Today’s Iran War update includes Netanyahu ordering strikes on Lebanon, Trump rug pulling “negotiations” in Pakistan, the MSM publishing more bad war news for the US, and some takes from the UAE and Israel.
First, some high weirdness in DC last night where shots were fired at the White House Press Correspondent’s Dinner which was immediately cancelled after Trump was evacuated.
It doesn’t have much bearing on our topic, so I’ll let UFC frontman, and Trump pal Dana White speak to it:
UFC CEO Dana White was in attendance during the alleged shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and gave his reaction.
"It was f*cking awesome. I literally took every minute of it in. It was a pretty crazy, unique experience."
(via @USATODAY) pic.twitter.com/FHRQVcmHgx
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) April 26, 2026
With a side of conspiracy theory fodder:
🚨 JUST NOW: Karoline Leavitt calls on everyone to watch tonight because Donald Trump will bring the heat and there will be “shots fired”
LET’S FREAKING GO 🔥 pic.twitter.com/GMkccJ7qvw
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) April 25, 2026
And now, on to business.
Oh Bibi
No surprise that Israel remains ceasefire incapable, via Haaretz:
IDF says it struck Hezbollah-linked structures in southern Lebanon
The Israeli military said Saturday it struck several buildings linked to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
According to the IDF, the strikes were carried out by the Israeli air force under orders from the political echelon.
Meanwhile, the IDF is “investigating” more war crimes committed against a Christian village in Lebanon,
The Lebanese account:
الجيش الاسرائيلي واصل عمليات الهدم والتخريب في بلدة دبل الحدودية حيث اقدم على جرف الواح الطاقات الشمسية التي تغذي البلدة بالكهرباء ومحطة المياه اضافة إلى بعض المنازل والطرقات وأشجار الزيتون pic.twitter.com/Etu9asXQGz
— LBCI Lebanon News (@LBCI_NEWS) April 25, 2026
Translated by Grok:
The Israeli army continued its demolition and sabotage operations in the border town of Dabl, where it proceeded to bulldoze the solar panels that supply the town with electricity and the water station, in addition to some homes and roads and olive trees.
The IDF responds, per Times of Israel:
The IDF says it is investigating after footage published by Lebanese media showed military excavators damaging solar panels in the Christian village of Debel in southern Lebanon.
“The actions seen in the video do not align with the values of the IDF and the conduct expected of its soldiers,” the military says in response to a query by The Times of Israel.
The IDF says the incident is under investigation, and according to the findings, actions will be taken against the troops involved.
It’s fascinating in a grim way which crimes the IDF “investigates” and which ones it completely ignores, like say, the mass murder of Lebanese journalists.
“I told her, ‘I’m next to you.’
She told me, ‘Don’t fall asleep and leave me.’ I said, ‘No, no.’ Then exhaustion took over. I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I heard Amal scream. They struck the room again. Amal was gone.”Reporter Zeinab Faraj recounts the harrowing hours her… pic.twitter.com/O9X0d7sxJp
— Nada Maucourant Atallah (@MaucourantNada) April 25, 2026
Even the Guardian is on to their family blogging:
Israel denied that it targeted journalists or that it had prevented rescue teams from reaching the area, and said the incident was under review. Previous “reviews” have rarely if ever attached any blame to Israeli forces, who typically attempt to suggest killed journalists are members of armed groups.
The israeli who sent the death threat to Amal Khalil before her assassination calls himself a journalist. Much like Eitan Fischberger, who hides behind his media credentials to put together hit lists of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who then subsequently get assassinated.… https://t.co/i8qok3iCEw pic.twitter.com/YOX5a74J0R
— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) April 23, 2026
Drop Site News has another poignant report from Lebanon:
Displaced Lebanese Pool Money to Buy Satellite Images to See What Remains of their Homes.
For many residents unable to return to southern Lebanon amid Israel’s invasion and demolition campaign, satellite imagery has become the only way they can find out the state of their homes.
Alright, enough of that heartbreak, let’s look at some less grisly nonsense.
Trump Cancels Kushner, Witkoff Trip to Islamabad
This wasn’t a surprise to anyone paying attention, but Trump’s Truth Social postings remain eminently quotable:
I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going to Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their “leadership.” Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Informal Iranian spokesman Mohammad Marandi told Lebanese network Al Mayadeen that, “Trump fabricated the news, and the Iranians from the outset have no intention of meeting with Whitakoff and Kushner. Washington and Netanyahu are violating the ceasefire, and negotiations cannot be held if this situation continues.”
Ryan Grim points out the no-good, very bad role played by Pakistan’s US-backed military coup installed government:
The erroneous news reports indicating that the U.S. and Iran would be restarting talks were produced because Pakistan’s ISPR sent the following incorrect update to many journalists. (They didn’t send it directly to me, but I was forwarded it.)
This was the message:
“Breaking…
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) April 25, 2026
Most NC readers won’t be surprised to see Trump’s narratives collapsing as fast as they’re spun, but it is kind of shocking the amount of attention western MSM pays to Trump’s nonsensical on-again-off-again claims about negotiations with Iran.
Saturday’s lengthy NYT piece on Iran’s enriched uranium stocks and the challenges in front of Trump’s “negotiating team” (Kushner and Witknoff) is a masterpiece of the genre.
The Times piece on Iran’s Lego video offensive is far more informative, if equally full of clangers and western agit-prop.
Now let’s look at some more bad news that the MSM is allowing to seep into their narrative.
NBC, CSIS Breaking Bad News Gently
NBC News dropped a banger of a report headlined, “Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known” (paywalled and no archived version available yet):
American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair, according to three U.S. officials, two congressional aides and another person familiar with the damage.
The Iranian regime swiftly retaliated after the Trump administration attacked on Feb. 28, hitting dozens of targets across U.S. military bases in seven Middle East countries. Those attacks struck warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft, according to the U.S. officials and an assessment by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
In the initial days of the war, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet bombed the U.S. base Camp Buehring in Kuwait, despite the base having air defenses, a rare breach that marked the first time an enemy fixed-wing aircraft has struck an American military base in years, according to two of the U.S. officials.
The U.S. bases that came under attack are home to thousands of American troops, and in some cases their families, though they were largely cleared out in the days and hours before the U.S. and Israeli went to war with Iran.
Note the part about the US base in Kuwait being bombed by an F-5 (!) fighter jet.
Wow.
But that’s not all.
It’s not just US defense that lagged, US offense didn’t overperform either:
🚨 The US intel community just admitted they OVERESTIMATED damage to Iran's underground missile cities by 50%.
Iran buried their arsenal under mountains of granite. We dropped 14 of our most powerful bunker-busters — and may have as few as 6 left.
Replacements won't arrive… pic.twitter.com/eHBh4pAEBC
— Brandon Weichert (@WeTheBrandon) April 25, 2026
And speaking of bunker busters…
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) dropped a bunker buster of a report about the profligate use of munitions in the Ramadan War so far (archived).
Concern about the status of U.S. munitions inventories has intensified as reports emerge about high expenditures of Tomahawks, Patriots, and other missiles in the Iran war. As Operation Epic Fury remains paused in a shaky ceasefire, there is an opportunity to assess whether the U.S. military nears the point of going “Winchester”—or running out of ammunition.
Analysis of seven key munitions shows that the United States has enough missiles to continue fighting this war under any plausible scenario. The risk—which will persist for many years—lies in future wars.
https://t.co/miPWkJ9YlC pic.twitter.com/TdbXwcILwN
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 25, 2026
In the 39 days of the air and missile campaign before the ceasefire, U.S. forces heavily used the seven munitions in Table 1. For four of them, the United States may have expended more than half of the prewar inventory. Rebuilding to prewar levels for the seven munitions will take from one to four years as missiles in the pipeline are delivered. These missiles will also be critical for a potential Western Pacific conflict. Even before the Iran war, stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight. That shortfall is now even more acute, and building stockpiles to levels adequate for a war with China will take additional time.
Diminished inventories will also affect the U.S. supply of Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defenses (THAADs), and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) to Ukraine and other allies and partners that use them. The United States will compete with those countries that also want to replenish and expand inventories.
But the news isn’t all bad for aggro Uncle Sam:
For ground attack munitions, available alternatives are far cheaper but with the same explosive yield. To illustrate the cost difference, a BLU-110 bomb fitted with a Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit costs less than $100,000 while a Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) costs $2.6 million. Both accurately deliver 1,000-pound payloads. These munitions, however, have a shorter range and, thereby, put launch platforms in more danger. Air superiority is required to use them extensively.
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) April 25, 2026
Fortune summarizes the report (archived):
The Pentagon has used at least 45% of its stockpile of Precision Strike Missiles; 50% of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defenses (THAAD) interceptors inventory; and almost half of its stockpile of Patriot ballistic interceptor missiles used for interception over the first seven weeks of war with Iran, according to an analysis published this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
…
Using data from the CSIS report, Fortune calculated the U.S. has so far spent about $24 billion on the seven major munitions used, but the cost of the Iran war is projected to far exceed that sum. Public policy expert and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Linda Bilmes said the cost of the war is likely to exceed $1 trillion, as the administration underestimates the short-term costs of infrastructure damage, as well as long-term costs, such as lifetime disability benefits for thousands of veterans.
