[This Iran war post is even thinner than usual at launch due to still being a bit addled from travel. Please come back at 7:30 AM EDT or refresh your browsers then for a final version]
After various press leaks suggesting that Trump viewed more kinetic attacks on Iran as too risky and thought keeping the blockade on as effective, and even ones that depicted the Administration as considering declaring victory and exiting, the latest reading of the Trump fever chart is that he is back to favoring more pounding. It seems that the Iran threat to take on the blockade, as in attack the US Navy even at its present remove from Iran, has not gotten the attention it warrants. More on that soon.
The latest Trump sighting per the BBC in Oil price hits highest since 2022 after report Trump to be briefed on new Iran options:
Oil prices jumped to their highest since 2022 after a report that the US military is set to brief President Donald Trump on new plans for potential action in the Iran war.
US Central Command has prepared a plan for a wave of “short and powerful” strikes on Iran to try to break the deadlock in negotiations with Tehran, news site Axios reported. The BBC has contacted US Central Command and the White House for comment.
Brent crude rose by almost 7% to more than $126 (£94) a barrel at one point, the highest since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine…
After reaching $126.31 a barrel at one point in Asian trade, the price of Brent crude fell back to around $116 in European trade…
In the UK, petrol currently costs an average of 157p a litre, according to motoring group RAC, which is 24p higher than before the start of the war. Diesel is at nearly 189p a litre, up 46p compared with its pre-war price.
But the potential impact is wider than just fuel prices. The UK government has warned people could face higher energy, food and flight ticket prices as a result of the war.
An aside: the fact that the UK officialdom and its press is now citing the broader costs of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is significant.
Bloomberg called out the continuing US-Iran staredown in its headline: US and Iran Stuck in Standoff as Oil Prices Soar to Wartime High
- The US and Iran showed little sign of breaking their impasse and agreeing to another round of peace talks, with President Donald Trump saying his navy’s blockade is working.
- US military commanders are set to brief Trump on new plans for Iran, including a plan for a short wave of strikes on Iran to break the negotiating deadlock.
- Trump told Axios the blockade of Iran’s ports is “somewhat more effective than the bombing” and “choking” the country by restricting its oil exports….
Brent oil rose to a wartime high as traders factor in an even longer closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a potential breakdown of the US and Iran’s shaky ceasefire, which has been in place since around April 7. Brent surged as much as 7.1% to more than $126 a barrel on Thursday, before paring gains to $121.40.
Mind you, both stories rely on the underlying Axios account. And the CENTCOM briefing must have been previously scheduled since it requires some analysis.1 But the flip side is that Professor Mohammed Marandi has been saying that Iran expects another US attack, and it needs to come pretty soon, given that heat levels in the Gulf are about to rise dramatically, making any ground operation extremely difficult.2
A story in Reuters indicates that at a minimum, there are divisions in the Administration on what to do:
U.S. intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if President Donald Trump were to declare a unilateral victory in the two-month-old war that has killed thousands and become a political liability for the White House, two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter said.
The intelligence community is analyzing the question along with others at the request of senior administration officials. The goal is to understand the implications of Trump potentially pulling back from a conflict that some officials and advisers worry could contribute to deep Republican losses at the midterm elections later this year, according to the sources.
While no decision has been made – and Trump could easily ramp back up military operations – a quick de-escalation could ease political pressure on the president, even as it could leave behind an emboldened Iran that could eventually rebuild its nuclear and missile programs and threaten U.S. allies in the region….
It is not clear when the intelligence community would complete its work, but it has previously analyzed the likely reaction of Iran’s leaders to a U.S. declaration of victory.
In the days following the initial bombing campaign in February, intelligence agencies assessed that if Trump were to declare victory and the U.S. drew down its forces in the region, Iran would likely view it as a win, one of the sources said.
If Trump instead said the U.S. had won but maintained a heavy troop presence, Iran would likely see it as a negotiating tactic, but not one that would necessarily lead to the end of the war, the source said.
“CIA is not familiar with the intelligence community’s reported assessment,” Liz Lyons, director of the agency’s office of public affairs, said in a statement after the publication of this story. The CIA declined to answer Reuters’ specific questions about its current work on Iran.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
The reason for quoting this piece at some length is the CIA denial, as opposed to mere refusal to comment. CIA Chief John Ratcliffe is a hard-core Israel backer and as recently as mid-April, went to Jerusalem to talk with Netanyahu. One can infer that the Director of National Intelligence, as in Tulsi Gabbard’s office, is having to cut the CIA out of consideration of any non-escalatory options. Mind you, I doubt that will succeed:
On Monday Marco Rubio said that we cannot allow Iran to have control over the strait of Hormuz, picking and choosing who enters and what currency they use.
There is a very important reason why the administration feels this way: because it would be the greatest military defeat in…
— Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith) April 29, 2026
But the attempt to make a case to Trump that walking away is less terrible than he might believe shows that some in the Beltway recognize the real stakes, that the US needs to eat a lot of crow to escape even worse outcomes
Back briefly to what still seems to be Trump’s preferred option, even if not strongly so, of keeping the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on and hoping Iran will cry uncle rather than suffer damage to its oil wells as its storage fills up.
That is silly. As we pointed out, Iran exported pretty much nada in 2019 and 2020 yet seems to have suffered no lasting infrastructure harm. Bloomberg helpfully showed that that wasn’t the only time:
Iran appears to have figured out how to keep enough pressure in old wells in a shutdown to prevent meaningful damage to its oil fields.
And as we described long-form yesterday, Iran has more export routes now than then, including by rail to China, through six corridors just opened up by Pakistan, and via the Capsian Sea to Russia.3
However, the fact that Iran can endure the US blockade does not mean it is advantageous to Iran to sit back and (again) take it.
After reports that Trump rejected Iran’s preconditions for negotiations & resuming the naval blockade on Iran, reports are coming in that Iran is examining 'non-negotiated options' to lift the naval blockade. https://t.co/gt79pALxaT
— Arya Yadeghaar (Backup) (@AryJeayBackup) April 29, 2026
Strategic reasons for Iran to take action include:
1. Iran taking on the US Navy, ideally sooner rather than later, could throw a monkey wrench in whatever plans CENTCOM is cooking up for an attack
2. If the winning game is tit for tat, merely refusing to negotiate might not be an adequate punishment for breaking the ceasefire deal,4 particularly in light of US actions:
The US regime hijacked a ship carrying medical equipment including dialysis supplies and is still holding 22 crew members hostage https://t.co/6c5trxstGb
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 29, 2026
3. If we believe that Iran (as it has before) can endure a no-sea-trade situation, that implies that the impasse over the Strait of Hormuz could persist until the economy of the US suffers so much damage that it becomes untenable for the Administration to persist5 (but as a discussion below between Douglas Macgregor and Daniel Davis suggests, Trump no longer cares about public opinion, otherwise he’d be trying harder to find an off ramp). That could take a while, particularly given how much of Congress is captured by the Israel lobby. The impact of the present duration is expected to produce starvation in some poor countries. The human cost is set to rise rapidly the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
Given that the Shia believe in defending underdogs and innocents, one has to think at least some Iranians are not happy about Iran being a party to mass hunger, even if they are not the main driver. One can similarly think from a more cynical power perspective that it behooves Iran to show as much cognition as possible of the humanitarian crisis underway and that it is doing what it can to mitigate that while fighting an existential fight (this theme has been absent in Iran’s otherwise extremely skilled messaging).
Again cynically, Iran may want to prevent a global economic collapse, which is what a long closure of the Strait of Hormuz will produce, out of self interest.
While I am typically a big fan of Larry Johnson’s analysis, he seems to be underestimating the effectiveness of the US blockade. Even if some, arguably quite a few, ships are successfully running it, only a pretty small minority of owners and operators are willing to take even a 1 in 20 risk of having their cargoes, vessels and crews captured. And his account indicates that it is Iranian carriers who are most willing to accept that risk.6
Early in the war, we cited a Bloomberg story (and Lloyd’s List voiced similar views) that ship owners regarded lack of safety and not lack of insurance as the big impediment to transiting the Strait of Hormuz, even to get bottled-up vessels and crews in the Gulf out. In keeping, many Chinese ships, as in ones Iran would almost certainly let pass through the Strait of Hormuz, are still stuck:7
Thai Foreign Minister: We asked for China’s help to pass 8 ships to us through the Strait of Hormuz. They told us that they are struggling to pass 70 of their ships.
