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Iran War: US Being Driven From Iraq, Tells Americans to Leave; Iran Keeps Pounding Israel, Gulf States; Trump Calls on Other Countries Including China to Send Warships, Effectively Threatens to Use Nukes; FCC Threatens to Pull Broadcast Licenses Over War Reporting

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[As has become our practice, this Iran war post launched before complete. We expect to be done by 8:00 AM EDT. If you are an early arrival, feel free to comment but do refresh your browser and re-skim at 8:00 AM]

While the Administration, or at least Trump, is ratcheting up its denialism of how badly things are going in the Iran war to new registers of vehemence, most media outlets and pundit are only selectively registering Iran’s dominance, militarily and economically, and what that means for where things are headed. It’s striking to see the resistance to coming to grips with the radical change in the world power structure, as well as the high likelihood of abrupt decays in the material conditions of nations and most citizens. It reminds me of a classic story I have often cited:

In the Indian epic Mahabharata, Yudhisthira goes looking for his missing brothers, who went searching for water. He finds them all dead next to a pond. In despair, but still parched, he is about to drink, but a crane tells him he must answer some questions first.

The last and most difficult: “What is the greatest wonder of the world?” Yudhisthira answers, “Day after day, hour after hour, countless people die, yet the living believe they will live forever.” The crane reveals himself to be the Lord of Death and, after some further discussion, revives the brothers.

We are in the early stages of the death of a settled order upon which what passed for prosperity and international security depended. But contrary to the Mahabharata, there is unlikely to be a divine figure who will give selective relief, despite feverish beliefs of evangelicals and Zionists otherwise. Hence the widespread, reflexive aversion to stare in the face of what looks to be coming.

It would be exceedingly difficult for the US and Israel to claw their way back from the disaster they have created for themselves and their allies and hapless fellow travelers, even charitably assuming Israel recognizes sooner rather than later that its position has become untenable. The only way out for the West is regime change in Washington. There is no path for negotiation even if Trump and Netanyahu were to have Damascene conversions. The repeated duplicity of both belligerents means this war will be a test to destruction.

We’ll note the pervasiveness of delusional thinking as warranted in our updates below, but consider these vignettes:

Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia makes many important observations, but two stood out for me:

This Administration has the most incompetent Cabinet in the history of the United States

Iran has reached the same conclusion as Russia has in Ukraine, that this war will be settled on the battlefield

And as John Mearsheimer flatly says in a new interview on Aljazeera (see at 3:45) “We’re not going to win this war with Iran.”

Contrast Freeman’s views with Katuyila, who is also a former diplomat, in The Iran Files II: Why This War May Still End in Constrained Negotiations. I hate to turn Katuyila into an object lesson, since he has provided fine analysis, but consider his inability to adapt his views to the radical and obvious breaks with the past. From his post:

The archival record, however, reveals a consistent pattern in US–Iran relations: even during severe confrontation, successive American administrations continued to explore the possibility of engagement. Pressure and negotiation often unfolded simultaneously rather than sequentially. History therefore suggests that even a war as intense as the present one may eventually give way to another attempt at diplomacy. The crucial question is under what balance of leverage it will resume. If the current war convinces Iranian leaders that their system has absorbed direct military pressure while imposing costs of its own, Tehran will arrive at the negotiating table with greater leverage than in previous crises….

The archival record therefore reveals two dynamics operating simultaneously. Coercion and engagement have repeatedly unfolded in parallel rather than sequentially, while negotiations themselves remained narrow and carefully bounded by domestic constraints on both sides. The present war may therefore alter not the structure of diplomacy itself, but the balance of leverage within it.

This is the linchpin to where his perspective is wildly off:

This was not improvisation. It was institutional behavior.

There is no “institutional behavior” under Trump. Trump, as he declared in his infamous New York Times interview, is a unilateralist, checked only by his warped sense of morality (in reality, also as his tariff TACO demonstrates, when he encounters forces he deems more powerful, but even then, he recalibrates rather than reversing course). Trump set out to wreck critical US organizations and the rule of law as inconveniences to his exercise of will. That started in Trump 1.0, when among other things, his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, gutted the ranks of seasoned officers.1

And we have seen DOGE as cover for gutting Federal bureaucracies, Trump seeking to fill the top ranks of the US armed forces with apocalypse-loving evangelicals (Larry Wilkerson has been describing this for some time), the attacks on US universities, because crippling PMC power centers that might challenge Trump is more important than preserving US leadership in the sciences and our veneer of intellectual primacy.

The one factor that may blunt Trump’s overwhelming need to dominate2 is the fact that, in Myers-Briggs terms, he is also an extreme P,3 as in “perceiving” type, confirmed not just by his pathological flip-flopping, but also by the fact that he is regularly influenced by the last person that spoke to him. Ps hate hate hate making decisions; they experience a sense of loss in shutting down options.

So it seems as reasonable a guess as any with Trump that he will not make any big moves until he meets with Xi in a summit that starts on March 31, in light of this tweet:

The fact that he listed China first suggests that Trump is laboring under the delusion that China can be pried away from Iran due to the harm it is believed to be suffering from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Recall that Iran has lived up to all of its promises of how it would prosecute the war. One was that it would close the Strait for at least two or three months. China no doubt got that memo. Recall that in addition to stockpiling oil, it may also have stockpiled diesel as it did before the 2008 Olympics (the demand for crude to refine into diesel was one of the factors that drove the price to $147.50 in July 2008).

As an aside, some of the Administration’s allies are beating a quiet retreat. Hindustan Times, in Trump’s Strongest Ally Crumbles Under Mojtaba’s Plan, Italy’s Iraq Retreat Signals IRGC Victory? pointed out that Italian forces had pulled out of Iraqi Kurdistan and were also shrinking their presence in other front line areas of the Middle East.

It does appear that a plan to use convoys to force open the Strait of Hormuz had not yet gone away. Recall that a few days ago, shipping maven Sal Mergoliano reported with dismay that such an operation could not start before the end of March, which he regarded as catastrophically late, and then only at 10% of old normal transit levels. From the Wall Street Journal today in Trump Wants to Secure Hormuz. Here’s What It Would Take.:

One option to clear the way for escorts would be a more-intense use of air power to hunt and destroy Iranian missiles and drones before they could be fired at ships in the strait. Another would be to use ground troops to seize the territory around the waterway.

This is nuts. First, there is no apparent consideration that Iran has been using underwater drones, ironically apparently adapted from those Ukraine used against Russia in the Black Sea. It also fails to acknowledge that another vector for Iran to attack the ships is from caves honeycombed in the cliff. Pray tell, how do you take that out from the air?4

And of course Iran would still retain the last-ditch move of mining.

But the Journal continues:

In an escort operation, U.S. warships, maybe in conjunction with allied navies, would travel through the strait alongside oil tankers to clear mines and fend off Iranian attacks from the air as well as from Iran’s “mosquito fleet” of small, fast-attack boats.

Experts estimate it could take two ships per tanker, or a dozen ships to guard convoys of five to 10 tankers, to have the necessary air defenses. The short distances involved make shooting down missiles and drones much more difficult….

Other military experts have proposed other aircraft, such as the Marines’ Harrier Jump Jet, as an option to support the escorts…

Delays caused by security measures and the number of available warships would reduce tanker traffic through the strait to 10% of its normal level, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a leading shipping analysis firm.

At that rate, it would take months to clear a backlog of more than 600 international trading ships stuck in the Gulf.

Yours truly has said that if the US proceeds with this plan, and Iran destroys the naval vessels and tankers as expected, this would be the event that would conclusively demonstrate that Iran holds all the high cards and the world was set to endure compounding, difficult-to-unwind damage from a continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz. If Mr. Market has not sobered up before then, one could expect this defeat to trigger a financial market panic.

Trump is still toying with the idea of going all the way up the escalation ladder:5

To turn to more to the kinetic war, the BBC’s live blog headline is back to optimistic messaging:

Mind you, the pounding of Iran is still very much underway:

And in fairness, the BBC did report in its live feed yesterday that an Iranian missile hit the US embassy in Baghdad.

Bloomberg gives above-the-fold treatment to the deterioration of the US position in Iraq in US Calls for Americans to Leave Iraq ‘Now’ as Attacks Mount:

The US Embassy in Baghdad told Americans on Saturday to leave Iraq immediately following a series of attacks targeting US nationals….

Iran-aligned militias have repeatedly attacked the International Zone in central Baghdad, the embassy said. The area around the Erbil International Airport and the Erbil consulate have also been subject to repeated attacks, according to the statement, in apparent retaliation for US-Israeli strikes against Iran.

“Do not attempt to come to the embassy in Baghdad or the consulate general in Erbil in light of the ongoing risk of missiles, drones, and rockets in Iraqi airspace,” the embassy said.

This reversal is even more striking when you realize that the International Zone is the famed, and supposedly extremely well fortified Green Zone. Consider also:

A Janto Ka update overlaps with our discussion above of Trump’s plea for naval assistance but also includes the Iran campaign against the UAE:

Israel may also be starting to recognize that it has bitten off a lot more than it can chew and the US will not be able to rescue them. Some kinetic war updates:

Alon Mizrahi points out that rumors are swirling in Israel over Netanyahu’s apparent absence; he argues that his recent public appearance was AI based on his vocal timbre and apparent level of energy. Note that I was able to immediately identify the AI videos of Yanis Varofakis as bogus based on its voice.6. Note our reader raspberry jam, who is something of an expert on AI pointed out, that the video was genuine based on the the fact that handled some of the questions with too much in the way of emotion. But perhaps this was a real video sexed up with AI or other tools?

In any event, independent of what you believe about the Netanyahu’s status, Mizrahi detects that the officialdom is coming to grips with something serious being amiss….which could be as simple as running out of interceptors. Key points from his latest talk:

Where is Netanyahu? What happened to him? The man has been conspicuously absent for a couple of days already…the fact that that establishments, the institutions that are in place to provide us with information about what’s really going on, whether it is the governments or the media, the fact that they are doing much more concealment than sharing and exposing only adds to the tension…

And we understand that something is not going right. Because if things were going their way, they wouldn’t be hiding things. They would be sharing things. They would be taking pride in showing off. But they are not doing that. They are becoming more nervous and more restless. ..

[After discussing why he thinks the Netanyahu talk was AI] But when he didn’t appear for this security briefing and Israel Katz, the Minister of Defense, gave this briefing, And when you can see how Israeli seniors, I mean, high ranking officers and politicians look worried, look gray, look out of energy. …

I mean, It looks like they have been hit in a way they cannot deny and conceal anymore to themselves. They are still denying and trying to conceal it from the rest of the world. But something about the music has changed. It’s not the same.

Usually Israel always talks with arrogance, with stupidity. It’s the performance of arrogance, but the content of stupidity. Because they always talk about what they are going to do, like there’s no one to counter them. There’s no one to work against them. There’s nothing that can happen that can sabotage or derail their ambitions and their plans.

This is the Israeli way of thinking and doing stuff. But it’s like something about this cracked. in recent days, and I didn’t know what was the, I still don’t know for sure, but I know that something happened. Something important, something broke. Now, what I had in mind is perhaps Iran was able to neutralize Israeli Air Force bases, which is Israel’s strategic long arm. And maybe Iran was able to hit it and destroy some of it. neutralize some of this strategic capability. Or maybe the interceptors were running low, but just today Israel suddenly publicly admitted that they were running out of interceptors…and a major ground operation in Lebanon is being discussed, which Israel cannot carry out, because he doesn’t have the means, the manpower, he doesn’t have the ability. Hezbollah has turned northern Israel into hell, the border areas. They cannot assemble forces properly, and the people are fatigued, and there are sirens nonstop. And there are drones and missiles and it’s practically hell. It’s almost impossible.
And I think that this is why Israel is trying to negotiate a settlement with the Lebanese government, with French mediation.

Simply because they know they cannot do this, especially if they assemble a big force of 100,000 soldiers or so and try to send them into Lebanon, Israel itself becomes fully exposed.

What happens if an intifada breaks out as I expect it to begin? But not now. It’s going to take a little more, a few more weeks. So they know they can do this, but amid all this very important, very strategic set of considerations, Netanyahu is absent and is not mentioned…So none of this is like a definitive proof….But this is very sus. This is very unusual for the head of state to suddenly disappear at such a crucial juncture for this war,…And it is especially weird when Israeli media doesn’t even mention this. They are not saying anything about this, about all the rumors, and they are all on Twitter. I mean, they see what the whole world is talking about, but no one is mentioning these rumors.

Finally, to the escalating US efforts to keep too much reality from getting to the great unwashed public. Recall we showed a Janta Ka update that included an extended clip of Pete Hegseth hectoring the press, quoting headlines and then providing his substitutes for how they should have read to properly show the US as winning. Now this:

Keep in mind that the FCC does not license networks or print media but local broadcast licensees. Some are owned by the big networks but Nexstar and Sinclair are the biggest owners of local broadcasters. Mind you, anyone who pushed back in court would be sure to win, but self-censorship is the easier and more profitable course of action.

We’ll stop here for today. See you tomorrow!

____

1 From a 2017 New York Times article, Diplomats Sound the Alarm as They Are Pushed Out in Droves:

In a letter to Mr. Tillerson last week, Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee, citing what they said was “the exodus of more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers from the State Department since January,” expressed concern about “what appears to be the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks.”

2 From Ben Panga in comments:

I grew up with a bullying delusional narcissist and have also had professional reasons to learn plenty about them.

The need to remain (in their own minds) like a winner/strong/loved etc is the defining trait. It supercedes all other motivations. Threats to this illusion are terrifying to them, and they will do anything to avoid it. It’s literally more frightening than death. Preservation of the ego’s fragile delusion is everything.

When reality finally humiliates them, when the mania runs out of options, hiding and deep depression happen.

I worry that, ex a coup, Trump will be in a situation where he sees the choice as between 1) very public humiliation 2) nukes. Even if no nukes, the public failure/humiliation that is building will cause him to lash out in very erratic ways.

There’s a story that always stuck with me from Trump’s childhood about his younger brother Robert (who Trump constantly tormented) dumping a bowl of mash-potato on Donald’s head during a family meal. Trump by this time had already been conditioned by his sociopathic father never to be weak, and always be a killer. Trump was the chosen child and he watched as brother Fred was often humiliated by father Fred.

Until one day Trump was the one to be humiliated.

Per Mary Trump (via her substack):

By this time, Donald was a pro at teasing and belittling his little brother and, as was often the case, Robert started crying hysterically and screaming for Donald to stop. Donald, of course, wouldn’t and nobody could get him to—especially not my grandmother for whom, even then, Donald had a fair amount of contempt. He didn’t listen to a word she said, and even telling him to wait until his father came home had no impact on his behavior,

In the midst of the fighting and yelling and sobbing, my grandmother started setting the table and bringing the food in from the kitchen. As things continued to escalate, my dad, in just a fit of frustration, did the only thing he could think of to do to make Donald stop: He picked up what must have been the quite massive bowl of mashed potatoes that my grandmother had just put on the table and he dumped it on Donald’s head. Robert immediately went quiet and Donald was speechless.

And, probably worst of all for him, everybody, except Donald, of course, started laughing. They were laughing their heads off, and Donald knew they were laughing at him. It may have been the first time, at least consciously, that Donald felt that awful feeling of humiliation, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t laugh it off because, even then, he wasn’t capable of laughing at himself. I think it some ways, this is the source of his grievance , the source of his always feeling that everything is against him and life is completely unfair—which sounds absurd because among other things, it’s completely untrue.

The bowl of masked potatoes ended Robert’s suffering, at least that night, but it also set Donald’s into motion. It was the source of his terror of being humiliated. And he developed some very strong armor and defense mechanisms so he’d never feel that way again.

Also relevant:

These 7 stories from Mary Trump’s book show Trump’s deep-rooted, strained relationship with his family (Business Insider, not archived)

Inside the ‘dysfunctional family’ that gave us Trump, according to his niece (Guardian)

—-
BP: I work with these kinds of childhood patterns, and help people make sense of them and fix them. I’m really good at it and it’s the one area that I really trust my reads and understanding.

Trump had a load of conditioning about what “winning” looks like from him his father, but the mashed potato story is key.

I continue to believe that the way to understand Trump’s actions as an adult, is to see them as efforts to not feel the humiliation he felt that day. It supercedes everything else.

Currently the Iranians are firing the world’s biggest bowl of mash-potato right at Donald’s face, and the whole world will see it land.

3 Myers Briggs is controversial in some circles, but the CIA uses it as part of its recruitment process, as did and maybe still does JP Morgan. It does seem a good guide to how people behave in organizations.

4 Given Iran’s fondness for using old equipment when it is fit for purpose, and that the ranges from the cliffs to ships would be short, they could even use good old fashioned artillery rather than fancy drones.

5 Reader Arkady Bogdanov supplied this cheery detail in comments:

I hate to point this out, but you are speaking of the effects of nuclear airbursts, and are neglecting nuclear groundbursts. A small groundburst is FAR worse, and far more persistent, than an airburst, when it comes to fallout. Groundbursts are typically reserved for the destruction of critical infrastructure- hardened industrial sites (and by sites, I mean cities where industrial production is concentrated) and…..areas known to have large military or command, control, communications bunkers. All of the important military sites in Iran are underground, and all of the Israeli leadership is hunkered down in bunkers. The reason for all of this is that a detonation in contact with or below the surface generates shockwaves that travel through the ground, rupturing anything in nearby ground surface and surprisingly deep (depending on geological/soil/amount of water saturation in the soil). Foundations are pulverized, water, sewer, and gas pipes get ruptured/collapse, buried electrical lines get severed/shorted, and subsurface cavities, such as bunkers, tend to have their roofs pushed down onto the inhabitants (unless engineered for such a strike, which is unlikely due to the costs).

Airbursts tend to cause fires and cause casualties, but preserve a lot of hardened (concrete and steel + buried) infrastructure, especially as you move outward from the hypocenter, where survival rates greatly increase for both living things and man made objects, at least the hard stuff.

I live under the likely fallout pattern for Pittsburgh, and every time tensions rose, I worried, because it was always agreed that Pittsburgh, due to the concentration of the steel industry, would be slated for a groundburst. I saw an article a couple of years ago that stated that that would no longer be the case, and I remember feeling actually relieved- A silver lining to de-industrialization, I suppose.