…
Of concern to experts like Bilmes is the U.S.’s disproportional spending on munitions compared to Iran. Iran’s Shahed drones each cost between $20,000 and $50,000 to produce, per Reuters, while a Patriot interceptor used to shoot down drones or more complex aerial threats could cost about $4 million, as it requires more sophisticated technology than a drone to function.
Maybe that’s why there’s a big shift toward drones and other automated weapons systems in the next Pentagon budget.
Drones! It’s All Drones These Days!
The massive bureaucracy of the US establishment went from a slow, timid exploration of autonomous warfare to a chaotic embrace of it nearly overnight.
- FY 2026 funding for autonomous warfare: $225 million
(DAWG: Defense Autonomous Warfare Group)- Proposed FY2027 funding (submitted mid-April): $54.6 billion
That’s a ~24,000 % increase in a year.
After describing Pentagon reactions to his 2016 report for the the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Autonomous Warfare, Robb explains why the Pentagon is suddenly so interested in drones:
(Iran) proved that drones could serve as a deterrent in many of the same ways deterrence did during the Cold War (although with much more flexibility). Here’s what this means.
Iran’s ability to mount daily attacks using drones puts growing pressure on global energy markets (Strait closure and damage to Gulf oil assets) and the governments of US allies in the region. From now on, it’s a good assumption that any future attacks on Iran will result in extensive damage to the global economy.
This deterrent capability also allowed them to shape the war by exchanging attacks, tit for tat. For example, when the US or Israel expanded to a new target class, Iran immediately responded with similar attacks, forcing the US to avoid that target in the future. Additionally, they used this deterrent capability to erect barriers to entry and zones of control. The dual blockades (Iran and the US) of the Strait feel similar to the Berlin Wall.
Robb also drops this clanger that I just have to share, calling the Ramadan War “a remote military adventure of little consequence to US national security.” Whoo boy.
Armchair Warlord has some insights about US naval logistics and why we have been seeing such dire photos of the slop the sailors are being served:
Allow me to explain something about military logistics which may shed some light on what is occurring here.⬇️
The US military doesn't ship food from CONUS to deployed forces if at all possible. It issues contracts to third party vendors to supply food in bulk for pickup or even… https://t.co/s626G0QUbG pic.twitter.com/P28BWVFgnd
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) April 26, 2026
I’ll have more about the “little” consequences below.
Next we’ll try to get inside some Israeli and Emirate heads, a kind of psychic sewer scuba diving.
The View from Inside the Axis
Let’s start with Daniel Levy, a former Israeli “peace negotiator” and J Street co-founder:
Former advisor to the Israeli government Daniel Levy on the “Greater Israel” plan:
“Israel wants to be surrounded by failed, fragmenting, or co-opted states. Its goal in Iran is regime and state collapse, not regime change.”
He then says Israel wants to weaken the Gulf States… pic.twitter.com/h1p9HWSUXr
— Ben Swann (@BenSwann_) April 25, 2026
Levy is on the bleeding edge of sanity for committed zionists. Let’s hear from another who’s making his way to the fringes of Israeli discourse.
Israeli security analyst Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz has quite a tweet from the perspective of the one of the last reality connected, but nonetheless ill-intentioned, talking head allowed on Israeli TV responding to massive criticism that has come his way from his fellow zionist occupiers following his appearance on Raviv Drucker’s popular program on Israeli Channel 13:
My analyses were based on my familiarity with a complex system like the Islamic Republic, and primarily on the understanding that this campaign was built, at least in part, on a mistaken understanding of the enemy.
To my surprise, there were those who claimed that I was “weakening Israel” or “undermining the system,” simply because I described reality also through Iranian eyes. For me, as someone who has devoted years of his life, both in regular service and in reserves, to trying to weaken Iran in every possible way—out of the understanding that there is no greater enemy to Israel—it was criticism that was hard for me to accept. It seems I was “punished” only because I chose to present a professional and objective analysis of the adversary.
Like any researcher, I’m glad when my assessments come true. But more than that, I’m troubled by the fact that we’re not drawing the necessary lessons. The statement that Iran emerges from this campaign strengthened—even if it challenges existing perceptions—does not express support for Iran. It’s a realistic analysis, not a value-based position that seeks to challenge the existing strategy, which in my view brought Iran closer to nuclear weapons and did not distance it. The fact that some interpret it otherwise strikes me as strange and concerning.
I know there are those who struggle to understand this, but my professional assessment is that the recent developments are actually bringing Iran closer to crossing the nuclear Rubicon, not the opposite.
In the bottom line, it seems that in Israel 2026, even a professional, realistic, and uncompromising analysis may become a target for attack when various actors misuse it. But what concerns me even more is the question of whether other voices were heard within the system itself. I very much hope so.
The problem is not with me or any other researcher who thought this campaign was headed for failure. The problem is with those who planned this campaign and built it on a highly shaky database, and it’s a shame that people don’t know how to separate between the things.
I intend to continue challenging foundational assumptions in the future as well. With all my heart, I want this regime to fall, but if the path chosen by the US and Israel strengthens it—that is my duty to say so.
Now let’s hear from inside the UAE. Might want to indulge in your drug of choice for this head spinner from the UAE controlled Arab Gulf States Institute:
Since Iran began its campaign of strikes against the Gulf Arab states on February 28, the United Arab Emirates has absorbed the majority of Iranian attacks – at least 2,583. As allies from Europe, Oceania, and Asia moved quickly to support Gulf air defenses, the Arab world issued statements condemning Iran. The crisis, the region’s largest since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, is not only testing the Gulf’s air defenses, it is exposing the hollowness of Arab solidarity, and the Gulf states are taking note.
The UAE has so far resisted calls for retaliation, choosing instead to reinforce its defenses and maintain normalcy by reopening its airspace and keeping businesses running. Its multilayered defenses have successfully blocked 95% of attacks, and it is adapting its defensive strategies to sustain operations for the long run – for example, deploying Apache helicopters to use their guns against drones.
That the Iranian attacks have focused largely on the UAE suggests two things: that Tehran’s long-range capabilities have potentially been degraded and that Iran feels more threatened by the UAE than any other Gulf Arab state. In leaked screenshots of Telegram messages, former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the UAE is equal to Israel, and Iran must focus on attacking it as Iran continues to strike at Israeli and U.S. interests.
In the face of Iranian aggression, several states have stepped up to provide real assistance to the UAE. Primarily, the United States and Israel have proved to be true allies by offering support through extensive military aid, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic backing. Further afield, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Australia deployed early warning systems, air defenses, and fighters to support Emirati interception efforts. Greece offered munitions from its sovereign stockpiles. South Korea sped up the exportation of its Cheongong (KM-SAM Block II) air defense systems and also sent equipment from its stockpiles. And Ukraine has offered inexpensive drone-interception systems and experts with experience countering Russian and Iranian drones.
The same support has not come from the Arab world.
At least they’re showing some signs of figuring out who their friends are, but otherwise not a lot of contact with consensus reality.
And about that consensus reality…
Consensus Reality Bites
Craig Tindale has a piece on X.com called “Famine: The Coming Shock to Global Food Supplies.”
Some quotes:
The global agricultural and industrial complex is heading into a poly shock, with an upstream sulphuric acid and Naphtha supply crisis colliding directly with a forecasted severe El Niño, generating generational system risks for 2026–2027.
Sulphuric acid is a critical upstream chokepoint; approximately 45% of global consumption is dedicated to the wet-process production of phosphoric acid for phosphate fertilisers.
This chemical bottleneck is currently being compressed by the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for approximately 49% to 50% of sulphur & Naphtha flows, and by China’s unprecedented mandate to halt all smelter-by-product sulphuric acid exports from May 2026 to protect its domestic agriculture.
…
This input-side supply collapse coincides with strong atmospheric teleconnections: meteorological consensus (NOAA CPC, IRI, ECMWF) confirms ENSO-neutral conditions will persist through June 2026, transitioning to an El Niño event by May–July 2026 with a 75% probability.
…
The convergence of higher nutrient application costs and climatic stress guarantees widespread yield destruction, forcing global agribusiness and sovereign risk systems into a cascading polycrisis spanning food security, delays in the green-energy transition, and severe macro-financial spillovers.Significant declines in crop yields are shaping up to be severe.
Mr. Tindale also has a report on Substack called, “The Four Horsemen of the PolyCrisis: Sulphur, Naphtha, El Niño & Central Bank Amplification.” Subtitled: “The Petrochemical Stack Enables Global Agriculture , Shortages During What Could Strongest El Nino in Our Lifetimes Puts Famine in the Forecast for 2026-2027”
Here’s a couple of charts from the piece:
Craig has a whole lot more at his Substack. Recommended.
Around the YouTubes
Patrick Boyle is one of the biggest popularizers of economic and business news on YouTube with almost 2 million subscribers.
Boyle’s piece above grapples with the disturbing break between Mr. Market and consensus reality.
Investors seem to be suffering from a bad case of muscle memory. They’re sitting at comfortable desks in New York and London, assuming that the administration will eventually experience what investors have been calling a TACO moment, where taco stands for Trump Always Chickens Out.