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 27, 2026
Vessel operators then said they wanted US/Collective West escorts through the Strait. That indicates it will take a LOT of doing for many ship owners to get comfortable with an Iran (+ Oman?) operated transit scheme. So even in the highly unlikely scenario of Trump defying Israel and accepting the humiliation of leaving the Strait of Hormuz in Iran’s, it seems that it would take even longer than even the pessimistically-minded assume for transit levels to go back to the old normal. It is not just a matter of getting ships unsnarled. Shipowners may hold back due to lack of trust in Iran, as in they will want to see the new procedures operating well before they will jeopardize vessels and cargoes.
Briefly to some other noteworthy developments. Yesterday we skipped over the visit by Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi to St. Petersburg, which included an audience with Putin himself and Putin making strongly supportive remarks afterward.7
Even more important, Putin has directly pressed Trump to back off from further kinetic measures against Iran. From the Kremlin website, in Commentary by Aide to the President of Russia Yury Ushakov following Vladimir Putin’s telephone conversation with President of the United States Donald Trump:
President Vladimir Putin held another telephone conversation with President of the United States Donald Trump. The call lasted for more than an hour and a half…
Understandably, Vladimir Putin began by expressing his sympathy and support for the President of the United States in connection with the assassination attempt against him …
When discussing the international agenda, the presidents focused on the developments surrounding Iran and the Persian Gulf.
Vladimir Putin believes that Donald Trump was right to extend the ceasefire for Iran. This, he believes, will give negotiations a further chance and help stabilise the overall situation.
At the same time, the President of Russia pointed out that if the United States and Israel resume military action, this would inevitably lead to extremely adverse consequences not only for Iran and its neighbours, but for the entire international community. He stressed that a ground operation on Iranian territory would be particularly unacceptable and dangerous.
Russia remains firmly committed to facilitating diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a peaceful resolution of this crisis, and has put forward several proposals to help address differences over the Iranian nuclear programme. To this end, active contacts with Iranian representatives, leaders of the Gulf countries, as well as with Israel, and, naturally, the negotiating team of the United States will continue.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s remarks about the call were awfully muted. Per TASS:
On Putin-Trump telephone conversation
– A single conversation between Putin and Trump cannot suddenly improve the global situation or reverse negative trends, as there are just too many conflicts going on now: “Of course, a single phone call can hardly improve the global situation, because, unfortunately, the concentration of conflicts is so great and the consequences of a whole series of conflicts for the international situation and the global economy are so serious that it is, of course, very difficult to stop these trends in an instant.”
In contrast to the Ushakov recap, Trump presents himself as having been borderline rude to Putin:
Speaking moment ago in the Oval Office, President Trump stated that he had a “very good conversation” today with Russian President Vladimir Putin about both Iran and Ukraine, with Putin claimed to have expressed interest in helping with Iran’s stockpile of highly-enriched… pic.twitter.com/vqOLfcaH46
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 29, 2026
Other short sightings. On the economic front:
Japan Airlines will now be doubling the jet fuel surcharge to $350 USD per ticket for any JAL flight to North America or Europe going forward
South Korean airlines will also be doubling their fuel surcharge pic.twitter.com/JPrATkmdqw
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) April 29, 2026
Eurobanks are assuming the brace position, becoming cautious about lending and piling up on government bonds:
The pro-Israel propagandists are doubling down:
The Politico CEO called an all-hands meeting to say the outlet unequivocally supports Israel. He also said any reporter who disagrees with his personal Zionism should quit.
When pressed by reporters on the need to follow journalistic ethics, he said: “I don’t need to prove Iran… pic.twitter.com/KYCk49zjiC
— Joe Wrote (@joewrote) April 29, 2026
And if you have time, Douglas Macgregor widens the focus to look at what the Trump’s pugnacious and reckless actions have cost the US in terms of reputation and relationships:
Done for today. See you tomorrow!
_____
1 This is completely speculative, but recall the report by Larry Johnson confirmed by others that Trump had asked the military to ready a nuclear strike on Iran and they have flat-out refused. One can imagine Trump ranting that if they are denying him that option, they need to tell him what he could do.
2 The press is suggesting that an attack would be strictly bombing, but the US has gotten a lot of special forces in theater, so Iran is sure to see that as in play.
3 That may seem like coals to Newcastle, but Iran getting more crude to Russia in a setting of serious global shortages should allow Russia to increase its exports in similar amounts.
4 Iran may also be considering that letting itself regularly being in the position of reacting to Trump is sub-optimal. In chess, in theory in a perfectly played game, the best black can do is fight to a draw, while white can win. Similarly, Scott Ritter has stressed the effectiveness of the OODA loop, of forcing the opponent to react to you.
5 Mind you, signs of US stress are rising:
This pace of US exports I mentioned a few days ago now shows clearly in the rapid pace of the US inventories depletion.
This is in essence a transfer of inventory from a place of surplus (US) to a place of deficit (Asia).
Those are not new molecules and the speed of this… https://t.co/Hxuwpjnpmt pic.twitter.com/ummuc3A7eu
— Yet another commodity guy (@tleilax___) April 29, 2026
And fFrom NO1:
US depleting oil reserves at fastest pace since 2022. SPR drawn down 7.1M barrels (biggest weekly drain since Oct 2022), crude inventories fell 6.2M barrels, gasoline inventories down 6.1M barrels. US crude exports hit record 6.4M bpd. Per Javier Blas: “Unsustainable.”
6 From Johnson in The Assassination Myth, And Iran Continues to Run the Blockade:
US Navy ships are staying 200 miles offshore from the Iranian coast. If they try to move closer to the Iranian coast they will be vulnerable to missile and drone attacks. All Iran has to do is sail its tankers 50 miles offshore in order to bypass the US blockade, which appears to be what Iran is doing.
Reuters/Kpler data reported at least 6 ships crossed in the 24 hours covering April 29 (mostly dry bulk carriers and some through Iranian waters, including sanctioned vessels like the Vast Plus chemical tanker). Other tracking (e.g., Anadolu Agency/Windward) noted around 13–14 total transits in similar periods, far below the pre-war norm of 125–140 daily.
Iranian vessels dominate the limited traffic: Many (often about half in recent days) load at Iranian ports in defiance of the US blockade and use IRGC-designated routes. A Fars News Agency report (via Middle East Monitor) claimed 52 Iranian vessels (31 oil tankers + 21 cargo ships) breached the blockade in a 72-hour window ending around April 28. This suggests a notable number of Iranian-linked movements around that time, but no breakdown isolates April 29 alone.
7 The impediment may also have been operational, as the Thai pleas suggest, in that Iran had not sorted out how to run its transit operation efficiently and thus could only let a few ships pass daily until it had worked things out, which clearly had not happened as of when the US imposed its blockade.
.8 Note that John Helmer disagrees with what is close to an independent media community consensus that Russia is now openly throwing its weight behind Iran. From WHAT MESSAGE OF STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS IN WAR DID THE PUTIN-ARAGHCHI MEETING SEND:
President Vladimir Putin told Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at their meeting on Monday in St Petersburg: “We see how courageously and heroically the Iranian people are fighting for their independence and sovereignty… For our part, we will do everything that meets your interests.” This appeared to be an unqualified declaration of Russia’s support for Iran to resist Trump’s terms.
Unqualified, however, it is not. At least not on Putin’s part. His spokesman and advisor on foreign policy, Yury Ushakov, Russian ambassador to the US between 1998 and 2008, issued the qualifier: “We will analyze what he [Araghchi] will say, and analyze against the background of today’s conversation the signals that we have received from both the Americans and the Israelis. And then we’ll see what to do.” In other words, Putin will balance Iran the defender against the US and Israel the attacker. Putin will measure their respective strengths and then choose which side to take in the fight.
