[Today’s Iran war post is again not complete at launch. But we are very hopeful of being done by 8:00 AM EDT. So please return or refresh this page then]
Predictably, Iran taking its sweet time to respond to the Trump Administration’s latest demand for capitulation was yet another sign that Iran would continue to reject US demands, not just on how to conduct any talks (process or “shape of the table”) but also content. Weirdly, as far as I could tell, the Western media, in reporting that Iran had passed its reply to Pakistan, ignored the accounts of Iranian outlets like Press TV, that immediately described some details that meant the Iran position had not moved on those matters and were sure to be reject by the US.
Trump was true to his bad form. The first was right before Iran sent its latest missive:
And after:
Yours truly had suggested an obvious move, that Iran should make its reply in a way to upset Mr. Market. That looks to have been pretty successful. As NO1 summarized:
Oil prices surge on collapsed peace talks — WTI nearing $98-100 with a ~5% weekend move after the rejection. Iran submitted its response just before oil futures opened, a timing move noted by multiple accounts.
I had intended to throw down this marker sooner, but better late than never. When a member of the Administration says “unacceptable” that means they are unable to change an outcome but fantasize that enough threat display could still work. Marco Rubio has recently developed a great fondneess for the “u” word.
As we will explain, Trump’s continued very loud and ugly noises do not change the underlying fact of US and Israel impotence. The most they can do is inflict a short punishment campaign by air and engage in terrorism.1 Neither will break Iran’s will. And the fallback of continued economic sanctions will fail. The pain level in the West will hit unbearable levels long before that would happen in Iran, particularly since Russia is now providing essentials via the Caspian Sea, and Pakistan has opened trade corridors.
Not only is Trump trapped by limited and bad US kinetic options, such as a US navy too small even if allies were to help to bust the blockade, a threadbare weapons cupboard, and the wee inconvenience of not being able make much use of bases in the Gulf due to damage and host restrictions, but the timetable is even more against him. The now-confirmed Xi summit (more on that shortly) rules out any big escalation until Trump has returned (Trump likes being in the Situation Room while they are underway). The summit is set for the 14th and 15th. Travel from Beijing to Washington is about 14 hours, and do not forget that it takes more time to get to and from the airports, so say at a bare minimum 18 hours door to door. That does make it dimly possible that Trump could still have, in advance, set a go live time for Sunday, which he would oversee in an exhausted state. But Trump likes to keep his options open and given his state of delusion, may think he can get Xi to help muscle Iran. So he probably does want to see how that conversation goes before deciding to act.
That pushes out the much-ballyhooed possible big punch at Iran, if it happens until the next weekend at the earliest. That timetable would seriously crimp any related Special Forces showy operation. It will be getting too close to being too hot to do more than a very short raid, and none of the contemplated moves would be that.
But as you can see in a segment in this Janta Ka update, that Netanyahu and thus all sorts of Zionists, are still pumping for Trump not merely to hold fast, but also to reinstate demands that the US had quietly dropped, such as eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile program (see at 4:45):
This show also flags that after Macron made noises that it would join the UK in sending a ship or two to the theater (clearly a show of support since there was no intent to act unless the US had vanquished Iran), he backed down when Iran made ugly noises.
This impasse comes against a backdrop of the US’ former Gulf state allies ex the UAE seeking to distance themselves from the US. Remember they still depend on the for defense, even if that “defense” has been revealed making them magnets for destruction. But one can anticipate that the US will demand that the Saudis et al foot most of the bill for the reconstruction of their bases. The only way I can seem them doing that is by exercising great control over anything other than very tightly circumscribed defensive operations.3
Note that Tasnim has called out a Wall Street Journal report2 on the contents of Iran’s response as inaccurate, but some influential commenters are treating accurate as valid and thus unintentionally propagating misinformation. From Tasnim:
The informed source told Tasnim on Sunday night that details published by the American media outlet about Iran’s proposed text concerning negotiations with the US do not correspond to reality in important parts.
The source added that the points raised by The Wall Street Journal regarding nuclear materials are not accurate.
The source noted that Iran’s text emphasizes the necessity of an immediate end to the war and guarantees against renewed aggression toward Iran, along with several other issues within the framework of a political understanding.
According to the source, Iran’s text also stresses the necessity of lifting US sanctions and ending the war on all fronts, as well as Iranian management of the Strait of Hormuz should certain commitments be fulfilled by the United States.
The necessity of ending the naval blockade against Iran immediately after the signing of the initial understanding is also among Iran’s emphasized demands, the source said.
The informed source further noted that Iran has stressed the necessity of repealing OFAC sanctions related to the sale of Iranian oil during the 30-day period as well.
The release of Iran’s blocked assets upon the initial understanding, as well as the implementation of certain US measures during the same 30-day period, also forms part of Iran’s proposed text, the source added.
The Journal (in an updated version of its story) acknowledge the Tasnim correction rather than revising the piece!4
I have yet to see more detail from an official Iran account. Per the first tweet below, IRIB may have one but I am being barred from accessing that site to cite it directly:
Iran's state IRIB News Agency:
– Iran has rejected the US proposal – Iran demands war reparations – Iran demands control over the Strait of Hormuz – All sanctions must be removed – Iranian assets must be unfrozen pic.twitter.com/1sobEISelr
China has confirmed the Trump summit, albeit at the absolute 11th hour. Were the Chinese hoping Trump would cancel via yet another deferral?
I concur with Helmer that the very fact of a meeting, when Trump has imperiously hit Chinese concerns with two rounds of sanctions in the last ten days, looks way too accommodating:
FLASH FROM THE DRAGON THRONE IN FORBIDDEN CITY: First-ever kowtow of Chinese emperor to foreign emperor, announced at 0900 Beijing time, today Monday May 11, 2026. https://t.co/NInF8FxyS3pic.twitter.com/wk7JCQwQ1B
“The Chinese are either indecisive, or decisive, or simply concealing – they aim to receive Trump without looking as if they are until the very last minute” – Min 30:10 https://t.co/NVQ9rV7TbBpic.twitter.com/Ki5dE9vsKu
Perhaps Xi hopes a stern face-to-face will knock some sense into Trump’s addled brain. But a tough talk by Putin seems to have done little to deter Trump. Larry Johnson argued, in an article that went live before the summit was confirmed, Oil Will Be at the Top of the Agenda if Trump Meets Xi Jinping:
Experts agree that the market has moved beyond immediate price shocks into a structural depletion of reserves. Goldman Sachs reports that the rapid drawdown of global oil inventories has reached an eight-year low, with stocks projected to fall from 101 to just 98 days of demand coverage by the end of May (down from ~128 days in 2020). More critically, “easily accessible” refined product buffers (gasoline/diesel) have dropped from 50 to 45 days of demand since the conflict began, leaving the market vulnerable to even minor additional shocks.
I have to differ. Oil is not the big sticking point. It is control over the Strait of Hormuz. What happens to oil supplies is a secondary effect.
Johnson later mentions fertilizer and has in past posts discussed other critical supply shortages, so he has been on top of this issue.
China is in an awkward position. Even though it is an ally of Iran and pretty much all of the world ex its remaining Gulf State allies, the UK, and EU poodles, are opposed to the US and Israel and in theory are all on board with taking the US hegemony down many pegs via a successful war against colonialism, there is the huge question of what that price is and who pays it. A global depression would do great damage to China, since its exports would collapse. It is already in deflation, with at least as high a level of private debt to GDP as the US, so it could suffer a destructive debt deflation spiral. And that’s before getting to the real risk of starvation in Africa, South Asia, and the poorer parts of many other countries.
China is also positioning itself as the new leader of a world order where Global South countries have more of a vote. China has been seeking to revise the governance of rather than overthrow the post World War II architecture of bodies like the UN, IMF, World Bank. But Iran’s assertion of control over the Strait of Hormuz cannot be squared with any existing rules, save Trump’s recent promulgation of governance by raw power, which Iran opposes. The most generous reading of existing treaties gives Iran supremacy over only its own territorial waters. Oman is a signatory to UNCLOS and thus has agreed to allow free passage on its side of the Strait of Hormuz.
Back to the kinetic front: an F-35 appears to have gone missing:
F-35 squawking 7700 emergency this morning while operating over the Gulf of Oman, landing in Al Dhafra Air Base, UAE.
I have not seen this promise of a more fierce Iran response confirmed yet. Recall that Iran has promised disproportionate retaliation and that did not happen in the recent dustups in the Strait of Hormuz:
از امروز خویشتنداری ما تمام شد، هر تعرضی به شناورهای ما، با پاسخ سنگین و قاطع ایران به شناورها و پایگاههای آمریکایی مواجه خواهد شد. ساعت در گذر زمان و به ضرر آمریکاییهاست به نفعشان هست که حماقت نکنند و خود را در باتلاقی که افتادهاند بیشتر فرو نبرند، بهترین راه، تسلیم شدن و…
As of today, our restraint is over. Any aggression against our vessels will be met with a heavy and decisive Iranian response against American vessels and bases.
The clock is ticking against the Americans’ interests; it is to their benefit not to act foolishly and sink themselves deeper into the quagmire they have fallen into.
The best course is to surrender and concede concessions. You must get used to the new regional order.
Admittedly, Iran may have decided to temper its actions before the Trump-Xi summit.
Not verified but big if true:6:
جزئیات جدید درگیری/ ایران پنج شنبه شب از چه مدل موشکی استفاده کرد؟
حالا تا حدی معلوم شد اون شب جمعه تاریخی تنگه هرمز چی به سر ناوهای آمریکایی اومده که ترامپ بلافاصله بعدش تهدید به حمله هستهای کرد.
More attempts to clear the fog of war over what happened in and around the Persian Gulf over the last week:
Kharg Island update: The Western berths have remained empty since May 8, suggesting there may be facility damage at the western offloading wing following the recent oil spill.
On May 9, only one vessel, a 180m oil/chemical tanker, was observed loading at the island’s Sulfur…
If the naval attacks (which includes US air support) interests you, Sal Mercognliano tries to piece the story together. He does have a pro-US military bias, but one can generally filter that out. As you can see, even he is stymied at points:
On the economic front, I had wondered why the government here had not implemented additional emergency energy measures (we are at 108-110 days of supply). One reason may be the big falloff in signs of stress in the spot market in the last two weeks. From Bloomberg in The Physical Oil Squeeze Eases for Now as Buyers Back Away:
The cost of a real-world oil cargo is dropping fast as buyers back away, in a dramatic reversal from last month’s bidding frenzydespite the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The sharp retreat provides a counterintuitive backdrop to warnings that the oil market is barreling toward a crisis point — possibly in a matter of weeks. Still, traders cautioned that the calm may be shortlived, raising the risk that physical prices soar again as the industry relies on stopgap measures that can’t fill the gap indefinitely.
An easing that began in the second half of April accelerated over the last week. Premiums of major North Sea grades, which are used to set the global benchmark Dated Brent, have plunged by as much as 90% over the past month to almost prewar levels. Several cargoes for West African and Mediterranean CPC crude for prompt delivery have even traded at small discounts to the benchmark. While prices broadly are still indicative of a tight market, they’re now within a normal range seen in recent years, before the Iran war removed more than 10% of global supply.
Some traders suggested last week that buyers have held back as the US and Iran seemed closer to a deal, wary of paying elevated prices ahead of a crash if the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Others said that oil refiners are increasingly adapting to a world where the bulk of the Middle East’s crude is locked inside the Gulf — operating on a just-in-time basis for crude supplies, drawing down inventories, reducing run rates, or getting supplies from more distant producers.