They expect the president to look at the upcoming midterm elections, look at the rising price of gasoline, and simply walk away from the conflict, much like he did when he retreated on his liberation day tariffs last year.
The fatal flaw in this assumption is that a trade war is fought with administrative inc. You can cancel a tariff with a weekend post on Truth Social. A shooting war in the straight of Hormuz is fought with drones, naval barricades, and anti-ship missiles.
You cannot unilaterally back down from a conflict where the other side has their own agenda.
The Iranian regime has survived the initial strikes and discovered that holding the global economy hostage is an incredibly powerful piece of leverage.
And unlike a nuclear weapon, it’s one that they can actually use. As I’ve said before, it takes two to TACO.
And right now, the other side of the table is busy seizing container ships.
For the commercial ships currently trapped in the Persian Gulf, the situation has devolved into something resembling a high stakes maritime prison break.
This next one is a recommended supplement to the dominant alt-media crew on YouTube.
Stay safe, y’all!
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‘A video posted by CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil shows senior staff and Cabinet members being evacuated from the venue, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Alina Habba, Todd Blanche, Stephen Miller, Katie Miller, and Pete Hegseth. Attendees can be heard shouting “God bless America” and “USA, USA” as the group is escorted out.’
Wait a minute. This was the White House Press Dinner that this was at. The attendees are supposed to be journalists that cover the White House and the Presidency. The same people that accuse MAGA voters of being jingoistic idiots apt to shout “God bless America” and “USA, USA”. Strange that.
Meanwhile Erika Kirk, aka “The Merry Widow”, was also there and could only say ‘I just want to go home’ while crying.
And in a flash the sunday news shows pivot from “I heard some weird person on the street say we’re losing?” to Trump lives to fight another day! It’s almost like pro wrestling. America is revealing itself…
“things reveal themselves in passing away”-Yeats
Thanks – swap you for some Larkin ….. ”Going Going ”
I almost paid zero attention to the matter. Saw something in my X.com feed, then read an RT.com story about it. Went back to watching crime shows on TV.
I give it a non-zero probability that the whole thing was staged.
“…crime shows on TV.”
Also one of my current guilty pleasures. Such are the times in which we live that I find depictions of retail crime in which the perpetrators of heinous crimes are actually apprehended and prevented from inflicting further suffering upon innocents strangely soothing.
Two potentially stupid questions:
1) How do we know CSIS tells the truth re: munitions.
Did they weigh in the already strained stockpiles due to Ukraine?
Sleboda with Nima did “confirm” 5-6 years to replenish the so far used munitions alone, without even counting in ongoing use. Throughout March he also hinted at low JASSM supply.
Larry Johnson had too delivered numbers weeks ago on Patriot and THAAD. Suggesting near exhaustion. But he added up all military operations since 2014 I think.
(I don’t have the time to look up the figures and compare them with CSIS. E.g. he mentioned them with Pascal Lottaz.)
Does Johnson confirm the CSIS numbers currently?
2) Is it conceivable that the story about Trump fighting over nuclear use with Joint Chief of Staff was planted?
I am aware both Michael Hudson and Mark Sleboda e.g. brought this up. And I guess a whole row of other experts.
But the bottleneck of actual sources in D.C. is often much narrower than one might think.
Your questions are all legitimate, and my SWAG is that the CSIS is biased pro-US. But more to the point, replacement is decades without Chinese rare earths. The CSIS is not peopled by low intel types, so they do understand that – i.e., heavy pro-US bias. So take their numbers with a pro-US bias (proaganda) factor applied.
Also, given the problems with so many US platforms where readiness rates are 30% – 70%, it is likely there are similar problems with these weapons systems – the oldest missiles will mostly fail or were cannibalized (but not removed from “inventories”). 30% of Tomahawks were duds in Nigeria, and those were not the bottom of the barrel.
It struck me as odd that any true numbers would leak so publicly, shouldn’t the true state of such inventories be a state secret? I vaguely remember more pessimistic estimates that if true would indicate 2-3 weeks left at previous consumption rate, so I was thinking this phase would be over then. Granted Israel will blow a (Epstein?) gasket if and when us goes home.
I believe that military appropriations bills are public information, so the purchase plans should be in public domain. Perhaps there are “dark” purchases that are not documented in the public record.
Modulo undocumented purchases, the authorized production schedule is public information. I would think that consumption would be less public. I don’t know how usage is estimated by entities outside the military; I would assume that the military does not volunteer its precise munitions consumption statistics.
‘Ryan Grim
@ryangrim
The erroneous news reports indicating that the U.S. and Iran would be restarting talks were produced because Pakistan’s ISPR sent the following incorrect update to many journalists. (They didn’t send it directly to me, but I was forwarded it.)’
I wonder about this. I suspect that this was the White House telling Pakistan what to say to pressure the Iranians to come to the negotiating table. So I give the Pakistanis a bit of a pass here.
I had a similar thought. The Trump admin has had surprisingly good results creating their own reality up to now. This would seem to be a piece with that. But, like another link mentioned, it takes two to TACO and it also takes two to allow the Trump admin reality distortion zone to work. Iran thankfully isn’t playing that game. (I can’t help but wonder what might have happened all the other times when a Trump opponent was faced with something similar if they’d have pushed back rather than than putting on a show of incredulity and ultimately going along with it.)
You wonder in this day and age of everyman owning a movie camera that comes with still shots that you can stick in your back pocket along with the possibilities using a cheap drone, how an embargo of what went down in our military installations in the GCC was kept on the QT for almost 2 months?
They were handing out the death penalty in Bahrain for filming/taking photos.
I wouldn’t share anything under that threat if I was in a similar position.
The information was out there.
We featured a Richard Medhurst video maybe 3 weeks ago in which he had very carefully documented the very extensive damage even as of then to US bases. He was almost laughing because Iran was hitting them so often that he depicted Iran as pounding them into dust.
I was listening to various reports on this about 24 hours after the first attacks. It just took the US MSM a while to get sensor’s approval.
Thanks for the extensive report. Re those Israeli investigations–before they were doing the shooting and this part is the crying. As mentioned yesterday we are in a bad horror movie plot where the male lead abuses the female lead and then tells her he loves her and it’s for her own good. This provides the excuse for lots of none too surprising “reveals” to propel the thing through a couple of hours–or in the above discussion a couple of months.
Trump is the same and says he is only killing Iran’s leaders to help the Iranians out.
Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a 2.
The surreal speechifying by Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, goes back and forth between “we’ll bomb those Iranians back to the stone age” and “this will get the Iranian leaders off the back of the Iranians,” in back to back sentences. Maybe they don’t listen to what they say. Maybe it sounds different in Hebrew, like what Heinrich Heydrich said in German.
It is alright to decapitate Iran’s Ayatollah but get a gun in same neighborhood as Trump…
Live by the sword…..
We call them terrorists.
I prefer to term the Zionists as Neo-Sicarii as they are an assassination cult, just updated with pagers and the like in lieu of daggers…
Oh, they have around 200 nukes, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii
Tx
Yes, and our friends Down South use the term “sicarios” to describe amoral killers working for the cartels. Curious how Latino gang bangers line up so perfectly with Zionist “enthusiasts.”
Ten cuidado.
“[…] like what Heinrich Heydrich said in German.”
It is either Heinrich Himmler or Reinhard Heydrich.
This being said: long ago I found a large (audio) extract of the famous speech that Himmler held before SS officers in Posen (the complete address can be found in Youtube). Hearing it, in its original German, with the intonation, the emphasis on certain words, etc, left me quite a stronger impression that the translated transcripts I had read before.
‘Displaced Lebanese Pool Money to Buy Satellite Images to See What Remains of their Homes.’
They should instead give the money to Hezbollah to fly by those villages with a drone and film it on their way to attack an Israeli target. I’d call that a twofer.
LOL. Now that’s creative thinking!!
The background conveyed by ArmchairWarlord doesn’t quite explain why the food is so bad, though: food delivered through local contractors has always been true, but, at least since the end of WW2, the military made good effort to keep up the quality. My dad was always fascinated by the hydroponic farms once owned and operated by US Navy in Japan to supply US forces in East Asia with green vegetables, as the local produce, which relied on human night soil as fertilizer, was deemed unsanitary (justified–worms were a big public health problem in East Asia forever until recently!) The Navy set up the farms, hired agronomists, including locals, to develop techniques, trained local farmers in the techniques, and these farmers in turn became the contractors after the Navy got out of the farming business. Long term planning, with serious benefits to the locals, too! Stuff that we obviously don’t do nowadays.
During the Vietnam era there was a saying going around: “The Army has the best food in the World until the cooks get ahold of it.” Don’t know about the Navy.
I was on often deployed on Amphib ships during the mid 70s. Worked in Supply, too. Food was very good for the most part, even while out-to-sea for long periods of time. We’d run out of fresh milk at a certain point but that was to be expected. The worst period I remember was about 30 days running of having rice at every meal (along with other stuff that was just fine.)
Used to have a lot of UNReps for both fuel and commodities but I think that method of replenishment has gotten worse over the years.
Doesn’t it largely parallel the average US diet? Except that while burgers, pizza and the like have carefully designed looks and flavours, assuming your tastes are attuned to that kind of stuff, military food is simply meant to be cheap – and profitable, of course.