Here I have to differ a tad. First, Putin meeting with a foreign minister, as opposed to a head of state, is a strong sign of respect to the counterparty nation. Second, irrespective of the qualifier, Putin’s statement at a minimum is a wake-up call to Israel. Putin has in the past been a strong supporter of Israel. Those days may be over, If forced to choose, Russia will back Iran, if nothing else for reasons of self-preservation. It does not want a failed state on the Caspian Sea.
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To add to the chess metaphors, the US is in a zugzwang situation. No move appears to improve their situation. Some may argue for Iran that their best winning move is not to play and to let the US take the heat for burning the world down
Here’s where chess runs into its limits as an analog. With chess, there is no factor of uncertainty, all possible moves are known, as are all counter-moves.
Poker may not bring the level of complexity of chess, but a lot of the fun comes from the randomness of outcomes and the need to use probabilities to manage those potential outcomes.
There’s no odds in chess :)
Perhaps the degree of ego depletion in the respective players adds an element of randomness, a sort of path-dependence on the prior paths of the players before the match started.
Don’t forget what Putin once said about chess when Obama was President-
‘Vladimir Putin likes to say that playing chess with the United States is like playing against a pigeon: It struts around the board, knocks over the pieces, shits everywhere, and then declares victory’
Tell me that does not sound like Trump too.
😂
CLASSIC PUTIN
Here in AMERICA, we call this “Cheney Chess ♟️ “
😂
You don’t play chess seriously, do you (that is, anywhere from a local chess club, tournaments, to professional chess)? There is randomness, there are odds, and few people know everything about a single position, unless it is documented.
That is false. The potential moves and counter=moves in chess are too large to know then. The fact that in a perfectly played game, Back can only get a draw is a conjecture, and not proven.
Conceptually, poker is more complex than chess, That’s a mathematical truth: it was proven in 1910 that games like chess and go, where all moves are governed by set rules and nothing is hidden, are fundamentally solvable. All other problems are just “mechanical.” (This is just another way of saying that we might need a computer more powerful than god to “solve” them, but once we do, we can.)
Poker, on the other hand, incorporates uncertainty at its core. It cannot be “solved” no matter how powerful a computer you bring to the table. The unexpected can and probably will happen, although not too often, The best you can do in poker is to manage the risk.
Re: Israel lobby capturing Congress
As a thought experiment, say that we had a reliable model that showed for every additional 30 days the Strait stays closed, the GOP loses another 10 House seats and 1 Senate seat.
Would that even make a difference?
It seems that the hold AIPAC has on Congress is so strong that they’ll merely invade another host if the one they’re currently occupying dies.
In such a scenario, the AIPAC-backed GOP may lose 10 House seats and 1 Senate seat but they would be replaced by AIPAC-backed Dems instead. It would be whole a lot easier if AIPAC just formed their own political party.
Why not combine the Donkey Show and Pachyderm Party into an AIPACkage Deal?
For all practical purposes they already did.
Amazon’s been trialling the software. From today’s Links (two minute video):
Finally, the AI feature we all wanted and needed: Amazon now creates an AI “podcast” about products where two AI “hosts” discuss the product and take your questions as if it’s a call-in show.
The true greatness of AI:
porn and advertising
Tech executives are getting AI look-alikes, trained on their views and opinions, to stand in for them at meetings and suchlike. Why not members of Congress?
There’s advertising?????
Also making for great courtroom stories as attorneys fail/neglect/refuse to check their AI-based submissions for hallucinations and lies.
Then it would be out in the open for even the “low information” voters to plainly see.
It works best when hidden from view, although the increasing number of protests from the likes of M T-G and her fellow refuseniks is making life harder for them.
It would be whole a lot easier if AIPAC just formed their own political party
If there was an AIPAC party, then there would have to be an anti-AIPAC party. The whole point of the whole lobby concept is to create a structural vested interest which prevails regardless of the vagaries of the democratic process. . . an unwritten constitutional provision or constitutional amendment to the political system, which no one is ever offered the opportunity to vote on, it simply is an implicit fact of the game.
Simply the fact that AIPAC is becoming a partisan political question, if it lasts, means that the foundation is already cracking.
Dunno about that. There’s pretty much an AIPAC party now and not much in the way of opposition. At least not effective opposition.
Two cheeks of the same backside to quote George Galloway.
Dems running to replace reps are either israel supporters, in which case they’re taking aipac donations, or are not israel supporters, in which case they are otherwise financially supported. But in the latter case aipac and their very wealthy oligarch supporters will spend millions supporting their opponent.
Given this reality most dem pols must support israel to be the dem nominee, and more so to be elected. It remains to be seen whether this year’s blue wave will be noticeably less supportive of Israel regardless of what voters want.
There are brief glimmers of hope. Several races have been won by anti-zionists heavily due to their opponent’s funding by AIPAC. Nat does a great job focusing on those here on NC.
Although few so far, I think there’s a concerted effort to not allow anymore Fetterman-like moles to slip through.
‘Back briefly to what still seems to be Trump’s preferred option, even if not strongly so, of keeping the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on and hoping Iran will cry uncle rather than suffer damage to its oil wells as its storage fills up.’
Yves is not kidding here. Trump actually said-
‘They have to cry uncle, that’s all they have to do. Just say, ‘We give up.’
He can be only saying this for domestic audiences who of course will lap it all up.
OMG I am starting to channel Trump? That is worrisome.
You must have heard it from a TV or from a YouTube channel subconsciously and remembered it.
“Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?”
King Lear indeed. Acutely observed…
Well Yves, this is the BIGGEST, MOST BEAUTIFUL website!!!
I mean, aren’t we winning all the time? Winning so much here we’re getting tired of it? Yves, the greatest host of any website anywhere, ever, in recorded human history!!! Everyone else is a bunch of losers
Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!
Boy I love this site.
BTW, I have a hard time imagining Trump being able to concentrate for an hour and a half per the phone call with Putin. Or on anything anymore.
He seemed quite focused on his ballroom for many hours if not days.
Chuck Prince
You clearly haven’t been following Trump’s Pervitin-and-Adderall-fueled two-hour rants to his base.
The Kremlin readout must evidently include every single word that Putin was able to get in edgewise over the course of a 90 minute diatribe. From Trump’s own remarks, he wasn’t doing anything much in the way of listening.
Trump’s prowess as a “deal-maker“ is simply a fiction created for television by former British paratrooper Mark Burnett and by ghostwriter Tony Schwartz. He is a congenital bully and street corner extortionist constitutionally incapable of coming to terms with an equal. Media reports of his “three-dimensional chess” playing are fueled by hopium and ideology rather than fact.
This does not end well — if it ends at all.
No, I don’t follow Trumps rantings. I have too few IQ points to sacrifice anymore.
Forgot my sarc tag earlier.
Stare into the abyss long enough…. ;-)
Riffing on the “Strait of Trump” graphic in the linked Simplicius post, and noting that the Strait is not straight, and that commercial traffic through it is in a state analogous to “constipation”, perhaps one could rename the Strait as ‘the Splenic Flexure of Trump’.
—
I would think it is in Iran’s interest to maximally accommodate transit of cargos that have end uses beneficial to Global South nations. The tolls could be waived on such cargoes to avoid US interception, or the ships could stick to territorial waters until well past the blockade. The message to the world would be clear — “US may not give a d@mn about your hardship, but we do.”
Today’s post on the end of the bully sanctions regime seems highly apposite. The Navy can’t push mid-sized countries around, financial sanctions working less well than formerly (and maybe BRICS payment system operational in 2026). The times are changing.
—
I wonder whether the multiple supply-chain shocks will have enduring effects on things like adoption of regenerative ag practices, electrification of vehicle fleets, diversification of energy production systems, change in inventory practices, reshoring production and resource extraction, etc, etc. Perhaps there will be some good to come out of the crisis.
I think it will be matter of ten steps back (global economy and human well being) and one step forward (data center failings and less climate destruction).
Thank you Yves and crew for all your work on this.
Shifting to regenerative ag is a five to ten-year loss/low productivity project. That would lead to massive demand destruction (starvation). There are interesting documentaries around. We buy organic chicken manure by the pallet load to support our own (garden-level but very intensive) “regenerative Ag.” – town will not allow me to host 100 chickens. It really improves productivity more than the bulk cost.