Anyway, groundbursts produce far more fallout due to the dust and debris that is thrown into the atmosphere- almost all of which will be contaminated, and much of this will be products with longer half-lives (I believe this is due to the high energy particle flux near the center of the detonation being able to more easily interact with more solid matter, instead of the gasses of the atmosphere.

Anyway, just wanted to point this out, as it is an important part of the discussion when it comes to fallout. Groundbursts are going to be used against hardened C3 targets, and concentrations of heavy industry. Population centers and non-hardened military sites (airbases/naval bases) will get airbursts.

6 Varoufakis uses more of his vocal range than the AI versions of him did. He is also more animated. The AI versions had a somewhat flat affect.

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340 comments

  1. Mikerw0

    Sort of watching Real Time with Bill Maher I think explains both the attitudes and complacency of our ‘elites’. His guests were Anthony Scaramucci and Lloyd Blankfein. In summary what I heard was this was a war we basically had to do, to stop Iran getting the bomb, we are winning, its almost over, Israel will be better off after, and things will quickly return to normal.

    Anyone not living in a bubble realizes that not one of those things is true.

    We’ve got similar happy talk ahead of every real crisis.

      1. JohnnyGL

        Ooooohhh…that’s a pretty good comparison. Even the timeline itself…we’re 2 weeks in.

      2. wetware_antenna

        Or as the Greek complacent media would bombard us daily during the covid years, “the next two weeks are critical”.

  2. lyman alpha blob

    Even if a military escort were successful, is the point to keep the price down, or just to keep the spice flowing as it were? Running those ships isn’t cheap and there’s no free lunch. Is the idea that the US taxpayer is footing the bill, or will Uncle Sugar be charging shipping companies for these services? Or perhaps it’s all just bluster given the extreme lack of planning for any of this.

    1. Louis Fyne

      a show of American full-spectrum dominance.

      (I think that it’s an absurd reason; but all that matters is what DC think tanks/the Pentagon-Langley/DC establishment think).

      Emperor’s new clothes, Potemkin Village, insert your favorite paleo-allegory

    2. Adam1

      It’s insanity. The convoys used in WWII were very successful, but they still lost 100’s of ships and they had the whole N Atlantic to hide in. This is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. Even if it’s deemed a success there are going to be commercial and naval ship losses. The optics are going to be very bad.

      1. Oregon Lawhobbit

        This. I mis-spent a lot of my youth buried in a variety of WWII history books (my visit to the Imperial War Museum in London was a letdown) and appreciate the section of today’s “What’s War In Iran” dedicated to escorts and convoys. As Adam1 and the post point out, this would be a “fish in a barrel” situation, with not just U-boats (and where ARE all those Iranian mini-subs????) but even field artillery able to get into play, let alone drones and guided missiles.

        Of course, maybe they could bring the old battleships out of mothballs AGAIN… ;-)

        https://www.wearethemighty.com/tactical/heres-what-happened-when-north-korea-actually-hit-an-american-battleship/

        My other wonderment has been whether or not a Coalition Of The Willing Navies might form up and spread the work, and it does seem like that’s on Trump’s “mind” at the moment:

        https://www.rt.com/news/635057-trump-securing-hormuz-strait/

        Though it seems to me that that would just give the Iranians a target rich environment, whether warships or freighters.

      2. jsn

        I don’t know much, but I don’t see how having a Navy rust bucket between that small portion of the coast it shades my ship from and my, seems to me, still uninsurable cargo gets the garden variety ship owner to sign up for this stupidity.

        So, until I see some effort to commandeer the merchant marine I’m going to assume this is just a hopium pipe dream.

      3. Mcmoody

        Very true, well said. And the marines? Far too few.. yet modern warefare doesn’t fight in battalions and brigades any more either. (Even though US cannot operationally invade anymore.) One could say the battle ship in ww1 the aircraft carrier in ww2 and the missile/drone ww3. The vaunted US carriers have become obsolete.

    3. fjallstrom

      Big if.

      MoA a few days ago linked this tweet from PressTV which I believe is Iranian:

      Alireza Tangsiri, Commander of the IRGC Navy:
      We guarantee the security of any oil tanker, under any flag, that can convince an American destroyer to escort it through the Strait of Hormuz.

      They did not guarantee the safety of the destroyer.

      1. JohnnyGL

        I presume this is trolling. It’s also negotiating.

        “The price of one tanker through the Straits is one American destroyer getting wrecked.”

        1. Oregon Lawhobbit

          The Iranians do seem to be trolling a lot. An opponent with a sense of humor and the absurd … Trump’s hair will be catching fire at the lack of respect for his authoritah. Not taking a narcissist seriously? Oh my….

    4. DGE

      One thing that hasn’t been discussed a lot, but has been mentioned, is that the shipping lanes are narrow and though relatively deep (80 m tops), if there’s a naval debacle with tankers and escorts being sunk or stranded towards the shoreline… couldn’t the wreckage physically block the strait for good? A complete block might be improbable, but even a partial block that significantly reduces the number of ships that can pass simultaneously would achieve the very outcome the West is desperately seeking to avoid.

      Some have mentioned Iran could strategically scuttle vessels to block the strait if all else fails, but my point is that something similar might be achieved in the absence of specific planning.

      1. Acacia

        Recalls 2021, when the Suez was blocked by the Ever Given grounded — expect it would be a lot longer than six days.

      3. jefemt

        Whaddya mean, absence of strategic planning? Wise guy, huh?
        Trump “Organization”. Oxymorons.

      4. jsn

        What gets the Greek ship owner to join in this madness?

        “It’s more fun to blow it up” than scuttling it?

        Lost, uninsurable cargo’s the same either way. Neoliberalism appears to be what’s under attack.

      5. redleg

        I was about to comment about this very thing. I’m glad i checked downpost.

        Any wreck in the channel will make it easier for the Iranians to target other vessels due to:
        1. Vessels passing near a wreck would have to slow down to increase response time to go around the wreck and avoid incurring damage should the wreck be struck,
        2. Reduces maneuver room in the channel for passing vessels,
        3. Gives Iran a fixed aiming point (the wreck) for low-tech unguided munitions, which then become very accurate,
        4. Reduces the area of the channel that needs to be covered by mines or missiles, which gives Iran some options: a. greater concentration of firepower in the kill zone, b. conservation of ammunition, c. redistribution of assets to other locations.
        5. Wrecks would have to be removed by salvage crews, which i can’t see being done while under fire. Any wreck is effectively permanent for the duration of the war.

        tl:dr – wrecks in the channel greatly favor Iran,

      6. Es s Ce Tera

        I assume they’d gum up the strait by not sinking ships but incapacitating them and letting them drift. The strait becomes a navigational challenge as with only 22 miles of manoeuvring space they’d need to slow and steer around drifting obstacles the size of supertankers.

        Now imagine the escorts – how do you stay in formation through these twists and turns of the collision course and then also the natural north then south course of the waterway.

        Meanwhile, ship missiles would be useless in the narrow strait where incoming has 20-40 seconds travel time to target, meaning CIWS gatlings would be the main if not only defense at about 40 seconds worth of ammo before spent.

        And likely the Iranians will be targeting ship radars. Normally in a bigger formation they’d dance the radars or use decoys to lure missiles away but in this case that’s not an option.

        The US Navy is trained and built for wide open ocean, not these close quarters conditions.

      7. ISL

        the blockage could be cleared by ordinance. Lots of ordinance. By whoever feels it’s in their advantage.

  3. jefemt

    Pondering all of this sure engenders some forays into darker nihilistic thinking… even in this old Pollyanna.

    Imagine the thinking of leaders who are concerned about jail, losing their grifted grafted ill-got gains, egos
    ( yes, I’m talking Trump, Nuttingyahoo, and the lineup of Ayatollahs).
    Add a dash of Faith and Prayer, et voici-voila!

    Slim Pickin’s bull-riding a bomb into oblivion! That’s not oblivion, it will be Heaven!
    How Exciting. Who needs Viagra ?

    Buncha effing perverse mo-fos!

  4. Ben Panga

    Am honoured to see my mash-potato theory in the footnotes :)

    I read an archived version of the WSJ article Yves breaks down above.

    The second section (Sending in Troops) is also eye-opening, and describes some but not all of the reasons it’s a very bad idea.

    The conclusion of the article contains the real nut:

    Only an end to the fighting with Iran, along with assurances from the Iranian government that it will stop attacking ships in the Persian Gulf, would be enough to resume the normal volume of traffic of more than 100 ships a day, according to military and oil and shipping industry analysts.

    Danny Davis has a video on Iranian demands, and the bit from 6:50 has Iranian Major General Mohsen Rezaei stating very clearly that the Strait should be controlled by Oman and Iran and they will stop the war only when 2 demands are met:

    1. Reparations
    2. Security guarantee which can explicitly only come from American withdrawal from Middle East

    They are not interested in negotiating with the US at all, zero percent. They know they are winning/have won. They seem very open to discussions with Gulf States about how a post-US Middle East will work. Presumably they will gradually ratchet up the pressure (economically and militarily) until the Gulf States agree.

    Trump is out of the loop. He can keep destroying things, and even (unless prevented) send 10,000s of US troops to their death, but has no real agency.

    —-

    Edit: I feel some irony, or something I don’t have a word for, typing this from Da Nang another former center of US might (in the Vietnam war)that fell back into local control as the Americans fled chaotically.

    1. Aurelien

      I increasingly wonder whether “negotiations” are really the issue here. I was surprised that people were surprised when I wrote last year that treaties, agreements etc. are only pieces of paper and depend for their effectiveness on a willingness to abide by them. Treaties etc. don’t create reality, they reflect it, and assurances from Iran, or the US, or anyone else, are only as good as the desire to abide by them. A “binding” treaty or agreement is just one that’s written in treaty (legal) language. Conversely, arrangements that reflect underlying realities and interests have a habit of lasting, even if they are not written down.

      As in Ukraine, the resolution of the crisis will be by the balance of forces. Iran will essentially be able to control access to the Straits, and on its own terms. Its neighbours will have to find ways of living with that. The US may theoretically retain a presence but will no longer be a major influence. None of this needs to be written down so long as it is clearly understood, and in fact the US and Iran may well “negotiate” an unwritten compromise informally through a third party.

      1. Ginger Goodwin

        With regard to the first paragraph: treaties like any contract freeze time and action. Arrangements are meaningless.

        With regard to paragraph 2: too early to tell but it is fairly clear that the Americans are agreement incapable. Full stop. Given the “Western” behaviour over the last 500-600 years only an idiot would shake a “Western” hand and not count their fingers when walking away.

        1. Joe Well

          The difference between contracts and treaties is that contracts have a neutral third party enforcer (the government), however imperfect. There is no world government. The UN is a joke when it comes to the US.

      2. vao

        For some historical perspective, the Persians and the Romans, at war for 681 years, concluded a number of peace treaties — notably in 299, in 387 (treaty of Acilisene), in 422, in 506 (7-year peace treaty), in 532 (treaty of perpetual peace), and in 562 (50-year peace treaty). Most, if not all, were broken.

        1. Joe Well

          But they held for at least a few years each, sometimes for decades.

          Meanwhile, for Israel, treaties are toilet paper

      3. John Merryman

        Form and substance.
        Law is form, morality is substance.
        Lives are form, life is substance.
        Lives go birth to death, future to past. Life moves onto the next generation, shedding the old, past to future.
        Consciousness goes past to future, thoughts go future to past.
        I realize this might seem totally off base, but the entire conceptual foundations of the West are crumbling, from monotheism to that “Judeo-Christian ethic.”
        Has anyone ever considered the implications of the fact that democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures? That to the Ancients, gods were as much metaphors, as spirits.
        That Ancient Israel was a monarchy and the Catholic Church served as the eschatological basis for European monarchies. Divine right of kings, as opposed to consent of the governed.
        When the West went back to popular forms of government, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics, morality and law.
        Human information processing is a survival technique, so we tend to solve problems in the most expedient ways possible, but the effect is patches over the tears in the previous patches. All. The. Way. Down.
        The mother of all reality checks is in the mail.

        1. Giovanni Barca

          Polytheism is not pantheism. The much more pantheistic Indians had monarchies and the barely theistic Confucians and Buddhists had emperors. Also the Greek democracies and the Roman republic. resemble the modern conception of these words only in their vices. Pater potestas, slavery, what’s not to love? Monotheism is not the problem here. I suspect it has something to do with a more earthly reward system.

        2. Jonathan Holland Becnel

          You know what ole Jack Burton says, “WHAT THE HELL!”

          I for one am glad at the downfall of the EPSTEIN CULTURE. I’ve always been allergic to this culture so it’s a relief to identify the cause.

          One culture crumbles and a new one is created on the fly LIVE in front of our eyes built on the blood and sweat of our forefathers & foremamas.

          Jesus – REDEEMED – love thy neighbor/forgive the debts

          Kanye West – REDEEMED – barely escaped the Epstein linked Kardashian witches. He sounds remarkably cogent in his latest interview talking about Jarod Kushner and being a handler of Trump.

          Randy Quaid – REDEEMED – I always knew that guy was cool af and appreciated his cookiness over the years.

          Michael Jackson – REDEEMED – KING OF POP – That song “they don’t care about us” is having a mini resurgence online in my twittersphere. Got for him.

          Macaulay Caulkin – REDEEMED

          CHINA – REDEEMED

          And on and on!

          The true heroes are revealing themselves in the million front war against the Epstein regime!

          Honor and Justice have reared their glorious heads for all us people of the world to see!

          After decades of secrets & lies…

          We are free again to choose our destiny, local Epstein devils be damned!

          FOR THE COMMENTARIAT & CREATORS OF NC!

        3. Henry Moon Pie

          “Ancient Israel was a monarchy”

          Ancient Israel became a monarchy against the wishes of Samuel. As for YHWH. Israel’s God summed up his attitude this way:

          Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me,

          I Samuel 8:7 (NKJV)

          A monarchy is a trap laid for the people’s hubris.

          The rest of the histories, I Samuel through II Kings echo this theme again and again.

          And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.

          II Kings 24:9 (NRSVU)

          With a few exceptions like Josiah, the kings of the northern and southern kingdoms were bums, at least in YHWH’s (Ezra’s) eyes. Their approval ratings among the populace are not reported.

          Remember, after the return from exile, even Judah with the somewhat restored Jerusalem is never ruled by a king again. Partly, that’s from their vassal state, but even Pilate is not concerned with the title, “King of the Jews.” They didn’t want a king unless he was the Messiah who would restore their power and place. They’d had enough of kings otherwise.

      4. jsn

        The Gulfs family dictatorships seem downright precious with regard to what their “self interest” might be by comparison with the EU Ideocracy.

    3. Steve H.

      In ‘How to stop a war : the lessons of two hundred years of war and peace‘, Dunnigan’s major point that I recall is that you have to keep talking to each other. Trump has a history of ghosting the bill in his business doings. I would never mediate with him, his BATNA is to pay his lawyers to drag things out in court until the other party gives up (over 4,000 legal cases before 2016).

      Iran isn’t looking to talk either. Their preconditions are materially identifiable. And like ‘denazification’, they get to set the bar on what sufficient compensation/reparations mean.

    4. Carolinian

      We thank you for the psychological approach which some of us contend is the only way to understand anything. Throughout so much of history “enlightened self interest” is bunk. Our nature as individuals is always at war with our social well being.

      And if Trump is going to start talking about using nuclear surely it’s time–finally and at last–for the decadent MSM, Europe and the ultra decadent Dems to finally step up and demand the shrinks. Where I live we get the BBC world service via NPR station, and last night they were blandly reporting Trump’s latest ravings as though they are normal. Trump does seem to pay attention to Putin as the bigger Alpha and the Russians need to make the consequences clear and save us from ourselves, ironically enough.

      1. .Tom

        If we have no choices then we have no responsibilities. This is why I reject most forms of determinism for behavior.

        1. Carolinian

          If Trump was raised to be the person that he is then that is a form of determinism with the only things opposing it being life experience, education and reason.

          Here’s suggesting that “morality” is merely a shortcut for those last three and dependent on the same factors. And so “leveling” meets its common sense justification. If one group of society has different education and experience they will lack understanding of the rest of society and act “immorally.”

          Reason has a hard slog fighting against these other factors.

      2. Socal Rhino

        The value of a treaty vs. an agreement is that it would require ratification by the Congress. That requires discussion and buy-in. It would then be harder to pretend that it never existed, and its breaking would be apparent to all domestically and internationally.

        A treaty would constrain the US only to the extent that the US retains (perhaps more accurately regains) any concern at all for its credibility in future negotiations.

        Intended to reply to Aurelian.

          1. Socal Rhino

            Agree but I don’t think it is limited to Trump or his party or branch of government. Tend to agree with Chas Freeman that we are in a post-constitutional period.

    5. John k

      In the ww2 Normandy invasion the us landed 175k troops from the sea and 24k paratroopers behind enemy lines, attacking the German beach fortifications from both sides. For the most part they were gentle beaches, western France is pancake flat. 1 boat with 2k marines are allegedly headed for the gulf? And the terrain is cliffs, many falling straight to the water and full of caves? Imo laughable and not gonna happen.
      It is quite amazing to me markets have barely moved, nasdaq down couple percent over past 15 days. I can only conclude elites are virtually all happily snug in the us/israel simply cant lose to Muslims bubble, it will all be over by April 1, fools day.
      Margin debt at all-time high, market p/e bubblicious, kindling /straw laid under massive bone-dry logs, and sparks galore!
      Happy Ides of March day to all!
      And thanks again to Yves and her elves for world-class coverage that informs readers what’s really going on.

      1. Bugs

        My friend, you have obviously not been to the Normandy coast. The D-Day landing beaches ran up right against sandstone cliffs with machine gun nest bunkers on top. The only reason the Allies managed to get past the German defenders was because the Nazis were short of manpower, expecting the invasion from further north. And then, the Allies only got to Caen – 10km from the coast – 2 months later, in August. Come and see what that war hath wrought upon this fair land. Caen, an ancient medieval city, was destroyed, razed. Not the only one.

        1. John k

          I definitely have not. Wiki mentioned 5 landing beaches, cliffs at a place called gold beach? But not at most others. They did mention barbed wire/stakes/mines, I didn’t say or think it was easy. I think I read 10k casualties, 4K dead, similar numbers among Germans.
          I did try to imply a 2k landing at the cliffs of Hormuz might not end well.