Oil’s Deep Backwardation Is Almost Gone
Brent CFD spread has narrowed sharply to near pre-war levels
Source: PVM
Brent futures jumped above $105 a barrel on Monday after US President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest response to his proposal to end the war, while a drone strike on Sunday briefly set a cargo vessel ablaze off Qatar.
The US in particular has sharply ramped up exports, while the top oil buyer China has been selling cargoes of crude into global markets in an unusual move, Bloomberg reported on April 22. Its imports have dropped sharply — adding to downward pressure on physical prices.
While this development looks positive, there are many ways to interpret it.
First is that panicked spot buying produced enough of a buffer near term for many players so that they can sit back and hope that the Strait of Hormuz mess gets straightened out in the next few weeks. My non-expert take is that this is normalcy bias, big time, that very few are prepared to look at the serious and lasting, probably permanent, break from the old normal that is underway.Based on the warnings by bona-fide experts, is that the energy shortfall will hit start to hit critical levels at the end of May. Unless Xi succeeds in hitting Trump between the eyes with a 2×4 and schemes with him as to how devise a somewhat face-saving retreat from the Strait of Hormuz standoff, I can’t imagine that movement towards the end Iran insists on, of accepting (even with gritted teeth) Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, will be all that fast.
Second is that the change in refiner habits could be a very big part of the reduction in demand. If so, that won’t continue. The effects will be a one-off (there admittedly may be a tail as laggard refiners adopt the practices of the swift-of-foot, but there are limits as to how much short-term demand reduction this would provide).
Third is that some of the buyer pullback may be the result of buyers anticipating demand destruction happening faster than investors and the business press realizes. We have repeatedly said that the cure for high oil prices.
And note above that now paper prices jumped, despite ongoing manipulation:
The current effort to keep WTI June 26 oil future contract to trade below 100$ is truly remarkable, isn't it?
As gasoline prices have ratcheted higher across the US due to the war in Iran, several Midwestern states have seen the steepest increases. That’s putting a strain on many of the voters Republicans need at the midterm elections in November to keep control of Congress.
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have all borne the brunt of price hikes since the conflict began 10 weeks ago. Sticker shock is worst in Ohio, where gasoline has surged 72%. That’s double the increase for California, long the poster child for sky-high fuel prices.
Some stray informational hygiene items: we pointed out yesterday that Iran was asserting control over the cables under the Persian Gulf (recall that the lines on its Strait of Hormuz control map extend all the way to the south side of the Strait and include the UAE port of Fujairah). Those cables are, not surprisingly, in Omani, not Iranian, territorial waters. In addition, Oman has signed UNCLOS, the UN treaty that requires that channels like the Strait of Hormuz, which lie entirely in within national territorial waters, are nevertheless subject to freedom of passage for vessels that need to navigate them to serve ports of other nations.
So the idea that Iran has been trying to sell, that Iran and Oman will share the control of the Strait of Hormuz and spilt the tolling proceeds, is a non-starter from the Oman end. But Oman has not cleared its throat.
On a lighter note:
Remember the "Iran Expert" on WSJ Claiming Iran Is Using DOLPHINS with Mines in the Hormuz?
🇮🇷 WSJ's "Iran Expert" Thought Iranian Submarines Nicknamed Dolphins Were Real Dolphins
The Iranian Navy has MINI SUBMARINES nicknamed "Persian Gulf Dolphins" by their own officers.… pic.twitter.com/JoPQ2vsSg7
1 Both Larry Johnson and Professor Mohammed Marandi have explained long-form why a even nuclear attacks will not bring Iran to its knees. An additional impediment is fallout. Most of souther Iran is off limits since the fallout would hit Gulf States (impairing oil production and shipments) and Israel.
2 Even before getting to the recent Saudi and per some reports, Kuwaiti nix on Project Freedumb, a precedent also exists with the Incircik base in Turkiye, where Turkiye greater rights over it than other NATO members do over their bases, and can and has barred certain US operations.
3 Weirdly, the Wall Street Journal gives no play to the Iran reply and the Trump hissy:
Iran proposes to have some of its highly enriched uranium diluted and the rest transferred to a third country, the people said.
Iran’s response, delivered to mediator Pakistan and forwarded to Washington, calls for guarantees that the transferred uranium will be sent back if negotiations fail or the U.S. exits the agreement at a later stage, the people said.
Iran also said it was willing to suspend enrichment of uranium but for a shorter period than the 20-year moratorium proposed by the U.S., they said. Iran rejected dismantling its nuclear facilities, they said.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, cited an informed source saying The Wall Street Journal’s reporting of Iran’s proposals concerning nuclear materials is not true.
State media reporters representing France, Russia, and the US propaganda agencies – Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, New York Times – asked for China’s response to threats by President Trump to escalate militarily at the Hormuz Strait and in sanctions against Chinese purchases and tanker shipments of Iranian oil.
Asked to confirm Trump’s arrival for the meetings with Xi on May 14-15, the official answer appeared to be non-committal. “Do you have any details on that visit, such as when it might happen? Lin Jian: Please stay tuned.” Bloomberg asked the question; it hasn’t reported the answer. Nor have AP, Reuters, or the New York Times who all heard it.
That answer isn’t non-committal. It is now Wang’s and Xi’s precondition for Trump – and this marks a change in China’s policy towards the Iran war. “China believes,” Wang’s spokesman said, “that bringing about a full stop of hostilities is of utmost urgency, a relapse in fighting must be avoided and sticking to negotiations is highly important. China supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security.”
If Trump “relapses into fighting” and does not “stick to negotiations”, Xi is communicating that Trump will not be allowed to land in Beijing next week. China will not permit itself to be Trump’s cover for attacking Iran, as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi allowed himself to endorse the Israeli-American war against Iran in the Knesset on February 25, two days before the war began. Wang is changing the meaning of what he told Rubio on April 30.
6 The translation of the full tweet:
New Details on the Conflict / What Type of Missile Did Iran Use on Thursday Night?
Now it’s somewhat clear what happened to the American ships that historic Friday night in the Strait of Hormuz, causing Trump to immediately threaten a nuclear strike afterward.
According to reports, 3 U.S. ships were severely damaged while attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the conflict began, the Americans initiated heavy electronic warfare to smoothly cross the strait by disabling Iran’s radars, allowing them to pass without trouble. In the middle of the dark night, Iran began firing anti-radiation missiles. The Americans were trapped in the middle of the sea.
The purpose of firing these missiles was to destroy the radar sections of the American ships, and based on reports, the radar systems of all 3 ships were completely destroyed, with one also catching fire badly—we still don’t know what happened to it. The anti-radiation missile, also known as an anti-radar missile, is a specialized tactical weapon for detecting and destroying enemy radio wave emission sources, especially radar systems. It plays a vital role in electronic warfare and blinds and deafens the enemy’s air defense systems by disabling their radars.
In the world, only 6 countries—America, Iran, Russia, China, Brazil, and England—possess this type of missile, and among them, only Iran produces its advanced models. This is one of the wonders of Iran’s missile capabilities, which has single-handedly locked down the Strait of Hormuz for over 2 months.
Unlike conventional missiles that use their own radar to locate targets, the anti-radiation missile operates completely passively for targeting and emits no signals of its own.
The missiles Iran has feature an important capability called “target memory”; meaning that if the enemy radar suddenly shuts off to escape, the missile
‘More on the kinetic front: an F-35 appears to have gone missing:’
Could be several reasons for this. It make have taken Iranian fire and had to limp home, it could be the result of an accident or it might be that some of these planes are seeing too many hours in the air. For all we know a seagull might have been sucked into its single engine. But it is not like Hegseth is going to give a public briefing on what the go is.
ilsm
Trump’s “project freedumb” is more than sortying DDG ‘s to draw fire and skedadle!
It includes a form of no fly zone over east side of the strait to include no fly of shore based anti ship weapons. US aircraft can look down shoot down locking expensive AIM.
To do this F-35 forms a sensor network which uses radio, exposing the aircraft. IRGC is learning to make Trump’s no fly part of operation freedumb very costly.
Hard landed F-35 will be even less reliable than usual.
vao
We will not know for quite a while, but I believe those delicate and temperamental machines full of buggy software are starting to break down after being stressed under operational conditions that they rarely, if ever, sustained previously. After all,
1) If we look at the list of accidents involving F-35, even restricted to the last few years, we see crashes because “all systems failed except the flight controls and the engine”, because of “errors in the air data system from the wake turbulence of a preceding aircraft, which resulted in several rapid transitions between the primary and backup flight-conditions data sources”, because “freezing temperatures (-18C) had caused the hydraulic fluid to freeze and rupture the hydraulic lines including those to the landing gear”, and for other as yet undisclosed reasons. Trouble with edge cases, it seems.
2) At the best of times, the availability rate of the F-35 hovers at 50%, and its full mission capability rate ranges from 15% to 35%. These airplanes have to spend most of their time being pampered by a huge ground crew of aircraft mechanics.
Now it is no longer training or simulations, but real war with intensive action where devious edge cases pop up, for many weeks, pushing those hangar queens to the brink.
dearieme
“temperatures (-18C) had caused the hydraulic fluid to freeze”
The Hurricane fighter had trouble with freezing temperatures. But that was in 1938: by 1940 the problem had been solved. How on earth are people unable to cope with freezing temperatures nowadays?
vao
Aiming and firing the cannons aboard an airplane was a problem solved during WWI. The cannons of the F-35 cannot shoot straight.
The ejection seat was a difficulty that had been mastered by the late 1950s, early 1960s. The F-35 has no end of trouble with ejection seats.
Using catapults, arresting cables, and elevators on aircraft carriers was an issue fully addressed in the 1940s. They do not work properly on the aircraft carrier Ford.
Not being able to implement properly a feature that has been a problem with well-known, working solutions for generations is a typical indicator of an irreversible loss of know-how. Not of knowledge: books, reports, engineering documents still have all the information about the issues and their solutions; it is really a matter of organizations no longer being able to put that knowledge into practice.
ChrisFromGA
The part about the three US Navy ships hit by Iranian missiles certainly rings true. Trump’s unhinged rants on social media aren’t random. They are tells. He has no impulse control and poor emotional regulation. Kind of the opposite of a good poker player.
So the next time he rage-posts, we’ll know that something really bad must have happened.
All done! If you arrived before the time of this comment, please refresh this page and re-skim.
Dingleberry
Thanks! 🙏
ilsm
Thank you
The Rev Kev
‘So the idea that Iran has been trying to sell, that Iran and Oman will share the control of the Strait of Hormuz and split the tolling proceeds, is a non-starter from the Oman end. But Oman has not cleared its throat.’
Thing is, does Oman really want to walk away from billions of Yuan in free money? And money for nothing? Even Trump said that he would like to take a cut of the action.
Oman has shown absolutely no interest. It has signed UNCLOS. Iran has not.
Don’t invoke Trump. That demeans you. Not everyone in the world has insatiable greed.
And tell me what sort of navy and military Oman has?!?! The UAE is right next door and is being very ugly.
Iran already said it deposited some of the proceeds from its toll booth operation to its Treasury. It did not cut Oman in nor did it even offer to keep some in reserve to send to Oman (say when it has regularized operations, know what they cost, and deducts those expenses from the gross and divvies that up).