Perhaps what is needed is a concerted effort to convert marginal and non-ag land into food production. I have read that regenerative practices can restore fertility to badly degraded soils, though it is a multi-year process.
There’s an old sci-fi novel called “Footfall” in which, as part of adaptation to massive disruption (caused by an intentional [alien] giant meteor strike, the “footfall”, and tsunami) there is a world-wide reorientation of labor toward small-scale agriculture.
Perhaps if there is major dis-employment in US, some of that suburban lawn will be repurposed toward food production. Hopefully municipal councils will cooperate.
You are actually conflating two amazingly good novels by the duo of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Footfall is an alien invasion novel. Lucifer’s Hammer is their novel about a massive meteor strike.
Au contraire. ;-)
Lucifer’s Hammer is certainly about a comet strike – and the aftermath, including a raging cannibal army – on Earth, in Footfall the Fithp do indeed drop a bolide on the Earth, along with Rods From God penetrators (which are less destructive). The single bolide is far less damaging than the “shotgun” from the comet, but still does create some serious geological and weather effects.
Re: enduring effects of multiple supply-chain shocks.
I hope SC is right that some good will emerge from the crisis but all the items you mentioned require time. As ISL notes, for example, shifting away from monoculture commodity crop ag will take years, I daresay decades. Composting at scale is unlikely. Switching to cover crops, rotational grazing, and diversifying crop production presents logistical challenges given the resources invested in corn/soybean production. IMO, best hope in this scenario is for a resurgence of small-to-mid-sized farms ala Joel Salatin.
Resurgence?
Most of the world’s farms are very small, with more than 475 million farms being less than 2 hectares in size.
https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/281544/
Crop rotation with massive hemp fields alternating every other season would only take 2-3 years before the topsoil starts improving.
The images coming in of the massive build up of USA forces on the region together with the continuous firing of military leaders suggests to me that the decision to resume the direct military attack on Iran has already been taken, regardless of the daily merrygoround of statements.
Unfortunately, we are likely going through a truce like the Xmas football game in the first year of WWI.
WaPo reported yesterday that one of the aircraft carriers, the Ford, is being recalled. Strange how much press the buildup of three carriers had, only to be broken up days later.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/04/29/us-aircraft-carrier-iran-war/
That new carrier arriving may have been there to replace the USS Ford. If I was the US Navy, I would be checking the warranty on that thing and maybe demand a refund.
I wonder if the thin slice of mystery meat and carrots fare is better in the show hall on the replacement carrier. Maybe they get gruel too?
Tomorrow’s US Navy vets will sound like the Four Yorkshiremen-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE 93:13 mins)
From the fall of Saigon to Operation Urgent Fury was about the only time in my life where we weren’t at war against somebody and you’d see things like this 50 second jab at the USN by Saturday Night Live.
SNL “The Navy” S4E15 1979
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhioeOeOHsA
Rev Kev: If I was the US Navy, I would be checking the warranty on that thing and maybe demand a refund.
Warranty work? Surely you jest, Rev!
Somewhere in the USiverse, some retired military types and their associates are spreading their wings and rubbing their claws together in anticipation of all the money coming in from the repair work needed to fix what they messed up in the first place.
Haha, that’s a good one.
More like ‘hey this is junk, here’s more money give us another one’
You have summed up the MICC business model nicely. Nothing ever gets built on time, on target, or performs as advertised.
Yet the dotgov keeps on ordering and paying.
Prof Marandi on Dialogue Works yesterday said Iran is ready for a ground assault. Said that in some areas American forces would be met with heavy resistance and in others allowed to proceed until they reach a prepared fire zone.
Starting at the 11th minute.
https://www.youtube.com/live/O_AZmQmqQ7Q?si=kuC5jDt5FU39Zl4R
Seems both sides are prepared.
So kids on both sides who had nothing to do with creating the war get killed or wounded. At least the kids on one side are quite literally defending their country. Wonder what the kids on the other side think about their sacrifice?
Iran was attacked by two countries whose method of waging war can best be described as genocidal; the Iranian government has avoided war almost to a fault.
I don’t understand this soft “both-sidism”.
You think that soldiers have agency in the decisions that send them into battle? You don’t feel sorry for the German kids that froze to death during Operation Barbarossa, just the kids from the Good Guys side? Straw man, but an example.
Rui: Unfortunately, we are likely going through a truce like the Xmas football game in the first year of WWI.
Minus the congeniality and trading of goodies. :(
True. But it could happen? Should Iranian and USA lower ranks meet up for a game wouldn’t the spirit of the moment be one of common humanity and curiosity about eachother? War is horrible, truly.
Sure!
As the meme goes, “The chance of being killed by your cat is low … but never zero.”
Though the chance of Americans (military or otherwise) understanding and forming common cause with locals is probably lower even than death-by-feline.
Also, don’t forget that the Christmas Truce, as wonderful as it was, did end with the parties going back to shooting and bayonetting each other with reckless abandon.
The only things massive about US build up in Iran theater of operations are the air refuelers ( they have even sent KC 46) and the percent of remains smart weapons.
Neither asset classes imply real damage to Iran.
These are a fraction of U.S. linebackers Ii, and Iran is immensely more spread out and hardened than North Vietnam.
That said TACO going to bomb.
Listening to Bloomberg Surveillance this morning on the subject of the Iran conflict was painful. Victoria Coates of Heritage in particular is clearly delusional.
Moving crude by rail from Iran to China can’t be anything more than a niche transport. In the US and Canada Bakken oil is collected at multiple points lacking pipeline assets. Tank cars carry about 35,000 gallons, an oil train has 80 or 90 cars. Such trains operate a few times per week through Syracuse. Thus, capacity a fully loaded train carries roughly 55,000 barrels of oil. If Iran were to export half its volume of 2M barrels, it would require 18 or 20 trains per day and a similar number of returning empties. Transit time, loading, unloading would take 2 weeks or more. This would be over 500 trains operating per day across the entire route. That is an enormous capital investment and operating challenge on what is probably a mostly single track mountanous route. Then consider what a juicy target this operation would be (cf Lac Megantic Quebec 2013). I just don’t see Iranian oil going to China in large volumes, although specialty products might.
How about transport via the Caspian Sea north into Russia, and via canal networks to the Black Sea or even the Arctic? It would add a lot of transport time. A better plan would be to simply substitute Russian crude for Iranian crude and keep the Iranian barrels in Russia while sending an equivalent amount to China via Russian tankers or pipelines. The old switcheroo.
I don’t buy that the market can’t adapt.
80 or 90 cars is a rounding error in the size of a Midwestern/southwestern freight.
That is a gross hyperbole.
I used to work rail and the longer railcar lines were around 125-150 cars, usually not oil. 80-90 oil cars is fairly standard.
Grain season in Kansas you can expect to be sitting for a couple of hours waiting for one of those to clear the crossing. Though that’s not oil.
You’re right, but they SEEM nearly infinite when you’re waiting for one to pass.
At least the graffiti is frequently worth watching.
Your numbers don’t add, so to say: 35,000 times 80 (your low end) is 2,800,000, or nearly 3 million barrels as opposed to your total of 55,000. If you mistyped the typical load to be 3500, there’s 3500 times 80 equaling 280,000, not 55,000.
Oil Tankers are measured in barrels which are 42 gallons. Train cars in gallons. Or 84 million gallons for 2million barrels. So yeah lots of trains. But it’s China. So could they have 500 trains on those tracks. Yes I’d say.
Bomb trains are restricted size and speed after Lac Megantic. Running hundreds of these a day is a very big deal… the heaviest US rail lines had been the Wyoming Powder River Basin coal trains. 15-20 years ago they ran perhaps 200 125 car coal trains per day on 250 miles of triple track south of Gillette, then went in multiple directions. What ever the railway links Iran has to China may have it certainly wouldn’t come close to Powder River coal lines. Obviously within China or Russia there are such heavy freight lines.
My computation was off, I was assuming a 55 gallon drum/barrel. So it would be roughly 30 (loads and empties) trains per day on a 2 week minimum cycle. 400 trains per day is a whole lot.