            1. Revenant

              And what’s worse, the British infantry were assigned the landing beaches leading to flat chalk downs for their march down one side of the Cotentin peninsula (with no cover from aerial attack) and the US cavalry land beaches led into the “bocage” on the other side, the rolling hills of small fields with steep hedge banks (four or more feet of mud bank plus dense hedge with trees on top) that is unique to Northwest France and southwest England. Basically impassable in a tank and unfamiliar to Yanks but home from home for the British.

        2. eg

          I was just there in September. One thing I can tell you is that one look at Dieppe after being at Juno beach and your immediate reaction will be, “WTF?”

      1. fjallstrom

        In the errata section I would like to add that I think you placed note 5 within note 4, so that the last paragraph of Arkady Bogdanov’s comment in note 4 ended up in note 5.

        And I will take the moment to thank you again, and also add thanks to the commentariat. For at least me, getting a grip on what is happening is crucial to managing stress over what is happening. That said, I shall now take my walk in the forest, another crucial part.

    2. Jeremy Grimm

      This video of Nima and Friedman deserves to be posted twice. Listening to Friedman discuss the issues I was impressed by the wisdom and depth of knowledge he presented. The contrast of his discussion with the gibbering statements by Trump, Hegseth, Rubio, and other Trump appointees and supporters stunned me.

  7. The Rev Kev

    Regarding the attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad. It looks like that it was not just a matter of lobbing a few missiles and drones at this place but was actually a bit sophisticated. An image shows that they managed to destroy a Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System and another component housed in a radar dome was also destroyed. This system is meant to destroy drones but got nailed instead.The Green Zone was built as a fortress but these days it has been turned into a potential kill box.

  8. ocypode

    The question in everyone’s minds, as noted in the post, is whether Netanyahu is alive or not. I for one will remain agnostic on the issue will confirmation is given either way (as I was for Khamenei and Nasrallah’s deaths). But leaving aside the schadenfreude many are feeling that finally Nemesis has shown up to punish the US’ and “Israel’s” Hubris, does it make any practical difference? Though of course Netanyahu was an expert politician (to a shocking degree! If he is dead, he will have died managing to avoid his corruption case), it’s not like his stance is by any means an outlier in “Israeli” society. And it’s not like a decapitation strike will end this war, since what Iran is seeking is not “regime change” but “regime end” at least as regards “Israel”.

    1. Louis Fyne

      it’s irrelevant (imo). real, lasting peace after any war comes about: (a) after both sides are exhausted; and/or (b) one side is utterly punished on the battlefield.

      If the Iranians want long-lasting peace (of course they do), the US-Israel have to be defeated in a generational-manner. Iran would be insane to accept any US-Israel cease-fire, even if a new post-Netanyahu government
      debuted tonight. (the grounds would be set for another far, just like the constant Roman-Persian wars)

      The “rational” strategy is to keep bomb Israel, cross fingers that a real Intifada metastizes in israel and/or Jordan and/or Bahrain

    2. Rui

      I think it would be a major wake up call to Israelis sense of entitlement if Netanyahu has been killed. The idea that their actions have consequences is foreign to them.

    3. Yves Smith Post author

      It would have an effect in the US. Scott Bessent being so rattled after a Situation Room meeting might be the result of learning Netanyahu was dead. It would definitely affect Trump.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Of course it might be that he had a heart attack or a stroke which is why he has hardly been seen. That cannot be ruled out. I can only imagine the infighting between the various factions in Israel if this is true.

      2. Wukchumni

        Benjamin, the two of us need look no more
        We both found what we were looking for
        With a war to call our own
        I’ll never be alone
        And you, my friend, will see
        You’ve got a friend in me
        (You’ve got a friend in me)

        Benjamin you’re always running your mouth off here and there (here and there)
        You feel you’re not wanted anywhere (anywhere)
        If you ever look behind
        And don’t like what you find
        There’s something you should know
        You’ve got no place to go
        (You’ve got no place to go)

        I used to say “I” and “me”
        Now it’s “us”, now it’s “we”
        (I used to say “I” and “me”)
        (Now it’s “us”, now it’s “we”)

        Benjamin most people would turn you away (turn you away)
        I don’t listen to a word they say (a word they say)
        They don’t see you as I do
        I wish they would try to
        I’m sure they’d think again
        If they had a friend like Benjamin
        (A friend)
        Like Benjamin
        (Like Benjamin)
        Like Benjamin

        Ben, by Michael Jackson

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7TTSzfs2kw&list=RDi7TTSzfs2kw

      3. Norberg

        If Trump thinks he was chosen by God for this mission, then I assume he thought the same about Netanyahu. So if one of God’s chosen was killed, would that make him start doubting his own divine mandate?

      4. JohnnyGL

        Right now, if Trump wants to TACO and pull US forces out and leave the airbases behind, he just about could maybe pull it off. Iran would be in an awkward spot as far as whether to open Hormuz or not. Obviously, whether the domestic political forces would let him do that is another question (they won’t let him).

        If Bibi’s actually dead. I don’t think there’s a way the US-Israel can end the war and call themselves ‘winners’.

        If they got, say, Ben Gvir, which was another rumor floating around, they might be able to move past that as he’s not as big of a household name in the US.

        1. urdsama

          Disagree on the difficulty of Iran continuing to prosecute the war if the US pulls out. Iran has already made it very clear what needs to happen for them to stop. Trump pulling a TACO does not change that stance.

        2. The Heretic

          This maybe a silly questions but,
          after smashing the early warning radars, why doesn’t Iran go after the the airfield fuel storage sites, as well as wherever aerial tankers are located… without tankers, the US and Israeli fighters cannot venture into Iran to hit distant targets, which would increase Iran’s longevity in this fight.

    4. hemeantwell

      To develop the parallel with the Ukraine debacle, apparently the eschatological Kahanist faction functions like Azov, in that they will block an Israeli retreat by assassinating wavering leaders. A recently linked article here by Sarah Kendzior implied as much. If so, then we have to consider how itchy their trigger finger is, how quickly they would move to prevent a retreat. That might be contributing to the gray pallor Mizrahi sees in the faces of the leadership.

      1. begob

        I seem to remember an audio recording of a vicious gunfight between Saudi security factions when MBS took the reins.

    5. Ben Panga

      I wonder, with no idea of the feasibility, if he could have been couped, not missiled?

      His incompetence alone might be enough to cause military / factions to step in. At least they’d have a more stable genocidal sociopath in charge of such an important war period.

      1. Bill Carson

        I can hear the chants now…

        “Bibi’s in a box, in a box, Bibi’s in a box!…”

        1. Wukchumni

          If he’s rigor mortis, can I still use Operation Bibirossa to describe this calamity, Jane?

      2. JohnnyGL

        Not clear on if it’s real or not…that said…

        It’s certainly awkward. And more awkward if it’s among the sole appearances he’s made during the war. Not to pick at Thomas Keith’s comment in which he called it ‘disjointed and rambling’, but I found it came across as insecure and attempting to reassure himself, as much as the Israeli public, in a tacit admission that things had gotten rather difficult, even more difficult than expected.

        If it’s real, someone should be able to track down the staff of the coffee shop and find out if he really came into the store that day or not. His staff may have touched up the video afterwards if he did something goofy like spilled a bit of coffee.

      3. urdsama

        Just feels off, it’s also not his style from previous reassurance videos IMHO.

        Time will tell, but I suspect at the very least he is seriously injured and they do NOT want to show that.

      1. urdsama

        Evidence is mounting this is an AI video based on a real visit to this coffee shop in 2024.

        Also, there are claims this shop has been closed since the start of the war. Finally, the weather looks nice, but the local forecast is overcast with possible rain.

        I’m not saying he is dead, but I do think he is in bad shape and can’t be shown to the public.

        1. raspberry jam

          I just watched a Netanyahu speech from a year ago and then rewatched the video Netanyahu posted from the coffee shop today. I invite you to do the same. Perhaps you notice that he looked significantly better (as in healthier and younger) a year ago, not to mention hair and skin pallor are completely different (as in more vital) even a year ago than compared to the zoom presser last week or the coffee shop video. The coffee shop video is real, it’s not AI-generated, Netanyahu looks weird and off because he is clearly not doing well (he had surgery for prostate cancer last year) in addition to the stress of being in a bunker for a couple of weeks now.

          I think it is more likely the disappearance of Yair Netanyahu off socials around the time of the last speech is because the Iranians broadcast the message that they would hunt him down and kill him in private before they issued the statement today, and Yair’s online presence is a threat to the Netanyahu’s general safety.

          All that being said, of the 5 potential options I suggested might lead to Israel stopping the prosecution of the war had 3 with Netanyahu being removed in some fashion, including by death/assassination, arrest or being couped. I think Herzog especially and a few other key officials would behave differently if Netanyahu suddenly perished or were otherwise removed. Like elsewhere in the West as per the theme of the post today, the only option for the west now is regime change. So Netanyahu’s death would provide an option for that should Herzog and the IDF wish to take it.

          1. hk

            (Disclaimer: not a serious comment)

            Why don’t Mossad blow him up and blame Iranians for it? Blowing people up is one thing they are indisputably good at.

            1. Joe Well

              Maybe that’s why he’s in the US. Bigger deal if it happens in the US than any other country short of maybe China or North Korea.

        2. Acacia

          Yes, there are claims on the Internet, but if you check the original video, you will find at 0:54 the date and time on the display reads “15/03/2026”, tho it is possible that has been somehow doctored as well, e.g., the placement of “14:59” on the display looks odd.

      2. RookieEMT

        AI videos are getting really good but they still struggle with fingers. Observant commentators on twitter say pause at about 10 seconds where he shows his hand. It looks like there are fingers behind his existing fingers, looks very off.

        Then the coffee cup. I’m not a coffee drinker but the physics of the liquid look fairly off. The coffee should be spilling a little at least. Instead it snaps a like a rubber band and doesn’t go over the top.

        That and maybe the orange lighting that drowns out his facial features and at times makes his head look smooth. It just looks ‘off’.

        For me personally, it’s the lady who smiles briefly. Not sure why she is smiling at Satan in such a sober time for Israel. Maybe they replaced the coffee lady with a mossad agent.

        I had to watch Trump’s reaction video to Charlie Kirk about five times before realizing it was AI 100%.

  9. jefemt

    Venting a bit of harbored resentment here, but some might remember Amory and Hunter Lovins, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Lovins, “Soft Energy Path” that was pretty red-hot post fuel crisis and pre-Iran Hostage/ Early Reagan?

    Basically, a thoughtful, programmatic approach to weaning from oil and getting onto a sustainable footing… in the US and globally, by a couple thoughtful scientist/policy wonks.
    Woulda coulda shoulda! Oh Shugggah!

    50 years hence, in Biblical Lands, in Biblical Times, I will go, There:
    “As a Dog returns to its vomit, so a fool to his folly” . (Proverbs 26:11)

    So, what happened? You betcha! The US Military hired Lovins as a consultant! Poof! Annnnd, he’s gone!
    Think Ark of The covenant in the last scenes of Raiders of The Lost Arc. If a tree falls….

    This mid-east / oil thingy is THE S L I C C. Beyond oil slick, it is all – encompassing slick- bombs, banks, Bazillionaires. What on earth is not to like?!

    https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/soft-energy-paths-towards-durable-peace

    Lovins title: Durable Peace? 16 seconds https://youtu.be/-Ro4DrewXHE

    1. chris

      That biblical quote is a great one for our current circumstances. I keep trying to think of a way for “our” side convince the Iranians that we actually will hold to a ceasefire if we negotiate one. But then I have to acknowledge that if we were able to do so, Israel and elements of the US government would just use that opportunity to figure out a way to attack Iran again.

      BP and others in the Commentariat have tried some armchair psychology of the players and the people involved. I don’t have the professional experience or training to speak to that. The thing this situation reminds me of are the times a friend or loved one has required an intervention. The times they were begging for someone to take away their agency so that they could find peace. The times when they were so far gone they couldn’t stop and needed to hit a brick wall and crash. Even then, when loved ones have tried everything to help, I know people who immediately went back to their demons after they left rehab. Some people just want to spend all day, every day, high.

      The US Government just wants to destroy anything it can’t control.

      I see no evidence to suggest that even if world peace were available tomorrow our leaders wouldn’t rage and scheme for another war. We will confiscate phones and computers from citizens so we can build new missiles before we stand down and accept defeat. We don’t even have the shame to go down with the ship. There will be no examples of seppuku after this. Vicky Nuland, Lindsey Graham, and others will keep telling stories about how all this would have gone better only if… and places like Harvard will put them on panels with Larry Summers to talk about “hard choices” and “deep leadership”. The dead soldiers of all nations who suffer for their failures will not be remembered by anyone who had a chance to prevent their deaths.

      And so it goes…

      1. Kilgore Trout

        Well said. The Western elite have no shame. The Epstein Class is one of several adequate descriptors for the misleadership of nihilists who have led us to this juncture.

      2. GC54

        I see recurring Iran/Israel warring until widespread internal collapse of the USA. Once Americans are focused on personal survival all DC systems stupidity will disappear. The big question to me is who will secure the US nukes. A military coup is therefore marginally more attractive than civil war.

      3. ChrisPacific

        I keep trying to think of a way for “our” side convince the Iranians that we actually will hold to a ceasefire if we negotiate one.

        In the Middle Ages, this was often managed through taking a royal offspring as a hostage against good behaviour. Perhaps Barron Trump could be shipped off to Iran?

  10. diptherio

    Just a side note: Yanis Varoufakis said that the first deepfake of himself that he saw took him a couple of minutes to figure out it wasn’t him. But I agree with Yves: at least for the time being, relatively flat affect seems to be a pretty big tell.

      1. Oregon Lawhobbit

        Listening to yourself on radio can be just as … interesting. ;-)

        “I can’t POSSIBLY sound like that, can I?”

        1. Polar Socialist

          Try seeing yourself fencing or, dear heavens, dancing… “that is not how I visualized it. At all.”

    2. Mikel

      It’s a good idea to listen to suspect videos with better headphones. It’s not only tone to listen for, but the rhythmic inflections (over processing, heavy quantization) and other audio choices. Lots of doctored videos use some kind of music instead of letting a natural environment around the subject play in the background.

    3. Alphonse

      I noticed a video was fake because he kept saying the same thing over and over with different words. It was the kind of thing Varoufakis would say, but the repetition dumbed it down compared to how he would say it.

    1. Skip Intro

      Damage to enough refueling planes on the ground or in the air will be crippling, especially if the nearby bases are being hit. It seems miraculous that Israel still has jets and runways.

      1. JohnnyGL

        I’m wondering if Iran can do enough damage to aircraft, airfields and hangars and other facilities to stop Beruit getting the Gaza treatment and provide a much more even playing field for Hezbollah to be able to engage the IDF on the ground.

        Has anyone fleshed out what Hezbollah hopes to accomplish in this war? I gather this is as existential for them as it is for Iran….but much like Iran has to flesh out what victory looks like for them, Hezbollah has to do the same.

        I figure one goal has got to be gaining renewed legitimacy in the Lebanese political context. A lot of the other non-shia parties seemed to be consolidating around the idea that Hezbollah was a liability that could get them all killed and that the Lebanese army needed to prepare to disarm them. If Hezbollah comes out of this looking like a winner, does that political consensus get broken?

        For Hezbollah, suppression of the Israeli air force (if it’s even happening) is going to be a temporary phenomenon. Once the war is over, Israel will immediately go fix all their airfields and repair planes, re-arm, re-supply. It would be a matter of time before they re-start the war to roll back any gains that Hezbollah makes in the current war.

        How does Hezbollah enforce maintenance of the status-quo once the current war is over? Do they get an iron-clad guarantee from Iran that Iran will restart the missile strikes (and shut the Straits of Hormuz again?) if Israel starts launching airstrikes on Beruit?

        Maybe pushing the US presence out of the Middle East means Israel is much more isolated in the region and can’t wage a big war against Lebanon without that extra support?

        Once this war ends, the US and Israel are going to be bitter and angry and out for revenge. How on earth do Iran and Lebanon protect themselves against that in 6 months? 12 months? 2 years?

        1. vao

          For the USA: destroy every military base, all those pharaonic embassies, all navy harbours, every single communication installation in the Near East. Basically, interdict the region to the USA.

          As regards Israel, I fear that the answer will be: by devastating the country to such an extent that it will not be able to wage a modern war, remaining at worst able to launch small-scale, minimally irritating terrorist operations.

          In other words: turn Israel into Libya, Somalia, Syria — or Ukraine.

          All of which require more than a few weeks of war.

        2. ISL

          If Israel has no water and no jet fuel and no electricity and no food, it will shortly have almost no people – just not enough water! Perhaps, like Gaza, the Israeli’s will live in camps on 1000 calories per day and a liter of water each. If the zionist population is half a million or so (and 2-3 million Palestinians surviving the genocide), Israel cannot be an advanced economic military threat if it is that small (half will be Hasidic – non-productive).

          All this scenario needs is to keep Israeli ports dysfunctional, have Hezbollah take control of northern entry points and Hamas take control of Egyptian entry points. Jordan will not survive Iran’s revenge as a western aligned regime.

          1. chris

            But when that happens, won’t the elites who have other passports just return to their other countries and invade government like what happened with the Naughtzi sympathizers re: Ukraine? So, yes, Israel’s capabilities could be destroyed. But with it’s people and connections won’t they try to get revenge via the UK or US?

            1. ISL

              I do not believe the US (the UK is just annoying) will be able to project power effectively in the 21st century – they are falling so far behind in technology and cannot rebuild their militaries without Chinese rare earths. China, OTH, has 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the US. And forget drone production.

              meanwhile the chance of the US disuniting (or losing its democracy) will be non-zero in the wake of this loss.

        3. Aurelien

          A lot of regional commentators have described Hezbollah’s intervention in the war as “suicidal.” The party was already pretty unpopular, including with the Shia populations of the South and the Beka’a Valley who have been on the receiving end of most of the attacks from Israel. It was seen as fighting Iran’s war in Syria to keep Assad in power, reviving bitter memories of the Syrian occupation that ended in 2005, and risking the destruction of the country in 2013 in support of a cause (the Palestinians) that doesn’t evoke a lot of sympathy in Lebanon. So it’s been on the back foot, and there are as many theories about why it got involved as there are pundits. The most likely, at least at the beginning, was that they felt they had to make at least a symbolic attack on Israel, so they essentially bombed a few open fields. After the violent Israeli response, things got out of control. There are also persistent reports that the IRGC has sent its own people to Lebanon to coordinate the attacks, and are now using some of the long-range and more powerful missiles which they would not let Hezbollah use in the last round. The logic is that this will help to defeat Israel by attacking from yet another direction. If that means the destruction of Lebanon, I don’t think Tehran is overly concerned, so long as they maintain a power-base there.