Iran seems to hope it can get enough other Gulf States onside to apply some porcine maquillage to its plan. It has weakly floated from time to time that it could share governance, which presumably would include some of the moolah. The fact that I have not seen Iran say that in a while suggests it has not only been ignored but may have gotten some tart private rebuffs.
Science Officer Smirnov
maquillage
A Frenchman once said,”The best makeup for a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to come by”. . .
Iran seems to be on thin ice with tariffs, not just the outraged west but the struggling 3rd world. Otoh, it’s not clear they’ve been charging 3rd world cargoes, maybe just western ones? Maybe if they just charge those cargoes to western countries that participated in or supported the war, and then with a limited time until they receive enough income to pay for the very real damages inflicted by the west that either started the war or supported it, the 3rd world would think it not unreasonable? Probably be a cold day in hell before us let’s go the frozen assets, or refrains from occasional terrorism for that matter.
I didn’t see Iran talk about us abandoning their gulf region bases among the the recent Iranian demands.
Yes, this is not at all well reported, admittedly due to some inconsistency in Iran statements and practice.
It most assuredly intended to charge oil cargoes from Gulf States if they ever come to terms with Iran.
Iran seems to be exempting relatively low value bulk cargoes, following the French finance minister Corbet: “The art of taxation consists of plucking the goose so as to obtain the most feathers with the least hissing.” Taxing low value cargoes does not produce a lot of revenue, will legitimately piss off poor countries and give them a bloody flag to wave, and creates a bigger admin burden.
What is will do with Gulf State oil going to a very poor country remains to be seen. Will they get a rate break? At oil over $90 a barrell, the Iran toll adds about $1 to the price.
DD GE
Hmm. Money for nothing…
I have an inkling of what you did there
Christopher Mann
One thing is becoming clear from this conflict: just how useless the financial press is. I long knew that MSM was rubbish but assumed that a financial publication that was consistently wrong would be soon dumped by its readership. More than wrong, they seem to be deliberately intending to deceive. Clearly, the WSJ is not intended to be read by the smart money; it’s for the gulls and rubes.
The Rev Kev
The war in the Ukraine confirmed that publications like Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal would run propaganda pieces but the Iran war has shown how compromised they are. At what point will they come out and tell their readership that Dear Leader is steering the country into some biggly rocks as far as oil is concerned and that they had better batten down the hatches.
ChrisFromGA
Typically the press justifies somewhat cozy relationships with government agencies as allowing them to have access to sources they can’t get through regular channels. However, it ought to be a two-way street, at least in a healthy relationship. If the government is going to curate certain “journalists” as go-to’s to leak information they find useful to shape public opinion, the press ought to at least ensure that they get something in return. As in, a story that they can’t simply get by scanning Truth Social or listening to Karoline Leavitt’s pressers.
In this case, the WSJ demands nothing in return. They simply act as a mouthpiece.
Wukchumni
Seems to be a TASS it agreement for ,rades in the media, nothing but the Pravda.
ChrisFromGA
The Devil wears Pravda?
:)
Oregon Lawhobbit
Or, as the Soviets used to say, “Ni tass Pravda, ni pravda Tass.”* ;-)
It looks better in the original Cyrillic, but I’m not going to cut and paste that here.
*”There is no news in Truth, there is no truth in News.” Articles like a, an, and the having not yet been discovered in many languages, including Russian. And not being all that necessary, apparently – is there really a NEED to distinguish between “a” dog and “the” dog?
JonnyJames
That is whole other can of worms…I walk dog to park, I don’t drive car and I don’t use article. We no need article. English is crazy, we no need extra and unnecessary verb “do”. I no use articles and no use do or don’t, it not necessary.
It sounds even better when spoken with Russian accent.
Oregon Lawhobbit
I have now, for unknown reasons, bumped into a variety of Facebook Reels that posit “What if English was spoken with Chinese grammar?”* The results are interesting.
What I really like is how when I’m chatting in Korean I don’t miss articles in the slightest. Yet I cannot imagine English without them.
*short answer: weird, but better, including getting rid of that whole pesky pronoun gender issue that plagues Americans.
JonnyJames
I feel sorry for ESL students trying to figure it out the PC pronoun changes, I get confused myself.
Bill Carson
I hear Andrei Martyanov’s voice when I read that. “Guys, guys,….”
JonnyJames
Perfect. I always get a kick out of Andrei, especially when he gets animated. His command of English is excellent, but his accent is thick: when he gets going, I sometimes have trouble understanding him.
I’m surprised other non-Russian speakers like Nima Alkhorshid understand half of what he says sometimes.
Lefty Godot
Don’t they also seem very genderfluid when using pronouns for countries, organizations and even people sometimes? Or is that just the translators randomly switching from he to she and her to him and vice versa within the same paragraph? I can’t figure out if there is some intention to that or if it’s just that Russian doesn’t translate to English very intuitively.
Yalt
I do some copy editing for a Russian-speaking friend and I haven’t seen the gender problem, but articles and that/what are still impossible for her after 25+ years living in an English-speaking country. It doesn’t help that there’s no “th” sound in Russian, which makes it hard to even hear it distinctly.
Oregon Lawhobbit
Though as I understand it, ships are “he” rather than “she” as in English.
A lot of those English consonant combinations are tough to deal with. And don’t GET me started on the whole “R vs. L” issue in NE Asia… ;-)
hk
It’s also an issue in Spanish vs Portuguese, incidentally. I tend to find “prayas” and “brancas” very offputting and foreign.
Polar Socialist
Russian language has genders (three of them), but not definite or indefinite articles.
In my native language we have neither – and I still do have problems with both in English, after 35 years of using it. Obviously.
Doesn’t really help my second language was Swedish, which has gender (two), but only indefinite article. The definite article is actually a suffix…
But yeah, Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese and Finnish use context to imply the same thing.
Bill Carson
Do they do the whole plural verb thing like the English language?—
HE goES / THEY go?
SHE playS / THEY play?
HE IS going / THEY ARE going.
It can be especially confusing now that the US has three genders (he/him, she/her, and they/them) when the third gender is singular in number. To make it less confusing, we should say, “They GOES to school at State University.” “They IS coming over for dinner.” But to the uninitiated, this sounds wrong and uneducated, or at least it will until we get used to it.
Oregon Lawhobbit
Yeah, German also with the der/die/oder das thing is annoying. At least French and Spanish only have two, but still. It’s one of the few areas where I’ll give English a checkmark in the W column.
Yalt
In Hungarian that distinction is so fundamental that you use an entirely different verb conjugation if the object of the verb is “the” something.
Johnny Conspiranoid
‘A dog’ is some random dog, but ‘the dog’ is a particular dog. You could say ‘I took a dog for a walk, the dog belonged to Dave. In the first part of the sentence a dog is introduced then in the second half of the sentence some particular characteristic of the dog is introduced to make it a particular dog.
Oregon Lawhobbit
We had a particular dog once – there was just no brand of kibble that suited him and only fresh-made was acceptable to his refined palate… ;-)
And yet, despite that whole “a” dog vs. “the” dog, Koreans seem to get along just fine saying “I dog walked” and do not realize how horrible it sounds….
dearieme
I had a dog for lunch, the dog had belonged to Dave.
Young
Was it hot?
James Lawrie
Western propaganda is capitalist in nature and thus is a consumer product. It is consumed because the consumer finds its it enjoyable.
As an aside, authoritarian governments give out what is essentially ‘information rations’ which is why those governments have very dissimilar propaganda. Funnily enough that’s what we in the West have been trained to see as the only form of propaganda.
ThirtyOne
Calbee changes some product packaging to black and white due to the situation in the Middle East.
Unstable supply of ink and other materials leads to “simpler designs.”
While the standard packaging displays product images against an orange or yellow background, the company is changing to a simpler design due to the unstable supply of ink and other materials used in packaging caused by the situation in the Middle East.
Thanks for the sighting! Real economy indicators are very much appreciated.
PNW
Thank you for this explanation. I picked out my Mother’s Day cards this year and realized they all had grey envelopes, as did 80% of the wall of cards.
ThirtyOne
Coming soon: grey tires?
Oregon Lawhobbit
May as well – all the OTHER color has been leached out of the automobile industry…
Frank
What happens when a contract for fuel (diesel in the instance I’m thinking of ) is negotiated. The amount needed based on previous years of use and that plus a cushion is used to predict that annual need. So, a # of gallons and the budget set at current price. But then a war of choice disrupting the market to such an extent that it simply cannot be satisfied unless the contract was written so that once the original total of $$ is spent then the contract is met.
If challenged by the buyer wouldn’t the seller be able to say that by entering a war of choice that could not be predicted releases me (seller) from the contract?
Oregon Lawhobbit
Yes – you have discovered the “force majeure” and/or “Acts of God” clause found in many contracts (and ALL good ones). It’s been in the news summat of late IRT Gulf State product sales and deliveries.
Frank
Thanks.
The approaching price increase in diesel embodies both sides of what John Currie described in a posted video yesterday. View from a cost perspective or view from a volumetric perspective. I live in Vermont and 54% of the roads in the state are unpaved. Every town is responsible for road upkeep and that require a quantity of diesel. Less diesel means less maintenance.
Tough times ahead for a town like us – mountainous, a food desert, sparsely populated with an aging population, cold and snowy (155 inches this winter) winters.
Carolinian
Fascinating about the anti radar missiles. Yet another blow to surface navies?
They may need “stealth ships” which will be hard to do when space spies see all large objects.
Uwe Ohse
> Yet another blow to surface navies?
Not necessarily. Surface war ships have no business near fortified enemy coasts anyway.
> They may need “stealth ships”
There is no such thing as stealth in the strait – not for destroyers and also not for smaller ships. There are electronic eyes and ears and radar everywhere.
Most likely the ground of the strait is full of sensors, too.
An enemy ship trying to pass the strait _will_ be spotted, some drones will be sent, the ship will have to activate radar to target the incoming drones or rockets, and then the one or two radar killers will know where on the ship the radar is.
It will not be so easy everywhere on the world, but only at a few special places.
Carolinian
Kind of kidding about the stealth.
SufferinSuccotash
“A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” — Horatio Nelson (allegedly).
Wukchumni
Fort MacArthur near San Pedro in LA had large gun batteries installed towards the end of WW1, and during the ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ on Feb 24-25th 1942 fired them and broke about 100,000 windows of houses and businesses in the surrounding area of Long Beach and environs.
Oregon Lawhobbit
HARM missiles have been around for quite awhile…. :-)
Useful against any radar installation, not just ships. Radar is the modern “eyes” of the military, and as the saying goes, “first thing you do in a fight, you blind the b*****ds.”
Which seems to be why the Iranians so far relied very much on passive optical and infrared anti-aircraft missiles instead of the longer-range radar-controlled ones — in particular to shoot down that intruding F-15, helicopters, and drones involved in that conflagration in the surroundings of Isfahan.
Oregon Lawhobbit
I have to wonder if they have acoustic listening posts. Obsolete by radar standards, but hard to whack with a HARM missile.
Would acoustic detection still work with supersonic aircraft?
Oregon Lawhobbit
I would presume, given that they make a supersonic boom. But they’re also generally higher altitude, so that may mitigate engine and air noise.
OTOH, with modern microphones and computer processing, that may not be an issue.
Very mobile radar units that “shoot* and scoot” on an irregular basis might also be a partial solution.
*for a value of “shoot” meaning “activate the radar, take a quick sweep or two of the environs, then shut it down and RUN AWAY!!!! FAST!!!!
