personal consiglieres say to the public. Like Israeli officials, he’s just using lies to enable future aggression.
Hmm. Per Al Jazeera about 15 mins ago, Trump reportedly holding off strikes on power plants for 5 days.
Not really sure what to make of this
My best guess is he is hoping Iran will help him save face but no way no how will they do so.
Another issue is that he is in Myers-Briggs terms, an extreme P (perceiving type). They HATE making decisions. They experience regret for closing off options.
Five days? That’s a week’s time on them financial markets. He’s just skipping ahead to the next weekend, and continuing the taco tradition that makes everyone so numb to his threats.
That’s five days of naphtha inventory drawdown and five days of potential market upheaval. There’s much potential change in the playing field between now and then.
Haven’t had time to read all the comments, but it seems, given the history, Trump is setting himself up to be Charlie Kirked.
Also it seems clearly designed to manipulate the markets, since this “deadline” lasts from just before the markets open monday to just after they close friday.
Meanwhile Iran claims Trump is lying and they are not talking.
Also watching an interview Trump just gave in front of his plane, he claims the US is going to get no enrichment, and also Iran will give up their enriched uranium. Essentially he sounds like he’s saying Iran is about to agree to surrender and give up everything they refused a few weeks ago, which seems extremely unlikely.
Finally, ALSAA reported last night on telegram that Israeli hebrew language news announced that the IDF was bombing Iranian infrastructure targets then.
yep – markets went up because of the delay –
We need to rename the classic “pump and dump” scheme as a “Trump and dump.”
witch?!
does this story float? this admin is such an embarrassment, outclassed at every step
Today i read for the first time in a Spanish MSM outlet an article on Trump’s psychopathology titled (translated) “A Malignant Narcissist” or “A Superhuman President”: the Debate over Trump’s Mental Health . The “debate” in the headline is rhetorical because in the text the malignant narcissist side wins by ample margin.
Trump’s characteristics, whether you find them sick or not, are vox populi. Most people know including heads of state around the world. I would say that this would make anyone wary of any kind of understanding they might achieve with Trump’s administration. A stab in Iran’s back by Pakistan? I would not rule this out but i am certain Pakistan would not win much with that and still risk the US asking later for tributes. So, why trying it in the first place?
Ah, I took up this very question in Ubu Why: A Heuristic only a day or so ago. See in particular footnote 2. Demented, crazy, chump, mastermind—or Ubu?
Frequent Youtuber Ray McGovern didn’t believe Trump would really go full war against Iran because that kind of risk taking is not his style (besides being insane). It could be that he is still right and Trump wants out despite being arm twisted and flattered or threatened into this huge mistake. Those who reach back to find evidence that Trump has some kind of long standing obsession with Iran ignore his real personality which is completely opportunistic and not very ideological.
Which doesn’t undo the huge mistake but may suggest that Armageddon is not at hand.
In order to recoup he will have to throw several of his closest under the bus. He’d prolly throw Melania under the express if it would save his hide and provide the least bit of prestige. He bad-mouthed Jared a few days ago. Class will tell.
The Spanish MSM is paywalled. The best workup of the concept of malignant narcissism is probably found in debates within psychoanalysis in the 1970s and 80s, with analysts like Otto Kernberg and Sheldon Bach making some of the better contributions.
To boil it down, the image of Hitler in his bunker, indifferent to the death of the German people who had served as a vehicle for his world-encompassing narcissism, is a good point of orientation given that we’re dealing with someone who has managed to gain enough power to play out his fantasies in a similar scope. The fate of individuals, squeezed out like an orange and discarded as trash, applies to millions.
However, and to put the brakes on somewhat, it’s curious that Trump reportedly can behave very differently in one on one encounters, he appears to need approval. This suggests a leak in the armor. Full blown malignant narcissists will destroy — either in reality or in fantasy — anything or anyone they experience vulnerable dependency towards. Like the Devil, they prefer to rule in a monadic hell. Trump isn’t that. He appears to cycle through at least two modalities interpersonally, one of which is at least loosely connected to mundane social relations.
To take the brakes off, there’s the infusion of eschatological religious crap, with its seductive lure of a transhistorical stage and pantheon. We should be very worried that Trump, as he flounders and faces tagging as a world-historical flop, won’t jump out of his long-term psychosocial routines and get on the stairway to heaven with Hegseth and the Zionists. This is why it’s important not to overemphasize personality characteristics. Delusions that are very strongly grounded in social reality can lead to a breakdown of compensations have given us us, in very relative terms, some protection.
His niece has mentioned several coexisting conditions affecting him, including Dependent Personality Disorder.
That’s interesting, and it’s good that the guideline of not reducing a diagnosis down to one personality disorder was followed. It’s important to keep track of how the dependency problem – his father sounds like a classic narcissogenic prick – is managed narcissistically. Dependency and narcissism aren’t self-subsisting trait bundles, they’re interworked in a dynamic package.
Perhaps “Megalomania” is a good description for Trump’s affliction:
1. psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.
2. An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.
Megalomania captures only part of the dynamics. It’s like looking at a couple of frames of a movie sequence, not the whole thing, which becomes a real analytic shortcoming when you’re appraising a subject who is caught up in the powerful reality-based strains Trump is undergoing.
For good reasons the Wiley Coyote metaphor is used a lot here, as in discussions of an eventual collapse of illusions regarding the economic impact of the war. Trump may be facing something similar personality-wise. He might be able to cobble together a version of “after all, tomorrow is another day” but that will become more difficult as his rantings and failures increasingly delegitimate his presidency and make his entourage uncooperative >> depression.
…military commanders have struggled to address troops’ heightened sense of exposure, the service member said, noting worrying patterns among some personnel, like refusing to answer calls to go to a bunker amid attacks…
Sounds nuts, right? Bunker conjures up images of a sturdy room, protected from bombs by steel, concrete, and sandbags… well, at least that’s what I was thinking I’d find while running for shelter during a missile-attack years ago: I arrived at the “bomb shelter” to find it was a regular prefab aircraft hanger, filled with all the crap you’d usually find in a hanger, and dozens and dozens of troops rushing in, in panic. It just looked and smelled like disaster; one hit, and several planeloads of coffins would be headed for Dover.
My first words upon arrival: “are you f**king kidding me?” And second: “f**k this.” I and a couple of other airmen turned around and walked out of the hanger. I lit-up a cigarette and sauntered back towards our aircraft while Patriots whooshed into the sky and warheads tumbled down… 28 soldiers died that day.
Bunker, shelter… these are sometimes just words that are used to convey false impression of safety and security, but it’s kinda like that “return to the office” push after the Covid panic began to subside– management doesn’t give a shit about your safety or well-being, it just wants to know where the bodies are at.
…refusing to answer calls to go to a bunker amid attacks…
A spade’s a spade, huh?
That’s a wild experience LawnDart, thank you for sharing it.
Thank you for explaining why an American ‘bunker’ is not actually a bunker. That had me puzzled.
Digging in is a vital thing to do when in combat. Back in WW2 whenever soldiers stopped for long, they immediately started to dig themselves foxholes in case of bullets or artillery. Did not matter how tired you were, they just did it. In fact, some soldiers were observed to have fallen asleep in the middle of digging their hole.
The only thing worse than being shelled while in a hole is being shelled while NOT in a hole.
My orientation to military hole-digging was being walked past a variety of modeled fighting positions while on break at a grenade range. Our drill sergeants were kind enough to point out that “as scouts, you’re likely not going to be using these.”
From Aljazeera Liveblog (25 min ago):
Posted elsewhere on this thread:
Perhaps there were good and productive talks within the Administration about the least humiliating way to frame US capitulation to Iranian conditions for ending the conflict.
the way he’s seemed here lately, might it be talks within his head? or with someone who aint there?
and anyway…”capricious” doesnt even begin to describe that guy.
as ive related, my mom is a covert narcissist…which is in some ways worse,lol.
she cant stick to a plan to save her life: day to day…often hour to hour.
perhaps as a result of this, i am a planner…and think strategically…over long time-scales.
(from my perspective, the difference between overt and covert is the bombast and spectacle…mom is never loud…never puts on a showy spectacle…unless its in one of her rage events; but those are always rather short, seemingly random, and totally incoherent(as well as being all in my imagination,lol). and after it ends, she’ll go dark for 2 to 4 days. ive never been around the overt kind…maybe because i can smell them, as it were, and get away from them)
Well, Trump had someone with reason whisper in his ear, called it all off, now he gave them five days, Al Jazeera saying that Iran said there were no talks and Trump backed down because of their threats.
The Bot (Stock) Market reacted as predicted. Stupidly. Really, oil down 9% on that remark? Markets up 2.5%?
When Trump’s mug appears on teevee today, look for slap marks, or signs of attempted strangulation.
TACO Duesday
Taco bar is now open, begin taking profits.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ce35wke27ynt
Not unless you bought heavy on Friday. The market was very oversold triggering various buy signals if one had the stomach for it. Today’s rally (bounce) was in the cards before the TACO move but that is now driving. I don’t have the stomach because the action is all driven by the jawbone of an ass and can change direction in an instant.
Tells you all you need to know about the models that make these “signals.” Maybe there is a place in the world for AI, but maybe that would just be redundant. We already have models that hallucinate.
Trump backtracks on Iran ultimatum
11:23 GMT
Donald Trump has announced that he has instructed the US Department of War “to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period.”
The US president claimed that he made the decision after “very good and productive conversations” with Iranian officials over the past two days “regarding a complete and total resolution of the hostilities in the Middle East.” (RT)
There have absolutely been no direct talks. Even I can guess this.
Confirmed:
Maradi posted thisn:
Heh – you beat me to it. I was going to ask whether Trump was actually talking to Iranians, or just mumbling to “Al Maralagi” that he saw in the mirror.
“Al Marilagi”…I’m stealing that.
Maybe Trump may have confused “talks with Iran” with US generals’ protests.
Imagine how many Iranian missiles are needed to destroy the big desalination plants in the GCC?
TACO better than TAFU.
You probably mean “TACO better than TOFU”.
Remember there are also TAPAS.
We USians love “ethnic” food.
TOFU…Bean curd there-done that
TAMALE
Trump Always Makes A Lame Effort
TOFU = Trump Only Fucks Up.
TAPAS = Trump Always Pouts And Submits.
So, to sum up this latest episode, when Trump makes a threat it’s probably a bluff and bs and when Iran makes a threat you better believe it. Dishonesty versus honesty.
Our Wall Street casino and MSM are comforted by Trump’s dishonesty and have a hard time processing Iran’s sincerity. There seems to be a psychological gap here. Someone in comments suggested that Trump needs a person nearby to give him a strong slap in the face when he goes off. Our entire Western culture needs a slap in the face.
Of course Trump gained his position by pretending to be down in the weeds with the simple folk who believe in telling the truth about things but that too, as we now know, was bluff and bs. For the hegemon and its minions reform and reset are desperately needed. A good slap would be a start.
“Productive talks with Iran…” Been there, done that. Result? Iranian negotiators and high government officials get killed. What could possibly convince Iran to come back to the table?
My guess is that “productive talks” are really like the “productive talks” on Ukraine…a bunch of allies trying to figure out what to do to avoid public humiliation or how to share the spoils after it’s all over.
Simplicious: “Multiple experts and commentators have noted that Iran’s power grid is extremely decentralized, comparatively speaking, and that Trump’s attacks on power plants will likely not be as effective as he envisions.” https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/final-escalatory-act-awaits-as-iran?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=191721748&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2my63&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Might want to add the update that Trump TACO’d on his threats because of “productive talks”
Buying himself 5 days to get the troops in place is my guess
The post was accurate as of launch time. The practice with Iran war posts is that updates after completion time are in comments. You provided that update. Thank you for that.
Your post spooked him! Seriously, Thank you Yves!
BWAHAHA! But a nice thought.
During WW2 and after the invasion of Russia, Adolf banned the officers in his military staff from reading a famous book on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia when he found them all reading it. What if the White House staff are reading NC and letting their findings be know to people above them. :)
It makes me wonder if Hegseth could have ordered the destruction of all copies of The Pentagon Papers found in the Pentagon.
Joe Kent got to him.
“Talks” with whom?
It’s difficult to believe anything emanating from this US administration.
The Iranians are saying no direct or indirect talks have occurred so it’s pure TACO for sure.
Five days from now is Friday, the US will most likely attack on Friday night, when the markets are closed. Trump only cares about the markets.
Five days from Monday night is Saturday night. I am not disagreeing that an attack on Friday night may happen.
nope – another TACO will be coming – assume the grumblings in the troops are certainly getting louder – perhaps loud enough, hopefully, to be heard up the command chain – a couple friends, both served in Vietnam, both in and out of the VA, say there is no support they can perceive for this war – my Marine(ex but Marines are never ex-Marine) friend is especially incensed at what happened to the Marine in dress blues at the senate hearing and also the incredible disrespect for Robert Mueller’s death since he was a decorated Marine with bronze and purple – he is in contact with other Marines, both ex and active, and there is no support among his group of contacts –
Remember that Trump and Hegseth’s go to move is always to attack before the deadline. Don’t discount a blatant lie.
If they do attack, I agree it will probably have no correlation with the deadline(s). But this feels like Trump falling into another familiar pattern like he did with tariffs: the cliff-edge ultimatum that is always pushed back (never for very long) but never actually arrives.