          Among the Lebanese there isn’t a great deal of love for Iran, which used Hezbollah to essentially prevent any political progress after 2008, and has interfered as much as any other foreign power. Some Shia will be grateful to the Iranians for providing the social services that Hezbollah administers (health, education etc.) and obviously there is some religious influence, but in terms of practical politics, I suggest that’s about it. The weakening of Hezbollah since 2024 has allowed the Lebanese system to start up again and make some progress. From their point of view, an outcome that leaves Iran, Israel and the US all weakened and less able to interfere would be a good one.

          1. bertl

            In his book on Earl Long, AJ Liebling draws an interesting comparison between Louisiana and Lebanese politics which rally defines the role of politics in non-liberal electoral democracies:

            “Louisiana politics is of an intensity and complexity that are matched, in my experience, only in the republic of Lebanon. The balance between the Catholics in southern Louisiana and the Protestants in northern Louisiana is as delicate as that between the Moslems and the Christians in Lebanon and is respected by the same convention of balanced tickets. In Louisiana there is a substantial Negro vote – about 150,000 – that no candidate can afford to discourage privately or to solicit publicly. In the sister Arab republic, Moslem and Christian candidates alike need the Druse vote, although whoever gets it is suspected of revolutionary designs.”

            If and when Israel disappears into a fable of the most outstanding of the many idiocies of the Liberal Moment, I should imagine that the horse trading of normal politics will be resumed in the Levant as every country tainted by contact with Israel rebuilds all the infrastructure that has been lost or damaged and daily life returns to some form of economic and social normality.

        4. hk

          Israel did not do themselves any favor by pulling the rug from under the feet of Hizb’ullah’s rivals, by violating ceasefires and bombing indiscrimately. They needed to convince non-Shia Lebanese that they are not Lebanon’s enemt, just the Shia.

  12. YuShan

    It’s scary that the extremists on all sides (Christians, Jews, Muslims) are welcoming an apocalypse.

    Ground burst is indeed much worse than air burst in terms of radioactive consequences. In airburst, all radioactive components simply vaporise and therefore dilute massively in the atmosphere and spread out. That is why Hiroshima was a liveable city again quite soon after the nuke. And also why the biggest bomb that was ever detonated – the 50 Megaton “Tsar Bomba” didn’t cause much radioactive fallout on Nova Zembla. In contrast, the 15 Megaton “Castle Bravo” on Bikini Atol was ground/sea burst and was a total disaster that is causing premature deaths and birth defects even today.

    As pointed out in the article, the main use of nukes today would be to take out bunkers and other underground structures, which requires ground burst. It will be a disaster if that happens. The extremists on all sides will have their apocalypse.

    2. Revenant

      I have been waiting for others to broach the topic of nuclear weapons. The US spent the 1960’s and 1970’s developing MMR’s – minimal residual radiation weapons – and low yield weapons.

      These are NOT strategic nuclear weapons, doomsday devices etc. These are the warheads for which civil use was explored (mining etc) as well as military (underwater demolition). The minimum yield is thought to be c.0.3kt I.e. 300 tonnes of conventional equivalent. These are small warheads, say 12×18 inches, weighing 55lbs, and easily small enough to put on modern missiles (US, Israeli, Russian, Iranian).

      The MRR characteristic is a result of using a minimal fission first stage and a maximal fusion stage. As I understand it, the fusion stage burns up the uranium/plutonium fission products as well as the fusion fuel (hydrogen and/or lithium isotopes). The MRR fission/fusion ratio may be less efficient in terms of bang for buck / material employed but it means the aftermath is mainly short half-life radiation from isotopes of oxygen, nitrogen, iron etc. that were bred by the neutron release of the fusion stage.

      There is a steady drumbeat of twitter commentators claiming that certain explosions in the past twenty or thirty years have been too hot, too bright, too spherical; the mushroom cloud has been too high and fast to develop; the crater left has been too deep to have been a conventional explosion. They also cite technical features of the mushroom cloud, such as “Rayleigh-Taylor instability” (the way the cloud boils upwards) and hanging “threads” below it.

      They claim that MMR’s have been used in Syria (Homs; Damascus) and Yemen by Israel, by Ukraine / USA in Russia (“arms dump” at Tver) and now by Israel in Iran (Quds last week). Some claim Iran used one in an attack this week (Nevatim airbase?).

      I don’t know if they are taking rubbish but I find some of the points hard to dismiss. The explosion at Tver is huge and instantaneous and for a supposed arm’s dump (the explanation for the blast size), it lacks any secondary detonations…. The explosion at Quds is similarly violent. And the mushroom cloud develops to stratospheric height very fast, does not dissipate or drift much, and the inner structure of the explosion looks plasma like as it climbs for ages.

      One objection is that people should be burned or blinded at the 1-10 mile distance they have captured camera footage. This is rebutted by images of US test observers at similar unprotected distance (e.g. some military observers at ground zero of a small airburst at higher altitude)

      On the other hand, there is supposed to be a characteristic double flash with nuclear weapons, which is not present in the clips I have watched. There is literature that the delay between the two maxima of blast brightness is proportional to yield and is too quick to perceive for sub-1kt yield devices.
      http://wordpress.mrreid.org/2015/04/18/the-nuclear-double-flash/

      Howevet, you would expect some third party evidence of nuclear use to be observed or subsequently reported. Where is it? The proponents says that neither side wants to admit to use/abuse and that there gave been reports but they are ignored / suppressed ( e.g. Jon Snow wrote a Channel 4 news article in 2014 alleging use in Syria that has been deleted).

      Some relevant footage and discussion from a couple of the commentators are below. I don’t really know what to make of this but it is a much more alarming escalatory path than MAD…. So I thought I’d flag it here as something to watch and see if anybody else is worried about this.

      Warning, some of the proponents of MRR use seem frankly “cracked”. Even the ones with seemingly measured views on technical points have batshit politics (virulent antisemitism or racism etc) or indulge in speculative science or attribute *everything* to MRR’s. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day and perhaps they can see through the cracks what we cannot or will not…?

      https://nitter.poast.org/drbairdonline/status/1308080370366128128#m
      (Seems sane and apolitical in this lengthy and detailed analysis of the history and possible present of MRR weapons. Red flags for me are a belief that many spectacular past events such as Bali bombings, WTC towers etc. were actually MRR’s – this belief hinges on crater size / conventional bomb size mismatch by magnitudes but it’s hard to believe nobody has noticed…).

      https://nitter.poast.org/drbairdonline/status/1642498718984458245
      (Homs and Damascus strikes, Jon Snow article claiming a tactical nuclear weapon)

      https://nitter.poast.org/cirnosad/status/2031913948514304338
      (Homs strike in Syria)

      https://nitter.poast.org/cirnosad/status/2029629437000716778#m
      (Tver / Toropets strike in Russia)

      https://nitter.poast.org/cirnosad/status/2031710425914675388#m
      (Qods strike in Iran last week)

      https://nitter.poast.org/cirnosad/status/1720201821824946492#m
      (Yemen in 2023)

      (NB: Cirnosad has good operational and strategic grasp of Iran war but is a virulent racist and anti-Semite: I am linking to his tweets only because among the sewage he has collected the “interesting” looking bomb footage in one place.)

  13. The Rev Kev

    ‘In the Indian epic Mahabharata, Yudhisthira goes looking for his missing brothers, who went searching for water. He finds them all dead next to a pond. In despair, but still parched, he is about to drink’

    Sorry but I can’t let this stand. If I was Yudhisthira I would be saying what the hell is wrong with the water and did it kill his brothers. Regardless, Katuyila talks about negotiating being the only way forward but how do you negotiate with a side that helps try to kill your negotiators and then mocks their deaths afterwards. And where would the venue be for any negotiations be? I can only think of Russia or maybe China which Trump would not like one bit. But the clock is ticking on those interceptors running out and when they are gone they are gone. Iran will have the strategic advantage then as well as the initiative. So how much pain is Israel ready to experience before they are ready to call it quits. Iran wants to defang Israel but if they manage to clear all US bases out of the region, then that would effectively happen.

      1. hk

        Which I think is at the root of “our” problems: we think that the other side is so suicidally thirsty (and also incomparably weak) that they would submit to our whims.

  14. vao

    This startled me:

    “Experts estimate it could take two ships per tanker, or a dozen ships to guard convoys of five to 10 tankers, to have the necessary air defenses.”

    For this seemed to me way above and beyond what the famous convoy system in WWII provided as escorts to ships travelling through the Atlantic or the Mediterranean.

    Fortunately, the topic has been thoroughly studied, and we have statistics about it aplenty.

    Let us take North Atlantic trade convoys from 1942 to 1945:

    Average ships per convoy / Average escorts per convoy / Route
    57 / 7.0 (New York to Liverpool)
    52 / 6.8 (Halifax to Liverpool)
    50 / 6.9 (Liverpool to New York)
    37 / 7.1 (Liverpool to Halifax)

    For troop transports, 1942-1945:

    14 / 8.6 (USA from/to Gibraltar, fast)
    59 / 9.3 (USA from/to Gibraltar, slow)
    21 / 12 (USA from/to UK)

    Now for oil convoys specifically, 1943 – 1945:

    7 / 3.5 (Caribbean from/to UK)
    19 / 6.6 (Curacao from/to Liverpool)
    28 / 6.9 (New York from/to UK)

    There were plenty of inter-American convoys as well, a large part of them dealing with oil transport. The most frequent ports involved seem to have been Guantanamo, Key West, Trinidad, Aruba, Galveston, Rio de Janeiro, New York. Overall, the statistics for all regular and special “coastal convoys” give:

    6.6 / 2.5

    The highest proportion of escort / ship I found in those tables were the 1945 convoys between Guantanamo and the UK at 5 / 4.2.

    The environement, geography, circumstances, threats, etc, are of course very different, but the fact that the current plans count on one or two escorts per ship (against typically one escort for three or four ships in WWII convoys), for convoys of 5 to 10 ships (whereas those related to oil in WWII frequently numbered 2 or 3 times those figures, and other kinds of convoys 5 to 10 times) indicates “mission impossible” to me.

    Or could it be a sneaky way for the staff officers drawing those plans to signal that this is a “no can do” to their superiors?

    1. vao

      The statistics I gave are partial; I omitted the traffic between Canada and the USA, while the UK had its own convoy system with other parts of the world not involving the USA.

      To give an idea of the scale of the logistical train that those WWII convoys represented: the convoys in the USA areas of responsbility numbered 8680, with 97677 ships (or ship trips), for coastal, Atlantic, and Mediterranean convoys.

      I bet the USA, and NATO, are totally incapable of pulling such a logistical feat any longer, even one two orders of magnitude smaller.

    2. Louis Fyne

      Hormuz is nothing like a WW2, anti-sub convoy.

      One drone team in a beat-up junker truck can drive to a bluff and hit a tanker in 10 minutes, then drive away

      1. The Rev Kev

        I notice that Trump’s idea is that naval ships from China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others would go charging under the guns, drones, missiles & artillery of Hormuz while US forces would be at 20,000 feet trying to knock out those Iranian positions as they take out those ships. I can’t see that being a winner of an idea as regards those other nations.

        1. Acacia

          Queue the generative “AI” Lego battle video of Team America at 20,000 feet accidentally bombing French and U.K. escorts, as Khamenei and Putin lower their binoculars and laugh.

          (Bonus song: Kim Jong Un solo of “I’m so Ronery…”)

          1. hazelbee

            France and the UK share the channel… and the channel is wider than Hormuz.. you can see France on a clear day from the coast..

            I used to live near there in kent. the cliffs arent that tall – maybe 100 metres. but from the top all you need are binoculars to see everything going through the channel very clearly. you can see pretty well with the naked eye, binoculars would be enough.

            Binoculars and artillery. 100+ year old tech…!

            and there is only part of the strait of hormuz that is navigable for large vessels. it would be like a shooting gallery trying to get through it.

            mmmm. nope. you broke it trump, you fix it.

      2. The Rev Kev

        Regarding that tweet-

        ‘Iraqi front group Ashab al-Kahf warned the Iraqi Navy and Defense Ministry to shut down a radar site in the Khor area within 24 hours, claiming the system is tied to the United States and remotely operated from Kuwait.

        The statement said one radar at the base had already been turned off, but threatened that the second site would become a “legitimate target” if it remained active, and urged personnel to evacuate before the deadline.
        —
        Remind me again who runs Iraq? Is it the government or Iran’s militias?’

        I myself would have said Kuwait but then again, they are only a proxy for the US.

    3. hk

      Two things: we are talking about vastly larger ships running gauntlet through a narrow body of water with hostile forces on at least one shore. A WW2 analogue might be the English Channel or Skagerrak, and the only West-USSR convoys that ran through the Baltic, via the Skagerrak, that I saw were in Hearts of Iron.

    4. Ignacio

      So, just because you mentioned it I will try discussing a bit more about the escorts. Ben Panga below has written that most, if not all, who were asked by Trump to provide for escorting warships have said “rien de rien“.

      I was reading a piece at El Pais in which they cite Charles Kupchan with deference and he says that… (quote-translate from the article):

      That said, to claim victory, [Trump] now needs to “announce the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and make a credible assertion that it has achieved its objectives”—and that, while “the threat posed by Iran has not been eradicated,” even if it has been “significantly reduced.”

      So, the political pressure for Trump to reopen the strait is somewhere between very and extremely high. If Trump, as this Kupchan seem to think too, believes that Iran is in its last legs, might give it a try to the military escorts. The rest of the world seems to be thinking differently.

      1. vao

        Oh no, the document I referred to has plenty of tables with statistics about losses.

        For the aforementioned statistics:

        Sunk in convoy / Sunk as straggler / Damaged
        242 / 84 / 29 (North Atlantic trade)
        9 / 5 / 13 (troop transport)
        6 / 1 / 4 (oil transport)
        67 / 7 / 18 (costal convoys)

        For the 8680 convoys under US responsibility, including 97677 ships, 342 were sunk while sailing in convoy, 98 sunk as stragglers, 71 were damaged.

        By comparison, British convoys during WWI numbered 1134, consisting of 16693 ships, of which 102 were sunk while in convoy.

        So the loss rate while in convoy is quite low (but some unlucky convoys did incur devastating losses). The sketchy figures proposed for the organization of convoys through Hormuz scream “don’t do it, don’t even think about it”.

        There are plenty of figures, including all losses for all allies as ships sailing alone or in convoys from September 1939 to December 1944, and some statistics for the Pacific convoys as well.

    6. elkern

      WWII Atlantic convoys *closest* distance to Nazi territory was at least 200 miles, and that was in the Western Approaches to Britain, where German bombers flying out of Norway or Brest had to watch out for RAF. Those Escorts were defending against only one kind of threat: submarines. (Convoys to Murmansk had to deal with a lot more German bombers, flying out of Norway)

      For Persian Gulf shipping, the *furthest* distance to Iranian territory is 20-30 miles, and every ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz will spend many hours within 10 miles of the Iranian coast. Any escorts will be attempting to defend against many different kinds of weapons. I just hope the US Navy Brass has the, uh, brass to say No to any such “plan”.

    7. jrkrideau

      The Atlantic convoys were in an ocean and against a limit number of U-boats. First a u-boat had to find a convoy, then get into an attack position and fire. In the mean time escorts could counter-attack.

      A “convoy” through the Strait means a line of ships proceeding on a precisely known path and speed and the Iranians will already have registered their firing patterns.

      I’d think that the Iranians, almost literally, could not miss a VLCC moving at maybe 20km/hr and completely unable to maneuver. Think skeet shooting but easier.

      1. hazelbee

        20km / h

        so… roughly ebike pace, Like leisurely cycling through the straits of hormuz.

        or a very very fast long distance running pace.

        but instead of a 2 m x 1.5m high target you are an absolutely huge tanker.

        Anyone on the coast could break for lunch, brew a coffee and a sandwich, do the crossword .. and you are still visible to the eye and still working your way past that vantage point.

        madness isnt it?

        I have to do a little calibration when reading about the straits vs the air conflict. There are 2 orders of magnitude difference in the speeds! 20 vs 2000.
        and thats without even including the hypersonics

  15. mrsyk

    Interestingly, in Israel, if the prime minister becomes unable to fulfill duties the job goes to the designated Alternate Prime Minister. At this time this position is vacant setting up environment that promotes internal rivalries if a leadership transition is on the horizon.

      1. mrsyk

        And, from DJG’s second comment below,

        —The weakness of those who manage by chaos is that they will not put successors in place,

  16. Will

    > There is no “institutional behavior” under Trump

    A few days ago on Judging Freedom with Judge Napolitano, Col Wilkerson confirmed this point, at least with respect to the National Security Council, based on a recent lunch meeting he had happened to attend. Starting at 5:30

    https://www.youtube.com/live/7s8lzDmV2e0?si=bI5HXZyuKlqKyYYR

    From the YouTube transcript at 6:06:

    Here’s how this government works. Marco Rubio does not do a national security advisor’s functions. He does not discipline the process. No else does either. What happens is Trump either calls the cabinet officer in question like Scott Bessent at Treasury over to the Oval and he has a meeting with him and whatever Scott Bessent tells him and whatever Trump tells him in return becomes US policy. It is not vetted with anyone else and that happens with everyone in the cabinet if Trump deigns to talk to them otherwise they are completely on their own. So there is no unifying factor in this government. Certainly not the statutory one. There is nothing but Trump.

    Probably safe to assume this applies generally and not just with the NSC.

    1. Revenant

      Per my comment last night, my brother in law worked with Bessent and this describes Bessent’s modus operandi too. It”s quire probable that everybody involved respects might makes right decision making….

  17. DJG, Reality Czar

    Notes on Italy. {I will rely on commenters from Italy like gk, Maxwell Johnston, and BillS for further clarifications.]

    It does appear that Italy will pull out the 100 soldiers who were (stupidly) sent to work with the US of A in Iraqi Kurdistan. When the Italian public found out about that little stunt, it did not go over well.

    Italians have a very practical reason for not taking sides: Italians more or less lead the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon, which is meant to keep the peace in Southern Lebanon. Italians are quite proud of the mission, yet taking sides would mean disaster for the Italian soldiers (and troops from several other countries).