Arkady Bogdanov
Some tidbits you might find interesting:
There are claims that Russia has been operating “passive” radar systems successfully in Ukraine (I think the Russians have 3 or 4 such systems in service, but I’m not up on their full capabilities and ranges, etc). These systems rely on other sources of electromagnetic radiation reflecting off of aircraft/missiles/drones. The EM emitter could be a remotely located Russian radar, enemy radar (such as a US AWACS), or even localized radio communications traffic. Pretty interesting tech. My understanding is that it is pretty easy to detect and track flying objects with these systems, a little less easy to identify the targets (whether it is a manned aircraft, drone, missile, or to differentiate specific types within those categories), and a good bit harder to use them for targeting purposes. Either way, these passive radar systems would allow you to get the drop on incoming aircraft, because at the very least it would let you keep your fire control radar turned-off/on standby until or after firing an interceptor at the target, allowing the target to unknowingly get closer to an AD battery and giving the aircraft far less time to react/evade. I’ve read stories about such systems being developed, but Ukraine is the first time I have heard they have been successfully used in combat- and to be clear, I have not read any official reports or seen any stats- everything I have read about them is from people using them or from Russian military bloggers on Telegram. The systems definitely exist though. Kind of like the Russian laser systems (Such as Peresvet)- unverified claims of successful deployment by non-official sources.
I only post this because if the Russians have such systems online and in-use (successfully) then there is no reason Iran could not either have their own similar domestic systems or some of those actual Russian systems. If so, then the US will never, ever achieve air superiority. Speculative on my part, admittedly.
And before hitting reply, I looked up the names of the Russian systems if anyone is interested and would like to read up on them:
Monolit-B (hybrid that operates in either passive or active modes)
Irbis-E (Also a hybrid that can operate either passively or actively, but is mounted in the SU-35)
Moskva-1 (This one is a combined electronic warfare/passive air search radar system)
Tropa (This is a passive system that uses unrelated radio broadcasts/comms that produce reflections from airborne targets)
And since you bring up acoustic detection Russia has an artillery counter-battery detection/artillery fire control system called Penicillin that uses both acoustics and seismics for detection and targeting that is reputed to be highly effective.
Iran is reputed to be using optical air search and targeting systems for air defense also (and by this I mean sophisticated, electronically-controlled systems that are integrated into their AD grid- not the Mark I eyeball systems).
Polar Socialist
I believe the Chinese have even published articles on successful test of multistatic radars. You do need a lot of computing power and exact locations of all the parts of the system.
So yes, Iranians won’t be far behind. They still suffer from the geography, though. No matter how advanced you radar tech is, it won’t see trough mountains.
ISL
I was going to try to take the latest Truth Social quote above to ask DeepSeek whether the author was sane. But since it’s an image, I couldn’t do that easily, so I did something I have never done before. I went to TruthSocial to take a look.
OMG!! Megalomania at a level that would have embarrassed Kim Il Sung. I don’t recommend before your morning coffee.
The Rev Kev
Took a look the other day and I agree. It’s nutso. And you have to remember that this is coming from the President of the United States and Leader of the Free World – and not from Laura Loomer.
Wukchumni
The devil’s wares Pravda
Christopher Fay
The Met Fascism Gala
Wukchumni
For 78 years the Israelis have been ‘tapping’ us along, keeping us waiting, killing people with their IDF, destroying protests, and recently wiping out 420,000 innocent, unarmed in Gaza, and laughing at our now GREAT AGAIN Country and how it always falls for Hasbara tricks. They will be laughing longer!
There, fixed it.
Yalt
Any one of those 11pm posts last night would have been standard megalomanic trumpfare. 17 in one hour is a megalomania starting to crack.
Samuel Conner
The thought occurs that if USN was aware of the Iranian anti-radiation missile capability, it was an extremely risky move to knowingly come within range of this weaponry. Perhaps it was assumed that the Iranians would not dare to seriously damage major USN surface vessels.
It would be fascinating to know how this decision was arrived at.
—
I recall that years ago, I think during the first DJT presidential campaign, he pointed out that the US armed forces were no longer good at winning wars. Perhaps this was just DJT rhetoric that happened to coincide with reality; he certainly seems to have forgotten the concern in the years since.
Oregon Lawhobbit
The thought occurs that if USN was aware of the Iranian anti-radiation missile capability, it was an extremely risky move to knowingly come within range of this weaponry. Perhaps it was assumed that the Iranians would not dare to seriously damage major USN surface vessels.
Or simply that the US military does not believe that the Other Side can really hurt it. The US is decent at bullying small and weak opponents – but peer adversaries are another matter entirely.
Dunno about the Navy, but the Army certainly did not train “for real,” as evidenced by the almost universal failure rate of units sent to the National Training Center to face well-trained OPFOR units in an environment where cheating is nearly impossible. From my own experience, training was generally a carefully choreographed “dance” to make commanders look good, rather than actual readiness assessment.
Got in serious trouble one time for “shooting” an opposing company commander’s tank. The thing was parked on a plainly visible hill, no cover or even concealment, but by using our MILES laser to kill the vehicle we … upset some people.
Worth it,* though. ;-)
*a very angry First Sergeant, who’d been chewed on by a very angry Battalion Commander.
NN Cassandra
Re: China’s confirmation of visit
Arnaud Bertrand says it’s Chinese custom to officially announce visits from foreigners at the last minute, he includes some anecdotes from Nixon/Mao era.
The Rev Kev
A lot is going to depend on whether Trump will rate a red carpet and honour guard or not. As well, it will also be important to see who meets Trump as he gets off Air Force One. Annalena Baerbock was humiliated a coupla years ago when it was only a minor functionary that met her. And Ursula was humiliated too when she had to go through regualr customs on her way out of the country. But for sure Xi will be in no mood to kowtow to Trump for the economic damage he is causing China.
ChrisFromGA
Here are my suggested preconditions:
1. Trump to surrender all devices on the tarmac; devices will be shutoff and stored in a faraday cage in Chinese custody until he gets on the plane to leave for return to US;
2. Trump to submit to a drug screen (adderall, uppers); positive tests will result in 24 hour isolation until he tests clean.
3. Any mention of “sanctions” or “tariffs” will result in Taco being escorted back to the airport, and devices permanently confiscated.
4. Any kinetic activities in the Persian Gulf initiated by the US military will end the summit prematurely.
Arnaud Bertrand is starting to act like a white monkey.
FFS, the Nixon visit is a precedent for NOTHING. It was kept super secret as long as possible due to it being potentially controversial in the US, so limiting the time it was visible before it happened would contain the amount of pushback that could happen. The great show of the event and the agreements made bulldozed the critics, as I assume was hoped.
Bugs
His tweets have gotten a bit clickbaity lately – often trying to tie the subject into a linked article on his Substack. Everyone has to earn a living, I guess.
Ben Gunn
I’m not familiar with the term “white monkey”. I found two meanings it may be:
1. a mischievous person, especially a child.
2. a person who is dominated or controlled by another (with reference to the monkey traditionally kept by an organ-grinder).
No, white money is also a term for Caucasians who overhype China. It seems to have drifted beyond its original use:
White monkey (Chinese: 白猴子; pinyin: Bái hóuzi) is a term for the phenomenon of white foreigners or immigrants in China and Japan being hired for modeling, advertising, English teaching, or promotional jobs on the basis of their race. The phenomenon is based on the perception that association with foreigners, specifically white foreigners, can signify prestige, legitimacy, and international status. The jobs themselves, called “white monkey jobs” or “white-face jobs”,often require little actual work on the part of the model, who in some cases is not expected to be fluent in Chinese. The concept is considered a subset of a larger “rent a foreigner” industry in China and other parts of Asia
White monkey jobs are often related to marketing and advertising. The “white monkey” may be hired to act as an associate of an individual or pose as an authoritative figure to promote a brand or company, and businesses will occasionally hire these individuals to pose as a founder or executive.
I have seen the term used on Twitter. But nearly always, not to suggest that the China tout was receiving pay but was way way way too much of an uncritical promoter of China, as in self-discrediting with the intensity and one-sidedness of his views.
JonnyJames
Damn, as a white Anglo from Cali, I would not feel comfortable using “monkey” to refer to any single racial or ethnic group. I have no problem referring to humans in general as “silly monkeys” but if I reversed the “white” to “black” or “yellow” I would be in big trouble.
But perhaps the Chinese don’t have the same stigmas
(When I was a kid, I remember my parents talking about how Howard Cosell got fired for saying “look at that monkey go”)
Played the outdoor one-armed bandit yesterday, and ended up down $121.
As the article sez, going from $4.50 to $6 a gallon for go-juice in Cali is a bit rough, but we’re used to the gouge, whereas a 72% increase in Ohio, ouch-e-wa-wa!
Oregon Lawhobbit
Played the outdoor one-armed bandit yesterday, and ended up down $121.
But that should last your lawnmower at least a couple weeks, right? ;-)
ISl
Passed that 6 buck gas weeks ago, here in So Cal at my fave Chevron (6.59 low grade) on the 101 exit.
JonnyJames
Also in Mendocino county, the Coyote Valley Casino complex (on the Indian Reservation in Redwood Valley, CA) has gasoline for under 6 bucks, very popular place, and they have real one-armed bandits to gamble while you pay the other one armed bandit for fuel. That can be very expensive for some
(Cheapest Diesel is around 7.50) And it will only get worse. Fun times ahead
Ann
Trump is growing impatient as Cuban regime clings to power
U.S. officials believe the regime could fall by the end of the year, but that timeline isn’t fast enough for the president, sources say. The White House says Cuba has rejected humanitarian and economic assistance to stabilize.
Yeah, the law-abiding beacon of freedom and democracy is the “US administration” while the countries the CIA does not approve of are “regimes” Regime this, regime that. Of course the sycophant-stenographers would never refer to the US as a genocidal, mass-murdering, lawless, rogue empire, t.
We have the “brutal regime” in Iran, while the GCC countries are “the Gulf states” (not family dictatorships) and the KSA still uses decapitation with a sword for capital punishment. Brutal regime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia
Political discourse is so filled with loaded and biased terms, we don’t even notice.
Oregon Lawhobbit
DARN that Cuban regime for clinging to power! Who do they think they are, American politicians?
I’m thinking a good healthy lawsuitting* for trademark infringement would be in order!
*as the saying goes, “Of course it’s a word; I used it in a sentence, didn’t I?” ;-)
Ann
Netanyahu announced intention to phase out US military aid
The oil price Googles search engine reports seems to be off. It currently shows CLW00 futures on NYMEX at $80.01. Marketwatch shows CL.1 futures on NYMEX at $96.38. Oilprice.com shows the higher price. I believe Google and the Oilprice.com price used to be about the same.
ScotsBloke
I thought this indi.ca article “What Do We Do Tonight? Try To Take Over The World” very insightful.
The fact is that taking over the world is fundamentally absurd. The United Kingdom invaded all but 22 countries and then imploded. The US has 800 military bases across at least 80 countries minus the ones Iran just exploded. The White Empire keeps re-forming without reforming and exploding and then imploding. It really is like Pinky & The Brain, which is the same plot over and over.
In this sense, ‘America’s’ foreign policy isn’t complex as much as cartoonish. Iran exists independently and has resources. It must be smashed and/or its resources must be tooken. Asking why Trump is attacking Iran—hopefully his last stand—is like asking Jeffrey Epstein why he raped the last girl, the one that sent him to remand. Why wouldn’t they? They always got away with it before.
ilsm
US has released from Strategic Petroleum Reserve 4 to 6 million barrels each of the the past few weeks, commercial releases as well, crude draws, SPR at 396 million barrels week of 6 May.