The assumption that stopping Iranian oil exports will cause them to not be able to financially sustain the war is just insanity. Granted Iran is far from an autarky, but does anyone not believe that the Russians and the Chinese will allow Iran to just fall over? I mean just basic history should show it wont matter how much money Iran has… the FDR administration came up with all sorts of ways to keep supplying the Brits before Pearl Harbor. There is too much for the Russians and Chinese to loose if Iran falls so they’ll do what is needed and figure out the real material/financial terms later if need be.
As far as I can tell, this war has been powered by pure hopium, purchased in bulk at cost plus, oversold in the derivative market to increase its hopium-ism by a factor of 10,000, and then blended with male bovine excrement. The secret plan, as far as I can suss, is to try to distribute the hopium bovine excrement mix as explosive (diarrhea) candy bars to the Iranians (and hungry Americans at the food banks).
Seriously though, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
FDR vowed to bleed Britain of every ounce of gold – and did! Plus our stocks and securities and patents and Caribbean bases – before “giving” us anything, the gift being a loan in Lend-Lease. Trumpian!
None need shed a tear for the vile British Empire, which killed as many people as the Nazis (at least) but had the good form to do it over centuries and in disguise through partitions. Between the WW2 famines and the partition wars (1947-71) in the subcontinent alone they rivalled Hitler’s tally. Hmm. Two Black 47s in a row. They may contribute to a 3rd, but only as a cheerleader.
Israel intends to fight Iran to the last American, and so will Trump…
A blind spot is to have convinced yourself that Trump wont commit US ground forces to the fray, just because, especially because, the US public opinion will go against him…
A blind spot is to believe the US wont sacrifice a Gulf state or two to crush Iran…
This war isnt just “existential” for Iran… Trump is in TOO DEEP, it has become “existential” for him, too…
This is why it might be inevitable that Trump or Israel will use nuclear weapons. The humiliation that they have suffered from Iran’s success in overwhelming multimillion dollar defense systems with cheap drones is something that the bruised egos of the US and Israel cannot allow. Therefore, they might break out the nuclear weapons to try and save face and make an example of Iran who dared to fight back successfully.
It would make us and Israel even more despised worldwide, but I doubt that our elites would care.
I wonder at what point (use of nukes, or massive US casualties due to an ill conceived ground invasion) would there be a move to dispose of Trump and gang? Who of course won’t leave voluntarily, so this needs then to happen with force, which could trigger a civil war in the US?
Far fetched?
Of course there has been internal conflict in the US for a long time, but nothing that involves the military. That could be different this time.
Nuclear is a major threshold. Even though Trump has purged the gov. and military of opposition, sanity might prevail at that point. It comes down to a courageous few in the right position, which is serendipity, which is what history is made of.
17% (by December 31)
https://polymarket.com/event/trump-out-as-president-before-2027
Why is there no polymarket for US or Israel using nuclear weapons against Iran? Seems weird given the site has bets on even the weather.
According to Google’s AI thingy:
Polymarket removed markets related to a “nuclear weapon detonation by…?” in early March 2026, following immense backlash, public scrutiny, and concerns regarding ethics, user safety, and insider trading.
Truthout
While Polymarket had listed a market on nuclear detonations in late 2025 that drew little attention, the market was pulled down after the start of the 2026 Iran war, when trading volume on this topic spiked to over $847,000.
Yahoo
Key reasons for the removal and the absence of such markets include:
Public and Regulatory Backlash: The markets were heavily criticized by users on social media and by lawmakers, with critics labeling them as “gross” and “morbid”.
Incentivizing Violence: Critics argued that allowing bets on extreme events like nuclear war creates a perverse financial incentive for such events to occur and monetizes mass suffering.
Concerns Over Insider Trading: Lawmakers and investigators flagged that insider traders with knowledge of potential U.S. or Israeli military decisions could use these markets to gain financial advantage. In early March 2026, over 150 accounts placed high-value bets on an American strike, triggering investigations.
Safety of Information Sources: The markets led to harassment against journalists reporting on the conflict, as speculators pressured them to change their reporting, leading Polymarket to ban several users and condemn the behavior.
Legal and Regulatory Risk: Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to ban prediction markets from offering contracts tied to death and war.
The Block
Because Israel has ownership in Polymarket, I think.
“Sir, we need to get you to safety.” Walk him to his limo, deposit him at Walter Reed (I assume they have an inpatient psychiatry unit), start the 25th amendment procedure. Far fetched?
I’m only familiar with MN state law on the subject and don’t know what DC’s equivalent is, but anyone who gives that order is Mentally Ill and Dangerous by definition.
Before this war started, many opined, including myself, that it would inevitably go nuclear. I still maintain this.
1. The “split” between US and Israel is all smoke and mirrors. Both know that war is not ending before nukes fall on Iran.
2. War is being managed by US and Israel so as to gradually make use of nuclear weapons mentionable, entertainable, and finally acceptable in the West.
3. The rhetorical model will be that which justified the use of nuclear weapons against Japan: only way to subdue a fanatical, ideologically driven regime without suffering mass casualties of invading troops. If you’ve been paying attention you have already heard the beginnings of this argument being made.
4. This also tells you the purpose of the land invasion: we are planning to sacrifice a few thousand Marines in order to stoke up the public’s willingness to undertake nuclear strikes against the country that will have slaughtered them en masse.
5. The market manipulation will continue up to the decision to go nuclear as a way of minimizing the real time cost of the war to investors. It will increasingly prove ineffective but will have some success.
6. I am betting this whole process will unfold across the next 4-6 months
1. The “split” between US and Israel is all smoke and mirrors. Both know that war is not ending before nukes fall on Iran.
Need a mass casualty event – military or civilian or both – either real or false flag, first.
Not sure that nukes would be enough, though, and Iran probably ends life-as-we-know-it in the rest of the Middle East afterwards.
The mass casualty event will be the land invasion.
Would it ‘work’? Japan was about to surrender anyway. Iran isn’t, and enemy troops won’t want to be sent into a radiation zone.
“This also tells you the purpose of the land invasion: we are planning to sacrifice a few thousand Marines in order to stoke up the public’s willingness to undertake nuclear strikes against the country that will have slaughtered them en masse.”
Since the invasion force will end up cornered in some piece of land impracticably difficult to reach, Iranians may well simply block it there and let it wither on the vine — sinking ships coming to resupply, shooting down aircraft coming for evacuations — till the famed Marines and airborne troops surrender.
No slaughter, but a complete, humiliating defeat — that could be brought to a picturesque conclusion if the Iranians renew what the Soviets did after the defeat of German army group center.
I’m imagining this post-surrender finale, the IRGC feeding them and sending them home. What a powerful message that would be.
I doubt it.
The message would be completely lost on the elites of the USA and Israel. They would take it as a demonstration of weakness: Iranians not even daring inflict the typical (mis)treatment that the USA and Israel administer to those they capture means the hegemon retains the sole privilege of not being bound by “rules”.
The message would most probably be lost as well on the rest of the mal-/un-informed population of the USA, since its understanding of events is generally shaped by the MSM with a heavy slant favouring the governmental view of things. As for Israelis in general, their solipsistic sense of superiority is such that they will be oblivious to any subtlety in Iranian actions.
Better parade the prisoners on the streets of Tehran. That is a message that cannot be misunderstood.
And yet the display of mercy and humanity would not be lost on most of the remaining 99%. I know I’m dreaming, but if their’s any hope for this world we’re going to need bucketloads of both.
Agreed.
Lol, really dark thought: the US nukes are for bombing the US marines to ensure no hostages taken by Iran ever again. Hannibal directive!
you get down to the grunt level and there is a lot of internal conflict – and you can be sure that those grunts know that Israel isn’t putting ANYONE on the line for an invasion of Iran – ya gotta know that doesn’t sit well with the folks heading into a meat-grinder of death and destruction – just sayin’ –
If you’re talking about actual thermonuclear weapons, the unelites (as in rich) would care, very much. I don’t think tRump or Brylcreem Bozo (Hegseth) have easy access to the nuke codes. I would like to know why the Iranians haven’t taken Netanyaboob down? Plenty of their leaders have been assassinated.
Just saw splashed all over the FT and Trading Economics that Trump postpones strikes for 5 days based on “productive talks”. Oil duly down 10%. Telegram (ironically the Ukraine Watch channel) has a Iranian denial of talks, direct or indirect. Oil halves its losses. This is crazy.
Notification from The Independent as I was reading the update:
Iran-US war latest: Trump says US will pause strikes on Iranian energy plants after talks with Tehran
Reply to myself: I never really thought the US and Iran had any talks at all. Turns out that is probably the case. And I think FAFO should be modified to FATTRFO: F*** Around This Time and Really Find Out.
My phone tells me the three main stock indexes are up more than 2% this morning, an hour after opening. Pump and Dump?
” ….Ken Eldred, whose 2009 book, God is At Work, teaches how to convert people to Christianity around the world through business ventures….”
These people must have read a different bible than than one I did. Or skipped the part about camels and needles.
Mene mene tekel upharsin.
You’re not the only one who has had the impression that they’re reading a different, much thinner version of the bible for a while now.
Got back earlier than expected so some quick items:
Wish I had seen this earlier:
ya don’t say…
As I’m following the statements from the warring parties, I’m finding the Iranians to be more trustworthy, less blustery.
I was going into 10th grade when the so-called “Gulf of Tonkin incident” occurred. That was likely a false flag, too.
What, you mean like, “remember the Maine?” Huh. I think I see a pattern emerging.
– “Looks like a nothing burger started by unnamed US Govt sources and just repeated without critical examination.”
But not a “nothing burger” given (1) the speed with which this claim zipped around the global media echo chamber, and (2) the purpose to which this claim was aimed: motivating allies to join in on the Iran festivities and providing yet more bulls**t propaganda for the masses. I doubt this debunking will make it onto the evening network news.
That was the tweet….
Fortunately, if you looked at the DW clip (or was it Janta Ka?) a BBC presented tried to use this supposed factoid to pin a UK military official to say this meant the UK should Do Something. He said (in code) that this was not verified and anyway the UK could protect itself.
So even if the pols and chatterers are using this to keep Iran hatred at a fever pitch, the pros don’t seem to be buying it.
Starmer’s quotes didn’t hype it up either. My read is he knows full well it’s bs cooked up by Israel/US and wants no part of it. Plenty of scaremongering in the right-wing media in UK, but not from the government.
Per Telegraph
Sir Keir Starmer claimed there was “no assessment” that mainland Britain was being targeted by Iranian missiles.
On Saturday, Israel claimed that Tehran had developed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting London.
But speaking at a school in south-east London, the Prime Minister suggested that this was not true.
“We carry out assessments all the time in order to keep us safe, and there’s no assessment that we’re being targeted in that way,” he told reporters.
Sir Keir added that any attempt to reopen the Strait of Hormuz needed “careful co-ordination and a viable plan”, reiterating that he did not want to see the UK “dragged into the war”.
Trump noticed US stock indexes starting to tank, so per WSJ, around 6:30 am ET he cancelled the previous 48 hour threat to attack Iranian energy sites, and announced a 5 day pause in strikes on Iran in general. It will be interesting to see if the US/Is pause actually happens and if it lasts the 5 days.
Stocks have rebounded from what looked to be a large sell off (as described above, and potentially of historic scale). Oil dropped about 10, then 6% now back to 7.5. So far no resolution, which will need some diplomacy.
It appears the TACO point this time was about a 10% decline in US indexes with what had looked to be likely another 10 today.
We did say from the outset that Mr. Market was the one thing that might check Trump.
The push for ”ending it quickly” with power plant strikes and now the he 5 day pause, might point to the US running low on bombs (as they didn’t anticipate it to go on this long).
If that is the case I wonder how they will spin it when all the ammo is gone, and they need weeks to restock.
Restocking might not be so easy as running down to your local “Bombs R Us” and backing the truck up to the loading dock. Plus, what about the “standard” load outs for various potential hot spots worldwide? Robbing Peter to pay Paul is still a criminal offense.
Stay safe.
I recommend the Craig Murray post in links…
Remember that Usrael can go on for years while Iran is strongest right now.
Stalling is just more tactics when the strategy is to wear them out.
With no access to rare earths, tungsten, interceptors, etc., the US cannot go for years. And the advances in missile technology and drone warfare do NOT favor the US (and its defanged vassals), which keeps falling further behind.
Additionally, if you look at global, technology, and innovation trends, production capacity, etc., the US share keeps shrinking relative to its main competitor, China. Time is not on the China/Russia/Iranian side. And Russia is outproducing the West by multiples, with the world’s pre-eminent battle-hardened military soon to be available as the Ukraine SMO collapses.
Add in the loss of the youth for the zionist genocidal cause for Israel, and it was war now or never.
Trump will say that there are simply no more targets to hit.
Perhaps adding that Cuba is a more urgent and imminent threat.
yeah…they might even send doctors and nurses…
wonder if that Russian tanker was able to continue to move toward Cuba?
“US Treasury said a waiver to Russian cargoes does not cover sales to Cuba”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/tanker-carrying-fuel-originally-bound-cuba-diverts-trinidad-shipping-data-shows-2026-03-20/
found this –
Two tankers carrying Russian petroleum products are heading toward Cuba, with one approaching the zone of a U.S. naval blockade in the Caribbean.
https://theins.press/en/news/290433
the Russians must have thought through what they will do if USA attempts to intercept their oil tanker.