    So this is important in understanding Italian maneuvers, per Alon Mizrahi: “Or maybe the interceptors were running low, but just today Israel suddenly publicly admitted that they were running out of interceptors…and a major ground operation in Lebanon is being discussed, which Israel cannot carry out, because he doesn’t have the means, the manpower, he doesn’t have the ability.”

    Further, the Iran war has caused a split in the majority coalition. The Lega is generally opposed — as well as to the Ukraine Adventure. Forza Italia, fief of the Berlusconi family, is straddling the fence. Tajani is foreign minister and has made some tremedously obtuse comments. Marina B., heiress extraordinaire, has indicated that she is not amused by this war. Meanwhile, the Fratelli d’Italia are all over the place. The defense minister Guido Crosetto (alas, also a child of the Undisclosed Region) got caught in Dubai when the war broke out. No one knows why he was there. And so on.

    BillS posted in yesterday’s war summary a speech by Riccardo Ricciardi of the 5Stars. The 5Stars are opposed to all of the wars, and Ricciardi has been fiery lately. Giuseppe Conte likewise, although Conte is a lawyer and doesn’t have Ricciardi’s experience in theater. Nicola Fratoianni and Sinistra Italiana oppose all of the wars, as do the Italian Greens, who, with Bonelli, haven’t turned into the mess that the German Greens are.

    Partito Democratico? Poor Elly Schlein. She’s trying. But she, too, has been to Party School, and she seems to think that what Italy needs is some combutta of AOC, Hillary “Inflict Pain” Clinton, and Elizabeth the Plan Warren. Ciofeca, as the Italians say.

    The situation, as ever in Italy, is changeable and involves much local action that is hard to track down. Some activists near Pisa / Livorno stopped and turned back a train with military matériel. People are tracking the major U.S. base at Sigonella — and it isn’t clear if there is a great uptick in flights. I have yet to see an article on what’s going on at the big U.S. base at Aviano. (With its not-so-secret nukes.)

    BillS? You’re near Aviano. Please advise.

    1. BillS

      Hi DJG. Yes, there has been quite intense activity at Aviano these days. Lots of cargo planes and, almost every day, I hear fighter planes in the sky doing manoeuvres over my house. Every now and then, I see one of those chubby dual rotor military flying bananas thub-thumping overhead. Lord knows what they are carrying.

      I do not like being in such proximity to a US/NATO nuclear base. At least there is a string of mountains between me and them that might deflect the bulk of the blast wave of a nuclear detonation over our heads..and we are, for the most part, upwind.

      The general feeling in this part of Italy, which skews business conservative, is that these wars are folly that has disrupted much profitable business with Russia and the Middle East. Energy and raw material costs are through the roof. Even the glassblowers of Murano, who for the last 700 years plied their trade on their famous island, can no longer afford to keep their furnaces going.

    2. Maxwell Johnston

      Nice to see that Meloni called it an illegal war. Especially as Trump considered her to be one of his closer Euro allies, ideologically speaking. Good for her. Obviously the Italians want nothing to do with this unholy mess, as they already have enough economic pain to go around. I paid 130 euros to fill up the car with diesel on Friday…..ouch.

      I haven’t noticed any increased military activity in Tuscany. Unfortunately, we do have Camp Darby near Pisa and Livorno (easily seen from above when flying into Pisa airport). No nukes (so they say), but it is allegedly one of the USA’s largest conventional ammo dumps overseas. It’s been there since the 1950s. Haven’t heard any serious talk about closing it down or (gasp!) sending the Yankees home. Italians remain broadly fond of the USA, despite Trump. Old habits die slowly.

  18. Tom Stone

    Trump is not sane, no sane person would initiate a Nuclear exchange.
    IF, and it is a very big if, Trump can be restrained from destroying the World in a fit of pique I expect him to crack down hard at home.
    Which might not go smoothly, to put it mildly.
    Trump turns 80 in a few Months and he is acting as though he were a God, immortal and omnipotent.
    When reality intrudes he throws a tantrum and lashes out at anything and anyone he percieves as weaker without regard to the consequences.
    More succinctly, he is barking mad.

    1. Joe Well

      One wonders why our infinitely wise Framers did not set a maximum as well as minimum age for the Presidency.

      That would be a popular amendment. It could be indexed to median life expectancy as well to account for any hoped for medical technomiracles.

      1. earthling

        They wisely provided an impeachment process that would not succeed lightly. They assumed the Senate would always be filled with 60% rational people who would remove a felon or madman when necessary. A later generation added the 25th amendment in case of incapacitating illness. Neither generation predicted the cowardly bribe-taking morons who now occupy seats in the Capitol.

        Using the age logic, we would put Buffett out to pasture in favor of the likes of Zuckerberg, laying off Bernie for the likes of Charlie Kirk. I just don’t think it’s all about age.

        Congress can rewrite its own rules every two years. It chooses to place all power in the hands of useless committees and the old dinosaurs clinging to power, pushing through or bottling up legislation at the whim of any old ‘leader’ in place. The hell with one-man-one-vote for the representatives of the people. It chooses to run the government with 900 page omnibus garbage cans passed in the dead of night. It chooses to take bribes to fund its campaigns. It is a rotten institution, and no amount of age limits or term limits will fix it if there is no leadership wishing to solve its own problems.

      2. Jeremy Grimm

        I think the Framers of the u.s. democracy wanted to believe they had built a system of government checks and balances that would remove the insane or wildly incompetent from their elected or appointed positions in government. I also believe the Framers wanted to believe the Populace would not elect or follow leaders who were insane or wildly incompetent, and the Framers hoped such candidates for office would not be placed up for election.

          1. Jeremy Grimm

            I believe your reference captures the feelings of one faction of the Framers of the u.s. democracy. Concern for the portent of a rabble democracy motivated the checks and balance system. But I am skeptical that the Framers of the u.s. democracy were infallible. Indeed, I believe that is why the amendments were added to the Constitution. There have been many developments the Framers could never have anticipated or fully compensated to restrain such as the exceeding power of wealth in purchase of law and government. The whims of the rabble are one problem but to me the wealthy are a much more concerning problem, especially at the present moment.

        2. dingusansich

          Benjamin Franklin, from his speech to the final session of the Constitutional Convention, just before the signers affixed their names:

          I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

          Also Franklin: When asked what form of government the convention had agreed upon, a monarchy or a republic, he answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

          Let’s just say the optimism was qualified.

          1. DGE

            I’ll use the chance to recommend Ferdinand Lundberg’s classic Cracks in the Constitution. Amazing eye-opener, the passages showing the contempt John Adams showed for it and how he thought the framers had basically plagiarised his state charter (was it Virginia?) are worth a good laugh.

            It used to be super-hard to find, but Anna’s Archive has it.

      3. jrkrideau

        No one had upper age limits in the 18thC that I know of. Ninety-nine percent of the time the incumbent died before it was an issue.

    2. Trees&Trunks

      Alex Christoforou mentioned yesterday that he is getting scared by Trump’s rethoric.
      It seems indeed as if he is moving towards the nuke.

      I think it would be useful if China turned off the taps, called Pentagon and told them that absolutely nothing leaves China for the USA until this unhinged administration has been military-couped away. China seems to be the only ones that can squeeze the balls of the USA until a falsetto and ”ok,ok, ok!”

      1. vao

        There is quite a lot of speculation about why Bessent looked and acted so distraught after his meeting with Trump (when his interview interrupted), and why his immediate comments upon resumption of the interview where that he was certain his son would do ok in war.

        Some have suggested something bad happened to Netanyahu.

        Could it be instead that during the impromptu meeting Trump made it very clear he was ready to unleash atomic hell upon Iran unless some specific favourable events did not take place by a certain date? Or perhaps the Israelis have informed Trump that they are itching to nuke Iran — with an identical effect on Bessent.

        Anybody would be distressed when realizing that their military operation has just raised the prospect of a nuclear war from an infinitesimal, negligible probability to a Russian roulette one.

    3. Jeremy Grimm

      Without judging Trump’s sanity, I thought Janta Ka’s image of Trump as a monkey with a razor was most apt.

    5. John k

      When Goldwater mentioned using ‘tactical’ nukes his candidacy was over. Smart dems (contradiction of terms? Rarely seen outside of zoos) will tar and feather trump on that.

  19. DJG, Reality Czar

    As ever, I am somewhat skeptical of the psychological analysis. So I encourage all to take it with a grain of salt, as much as I appreciate the descriptions by Ben Panga and Yves Smith.

    My take on Trump is always through his behavior. Maybe I’ve spent too much time writing scripts.
    —He manages by chaos. This is self-reinforcing. Even people without the psychological damage that Trump has, as the Poor Little Rich Boy, manage by chaos. It’s cheap. It’s easy. It maintains hierarchy. Trump likes hierarchy.
    —The weakness of those who manage by chaos is that they will not put successors in place, which is widely considered the test of a good manager. So it is no surprise to read that Trump’s Cabinet is the most incompetent ever.
    —Trump is an expert at seeking out weakness. He fancies himself as especially good at spotting weaknesses in others. Even Netanyahu?
    —Hence: Trump’s paranoia about his health and about giving out information about his health.
    —Conversely: He’s overdue for an organ failure.

    Of course, I’ve written this as a Myers-Briggs ISTP. So there. Have at it.

    I will now go back to consulting the tarot cards. Which are surprisingly good at showing the current situation.

    Grain of salt delivered. Many thanks to Yves Smith for the great daily summaries and to the commenters for adding so much significant information and so many insights.

  20. ThirtyOne

    Remember the “death” of Ayatollah Mike?
    https://mahendrarajah.com/2024/06/17/irgc-and-the-death-of-cias-ayatollah-mike/
    Murky rumors about the crash, alleged to have been caused by “missile 358”.
    Scuttlebutt is currently suggesting 358’s big brother, 359 may have caused the “crash” of the refueling tanker.
    https://www.armyrecognition.com/focus-analysis-conflicts/army/defence-security-industry-technology/exclusive-iran-unveils-359-loitering-drone-capable-of-targeting-awacs-and-refueling-tankers-at-high-altitude

    1. Carolinian

      Larry Johnson says that the two KC-135s were flying close to each other and one pilot spotted an AD missile coming up and his evasive maneuvers struck the other plane. He presumably has an inside source for this.

      In the Vietnam war the B-52 pilots called the SAMs “flying telegraph poles.”

  21. hk

    Well, if Netanyahu is no longer of this world, I imagine Trump now needs to pressure God to arrange a pardon for him?

    1. JohnnyGL

      Don’t be silly, Trump will not care about Bibi. There’s no honor among thieves. On his way to the afterlife, he’ll be focused solely on keeping HIMSELF out of harms’ way.

  23. lampoon

    This is an interesting SubStack piece explaining the roles of the different crude oil types and natural gas energy in the refining process. The author’s thesis is the elimination of the Gulf crude cripples the ability of the refining process to produce the middle distillates (diesel, jet fuel, & heating oil) which he calls the ‘maintenance engine’ of the global industrial and logistical machine. I do not know if his forecasting on the economic effects of this are plausible, but I had not seen this explanation of the refining process before.
    Link: https://substack.com/home/post/p-190383417

    2. Polar Socialist

      I did see a claim (sorry, can’t remember where) that especially the Iranian crude is in the sweet spot of being neither too light nor too heavy, so the refineries in other Gulf countries have always provisioned some amounts to improve the efficiency of their columns.

  24. hazelbee

    I cant reconcile the bbc live news feed with al mayadeen and aljazeera.

    this morning there were two separate entries on bbc live stream.

    one at 9:50ish saying there had been 5 waves of missiles from Iran in the previous 9 hours

    one at 11:30 ish saying another wave inbound.

    I make that 6 waves of missiles from iran to Israel in less than 12 hours. the other two sources don’t claim anywhere near that many waves. So what is the story there? How are people counting “waves”?

    it’s tempting to write a bit of software to track all this. and a quick check finds some already out there
    . i wont link them as I cant vouch for them, both have that vibe coded look and feel. and the stats in both look to just take the news as fact. i.e. they are propaganda trackers.

    is there really a change in narrative?

    what are we about to be “sold”? !

    (and its been said many times but thank you to yves, mods, commenters for this site. keeping me somewhat sane right now!)

    1. redleg

      I wonder if the “waves” are related to air defense saturation or operational pauses between AIPAC airstrikes? I suppose it could be both.

      1. raspberry jam

        if you read the daily Times of Israel live blog they speak of the daily waves of Iranian ballistic waves. It has been 5-7 per day it seems for a week or so now. Smaller/shorter barrages, but the sirens are very disruptive. They are being aimed all over the country and Lebanon is using larger missiles to hit Central Israel (see Aurelien’s comment above mentioning the possibility Iran is sharing larger missiles and/or coordinating with Hezbollah).

  25. Trees&Trunks

    I don’t use X so I can’t find and repost the tweet. Have only seen a screen shot of @SprinterPress stating that Iran has now started a man-hunt bombing specific addresses of politicians, militaries, pilots, commanders etc.etc.
    Not one day too early. I wonder if Iran can denazi… dezionistify Israel. Or Is Zionism too well-anchored in the UK and the US to be eradicated just down there?

    1. chris

      Zionist adjacent structures are all well embedded in US business. Zionist favorable thinking is very embedded in US political thinking.

      Good example of business related stuff is just about anyone dealing with government contracts or foreign entities will need to take “anti-boycott” training so that they know dealing with countries that seek to boycott labor or goods from Israel is capital “I” Illegal in the US. For a political example, take Joe Biden – senile and drooling, he still understood that he needed to cozy up to Israel in order to do anything.

      And then there are all the fools who espouse Holocaust denial in the US. Everytime that happens all reasonable people need to acknowledge the Holocaust did in fact happen and that Auschwitz was not a sleep away camp for happy Jewish people. This crazy denial stuff pops up with such regularity that it makes you wonder if the Israelis start it off to engage reflexive sympathy in the US populace everytime Israel does something stupid. But, I am forced to admit that even if that were true, the US is full of so much stupid, that we can be said to have a controlling interest. So it’s probably true that such things rear their ugly heads when world events occur and Israel doesn’t need to do anything. Anyone saying anything positive about Jews on the internet is bound to bring out the Naughtzis in the comments.

      So, I don’t know how we get to a leadership environment where the US is not full of Zionist people.

      2. Giovanni Barca

        The events of the Hitler era were not unique. Horrible dreadful. Not unique. Either genocide is bad or it is not. Don’t like the word? Ok–murder, systematic theft, displacement, etc. Bad? Yes? Then it is alwys bad. As long as the “denial” is limited to a privileged event, the problem atoll stands. The event needs to lose its aura. Or it needs to share that aura with Gaza, with the Pequots and the Natchez and the Herrero (bonus: same ethnic villain!) And every potential Amalek

        1. chris

          So that is an interesting conversation that I was not aware western civilization needed to have until we supported the destruction and genocide in Gaza. There is a strain of commentator in the US and other countries who maintain that genocide and Holocaust are uniquely Jewish and cannot be applied to other peoples, times, or events. They may agree that Gaza was an ethnic cleansing operation but they will never agree it was genocide. Or a holocaust.

          Which is all amazing to me. I thought the entire reason I was taught about the Holocaust and nationalism and Naughtzism was so that I, as a good citizens, would not allow it to happen again. I feel so silly now that I’m told it is OK for it to happen to other people as many times as necessary if those people happen to be enemies of Israel :/

    3. Revenant

      Iran has started posting videos doxing Israeli Airforce pilots who bomb them. Name, address, mobile number etc.

      Iran has a great comms team….

    4. John k

      Imo in Ukraine before the war Azov adjacent only got a tiny fraction of the vote, a few %. In israel I recently saw a poll/that 73? Think the war with Iran was necessary. De-zionify the country without removing them all might not be possible.

  27. Tom Stone

    I just took a look at “SFGate” the online site of SF’s fishwrap.
    No mention of the War with Iran.
    None, nothing to see here, move along.

  28. Expat2uruguay

    Many in the alt media are saying that Iran has full control of the straight of Hormuz because they will only let ships past which they approve. But it is a leap to say that ships approved by Iran can pass freely.

    I know it’s shocking to think, but can’t the US bomb the ships that have Iran guarantees?

    1. Doggo

      Yes they can, but for the moment USA is not choosing to bomb oil tankers.

      Alexander Mercouris has been saying for the past few days about how he is completely astonished and amazed that USA isn’t seizing Iranian oil tankers that are delivering oil to China and India. After all, USA has been seizing tankers belonging to the “shadow fleet” carrying Russian oil or is affiliated with Russia without any qualms or hesitation whatsover, showing zero concerns about the illegality of their actions (which is just straight-up piracy). So why aren’t they seizing or sinking Iranian tankers going to China?

      Well the obvious answer is that Trump doesn’t want to spook the oil markets any more than it already is. If you take out X amount of oil that Iran was delivering to China, that’s X more oil that China has to buy on the open market which will obviously raise the price of oil that much more.

      1. Acacia

        This, yes. The parallel efforts to release world oil reserves and have the U.S. Treasury start manipulating the price of oil make it clear they are very worried about markets.

    2. Samuel Conner

      US interdicting 3rd-nation ships that are neither aligned with Iran nor involved in the anti-Iran “coalition” would place US at odds with an awful lot of nations. One can imagine US doing this under notional legal cover of preventing sale of Iranian oil. I imagine that this would do wonders for DJT’s notional attempts to recruit naval powers to his side for purpose of maintaining free transit through the Hormuz Strait.

    3. Al

      I’m sure the markets will love that. Also that would lead to open season on American or American linked merchant ships and even land based assets.

      And China stops shipping to the US completely.

    1. Kilgore Trout

      Not for the first time, I am unable to link to the Haaretz piece (“404 Forbidden”), but have no trouble getting the hasbara from Jerusalem Post.

      1. David in Friday Harbor

        I’ve got access to Haaretz through AppleNews, which is bundled with my other Apple services. I’m an avid reader because it’s about the only “opposition” publication anywhere in the English-speaking world — even under military censorship! I also recommend reading +972 Magazine another Israeli “opposition” publication. Their most recent article is about the censorship described above: https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/

        Zionism once came in many flavors and still often reflects the traditional Mosaïc morality of Judaism/Christianity/Islam over the fascistic moral expediency of Revisionist Zionism and of the Dispensational Millennialists who hallucinate that their “cheap grace” exempts them from the Ten Commandments.

        Re: some of the above comments, I own a copy of Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough and read it nearly a decade ago. DT is a sociopath and a nihilist who now sees his own death approaching. He is a very dangerous man and the last person we should have entrusted with nuclear weapons.