I thought one of the attributes of military food after eating a week of MRE’s on a backpack trip was that such fare really backed you up, or at least that’s what happened in regards to my rear guard action on the front.
The US military is quite keen on retention. What would Freud have said about that?
If there’s a silver lining to the USN food rations shortage, it’s that the ships’ septic systems won’t be nearly as taxed.
Looking at the USN portions, wouldn’t that be a sliver lining?
Due to buggertary constraints, from now on, the Golden Nail in the bilge will be replaced with a Silver Nail.
“That is a cigar in the punch bowl.”
Ya gotta chew the gum!
Or so I understand … MREs were on the way in as I was on my way out. We subsisted on the MRIs, which were sorta like C-rations, but without the cigarettes.
Mmmmm….beef in spiced sauce, dumped into a hot bowl of ramen noodles…
If Mr. Market is mostly algos trading (bots moving to a formula) then aren’t we just lecturing machines for “Misreading events” or “Not taking things Seriously”?
I can just barely stomach investments being on auto-pilot but…. lecturing the auto-pilot about “current events”…..just seems insane.
Thee market had a hard time getting a read on “a” ongoing crisis when more humans were involved but bots properly analyzing “polycrisis” forget it… ain’t gonna happen.
If you repeat a lie enough times ai will make it true
Wait for the AI/LLM to hallucinate into some other strategy than “buy the dip”.
Are LLM’s manipulating in line with market open phased TACO?
There is a very strong bias throughout our society to think “the past was just like today except with not-as-cool tech, the future will be just like today but with even cooler tech”. Where “just like today” includes cultural shibboleths and standard of living as well as pure economic phenomena. Our irrational beliefs and fads are universal! Our material well-being is impregnable to anything less than a nuclear war! And this bias has to completely pervade whatever data sets that “AI” have been trained on. It’s become an unquestionable baseline assumption since the last of the “Greatest Generation” died out.
Will the “shorts” ever show up? I remember that fall of ’08 where the shorts and the feds were in a race to see whether banks would break or get merged or bailed out. With Lehman, the shorts won, and they were gaining on Morgan and even Goldman until AIG was bailed out and the shorts were put in the penalty box.
J.K. Galbraith
What’s just as curious is why the Israeli shekel should get stronger as Iran bombs them. Obviously the people who think that the S&P 500 is a great place to put money just before the global economy tanks are the same ones who just love the shekel.
Liquidating foreign assets to fund shekel obligations (trading losses, capital losses, repairs etc)?
Another thing that is curious is that here in NSW diesel went down from $3.29 a litre to $2.70 over the last week.
No change in the Strait, still closed but a nearly $0.60 drop while the last tankers arrived with their deliveries.
Incredible.
In the face of Iranian aggression, several states have stepped up to provide real assistance to the UAE. Primarily, the United States and Israel have proved to be true allies by offering support through extensive military aid, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic backing.
I’m sure he meant “diplomatic banking”…that darned spelchek strikes again…
Norm Finkelstein was interviewed on Neutrality Studies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2okjLkJ2rQ
He addresses his concerns about Tucker Carlson and Candence Owens. It’s not clear why Mearsheimer gets roped in with Carlson, as he is an IR scholar who voted for Bernie, not some political operative seeking to construct an America First political movement on the American Right. I suppose the likes of Carlson are using Mearsheimer’s work to critique the American foreign policy consensus, but this makes his work function as tool for agents in a political movement, not an agent.
Finkelstein makes an important point that Carlson and Owens have only recently discovered the humanity of the Palestinians, and I do think there is a distinction that can be made between crudely a “right-wing modality” of anti-Zionism and a “left-wing modality” of anti-Zionism. The Palestinian cause on the left has grown out of an anti-U.S. imperialist/colonialist orientation and national liberation movements (directed against Western colonialism).
In terms of Mearsheimer’s work, the concern is with maximizing US power and ensuring US decision-makers are making decisions based on American national interests, rather than responding to domestic pressures from internal ethnic lobbies. If the US had spent the last 30 years pursuing policies along the lines of Mearsheimer, it would be much more formidable, stronger and wealthier than the loss of treasure, lives, and prestige that it has incurred by engaging in forever wars in the ME, backing and protecting genocide in Gaza, and closing the Straights of Hormuz and destroying the world economy in the Iran war. Mearsheimer’s thrust is about preserving and strengthening American hegemony, e.g. Empire. Perhaps it would be a kinder and gentler empire (doubtful) but probably just more intelligent while remaining brutal and ruthless.
Mearsheimer’s framework is really pro-imperialist in the sense that he is interested in increasing and protecting the US’s hard power and ability to project force over the entire globe. This is fundamentally antithetical to left-wing anti-imperialist ideologies, although if you look at a figure like De Gaulle, his withdrawal from Algeria was conducted on the basis of real politik considerations (as well as perhaps an interest in preserving the “whiteness” of France), but coincided with the objectives of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial left. There was a convergence of objectives without a convergence of interests, similar to what is occurring around anti-Zionism.
In addition, Mearsheimer’s work is based on structural realism, which is a theory based on structures, you could call it a grammar of international relations. Like any grammar, what is important is the structure, what you see on the page, not the meaning of the sentence, which is supplied by history. Anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist narratives are primarily driven by history and an informed historic sensibility which dovetails nicely into anti-racist narratives as well. Once again, there may be an overlap, but the overlap is like two lines traveling along different dimensions converging to form a right angle.
Last, Mearsheimer (as well as Carlson and Owens) are part of the American Establishment. Iran is an enemy of the United States, and they are killing American troops in the region. Hezbollah has killed hundreds of Americans. One can be sympathetic to Iran or Hezbollah until you are blue in the face, but as a member of the American Establishment, you cannot endorse or support a foreign power killing American soldiers. Its ultimately about friends and enemies and where you sit at the table. A Tucker Carlson is never going to become Jane Fonda.
Last, Finkelstein insinuates that Carlson and Owens are primarily motivated by anti-Semitism, which they attempt to conceal behind nuances and denials but end up sounding like Lady Macbeth. Perhaps Mearsheimer is motivated by Anti-Semitism, he has been accused, but there is not a lot of evidence for this notion other than his criticism of Israel and the involvement of his children in Palestinian causes. My guess is that even if Carlson and Owens are primarily motivated by anti-Semitism, they also probably have an interest in a less self-destructive and suicidal foreign policy than what has been on offer over the last 30 years.
These comments are offered in light of Beitbeat video, which is filled to the brim with critical race theory perspectives, and which Finkelstein typically avoids while providing an old school leftist perspective on events.
‘Finkelstein insinuates that Carlson and Owens are primarily motivated by anti-Semitism’
Seriously doubt it and I think that Finkelstein is out of line here. More likely they are outraged and resentful how much influence Zionists have in America itself. Not only getting the US to attack Iran on Israel’s behalf and do the bulk of the heavy lifting but also how for years now Zionists seek to weaken the First Amendment so that they can’t be criticized.
Look at the video at 16:15.
That is not an argument. Finkelstein is indulging in a heavy-handed smear job to denigrate somebody he disagrees with. Carlson could come back and accuse Finkelstein of using his leftist reputation of being a schtick too. Finkelstein accuses Carlson of saying that Israel was behind the push for the war against Iraq, that people in the US have a dual loyalty to Israel *cough*Congress*cough and that it was also Israel that dragged the US into a war against Iran which Trump confirmed. Had to stop the video at that point as it was getting too scummy. Oh, one more thing. Sorry, not sorry.
I have followed Finkelstein for many years, read a couple of his books, I even had a chance to meet and chat with him in Berkeley California over 20 years ago. While I appreciate what he brings to the table, I agree with your take here. Like many, he has some blind spots.
So Finkelstein on Israel criticism–it’s ok when “we” do it? Not that Carlson and his mannerism haven’t alway been annoying to those of us who have been watching him for decades.
Still Finkelstein should perhaps stay away from the thought crimes accusations given that so much of this has been used against him. How about confining “anti-Semitism” to those who actually do bad things to Jews in general as opposed to having ethnic opinions. It’s not as though those claiming to be offended and who dominate much of our entertainment over the years haven’t used plenty of ethnic stereotypes of their own. Jack Benny meet Rochester. Melting pots are complicated.
This is not new for Finklestein. He has been a critic of Walt’s and Mearsheimer’s The Lobby from the beginning. Reminiscent of Chomsky.
That’s one reason why I consider the late, great Michael Parenti as a more respectable, and credible of US public intellectuals.
Chomsky’s friendship with Epstein and his Jewish Supremacist attitude has disgraced him and exposed rank hypocrisy that I find reprehensible disgusting.
I have never heard of any “Jewish supremacist” problems with Chomsky.
Do you have any links/books where one can get a discussion of this?