US also limit crude import.
Action to calm traders will be short effective life.
Next EIA report 10:30 EDT 13 May
ilsm
After break up of Soviet Union Russia dismantled and store remains of a lot of nukes given up by Republics including Ukraine. US provided tech support and money.
Seems to me Iran could ask Russia to help Israel denuke.
Abbas leads the largest Arab/Islamic party in Israel, Ra’am. Any coalition government without Likud will likely require Ra’am to hold
Aurelien
There are a couple of interesting points in the reported Iranian reactions, assuming they are accurately reported. The Tasnim piece is not so much a set of proposals as a series of demands for US concessions before any negotiations can start. Although the text is ambiguous, the Iranians seem to be asking for a lot of things to be done within thirty days: more in practice than the US system could ever deliver, as I hope they understand. On the other hand, the ten points in Kobiessi tweet aren’t really negotiating proposals at all. They are more like a position paper setting out how things can and should develop. For the first time, as far as I know, the Iranians have talked officially about a new regional political order, with foreign powers absent and with the prospect of regional prosperity and a “shared destiny” with the other states. It’s always perilous to speculate, but this suggests to me that the Iranians are losing interest in negotiating about long-term complex issues such as nuclear, and that they want what amounts to a quick US surrender and exit. They know they have the ball and time is on their side, and that they can take much more economic and even physical punishment than the US can.
As regards the Chinese visit we need to remember that it was the Chinese who extended the invitation, and withdrawing such an invitation, especially at the last moment, is a major diplomatic step that they probably wouldn’t want to take. I suspect that they were just hoping Trump would decide not to come, which would have solved many problems. As it is, they’ll shrug their shoulders and go through the motions: if the visit is widely perceived as a failure, it will be Trump and the US that get most of the blame, especially he seriously thinks he can browbeat them over Iran.
chris
Any chance that in light of the continued risks of the Iran conflict, the recent insults, and the general trajectory of the Trump administration, that the Chinese are planning to do something drastic to Trump and his team during the visit? I understand the Chinese are not known for being that kind of direct in their negotiations with the West but this is a critical time and I don’t think the rest of the world would shed a tear for the US if we suddenly lost our political leadership. We’ve done the same to numerous other countries. This kind of crossing the Rubicon when others don’t expect it would certainly support a change in the world order. This would be China stepping onto the world stage with a big stick. Might explain why the offer is still being extended even after everything Trump has done.
Lefty Godot
SAMs or AAMs along the flight path somewhere distant enough to obscure responsibility might be a sneaky tactic. But Musk is probably bringing a magic AI shield that would defeat that.
Ann
Iran Reveals Demands That Triggered Trump’s Rage Post
As the post and Aurelien note above, the Chinese would not want to withdraw the invitation. That would be inconsistent with their past diplomatic practices and culture as well. But at the same time they don’t want to be seen as providing cover for another US/Israeli war crime of a surprise attack on Iran, as Modi apparently did. Given the specific declining mental health of the emperor and the increasingly reckless and lawless nature of US foreign policy in general, I would imagine that the Chinese wish for a cancellation to dodge the whole mess.
And yes, I would speculate given past and recent statements and actions, that the Mad Emperor will attempt to crudely browbeat Xi. It has happened before, and the pattern of TACO is already established, the US paper-tiger emperor has no clothes, few, if any cards, and has lost his marbles. It is downright embarrassing, and I thought the Bush Jr. regime, or the Blinken/Sullivan regime was embarrassing. Just when we think it can’t become any more farcical and dangerous we usually get something even worse. It’s hard not to be concerned, but the S&P is in record territory, nothing to worry about eh.
Doggo
The idea that Oman is a signatory to UNCLOS and thus obligated to allow unrestricted free passage through its terrorial water part of the Strait, and therefore Iran’s scheme to jointly control Hormuz with Oman will never work, seems absurd to me.
1. Don’t nations sign treaties and then later back out of them? For instance USA does this all the time. But other nations with a bit more dignity and honor still does this, from time to time.
2. Before Iran announced its joint-ownership of Hormuz scheme last month, Iranian foreign minister flrew to Oman and had a lengthy discussion with the Omanis. I can’t imagine the Iranian govt announcing something like this if the Omanis objected or were not fully on board.
3. Joint ownership of Hormuz benefits Oman greatly, so why wouldn’t they do it? Iran is doing all the hard work of fighting the evil empire, while Oman just sits back and reaps 50% of the rewards. Seems like a cushy deal to me.
JonnyJames
Also, in the larger context of international law: the US and vassals have become increasingly lawless and intl law has become something of a joke. In the US, the constitution is flat-out ignored, and all three branches of govt. are rotten with corruption, no “checks and balances”. Since the US does not abide by law, and not capable of agreement etc. why do other nations feel compelled to adhere to the fine points of intl. law? As noted, Iran (and US) is not signatory to UNCLOS
Polar Socialist
UNCLOS is a treaty for peace time. During and armed conflict nations are supposed to follow the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.
Accordingly, during a conflict a state can restrict the movement of even neutral vessels at the area of military operations.
One way to look at it is that while there’s no peace, Iran is well within it’s right to collect protection money from all vessels passing trough area of conflict, namely the Strait of Hormuz.
John k
Interesting. Even if us withdraws israel still lurks and will be unable to do things. It might be years, if ever, the 3 parties reach any peace agreement, so let them pay tolls until then.
Marduk
Interesting comment, so I had a look at the San Remo Manual in the IHL database. My reading is that the Strait of Hormuz has an Iranian part and an Omani part. During an armed conflict Iran can put any restrictions they want on their own part of the Strait. However, Oman is not a belligerent and neutrals and belligerents have a continuing right of passage through Omani waters (subject to the requirements in the San Remo Manual).
Could it be that this right of passage is what the US thought could be used by its warships to transit the Strait? Why would they think the Iranians would meekly accept this, when the US had initiated the conflict with a surprise attack in complete contravention of all “rules” relating to warfare.
My take on the matter is that there are no rights which other States can rely on in the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran calls the shots subject to a need to keep Oman sweet.
Taking this further though, Iran will see a long term need for an internationally agreed end point to the Strait of Hormuz issue. Their timeframe for achieving this will be longer than the US can maintain its current attitude, but they will want a resolution. Iran will not want an open ended ongoing unresolved conflict.
Yalt
Craig Murray’s written on this and since he was head of the Maritime Section of the British FCO and was the UK negotatiator for UNCLOS he’s something of an expert on the subject.
He claims that–ignoring for the moment the fact that neither the US nor Iran is a signatory, this is what would be the case if they were–UNCLOS remains in effect during wartime and Iran is required to allow passage of neutral commercial ships not trading with the enemy. But since “enemy” includes everybody hosting a US base and allowing it to be used in an attack, such ships are few and far between.
Expat2uruguay
Is there any backup for the idea that Oman would receive 50%? I’ve been wondering if that’s a fact or just something people are throwing around…
Doggo
No numbers were ever published, as far as I know.
But there was the Iranian govt statement, like a day or two after Aragchi flew to Oman and met with their leaders, saying that Hormuz is Iranian and Omani territorial waters and that the two countries will split the ship transit fees going forward. It might not be 50/50 but it seems like 50/50 would be logical. Given how the territorial boundary is probably midway between their coasts.
Maybe Iran would insist on splitting the *profits* 50/50 (and not the gross income), given how the inspection bureaucracy expenses will have to be paid. But I imagine the expense to income ratio would be pretty dang low, like maybe 1% (2 million per ship passing through, 20k total expense per ship to pay the bureaucrat salaries and the patrol boat/helicoper fuel, etc)
hemeantwell
Moon of Alabama picks up on two remarkable statements, one by the Saudis, another by the execrable Robert Kagan that appears in the Atlantic. The Saudis attack Israel for trying to foment conflict between Arab countries, while Kagan says the US has suffered an irreversible defeat.
dave -- just dave
Arnaud Bertrand points out how similar Robert Kagan’s analysis is to his own.
Similar, that is, except for ignoring the suffering caused by the war, ignoring “how we got here”, and the suggested way to deal with the situation:
He writes that what’s to be done is “engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold.”
JeffRoss_MT
Well, that’s not what he said. Here’s the actual paragraph from Kagen’s article:
But any resolution other than America’s effective surrender holds enormous risks that Trump has not so far been willing to take. Those who glibly call on Trump to “finish the job” rarely acknowledge the costs. Unless the U.S. is prepared to engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold; unless it is prepared to risk the loss of warships convoying tankers through a contested strait; unless it is prepared to accept the devastating long-term damage to the region’s productive capacities likely to result from Iranian retaliation—walking away now could seem like the least bad option. As a political matter, Trump may well feel he has a better chance of riding out defeat than of surviving a much larger, longer, and more expensive war that could still end in failure.
Kagan is just incoherent. In one paragraph he notes Iran can easily retaliate by destroying Gulf oil infrastructure, which is why according to him Trump can’t do even some token bombing run just to declare big victory and go home, then few paragraphs down he speaks as if ground invasion and regime change are real options, just with some heightened costs and risks that Trump is unwilling to take for some reasons.
JP
Those are real options because we have given a loaded gun to four year olds. In so many ways the formerly unthinkable has happened across the political spectrum. Trump has already proven that all options are actionable. Your options, on the other hand are gold, bitcoin or a hole in the ground.
NN Cassandra
Actually, the gun is empty, which is why US/Israel are in pickle now.
Oregon Lawhobbit
Well….
There are still those “not-so-depleted” uranium rounds available for the gun.
Though I agree with much of the consensus that the fallout (heh) from using those would be very ungood.
JonnyJames
Kagan? I wouldn’t bother wasting my time.
John Wright
I read the Kagan opinion piece and found it resigned to a USA defeat and overall diminishment in the world.
Kagan did not approach exactly how the USA got it so wrong with its well funded state department, extremely well funded defense department, well paid Iran experts at well funded think tanks and the “advising” lobby.
Perhaps his editorial is simply a way to get out front of the USA defeat so he and his wife can preserve their well paid expert status.
Sibiriak
Yes, and keep in mind that Robert Kagan has been vehemently anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, and pro-Democratic party (the Clinton wing), advocating the “muscular internationalism” / “liberal interventionism” version of U.S. imperias lism.
His brother, Frederick Kagan, is more aligned with traditional Republican party views. (American Enterprise Institute)
chuck roast
The Atlantic Monthly was founded in Boston in 1857 by members the of the eastern estblishment including Francis H. Underwood, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell. It was anti-slave and anti-imperialist to the core. Certainly the leading intellectual journal of its day and read by all of the bourgeoisie of any standing.
It passed through a number hands over the years without losing its literary standing until 1999 when it was sold by Mort Zuckerberg. By this time the magazine was becoming thin indeed. Adverizing was drying up. Subsequently its political and cultural orientation changed drastically. Around 2000 I recall seeing a cover story by David Brooks about the bohoization of the American middle class. This should have marked the nadir of the long history of The Atlantic, but it got worse.