Russian submarine chaser? Its what I would do if I was running Russia (though I also would have pulverized all NATO facilities in Germany years ago).
Interesting that oil drops when by the news the “chances” of getting the family blog strait opened get delayed… or may be they are betting Iran will still allow some traffic if it is their will.
It’s interesting that after all the noise from Taco, we’re simply back to Thursday, before his latest idiotic threat on energy facilities that he now had to climb down from.
“Markets” seem to be easily manipulated by his rage-posts. The formula looks like:
1. Rage-post an apocalyptic threat;
2. Markets swoon to level X;
3. Back off and restore the status quo ante;
4. Markets rip higher than level X, ignoring the fact that we’ve merely reached the status quo ante.
Five days seems suspiciously timed to get us to 4PM Friday, when markets close for the weekend.
Of course, the strait of Hormuz is still closed. So, real world effects like diesel shortages will continue to mount this week.
One other thought – watch the US bond market … it acts like a “truth detector” and as of now it is largely calling BS on this move.
In that formula there should be two more steps:
2.5 Buy buy buy (for him and his cronies)
4.5 Sell sell sell (for the same)
I doubt he is personally communicating anything to anyone significant in Iran. Maybe he’s talking to people on that level in China and Russia though?
I think the Trump family and other Epstein class insiders are front running all these tweets. Whatever ideological reasons they may have for starting this war, the main driver is always grift.
I normally would agree – but hard to front run tweets that occurred Saturday night and Monday early morning before markets opened.
Somebody bought the close on Friday.
Matt Stoller’s wrote in his newsletter (I think Connor featured it in today’s Links) that the war is being managed on a timeline to keep markets from spooking. So opening salvo on a Saturday, good news released just before the markets open, etc.
The pattern seems consistent enough to not be accidental.
A quip comes to mind watching events:
Made in the USA doesn’t mean what it used to. We can’t even properly manufacture consent anymore.
But seriously, watching this war unfold, it seems like they’re not even trying to get the American public behind it. Maybe they’ve decided that the consent of the public doesn’t matter, and are instead focusing on ensuring the continued consent of the investor class.
Maybe they’ve decided that the consent of the public doesn’t matter, and are instead focusing on ensuring the continued consent of the investor class.
This has been true for this entire century.
In 2022, at the start of the Russian SMO in Ukraine, the US was flooded with pro-Ukraine, anti Russia propaganda. It was all over the internet, there were bake sales to raise money to donate to Ukraine, etc.
Now … crickets. It’s like they didn’t even try to get their Psy-Ops ducks in a row.
Yes. To the surprise of no one here, once installed in office the consent of the common voter is not anything Trump seeks at all. He’ll take calls from the donor class, only. Per Gilens & Page (2014), the voting public has “only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy”, come world war or not. Trump is otherwise completely amoral, focusing solely on his personal aggrandizement, grievance, havoc and chaos creation, and revenge for perceived slights in the media. His day consists of grifting to the limit, golf, and arranging that he’s not jailed upon his exit from office.
It’s pretty wild that Lindsay Graham casually invoked Iwo Jima when he was discussing invading Iran, although I suppose it’s better than him casually mentioning Gallipoli.
Lindsay Graham is a ghoul who is hoping for a high US death count in any invasion so that he can convince Americans to fully commit to this war (“Remember Kharg Island!”). Why would he do this? He said himself that if they conquer Iran, that there is a ton of money to be made and Lindsey does not want to miss out on any of it.
First Bull Run might have been the better example, except, I guess his country beat US in that one. (You see, I don’t consider Graham an American.)
Folly wants a Cracker?
Dammit. I chortled at that one!
Little Big Hormuz?
Wuk & AMS thx for the chuckle – a benefit of the commentariat to provide ironic humor – gotta laugh at something –
How are we supposed to make any sense of a US administration which issues a 48 hour “ultimatum” threatening strikes against power stations/energy infrastructure, followed 36 hours later by a 5 day “delay” (if that’s the correct term?) on strikes against power stations/energy infrastructure “because talks.”
Talks with whom?
Or is this just more straightforward market manipulation?
Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, I’m gonna leave you
I said Bibi, you know I’m gonna leave you
I’ll leave you when its opportune
Leave you when the opportunity comes a-rolling
Leave you when the opportunity comes along
Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi
I wanna leave you
I ain’t joking man, I’ve got to ramble
Oh, yeah, Bibi, Bibi, I be leaving
We really got to ramble (I can hear it calling me)
I can hear it calling me the way it used to do
I can hear it calling me back home
Bibi, I’m gonna leave you
Oh, Bibi, you know, I’ve really got to leave you
Oh I can hear a peace treaty calling me
I said don’t you hear it calling me the way it used to do?
I know I know, I know
I never, never, never, never, never gonna leave you, Bibi
But I got to go away from this place
I’ve got to quit you, yeah
Oh, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi
Oh, don’t you hear it calling me?
Oh, man oh man, I know, I know
It felt good to have you back in DC again
And I know that one day Bibi, Zionism is gonna really grow, yes it is
We gonna go walking through Mar-a-Lago some day
Come what may, some day, oh
My, my, my, my, my, my Bibi
I’m gonna leave you, go away
Oh, I miss you, Bibi
It was really, really good
You made Miriam Adelson happy every single day
But now I’ve got to go away
Oh, oh, oh
Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi
That’s when it’s calling me
I said that’s when it’s calling me back home
Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, by Led Zeppelin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZitPJMh60A&list=RDdZitPJMh60A
A big grin to start the day. I can imagine Plant singing Bibi Bibi Bibi Bibi…
Why do I get the feeling DJT is doing some form of a stock pump and dump since the price moves every time he says more war or less war. Thoughts?
A five day pause may be optimistic:
Significant pushback expected from Israel after Trump’s move towards deescalation
It is my impression that Israel severely underestimated Hezbollah’s vitality. From my deck chair in southern Vermont, it has been difficult to assess the now raging ground war on Lebanon’s southern border, but it appears that Hezbollah is dictating the path and pace, and Israel is faring poorly. This might in part explain Israel not committing any troops to an on the ground assault on Iran. Perhaps the original idea was IDF troops for the war on Lebanon, US troops for the war on Iran.
Don’t underestimate what a huge difference it makes to have Iran suppressing the Israeli Air Force. The air fields are getting hit a ton with those cluster-style munitions and they can’t operate as freely as they did during the previous war. It’s making a big difference and Hezbollah is capitalizing.
Plus Israel’s still running a ton of long-range sorties to Iran, itself. That’s taking a ton of attention off Hezbollah, too. The IAF isn’t able to deliver the Gaza-style beating to Beruit that they did in 2024 before a ceasefire was arranged.
Nonetheless, the IDF is still trying to invade Lebanon and they’re bashing their heads against a wall.
Thank you, good point, an overestimation of operational capacity while in a simultaneous war with Iran appears to be in play.
Without the Israeli airforce, Hezbollah has a good chance at retaking northern Israel – the genociders are good at shooting babies and women and children, but have performed miserably against forces that can fight back, Hamas and Hezbollah.
This is what I was looking for when scanning the comments this morning. I think Israel is likely to go off-leash this week and make strikes to further escalate. Maybe this’ll finally be too much for Trump?
Right now, they- the Trump admin- are feeling slick enough to just say the pretty words to the markets. Yeah, it’s an instance of TACO but it seems like the markets still WANT to be sweet-talked. I suppose it’s because the reality of a continuation is so horrible as to be, as yet, unthinkable. In any case, this canard does seem to suggest a foolhardy confidence in the Trump admin to BS their way through this.
Anyway, it seems that Israel is still the wildcard here or, worse: 1) Israel has already planned their assault, 2) Trump’s massaging the markets before a ‘surprise’ late-week Israeli assault, which he will pretend to be really angry about, and 3) maybe the markets don’t decline as bad as they would have otherwise.
Everbody’s workin’ for the weekend.
The only method in which the evangs make a self-fulfilling prophecy happen is via nukes, and they’ll never get another chance if we declare victory and leave, as is our penchant.
‘Tokyo’s 14 million people are sustained by bringing in about 20,000 tons of food from outside every day.
All by truck.
All on gasoline.
If gasoline prices explode, farmers in the regions and wholesalers will start to think.
“It’s better to sell locally than transport to Tokyo.”
If that happens, Tokyo will be isolated. This has the same structure as the Irish famine.’
What may happen is what Germany experienced in WW1. That when food was running out in the cities, that people there would take trains or walk out into the country to find farms so that they could beg farmers for some food.
Or what happened during the Depression, as discussed in When Money Dies.
Granted, it’s geared toward hyperinflation, but still an interesting book – heavy on the anecdotes regarding what happens during scarcity. And not all of it was “bartering the family silver for corn.”
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/when-money-dies-the-nightmare-of-the-weimar-collapse_adam-fergusson/313058/item/4968248/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=us_dsa_general_customer_acquisition_16970393170&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=642247169932&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16970393170&gbraid=0AAAAADwY45gKcl5e657RFYsrM6DNKqxUy&gclid=CjwKCAjwyYPOBhBxEiwAgpT8P9pSExt_1GKIL052H8WquiSUxuAVmnNvi82pPY27OZ8OleKtsC6h4hoC0I4QAvD_BwE#edition=5813262&idiq=4635369
Hemingway quoted in When Money Dies on a foray to Germany in 1922 from France, hyperinflation was awful at this point, but not completely debilitating as it would be a year later…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were no Marks to be had in Strasbourg, the mounting exchange had cleaned the bankers out days ago, so we changed some French money at the railway station @ Kehl. For 10 Francs I received 670 Marks.
10 Francs amounted to about 90 Cents in Canadian money. The 90 Cents lasted Mrs. Hemingway and me for a heavy day of spending, and at the end of the day we still had 120 Marks left!
Our first purchase was from a fruit stand, we picked out 5 very good looking apples and gave the old woman a 50 Mark note. She gave us 38 Marks back in change. A very nice looking, white bearded old gentleman saw us buy the apples and raised his hat.
‘Pardon me sir’, he said rather timidly in German ‘how much were the apples?’
I counted the change and told him 12 Marks.
He smiled and shook his head ‘I can’t pay it, it is too much.’
He went up the street looking very much as white bearded old gentlemen of the old regime walk in all countries, but he looked very longingly at the apples. I wish i’d offered him some. 12 Marks on that day amounted to a little under 2 Cents. The old man, whose life savings were probably, as most of the non profiteer classes are, invested in pre-war and war bonds, could not afford a 12 Mark expenditure. He is the type of people whose income do not increase with the falling purchasing value of the Mark.
If talks that didn’t actually happen can have such favorable effects on the Market, imagine what an actual peace agreement might do!
Impressive one two punch with Trump’s TACO statement followed ninety minutes later with an Axios report that Witkoff and Araghchi are talking indirectly. Axios might as well be called part of the Trump propaganda team. These timely prevarications serve as a type of portfolio insurance and will probably be just as effective as Oct. 1987.
>>>Foreign Minister Araguchi explicitly states, “We are prepared to allow passage of Japanese ships.”
If Iran starts a toll on Hormuz transits. Whoever sends the money to Iran (eg, the Japanese bank) will be subject to current US sanctions re. dealing with Iran, and theoretically barred from the US financial system. that Japanese entity would have get a waiver from the US.
Yes, but it seems to me that the point is to challenge dollar dominance, hence threatening the petrodollar and the entire US-backed financial system. We should really see a fight over this to be *as* existential to the future of Iran (and as a consequence the BRICS nations) as is the shooting war.
At this point, I don’t know if Iran can be said to win if they don’t manage to at least partially break the financial stranglehold of the petrodollar, in addition to their other goals.
I think that’s about Iran evading US sanctions and a symbolic middle finger to the US.
Getting US and ISR influence out of West Asia is a big enough goal. I agree with Chas Freeman that Iran has a fighting chance of accomplishing that. Seems like they’ve about completed the eviction of US/NATO from Iraq.
Just when you think that this war cannot possibly get any lower, along comes Trump to prove you wrong. A report has surfaced which says-
‘Today we are talking about certain leaks in which the American president is demanding that the GCC states pay approximately $5 trillion if they want this war to continue, and if they want it to stop, they must pay $2.5 trillion to the United States for what has been accomplished over the past period’
If this is true, and as Trump has only asked recently for $500 billion for this war, then he is seeking to profit from the war itself so that he can brag about it going into the Midterms. Where will the GCC states get the money then to repair all the damage that they have incurred? Don’t know. Maybe they can ask Trump for a loan or something.
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-demands-trillions-in-war-ransom-from-arab-persian-gulf-allies-report
A ransom is warranted only if the hostage is alive and will be released.
Very true. But still, ransoms are sometimes paid without the release happening. What’s the payor going to do – sue?
As the song says, “And then I’d spend your ransom money, but still I’d keep your sheep.”
Blue Oyster Cult, Career of Evil
ETA: How did “Oregon Lawhobbit” become “o?”
Yves
We should stop referring to Market participants as investors, they are short term traders, as in every FIRE organization has trading desks that profit immensely in choppy times.
I know very little about investing, but even I could design a winning AI agent (bot):
“Buy immediately when Trump Tweet is positive, sell when Tweet is negative.”