  30. Doggo

    Interesting new post from Larry Johnson’s Sonar21. It’s not in Yves’ links for today but perhaps it should be.

    https://sonar21.com/trump-is-trapped-but-doesnt-know-it/

    Summary: the reason Netanyahu and Trump were so certain they would win Epic Fury quickly and Iran wouldn’t get a chance to close the Strait of Hormuz is that Mossad had recruited one of the top generals in IRGC named Esmail Qaani, who was the replacement for Soleimani (after Soleimani was murdered by the USA in a missile strike in Jan 2020). It was Qaani who gave the Israelis intel about an upcoming meeting which led to the decapitation strike that killed Khameni and much of the top leadership of Iran. Qaani was then supposed to step in and fill the leadership vacuum and deliver Iran to the West; all of this was pre-arranged. Fortunately the security apparatus in Iran found about about Qaani’s actions during the first few days of the war and Qaani was liquidated.

    Don’t know if this is really what happened, but it would be consistent with past US behavior. And of course this is exactly what they achieved in Venezuela a short while ago. Evil empire indeed.

    1. Revenant

      I won’t be able to find the post easily but there was a similar claim on twitter – I don’t remember if there was a name stated, though – that a top military official had joined but then left mandatory meetings that were then bombed on at least two occasions and had been uncovered as working with Mossad.

    2. Lefty Godot

      Rumors of Qaani being arrested as a Mossad agent showed up during the 12 day war and then again last week. Unclear if there is anything behind this or if it’s a psyop.

      1. Doggo

        As of 5 days ago, stil no signs of Qaani anywhere:

        https://www.ynetnews.com/article/h1xzvh6tzg

        Could be that he’s just hunkering down and doing his normal duties. Or maybe he really was spying for Mossad and he got eliminated. Hard to say at this time.

        Many have noted in the past that this guy seems to have a habit of surviving Israeli/US strikes that kill other Iranian figures around him.

        1. Lefty Godot

          I’m only somewhat doubtful because I’ve seen the claim about Qaani’s arrest along with other rumors that cropped up at the same point in the 12 day war, e.g., that David Barnea had been killed by an Iranian strike. Neither seemed to have been true back then. Might be true this time, but we may have to wait another week or two to find out. I think if the war persists much beyond next weekend with the current level of attacks on Israel still going on, the entire Empire media facade will radically change. For instance, either the media or Congress will start looking for scapegoats in the administration in a big way. And people like Carlson, Massie, and MTG will start looking like shining adornments for a possible 2028 Republican presidential ticket.

          1. Tim N

            I actually think Vance is going to be President well before the elections, and that he’ll pick Gabbard as his VP. I dont see how Trump makes it till the end of this year. He might not make it to the summer. There is absolutely no way that Massie or MTG will be allowed anywhere near the Presidency by the Ruling Class. Both of them, especially Massie (a gun nut Christian libertarian) have a lot of baggage. Its like imagining AOC has a shot. Remember something here: ninety-five percent of all votes are counted/cast on machines/computers with proprietary software. There’s a reason for this, a very good one: why would a very powerful Ruling Class/Money Power take a chance with actual democratic choices? They despise democracy. Nothing works better than a sham election either; the whole election cycle is a fraud, something designed to keep the citizenry busy here in Democracy-land.

            1. ACF

              I hope Trump is gone before November. If Vance becomes President, his VP has to get a majority vote in both chambers. I don’t think Gabbard does.

              I’m an election worker in Suffolk County, New York. I have been since November 2020, the Covid-19 general election (wasn’t just “covid” yet, still new). Election workers tended to be elderly, and they were particularly vulnerable. Working the election means sharing air with a lot of strangers for hours. So election workers refused to work the November election in droves. I was in my 40s, so I volunteered.

              We used paper ballots, voters filling in ovals, and then running them through a counting machine–a Dominion tabulator–that was not connected to the internet.

              The paper ballots and memory cards from the tabulators would go under seal with chain of custody docs to Town Hall, where police protected the loading of Suffolk County Board of Elections truck by a bipartisan team. (Everything is done in a bipartisan team.)

              Similar handoffs happened throughout the county. All the trucks drove to the offices of the Suffolk County Board of Elections, where the paper ballots were stored and the memory cards read and the data made public.

              This year we are using new machines, electronic machines, with a user interface that feels a bit ATM. When the voter votes, they put a blank paper ballot into the machine, make their choices, tell the machine to print the ballot. The voter can see the printed ballot through plexiglass. If the voter agrees the printout is right, they push a button and the paper goes inside the machine. If the printout is wrong, or the voter changes their mind, they can push a button and have the paper come out.

              The interface prevents voters from making the mistakes that cause people to spoil ballots; at my polling place–I run a polling place now–a dozen people might spoil a ballot or two by making errors called “over voting” (picking more than one candidate for an office, or picking the same candidate on two or more party lines (NY has fusion voting)) or “ambiguous marks” which means they didn’t fill in the bubbles right in a way, and sometimes that can’t be fixed, as well as just voting for the wrong candidate or ballot proposition answer by accident.

              I’m cool with all that, think in those ways the machines are a big improvement. They also cut down on the steps in the voting process.

              Right now, people check in and get a receipt at the first table, that they trade for a ballot at the next table. They take the ballot to a privacy booth, and then over to a tabulator. They feed their ballot into the tabulator and leave. With this machine, people check in and get handed a blank paper ballot. They go to a machine, put it in, make their choices, push a button to cast their ballot, and vote.

              But this year, the tabulator will count a barcode on each ballot that corresponds to the name the voter chose, rather than the name. That invites distrust.

              Machines go through logic and accuracy testing and are secured before elections, so there should be no problems.

              But fear and distrust would note that the kind of fraud that barcodes can theoretically enable is insider fraud. Perhaps they’d think:

              If the codes were flipped so a vote for one was counted as a vote for the other in some election districts–perhaps swing election districts with close totals but the momentum going the other way, so absent flipping your side likely loses the election district, but the flipping isn’t obvious enough to raise red flags–perhaps a state or local election could be affected. I don’t know enough about how the machines work to know if there’s another way tied to the barcode that could facilitate fraud. Any tampering with the counting software would impact the results whether it was counting barcodes or names.

              Again, I don’t know how someone would actually do it because machines are tested and then secured, and the paper ballots do exist to be audited.

              There are other voting machines that have truly profound flaws, a group called Verified Voting has a lot of info.

              1. Bugs

                I voted in France in our municipal elections today. I signed in and showed my ID and electoral card, took a paper ballot with the names of the party list, put it in an envelope, dropped it in a locked plexiglass ballot box. The ballot worker checked off my name from the elector list and announced it out loud, “(Bugs) a voté.”

                The boxes are opened at 7pm and the ballots are counted in public. No machines.

                1. Pat

                  And this version eliminates at least three problematic points that I see in the new Suffolk County version.
                  But then I live in NY, a state that has systematically made ballot access increasingly difficult during my time here. Something which shows that my political “betters” definitely do not want voters having any power to step outside the norm. I no more trust the tabulation programming for NYC’s current electronic system than I trust that Cuomo wanted to be mayor of NYC in order to make it better for the majority of its denizens.

                  While I do trust that ACF means well, the adoption of any method that moves the counting of votes from paper ballot counted by hand in public is never going to fly for me. Any system where the tabulation has to be programmed is rife with opportunities to manipulate the count. And divorcing the actual ballot from paper marked by the voter does as well.

                  1. ACF

                    I appreciate that you do trust I mean well, thank you. We don’t, and haven’t, had hand counting of ballots in Suffolk County (other than a per-election audit of a statistically relevant subset of machines) in as long as I can remember–I’ve been voting in Suffolk County since 2007, and then through last year it was on bubble-filled paper counted by tabulators. Suffolk County has 1.5 million people, don’t know but I’d guess 1 million registered voters.

                    Accurately hand counting that many ballots is a challenge, given the way we vote. By way we vote, I mean, picking individual candidates and answering individual questions on the same piece of paper. The France description above sounds like involves counting a piece of paper, not individual votes on the paper. (Not sure what “a paper ballot with the names of the party list, put it in an envelope,” means.) It’s much more challenging to accurately hand count several million votes scattered across perhaps a million pieces of paper than it is to count pieces of paper.

                    Arizona does a large scale hand count each election, but it’s a subset, nowhere near every ballot.

  31. hamstak

    “There is no “institutional behavior” under Trump.”

    One might argue is that there is “mental institutional behavior”.

    2. Ann

      Tehran on Sunday promised to kill Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran continued to threaten oil supplies in the Gulf.

      “IRGC vows to pursue and kill ‘child-killer’ Netanyahu if he is still alive,” Iran’s IRNA news agency said in a post on X, referring to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Rumors that the Israeli leader was dead circulated over the weekend, prompting his office to issue a statement calling the reports “fake.”

      (part way down the page)

      https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/15/iran-war.html?taid=69b6941656707400019601c2

  33. Steve Ruis

    Re “Recall that Iran has lived up to all of its promises of how it would prosecute the war. One was that it would close the Strait for at least two or three months. China no doubt got that memo”

    Did I miss something? Yesterday I heard the Iran granted Chinese oil tankers a free pass through the strait of Hormuz (in gratitude for all of the material support provided by China).

    2. ISL

      China has built up huge reserves – some say 1.2-1.3 billion (capacity could be 2 billion). Kevin Walmsey suggests even more is likely and unknowable. Of course no one knows how much oil may be coming in from Russia. Meanwhile, rapid electrification is reducing the need for oil for transportation.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5nEpSjDt6M

      easily enough into 2027 – even if they get nothing from Russia and Iran and others.

      1. Louis Fyne

        seize a China tanker, PLA Navy can seize a Taiwan-bound LNG carrier. TW only has an 11-day supply of LNG as its baseline. it needs 11 LNG shipments per month

        maybe someone in DC got that through their numb skull

  34. Samuel Conner

    I suppose that this,

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/victor-davis-hanson-discusses-possible-outcomes-of-the-us-israeli-conflict-with-iran/vi-AA1YDmY0?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69b6c9ca69f8475381818f54c1851c78&ei=77

    (Victor Davis Hanson opining that US will win the war; only question is whether we will allow an end state that permits Iran to rearm over time)

    is the kind of war coverage that the FCC prefers.

    I don’t agree with Hanson about many things, but I thought he was an intelligent, alert person. No mention of war censorship in Israel and the difficulty this causes for assessment of progress of the conflict.

    1. jefemt

      I am suspicious of folks using three names. Seems like compensation and self-aggrandizement.
      But that’s just me… no sour grapes– I am THE chief of empty!

    3. ilsm

      VDH is very popular at instapundit…… and Fox News.

      Having read Thucydides I am not sure I agree with him on the Athenian assault on Sicily.

    4. hk

      Hanson has proven himself to be a partisan hack with no integrity with the way he shifted his position on wars depending on who was in the White House since the W administration.

    5. Tim N

      Hanson has been raving about these things for decades now; he’s a crazed Christian academic who, decades ago, was an historian of some note, but that was another lifetime. He often lectures at Hillsdale College, a Christian madrassa in Hillsdale, Michigan.
      My mother was assumed to be some kind of Christian true believer (she was not), and so, upon her death, I started getting emails begging for money from Hillsdale, who thought I was my dad. Or something like that. It was typical right-wing Christian and Zionist nonsense. They started sending me their magazine, and Hansen was often there, fulminating about Socialism. One of the other Deep Thinkers featured in their tracts was and is Pat Zajak–yes, that Pat Zajak.

  35. Tom Stone

    Iran can keep the strait of Hormuz closed as long as they want to and there ain’t diddly squat that Trump can do about it.
    Give it a week or two for the denial to fade and the market will do what it always does, panic.
    Give it a Month with gas at $7 (And I don’t see why it can’t reach $10 in a few Months) and there will be serious civil unrest
    I don’t see how Trump can avoid deploying US Troops in US Cities unless he starts a Nuclear exchange, and that is not going to be a popular move.
    The USA has hundreds of thousands of veterans of our forever Wars, they know what chaos is, having seen it in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
    They REALLY DO NOT WANT TO SEE THAT AT HOME.
    However if push comes to a hard enough shove they can make things very messy indeed.
    There are no good outcomes at this point, if Trump is removed soon it is possible that the worst outcomes can be avoided.
    I estimate the odds this will go Nuclear as a little better than 50%, If Trump does crack down hard when the riots start I estimate the odds of Societal collapse at 3 to 1.
    I have noticed that when people invite drama and chaos into their lives they often get a lot more than they asked for.

    1. SlayTheSmaugs

      I agree that everything you fear is on the table, but I think there are more paths forward than martial law and the civil war it would trigger, and nuclear war. I don’t see any “nice” paths forward yet, of course, but it is possible that Trump is removed, Netanyahu is removed, and Vance/Israeli-next decide to capitulate to Iran while declaring victory domestically. (For any of the possible definitions of “removed”). Here, “victory” would not be vis-a-vis Iran, it would be saving America from Trump’s terrible decision to attack; minimizing the price Trump forced America to pay. If Trump is removed but not Netanyahu, then American “victory” would require disowning Israel too, but that could also be spun as saving America from the hellhole Israel forced us into.

  36. RookieEMT

    Its a fever dream moment right fellow commentariat?

    This is completely insane and Trump should of been impeached last week but all we are getting is tongue lashing by the opposition.

    By the time we get to an impeachment, it might be too late.

    How long would of Reagan lasted if he started speaking like this and he was a bit addled near the end of his presidency.

    When he casually joked one day about bombing the Russians, that was back stage with two TV technicians and it was recorded on accident. It was Reagan giving a joke. If memory serves me right, it got to the press in a couple weeks. Still was controversial.

    Compare that to Donald Trump casually threatening total destruction of Iran to the entire planet via social media.

    1. ocypode

      I’ll admit sometimes I find US congressional politics utterly arcane, but I though they were waiting the expected Republican washout in the midterms before taking any action. “Why stop your enemy from making a mistake” sort of thinking. Probably whistling past the graveyard, in any case.

      1. Doggo

        Congress *is* arcane, but there is one clear rule that everyone knows and obeys. You never, ever go against Israel. People who do that become ex-Congressmen (Marjorie Taylor Greene etc)

        During the State of the Union speech given a few days before starting the war, Trump said Iran is evil and we must take them out and restore freedom and democracy to the middle east and God is with us and all that usual nonsense. And everybody stood up and clapped. Including all the Democrats. They gave him a standing ovation.

        If this thing goes south and Israel is destroyed and US is damaged, that will be disastrous for everbody — including Democrats. Who is going to replace the AIPAC money? Ellison/Adelson money? So I suspect that even the most ardent anti-Trump Democrat is pulling hard for Israel to succeed and for Iran to be destroyed.

  37. Socal Rhino

    Professor Marandi had the best take on Schrodinger’s Bibi, I think: Removing one butcher doesn’t shut down the slaughterhouse. It makes no difference.

    1. John Hofer

      I think Bibi serves as a keystone to the whole Zionist enterprise. His loss could lead to virulent squabbling among those trying to pick up the pieces. Bibi’s loss would also be a major blow to hasbara, since he is the most practiced and polished spokesman for it.

      1. hk

        I would liken Bibi to Nasrallah. Neither matters thst much to tbe technical functioning of their organizations. Both were (are? Is/was?) central to their political operations, I think. Recall that, even without a military defeat, Hizb’ullah became impotent after Nasrallah was killed and all other Lebanese political factions dogpiled on Hizb’ullah. If Netanyahu is dead, coalitional politics in Israel, messy as it already is, will become untenable mess. “Normal” politics will be paralyzed and some sort of state of exception (as if current regime isn’t awful) that may go much far(ther) destroying what’s left of Israel’s credibility, including to the Jews.

  38. Ann

    Pope escalates call for ceasefire in Iran by addressing those responsible for the war

    https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/pope-escalates-call-ceasefire-iran-addressing-responsible-war-131082911?cid=social_twitter_abcn

    UK needs nuclear deterrent independent from US, Ed Davey to say
    Lib Dem leader will tell spring conference Britain can no longer rely on US while Donald Trump is president

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/15/uk-needs-nuclear-deterrent-independent-from-us-ed-davey-to-say

    1. ISL

      When the pope condemns the perfidious, war crime (unprovoked war), genocidal US, he may regain some of the lack of moral authority for not condemning genocide rather than kissing Israeli ass.

      But I understand, the Vatican is embedded in the European colonial enterprise of 500 years of colonialism, and Israel is the last colonial crusader outpost, and has full European support for a live-streamed genocide for 2 years. 2 years!

      For reference, my wife is Italian (disenfranchised by the local priest giving very different masses in English and Spanish – the latter treated the faithful as ignorant and to be lectured). Many Italians have been bravely fighting for justice. No priests in the manifestations, though, that I have seen.

    1. John Hofer

      More likely than a terrorist attack is an Israeli false flag labeled as a terrorist attack.

  41. Matthew

    Four issues that recur for me:

    1. Iran’s restraint in not hitting population centers–but–the keen likelihood that any large-scale bloody event involving Israeli citizens or large numbers of our soldiers precipitates a rebellion by US or Israeli citizens against these emerging disasters of choice.

    2. The possibility that in fumbling/losing the war, we also lose Iraq, and thus see a combined Iran-Iraq bulwark which proves a still tougher nut to crack than Iran was.

    3. The issue of boots on the ground, etc.: A potential 100,000-soldier IDF surge in Lebanon would be suicide, leave Israel exposed along a very long axis, its soldiers sitting ducks. And as with all such poorly-planned efforts: What do you do then? Sit there, with one soldier to guard every person who wants you the H out of their country? That’s the Achille’s Heel of every occupation ever. NO ONE in Iran wants to capitulate to Donald Trump of Benyamin Netanyahu.

    4. The issue of an expeditionary Marine force for the US. I suppose that some theatrical event that boosts morale could have short-term value for a flailing Trump, but the truth is that on Kharg Island, as Trita Parsi pointed out yesterday, such a relatively small force could well be sitting ducks, and bring Carter-style humiliation for Trump. (And Iran diversified and decentralized production going back to the Iraq war.) Some kind of wild run to ‘liberate´ the uranium could be rendered meaningless if Iran quickly arranges to black market purchase more. (Or has part of or another batch hidden elsewhere.) Every separate element of a nuclear bomb is obtainable; purchasing the finished product from N Korea is also said possible. . .