Shortly thereafter the US invaded Afghanistan, and warhawks were by this time deeply ensconced on the masthead. Michael Kelly was an editor at this time who died in Iraq while pumping up the volume. Maureen Dowd wrote a saccharine remembrance of him which speaks volumes. Neolibs and facile wordsmiths have populated its pages since the turn of the century. But the mag itself is now very hefty and the cash is coming in. Created by giants and inherited by midgets…Robert Kagan fits right in.
Doggo
Kagan seems pretty quick to declare a neocon regime change project to be a failure when it’s not his own.
But after 4 years of complete and utter failure of Project Ukraine that he and his wife Victoria Nuland started (yes Russia is now stronger and richer and more united than ever, biatches), has he offered even the tiniest bit of contrition or a mea culpa? Hell no, it’s still we must fight to the last Ukrainian alive to destroy Russia.
CitizenGuy
Wilkerson was on Breaking Points this morning and was asked about the Kagan article. He responded that Kagan is negging the Trump admin and neohawks. That is, goading them into “doing something” or acknowledging the worst US defeat in history.
raspberry jam
Damn, Ukrainian triangulation with the Israelis not working as hoped? (lol)
“We don’t see much interest or appetite from the Israeli leadership in this area. I don’t want to speculate about the reasons for that. I often hear frustration about the fact that Israel is missing an opportunity to save more lives of its soldiers,” Korniychuk says.
Doctors Fear Trump’s Mental Decline Will Trigger Nuclear War
Those doctors can rest their mind and not worry. It’s not gonna happen.
Trump does have mental disease and he already tried to get the nuclear codes, and the rest of the US neocon cabal refused (military, to be precise… upper echelon of US military are all neocon political animals or otherwise they would not have risen within the ranks). Even as despicable human beings as these US neocons are, they are pragmatic and careful as far as their own survival goes (at least the ones without dementia). They like spending money and protecting their considerable wealth.
They know by now that nuking Iran will trigger a massive retaliation against Israel that will destroy it as a nation (just a few good missile hits on Dimona nuclear plant and their desalinization plants will do the job). At that point there is nothing holding the Israelis back from going full Samson and launching their 150 nukes at Muslim countries. That much radioactive fallout all at once might raise the radation levels in the DC beltway enough so as to force the neocon elites to go live in their Greenbriar bunker for months. They don’t want that. Who knows what will happen to their luxury vacation homes during that time, maybe the angry plebs would’ve burned it all down.
Ann
US issues new sanctions over Iran’s oil shipments to China
Citing Article 34, Tasnim argued that transit passage rights granted to shipping do not eclipse Iran’s sovereign rights over the seabed. At the strait’s narrowest point, the territorial sea claims of Iran and Oman overlap entirely, meaning the cables physically sit in Iranian-claimed territory.
according to Radio Free Europe
AG
re: Richard Medhurst
An Armed Robbery of the World’s Energy Supply
May 11, 2026 A forensic investigation into how Washington leveraged the war in Iran to replace Nord Stream, save the dollar, and establish total command over the world’s fuel from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean. Richard Medhurst reports. https://consortiumnews.com/2026/05/11/an-armed-robbery-of-the-worlds-energy-supply/
‘More on the kinetic front: an F-35 appears to have gone missing:’
Could be several reasons for this. It make have taken Iranian fire and had to limp home, it could be the result of an accident or it might be that some of these planes are seeing too many hours in the air. For all we know a seagull might have been sucked into its single engine. But it is not like Hegseth is going to give a public briefing on what the go is.
Trump’s “project freedumb” is more than sortying DDG ‘s to draw fire and skedadle!
It includes a form of no fly zone over east side of the strait to include no fly of shore based anti ship weapons. US aircraft can look down shoot down locking expensive AIM.
To do this F-35 forms a sensor network which uses radio, exposing the aircraft. IRGC is learning to make Trump’s no fly part of operation freedumb very costly.
Hard landed F-35 will be even less reliable than usual.
We will not know for quite a while, but I believe those delicate and temperamental machines full of buggy software are starting to break down after being stressed under operational conditions that they rarely, if ever, sustained previously. After all,
1) If we look at the list of accidents involving F-35, even restricted to the last few years, we see crashes because “all systems failed except the flight controls and the engine”, because of “errors in the air data system from the wake turbulence of a preceding aircraft, which resulted in several rapid transitions between the primary and backup flight-conditions data sources”, because “freezing temperatures (-18C) had caused the hydraulic fluid to freeze and rupture the hydraulic lines including those to the landing gear”, and for other as yet undisclosed reasons. Trouble with edge cases, it seems.
2) At the best of times, the availability rate of the F-35 hovers at 50%, and its full mission capability rate ranges from 15% to 35%. These airplanes have to spend most of their time being pampered by a huge ground crew of aircraft mechanics.
Now it is no longer training or simulations, but real war with intensive action where devious edge cases pop up, for many weeks, pushing those hangar queens to the brink.
“temperatures (-18C) had caused the hydraulic fluid to freeze”
The Hurricane fighter had trouble with freezing temperatures. But that was in 1938: by 1940 the problem had been solved. How on earth are people unable to cope with freezing temperatures nowadays?
Aiming and firing the cannons aboard an airplane was a problem solved during WWI. The cannons of the F-35 cannot shoot straight.
The ejection seat was a difficulty that had been mastered by the late 1950s, early 1960s. The F-35 has no end of trouble with ejection seats.
Using catapults, arresting cables, and elevators on aircraft carriers was an issue fully addressed in the 1940s. They do not work properly on the aircraft carrier Ford.
Not being able to implement properly a feature that has been a problem with well-known, working solutions for generations is a typical indicator of an irreversible loss of know-how. Not of knowledge: books, reports, engineering documents still have all the information about the issues and their solutions; it is really a matter of organizations no longer being able to put that knowledge into practice.
The part about the three US Navy ships hit by Iranian missiles certainly rings true. Trump’s unhinged rants on social media aren’t random. They are tells. He has no impulse control and poor emotional regulation. Kind of the opposite of a good poker player.
So the next time he rage-posts, we’ll know that something really bad must have happened.
All done! If you arrived before the time of this comment, please refresh this page and re-skim.
Thanks! 🙏
Thank you
‘So the idea that Iran has been trying to sell, that Iran and Oman will share the control of the Strait of Hormuz and split the tolling proceeds, is a non-starter from the Oman end. But Oman has not cleared its throat.’
Thing is, does Oman really want to walk away from billions of Yuan in free money? And money for nothing? Even Trump said that he would like to take a cut of the action.
Oman has shown absolutely no interest. It has signed UNCLOS. Iran has not.
Don’t invoke Trump. That demeans you. Not everyone in the world has insatiable greed.
And tell me what sort of navy and military Oman has?!?! The UAE is right next door and is being very ugly.
Iran already said it deposited some of the proceeds from its toll booth operation to its Treasury. It did not cut Oman in nor did it even offer to keep some in reserve to send to Oman (say when it has regularized operations, know what they cost, and deducts those expenses from the gross and divvies that up).
Iran seems to hope it can get enough other Gulf States onside to apply some porcine maquillage to its plan. It has weakly floated from time to time that it could share governance, which presumably would include some of the moolah. The fact that I have not seen Iran say that in a while suggests it has not only been ignored but may have gotten some tart private rebuffs.
maquillage
A Frenchman once said,”The best makeup for a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to come by”. . .
Touche!
Iran seems to be on thin ice with tariffs, not just the outraged west but the struggling 3rd world. Otoh, it’s not clear they’ve been charging 3rd world cargoes, maybe just western ones? Maybe if they just charge those cargoes to western countries that participated in or supported the war, and then with a limited time until they receive enough income to pay for the very real damages inflicted by the west that either started the war or supported it, the 3rd world would think it not unreasonable? Probably be a cold day in hell before us let’s go the frozen assets, or refrains from occasional terrorism for that matter.
I didn’t see Iran talk about us abandoning their gulf region bases among the the recent Iranian demands.
Yes, this is not at all well reported, admittedly due to some inconsistency in Iran statements and practice.
It most assuredly intended to charge oil cargoes from Gulf States if they ever come to terms with Iran.
Iran seems to be exempting relatively low value bulk cargoes, following the French finance minister Corbet: “The art of taxation consists of plucking the goose so as to obtain the most feathers with the least hissing.” Taxing low value cargoes does not produce a lot of revenue, will legitimately piss off poor countries and give them a bloody flag to wave, and creates a bigger admin burden.
What is will do with Gulf State oil going to a very poor country remains to be seen. Will they get a rate break? At oil over $90 a barrell, the Iran toll adds about $1 to the price.
Hmm. Money for nothing…
I have an inkling of what you did there
One thing is becoming clear from this conflict: just how useless the financial press is. I long knew that MSM was rubbish but assumed that a financial publication that was consistently wrong would be soon dumped by its readership. More than wrong, they seem to be deliberately intending to deceive. Clearly, the WSJ is not intended to be read by the smart money; it’s for the gulls and rubes.
The war in the Ukraine confirmed that publications like Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal would run propaganda pieces but the Iran war has shown how compromised they are. At what point will they come out and tell their readership that Dear Leader is steering the country into some biggly rocks as far as oil is concerned and that they had better batten down the hatches.
Typically the press justifies somewhat cozy relationships with government agencies as allowing them to have access to sources they can’t get through regular channels. However, it ought to be a two-way street, at least in a healthy relationship. If the government is going to curate certain “journalists” as go-to’s to leak information they find useful to shape public opinion, the press ought to at least ensure that they get something in return. As in, a story that they can’t simply get by scanning Truth Social or listening to Karoline Leavitt’s pressers.
In this case, the WSJ demands nothing in return. They simply act as a mouthpiece.
Seems to be a TASS it agreement for ,rades in the media, nothing but the Pravda.
The Devil wears Pravda?
:)
Or, as the Soviets used to say, “Ni tass Pravda, ni pravda Tass.”* ;-)
It looks better in the original Cyrillic, but I’m not going to cut and paste that here.
*”There is no news in Truth, there is no truth in News.” Articles like a, an, and the having not yet been discovered in many languages, including Russian. And not being all that necessary, apparently – is there really a NEED to distinguish between “a” dog and “the” dog?
That is whole other can of worms…I walk dog to park, I don’t drive car and I don’t use article. We no need article. English is crazy, we no need extra and unnecessary verb “do”. I no use articles and no use do or don’t, it not necessary.
It sounds even better when spoken with Russian accent.
I have now, for unknown reasons, bumped into a variety of Facebook Reels that posit “What if English was spoken with Chinese grammar?”* The results are interesting.
What I really like is how when I’m chatting in Korean I don’t miss articles in the slightest. Yet I cannot imagine English without them.
*short answer: weird, but better, including getting rid of that whole pesky pronoun gender issue that plagues Americans.
I feel sorry for ESL students trying to figure it out the PC pronoun changes, I get confused myself.
I hear Andrei Martyanov’s voice when I read that. “Guys, guys,….”
Perfect. I always get a kick out of Andrei, especially when he gets animated. His command of English is excellent, but his accent is thick: when he gets going, I sometimes have trouble understanding him.
I’m surprised other non-Russian speakers like Nima Alkhorshid understand half of what he says sometimes.
Don’t they also seem very genderfluid when using pronouns for countries, organizations and even people sometimes? Or is that just the translators randomly switching from he to she and her to him and vice versa within the same paragraph? I can’t figure out if there is some intention to that or if it’s just that Russian doesn’t translate to English very intuitively.
I do some copy editing for a Russian-speaking friend and I haven’t seen the gender problem, but articles and that/what are still impossible for her after 25+ years living in an English-speaking country. It doesn’t help that there’s no “th” sound in Russian, which makes it hard to even hear it distinctly.