I’ll retire to the Hamptons now.
No, sorry, the big money in the market is investors: index funds, sovereign wealth funds, public pension funds, life insurers.
I once worked for a major insurer. They had a Investment Department which contained a Trading Department. While the Investment Department dictated the amount of risk the Trading Desk could take, they did not shun money for free when the time is opportune.
FIREs compete for customers with reported ROI percentages, which are often bolstered by trading desk profits.
No again?
OK, I see what my problem is, it’s an old fashioned notion of what an investor is (company fundamentals, industry trends, etc for buy and hold) vs trading on momentum (buy anything going up, sell as soon as weaknesses appears)
You have questioned why the Market has not factored in the long term risks To my (admittedly unstudied mind) it would make little sense to factor in long term analysis when the market is chopping 1 or 2 percent daily. Just play the tweets.
After the momentum plays out, then position longer term.
Perhaps a portmanteau would work for me:
investraiders whenever I see investors.
Several Gulf state AI data centers have already been allegedly damaged. No investor will build any more without security guarantees … or the regime change in Iran that is so elusive.
That’s a damn shame.
I could’ve sworn I read headlines before Trump’s temporary (?) TACO on bombing Iran’s electrical infrastructure that Israel hit Iranian infrastructure, which made me worry the retaliation was coming regardless of Trump. Now when I google I can’t find an article about the Israeli attacks.
Except in urls: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-new-attacks-tehran-9.7138210
That url now leads to a story about Trump’s TACO
the news coverage of the war remains so distorted it’s amazing
Israelis announced it yesterday US time, and repeated it a couple of hours ago.
IDF on twitter (translated)
IDF begins another wave of attacks in Tehran
The IDF recently began another wave of attacks against Iranian terrorist regime infrastructure throughout Tehran.
—-
Separately Times of Israel is saying post TACO that the IDF will not hit power/energy
A source briefed on Israel’s war plans says Washington kept it informed of its talks with Tehran, and that Israel was likely to follow Washington in suspending any targeting of Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.
Israel has not explicitly threatened to hit Iranian energy sites, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that strikes on Iran and on “the infrastructure it relies on will significantly escalate.”
Thanks
It seemed like maybe there was some infrastructure hits ahead of the taco and the related promise of the IDF I guess
But I’m not reading about Iranian retaliation against gulf infrastructure, so I guess it’s OK
Canadians are waking up to a Globe and Mail report that the US has been using Canadian airspace in a large scale sustained operation since at least March 12 to refuel American B-2 bombers en route to bomb Iran. The bombers are assumed to be from Whiteman AFB in Missouri and the direct travel path from there to Iran takes them over the Hudson/James Bay area. Northern populations have been observing it overhead, making recordings of the in-air refueling operations.
We’re also told that because of pre-existing NORAD agreements the US does not need to inform nor request permission from Canada.
Link: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-us-military-aircraft-canadian-airspace-refuel-middle-east/
Archived: https://archive.ph/NR3sa
Definitely not the 51st state.
Interesting implications if true. Had to get my dusty old globe off the shelf for this one!
Great Circle from MO to Iran does go over Hudson/St. James Bays, then Greenland, and Scandinavia, but from there, it gets sticky. They’d have to avoid Russian and Byelorussian airspace, and most of Ukraine’s too. So, they’re probably flying over Poland, the far western corner of Ukraine (or maybe Slovakia & Hungary), then Romania, Black Sea, and Turkiye. The deluxe route might go over Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Caspian Sea to attack Iran from the North (Teheran is only about 40 miles from the Caspian coast, vs 300 miles from the Turkish border).
This runs counter to reports that US B1’s had to fly southwest from Britain to skirt French and Spanish airspace, then across the Med (and presumably over Syria and Iraq). If B2’s can fly over Eastern Europe, why can’t the B1’s?
Also, I think we’d have to notify Russia about any (nuke-capable!) US bombers flying that close to their territory, and Russia would probably tell Iran they were coming???
Yves was spot on regarding Mr Market
What Trump does well is accurately read the market. The markets are in turmoil and he’s trying to calm them down with an “energy truce”. The Marines are still on their way to the region, so nothing has changed. The Iranians should be cautious I don’t expect peace.
I have a feeling Trump’s attention could quickly turn to Cuba now.
I do not think I have ever seen a public figure be able to manipulate markets to the level of Trump. Now, I blame a lot of that on the markets/market makers themselves, they WANT to believe SOO HARD. As I type this, the forward most Brent contract is trading between 100 and 101, that’s INSANE. Particularly, since I do not believe that Iran is going to let the US/Israel just stop shooting. Why should they? This is their high-water mark in this exchange, the most leverage they have had; if they get nothing for the suffering of their people that is a failure of their own leadership. If you add in the fact that the new Supreme Leader has had the vast majority of his family murdered, I know I’d want my pound of flesh.
I sincerely believe that wrecking the Western economic system in some capacity is as much an existential imperative for Iran as is winning the shooting war. If the petrodollar such as it existed in February of 2026 is allowed to continue, it will be used to strangle Iran again once “peace” is achieved.
Mr. Market as a violin
https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2036055073969656022#m
Maybe 2 things: the media, not least fox, cues from aipac/murdock, so vast public not getting real info. Plus market can’t believe weak Iran can really stand against mighty us/israel. But even so market was getting really nervous about nearness of unknown drop off.
But a lot of things seem baked in and market bound to see some of that pretty soon, maybe by fool’s day just 8 days away.
I wonder if Russia/china/pakistan have hinted that nuking Iran would have nasty repercussions on Israel.
re: Marandi/Diesen
The fact that he put himself into the Mossad´s crosshairs crossed my mind while listening last night
(I couldn´t finish so I was unsure of writing about the entire conversation. I also didn´t want to put blame onto Diesen without knowing if they had talked about this privately.)
If someone told Diesen that Yves Smith was calling him out he might explain or apologize. He has articulated such corrections before.
A few listeners addressed the threat to Marandi in comments:
(there are 75 comments so far which puts the episode into top 3 of this year):
-Thank you for having Prof. Marandi, glad that he is surviving and finds a way to get his message out.
-Israel and by default USA has already got a price on Marandi, according to the Prof. himself… I pray for his safety and continuing truths calmly expressed always.
-Yes, it’s very dangerous for him, in other ways too. PressTV studios have been bombed at least twice, once was on an adjacent building while he was in another studio. Along with indiscriminate bombings of other civilian areas.
-Marandi has a target on him. There is a funded group trying to kill or abduct him
FWIW, I ran into the account Terroralarm a few years ago on Cassad’s blog. It seemed to be some sort of Hasbara/sh1tposting outfit. I never took them seriously. They have a website terroralarm.org which is down right now, but archive has captures:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260309090540/https://terroralarm.org/
hooboy.
https://nitter.poast.org/Terror_Alarm/status/2035760386746540225#m
Can’t access it.
Here’s the X
https://x.com/Terror_Alarm/status/2035760386746540225#m
Let me share text from the twixts involved. Initially, Scott Ritter posted:
To which TerrorAlarm responded:
While I agree with Diesen on most issues, he sometimes comes off as cold and indifferent. This may a mixture of his personality and his attempt to maintain professional objectivity. (not to get into any national stereotypes).
I do appreciate Ritter’s forceful replies and righteous anger when appropriate (which it is). His use of Carlinesque terms portrays the issues in Plain English that is unambiguous.
I was sorely disappointed some months ago in Diesen’s interview of Ehud Olmert. Diesen did not challenge the many falsehoods that Olmert stated. I do understand the need to be “balanced”. But: If I were Diesen, I would not even attempt to speak to amoral, ethno-supremacist, mass murderers, who have a reputation for serial mendacity. One has to draw the line, and I believe that interview hurt Diesen’s credibility among some. I do find Diesen to be helpful overall though.
This is where Aaron Mate is a genius. He can interview absolutely awful people, always stay calm and measured, yet pull them into terrain when he can, with his questions (or juxtaposition with facts or their prior statements) absolutely skewer them. I am in awe of his skill.
Yes, too right. I wish I had that skill. The anger would get the best of me.
Norwegian a tad on the spectrum. However, Dima from Dialogue Works behaves similarly, a bit stilted, cold, constipated and he is Iranian living in Brazil.
Also, among the replies to Ritter:
https://x.com/PhillH17/status/2035720305860284617#m
I’m not sure how Diesen deserves blame here. Marandi said a couple of weeks ago that he can’t be with his family now because he knows he is a target regardless of any “bounty.” He has chosen to take this spokesman role and Diesen is giving him a platform.
I mentioned a movie I saw, Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk, where an exiled Iranian journalist has multiple Facebook phone interviews with a beautiful young Gazan woman who gives her fatalistic views on life under occupation and genocide. Near the end she tells the young woman that their film may show at Cannes and both have invites. The final title card says that the woman, her child and entire family were killed by an Israeli airstrike.
So this journalist very possibly got them killed although it might have happened anyway. It’s hard to overstate the evil of what is going on over there–Biden and Trump.
He was COMPLETELY INSENSITIVE AND SELFISH, FFS.
How can you defend this???? Are you reflexively contrary to try to seem clever?
Marandi is taking a risk to continue appearing. You can see him say that at the top of his Galloway talk.
Diesen does not acknowledge that, let alone show gratitude or express sympathy.
I haven’t seen the Youtube in question—just making what I see as a general point. If that makes commentary out of bounds then duly noted.
And as I said Marandi subtly indicated a couple of weeks ago that he was knowingly under threat. As are all prominent Iranians.
As for Diesen, maybe it’s just his manner which is always a bit hesitant and perhaps Nordic. I much prefer fast talking Napolitano.
I have friends in Denmark and have had clients in Sweden. I’ve found the Scandinavians to be very calm and even-keeled. I found nothing wrong with Glenn’s show or his treatment of Dr. Marandi when I watched the show yesterday or rewatched the end today. It’s highly likely they spoke of Dr. Marandi’s situation offline prior to the show, where Glenn may have found it more appropriate to express personal thoughts. The show may appear to end abruptly, but ending on Dr. Marandi’s positive statement may have simply been viewed as best.
George Galloway is a wonderfully expressive politician, more similar in his speech and emotional appeal to Americans. I don’t expect Dr. Marandi’s situation to be treated the same on Galloway’s show as Glenn’s, where I expect dispassionate discussions on geopolitics.
This is not about affect but basic consideration and decency.
Are you telling me Scandinavians hove no empathy or manners? It is not hard, in a calm manner, to acknowledge that Marandi is under threat and even better thank him for taking a risk by appearing. That could have been done calmly and relatively quickly. Not doing so is piss poor and frankly selfish. It says Diesen regards his show as more important than Marandi as a person.
The fact that it was Marandi brought the topic up at the end said he thought it needed to be mentioned. And he said he knew Diesen knew….
Basic humanity, mindfulness and decency and expressing human emotion when appropriate – I agree these are all part of being human. Some otherwise brilliant folks may forget that.
Perhaps because I come from a bit of a rough working-class background, I always appreciate righteous emotion, the use of Plain English and “vulgar” language when appropriate. I personally prefer the passion of Galloway, Ritter. and I still regard George Carlin as a brilliant political analyst even though it was interwoven with humor. (Carlin was a high-school dropout).
I am not afraid to admit that listening to prof. Marandi has left me in tears more than once:, from anger, sadness, and huge respect for his courage, moral character, and intelligence. Some would consider that weakness.
Thank you for combining humanity with intellectual prowess. As you imply, these should not be mutually exclusive.
This is more kind than I deserve. There is such a thing as manners.
Sometimes when I have heard that someone has had something bad happen, and I don’t see them for a bit and then run into them and fail to express my sympathies somehow, and then they mention it (because it is still weighing on them) I feel mortified and grovel a bit for having been inconsiderate about the stress they are under. Even if Diesen felt awkward about bringing up the bounty on Marandi, he could have made some sympathetic noise when Marandi mentioned it.
As Carolinian stated this is the way Diesen does all his shows.
I noticed that this particular episode ends with Marandi´s longer statement being faded out with Glenn Diesen sitting in silence.
Usually it ends with a hard cut with Diesen saying something.
Perhaps it´s coincidence perhaps not and is intended to let Marandi´s conclusion stand for itself and resonate.
Also Diesen seldomly interrupts his guests to address a point out of context. When he does it is a bit clumsy. Marandi in danger is much more personal than the topics on this show usually are.
I believe Diesen was similarly factual with Jacques Baud when Baud talked explicitely about him being sanctioned which was the show´s topic. Yet Diesen did not get into the day to day difficulties for Baud like paying rent or getting food.
Maybe the threat to Marandi on X appeared yet too informal or abstract to discuss it in a manner you might have preferred and perhaps would have been better. Fwiw they both are professionals in their own manner and very factual in light of the violence and dangers.
p.s.: Most likely reason Diesen simply forgot about it. Which would explain all the detail reactions on this issue in the show. So “disgust” may be too much of a criticism…he is surely a decent person. Although not threatened to be assassinated of course but afawk he had or still has difficulties with his university position due to his views. Also something he very rarely spoke about since 2022.
Of course people in Nordics have empathy and manners. The manners just differ somewhat, and that is a fact. Nordic people don’t engage emotionally in public, and even in private situation there has to a specific invitation to do so.
In some situations this permission is implicit – and expressions often formal (funerals, weddings, christenings etc). But in general imposing yourself on someones personal space – either physical or mental – is considered extremely rude.