Carlson can still be irritating on several subjects. But to me he seems sincere in his opposition to our warmongering in general, not just for Israel. He was very critical of Trump’s bombing of Syria and our involvement in the Middle East during Trump’s first term. More than once back then I heard him explain how his eyes were gradually opened with our lies about Iraq. He has been consistent in his opposition to our warmongering since then, including Ukraine. I think this is more a legitimate, traditionally conservative position based on his view of US interests, not an expression of right-wing “antisemitism.” Many of the best commentators on the war from military or intelligence backgrounds that are cited daily here at NC also hold traditionally conservative views but oppose the blatant aggression and (self-)destructive insanity of our post-Soviet imperialism. I think a lot of these types hoped Trump would really rein in our imperialist impulses and blamed the Israel lobby for Trump for a long time. But they have tended to come around recently. Mearsheimer’s “realist” position is basically the academic version of this position. After all of his own searing criticism of “The Lobby,” I don’t see how Finkelstein could imply that Mearshimer’s work in that area had an “antisemitic” motive.
I can’t speak for the motives of Candice Owens. Though I welcome any source that challenges Israel and our imperial warmongering from the MAGA, her thought processes and motives are less clear to me.
Carlson’s attitude seems to be that the endless wars, which are immoral, are also counter productive. I think he thinks that if the US could just go back to the 1960s, probably without a Vietnam War, when they had a good industrial base and a rising middle class then everything could be good again.
Problem is, historical circumstances have changed. There is no Soviet Union to cosily divide the world up with anymore. And, he totally ignores the insidious effects of financialisation and what capitalism has turned into.
In that sense, while I can almost sympathise with his views, they are essentially nostalgic and shallow. He still has fairly traditional right wing views about China, for example. The basic reason for all the wars he doesn’t like is that US industrial supremacy is over.
What does he propose to do about that? Copy China? I doubt it.
Carlson is certainly a mixed bag but it may be that having worked the DC circuit for so many years he sees that the degradation of America was partly due to changing conditions like you say, but that much of it was a matter of deliberate choice by the political elite such as for example shipping America’s industries overseas to weaken the working class. He still has some nutty views but he has come a long way since his Fox days.
You are probably right there Rev.
Given my total avoidance of Fox I have to admit that until they sacked him I didn’t even know who he was.
Getting sacked by Murdoch is good enough as a recommendation for me. Not getting sacked by Murdoch works the other way round!
It’s worth noting that in “The Israel Lobby” Walt and Mearsheimer staked out a quintessentially “Liberal Zionist” position:
—————————————————————————————————
“We are not challenging Israel’s right to exist or questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state. There are those who maintain that Israel should never have been created, or who want to see Israel transformed from a Jewish state into a binational democracy. We do not.
On the contrary, we believe the history of the Jewish people and the norm of national self-determination provide ample justification for a Jewish state.
We think the United States should stand willing to come to Israel’s assistance if its survival were in jeopardy. And though our primary focus is on the Israel lobby’s negative impact on U.S. foreign policy, we are also convinced that its influence has become harmful to Israel as well. In our view, both effects are regrettable,” [emphasis added]
“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (p.12)
—————————————————————————————————
“There is no question that Jews suffered greatly from the despicable legacy of anti-Semitism and that Israel’s creation was an appropriate response to a long record of crimes. This history provides a strong moral case for supporting Israel’s founding and continued existence. This backing is also consistent with America’s general commitment to national self-determination.
But one cannot ignore the fact that the creation of Israel involved additional crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians. Crimes against Jews justify backing Israel’s existence, but its crimes against Palestinians undermine its claim to special treatment.” [emphasis added]
“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (p. 92)
——————————————————————————————————–
Of course, Mearsheimer’s views may very well have evolved since the publication of that seminal work.
Given that they were both extensively slandered and nearly cancelled for the positions they did take, I think they were being somewhat cautious in their arguments. The Overton Window has moved enormously since they published 20 years ago.
Is it possible that there is a growing divide here between staunch Zionists/the establishment etc. and the rabble/rest.
At least with Germany I can only say that, obviously, the suppression of anti-Israeli/Zionist/pro-Palestine views has grown massively since the 1990s. The censorship laws and regulations passed since 2022/2023 are staggering.
Public figures like Norman Finkelstein, Moshe Zuckermann or Jeremy Corbyn became pariahs for the establishment public.
But here too, again, things are complicated because the below the line mass of people and their views would confirm your point.
Thanks for pointing at the discussion with Finkelstein.
His criticism of Tucker Carlson is really limited.
Especially as he stresses multiple times that he agrees with Carlson in many things.
The antisemitism complaint is almost non-existent in those 70 minutes imho.
(Also I personally can stand Candice Owens´s droning even less than Carlson´s fake lumberjack populism.)
What I find more revealing – although that´s a differen and tertiary subject – Finkelstein seldomly misses the chance to state that he and Chuck Schumer went to the same school, that Schumer is certainly a “brilliant” mind and that Finkelstein was acquainted with Schumer´s sister, who, needless to say, was also a brilliant mind.
So is there bitterniss over Schumer´s buddies destroying Finkelstein´s career (that is Mr. D.)?
Had they not cancelled Finkelstein avant la lettre he now could attack them DNC goons himself from the luxury of the ivory tower. On par.
I understand his feelings very well but it proves none of us are angels. He would be the first to admit it.
Highly recommended episode.
Also Finkelstein´s new book will come out in June/July about the ICJ and other high diplomats basically committing treason against Gaza as quasi- Israel agents.
Obligatory reading 😉
p.s. I did not know that Marquardt guy.
A story in itself…. Just watching him and then reading this:
fwiw, Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Marquardt
I don’t think anyone was confused about whether Tucker Carlson is a revolutionary or not.
And worth the frequent reminder that, we can’t rebuild these if China won’t let us have the rare earths, the export of which is denied by China for military purposes. Oops.
Also calls bullshit to the “Russia will inade Europe!” meme, since US would hardly exhaust so much munition on a side project if they really thought that was in the realms of possibility.
Why not?
I doubt that Russia will invade most of Europe (other than maybe the Baltics if they don’t smarten up, and even that is doubtful), but I don’t think it is a surprise that the US would sacrifice Europe for Israel any day of the week.
Caloric loss equivalent to negative 3.59 billion people. I read that and a thought occurred. Maybe the attack of Iran is not the point. Maybe it is de-population. Saw some headlines over the years about Oligarchs wanting to reduce the population to make it more compliant. A die off of 4 billion people would provide that I think. During that faze I would like to be in a bunker if I was a Billionaire Technocrat.
I do think this War-that’s-not-a-war fits the Israeli strategies of “mowing the lawn” and collapsing the governments of neighboring states they feel are “hostile” to them (Iraq, Libya, Syria, now Iran). I think that explains why it started and why it hasn’t ended yet (Iran is still standing, and if anything is stronger now relative to Israel and the US than it was on February 27th of this year). Like the U.S. fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, this might be a situation of Israel fighting Iran to the last American. Or at least the Last American who can’t avoid military service.
I think the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the consequences of that were not even part of the planning or consideration, or if they were, were waved off by Trump and Netanyahu’s administrations as irrelevant to either country, or at least not a serious concern.
But I do agree with you that billionaires and the governments that they own and that serve them would see mass human starvation as a good thing, and a positive “silver-lining” to this crisis. Their anti-vaxx campaigns and putting a freak like RFK Jr. in charge is telling… they want to cull the herd.
I don’t know if a more compliant population is the goal exactly; I’ve always thought that the goal would be to allow the present situation to continue, as in the billionaires thinking “We’re not going to change our consumption patterns for any reason, and if they’re only possible going forward on a world with a lot less people in it, so be it.“
That was certainly the logic of the Jackpot in William Gibson’s Stub series of novels.
It was fitting that that the Jackpot produced a kleptocracy
Then they are stupid.
Depopulation produces huge increases in labor bargaining power and pay. See the Black Death.
The mere hunger leading into depopulation produces food riots, government overthrow, and killing of the rich. See the French Revolution and Arab Spring as examples.
I don’t think they’re stupid, but I don’t think they’re that intelligent. Their lesson from the Black Death would probably just be “well this time around, we have better technology to crush the working classes than they did in 1350 CE.”
I remember thinking (somewhat selfishly I’m ashamed to admit) when the COVID pandemic started of the example of the Black Death, and the way the bargaining power, wages, and quality of life improved for the peasantry. All I had to do was survive (and I felt being a regular reader of NC would help with that, and it probably did)
But it seems to me things are qualitatively different than they were then. for a while, things did seem to improve a lot. But then the price increases crushed any financial gains I made! I think too, I’m making 40% more than I made in 2020, more than I ever thought I’d need to live comfortably, and yet, it’s barely enough each month to pay all my bills and keep my cc debt under wraps.
I also do think some of the impetus behind the push to replace white collar work with AI could be explained by the billionaires’ fear of a boom in prosperity for a less numerous working class below them.
But it might not matter… with a handful of monopolists controlling the US economy, price increases can gut working class power, as they’ve already done over the last couple years. It’s like we live in one big company town, getting paid in script
AI…?
But this time will be different. That’s the magical thinking that results in historically tragic events being recreated again and again.
A lot has happened since the Black Death. So in a very real sense, this time is different. Production is not nearly as dependent on human labor as it was back then. There was no army of surplus labor back then. Today that army has grown substantially, and I would venture to say numbers in the millions if not billions. So much so that the words “universal basic income” are now in play.
Add to this, significant global resource constraints, including fossil fuels and water, and climate change considerations, including rising temperatures and the melting of the polar ice caps, and the fact that that surplus army of labor is also a major consumer of limited global resources, it’s not hard to realize that some human extinction planning for the expendable is under consideration, if not already underway, by the elites.