Obviously it would depend on the infrastructure involved at all points in the route, but Canada was able to move about 400,000 barrels/day via rail in recent years, and that was without being on a war footing, will oil prices low and keeping all the other freight on the lines moving – so I guess if you had the loading and unloading equipment in place and sufficient oilcars available and so on, it isn’t impossible to move a decent chunk of oil by rail (400,000 barrels/day would be about 25% of current Iranian exports).
Canada has definite rail capacity problems. Moving 400,000 barrels a day is 5 or 6 90 car trains. But there are 2 major railroads in Canada hauling oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan in multiple directions, east, west and south. 12 or 15 trains a day going in the same direction is another matter. Consider if all 400,000 barrels were going to Montreal from Alberta, minimum 4 day trip all 2x empty returns. It wouldn’t be possible on current infrastructure. All US railroads carry 11,000 carloads of all types of petroleum products per week; if those were complete oil trains, that’s only 120 trains per week for the entire US.
A few north up to Churchill, too.
No, not ‘full-scale invasion’. Several experts have attested to the fact that it was just an ‘invasion’, more of a thrust or a feint, intended to bring the Ukrainians to the negotiating table — which worked!
Dammit, they used to use the preposterous propagandistic adjective ‘unprovoked’ until they realised how mendacious it was. I’d say ban all adjectives!
Dammit, they used to use the adjective ‘ ’ until they realised how it was.
Day 25 of the missing rescued pilot crisis:
Today, kind of similar to last week or nearly a couple of fortnights, no word has been heard from the rescued pilot who doesn’t even warrant a name.
If we only knew the extent of the FUBAR in Trump’s attempt to be like Carter.
Regarding that pilot, check out the plot from the 1997 film “Wag The Dog” starting from ‘Motss invents a hero who was left behind enemy lines’–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog#Plot
The only thing more missing in action than that pilot is the Democratic Party member opposing the cretins’ war in Iran.
From The Great Crash 1929, by J.K Galbraith
It has to be Lieutenant-Colonel Kije, of course.
Yes, Trump planned to have him for a big photo op, but then he had a tragic accident . . .
“Day 25 of the missing rescued pilot crisis”
For whom is it a crisis, and in what way?
LOL! When this was announced I said to my wife that if the official narrative was true Trump would be plastered all over the media talking about this guy and his heroic rescue, most likely with Trump pictured with his arm around him while taking credit for such daring-do. He would not be able to resist doing so. After a few days of crickets it was clear that the official story was bulls**t. Either this guy was a high-level intelligence officer in what is now pretty clearly a larger (failed) mission, or he didn’t exist at all.
But I’m sure our intrepid media will get to the bottom of this story at some point. Patience Wuk. Good investigative reporting takes time.
Phony war.
Trump won’t come off demanding capitulation, Iran won’t talk without assured end of hostilities (treaty).
If only Trump had Guderian, youngish Rommel, 3 armored divisions and only needed to cross one river!
He has a repeat of the 1940 phony war!
The impediments of each long time to replace, costly, not so effective smart weapons relative to outcomes is not inviting! Any expenditure by US will cause damage to its interests and posture in the world.
Trump has scarce assets compared to Hitler in Apr 1940!
It really is quite remarkable how the scale of Western land forces has shrunk since the end of the Cold War.
As I understand it, Russian Federation preserved its defense industrial base and, with some adjustments, its mass conscription program. That really paid off in the crunch.
It really is quite remarkable how the scale of Western land forces has shrunk since the end of the Cold War.
And yet here I sit without my Peace Dividend, other than an Honorable Discharge.
Not only force decay, but the sealift to move any large land force is nothing of what existed in 1990 for Desert Shield!
Worse the US Army is tied to a large number of road vehicles!
Maybe more akin to the Winter War between the USSR and Finland, with the underdog holding its ground, as it had much better tactics for a winter setting and knew the lay of the land intimately.
I wonder whether there is a bit of rhyme with the purges of Red Army senior commanders, too.
To be fair, the underdog did not hold it’s ground for long, and did it with enormous cost to itself – to the extent that it led to huge changes afterwards. I was trained in infantry tactics by men who had been trained by the veterans of Winter War, and we fought completely differently.
Also, the geography of the battlefield was distinct to most parts of Finland. Most men from the Western and South-Western Finland were not used to never-ending forests and steep hills at all. Of the whole 1 out of 4 was a city (or a town) boy.
There were two “miracles” in the Winter War: first that it took three months for the Finns to lose, not one, and secondly, the Finnish Reds fought just as the Finnish Whites did, which was a surprise to certain elements of the society who had convinced themselves that the Civil War was imported from Russia (so the Reds were traitors) and not a result of the abysmal situation of the lower classes.
Not completely unrelated to the second miracle, even if the Reds lost the Finnish Civil War, 25 years later their social program was implemented in full.
Trump has no need of assets other than himself, according to Truth Social.
I think that Trump here is trying to make himself look like John Wick – but one that ate too many McDonald’s burgers and fries.
Trump does not care about public opinion and neither do the other “Leaders” in the West.
That will have consequences at some point not too far in the future.
Regular gas at $6.10 per Gallon and bio diesel at $7.80 yesterday morning here in Santa Rosa CA.
Memorial Day weekend is only four weeks away after tomorrow … here in GA the legislature passed a 60-day gas tax holiday that expires on May 19. Right on schedule to deliver a Mike Tyson uppercut to our wallets.
$4+ incoming … I know that sounds like a dream compared with California prices.
There are signs on many California highways that California provides 50% of US vegetables. I wonder if that will be true with diesel at $8, or much more, this planting season?
Your comment made me curious about what things are transported and which of those struck me as things very nice to have, but not absolutely necessary to live.
Found this link:
https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/transportation-analysis/agricultural-refrigerated-truck-quarterly-datasets .
I downloaded the Quarterly shipment volumes by origin and then created a cross tab or two.
The table is too big to show here, but its easy to do so give it a look.
To me, a lot of the stuff (I don’t care for avocados for instance ) one could get along without.
There’s numerous types of things – 17 types of lettuce for example.
We just crossed the $5 line here in town* today, with the highway stations running about a quarter less.
Memorial Day is going to likely have to change its name to Memorable Day.
I wouldn’t be surprise if we hit California pricing levels here in Oregon by then.
*interesting to see that the AAA is showing Portland at only $4.30.** They’re usually a dime or two higher than out here in the desert…
**when it WAS over five bucks just a couple days ago.
In future American history books, 2026 will go down as ‘The Year Without A Driving Season.’
An average price across the country of $7.77 per gallon for go-juice would be hitting the Jackpot.
Paid $6.39 & 9/10’s* of a ¢ yesterday for my fix.
* Ok, it made sense when gas was 2 bits a gallon and there was a hidden 4% surcharge in plain sight, but can we get rid of fractions now?
I remember – and long for – the good old days when the claim was that “if gas ever went over a dollar a gallon, the economy would crash!” Along with the pumps that had to be redesigned once gas DID go over a buck a gallon – IIRC they were refribbed to sell per quart until new, dollar-plus – pumps could be reinstalled.
Also, I remember some stations that advertised “and no sneaky little 9/10ths” and just charged, as Wuk wishes, a fractionless price.
Gas at my local discount station here on the slopes of the Eastern Sierras was 5.45 two days ago.
It dropped to 5.25 yesterday so I filled up knowing it was temporary.
Today it jumped up to 5.35.
The volitility is not normal.
The notion that perceived humiliation is the reason for doing or not doing things that impact millions (billions?) of people is clearly a sign that our government vests too much power in too few people. And it’s infantile. Grow a pair.
My thoughts exactly (apart from the tits idea).
I don’t think tits is the grow a pair end result.
It’s a pretty infantile idea whatever the supposed end result.
Finally done!
If you arrived before the time of this comment, please reload this page and re-skim.
Thanks, so good to have you back on the beat.
DJG, Reality Czar, March 15:
> 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.
This past week+ while you were almost gone was beyond admirable, not a definite article, rather a coherence of voices. It’s the first time I’ve had confidence the site can maintain its core integrity when you are not here. A fine legacy.