When I went to have a few beers with my good friend after his brother had died, I respectfully waited for him to bring it up. His timing, the context and the manner he eventually brought it up gave me cues of the kind of emotional support he was expecting from me and we rolled with that.
Manners are extremely cultural.
fascinating how much commentariat gets ouf of this little thing…
…which tells us a lot why US style PR policy-making in the 20th century and in general elite conduct of doing things by manipulating the public via tropes from fiction and entertainment – (personality, characters, emotion, framing, details over context, concreteness over abstraction etc.) has proven so successful for them.
On this latter point (success of elites) see this essay which I read only yesterday although posted in Sept., on Nel Bonilla´s Substack:
Incompetent or Imperial? Rethinking Western Leadership in an Age of Decline
From NATO doctrine to Ursula von der Leyen, today’s transatlantic leaders appear incompetent, until we ask: competence for whom?
by Nel Bonilla
Sep 21, 2025
https://themindness.substack.com/p/incompetent-or-imperial-rethinking
I think Prof Marandi will talk as long as he can to support his county. Not that he wants to be martyred, but it is what it is. The whole think resides on how short/long the kill chain is and how the interviews are organized and and the locations Marandi is using and the precautions he is taking. M will not just hide in a hole like the Ben Gvirs and that ilk.
A delicious TACO to be sure.
I imagine 5 more days of bombing kids, fishing boats, and shrubbery and he might try pushing again. Still feels inconceivable that he can blunt the Iranians’ Hormuz control.
My hope is that he now senses that the escalation path leads only to maximum humiliation and he will reTACO. Maybe there’s a new Trumpology theory: The Path of Lesser Humiliation.
Iran is winning this war. There will undoubtedly be a lot more unnecessary death, destruction and impoverishment ahead, but there is hope in my heart as well. We might get out of this without the full horror it looked like being. Millions dying instead of tens or hundreds of millions is cold solace, but still solace.
The next truth to be fully realised is that no amount of bunker busters, escorts or minesweepers will make a difference. The toll is inevitable.
And presumably Iran and Israel will need to complete their death match at some point.
Still, it feels good to be going to bed a little less worried about what I’ll wake up to
Peace and love all.
The gruesome closet cases will pay no mind, just retreat to their grotto and ponder how the west will rise again
Can anyone be sure Donald isn’t speaking to those Russian pranksters?
More Barak Ravid versions. This one is a little more plausible.
I imagine Turkey spoke to Iran who said “Lol, no, we WILL do what we say also no ceasefire” and this was relayed to ̷I̷s̷r̷a̷e̷l̷i̷ American ‘negotiators’ Witkoff and Kushner. So no “talks” as such, but a message was relayed.
Again though it’s Ravid, so it could be total BS.
Times of Israel
Report: Trump’s announcement follows efforts by Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey to postpone Hormuz ultimatum, seek end to war, but no agreements yet
Channel 12’s Barak Ravid offers context on Trump’s bombshell announcement regarding ongoing discussions with Iran on ending the war, and his suspension of his ultimatum to bomb Iranian energy sites if the Strait of Hormuz is not opened.
Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey have been working desperately to buy time before that ultimatum was set to expire later today, says Ravid.
Yesterday, their foreign ministers spoke with Iran’s Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and, separately, with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff. They reportedly discussed not only seeking a solution regarding the Strait of Hormuz, but also ending the war.
Trump agreed to a five-day postponement of his ultimatum, says Ravid, but that does not mean an agreement has been reached
I thought i’d maybe breeze through the last 20 years of my life with the status quo of being a member in good standing in the Golden Billion-largely by birthright, but alas at last the period of appeasement of the man who would be kinky is over, kind of how in March 1939 the French and English got busy after Adolf & Co. goose-stepped into Prague without knocking.
Methinks the last 20 is gonna look nothing like the first 64~
Narrative control meets reality check.
It might be politics all the way down, but it’s economics all the way up.
When the feedback loops don’t have any circuit breakers, it does spiral down that black hole in the middle.
Until it goes Nova.
While the geopolitics is life altering for the entire planet, the religious aspects are also extremely important.
Wars are effects. Beliefs are cause.
The foundations of Western Civilization, the Golden Rule, the “Judeo-Christian ethic,” have been sacrificed to a narrow political cause and it is not going to be resurrected.
The holy men get a lot more money in the collection plate, telling people what they want to hear, than what they need to hear. In fact, as is all too evident, the ones telling them what they need to hear are the ones burned on the cross, after they drank the hemlock and shot for good measure.
Then they get deified and the message becomes moot.
The anarchies of desire versus the tyrannies of judgement.
As Marandi has pointed out, the status of the straight (open or closed) is missing the point. Iran has demonstrated the capacity to deny transit at will. And the true escalation dominance is their ability to destroy oil production in the gulf monarchies. Nothing short of a full-scale land invasion could change that.
For the sake of argument, say the 82nd airborne was successful in grabbing Iran’s enriched uranium. Trump declares victory. And then? Iran continues their campaign of dismantling ISR. No US allied tanker goes through the straight. Mr. Market has a big sad. And then?
I’m watching ISR. They can’t sustain these attacks forever.
Well if Israel ‘really’ wants to take control of the situation they can just hit an Iranian power plant or two on their own and then the Iranians will respond. Erase the latest TACO off the sheet and move on with the program. What could Trump do about it? Ask for the Epstein tapes back? If Israel is actually driving this bus, as it sort of looks like, the ball is in their court. Maybe this situation provides the tell.
I think ISR and the US coordinate closely. Sort of like Democrats and Republicans, two finger puppets on the same hand.
IMO, there’s plenty of evidence that Trump is something of a wild card (Joker, even?) in that cooperation. Israel/AIPAC think they have him by the short hairs (Adelson bribery + Epstein blackmail), but Trump isn’t an “honest politician” – he doesn’t stay bought. His narcissism leads him to push back against any controlling factor; he capitulates to their demands, but then rebels against it. He TACOs, or screws up their plans by doing (or especially *saying*) something which complicates things. Some (much?) of that is just his obvious flightiness. (The fact that he only hires incompetent sycophants is another contributing factor.)
Trump’s “professional” experience in NYC Real Estate made him far more comfortable with bribery and extortion than any President since the 1800’s. With him, *everything* is transactional, so he requires constant negotiation, making long-term plans very difficult.
Hmmm, also, as President, he undoubtedly has access to information which would work as counter-extortion on Bibi and all Trump’s AIPAC donors (and unlike Biden, would be willing to use it…).
I think Israel is facing the same kind of pressures from their populace that the US is with respect to troop deployments. Plenty of people want someone else to go over there and get shot at. The problem with Israel is that there are far fewer people to volunteer for such circumstances and the most committed people have bravely decided to neither work nor volunteer for service. So they’re really counting on the US to provide all the bodies here.
I’m not sure they’ve thought that through though because their current actions are guaranteed to reduce our influence and presence in the region. There is also no way the US comes through this and then volunteers to engage in Project Turkey.
A word about reported American casualties. Back in 2020 Trump had General Soleimani murdered, even though he was on a diplomatic mission. As payback, Iran launched a volley of missiles at Al Asad Airbase and an airbase near Erbil after warning the Americans first. There was a video from the air showing missiles slamming into one of these bases. Trump was able to boast afterwards that no Americans were killed which was true. But then in the weeks afterwards it turned out that dozens of soldiers were actually injured by the blasts from those missiles, even when sheltered. Considering the fact that you have so many US bases being hit by Iranian missiles and drones, when will we hear about those soldiers being hit by the blasts from those missiles.
“dozens of soldiers were actually injured by the blasts from those missiles, even when sheltered.”
Given the experience report by LawnDart above, this is no longer so surprising.
Which makes me think: did the Iranians know at that time that the USA had not necessarily set up real, bomb-proof shelters for its troops in Iraqi bases, and that big blasts would definitely cause some trauma amongst American soldiers?
Meanwhile Israel and the US continue to bomb Iran as best I can find out.
So is the 5 day extension just another stalling tactic?
Israel has already said that when this war is over, they will feel free to keep on bombing things in Iran that they do not like. It’s the Israeli idea of a cease fire – you cease, we fire.
Trump has done the same tactic in Ukraine, talk, extensions and nothing changes, just more war. And in Iran and Gaza.
He is just trying to muddy the waters. He’s all in on war whether kinetic or economic.
This is nowhere near done.
FWIW This is my view too.
Five days, or maybe just half a day, of Trump holding off the coming market rout.
Israeli minister calls for annexation of southern Lebanon
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-calls-annexation-southern-lebanon-2026-03-23/
These are the people Iran is supposed to negotiate with. They’re a cancer upon the globe.
Unsurprising. Watching Ehud Barak melt down in a live interview yesterday when he got around to the subject of Hezbollah was an eye-opener. This is probably a case of “optical doing something” as the IDF is presently having a tough go up north.
Club Epstein having a bad couple of weeks and counting.
I never recall in my lifetime another head of state that creates so much anxiety for people in his nation & in the world than Captain Chaos aka ConManD0n has, especially in his current 2025-now term. The latest example of this 48-hour threat to escalate Iran attack, but a few hours ago apparently extended 5 days. This case is 1 where it seems D0n is likely insider trading. But in all cases another reason seems he narcissistically wants to be the focus of national & global news attention.
All Presidents as least during Reagan to now have sucked & worsened life/material conditions for us regular Muricans. But this Captain Chaos style is so much worse.
“(family blog) this guy with a spikey metal bat!” (c) Kyle Kulinski
Good point made by a commenter over at MoA:
“Trump is now claiming to be negotiating with the leaders he claimed were all eliminated last week.”
I guess “witness impeachment” isn’t high on the list of things comprehended by day traders.
b discredited himself with his Epstein position.
The conversation here is better . . . and with no ‘ick’ factor.
Lost me for sure.
I can translate. “B” is the author of Moon over Alabama, the blog I referred to in shorthand.
He recently issued an apologia for Epstein, which obviously didn’t go over well with many.
I got run out of there a while ago, but still read it, for some of the commenters.
Aramco Cuts Crude Shipment To Asian Region For Second Month In April
Oil giant Saudi Aramco is reported to have cut crude supply to Asian buyers for a second month in April. The world’s largest oil exporter is supplying only Arab Light crude exported from the Red Sea port of Yanbu to term customers in April
https://www.freepressjournal.in/business/aramco-cuts-crude-shipment-to-asian-region-for-second-month-in-april
Israel says strikes on Iran and Hezbollah to continue for several more weeks
Israeli forces have used more than 10,000 munitions in Iran so far, says army spokesperson
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-says-strikes-on-iran-and-hezbollah-to-continue-for-several-more-weeks/3875264
Judge Napolitano and Alastair Crooke. utube, ~32+ minutes.
Alastair Crooke : Trump Loses Control of the War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg_IFXiCNLM
Thinking about Trump’s talks with Iran, I suspect that he is not referring to the actual Iranian government but to some government in exile consisting of Pahlavi and other prominent exiles along with their handlers in Jerusalem and Zionist vultures who will be paid to “reconstruct” Iran.
Again, this parallels the “negotiations” on Ukraine, where Russia is excluded and NATO people chat with Witkoff and Kushner about how to spin events and divvy up the spoils.
Trump talking all kinds of crap in interviews post-TACO. A lot about the great people he’s dealing with in Iran. My 2c is that he genuinely believes a deal is close. [I’m not saying he’s right!]
Here’s the gaggle with reporters after he got off AF1.
Video
Transcript
Most interesting soundbite was (paraphrasing):
Q: who will be in control of Strait of Hormuz?
DJT: “Joint control. Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah.”
Of course it’s silly, but it shows how far the goalposts are shifting.
I did see a rumor yesterday concerning backdoor negotiations conducted by (IIRC) Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey with Iran.
The sticking point was described as Trump needing a narrative that supports a US victory.
1. We won so completely
2. Iran is no longer a threat
3. Peace in the Middle East!
4. Can close bases in region because
– See above, and
– America is energy independent so no interest in the region
5. Gulf States, including Iran, can take responsibility (and pay!) for their own regional security
– so unfair for U.S. have had to do all that work for no reason
– but don’t threaten Israel!
6. To pay for above, they may decide to charge tariffs on exports
– Tariffs are great solution to everything
– Doesn’t affect US since energy independent
– Amount of tariff shows how rest of world has been so unfair to the U.S.; free security!
– Makes US oil&gas an even better deal for importers
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
It sounds like Trump is really losing it–maybe getting closer to the “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers moment.”
What next?
Ayatollah Trump?
The Mar-a-Lago Mullah?
Great name for a sitcom…
Trump pitches shared US-Iran Strait of Hormuz control, claims regime change ‘already happened’
Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf is leading the talks with the United States, a source told The Jerusalem Post.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-890939
JPost trying to get Ghalibaf killed, and to sow division.
A predictable fall-out from this war. When black-mailing, timing is important.
US warns EU to pass trade deal or risk losing ‘favourable’ access to LNG
https://archive.ph/YMqdm#selection-1603.0-1603.72
Another example of the information weirdness. BBC claims market rebound is because the US & Iran held talks, but Trump’s claim re talks was almost immediately debunked. Market still up, sure, but surely the up isn’t based on the “talks”? And if it is, the insulation of investors from the obvious and swift debunking is breathtaking.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czex56kwxxzo
DJT utterances may be confabulations, but also may provide glimpses into what he hopes will happen, glimpses which might be reassuring to market participants.