Just a few weeks back, Sam Altman, when confronted with the significant resource consumption of AI, defended it by stating that far more resources are consumed in developing human beings to produce, and that AI is a bargain in comparison.
Simply look at the Trumpian policies since he reclaimed the presidency. Destroying USAID, killing Obamacare, defunding Medicaid and Medicare, destroying the EPA and environmental protections, freeing pesticide manufacturers and corporate polluters from liability, and RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz leading USHHS. Mass deportations in the US, genocide in Gaza, and now the Iranian war and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, which poses significant risk to the worlds food supply. These are vastly different policies that all have one thing in common — that millions of what the elite consider an expendable and useless drain on limited global resources will die, and millions more will be led to the brink of extermination. And those of us who survive are being conditioned for, what the elites may already consider, in the words of Marvel super villain Thanos, “inevitable.”
I have actually seen a lot of pieces in the mainstream press lately decrying the fact that many countries are no longer at a population replacement level of fertility. So obviously there is a cohort that sees a decrease in the size of the herd as a bad thing.
I always find it jarring since I grew up in the sixties and seventies when the consensus was that there were way too many people on the planet already and things were getting steadily worse. So I would have thought the present situation would be a dream come true when considered against the carrying capacity of the Earth.
I guess you can’t please everybody..
Do they actually want ‘depopulation’ though? I’m doubtful because the evidence, at least from AngloLand countries, is mostly the opposite. Constant whining from elites about collapsing birth rates, constant pushing for moar immigration! More H1Bs! Elon Musk’s “f**k your face!” comment in response to people complaining about being replaced via employer H1B abuse is instructive in this regard – nothing must be allowed to stop the ‘importing infinite Indian tech workers’ train. We can see this viewpoint also expressed constantly in Western ShitLib media bashing of China, as one of the main points used against China’s future economic success is chortling constantly on China’s declining demographics, and how America is going to Do Better Than China™ because America will import infinite immigrants and China Can’t Do That™, and therefore America Superior™.
Maybe I’m looking at the wrong elites ¯\(ツ)/¯
I think you are conflating two distinct phenomena. H1-Bs are about securing talent from across the globe who can contribute to the US economy and perpetuate its firms’ role as gatekeepers of global development. At the same time these workers have very limited legal and political rights, because their presence in the US is intended to be precarious. They can brain drain other countries, while keeping this class of immigrant worker on a leash for years. That’s different from revival of natalism, which stems from the pseudoscientific racial anxieties amongst the US elite. They are soft-eugenicists, who think brilliance is genetic and want “smart”, affluent Americans to have more kids to furnish the ranks of the elite.
If anything this canard about “importing infinite indian tech workers” just proves my point. H1-Bs are meant to provide a relatively disposable workforce. This backlash in tech specifically, when H-1Bs are used in a wide variety of sectors to fill jobs that could be performed by US citizens, in my opinion stems more from a perception that too many of these Indians are overstepping their station. Because of the global significance of the tech sector and their work within it, these Indians are not disposable enough under the H1-B scheme, in other words.
Many H1bs are in health a services.
I can’t say I agree with this interpretation. The reality, not perception, in many cases is that H1B and other foriegn tech workers are used by American corporates to replace American workers, because Americans are “too entitled and expensive” (the actual perception at least amongst corporates). There are countless examples of American workers having to train their own (foreign) replacements even though the H1B system is touted as a way for companies to fill supposed skill shortages. Here is the experience of Disney workers replaced by H1Bs:
It’s hardly a “perception” when, like in this Disney case, what amounts to foreign scab labor is used to quite literally take the food off your table. And “scab” actually might be a good word for it, as these visa programs fulfill a similar function for capital that strikebreakers did in the 19th and 20th century. Jack London (yes, the Klondike Jack London) had a few things to say on that in an Atlantic piece from 1904: also republished on marxists.org
Also, the ‘Indian sourced labor’ to replace the locals is not only limited to a US context, but increasingly a broader Western one: (April 2024) The geopolitics of labor: Israel’s quest to replace Palestinian workers with Indians
Thank you!
When the Internet was still young, I found myself following a newsgroup where a discussion started on the topic: “How many people could be culled from the world population without affecting the economic order and the level of technical development achieved so far?” An approximate consensus was that 20% of the world population could possibly be considered supernumerary; reducing the population beyond that level would entail an irremediable loss of economic activity and the impossibility to maintain technical capabilities.
From that (cynical) perspective, 3.59b starving to death is twice too many, and that means that the standard of living would simply crash at every level of the society (including elites). As an example, this would probably mean no longer enough Africans slaving away in mines to dig out all those rare earths and other minerals needed for the myriad electronic applications — from mobile phones through MRI scanners to satellites.
B Ark people.
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_Ship_B
I had a question about that point, the caloric loss equal to the food supply of 3.59 billion. I don’t think Tindale is considering that some countries *may* choose to feed people before animals such as cows (who are the most inefficient converters of plant calories from grains [corn, soy, maybe wheat as well] to food humans will eat. Of course, cows are ahead when it comes to converting grass and cellulose to milk and proteins but that is not industrial agriculture these days). I suspect many nation states that are not yet completely captured neoliberal disasters, will recall relatively recent events involving food shortages such as the “Arab spring”), and try quite hard to avoid even worse condtions: Famine. Even going so far as requiring herd culls, so that grains remain too fed people, as opposed to insuring there is always meat on the tables of the elite.
A few months more of this and we’ll find out.
An aside: one thing Americans are blithely assuming is we will be largely spared.
I am not sure. The US will probably fare less badly but not to the degree assumed.
1. Admittedly anecdata, but Larry Johnson has pointed out that a cattle farmer he knows is losing money.
I know famers are already getting bailouts….but will they happen soon enough and on a big enough scale to prevent farm bankruptcies and resulting disruptions to their operations?
2. Tindale points out that pesticides and the sort of herbicides on which GMO crops depend will come to be in short supply. He depicts this as an actual shortage, as in something that cannot be solved by price.
I see the US as much heavier adopters of GMO crops than other countries. So could we have a worse hit via our GMO crops (corn, soyabeans, sugar beets) than other countries?
I live in cow country. A lot of people here have small herds. They all whine they are losing money and every year they keep running cattle. Anyone with a few acres can run a few stockers for their own consumption. It beats weed eating unless you walk around barefoot alot.
A viewpoint I support from Stanislav, is that it will be starvation of the lower classes. Since in the US the lower classes are quite well armed, this will be a severe form of instability. In many other countries too. Stanislav likes to mention from his friend professor in Italy, many can only afford food three weeks a month today!
It will be a very hot summer (El Nino + geopolitics).
“Even going so far as requiring herd culls, so that grains remain too fed people, as opposed to insuring there is always meat on the tables of the elite.”
From one of my grandmother talking about WWII, she recalled that at an early point in the conflict, not at the very beginning but a bit into it, there was a sudden availability of beef. Lots of it, and relatively cheap. Shortly thereafter, beef completely disappeared as a foodstuff for common mortals. The only explanation I have is that cow herds had to be culled en masse.
Moo cow herds in America are at their lowest levels since 1951!
See: https://www.agdaily.com/livestock/usda-cattle-inventory-stabilizes-report-shows/
The feedlots are apparently a leading indicator.
The UK cattle herd is declining but much more slowly. Beef calf prices are high. About 10% off last year’s peak but about £1,400 per head for yearling steers. Events in the Gulf should push inputs and thus sale price up, I imagine.
Also, interestingly, the UK dairy breeding herd is proportionately twice the size of the US, pro rata (UK is about a 10% of US herd) and our beef herd is half the size, proportionately. Does the US import a lot of dairy or just not consume as much? Or does it over-produce / consume beef?
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/livestock-populations-in-the-united-kingdom/livestock-populations-in-the-united-kingdom-at-1-june-2025
The total number of cattle and calves in the UK decreased by 1.3% to 9.3 million in June 2025. The breeding herd continued its long-term downward trend, due to a 4.1% decrease in the beef herd to 1.3 million. The dairy herd has seen little change in recent years and this continued in 2025 with an increase of 0.7% to 1.8 million.
I don’t see how a population decline like that would make the working class more compliant. The consensus is that the Black Death, which is estimated to have killed off a quarter of the population of Europe, revolutionized the labor market by making labor more valuable. Serfs were able to run away from their villages and find places at other desmesnes. They accepted fewer obligations. Apprentices were able to demand higher wages and better food.
Israel issues evacuation warning for seven Lebanese towns beyond ‘buffer zone’
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-issues-evacuation-warning-seven-lebanese-towns-north-litani-2026-04-26/
Netanyahu orders army to ‘vigorously attack’ Hezbollah in Lebanon
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yv1nvd4gjo
Will these “evacuation notices” be regarded by future historians the way we now see the Wannasee Konferenz?
If the shoe fits…
The collective “West” view Arabs, Persians, and other non-white people as subhuman, uentermensch, In the last 25 years or so, the empire has likely slaughtered over a million people in the MENA region: Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran etc. but even the most “liberal” commentators and observers gloss over or ignore that. European values are apparently hypocrisy, mass murder, targeting journalists for murder, targeting children etc.