Indeed!*
Along with the ever-popular “If you can read this comment, the post is finalized and ready for reading” comment…
*not to imply that Nat was an unappreciated slouch or anything!
Iran clearly needs longer range weapons for attacking the US fleet. Just damaging the propellers or rudders on a few ships and knocking out their radar and communications antennas would cause a massive PR problem for the US military, in terms of personnel trapped on non-functioning platforms and needing some sort of dramatic sea rescue. If not longer range missiles, Iran needs something like distance-capable, maneuverable sea drones.
Iran was in talks with China before the war to get some of their long-range anti-ship missiles but don’t know what came of it.
re distance-capable drones
Was looking at a recent video on What’s Up with Shipping on logistics and supplying the navy. Some interesting details on refueling and the external ports (outlets? fixtures?) on ships to pump in fuel. Seemed to be rather unique geometries. Perhaps distinct enough for drone guidance/targeting AI? As well, perhaps takes less damage (meaning less powerful drone) to make mid-sea refueling impossible than to take out the rudder.
Can’t really see it. Looks to me you would need an optical sensor with fairly decent resolution. First, though, you have to somehow get your drone close enough to a target to use the sensor. This isn’t troops on a battlefield within a few clics of each other.
Destroyers have four receivers for fuel, and two hi-line stations. You would have to take them all out. That assumes ships have no or poor defensive capabilities against drones.
Objectively speaking: can the USA pull out of West Asia effectively sacrificing all its oil protectorates and even Israel? No. There’s no off ramp, Uncle Sam must either defeat Iran or be defeated as Empire.
And TBH I don’t think Iran can be defeated. But I also don’t see how the USA can accept such a massive defeat without much more fighting. Who fights may lose, who doesn’t fight has already lost, you know.
Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!
As some famous Eurocrat said: “Are you ready to rumble in the jungle?!”
Quite a dilemma. If static us might sit there for a long time, maybe swapping out carriers occasionally – not it’s not static, the longer us waits the more gets broken, oil ramps up, us market collapses. Another month might bring a new reality. Humiliation or true disaster?
Continued blockade > destroy civilization > USA defeated
Resume conventional attacks > USA defeated
Admit defeat & withdraw > USA defeated
Use nukes > USA pariah state > USA defeated
Seems to me, USA defeat is only “way out”.
David Oualaalou had pointed out that Iran has orbital capability, and recently argues that the Iranian surprise for the next round is ICBMs that hit the US mainland. An Iranian propaganda source claims 500 ICBMs are ready if the US attacks again, though he notes it might be bluff. Or Russia may have warned Trump (and Trump may think the mainland getting hit benefits him).
20:21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fto0s9qy37s
For reference, his videos are very much a University professor’s lecture (which he is), and he is careful with sourcing and caveating. In this video, he primarily points out that Iran captured an intact MOB (GBU57), and will be (with Russia and China) reverse-engineering to achieve 60 m penetration from its current 20 m. A problem with the horrible (~30% tomahawk) US munitions failure rates – the top secret tech diffuses.
If that were true, we’d have seen Iran test firing ICBMs to prove their capability. ICBM = intercontinental ballistic missile, and it’s not threatening if your adversary doesn’t know you have it. Since I’m unaware of any such test fires, and I’m sure I’d have heard about them, I seriously doubt that they have that capability. Additionally, it would seriously risk a nuclear retaliation, even before the ICBM landed.
And anyway, there’re many rungs up the escalation ladder before blowing up things in the continental US. Disabling a ship, sinking a carrier, making Israel unlivable – I’d expect to see these before ICBMs to the US.
That is probably one of the last things Iran would do, for several reasons.
First and foremost, as noted by many, Shia have a reverence for life and detest non-combatant deaths. Their best bet is to keep refining cheap drones and mid-range BMs to level israel as their are no innocent izzys.
Not only would that enrage the masses here and abroad but it would seal continued repube and zionist control in the mid-terms.
Also, as noted by hickory, that’s definitely a ‘see what we have, try us’ pre-emptive defense posture.
ISL: David Oualaalou had pointed out that Iran has orbital capability, and recently argues that the Iranian surprise for the next round is ICBMs that hit the US mainland.
That would open a truly interesting and ugly can of worms. I would suspect, though, that it would almost guarantee a nuclear response from the US.
Re: Politico’s CEO asserting that “[he doesn’t need to prove that] America is the biggest democracy in the world”
India would like a word…
To be fair, he was using the “biggest” in the Trumpian sense of the word.
Democracy? The Swiss beg to differ.
To be fair, he was using “democracy” in the Trumpian sense of the word. ; )
> One can infer that the Director of National Intelligence, as in Tulsi Gabbard’s office, is having to cut the CIA out of consideration of any non-escalatory options. Mind you, I doubt that will succeed
In the game of wei-qi/go, a single weak piece in the opponents territory can have an outsized effect, carrying a gravity which demands defensive maneuvering. The piece itself is generally sacrificed, but the threat of it anchoring an inroad requires attention. In this case, it clarifies that the ‘intelligence community’ isn’t a community, it’s a theater of operations, National v Central. That’s a collapsing structure.
Ha, good point!
It occurs to me if that Trump launches another attack on Iran, then Iran will not call it quits until every single interceptor missiles in the Middle East has been used up and a few follow on attacks underline US/Israeli vulnerability & helplessness. They will ignore Trump’s proclamations that he is stopping the fighting before then. Might lead to a new name for this war. It won’t be the Iran war or the Ramadan war but will become the Winchester war. Has a nice ring to it.
Thanks, Yves. To your point about competing views about what to do next among the different departments reporting to Trump, Matthew Hoh on Nima Alkorshid’s Dialogue Works yesterday made a big deal about Pentagon leaks.
The Pentagon asked top-tier American Imperial MSM to publish all the main points we alt media consumers have surmised and then some, including giving NBC News the deets of an Iranian F-5 fighter jet successfully conducted a bombing run on Camp Buehring in Kuwait.
Recall how Robert Barnes has explained the difficulty of presenting information to Trump. It’s so extreme that nobody is prepared to do it if it might upset him. If it’s important enough then you leak it to MSM, he gets furious at them instead, and then try to work with that.
So the Pentagon has told the world, as clearly as it possibly can, that more bombing is a losing proposition for their side.
Oh this is going to be good. Rubio is trying to put together a Maritime Freedom Construct, composed of nations who want to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz-
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-seeks-new-coalition-get-ships-moving-again-hormuz-wsj-reports-2026-04-30/
Having gotten itself bogged down in these waters, they are now telling other nations ‘Jump in! The water is fine!.’ Guess they were annoyed at all those nations having a conference about this very subject and the US was not invited to it.
Given that DJT says he wants the Strait “unblocked” and also says that he doesn’t want to end (or perhaps to be perceived to have ended) US blockade, I think that it’s possible that there could be a tolerant attitude (whatever the public rhetoric) toward nominal allies that cut deals with Iran to increase bilateral trade through the Strait. US benefits from that indirectly through amelioration of world-wide shortages. Occasional interceptions of tolled vessels would let most of the notionally-prohibited traffic through while maintaining the appearance that US is serious about stopping Iran-friendly traffic.
Perhaps Rubio’s initiative is mostly performative.
The final version of the post contends that even a low US boarding rate would be unacceptable to many ship operators. That is confirmed by the fact that pretty much only Iranian vessels have run the blockade while ~70 Chinese ships are still stuck in the Gulf.