It’s not the talks, it’s the event of him chickening out after Iran’s threatened retaliation which reduces the economic dislocation of escalation.
Thanks Cervantes
that makes more sense than the reported storyline
It’s a bounce. It won’t be a rebound unless it lasts more then a few days and makes a lot of points. Technically speaking if a new high is not made then a lower high signals more downside.
This might be one to watch given its timing. I believe 9:30PM GMT on the 27th is shortly after the markets close on Friday.
Trump to headline FII Priority Summit in Miami on March 27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndwv8F6qA1Q
I am really starting to feel what Yves complains about when she gets annoyed that knowledgeable commentators are “selling hopium”.
I’ve seen Alexander Mercouris do it in a couple of segments where he pleads with Iran to use Russia as a mediator and take an off-ramp. Now, in the linked interview this morning, Trita Parsi is doing it, too, except worse! He claims he’s worried about Iran overplaying their hand and declining to ‘take the win’ and calm things down while Trump wants to TACO.
The Trita interview really set me off…what win does he think they can claim? Sanctions relief?!?!? What the F is that? My man…the US/Israeli leadership is DEAD-SET on killing and dismantling the Iranian government. If the Iranians were to stop now, then no one who has real influence in these countries would learn anything in the US/Israel. The markets haven’t gone haywire, yet, at least not enough for it to really matter.
We’re in a weird spot where the influential hawks are foaming at the mouth, demanding more blood (because they’re vampires and love this stuff) and there hasn’t yet been a full-blown backlash against the crazed hawks by large numbers of people in the populations of either the US or Israel. Business elites aren’t howling loudly enough because they haven’t yet felt the sufficient degree of pain and danger. In fact, US oil companies are The normies in the US haven’t been forced to fully reckon with the amount of damage that’s been done because the elites in the west are playing games to buy time and keep markets somewhat subdued.
If Iran quit NOW, it’d be in the worst of all worlds! The western hawks are smelling blood in the water (correctly or not) and would immediately begin itching for a restart of the war in 6 months, possibly sooner. They’d tell everyone, “See….war wasn’t THAT BAD, only a few hundred killed. Plus, look how DANGEROUS Iran is, they have those cool missiles that can hurt us, we need to stop that immediately!!!”
Iran has already done the heavy lifting of smashing up the air defenses and it has US carriers backing away, exhausted. It’s doing a ton of work to suppress the genocidal Israeli Air Force and now Hezbollah’s got WAY more freedom to operate and is using it to full effect and doing real damage to Israel’s north. We’re finally seeing the coordinated campaign of ‘The Resistance’ that a lot of boosters were hyping up as having the ability to beat Israel in a straight-up fight (channeling my inner-Scott Ritter). The IDF is visibly straining as it strips down deployments in the West Bank and Gaza.
People like Trita thinks this is about earning respect and getting an edge in negotiations. No, dude, they killed the negotiators…again, and again. This is about fighting against religious zealots and imperial dominance. The US/Israel will NOT accept some kind of Cold War era balance of power in the region. The Iranians are going to have to remove the US from the region by force. They need to grind the US force projection power down over several months, at least.
Also, Alexander Mercouris. I love you my man, but Russia can’t do jack-$h!t as an intermediary, even if it wanted to do so, which it’d be moronic if they tried. The US tried to kill Putin, too! Why on earth would he help Trump in his market goosing attempt to TACO? I get that the Russians value stability and hate demand destruction for oil, but that option was taken off the table when Khomeini was killed.
Okay, rant over, I gotta get back to work.
I completely agree. I was listening to Mercouris the other day and he layed out just that, that Iran let Putin use them as leverage to wind down the war in Ukraine in exchange for some promises. Immediately turned off after that. He also has a way of blaming small countries for not innoculating themselves from american savagery. If Cuba were shipping in oil or LNG from Russia, nothing would stop the US from intercepting those shipments either, and they would be much more expensive than Venezuelan oil. And Trita Parsi is little more than a Swedish-Iranian Owen Jones.
Thanks for humoring me. I generally like them both. They’re often very savvy analysts, but events have moved rapidly and it seems like they’re not grasping the gravity of the situation. Sensible, rational people are always in search of sensible, rational solutions and off-ramps.
The military situation and the delicate balance has shifted in Iran’s favor, but not decisively, and not permanently. The best weapon the Iranians have…shutting the Straits…it’s a slow-ish moving, ananconda-style strangle. It needs time to fully kick in and for the ‘collective west’ to feel the effects of choking the global economy.
Jeff Sachs, on the other hand, sounds exasperated, like he’s presiding over a funeral…he’s struggling to get a grip on the level of crazy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM-6Ufy5h-c
None of them has been in a holds no barred, street fight with psycopaths.
“I was listening to Mercouris the other day and he layed out just that, that Iran let Putin use them as leverage to wind down the war in Ukraine in exchange for some promises.”
That’s always been the biggest problem for Russia. “The Servant of the People” and crew don’t want to come off the gravy train and their “allies” are willing to let them go on to the last man.
Alexander Mercouris strikes me as a naive person in many ways.
Every other “program’ he does, he brings up some UK mainstream news media article spouting the usual bullshit and then proceeds to debunk the lies in the article. This is fine. But then he goes on and on seeming very exasperated and frustrated and wonders out loud why these fine authors can’t seem to grasp the truth and why they keep saying things that are demonstrably and factually wrong.
And I would be like, dude were you born yesterday? Are you an 18-year old wide-eyed college journalism student discovering for the first time that the news media lies and the govt does bad things? News media in the US/UK lie, they lie often, and when they’re not lying they’re still telling half-truths and spinning narratives. And that’s even before accounting for the deep state govt censorship.
But I still love the guy, so I still keep listening to him. He’s my Kremlin whisperer. Mercouris is probably the best English-speaking Kremlinologist who was never actually employed as a professional Kremlinologist by a government. (i.e. Ray McGovern surely knows even more about the Kremlin than Mercouris, but Ray was a professional).
One time I was listening to him commenting on the SMO and citing some article in Izvestia, and as an aside he casually mentions that Izvestia actually used to be an official government publication in the Soviet Union, and in fact goes back even further, having been established during Tsarist times. And I was laughing out loud, saying “Dude how the hell do you know this?” It was actually funny to me how deep his knowledge of the Russian/Soviet government goes. Which is why I keep listening to him =D
I have that same gut reaction, at times, too. But, then I let him cook for a bit, because he reads things more carefully and dissects things with a degree of patience that I can’t/don’t have. He also understands how media campaigns work, and often has intriguing ideas that I couldn’t possibly think of.
But, yes, dude brings an encyclopedic knowledge to bear on subjects. He loves Russia, loves Putin and most of all, he loves a good negotiation!
Umm, I knew about the history of Izvestia (It was still a red paper in 1917, though–it was the paper of hte Petrograd Soviet.). The continuity between the Czarist era and the Soviet Union is a fascinating thing, generally, though. (And some people believed pretty wild stories: there were rumors that Stalin was an illegitimate grandson of Alexander III or something, for example, but then a lot of rebel leaders during hte Czarist era claimed to be some hidden heir to the true Rurikids or whatever–the whole host of false Dmitries and all that.)
I too concur, there is no nice off ramp for Iran.
Any weakness will be a dagger to their throat
The commenters are imperialists at heart but don’t recognise it.
They can’t understand why the underdog would resist the might and fury of the empire regardless of cost.
My uninformed 2 cents.
From Ynet live feed: https://www.ynet.co.il/news/blogs/article/syfhvh0cbg#autoplay
07:54 Lior Ben Ari
Iranian military official: “Surprises are being prepared for the coming days, Trump needs to get his head off social media”
An Iranian military official told the regime-affiliated Tasnim news agency that the Islamic Republic “has prepared surprises for the coming days – that will make the results clear.” He added that “Trump needs to take his head off his phone and social media for a while and look at the sky, the stock market and the price of oil.”
The spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Rezaei, said: “Trump is either lying or talking nonsense. The devastating attacks by Iranian forces and the rise in oil prices have rendered the devil powerless. There is no logic in negotiations under these circumstances. The enemy only understands the language of force and missiles.
08:04 Itamar Eichner
Israeli source: The Americans have set a date for the end of the war, a meeting between the US and Iran is possible in Pakistan.
After US President Donald Trump’s statements, an Israeli official said that the Americans had set April 9 as the date for ending the war – which leaves another 21 days for war and negotiations.
According to the same source, it appears that talks between Iran and the Americans will take place this week in Pakistan. “The Americans have not informed Israel about the talks with Qalibaf,” the source said. According to him, “the end of the war on April 9 will allow Trump to come to Israel on Independence Day to receive the Israel Prize.
Baghdad Bob in Tel Aviv?
“According to a 2018 study published by Oxford University Press, Ynet publishes articles and interviews at the instigation of the Israeli government, without declaring any connection with the government – these publications aim to stir up pro-Israeli sentiment.[12]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynet
Some have said that Haaretz is the only independent source in the country.
Yes.
Personal anectode:
I spoke with a group of college students who had set up a “Let’s talk about Israel” table at a local University. I discovered after initiating a conversation that one or two were former IDF (not sure if they were actually college students).
They insisted that Hamas had raped women and killed babies on 10/7. They pointed me to a website that “proved” it. I don’t recall the domain but it was something like “hamas.com” with videos of rapes and/or reporting of rapes.
I only glanced at the home page before my skepticism rose up and I pulled out my cell phone and googled the domain. I quickly found that Haaretz had reported that this domain was actually owned by Israel or Zionists and used for propaganda purposes.
When I showed the students the Haaretz reporting, they wouldn’t believe it. Trying to look good to their IDF minders? or just completely brainwashed? I’ll never know. I just left after that.
This is lit, just making stuff up
(bold mine)
Santa Claus?
Wowzers.
BBC
He’s really committing to the bit so he can goose the markets some more.
Or maybe he’s actually lost his mind, for real?
Can anyone tell, anymore?
Who usually talks directly with the VIP members of the Big Z club?
Trump continues by telling reporters at Palm Beach that the US and Iran have “major point of agreement”.
They do. “The war should end.”
But there are a lot of little fiddly bits that are still somewhat in contention. ;-)
He’s talking about the meet before the war started, when Iran made concession with their enriched uranium, etc.
Are we sure Trump wasn’t just pranked by Vovan and Lexus who told him they were “The Ayatollah!” ™, thus the weird accent when speaking English and telling him “Sure we want to negotiate with Big Powerful USA, please don’t bomb us”?
Catfish taco?
Trumplestiltskin hasn’t even ‘negotiated’ with someone who might have an accent resembling an Iranian one let alone an actual Iranian.
Could it be that he’s been ‘negotiating’ with the Shah in the US, under the delusion that regime change is imminent?
nah. more like in the christmas carol, where theres ghosts…or an 8 foot rabbit in ayatollah garb… in his bedroom, late at night(i have always assumed that melanoma keeps a separate bedroom, with locks on the door)
https://x.com/adamscochran/status/2036070980754239563
My apologies if this has already been linked. I’ve been away from the Internet for a few hours.
Whoever it was is likely to get pardoned if caught. What greater display of patriotism and faith in Trump’s grand strategy could you imagine?
When they impeach him it should be for open and shut financial corruption. After all Congress had a chance to say no on Iran and they didn’t. They would have to impeach themselves.
lolwut? Congress will never impeach Trump for financial corruption. Virtually every member of congress has made huge profits on insider trading. Congresscritters on average have a better stock market investment record than Warren Buffet. They will not want attention brought to this kind of corruption.
And it’s not like there’s a shortage of things they can try Trump on.
From the Strait of Hormuz
To the shores of Galilee
We fight Israel’s battles
In the air, on land, and sea
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep the Zionist hands clean
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marine
Delete ‘for’.
To Trump, “the Iranian people” are represented by MEK and the royalists.
Maybe he is “negotiating” with them?
Finally, the NYT has some rational reporting on economic impacts https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/business/economy/iran-war-oil-gas-global-economy.html
Maybe the MSM is starting to shift from propagandizing to informing?
In my reading, most of the MSM is still stuck in normalcy bias and describing the conflict as an “oil price shock” which is considered primarily a temporary inflation event. For the impact on growth, they use rough intuitive regressions derived from history linking the $ price increase in oil with a tiny nick against US gdp (ala 0.5%, per Castleman in the NYT last week). There really hasn’t been anyone that I’ve read that is now calling for, say, a recession, at least in the US.
Your link is among the first I’ve seen where this category error is challenged with the idea that the conflict is actually a (my styling) “critical materials global supply chain crisis” that could have a much bigger impact on global growth. It will be interesting when markets finally make this transition.
WSJ reality sighting: https://www.wsj.com/economy/truckers-are-the-first-victims-of-the-diesel-price-shock-52ff802d?mod=livecoverage_web
Linked article without paywall: https://archive.ph/lagWV#selection-727.0-735.201
Political does a long piece on why TX isn’t winning with high oil prices, and deep into the article says something that makes it seem they didn’t get the House of Saud memo, bold mine:
“Refineries will see a short-term profit increase because the so-called refining margin — the spread between the price of oil and the price of fuel like gasoline and diesel — has widened.