These are historical crimes that are just as horrific as any in history, if we want to be honest. But denial is a much easier river to follow
Re: the Iranian F-5 attack:
I saw a comment on twitter that screen-shotted a news article from that day noting dryly that “US bases were attacked by Iranian aircraft”
The poster noted this was in an article about the 3 F-15s we lost over Kuwait, supposedly by friendly fire. So some were speculating that the F-5 got through US air defenses because we were hesitant to fire after such a disaster earlier, but of course all this begs more questions than it answers on the timeline of that attack, and what actually happened.
I think the appropriate assumption is that in situations where there’s a lack of clear reporting, assume the worst about the outcome from the U.S. perspective.
Kinda like in law, when a party destroys evidence during discovery, the jury may infer that the evidence did not help that party.
I assume if things had been going well, blowhards like Hegseth and Trump would be issuing a lot more details than their vague statements about us winning and destroying Iran’s air force/navy (again).
I think our “ceasefire” has only been in effect because of necessity; our stocks of long range missiles for this conflict are exhausted, and after we lost an F-35 and whatever else during that supposed “rescue attempt” we’re not going to risk any more direct airstrikes.
I do wonder why – as far as we know – Iran’s honoring the ceasefire and not hitting back at us, given our demonstrated impotence here, but that makes me think there’s nothing within range for them to attack… we really did abandon all our bases in the Gulf.
But then I wonder why they’re not still hitting Israel, given that state’s ongoing campaign in Southern Lebanon, and the public statements from Pakistan and Iran that Lebanon-Israel were supposed to be included in the ceasefire. The lack of information is frustrating.
Hizbolah has been responding to ceasefire violation, and IDF only go to villages not occupied by Hizbolah.
Why would Iran do anything but note the perfidy of agreement incapable US and Israel?
I saw an analysis (armchair?) that pointed out all 3 suffered modest damage to the tail, pilots got out alive before planes went down. SAM’s would likely have destroyed the plane – little air launched heat sealing sidewinders would fly up the tail, take out the engine, so likely Iranian jet got behind them.
According to Shi’a teaching, killing people is bad, refraining from killing people is good. That’s why, unlike the U.S. and Israel, you see so few civilian deaths from Iranian attacks. Hezbollah has moved toward the U.S./Israeli viewpoint, but are still reluctant to slaughter innocent civilians.
I’m scratching my head over how the F-5 pilot knew the odds were good enough to make the attempt (assuming it wasn’t just a suicide mission that got lucky, which seems unlikely). It suggests that whatever the weakness was, Iran knew just as much about it as the US did, possibly more.
On rebuilding costs for US bases in West Asia, the headline of billions, up from hundreds of millions, is moving in the right direction, but as realistic as the Trump view of the war. Maybe if priced in 1950s dollars / contractor rates!
But you look at what it costs to rebuild the Key Bridge now, 5.2 billion. Early claims were a tenth of the IBR (500 million to 7.5 billion), factor in 250% Halliburton overseas overhead, and you arrive at the hundreds of billions (or worse). One radar was 1.5 billion alone (no rare earths to replace)! The bases cannot be rebuilt without better A/D – so at least 50 – 100 billion for THAAD and Patriots.
I’m wondering if the host countries will farm out the rebuilding of those bases to Chinese companies? The next logical step….
my SWAG is there will be Iranian bases in those countries (and you are right – they will be built by China at a tenth the cost).
NBC report reprinted here (also with interesting commentary from USAF message board denizens):
https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/1svgd9i/an_iranian_air_force_f5_attacked_us_bases_during/
The aged F-5 Iranian jet getting through our defenses reminds me of Mathias Rust landing his Cessna near Red Square in 1987…
There was a long history (often going in the opposite direction) of that. The tiny and antiquated Polikarpov 2 biplanes were used extensively by the Soviets, then by the North Koreans (and I think Vietnamese, too) to slip through their opponents air defenses during WW2, Korea, and possibly, Vietnam. They were so tiny and small that they could allegedly take off and land from back yards. While they could only carry a small amount of bombs, they were imposible to detect and next to impossible to shoot down–maybe, except with a rifle–since they flew so slow and low. F-5 isn’t quite that low tech, but it gained a reputation for being a good flyers’ plane from early on compared to the big, powerful, and expensive planes that the air force wanted to buy.
Used by the “Night Witches.”
From Wikipedia:
“Night Witches”[a] was a World War II German nickname for the all-female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment[b], known later as the 46th “Taman” Guards Night Bomber Aviation Red Banner and Order of Suvorov Regiment,[c] of the Soviet Air Forces.”
Then there was the Cuban military pilot who landed a Mig at Homestead AFB in 1969.
See: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-01-mn-1262-story.html
‘Removed by moderator’
i.e. You are forbidden to see it.
That post got removed by the moderator at least as of 10:50 am.
Hopefully it got scraped by something or someone.
All this time I’ve been wondering who is buying the administration’s spin and I think you found them.
The IRGC has been busy during the pause in kinetic activity:
[PressTV] IRGC forces destroy 3 US bunker-buster bombs, neutralize 9,500 bomblets in Iran’s Zanjan
…the public relations department of the provincial IRGC force said that the…bombs were discovered during operations aimed at neutralizing unexploded ammunition during the ongoing ceasefire…it said the IRGC activities in Zanjan included “the discovery and destruction of three GBU-57 bunker-buster missiles as well as the discovery and neutralization of another one, which was safely delivered to the appropriate centers.”
…According to the statement, the IRGC forces also discovered and neutralized more than 9,500 bomblets that were dropped by hostile fighter jets in order to contaminate critical sites across the province.
They further defused various types of missiles and rockets, which were fired from F15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets, but did not function.
…
For perspective, the location of Zanjan province.
And even more busy:
[PressTV] IRGC says to reverse engineer 15 undetonated US missiles uncovered in southern Iran
The IRGC’s Imam Sajjad Corps, based in the provincial capital of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan, said in a Sunday statement that its bomb disposal teams had successfully neutralized more than 15 heavy American missiles in the province.
The statement said the missiles were mostly of the GBU and BLU types and other advanced models, adding that the weapons had been transferred to technical and research units of the IRGC for reverse engineering.
I believe that a link yesterday, to the latest Russian/ Iranian discussions, mentioned that the various unexploded ordinance was of interest to various researchers. Though certainly not for reasons of improving cost efficiencies.
In the Patrick Boyle vid, he says that some ships slipped through the IRGC blockade without permission. Other reports say that the main shipping channels in the Strait have been mined, forcing ships into Iranian waters and subject to permission and paying a toll.
(and a nitpick: he refers to the Iranian government as “regime” which reflects bias against Iran)
How did these ships Boyle refers to “slip through” undetected, in Iranian waters in an even narrower stretch of water? Did they risk mines going through the main channel? Or did they get permission? Something here does not make sense.
No one mentions Omani waters on the other side of the strait. Iran has been “playing nice” with the Omanis, so I would assume, (with proper caveats,) that Iran is not mining the Omani littoral.
Head scratching time.
Iran’s Araqchi discusses efforts to end war and Hormuz security with Oman
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-araqchi-discusses-efforts-end-war-hormuz-security-with-oman-2026-04-26/
Sal on his YouTube channel “What’s going on with shipping?” has shown the geography of the strait a few times and explained how ships are being diverted. For example in the below video starting at 1:17
https://youtu.be/G8eP2Oqps24?si=UM3kwLTjT9EY_JFs
Basically, the middle portion of the transit route is entirely within Omani waters. Iran has advised it’s dangerous to continue using that path and instead recommends ships use a more northern route that coincidentally lies entirely within Iranian waters. So, perhaps Iran has mined Omani territorial waters.
Then again, those two U.S. warships made it through before beating a hasty retreat when threatened by the Iranians. The fact they made it through and back out without hitting a mine doesn’t prove there were no mines at the time. But does kinda make me wonder.
Regardless, as I understand it, it’s the insurers and their fear of mines etc, which keeps ship owners from sending their boats through. Perhaps reports of ships slipping through show some ship owners are getting desperate enough to order transit without insurance.
Note the amazingly lame and technically illiterate analysis here.
“More sophisticated technology”, whatever this means and however it is quantified, somehow blandly justifies a 100x price increase.
Actually, Patriots were rolled out in 1984 by Raytheon, making them 42 years old right now. In 1984, Intel was shipping the 80286 processor, advanced for its time but hardly “sophisticated technology” by 2026 standards. We can safely assume the entire Patriot design reflects the technology of the era. In fact, I assume the major difficulty Raytheon has manufacturing Patriot missiles is sourcing parts so old they are no longer in production.
We can agree Patriots are physically bigger than the drones they are being fired at (and mostly missing), but sophistication is not measured with a ruler. A calendar is often better.
Paraphrasing Stalin, cheap and plentiful is a quality all its own, especially when sophisticat a n costly actually run out.
Look at it another way, in that a BYD is the equal of a F-1 race car…
The PAC-3 MSE missiles entered IOC in 2016, so not really “42 years old”.
What Tucker Carlson and John Mearsheimer Get Wrong About Empire | Prof. Joseph Massad & Ajamu Baraka by BettBeat Media
I don’t expect much from JNap but I still don’t know what to make of Diesen.