Iran warns the only place for US in the Gulf is ‘at the bottom of its waters’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-trump-ayatollah-future-trump-america-b2968035.html
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says new management of Strait of Hormuz ‘will bring calm’
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-supreme-leader-mojtaba-khamenei-says-new-phase-taking-shape-gulf-strait-2026-04-30/
Iran’s Supreme Leader Says It Will Protect Its Nuclear And Missile Capabilities
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-gulf-khamenei-5cbf26dc89ce5e868e414320178f4c1b
US set for first-ever use of Hypersonic Weapons in combat against Iran
https://www.livemint.com/news/us-seeks-to-deploy-hypersonic-missile-for-the-first-time-against-iran-11777498934120.html
Trump tells Putin to end Ukraine war before getting involved in Iran
https://tvpworld.com/92987751/trump-confident-of-ukraine-solution-after-very-good-putin-call
Iran currency plunges as dollar crosses 1.8 million in open market
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202604291673
Public rejects Trump’s ballroom by wide margin
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/30/washington-post-poll-trump-ballroom/
‘US set for first-ever use of Hypersonic Weapons in combat against Iran’
“Each Lockheed Martin Corp. missile costs about $15 million, and there are no more than eight missiles“, and
“The decision, if approved, would also send a signal to strategic adversaries Russia and China that the US is finally able to match a capability that they’ve long since mastered.”
Or, of course, the missiles might be a huge flop, sending a signal that the USA can’t keep up.
> “The Government Accountability Office has said each battery will cost about $2.7 billion.”
Sounds like it’s already a huge success (for Lockheed).
Got that right…for comparison (Russia):
Iskander-K – $1.5m; Iskander-M – $2.4-$3m; Kaliber – $2m; Kinzhal – $4.5m; Zircon – $5.2-5.6m
https://militarnyi.com/en/articles/from-kalibr-to-kinzhal-how-much-do-russian-missiles-really-cost/
And China, $99k…really?
https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/china-ykj-1000-hypersonic-missile-us99000-sm6-thaad-cost-gap/
Sounds as if Iran wants to goad Trump to waste more ordnance, jet fuel and wear and tear on expensive launch systems.
If the peace negotiations start up again I hope the USA will have a representative present, for a change.
Another remarkable piece in the NYT on life in Iran at the moment: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/world/middleeast/iranian-mood-after-war.html
As always, what pretends to be about regular life for regular people is really only about those who the Times imagines are opposed to the regime, and in this case that appears to be Gen Z urbanites–people studying abroad, or with ‘dyed-Magenta hair’ going to see a band in Turkey. Everyone, always, doesn’t want to be named for the piece, ‘fearing reprisals from the government’. And, of course, these Iranians are just finding a way to go on with their lives under brutal circumstances, looking perhaps normal on the surface, but where they’ve otherwise lost all hope.
But wait, is there no one in Iran who doesn’t feel like they have, for the first time, real hope of becoming free of the sanctions that have crushed them for decades, or immensely proud and excited–despite the huge costs–with the real prospect of beating their life-long enemies, the two biggest bullies in the world, and changing their posture globally? I guess not, as the Times can never seem to find them. I guess it is only on the pages of NC that you can ever find people who think that Iranians are potentially on the cusp of a dramatically new Iran. So strange that we so far away seem to be able to see what they themselves are blind to…..
aye. my twitx feed is filled with such people…many derived from mentions in links, here.
wasnt that hard to find them,lol
Pay no attention to those hundreds of thousands of demonstrators willing to risk US/Israeli bombs to march *in support* of their government. They don’t count.
The author of this piece is the absolutely perfect stereotype for this type of “foreign correspondent” with “expertise” on an enemy. She is the US raised daughter of Iranian diaspora parents. With this background she was pretty clearly fast-tracked: from high school in Norman Oklahoma to Yale to a NY Times “Rosenbaum Fellowship” in Washington DC to the Baltimore Sun for one year before going to Reuters in London to Dubai… and so on – all in the space of 6 or 7 years. She’s been reporting on all the evils of the Ayatollah, the ruling regime, and the IRGC ever since, winning various journalistic awards and ending up, naturally, as the “Iranian correspondent” for the NY Times. Here’s her Times bio:
https://www.nytimes.com/by/yeganeh-torbati
In which she says:
“I’m based in Istanbul and have not been to Iran since early 2010. I rely on a diverse group of sources inside the country who can shed light on life there, as well as the motivations behind and effects of government policy. I also speak to sources outside Iran with deep knowledge of the country.”
Pretty funny.
Here is the bio source listed first on Bing:
https://biographytribune.com/who-is-yeganeh-torbati-wiki-biography-age-nationality-husband-family/
I imagine this “journalist” actually believes what she writes. She lives in the Establishment liberal bubble; she was selected for the background, language skills, and beliefs with which she was raised. To paraphrase Chomsky’s famous quote to the BBCs Andrew Marr, I’m sure she believes everything she is saying. If she believed something different she wouldn’t be sitting where she’s sitting. But hey, she’s “Iranian-American” and speaks Farsi. Who am I to question her “expertise”?
Re: Chess
While statistically whites are more likely to win, chess isn’t solved, so we don’t know the perfect game and consequently we have no idea if white can always win or if black can always force draw. It’s just guess based on counting real world games that white appears to have advantage, but to what extent or if at all, we don’t know.
I did use hedged language to make the argument but probably should have dug a bit further to give a more precise explanation.
Yeah, it’s complicated. Among strong players of comparable strength, the majority of games are drawn. (though some openings are more drawish than others).
Lines in widespread use at a given time generally have white winning 55% plus for games that have a winner. If the white %age rises to around 60 in a given line, black generally abandons it for another line. And if it falls below 55, white abandons it for something more promising.
Wow, I didn’t know chess was such a racist game, like hockey I guess. White guys with sticks chasing a black puck (Chris Rock paraphrase). jk
I had to look up the official rules to discover white always moves first, kinda wish someone had said that at the outset. I had a set as a kid but it was gold and pewter and we took turns going first.
This seems like an important point. My impression is that Iran has lost its early initiative in this war and is now basically just waiting around to see what Trump is going to do. Of course, they must be reluctant to do anything that would lead to a massive escalation of the war in the Middle East, properly so, so their problem is to find something that will take the US by surprise, but not have a terrible outcome.
It’s a lot easier to propose that problem then to solve it, we can all agree. Hopefully a country with 90 million engineers and PhD holders will be able to think of something.
Yes, this was my concern also with Iran’s acquiescence to the ceasefire, in that they seemed to have the US on the ropes, but that advantage is evaporating the longer the ceasefire goes. I’m also surprised that Iran hasn’t continued to engage Israel in light of the latter’s ongoing assault in southern Lebanon.
All else equal, perhaps time would favor US recovery from weapons depletion, crew exhaustion, etc.
But things are changing on the other side, too. Iran may be acquiring longer-range anti-ship weaponry. It seems quite possible that they are replenishing land-attack munitions faster than US/Israel can replenish defensive munitions. The BRICS continues to evolve. Other anti-Empire things we are not aware of may be taking place.
I think that Iran is favored in a long-term waiting game.
Time to replenish expensive missiles is not on US’ side.
The for profit MIC: you want it fast, cheap or reliable.
Pick 1 or those three.
We will see if the US’ hypersonic missile actually works.
Just to add my two cents to this: you will not likely be able to get high end radar quickly, cheaply, or have it function reliably (or safely).
This aspect has been under-appreciated, but it is critical. Even if the US “wins”, this lack of radar is going to hurt the military for a very long time.
But combined with your point: there is absolutely no way that the US can return to its pre-Feb 28 capabilities before 2032, and it will likely take *much* longer (read: decades). The fact that some parts of the MSM are trying to spin this as a US victory in any sense is so laughably hallucinatory that it borders on an acid trip.
In the meantime, there is a sort of alarming lack of conversation as to what should the US do for the next generation given its reduced military capabilities…or for that matter what it should do for the next 1000 days given its presumed lack of diplomatic acumen as well.
This is an economic war. Iran is under economic siege, but via the Straights closure, the world is under economic siege. The longer the war goes on, the greater the damage. My guess is that Iran believes that Iran can withstand more economic hardship than the rest of the world.
BTW, oil markets have been very calm given circumstances, and there has not been a big selloff on the stock market yet. . . but the world is going good and hard into stagflation and recession which is not so good for quarterly earnings guidance. By the time the economic pain is baked into the financial markets, and there has been a good and hard correction in equities, my guess is that the pressure increases for Trump to take his head out of his backside.
As far as the kinetic war goes, strikes on Iranian infrastructure have been promised to result in strikes on GCC infrastructure. This is a game where both sides lose, as destroying GCC will have long-lasting impacts on the world economy, which will likely prove negative for Iran, on top of their own infrastructure loses. If I were Iran, I would hold off as long as possible.