Oil product prices have spiked more significantly than that of crude prices, and therefore we have an increase in margins for refineries,” said Ajay Parmar, director of energy and refining at ICIS, a consulting firm that tracks commodity prices.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/23/texas-isnt-cheering-oil-price-spike-00837618
Bulgaria Urges Citizens to Leave Middle East as Security Risks Near Critical Levels
Negotiations are not possible, the USA does not have the capacity to keep its promises, it can not be trusted.
Trump has obviously lost it, he is bonkers.
ISTM that the best chance to avoid going Nuclear would be if Trump fell down the stairs or had a stroke.
An open assassination might be useful politically and financially for some, however with the current volatility across the World it might be deemed too risky ( Yes, I know).
A little push at the right time or one of those cyanide guns that have been around for @ 70 years….and you have a WONDERFUL financial opportunity as an added benefit!
You might even be in line for the FIFA peace prize.
What could go wrong?
so I checked out Douglas Macgregor’s Twitter account.. https://x.com/DougAMacgregor/
oh boy, he’s on “The List.” read Twitter long enough and you can reasonably “feel” which accounts are bots. I see it when some random quip I write in my no-name account, for whatever reason, gets spam-liked by accounts that smell like bots. and Macgregor is getting the IDF dog pile.
I’ve read two books about (not by) Trump. His pattern in business dealings was to buy something, and slap his name on it. Then he would lose interest, hand over the management of it to underlings, and go on to the next deal. This kind of impulsiveness led, of course, to four(?) casino bankruptcies and the disappearance of Trump U in 2011 under the weight of investigations, lawsuits, and student complaints.
The man’s history leads me to believe that he is not only NOT in charge of the Iran attack but that he doesn’t even WANT to be in charge. By now he’s probably tired of the whole thing (it’s been three whole weeks!), wishes it would just go away, and is quite happy to pass off the dirty work to others.
I see Trump in his private moments forgetting completely about Iran, fantasizing about the invasion of another country, and mulling over the many tempting possibilities.
History Legends may have something when it suggests the US may try to land and occupy Konarak and Chabahar on the southern coast of Iran.
That is the place they do have forces available to take, and the isolation and ethnic makeup of the locals of the area would make it difficult for Iran to defend or retake. It would give the US a base of operations for further attacks, but it is hard to see other advantages — they will be open to Iranian attacks, and there might not be much water down there.
The constant media attention to the Kharg Island plan suggests something else must be going on.
Given that attacking the island is literal suicide, one would hope so.
IMO: Trump is currently, among other things, suffering from: “Cognitive Overload: Too Much Input, Not Enough Bandwidth” Based on “operational condition training’, it would seem anyone negotiating with Witkoff & Kushner (the trojan horses of US diplomacy) would expect to have their heads blown off. Trump’s advisors won’t let him have peace in Iran. The logical objectives for the globe should be far reaching (Europe, West Asia, China , Western Hemisphere ) security arrangements without US veto power. good luck on that one.. If the ones leading the charge couldn’t do basic threat assessment, e.g What might be the economic repercussions if the Straits of Hormuz were closed and what is Iran’s capacity to do so?; then why expect positive future results that are based on good decision making skills by US leaders. At some point in time, the US consumer won’t be able to gas up his or her vehicle because the credit cards are already maxed out.
Trump also is suffering from having all his options dictated by Susan Wiles (chief of staff) who controls access to POTUS.
Susan Wiles is the 2026 winner of the Madeline Albright Award: yes parents, you can raise your daughter to be as good of a warmonger as any man!
Wuk your usage of the Marines’ Hymn as a template reminded me that Jefferson in his first inaugural address, 4 Mar. 1801, Thomas Jefferson stated, “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” then he sent a U.S. navy fleet with Marines to the Mediterranean to combat the Barbary pirates. The fleet bombarded numerous fortified cities in present-day Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria………we’ve been a warrior nation since inception –
With Iran demanding transit fees, Trump will have undone over 200 years of US maritime policy.
I may have run afoul of Skynet when I tried fixing an oopsie (sorry!) when I posted this latest development so here’s another take from a different source. Apologies for any extra work I’ve created but this one seems important enough to give it another go:
Foreign Ministry urges Bulgarians living in six Middle Eastern countries to leave ‘while they still can’
US ground forces including 82 nd airborne are being airlifted into Ovda airbase in the extreme south of Israel and also to Jordanian bases, about evenly split. Not to Saudi Arabia yet. This should tell us something about their intentions. Still hard to say where they are thinking of basing the marines.
I saw footage yesterday of Houthis on the Permin Islands, hard to tell if it was recent or not but the UAE had been building an airstrip here so hopefully this is recent Houthi activity.
Two more Indian tankers were let through. The game is afoot.
Unless they are being held there in reserve, awaiting conditions which (as the “deciders” believe) will allow for some kind of move on Iran, that almost makes it sound like they are going to assist Israel in/with Gaza. Or maybe support Israeli operations in Lebanon and Syria?
Here’s a crazy idea — invade the Sinai!
Hmm. Is Trump going to invade the Oman because they are just too damn independent and dignified? He needs some real estate from which to open Hormuz to the Persian Gulf and all his other bases are the wrong side of the Strait….
Today an Oilprice.com article explains why US gasoline prices are tied to crude prices:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Energy-Dominance-Agenda-Cant-Shield-Driver-From-Higher-Gasoline-Prices.html
“The United States is the world’s biggest crude oil producer—it has been for years, and it has been pumping more than 13.6 million barrels per day of oil for the past few months.
—
First and foremost, the price of crude oil carries the biggest weight in the formation of gasoline prices in America. And the price of crude oil has soared in the past three weeks since the war in the Middle East began.
Second, the U.S. – even with the highest crude oil production rates in the past months – still consumes more oil than it produces domestically, at more than 20 million barrels per day. Moreover, not all domestically produced oil is suitable for refining at the U.S. refineries designed to run optimally on heavier crudes – crudes that the U.S. is not producing much of and still has to import.
In other words, despite being the biggest oil producer by a mile, the United States still depends on crude oil sold at international market prices, and when they soar, gasoline prices do, too.
—
While the U.S. is a net petroleum exporter, it still needs to import heavier crude grades because refineries cannot run only on the lighter crudes from the domestic shale fields. Crude imports account for about three-quarters of U.S. total gross petroleum imports, according to EIA data.
Nearly 70% of all U.S. refining capacity runs most efficiently with heavier crude. That is why 90% of crude oil imports into the United States are heavier than U.S.-produced shale crude, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) trade association says.”.
I noticed that the US average gas price is up ~30%+ in past month, yet crude oil is up by ~50%, so US drivers may face much more pain at the pump in coming weeks and months.
$6.20 at the Chevron station I passed earlier today.
Sonoma County is going to be hurting for a few years, foreign tourists brought a lot of $ into the local economy.
ICE hasn’t gone big time here, yet, quite possibly because oligarchs have interests in wine, and it is not just the Gallo family and the the Pelosi’s.
Still, the Hispanic population which provides essential labor is terrified, and rightly so.
Housing, oh boy.
Building has been going full bore since the end of the fires with (As usual) too much built to the best price point by bean counters who all look at the same data and use the same method to decide what to build because that’s how they get their financing.
And that building is still going on, 30 acres on Guerneville Rd, 15 on Sebastopol Rd..
The builders will build until the financing runs out and the late arriving projects will land in Bankruptcy.
Have I mentioned that some market segments are already overbuilt, as is usual in the boom part of the cycle?
There will be some solid buys in a few years…
yeah,lol…this particular chemistry lesson is hard to get across in the feed store parking lot.
‘oil=oil’ is a fallacy thats been driven into minds, over time.
usa exports the bulk of the oil it scrapes out of the permian basin barrel.
and all those refineries along the gulf coast cant just mix in some light sweet with the venezualan heavy sour…those giant pipe farms are more or less precision instumrnts, that cover an hundred or more acres…super complex. introduce too much of the wrong thing, and you get bad outcomes.
this aint makin biscuits.
OMG someone at OilPrice reads the weekly EIA Petroleum Status Reort.
Last Wednesday US “supplied” 13.6 mbbl/day of crude about the 4 week average. Same report US imported 7.2 mbbl/day. Exported 4.9 mbbl/day. Net crude imports of 2.3mbbl/day.
Crude input to refineries last week’s report: 16.2 mbbl/day.
USA is net importer of crude.
USA exports a lot of LNG, risen since Biden sanction Russia!
Trump is not a rational actor and he is surrounded by Ass kissers and Zealots (Kushner) along with “Christian” nutjobs who think “JESUS IS COMING! ” as soon as the Nukes land and Billions die.
That’s what Jesus wants, Hundreds of Millions to Billions of humans dying in Nuclear fire if they are lucky or bleeding out as all of their capillaries dissolve.
And this will be good because Jesus Loves Us.
Or maybe not.
Trump is almost 80 years old and in obvious decline physically and cognitively, maybe we’ll get lucky…
Iran should add the following to the list for ending the war:
Send N’yahoo to the ICC to stand trial for his war crimes.
I am all for the US using ground forces to try to secure Kharg Island. As long as the ground forces are entirely made up of the people who have supported and pushed the Israeli agenda for decades. My list includes but is not limited to:
Lindsay Graham and Pete Hegseth
The Kushner Brothers
The Ellisons
Elon
Bari Weiss
Miriam and any Adelson heirs
Don Jr and Eric Trump.
Baron Trump
Every dual American/Israeli passport holders in Congress, the judiciary, and every police force in America.
Any politician who swore undying loyalty to Israel
Erica Kirk
Jerry Seinfeld
They should absolutely pick up Benny’s son before going, if they don’t want to drop him off to the IDF, they can take him to the island.
Please feel free to add on worthy candidates.
The Fettermans.
The name Fetterman has form, dating back to the “give me 80 men and I’ll ride through the whole Sioux Nation” guy.
Had to look it up, thank you. One big reason I love NC is all the stuff I learn here.
i went to the scene of his death a number of years ago. For some reason I’d imagined it to have trees and such, but then I grew up in Iowa, not the Wyoming / Montana border. It was pretty desolate, even the rattlesnake along the trail was seeking shade.
And Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Josh Shapiro, and the entire editorial departments of Fox News, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. With a crew like that storming the beaches, Iranian drone operators will be quaking in their boots!
Can’t find a Fetterman…..ooooohhh….oooohhhh….ooh.
Israeli military says it is conducting strikes in Tehran
The Israeli military said on Monday it is conducting strikes in Tehran, after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and Iran had held talks and that he would postpone any strikes on power plants and energy infrastructure.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-says-it-is-conducting-strikes-tehran-2026-03-23/
Bahrain proposes UN Security Council approve use of force to protect Hormuz shipping
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/bahrain-proposes-un-security-council-approve-use-force-protect-hormuz-shipping-2026-03-23/
Rockets launched from Iraq’s Mosul towards US base in Syria, sources say
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/rockets-launched-iraqs-mosul-towards-us-base-northeastern-syria-say-sources-2026-03-23/
Exclusive: Trump approved Iran operation after Netanyahu argued for joint killing of Khamenei, sources say
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-approved-iran-operation-after-netanyahu-argued-joint-killing-khamenei-2026-03-23/
Bahrain’s proposal will go nowhere. It would just be a way to try to get other countries to send military forces to the Gulf to bail out Trump and Netanyahu.
Ted Postol lays out the damage to Israel if Iran were to hit it with three smaller nuclear warheads. He wants people to understand the details of the destruction and possibly develop empathy. (It might make more sense to describe how Iran would be affected by nuclear warheads from Israel, but that just feeds the grossness, I suppose.)
This Dialogue Works video out today is highly recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/live/FOs4skvj5F8
Very good discussion: detailed information from Scahill’s inside sources on Iranian reaction to Trump/s reversal and negotiation claims:
Iran Talks or Just a Delay Tactic? /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Jeremy Scahill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHLxOn-ukog
From the Palestinian journalist Suhaib Al-Masalma around 2 hours ago
“Urgent | Wall Street Journal, citing US officials: Thousands of US Marines are scheduled to arrive in the Middle East on Friday”
Not being a WSJ subscriber I cannot confirm.
https://t.me/s/Sohaibpress
Hi,
I subscribe, here’s what I see:
“Thousands of U.S. Marines are slated to arrive in the Middle East on Friday, according to two U.S. officials, the day President Trump has set as the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The Japan-based amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, the amphibious landing dock USS New Orleans and roughly 2,200 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit will cross into U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East, on Friday, the officials said. It would take another few days for the unit to get to the Strait of Hormuz.
The Pentagon has also ordered another Marine unit to Centcom: the California-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Boxer amphibious ready group. That unit will depart in a few weeks. It won’t arrive in Centcom for a few weeks after that.”
I don’t get it. Really, can someone explain it to me? It’s not like Iran doesn’t know of these movements. Even if Kharg is a diversion and the attempted invasion will be through Baluchistan or to seize the Hormuz islets, I’m sure the Iranian military are being kept informed of those forces’ positions in real time by Russia and China. It’s not like Operation Overlord that could be kept under wraps until the last moment.