Though as I understand it, ships are “he” rather than “she” as in English.
A lot of those English consonant combinations are tough to deal with. And don’t GET me started on the whole “R vs. L” issue in NE Asia… ;-)
It’s also an issue in Spanish vs Portuguese, incidentally. I tend to find “prayas” and “brancas” very offputting and foreign.
Russian language has genders (three of them), but not definite or indefinite articles.
In my native language we have neither – and I still do have problems with both in English, after 35 years of using it. Obviously.
Doesn’t really help my second language was Swedish, which has gender (two), but only indefinite article. The definite article is actually a suffix…
But yeah, Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese and Finnish use context to imply the same thing.
Do they do the whole plural verb thing like the English language?—
HE goES / THEY go?
SHE playS / THEY play?
HE IS going / THEY ARE going.
It can be especially confusing now that the US has three genders (he/him, she/her, and they/them) when the third gender is singular in number. To make it less confusing, we should say, “They GOES to school at State University.” “They IS coming over for dinner.” But to the uninitiated, this sounds wrong and uneducated, or at least it will until we get used to it.
Yeah, German also with the der/die/oder das thing is annoying. At least French and Spanish only have two, but still. It’s one of the few areas where I’ll give English a checkmark in the W column.
In Hungarian that distinction is so fundamental that you use an entirely different verb conjugation if the object of the verb is “the” something.
‘A dog’ is some random dog, but ‘the dog’ is a particular dog. You could say ‘I took a dog for a walk, the dog belonged to Dave. In the first part of the sentence a dog is introduced then in the second half of the sentence some particular characteristic of the dog is introduced to make it a particular dog.
We had a particular dog once – there was just no brand of kibble that suited him and only fresh-made was acceptable to his refined palate… ;-)
And yet, despite that whole “a” dog vs. “the” dog, Koreans seem to get along just fine saying “I dog walked” and do not realize how horrible it sounds….
I had a dog for lunch, the dog had belonged to Dave.
Was it hot?
Western propaganda is capitalist in nature and thus is a consumer product. It is consumed because the consumer finds its it enjoyable.
As an aside, authoritarian governments give out what is essentially ‘information rations’ which is why those governments have very dissimilar propaganda. Funnily enough that’s what we in the West have been trained to see as the only form of propaganda.
Calbee changes some product packaging to black and white due to the situation in the Middle East.
Unstable supply of ink and other materials leads to “simpler designs.”
While the standard packaging displays product images against an orange or yellow background, the company is changing to a simpler design due to the unstable supply of ink and other materials used in packaging caused by the situation in the Middle East.
https://news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/na-k10015118701000
Thanks for the sighting! Real economy indicators are very much appreciated.
Thank you for this explanation. I picked out my Mother’s Day cards this year and realized they all had grey envelopes, as did 80% of the wall of cards.
Coming soon: grey tires?
May as well – all the OTHER color has been leached out of the automobile industry…
What happens when a contract for fuel (diesel in the instance I’m thinking of ) is negotiated. The amount needed based on previous years of use and that plus a cushion is used to predict that annual need. So, a # of gallons and the budget set at current price. But then a war of choice disrupting the market to such an extent that it simply cannot be satisfied unless the contract was written so that once the original total of $$ is spent then the contract is met.
If challenged by the buyer wouldn’t the seller be able to say that by entering a war of choice that could not be predicted releases me (seller) from the contract?
Yes – you have discovered the “force majeure” and/or “Acts of God” clause found in many contracts (and ALL good ones). It’s been in the news summat of late IRT Gulf State product sales and deliveries.
Thanks.
The approaching price increase in diesel embodies both sides of what John Currie described in a posted video yesterday. View from a cost perspective or view from a volumetric perspective. I live in Vermont and 54% of the roads in the state are unpaved. Every town is responsible for road upkeep and that require a quantity of diesel. Less diesel means less maintenance.
Tough times ahead for a town like us – mountainous, a food desert, sparsely populated with an aging population, cold and snowy (155 inches this winter) winters.
Fascinating about the anti radar missiles. Yet another blow to surface navies?
They may need “stealth ships” which will be hard to do when space spies see all large objects.
> Yet another blow to surface navies?
Not necessarily. Surface war ships have no business near fortified enemy coasts anyway.
> They may need “stealth ships”
There is no such thing as stealth in the strait – not for destroyers and also not for smaller ships. There are electronic eyes and ears and radar everywhere.
Most likely the ground of the strait is full of sensors, too.
An enemy ship trying to pass the strait _will_ be spotted, some drones will be sent, the ship will have to activate radar to target the incoming drones or rockets, and then the one or two radar killers will know where on the ship the radar is.
It will not be so easy everywhere on the world, but only at a few special places.
Kind of kidding about the stealth.
“A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” — Horatio Nelson (allegedly).
Fort MacArthur near San Pedro in LA had large gun batteries installed towards the end of WW1, and during the ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ on Feb 24-25th 1942 fired them and broke about 100,000 windows of houses and businesses in the surrounding area of Long Beach and environs.
HARM missiles have been around for quite awhile…. :-)
Useful against any radar installation, not just ships. Radar is the modern “eyes” of the military, and as the saying goes, “first thing you do in a fight, you blind the b*****ds.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM
Which seems to be why the Iranians so far relied very much on passive optical and infrared anti-aircraft missiles instead of the longer-range radar-controlled ones — in particular to shoot down that intruding F-15, helicopters, and drones involved in that conflagration in the surroundings of Isfahan.
I have to wonder if they have acoustic listening posts. Obsolete by radar standards, but hard to whack with a HARM missile.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/aircraft-detection-radar-1917-1940/
Would acoustic detection still work with supersonic aircraft?
I would presume, given that they make a supersonic boom. But they’re also generally higher altitude, so that may mitigate engine and air noise.
OTOH, with modern microphones and computer processing, that may not be an issue.
Very mobile radar units that “shoot* and scoot” on an irregular basis might also be a partial solution.
*for a value of “shoot” meaning “activate the radar, take a quick sweep or two of the environs, then shut it down and RUN AWAY!!!! FAST!!!!
Some tidbits you might find interesting:
There are claims that Russia has been operating “passive” radar systems successfully in Ukraine (I think the Russians have 3 or 4 such systems in service, but I’m not up on their full capabilities and ranges, etc). These systems rely on other sources of electromagnetic radiation reflecting off of aircraft/missiles/drones. The EM emitter could be a remotely located Russian radar, enemy radar (such as a US AWACS), or even localized radio communications traffic. Pretty interesting tech. My understanding is that it is pretty easy to detect and track flying objects with these systems, a little less easy to identify the targets (whether it is a manned aircraft, drone, missile, or to differentiate specific types within those categories), and a good bit harder to use them for targeting purposes. Either way, these passive radar systems would allow you to get the drop on incoming aircraft, because at the very least it would let you keep your fire control radar turned-off/on standby until or after firing an interceptor at the target, allowing the target to unknowingly get closer to an AD battery and giving the aircraft far less time to react/evade. I’ve read stories about such systems being developed, but Ukraine is the first time I have heard they have been successfully used in combat- and to be clear, I have not read any official reports or seen any stats- everything I have read about them is from people using them or from Russian military bloggers on Telegram. The systems definitely exist though. Kind of like the Russian laser systems (Such as Peresvet)- unverified claims of successful deployment by non-official sources.
I only post this because if the Russians have such systems online and in-use (successfully) then there is no reason Iran could not either have their own similar domestic systems or some of those actual Russian systems. If so, then the US will never, ever achieve air superiority. Speculative on my part, admittedly.
And before hitting reply, I looked up the names of the Russian systems if anyone is interested and would like to read up on them:
Monolit-B (hybrid that operates in either passive or active modes)
Irbis-E (Also a hybrid that can operate either passively or actively, but is mounted in the SU-35)
Moskva-1 (This one is a combined electronic warfare/passive air search radar system)
Tropa (This is a passive system that uses unrelated radio broadcasts/comms that produce reflections from airborne targets)
And since you bring up acoustic detection Russia has an artillery counter-battery detection/artillery fire control system called Penicillin that uses both acoustics and seismics for detection and targeting that is reputed to be highly effective.
Iran is reputed to be using optical air search and targeting systems for air defense also (and by this I mean sophisticated, electronically-controlled systems that are integrated into their AD grid- not the Mark I eyeball systems).
I believe the Chinese have even published articles on successful test of multistatic radars. You do need a lot of computing power and exact locations of all the parts of the system.
So yes, Iranians won’t be far behind. They still suffer from the geography, though. No matter how advanced you radar tech is, it won’t see trough mountains.
I was going to try to take the latest Truth Social quote above to ask DeepSeek whether the author was sane. But since it’s an image, I couldn’t do that easily, so I did something I have never done before. I went to TruthSocial to take a look.
OMG!! Megalomania at a level that would have embarrassed Kim Il Sung. I don’t recommend before your morning coffee.
Took a look the other day and I agree. It’s nutso. And you have to remember that this is coming from the President of the United States and Leader of the Free World – and not from Laura Loomer.
The devil’s wares Pravda
The Met Fascism Gala
For 78 years the Israelis have been ‘tapping’ us along, keeping us waiting, killing people with their IDF, destroying protests, and recently wiping out 420,000 innocent, unarmed in Gaza, and laughing at our now GREAT AGAIN Country and how it always falls for Hasbara tricks. They will be laughing longer!
There, fixed it.
Any one of those 11pm posts last night would have been standard megalomanic trumpfare. 17 in one hour is a megalomania starting to crack.
The thought occurs that if USN was aware of the Iranian anti-radiation missile capability, it was an extremely risky move to knowingly come within range of this weaponry. Perhaps it was assumed that the Iranians would not dare to seriously damage major USN surface vessels.
It would be fascinating to know how this decision was arrived at.
—
I recall that years ago, I think during the first DJT presidential campaign, he pointed out that the US armed forces were no longer good at winning wars. Perhaps this was just DJT rhetoric that happened to coincide with reality; he certainly seems to have forgotten the concern in the years since.
The thought occurs that if USN was aware of the Iranian anti-radiation missile capability, it was an extremely risky move to knowingly come within range of this weaponry. Perhaps it was assumed that the Iranians would not dare to seriously damage major USN surface vessels.
Or simply that the US military does not believe that the Other Side can really hurt it. The US is decent at bullying small and weak opponents – but peer adversaries are another matter entirely.
Dunno about the Navy, but the Army certainly did not train “for real,” as evidenced by the almost universal failure rate of units sent to the National Training Center to face well-trained OPFOR units in an environment where cheating is nearly impossible. From my own experience, training was generally a carefully choreographed “dance” to make commanders look good, rather than actual readiness assessment.
Got in serious trouble one time for “shooting” an opposing company commander’s tank. The thing was parked on a plainly visible hill, no cover or even concealment, but by using our MILES laser to kill the vehicle we … upset some people.
Worth it,* though. ;-)
*a very angry First Sergeant, who’d been chewed on by a very angry Battalion Commander.
Re: China’s confirmation of visit
Arnaud Bertrand says it’s Chinese custom to officially announce visits from foreigners at the last minute, he includes some anecdotes from Nixon/Mao era.