    Waterloo was not just Napoleon’s–as this may prove Trump’s–but a disaster for France, with 40,000 casualties in the battle, 20,000 French dead, and 100s of thousands of casualties in the wider campaign, untold numbers of poor people affected. Among the emerging faits accomplis, it seems to me, is further confirmation that we cannot guarantee the safety of world shipping anymore. The projection of real power is quite different from all of the illusions that accompanied our supposed full-spectrum dominance.

    Non-trivial chance that Iran emerges as a major power from this? The fact that other countries are now quietly negotiating WITH IRAN for the safety of their vessels, etc. already suggests lost power and prestige. Smart world leaders are NOT capitulating to Trump too readily in the emerging conjuncture. Some Caribbean and S. American leaders will regret their haste. . .

    1. David J.

      but the truth is that on Kharg Island, as Trita Parsi pointed out yesterday, such a relatively small force could well be sitting ducks

      Not picking on you in particular, Matthew, but I keep seeing variants of this showing up in lots of places. It’s as though people are not looking at a map. To get an amphibious squadron to Kharg would require passing through the strait.

      I spent 3 1/2 years onboard “gator freighters” back in the 70s. Hundreds of hours doing damage control drills over that time frame. Given the circumstances of the approach to Kharg, I’m not sure that a MEU could get past the strait, much less pull up in launching distance of Kharg.

      I know this much: were I a sailor on such a mission, I’d be very, very concerned. I suspect that there would be a lot of damage to control.

      Not quite sitting ducks, but slow moving ones.

      1. Matthew

        I think we agree that it would be dumb stupid. Trump tends to float these trial balloons compulsively, as if to exercise his ego. Lot of apparent truth in this idea that he spends much of his time fantasizing about his dominance, or coming up with grandiose scenarios that will ward off humiliation. Dangerous when his sycophantic followers won´t shut him down.

    2. Jeremy Grimm

      Addressing item #1 in your list of issues: I think that believing “any large-scale bloody event involving Israeli citizens or large numbers of our soldiers precipitates a rebellion by US or Israeli citizens against these emerging disasters of choice” means that such bloody event would trigger a rebellion against the leaders who chose to instigate events leading to the “emerging disasters of choice”. If so, that idea runs contrary to the history of air warfare wherein “large-scale bloody events” consequent from bombing usually result in consolidating public resolve against the enemy that executed the bombing regardless of the leaders who “chose to instigate events” leading to the bombing.

      1. Matthew

        I think you ‘re confusing the aggressor with the aggressed-against (in the latter case for which yes, agreed). The American public will not tolerate a serious bloodbath event at this stage without taking it out on Trump, not in a war which is so obviously of his choosing. And if reporting is true, the Israeli public is furious–at being told to go to work after nights when they have to go to shelters three, four times, at the fact that schools are not operating but theyŕe being told to go and keep the economy running, at N’s long, conspicuous absences. This won´t look like October 11, which DID unite Israelis.

  42. Ann

    Energy Secretary Wright says war with Iran ‘will certainly’ end in next few weeks

    https://abcnews.com/Politics/energy-secretary-wright-war-iran-end-weeks/story?id=131082819

    Energy Secretary Says ‘No Guarantees’ Oil Prices Will Fall Soon
    Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passageway for oil shipments, remained unsafe for tanker passage. Iran has been firing projectiles and laying mines.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/us/politics/energy-secretary-iran-oil-prices.html

    2. TiPs

      The same guy who lied-tweet that American battleships were escorting tankers through the strait. Ok…

  43. Judith

    If Netanyahu has died, the family would be “sitting shiva” Would there be public evidence of that?

    1. urdsama

      Considering the massive amount of censorship in Israel, how would anyone know if they were?

    2. amfortas

      friends and family bringing food and a rabbi present.
      i first heard of sitting shiva in the show ‘weeds’,lol…and briefly did a wikiwander to learn a bit.
      too, i have no idea how devout these people are, even in their own minds.
      ben gvir’s family, i could see following all the forms…and likely making something of a show of it, as far as thats allowed, at least.

      1. Pat

        Aren’t his immediate family in Miami? Wife and son?
        That would be much easier to hide. Although if the body needs to be present…well unless he got there, that won’t happen.

      1. Jeremy Grimm

        Perhaps he was called to rise up in an early Rapture event.
        [I sincerely hope there is no need to mark this comment with a sarcasm label.]

    4. Trees&Trunks

      Do you think his corrupt, dead-ugly wife and draft-dodging son in Miami would mourn Bibi?
      Rats eat other rats, not mourn. That‘s the principle of the Good Natuee rat trap. The first rat come looking for flood. Gets killed. Next rat sees dead rat and eats the first rat. Next killed too etc.

    5. Samuel Conner

      In the absence of any information, perhaps a more likely possibility is a medical event. The man is not young and must surely be under immense stress.

    6. ThirtyOne

      According to the AI Rabbi:

      Shalom! There is no truth to the rumor that Prime Minister Netanyahu has passed away. Such rumors can often spread quickly, but it’s always best to verify from reliable news sources. May Hashem grant him good health and strength. If you have any other questions or need guidance, I am here to help.

      https://rebbe.io/

    7. Revenant

      It has been pointed out that Bibi’s twitter-addicted son Yair who posts dozens of tikes a day stopped cold 6 days ago….

  44. Jeff Snyder

    Re: Trump’s invite of China, Japan, S Korea & orhers to join in opening the Straights of Hormuz, Iran has already told them how to get oil without use of force or the costs of that perilous undertaking: a) kick out US or Israel embassies or b) transact oil purchases in yuan. The fact that no one makes this snappy comeback to Trump’s offer indicates, apparently, that such a decision is inconceivable or impossible

    Apparently the Austrailian secretary of energy has tweeted that Australia has about two to three weeks of oil and diesel supplies left. We’ll see how well the plan to release strategic reserves goes but it may not be long before some countries have to begin taking the Iranian offer seriously.

    1. ThirtyOne

      Trump’s invite of China, Japan, S Korea & others to join in opening the Straights of Hormuz
      “After you, Mr. Trump!”
      “No, after you, Ms. Takaichi!”

  45. Gulag

    Ben Panga: I find your mashed potato theory about the deeper internal psychological motivations of Trump quite profound/ persuasive.

    Taken the nukes or humiliation options emotionally and politically facing Trump, do you have any suggestions for somehow walking him off this ledge?

    3. Ben Panga

      >do you have any suggestions for somehow walking him off this ledge?

      25th amendment or more direct means.

      Trump isn’t fixable IMO.

  46. catchymango

    Late last night (EST) a couple of the usual OSINT accounts reported that there was a USAF medical transport plane that travelled from a Jordanian air base near the Red Sea to Ovda air base, outside Eliat.

    I don’t know anything about how the US military typically conducts medical evacuations, so I was hoping readers familiar with this topic might be able to shed more light on who was likely aboard, and their status. Would they be American casualties, and if so does that tell us anything about the impact that Iran’s operations may be having on that front?

    There were sirens in Eliat earlier that day, and while I admittedly haven’t been following the Jordan aspect closely apparently Iran continues to target Jordanian bases, which of course are rife with American military targets. So there are several possibilities.

  47. Jeremy Grimm

    I have been reading Yves’s war reports each day of this insane war with Iran. It finally dawned on me that we are experiencing an epochal moment in the history of the u.s. empire. The empire has been in decline for several decades and might have continued in that slow decline for some decades more … but we may be experiencing the beginning of empire’s rapid collapse. Considering the pungent decay of u.s. official sources of news and information, the stink of the main stream media, and the chaotic storms and tides of news and information on the web and in the social media … this ongoing series of Yves’s posts, with the comments, is truly remarkable. I believe this series of posts best captures the essence of events in this historic period. If someone [NOT AN ASSIGNMENT] were to collect these posts, assemble, and collate them with some added explanations of some of the peculiar verbal constructs of current language together with translations of the rampant acronyms in common usage, the result would capture an important historical document for the future.

    2. Expat2uruguay

      As to Jeremy Grimm’s “not an assignment” I remember that it was announced that naked capitalism was being included in US Congressional library records. So there may be a start to your idea already, that they are collected.

      I also wish there wasn’t so much use of acronyms, I personally am suffering from acronym overload (AO).

      1. Jeremy Grimm

        A collection of all the posts and comments, or even just the posts at NakedCapitalism will be copious, and more so as the years pass, and an extremely valuable source for future historians. I believe the posts related to this war will have special weight as a record of the fall of the u.s. empire. My sense of this time is that it were as if we were peering out from Rome’s City Gates in 410 AD on the eve of sack of Rome, or 476 AD when the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the barbarian leader Odoacer [dates, names and a part of one sentence stolen from WIKI].

      1. Louis Fyne

        generate enough social media, and your “soul” theoretically can be copied…if one subscribes to a certain school of metaphysics.

        so tap, type away! lol

    4. JohnnyGL

      When explaining the Global Financial Crisis to the uninitiated, I rely on my depth of knowledge acquired by reading this blog daily for many years, now.

    5. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      THATS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING FOR A FEW YEARS NOW!!!

      LIKE LITERALLY THIS IS THE CRÈME DE LA CRÈME OF NEWS SOURCES ON THE INTERNET AND BASICALLY IRL AFAIK!!

      FINALLY THE PEOPLE KNOW THE TRUTH AND GUESS WHAT ITS RAPIDLY COLLAPSING THANK THE GODS!

      I THINK PEOPLE ARE SMART AF AND THESE MOBS THE RICH PEDO Fs HAVE BEEN WARNING US ABOUT ARE FAKE AND FANTASTICAL PROJECTION!

      WE HAVE THE UPPER HAND EVEN IF THEY REPRESS US!

      SWEET, SWEET LIGHT OF LIBERTY BE BURNIN DEEZ OLE LOUISIANA EYEBALLS 👀

      oh, and I looked at the Congress Library website, and unfortunately it says 2008-2024, so the Revolution remains unrecorded for posterity!

        1. DD

          Since you didn’t make your excellent observation explicit, this was the day after the Biden midterms when the Rs took the House.

    6. Acacia

      The Library of Congress would not be my go-to for a record of Internet-based content. At this point, no branch of US dot gov can be trusted any longer. Even if they have the will, the DOGE boys can shut down their oxygen.

      Archive DOT org does capture NC, though as I check right now that latest capture was March 7th.

      There may be some way that Yves or the site’s technical manager can request the archive to be more systematic.

      1. Jokerstein

        It’s trivial to make a complete backup of a site if it’s on W0rdpress and has a sitemap.xml file. I could also write a python script in 30 minutes to crawl the entire site and grab all content. Setting it to be throttled at, say, one page every five minutes means that the server wouldn’t even break a sweat.

        Or there are obviously many, many other ways to back it up from the server side.

        Yves – let me know if you’re interested in the python solution. Half a dozen people doing this in different jurisdictions makes you essentially bulletproof…

        1. Acacia

          Indeed, technically it’s not difficult. WordPress uses a SQL database (MySQL, I think).

          Multiple backups in different locations would be a very good idea.

    1. Pat

      I’d have to go look at the entire section, but unless he was commenting about not overturning AUMF during the Obama administration, it was all for show. The recent vote in the Senate was too little too late and failed along party lines. IOW, it was for show as well.

      Nope, the time to end Congressional allowing the President to do their job was over a decade ago.

    2. Jeremy Grimm

      Corey Booker is an interesting case for consideration of how genuine a candidate’s liberal [in the old sense of the word] leanings might appear and might manifest. He may represent a lesson to be learned in case too much hope is placed in Mayor Mamdani. I sincerely hope Mamdani is genuine. I am not so sure about Booker. I fear Booker has a lean and hungry look.

      Trump striking Iran’s critical oil hub seems to me rather like Brer Rabbit swinging his free hand striking the tar baby.

      1. Pat

        Really look into his time as a NJ mayor. It wasn’t quite as obvious that he was a phony and over his head as Buttigieg, but then Cory is as much of an evangelistic style grifter as Trump. He reads the room and plays almost as well.

      2. Matthew

        I don´t see this, at least yet for Mamdani (who may well disappoint in time, of course). Booker was held to be a sell-out as long ago as his mayoralty in Newark. He never posed as a progressive, let alone anything like a socialist, only as an inheritor of the civil rights mantle of the generation before him, another mantle he soon relinquished. No one on the left has EVER mistaken Booker as embodiment of anything we need, have they? Unless you have followed people like Booker or Harris in their early and local careers, drawing a bead will be a challenge.

    3. John Hofer

      The root problem is not that Congress ceded power to Trump. The root problem is that Congress critters drink from the same Zionist trough as Trump, which would make their support automatic if Trump ever asked for it.

  49. Ann

    Adam Schiff says war with Iran is ‘simply unsustainable’: Full interview

    https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/adam-schiff-says-war-with-iran-is-simply-unsustainable-full-interview-259344965903

    Schiff on lifting of some Russian sanctions: ‘We’re enriching our adversary’

    https://thehill.com/business/5785023-schiff-slams-trump-russia-sanctions-lifting/

    Iran says Russia and China providing ‘military cooperation’

    Tehran has had “good cooperation with these countries: politically, economically, even militarily,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told MS NOW. [Russia and China]

    https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-abbas-araghchi-says-russia-and-china-providing-military-cooperation/

    1. John Hofer

      Right! $10 million for information on Iranian leaders…yet another “deal” that Trump will renege on! I doubt that Iranian traitors will fall for the bait.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Good luck collecting it.The driver/bodyguard that sold out Maduro was expecting a $50 million reward but got nothing from the Trump regime – until Maduro loyalists caught up with him.

  51. Jason Boxman

    This one is fun, from 2019

    Iran Has Hundreds of Naval Mines. U.S. Navy Minesweepers Find Old Dishwashers and Car Parts. (Pro Publica)

    The U.S. Navy officer was eager to talk.

    He’d seen his ship, one of the Navy’s fleet of 11 minesweepers, sidelined by repairs and maintenance for more than 20 months. Once the ship, based in Japan, returned to action, its crew was only able to conduct its most essential training — how to identify and defuse underwater mines — for fewer than 10 days the entire next year. During those training missions, the officer said, the crew found it hard to trust the ship’s faulty navigation system: It ran on Windows 2000.

    The officer, hoping that by speaking out he could provoke needed change, wound up delaying the scheduled interview. He apologized. His ship had broken down again.

    “We are essentially the ships that the Navy forgot,” he said of the minesweepers.

    Thousands of miles away in the Persian Gulf, another officer, this one assigned to a minesweeper in the Navy’s 5th Fleet, offered much the same account. While tensions with Iran seem to escalate by the day, the officer said the four minesweepers based in the Gulf were so physically unreliable that he doubted his superiors would actually send them into action in a crisis.

    (bold mine)

    I doubt much the situation has improved in the past whatever seven years.

    A defense contractor who has worked with the ships in recent years said the minesweepers suffered the highest rate of mechanical problems of any Navy ship. (A Navy spokesman declined to comment on that assessment, but he said that “recent metrics show that there has been substantial improvement.”) The USS Devastator, or MCM 6, was recently out of commission because the Navy couldn’t fix a key part, according to a sailor who recently served a long tour on the ship. The ship was out of the water so long the sailors started jokingly referring to it as “Building 6,” since it never actually moved.

    1. nyleta

      Satellite images finally released of the carriers. The Abraham Lincoln is off the Port of Salalah of Oman and the Ford is hanging around Jeddah in the Red Sea, in other words plenty of distance for dealing with missiles but long ranges for providing air cover for anything to do with Iran.

      Long range for the Houthis to the Ford, probably the reason they haven’t started anything yet.

        1. nyleta

          DD Geopolitics has it, they are on most of the platforms. I can never seem to work the linking thingy here properly.

    2. Who Cares

      The US has no minesweepers anymore. They just sent the last four to be decommissioned. The replacement is a module for the LCS. The module hasn’t been seriously tested and in the tests done works about as well as a LCS.

      1. ambrit

        If history is any guide, expect the US Navy to commandeer wooden hulled fishing smacks and such like to act as small minesweepers. The powerplants can be shielded pretty much from magnetic mines, but an entire steel hull takes planning and extra bells and whistles to shield. Also expect wholesale seizing of Remotely Operated Vehicles – Naval Version to use as unmanned search and destroy forces for this task.
        One possible patriotic use for mega-yachts is to use them as expendable “minefield blockade runners.” Time for the Oligarchs to put their money where their mouthpieces are. It would be even more “patriotic” if said oligarchs “lead from the front” and joined their crews in Doing their Duty.
        Let’s run it over the NASDAQ feed and see if anyone salutes.
        Stay safe patriots!

        1. chuck roast

          Back in the ’80 I would see the local USN minesweepers out in the bay doing exercises. They had wooden hulls, and they looked like tricked out tug boats. There were four of them. Is that a squadron? They had a busy schedule and were out a lot. Long gone now.

    3. ilsm

      Not to worry!

      The Little Crappy Ship (LCS) has a MCM module to be installed and should be on the way!

  52. Jason Boxman

    The NY Times engages in massive cop

    Entering War’s Third Week, Trump Faces Stark Choices (NY Times; paywalled)

    By the Pentagon’s metrics — “total air dominance,” as Mr. Hegseth put it, plus the sinking of much of Iran’s navy and the destruction of hundreds of missiles and launchers — the U.S. military is ahead of schedule.

    “Iran has no air defenses, Iran has no air force, Iran has no navy,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters during a Pentagon briefing. Iran is now firing 90 percent fewer missiles than at the start of the war, the Pentagon reported, and 95 percent fewer one-way attack drones.

    “Never before has a modern capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat-ineffective,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters on Friday.

    But the problem is that the destruction of its conventional forces has not eliminated Iran’s ability to sow chaos, even in its weakened state. And, five years into dealing with Mr. Trump, the Iranians appear to understand that soaring oil prices and declining stock markets can be powerful pressure points on him.

    some evidence of a cyber response?

    But while American leaders were bringing in reinforcements, so were the Iranians — of a different kind. Iran built up a talented cybercorps after the United States and Israel mounted a sophisticated cyberattack on the country’s nuclear centrifuges more than 16 years ago. Now Iran’s hackers were being called into service, directed at targets in both Israel and the United States.

    One of the most conspicuous of those affected was Stryker Corporation, a maker of advanced medical equipment in Michigan. Its systems were brought down last week, and an organization of hackers called Handala claimed responsibility, saying that it was in retaliation for the strike on an elementary school outside a military base in southern Iran in which, according to Iranian officials, at least 175 people died, mostly children. (The Times has reported that a preliminary finding by the U.S. military indicates that a Tomahawk missile, launched by U.S. forces, was responsible for the school strike.)