What makes USrael think Iran will hesitate to attack those troops when they’re ready to deploy? Or is the idea to have them be attacked so Trump can sell the war to the US public? Are the soldiers happy to be sacrificial lambs? Do they really think Iran wouldn’t dare just because it’s US ground forces? Because they’re in Israel? Or do they think Iran cannot do it? Or that Iran can’t just merrily resume its attack on GCC energy and/or fossil fuel infrastructure until USrael recalls the soldiers?
Maybe I’m naïve, but this looks like the stupidest airlift in recent military history, or the stupidest amphibious invasion.
Larry Johnson did the numbers: https://sonar21.com/looks-like-donald-trump-is-serious-about-puting-us-boots-on-the-ground-in-iran/
Also, in this WSJ article (sorry I don’t know how to create an archive link) they’re reporting we’ve lost “over a dozen soldiers”. I missed that memo…
“Over a dozen American troops have been killed and more than 100 injured—at least eight of them seriously—since the war began, the Pentagon said. Trump has warned that more U.S. soldiers will likely die before the operation ends.”
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-war-explained-8ce8403f?mod=world_feat1_middle-east_pos1
The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it
https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fiscal-crisis-fix/
No, this is actually right-wing propaganda that’s used to push for SS/Medicare cuts.
First, as MMT explains, the US is a currency issuer, so it can pay off all liabilities denominated in that currency. A currency issuer can never go insolvent.
Second, if this were a serious issue, there are trillions of dollars of natural resources on federal lands that are never measured on any balance sheet. Unfortunately, Trump would sell the lands off to his cronies on the cheap.
MOON OF ALABAMA
War On Iran: Trump Chickens Out – Who Lobbied For War – The Energy Dominance Aim
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/03/war-on-iran-48-hours-bombing-deadline-trump-chickens-out.html#comments
But the really interesting point to me is the very end:
While energy dominance may be the over-arching aim Washington has there are doubts that it is achievable:
How the Iran war is turning America’s energy dominance into a mirage – The National
There are non-fossil energy alternatives coming up and penetrating the markets. Any attempt to monopolize fossil fuels and to ramp up its prices will increase the adoption of non-fossil alternatives and thereby defeat itself.
Question to those who know this: is this US fallacy eventually a realistic result?
And was it probably anticipated by China, for instance?
We never talk about their think tanks but they exist in whatever shape, form and number.
Should we trust MoA after b (finally) expressed his views about Epstein?
BTW, Trump didn’t “Chicken Out” yet … he paused to take profits (apparently).
And now we find that … true to form … trump is pissing over his own lies about negotiations by US-Israeli attacks on electric power plants (see recent developments lower in the thread).
JD Vance Urged to Invoke 25th Amendment Against Trump
https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-urged-invoke-25th-amendment-against-donald-trump-11719212
U.S. sent Iran a message through mediators as Trump signals he’s open to a deal, Iranian official says
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/bannon-trump-ice-airport-deployment-test-run-2026-midterm-elections/
“It’s a TRAP!”
Forbes coming to grips, no archive yet so mainlining, hit that read only quick, Global Natural Gas Markets Are A Bigger Problem Than Oil Right Now, Ken Silverstein.
“Unfortunately, there’s no spare capacity in the LNG market, so the disruption in the LNG market will be immediate and immense,” Florence Yu, LNG market analyst at Vortexa, told Lloyd’s List. Yu noted that 20% of global LNG and 90% of Qatar’s LNG exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz—the heart of the conflict. This is notable given that Qatar is responsible for 20% of global LNG supply.
Trump Throws Pete Hegseth Under the Bus as Iran War Spirals
It looks like the president has found a new scapegoat for the Iran war.
https://newrepublic.com/post/208073/trump-blames-pete-hegseth-iran-war
the best line:
“Hegseth about to give his next briefing from under the bus,” liberal podcaster Jon Favreau wrote on X.
Thank you, read with much interest. I am left wondering how much influence did Hegseth have making the war happen, as in instigator or useful idiot. I’ll go with the latter, mainly to avoid falling into the habit of seeing a Mossad agent behind every bush, but Im not wedded to it.
One can suggest the founder of Cerebus capital has a seat at the Defense/war department policy table in the Iran war.
This is Deputy Defense secretary Stephen A. Feinberg.
Per the web, over 40 years in financial markets, no combat military experience.
Hegseth may be the public face and not much else.
I understand that the Mossad agents were “under the bed,” recording what went on in the bed.
Zero influence (Hegseth). Instead of the “macho alfa” he wants to look like, he is the disposable secretary who nobody likes and no one will miss. I believe that he knows it and will silently fall in line
JD Vance’s 2028 Presidential Chances Fall to New Low
https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-2028-presidential-chances-fall-new-low-11721425
Trump’s suspiciously timed announcements on Iran
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/23/politics/trump-iran-market-strait-hormuz?cid=ios_app
Smoke seen rising from Valero Port Arthur refinery (TX)
https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/local/pillar-of-smoke-rising-from-valero-port-arthur/502-2fafa4f2-70c6-4bb3-b3ff-0ab6a599ac56
The pix look pretty bad.
Kim Jong Un says North Korea’s nuclear status is irreversible, threatens South
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-pushes-new-five-year-economic-plan-nuclear-deterrent-parliament-2026-03-23/
Iran targeting buyers of US Treasury bonds: Parliament speaker
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5796980-ghalibaf-warns-treasury-buyers/
Regarding the latter, I see that Ghalibaf is being targeted for character assassination, from Politico,
‘We’re in the testing phase’: Trump admin eyeing Iran’s parliament speaker as US-backed leader.
Check out the url. (Spoiler alert) “He’s a hot option”
I was willing to suspend disbelief until I got to
We’re fishing for collaborators and we publicly announce that if anyone accepts but doesn’t pass our “quick test” we’re going to assassinate them. Oh, and we’re also going to toss your name out in public in case anybody on your side wants to have a go at you first. Raise your hand if you’d like to volunteer.
It’s hard to take any of this seriously; the Nazis took Oslo first and only then put their traitor in power. But I’ve learned to discount any thought that “nobody can be that stupid” and I find myself wondering if maybe the US really does think they’ve hooked a Quisling and they’re spewing sensitive intelligence as they try to sweet talk him into the boat.
Re: Iran targeting buyers of US Treasury bonds
They might consider equities. Stonks having a sad appear to trigger Trump.
This is pre-TACO, but boy is it bad.
Author, “Mr. Cropsey is president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy“
American Credibility Is on the Line in Iran (WSJ, archive)
[Skipping over loads of standard Iran bad blahblahblah]
….It is crucial that Mr. Trump resist the temptation to walk away, stay the course, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and demonstrate the credibility of America and its military commitments.
The only way to accomplish this with a reasonable chance of success is to put boots on the ground. The U.S. has trained and planned for this contingency for decades. At the helm today are military officers—Gen. Dan Caine, Adm. Frank Bradley, Adm. Brad Cooper—who understand the precise capabilities of U.S. special-operations forces and the advantages of automated targeting. Mr. Trump can trust these men to see this through.
Deploying several thousand special-ops forces to southern Iran is enough to reopen the strait after some weeks of fighting. Casualties should be anticipated. To protect the special-ops units, regular troops will be required. With U.S. air supremacy, the Iranian regime’s forces will be loath to mass forces for an attack.
Are you effing insane, man?
They don’t need to mass forces. JFC!!! Do you even know what a drone or a missile is? The Iranians will blow those poor boys to kingdom come.
I cannot believe that a military guy can be this ignorant. I cannot understand why he would deliberately be lying.
Madness.
Agreed. Has anyone forgotten that the Iranian military had to battle Iraq and allies for 8 years?
Smells old fashioned “air&naval supremacist” military guy who cannot understand modern drone-missile-satellite warfare.
Netanyahu said frustrated that Mossad promise it could instigate Iran uprising has fallen short
NYT says in leadup to war, spy agency touted plans to instigate mass resistance that could trigger regime’s collapse; instead, rulers have dug in and revolution appears unlikely
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-said-frustrated-that-mossad-promises-of-iran-uprising-have-fallen-short
Vietnam, Russia agree to deepen energy cooperation, advance nuclear power project [Asia News Network]
The two sides also agreed to explore expanded cooperation in new, clean and renewable energy, supporting the green transition and sustainable development. They welcomed the signing of multiple agreements in energy, oil and gas and transport between businesses from both countries during the visit, which is expected to contribute to strengthening energy security in the current context.
Vietnam also just completed joint naval live-fire drills with the Chinese, focused on anti-piracy.
America forcing nations to choose is not a winning strategy.
Hundreds of petrol stations across Australia run out of fuel as Labor inks supply deal with Singapore
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/23/petrol-stations-australia-fuel-crisis
Ex-Wall Street Journal editor gives damning verdict on Trump’s latest Iran claims: ‘We have become Baghdad Bob’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/wall-street-journal-trump-baghdad-bob-iran-b2944023.html
Trump tells Republicans to pass voting law ‘for Jesus’
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-republicans-pass-voting-law-for-jesus-2026-03-23/
There’s no way to redeem Trump’s dismal second presidency
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5793657-trump-images-failure-war-immigration/
Musk Must Face Suit Alleging Power Overreach as Trump Adviser
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-23/musk-must-face-suit-alleging-power-overreach-as-trump-adviser?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3NDMwOTAxNCwiZXhwIjoxNzc0OTEzODE0LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUQ0RHTE9UOU5KTFMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFOURENjUxQUFBN0Q0MEFFQUU2QzRGMTY2Q0JCRkJFNCJ9.U6i1_KdmUg8pT7SLfBF7F_A7aynJevwuHPFjbpS2gYs
Van Hollen: Trump is ‘lying’ about talks with Iranians
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5797061-trump-iran-war-crime/
It appears the US/Israel has “upped the ante” and attacked Iran’s power production facilities as of about 8PM EST. Iran vows revenge on power plants and desalination plants in the region.
https://x.com/i/status/2036245844173652479
Madness, nothing but madness.
I am calling my folks now. This is it. We are spiraling now into WWIII in the near future.
Is this panic mongering? I would hope not but the escalation ladder can’t even be head off now.
Madness indeed. I must note that IRGC doesn’t mention desalination plants. Nevertheless, I’m nervous tonight. The escalation ladder beckons, the US lull seems unauthentic.
Confirming reports on RT:
Iran reports strikes on its energy facilities despite Trump’s promised reprieve (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
https://www.rt.com/news/635960-trump-claims-he-could-jointly-control-hormuz-ayatollah/
MSM is not reporting any additional attacks so what are we supposed to assume at this point – every time Trumps say negotiations it means attack?
1HR ago, the IRGC spokesman said that the US/ISR had struck power plants in two Iranian cities. Therefore, Iran will be striking all power facilities in ISR and the gulf monarchies.
Just retweeted by @ripplebrain who I have faith in.
أَبُو عِرْفَانِ پارسی
@A_E_P_1979
58m
No Iranian media (so far at least) has reported such an announcement by the IRGC. No.
As for the Israeli strike, it was more symbolic than effective. They struck a gas administration building (basically an office building) and one gas site station. This attack was not intended to cause a blackout and then massive Iranian retaliation in the Gulf, but rather to disrupt the flow of gas for a short period of time. It was more psychological warfare.
Unless official state media declares an announcement by the IRGC, every other news is considered fake.
It was the X account of the IRGC spokesman. Anyway, should be clear by the time the market opens tomorrow.
Al Mayadeen is providing additional details:
US-Israeli attack on gas infrastructure in Isfahan, Khorramshahr: Fars
Brent Crude is up 4% to $104/barrel.
>It was the X account of the IRGC spokesman.
Can you share a link for that please?
Not saying you’re wrong, but where I’m looking I only see many copy-pastes from engagement and bad info-hygiene accounts with the “IRGC says” text and a photo of the fierce spokesman guy.
As far as I know, he doesn’t have a twitter account.
Saudis and UAE take steps toward joining Iran war, WSJ reports
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-24/saudis-uae-take-some-steps-toward-joining-iran-war-wsj-says?leadSource=reddit_wall
Israel launches new strikes on Tehran as Trump pauses Iran energy attacks
Israeli military says it will continue operations in line with Israeli government directives until told otherwise
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/23/israel-launches-new-strikes-on-tehran-as-trump-pauses-iran-energy-attacks
Also posted by Peter Steckel above
Ending Iran war now would cede Hormuz to the enemy, Trump’s former Defense secretary says
“You’d see a tax for every ship that goes through” Hormuz if Trump quits now, Gen. Jim Mattis said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/23/mattis-ending-iran-war-now-cede-hormuz-00841109
I guess we’re getting down to real decisions then. If the people in charge decide that Iran can’t have the Strait, and we experience a ground invasion that is less than 100% successful, that would be be the time Israel starts pushing for the use of nuclear wweapons. If US goals remain frustrated by the Iranians, the US will probably agree. Either way, I don’t see the current situation lasting much longer than 2 weeks.
Hopefully I can order enough stuff to wait out the coming crazy times this summer…
I didn’t realize Hormuz was American territory. Now, if someone were talking about the Chesapeake Bay, that’s one thing, but why in the Good Lord’s name should we care about the body of water halfway around the world, especially if the idea is to take it away from the locals? Mattis is no Smedley Butler.
The strikes hit energy facilities in Isfahan and Korramshahr
https://minutemirror.com.pk/strikes-hit-iran-energy-sites-in-isfahan-khorramshahr-524591/
You have a nice collection of news sites!
In that very same outlet:
China urges citizens to leave Israel immediately