So thanks for including this, Nat, and reminding me not to neglect the Black Agenda Report and that crowd. I subed BettBeat in my podcast player now. The RSS URL is https://bettbeat.substack.com/feed
No doubt Iraq’s military establishment has been developing and refining its war plans to be used in the event of a US attack for the last 50 years. There has literally been no other enemy on the horizon for Iraq in that time, so it’s military planners had plenty of time on their hands to focus on how to repel the US.
I’m sure they have a response and target package already codified long ago for anything the US might possibly do. As a result, the country can “immediately respond” to things, as they have been doing.
Evidently fighting a successful war has nothing to do with making it up as you go along.
P. S. In Robb’s Substack post, he describes the current new generation of weaponry as ‘Autonomous Weapons’. Agreed we need some catch-all term for this stuff, but I think ‘Unmanned Weapons’ would be an improvement.
The word autonomy implies the absence of human supervision or decision-making. That’s not what’s happening now. What we are seeing is either remote piloting and targeting, or advance-targeting, all of which is being done by humans and not by the weapon itself. I think the key breakthroughs have been:
(o) Very low cost consumer/hobbyist drone control electronics.
(o) Small and low cost cameras and image capture systems.
(o) GPS and other global positioning systems.
(o) Ongoing miniaturization of powerful CPU/GPU computational electronics.
None of these are about autonomy per se.
(I can hear all the AI fanboys jumping up and shouting “well, AI targeting systems are just around the corner!” Except perhaps for image recognition systems, which to my mind are a different category of AI, I don’t see this happening anytime soon. This is a good thing, since AI decision making is very poorly understood and has about a 50% success rate at best. No one on our side or the other wants toddler-level thinkers deciding who to blow up next. Keeping trained, experienced humans in the loop on any safety critical application remains a critical thing.)
Are you sure autonomous weapons aren’t being used? It could be that the users would rather not declare it.
Iran has loitering munitions that can stay several days in an area, waiting for a plane to fly by and then they autonomously attempt to strike.
I assume the have a friend or foe code, too. The many reports of these munitions have not gotten into that level of detail. Google scored lots of hits from legitimate sources.
I read about those a coupla weeks ago. It is like turning the skies into a minefield.
In Craig Tindale’s feedstock yields chart, the Key Intermediates Produced column includes “Fretic Ceodornces” and “Propylene Cesdarnes” which look like LLM garbage to me, but perhaps a better-informed reader can set me straight.
Yeah, uh, Propylene Cesdarnes deliveries are way down.
I mean up.
–Craig.
The “C5+ Missan/Irnan” is a bit strange, too.
I do not understand the colour code in the charts either. Red for “low” and “high”, yellow for “moderate” and “medium-high” (Global petrochemical feedstock shock); “low” as red, “low-medium” as both red and orange, “medium” as both yellow and green, “medium-high” as green (Feedstock substitution reality check).
NY Times–“Investigators were still working to find the motive” for Trump’s apparent assassination attempt….
Though searching for the motive always seems to be the top priority in the aftermath of assassination attempts, I don’t recall the mainstream media ever revealing the motive in past attempts, like Tyler Robinson, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Ryan Routh, etc.
Apparently investigators are really, really inept, or maybe it’s the media that just can’t figure it out…or deem it to be “news not fit to print!” Or maybe the media just regurgitates from the same past-assassination attempt script in order to have something to say, no matter how inane.
Allen’s manifesto is reasonably clear about his motives.
I guess the NYT didn’t get the Memo…At 5:45 pm on April 26, at the top of their web page, they are still reporting that “Investigators were still working to find the motive” SOP.
Really good post today, Nat. You’re getting good at digging up unusual and little-known (at least to me) sources. Very enlightening.
Much appreciated.
Thanks much!
US intercepts Iranian ‘shadow fleet’ vessel Sevan in Arabian Sea, US Central Command says
https://kyivindependent.com/us-intercepted-russian-shadow-fleet-vessel-in-arabian-sea-us-central-command-says/
The lights were always going to go out: inside Lebanon’s electricity affair
https://www.albawaba.com/business/lights-were-always-going-go-out-inside-1626109
Trump Says Iran Proposed Better Terms ‘Within 10 Minutes’ After He Canceled Talks
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-cancels-iran-talks-better-deal_n_69ed2754e4b0f3a433cb45c6
Fatah says it claimed ‘sweeping victory’ in local elections, despite democratic shortcomings
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-894145
Pentagon chief Hegseth says US blockade on Iran ‘going global’
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pentagon-chief-hegseth-says-iran-has-chance-make-good-deal-2026-04-24/
Tehran resumes international flights
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/2097433/tehran-resumes-international-flights
UK’s Starmer and Trump discuss ‘urgent need’ to restore shipping in Strait of Hormuz
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/uks-starmer-trump-discuss-urgent-need-restore-shipping-strait-hormuz-2026-04-26/
Iran’s Araqchi discusses efforts to end war and Hormuz security with Oman
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-araqchi-discusses-efforts-end-war-hormuz-security-with-oman-2026-04-26/
‘Trump Says Iran Proposed Better Terms ‘Within 10 Minutes’ After He Canceled Talks’
Classic Trump making up bs on the spot to make himself look good in pr terms. Like when he said that he and Iran should split the Iranian transit fees.
Seems like Iran has quite the military upper hand now.
Shame that they don’t want to play it while Israel pounds their allies.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid are set to officially announce the merger of their two parties under Bennett’s leadership this evening at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/naftali-bennett-and-yair-lapid-announce-united-run-under-bennett-in-2026-elections/
Canada is siding more often with its European allies when it comes to Israel
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canada-europe-israel-washington-middle-east-mark-carney/
Israel sent “Iron Dome” system and troops to UAE for Iran defense
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/26/israel-iron-dome-uae
U.S. Mint Buys Drug Cartel Gold and Sells It as ‘American’
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/world/americas/us-mint-gold-drug-cartel-colombia.html
The clock keeps on ticking, and the chorus of voices saying that there is an imminent crisis with physical supply grows louder:
https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/5850246-chevron-ceo-predicts-jet-fuel-crisis/
Note that the CEO of Chevron likely knows a thing or two about oil products. Never mind the cretins chasing short-term paper profits by shorting oil futures.
Transavia cancels flights as fuel costs surge amid Iran war
Ice IceFalse Flag Baby … LOL (via X)Anybody notice how in that assassination attempt that the Secret service evacuated JD Vance first and only then went back to get Trump? Priorities!
Pressure Builds to Oust Wiles After Trump Dinner Shooting
https://www.thedailybeast.com/pressure-builds-to-oust-susie-wiles-after-shooting-at-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner/
DOJ aims to strip citizenship from hundreds of foreign-born Americans, sources say
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/doj-denaturalization-strip-citizenship-foreign-born-americans-rcna341922
Germany discovers a treasure trove beneath an old gas field: 43 million tons of lithium have been found beneath the Altmark region, bringing Europe closer to the great battery revolution
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/germany-discovers-a-treasure-trove-beneath-an-old-gas-field-43-million-tons-of-lithium-have-been-found-beneath-the-altmark-region-bringing-europe-closer-to-the-great-battery-revolution/31164/
Iranian foreign minister heads to Moscow for meeting with Putin after second Pakistan trip
https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/26/iranian-foreign-minister-returns-to-pakistan-before-heading-to-moscow-for-meeting-with-put
‘DOJ aims to strip citizenship from hundreds of foreign-born Americans, sources say’
Would that have included John McCain if he was still alive? John McCain was actually born in the Panama canal zone.
Ted Cruz was born in Canada, so maybe start with him although that would no doubt significantly worsen the US’ already poor relations with the great white north.
Israel court orders govt. to penalize ultra-Orthodox Jews who refuse draft
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-27/iran-offers-deal-to-us-to-reopen-strait-delay-nuclear-talks-axios-says
If it’s Sunday night, it must be AXIOS in Bloomberg and a new Iranian proposal that just happens to be everything Trump wants—but who knows if he’ll actually take it because he’s just so tough and is holding all the cards!…..
Actually, does this really have anything Trump wants? The devil is in the details, but it doesn’t say Iran will reopen the Strait without charging for passage and putting nuclear talks off until later is likely a non-starter for the US.
Bailout fever is spreading:
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4579775-budget-airlines-seek-25b-us-aid-tied-to-fuel-cost-surge
Now it’s not just Spirit, but Frontier and some smaller budget airlines lining up for their bailout.
Of course as the problem is the availability of jet fuel, you can be sure that the Pentagon will demand to be served first, especially if Trump wants to continue the war with Iran. Have no idea if there will be eventually rationing for all those airlines and who gets what.
You make an interesting point there. As of now, these airline execs want to be compensated for higher fuel costs with a bailout. Obnoxious bunch, for sure. But if the issue is availability, i.e., you cannot get jet fuel as is being forecast for Europe in a few weeks, all the bailouts in the world won’t prevent a repeat of the COVID summer of 2020 – jets mothballed in the desert, few if any options for travelers looking to fly, cancelled flights.
The only difference is that, unlike 2020, there won’t be a demand shock. Fares for the few routes still available will do a moon shot.