Tempo is important when you are playing a skilled opponent, but why not wait when your adversary appears to be better at kicking the ball into their own goal. Any military planner with a brain would be telling Trump to go 180 degrees, which means any planner he is listening to is an idiot.
I wonder at the economic hardship for Iran. The overland routes aren’t going to substitute for sea-based export of crude to China. But the American blockade is also stopping (some) Iranian-bound container ships with medical supplies and food. Existing rail, and the new transit corridors through Pakistan, can bring goods into Iran just as well as they can be used to export oil. So how effective is the US blockade of Iran? Perhaps much better at hurting the world than Iran.
As for Iran taking the initiative, something about not interrupting your enemy when they’re making mistakes comes to mind.
Iran is still in control, Trump will have to do something he doesn’t want to.
And anyway, why does Iran need to export oil? What do they need foreign currency for so badly, when that have been under sanction for so long already? The same applies to Russia, and the ongoing noises about strangling their war effort by cutting off their exports. People making those claims fundamentally misunderstand MMT, even as they shill for its embodiment in the western arms industry. Sovereigns can issue currency to pay for what they need. They only need foreign trade to get things they are dependent on from abroad. And then, they only need currencies for those trade partners with something to offer.
Their main leverage is Hormuz and it seems better for them to have it closed while not being bombed, than keeping it closed under fire and waiting for the chain reaction to work its way.
Also if we are heading to scenarios like famines, they should take care to be seen as reactive and let US/Israel to be seen as driving this thing. So far it served them well.
The Trump Administration and the MSM are fixated on how long Iran can last with the blockade in place, but ISTM they are all missing an equally important question: how long can the GCC countries last with the strait closed?
Does the oilfield equipment of GCC countries have sort magic protection that keeps their wells and infrastructure from being damaged when they are shut down? Are their economies not in just as bad or worse condition as Iran? Would the citizens of these countries not rise up in revolt and demand their own regime changes?
The Dubai airport was REALLY REALLY empty. Weird seeing so many high end luxury shops fully staffed with not even many people in the corridors, and smaller vendors (nice coffee/munchie shops, a little massage stand, where I got my neck worked on for 15 mins) also all open. I flew the last week before the Covid lockdowns, where the Atlanta terminal was even less busy and shops mainly closed/
Flights to NYC pretty full, NYC back to Dubai so-so, Dubai to Bangkok pretty empty.
Perhaps a better tell was that pre-movie ads for Dubai (real estate, investments, etc), WAY down in number.
I’ll be interested to see what my wife’s flight to Taiwan (again) is like next month. I’m bracing for a fuel surcharge increase. Airports should still be … reasonably busy.
Appreciate the eye-on-the-ground viewpoint!
With respect to Iran’s ability to export oil to Russia, and Russia’s resulting ability to increase their own exports by a like amount, can anyone tell us about the comparative qualities (light/sweet vs. heavy/…bitter(??)) of Iranian vs. Russian crude? Like, would they complement (compliment?) each other?
My understanding is limited to the fact that WTI is light & sweet, which is good for making gasoline but bad for making diesel and jet fuel. Thanks.
Urals crude is medium heavy.
Iran crude is heavy and sour. Maybe not as heavy and sour as Venezuela crude but close.
Zambia Must Decide Today: Open Minerals To American Firms Or Lose HIV Support For 1.3 Million
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/zambia-diplomatic-ultimatum-mineral-rights-medical-aid-1794390
Even if they give the minerals to the US, the support will be dropped anyway. They should know that. Maybe Russia will pick up the support tab? China?
Hegseth’s testimony before Congress yesterday is pretty comical, and yet another reminder of this man’s abject stupidity. Favorite part starts around the 1:00 mark where he is asked if the US is winning and he touts the US blockade as evidence that they are. Moulton then retorts that blockading a blockade would be like President Madison saying that the British just burned down Washington, but don’t worry, we’re going to burn it down too. Bwaaaaahahahahaaaa!
I wonder if he realizes that they will make him the fall guy. Trump certainly seems to have no qualms about backstabbing people who once supported him a la MTG
Hegseth strikes me as the kind of guy who is as high on his own supply as Trump is on his. Even assuming he recognizes this ship is going down, I doubt he’d recognize the potential that he get thrown under the bus for it.
You mean Pete Smegseth?
I would rather the guy on SNL run the pentagon!
There is the secondary effect of wealthy parents realizing that deep thinkers, like Hegseth, will potentially be classmates of their kids at Princeton and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Maybe donations will be re-routed to state schools as a consequence.
Hegseth and George W. Bush are not good adverts for an Ivy league education from a public welfare point of view.
Hegseth was saying that the war has cost only $25 billion so far. Some Senator should have asked him then if it would be OK to cancel that proposed $200 billion as not being needed then.
As of when I am writing this comment, the Dow is up nearly 800pts. What the actual family blog? I’m starting to believe that the Market is incapable of crashing. It obviously bears no relation to the economy.
The building frenzy for data centres is going great guns, these are DOW companies profiting from the actual building. Today’s figures shown the consumer rolling over the last couple of months but over three quarters of GDP growth is from non- residential building, residential building is dropping.
Perhaps the market is pricing in future inflation.
Spend the cash now.
This thought is offered in jest … mostly
Regular Gas at both a Chevron and a Shell station was $6.40 this morning, Valero still at $6.10.
Sonoma County is going to be hurting for a few years, very few foreign tourists showing up and gas prices this high discourage USAin’s from touring the wine country.
In addition Real Estate looks to be seriously overbuilt in some market segments, Townhomes and Condo’s come to mind.
“Prices starting in the $600,000’s” for Townhomes nearing completion on Sebastopol Rd, not the ‘hood but not a great location.
All built to the same price point, the “Sweet Spot” decided on by the bean counters who decided to finance these projects.
There will be some good buys in a few years…post BK.
If one supposes that Trump’s popularity is inversely proportional to the price of gas at the pump, then Trump’s best and only option may be to resign sooner than later. If one supposes that the same indiviudal who made, on his own, a massive strategic blunder and loss for the US, will be the same individual who will magically resolve the issue, then the odds on Polymarket should be a 100 million to one against. The pertinent question that needs to be answered is, if Trump cannot solve the Iranian issue, who will? Note: In addition, it’s only a matter of time before the majority of people in he US irrevocably associate the destruction of their purchasing power as it is advertised on every street corner with Trump’s loyalty to Netanyahu.
Trump criticizes Germany’s Merz, tells him to stop interfering over Iran
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-criticizes-germanys-merz-tells-him-stop-interfering-over-iran-2026-04-30/
UK terror threat level raised to ‘severe’
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/uk-terror-threat-level-raised-5HjdYYX_2/
UN’s Guterres says money owed by US is ‘non-negotiable’
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/uns-guterres-says-money-owed-by-us-is-non-negotiable-2026-04-30/
Iran supreme leader issues defiant statement on strait of Hormuz | Iran | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/30/iran-supreme-leader-issues-defiant-statement-on-strait-of-hormuz
US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-894754
China using a double-insurance strategy to secure crude oil supplies amid Iran war
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-01/how-china-secures-oil-supplies-amid-hormuz-disruption/106625732
U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP
https://www.wsj.com/economy/u-s-debt-tops-100-of-gdp-81c013d7
Louisiana governor suspends active election to allow for gerrymander
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/louisiana-governor-suspends-active-election-to-allow-for-gerrymander/
It sounds like the 60 day clock is being reset:
US has determined that hostilities against Iran since Feb. 28 have ended, says official: Report
‘Next Iran’?: Turkey accelerates 60,000-tonne aircraft carrier amid Israel tensions
How exactly would Israel conduct a successful military operation against Turkey (another country with ~90M people, incidentally)? How would it deal with Turkish counter-attacks? How would it deal with Turkey contesting its Mediterranean shores or **really** flooding weapons through Syria?
If Israel does anything, it would have to be an intel operation and based on a huge hope that Erdogan’s successor would be amenable to this. Trump has better odds of getting a favorable outcome in Iran than Israel has of subduing Turkey