    And then we have the Israeli sadism

    It was only one area in which differing agendas and assessments became evident between the United States and Israel. Both Mr. Trump and Admiral Cooper of Central Command warned the Israelis against striking the big oil tanks outside of Tehran, fearing that such an attack would trigger the Iranians to strike more energy targets around the region in retaliation, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

    Mr. Netanyahu ignored the advice, and Israel hit the depots a week ago Saturday, triggering huge blazes and setting off an initial surge in oil prices. Inside the White House, officials became convinced that the Israeli leader wanted dramatic scenes of Tehran covered in the black smoke of destruction.

    The Israeli view, one White House official said, was that the burning tanks would create internal chaos in the Iranian leadership. But what it ended up producing were more Iranian drone strikes against oil refining and storage facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Those strikes led to a halt in oil loading on Saturday at Fujairah, one of the U.A.E.’s largest export terminals.

    I guess still no one has looked at a map yet?

    Even as he prepares for the summit, Mr. Trump will have to grapple with two of the biggest decisions of the war: whether to attack, with ground troops, Kharg Island and the nuclear storage facilities where about 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade uranium is believed to remain.

    They each pose very different challenges. The island is an exposed target, accessible to the U.S. Navy at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. But seizing it means protecting an occupying force from remnants of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which could launch strikes from the shore or small boats, or blow up the pipelines that supply the port facilities on the island with Iranian oil. That could require a continuing military presence of exactly the kind that Mr. Trump’s political base has warned against and that Mr. Trump himself said he would never repeat.

    Any naval force would need to transit the strait to get to the island, no? I guess Iran gives the USN a free pass?

    1. Samuel Conner

      > Any naval force would need to transit the strait to get to the island, no? I guess Iran gives the USN a free pass?

      Actually, they might be admitted, with the intention of not letting them leave and attritting all supply and relief efforts.

      Sort of the way the Russians let the Ukrainians reinforce positions that the Russians intend to surround in the near future.

      1. hk

        Given the location, I wondered the same. USN will be trapped in the Gulf if they tried to land at Kharg. It’ll make Truk (from IJN perspective) look like picnic.

    2. ilsm

      So! The B-52’s and B-1’s are carpeting bombing iron bombs on Tehran……. air dominance with no follow on benefit!

      Predators and Hermes key to hunting TEL’s are shot down every day!

      The lon g distance kill chain for TEL’s is more complex than in 1991 over Iraq and the mountainous terrain masks a lot of optics and radar!

      What does the war dept do with statistics?

    3. Acacia

      Re:

      Mr. Netanyahu ignored the advice, and Israel hit the depots a week ago Saturday, triggering huge blazes and setting off an initial surge in oil prices. Inside the White House, officials became convinced that the Israeli leader wanted dramatic scenes of Tehran covered in the black smoke of destruction.

      The Israeli view, one White House official said, was that the burning tanks would create internal chaos in the Iranian leadership.

      How about an alternate reading: viz., Israel seeks to draw the US further into the conflict, by escalating destruction of oil infrastructure to drive up oil prices faster, I.e. to literally light a fire under Trump’s ass.

      Isn’t this more how the Zionists roll?

  53. Tom Stone

    One thing I have not seen mentioned much is the Morale of American Troops.
    When a new Colonel takes over a Battalion every troop in that Battalion knows what the new Boss is in a matter of days.
    Ticket punching ring knocker or leader?
    It’s not something you can hide.
    The Troops know that there has been no declaration of War, not even an AUMF and they also know that the vast majority of Americans are opposed to this insanity.
    They also know that you do not make it to Flag rank without being a consummate ass kisser, they do not respect the Top Brass because the Top Brass is obviously not worthy of respect.
    I expect the vast majority will do their duty to the best of their ability, an ability that is necessarily diminished by their entirely reasonable lack of trust in their leadership.

    1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      I still have a bunch of Army “friends” via Facebook, and I’m screaming, “THE IRAN WAR IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.”

      I’ve been DEATH TO WAR for a long time now so it’s not like they werent expecting this and hopefully ive been incepting their online feed for a while!

      NO MORE WARS FOR RICH PEDO BANKERS

      PATRIOTS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST THE EPSTEIN CLASS

      🇺🇸 OMINA FAUSTA CANO 🇺🇸

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQFQCS-BeRk

  55. Jeff Snyder

    Fantastic overview of how the oil shortage is going to play out and timing of the spot price exploding.
    https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/el-mercado-spot-del-petroleo-va-a

    Note, oil through the Gulf may be 20% of world daily consumption but it is one-third of the total oil available for export and it will take about 8 -45 days (depending on the country and transit time) for the oil in transit on the sea to be delivered before actual physical shortages really start biting.

    “All this long introduction is to explain what will happen to the price of oil in the coming weeks if the closure of Hormuz continues.

    In the export market, out of every four barrels, three have fixed contracts and one is sold on the spot market (where the prices of oil are actually set “on the spot” for all barrels, including fixed contracts).

    When one of the countries is left with a very low reserve (after receiving oil from the Middle East), it will bid for oil on the spot market.

    In other words, Spain buys 90% of its oil from outside the Middle East, and it’s often said that what happens there doesn’t affect it much. But that’s not true. A shipment from Nigeria, contracted on the spot market and destined for Spain, could mysteriously change course and be sent to China because that country has bid five dollars more per barrel.

    Including the delivery of strategic reserves and oil stored at sea, the daily oil deficit is estimated at between 7 and 10 million b/d, which must be obtained at any price.

    We can already imagine that, as the weeks go by, the reserves run out, the oil in the sea disappears and no importing country wants to be left without supply, so desperate bidding begins.

    In this case, the price of oil is set by the marginal barrel, not by permanent contracts, and can reach exorbitant levels depending on the system’s needs. As time goes on, bids could reach extraordinary figures because supply has been reduced by 15 million barrels per day, but the oil available for export has decreased by 30-40%, which is madness if it continues.

    After the first four weeks, almost all the ships will have delivered their cargo, and desperate bidding will begin. The price of oil may still be contained, but if we enter that phase, we’ll see outrageous prices.”

    1. ISL

      refineries are tuned to a specific input oil blend, those that were refining Gulf Crude (many – US exports 40% of its crude and imports 8.5 mbpd of 19 mbpd for its refineries) will get desperate for Dubai barrels or others Gulf crude, hoping the floe returns before they have to shut the refinery down. Retuning can take up to years and there is no production in the meantime.

      2. ilsm

        Weekly US EIA ‘weekly petroleum status report’. Comes out each Wednesday at 10:30 US eastern time.

        US net imports about 3 million barrels crude per day on average.

    1. Doggo

      Yes, I’ve seen from numerous different sources that Khamenei Jr. was present at the big meeting between Khamenei Sr. and the top brass, and that he was injured during the attack.

      Seems plausible that they would want to whisk him off to Russia, not only for the better medical care over there but also for his security. Iran is probably still crawling with Israeli agents, not to mention that Israel can lob missiles at targets in Iran at any time. Israel cannot launch missiles at Russia.

  57. RJM

    “and so it goes” ended Chris’s comment followed by Kilgore Trout post which brings Kurt Vonnegut into the conversation and his self description as one of the “fresh water people” of Great Lakes origin. Me too. Fresh water provided by desalination plants in these Arab, Israeli and Iranian countries has received little mention except their destruction apparently has been avoided to date. Will that be the end game instead of a nuclear apocalypse? Who is more dependent on desalination for human use and agriculture?

  58. RJM

    “and so it goes” commented by Chris and Kilgore Trout’s post brings Kurt Vonnegut to the conversation. KV self described as part of the ” fresh water people”. Me to. Will water rather than oil or nuclear weapons be the final determinate for the Arabs, Israeli’s and Iranians.?

    1. urdsama

      If this is the coffee shop video, I think it’s AI. Too many things are off. And supposedly he did visit this coffee shop – in 2024.

      Just one example-look at the shape of his face and hairline.

      1. RookieEMT

        Commentators on twitter say look at his hand outstretched in about 10 seconds. It looks like fingers are hiding or about to morph into his existing ones, fat fingers.

        Then the coffee doesn’t spill despite the fact that the liquid clearly reaches over the top. Instead if rubber bands back into place. Yes, water can do that to an extent but not how much Netanyahu moves it.

        2. alrhundi

          Just watched it and the coffee physics looked off to me too. It’s very real looking though, so genuinely hard to say. The shadows seem a little off as well. They aren’t there until he kind of turns to the camera but it doesn’t seem like so much more shadow should appear if that makes sense.

          The fact that it’s so difficult to determine what is AI or real anymore is very concerning.

  63. Alice X

    I have been attempting to internalize the whiplash of the events and not commenting. I have little information to offer but in watching these many critical vids I find one central truth, the capitalists continue to interrupt with their investment strategies. We’ll sell you a rope.

  64. Wukchumni

    Heard that all Israel has left to defend themselves is the Chutzpah Dome, which utilizes brazen nerve bordering on arrogance, to ward off incoming missiles and drones.

  65. Redolent

    determinism as structure……..motives and motors.
    both work only when juice is applied. Note that such juice emanates from well below the surface

  66. Ann

    Oil Industry Warns Trump Administration Fuel Crunch Will Likely Worsen
    Oil executives told officials in White House meetings the closure of the Strait of Hormuz may push up oil prices further

    https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/oil-industry-warns-trump-administration-energy-crisis-will-likely-worsen-0a5c8b1a

    Afghan who fought with US special forces dies in ICE custody as Trump on track for deadliest year of detention in more than two decades

    Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal served with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and legally evacuated the country, then died within a day of being taken into ICE custody, according to his family

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/afghan-death-ice-mohammad-paktyawal-b2938902.html

    I think I’ll go outside and shovel out the chicken coop and cry for awhile.

          1. Pat

            If we had a Supreme Court truly devoted to the Constitution, this would not be happening. Because they would already have made it both clear this was a violation of First Amendment rights and would embarrass both prosecutors and judges who participated in convicting protestors as the tools they are.
            Unfortunately, short of me finding that genie I have desperately been searching for that is not the case.

  68. leaf

    New lunatic asylum output! In a normal country perhaps things would have taken their course but the inmates are in charge of the asylum…
    Be sure to tune in for the next act of lunacy soon!

    “Iran has long been known as a Master of Media Manipulation and Public Relations. They are Militarily ineffective and weak, but are really good at “feeding” the very appreciative Fake News Media false information. Now, A.I. has become another Disinformation weapon that Iran uses, quite well, considering they are being annihilated by the day. They showed phony “Kamikaze Boats,” shooting at various Ships at Sea, which looks wonderful, powerful, and vicious, but these Boats don’t exist — It’s all false information to show how “tough” their already defeated Military is! The five U.S. Refueling Planes that were supposedly struck down and badly damaged, according to The Wall Street Journal’s false reporting, and others, are all in service, with the exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies. Buildings and Ships that are shown to be on fire are not — It’s FAKE NEWS, generated by A.I. For instance, Iran, working in close coordination with the Fake News Media, shows our great USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier, one of the largest and most prestigious Ships in the World, burning uncontrollably in the Ocean. Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at — Iran knows better than to do that! The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information! The fact is, Iran is being decimated, and the only battles they “win” are those that they create through AI, and are distributed by Corrupt Media Outlets. The Radical Leftwing Press knows this full well, but continues to go forward with false stories and LIES. That’s why their Approval Rating is so low, and I can win a Presidential Election, IN A LANDSLIDE, getting only 5% positive Press — They have no credibility! I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic “News” Organizations. They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, “FIRED.” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

    https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116235861005528220

  69. Ben Panga

    Mash-potato avoidance update:

    1. Trump posts a very nutso long Truth Social post. It confuses/conflates so many things. He can’t tell the difference between “fake on twitter” and “real videos in the MSM”.

    Basically “Everything bad is AI, the speedboats are AI, Iran is conspiring with the US media to fool you with AI, they should all be punished for treason”

    [Excerpt]:

    Iran has long been known as a Master of Media Manipulation and Public Relations. They are Militarily ineffective and weak, but are really good at “feeding” the very appreciative Fake News Media false information. Now, A.I. has become another Disinformation weapon that Iran uses, quite well, considering they are being annihilated by the day. They showed phony “Kamikaze Boats,” shooting at various Ships at Sea, which looks wonderful, powerful, and vicious, but these Boats don’t exist — It’s all false information to show how “tough” their already defeated Military is! The five U.S. Refueling Planes that were supposedly struck down and badly damaged, according to The Wall Street Journal’s false reporting, and others, are all in service, with the exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies. Buildings and Ships that are shown to be on fire are not — It’s FAKE NEWS, generated by A.I. For instance, Iran, working in close coordination with the Fake News Media, shows our great USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier, one of the largest and most prestigious Ships in the World, burning uncontrollably in the Ocean. Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at — Iran knows better than to do that! The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information! The fact is, Iran is being decimated, and the only battles they “win” are those that they create through AI, and are distributed by Corrupt Media Outlets. [continues to rant about media, elections and Late Night TV hosts]

    2. Exclusive: Trump Administration Plans to Announce Coalition to Escort Ships Through Strait of Hormuz (WSJ, no archive as from live blog)

    The Trump administration as soon as this week plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which runs along the Iranian coast, U.S. officials said. They are still discussing, however, whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end.

    [BP: so it’s nothing new, the other countries said “no, but maybe after the war has stopped”. Very standard Trump “announce a thing and hope it comes to pass” we’ve seen many times in the past. Guess it makes a headline before markets open?]

    3. Trump warns Nato faces ‘very bad future’ if allies fail to help US in Iran (FT paywalled. I think this is the same article republished on an non-paywalled site)

    [Excerpts]:

    Donald Trump has warned that NATO faces a “very bad” future if US allies fail to assist in opening up the Strait of Hormuz, sending a blunt message to European nations to join his war effort in Iran.

    The US president told the Financial Times in an interview on Sunday (Monday AEDT) that he could also delay his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month as he presses Beijing to help unblock the crucial waterway.

    “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” he said

    Asked to specify the help he needed, Trump said, “whatever it takes”. He added that allies should send minesweepers, of which Europe possesses many more than the US.

    He also wanted “people who are going to knock out some bad actors that are along the [Iranian] shore”. Trump implied he wanted European commando teams or other military help to eliminate Iranians making “a nuisance” in the Gulf with drones and naval mines.

    “I think China should help too because China gets 90 per cent of its oil from the Straits [sic],” Trump said. Waiting until the summit would be too late, he said.

    “The UK might be considered the number one ally, the longest serving etc and when I asked for them to come, they didn’t want to come,” he said. “And as soon as we basically wiped out the danger capacity from Iran, they said, ‘Oh well, we’ll send two ships,’ and I said, ‘We need these ships before we win, not after we win.’ I’ve long said that NATO is a one-way street.” [BP: Starmer has said he is NOT sending the two ships]

    ——-

    Note: There’s a repeated dissonance in Trump’s statements of “We already won” [always using the past tense] and then “We need help”/”We are continuing/will continue to hit them hard”. I am pretty sure this is not spin, but an accurate representation of Trump’s inner beliefs. He believes he already won. It makes no sense, but it’s what he clings to. I expect the gap between this belief and reality to continue to break open, and I think it will break him.

    2. ChrisRUEcon

      He’s telegraphing his “exit strategy”:

      • US doesn’t rely on oil source through Hormuz
      •It’s not US responsibility to defend it
      • Countries who depend on Hormuz transit like China (not needed, their ships are fine … LOL) and EU (because they’re effectively vassal states now) should be the ones to send ships to escort.

    3. The Rev Kev

      Reading his last post, it sounds like he wants to turn it into a world war where the Collective West countries will all fight Iran. Yeah, nah. Trump started this war and now he owns it lock, stock and barrel. It’s all his. And the Israelis? When it is finally over, they will claim that it was all Trump’s fault and that they were forced into this war too. And can they please have some more free bombs please?

  70. Anthony Martin

    Seems to me, Trump and Congress have some ‘splaining to do.

    1) On what logical reason, over the advice of the military and intelligence agencies that a war with Iran was not a good idea, was Iran attacked? If he cannot provide a coherent explanation, Trump needs to be declared mentally incompotent.
    Note: The only imaginable ‘objective : the ”conquest’ of Iran’s oil to feed Trump’s addiction to money, power, and attention. (The Lindsey Graham Gambit; control Iran, place India under the thumb of the US, this to contain and constraitn China). The military and intelligence community needs to answer why their threat assessments were non existant regarding; 1 ) the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, 2) the diminhment of the petro dollar, & 3) Iran’s ability to launch counter offensives with a coherent strategy, & 4) the lack of any US strategy that can be articulated and defended.
    2) The other thing that must be considered is Netanyahu’s hold on Trump. If Trump is imentally compotent, then what information about Trump does Netanyahu have on Trump. I.E Trump presents himself as an individual who cannot be humiliated. Is there something that would humiliate Trump to the point where death was the only escape. Occam’s Razor suggest the only anwer in Epstein’s Secrets would be nothing less underage boys and buggery. That is the only logical conclusion.

    If the US public is so numbed that it is unable to ask questions and demand answers, the outcome of this excurison is pre-ordained.

    1. Samuel Conner

      I get the impression that “quality of analysis” was a less important determinant of the present policy than was lack of interest, on the part of decision-maker(s), in that analysis. Your prescription #1 would seem on this count to be indicated, too.

  71. farmboy


    “No country appears to maintain a fertilizer reserve system remotely comparable in scale, doctrine, or strategic importance to the petroleum reserve architecture built after the oil shocks of the 1970s. Today’s policy response to the Hormuz crisis is not a nutrient reserve release. It is an improvised attempt to rebuild shipping and insurance capacity on the fly. This structural asymmetry, now exposed with violent clarity, may prove to be one of the most consequential oversights in the history of modern statecraft. The Strait of Hormuz, a 21-nautical-mile corridor of shallow water between Iran and Oman, does not merely carry twenty percent of the world’s oil. It carries a significant share of the molecular foundation underlying half the planet’s food supply. UNCTAD estimates that roughly one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade passes through Hormuz. The Fertilizer Institute separately estimates that exporters exposed directly or indirectly to the conflict account for nearly 49 percent of global urea exports, nearly 30 percent of global ammonia exports, and nearly half of global sulfur trade. That combination makes Hormuz not merely an energy chokepoint, but one of the most concentrated nutrient chokepoints in the global food system.”

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