A lot is going to depend on whether Trump will rate a red carpet and honour guard or not. As well, it will also be important to see who meets Trump as he gets off Air Force One. Annalena Baerbock was humiliated a coupla years ago when it was only a minor functionary that met her. And Ursula was humiliated too when she had to go through regualr customs on her way out of the country. But for sure Xi will be in no mood to kowtow to Trump for the economic damage he is causing China.
Here are my suggested preconditions:
1. Trump to surrender all devices on the tarmac; devices will be shutoff and stored in a faraday cage in Chinese custody until he gets on the plane to leave for return to US;
2. Trump to submit to a drug screen (adderall, uppers); positive tests will result in 24 hour isolation until he tests clean.
3. Any mention of “sanctions” or “tariffs” will result in Taco being escorted back to the airport, and devices permanently confiscated.
4. Any kinetic activities in the Persian Gulf initiated by the US military will end the summit prematurely.
Arnaud Bertrand is starting to act like a white monkey.
FFS, the Nixon visit is a precedent for NOTHING. It was kept super secret as long as possible due to it being potentially controversial in the US, so limiting the time it was visible before it happened would contain the amount of pushback that could happen. The great show of the event and the agreements made bulldozed the critics, as I assume was hoped.
His tweets have gotten a bit clickbaity lately – often trying to tie the subject into a linked article on his Substack. Everyone has to earn a living, I guess.
I’m not familiar with the term “white monkey”. I found two meanings it may be:
1. a mischievous person, especially a child.
2. a person who is dominated or controlled by another (with reference to the monkey traditionally kept by an organ-grinder).
I think you meant the first definition?
No, white money is also a term for Caucasians who overhype China. It seems to have drifted beyond its original use:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_monkey
I have seen the term used on Twitter. But nearly always, not to suggest that the China tout was receiving pay but was way way way too much of an uncritical promoter of China, as in self-discrediting with the intensity and one-sidedness of his views.
Damn, as a white Anglo from Cali, I would not feel comfortable using “monkey” to refer to any single racial or ethnic group. I have no problem referring to humans in general as “silly monkeys” but if I reversed the “white” to “black” or “yellow” I would be in big trouble.
But perhaps the Chinese don’t have the same stigmas
(When I was a kid, I remember my parents talking about how Howard Cosell got fired for saying “look at that monkey go”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QbZ0jpk1aI
No, white money is also a term for Caucasians who overhype China.
I like the slip of the tongue.
I’m relieved to hear that Iran has a dolphin-safe navy, and none were harmed harvesting TUNA = Trump Uses Nuclear Arms?
The TUNA trade: go long iodine, Geiger counters, and South American real estate.
TRICKY – Trump Really Is Considering Kinetic – Yo!
Or TUNA TACO? (Fresh albacore tuna makes excellent Baja fish tacos). As Galloway likes to say “that’s the Big Enchilada”
Alastair Crooke: ‘Ways of War’ are in metamorphosis — Lessons from the Iran War
https://conflictsforum.substack.com/p/ways-of-war-are-in-metamorphosis
Played the outdoor one-armed bandit yesterday, and ended up down $121.
As the article sez, going from $4.50 to $6 a gallon for go-juice in Cali is a bit rough, but we’re used to the gouge, whereas a 72% increase in Ohio, ouch-e-wa-wa!
Played the outdoor one-armed bandit yesterday, and ended up down $121.
But that should last your lawnmower at least a couple weeks, right? ;-)
Passed that 6 buck gas weeks ago, here in So Cal at my fave Chevron (6.59 low grade) on the 101 exit.
Also in Mendocino county, the Coyote Valley Casino complex (on the Indian Reservation in Redwood Valley, CA) has gasoline for under 6 bucks, very popular place, and they have real one-armed bandits to gamble while you pay the other one armed bandit for fuel. That can be very expensive for some
(Cheapest Diesel is around 7.50) And it will only get worse. Fun times ahead
Trump is growing impatient as Cuban regime clings to power
U.S. officials believe the regime could fall by the end of the year, but that timeline isn’t fast enough for the president, sources say. The White House says Cuba has rejected humanitarian and economic assistance to stabilize.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-growing-impatient-cuban-regime-clings-power-rcna341079
Spain calls for an EU army
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/spain-calls-for-an-eu-army/
Republicans Don’t Want to Talk About Gas Prices Anymore
https://www.notus.org/congress/republicans-midterms-biden-trump-gas-prices-economy
Confused Trump, 79, Answers Simple Question With Bizarre Ramble
https://www.thedailybeast.com/confused-donald-trump-79-answers-simple-question-with-bizarre-ramble/
Yeah, the law-abiding beacon of freedom and democracy is the “US administration” while the countries the CIA does not approve of are “regimes” Regime this, regime that. Of course the sycophant-stenographers would never refer to the US as a genocidal, mass-murdering, lawless, rogue empire, t.
We have the “brutal regime” in Iran, while the GCC countries are “the Gulf states” (not family dictatorships) and the KSA still uses decapitation with a sword for capital punishment. Brutal regime?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia
Political discourse is so filled with loaded and biased terms, we don’t even notice.
DARN that Cuban regime for clinging to power! Who do they think they are, American politicians?
I’m thinking a good healthy lawsuitting* for trademark infringement would be in order!
*as the saying goes, “Of course it’s a word; I used it in a sentence, didn’t I?” ;-)
Netanyahu announced intention to phase out US military aid
https://unn.ua/en/news/netanyahu-announced-intention-to-phase-out-us-military-aid
Netanyahu says that before Oct. 7, he was seen as ‘perhaps the most restrained PM in Israel’s history’
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-that-before-oct-7-he-was-seen-as-perhaps-the-most-restrained-pm-in-israels-history/
Taiwan to deploy Himars to islands facing China
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/05/11/taiwan-to-deploy-himars-to-islands-facing-china/
Iran executes alleged Mossad spy Erfan Shakourzadeh amid Israel-US tensions
https://www.news9live.com/world/iran-executes-alleged-mossad-spy-west-asia-tensions-2970236/amp
Netanyahu says Iran regime change ‘possible, not guaranteed’
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202605119201
Iranian Official Says Trump Rejected Peace Proposal That Was ‘Reasonable and Generous’
https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-trump-peace-proposal
Fed Up, Zelensky Takes Gloves Off With the Trump Administration
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/world/europe/ukraine-war-zelensky-us-trump-russia.html
The oil price Googles search engine reports seems to be off. It currently shows CLW00 futures on NYMEX at $80.01. Marketwatch shows CL.1 futures on NYMEX at $96.38. Oilprice.com shows the higher price. I believe Google and the Oilprice.com price used to be about the same.
I thought this indi.ca article “What Do We Do Tonight? Try To Take Over The World” very insightful.
The fact is that taking over the world is fundamentally absurd. The United Kingdom invaded all but 22 countries and then imploded. The US has 800 military bases across at least 80 countries minus the ones Iran just exploded. The White Empire keeps re-forming without reforming and exploding and then imploding. It really is like Pinky & The Brain, which is the same plot over and over.
In this sense, ‘America’s’ foreign policy isn’t complex as much as cartoonish. Iran exists independently and has resources. It must be smashed and/or its resources must be tooken. Asking why Trump is attacking Iran—hopefully his last stand—is like asking Jeffrey Epstein why he raped the last girl, the one that sent him to remand. Why wouldn’t they? They always got away with it before.
US has released from Strategic Petroleum Reserve 4 to 6 million barrels each of the the past few weeks, commercial releases as well, crude draws, SPR at 396 million barrels week of 6 May.
US also limit crude import.
Action to calm traders will be short effective life.
Next EIA report 10:30 EDT 13 May
After break up of Soviet Union Russia dismantled and store remains of a lot of nukes given up by Republics including Ukraine. US provided tech support and money.
Seems to me Iran could ask Russia to help Israel denuke.
Israeli regime change update:
Mansour Abbas says Bennett, Eisenkot and Liberman each fit to be PM, predicts coalition deal
Abbas leads the largest Arab/Islamic party in Israel, Ra’am. Any coalition government without Likud will likely require Ra’am to hold
There are a couple of interesting points in the reported Iranian reactions, assuming they are accurately reported. The Tasnim piece is not so much a set of proposals as a series of demands for US concessions before any negotiations can start. Although the text is ambiguous, the Iranians seem to be asking for a lot of things to be done within thirty days: more in practice than the US system could ever deliver, as I hope they understand. On the other hand, the ten points in Kobiessi tweet aren’t really negotiating proposals at all. They are more like a position paper setting out how things can and should develop. For the first time, as far as I know, the Iranians have talked officially about a new regional political order, with foreign powers absent and with the prospect of regional prosperity and a “shared destiny” with the other states. It’s always perilous to speculate, but this suggests to me that the Iranians are losing interest in negotiating about long-term complex issues such as nuclear, and that they want what amounts to a quick US surrender and exit. They know they have the ball and time is on their side, and that they can take much more economic and even physical punishment than the US can.
As regards the Chinese visit we need to remember that it was the Chinese who extended the invitation, and withdrawing such an invitation, especially at the last moment, is a major diplomatic step that they probably wouldn’t want to take. I suspect that they were just hoping Trump would decide not to come, which would have solved many problems. As it is, they’ll shrug their shoulders and go through the motions: if the visit is widely perceived as a failure, it will be Trump and the US that get most of the blame, especially he seriously thinks he can browbeat them over Iran.
Any chance that in light of the continued risks of the Iran conflict, the recent insults, and the general trajectory of the Trump administration, that the Chinese are planning to do something drastic to Trump and his team during the visit? I understand the Chinese are not known for being that kind of direct in their negotiations with the West but this is a critical time and I don’t think the rest of the world would shed a tear for the US if we suddenly lost our political leadership. We’ve done the same to numerous other countries. This kind of crossing the Rubicon when others don’t expect it would certainly support a change in the world order. This would be China stepping onto the world stage with a big stick. Might explain why the offer is still being extended even after everything Trump has done.
SAMs or AAMs along the flight path somewhere distant enough to obscure responsibility might be a sneaky tactic. But Musk is probably bringing a magic AI shield that would defeat that.
Iran Reveals Demands That Triggered Trump’s Rage Post
https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-reveals-demands-that-triggered-trumps-rage-post/
Donald Trump Brazenly Admits What His Supreme Court Appointees Are There For
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-neil-gorsuch-amy-coney-barrett_n_6a019ab3e4b06e786e3f3d46
What We Saw in Cuba Shocked Us • Cubans Deserve America’s Generosity, Not Its Cruelty
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/cuba-us-blockade.html
Stephen Miller in Retreat
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/stephen-miller-trump-ice-immigration/687103/
As the post and Aurelien note above, the Chinese would not want to withdraw the invitation. That would be inconsistent with their past diplomatic practices and culture as well. But at the same time they don’t want to be seen as providing cover for another US/Israeli war crime of a surprise attack on Iran, as Modi apparently did. Given the specific declining mental health of the emperor and the increasingly reckless and lawless nature of US foreign policy in general, I would imagine that the Chinese wish for a cancellation to dodge the whole mess.
And yes, I would speculate given past and recent statements and actions, that the Mad Emperor will attempt to crudely browbeat Xi. It has happened before, and the pattern of TACO is already established, the US paper-tiger emperor has no clothes, few, if any cards, and has lost his marbles. It is downright embarrassing, and I thought the Bush Jr. regime, or the Blinken/Sullivan regime was embarrassing. Just when we think it can’t become any more farcical and dangerous we usually get something even worse. It’s hard not to be concerned, but the S&P is in record territory, nothing to worry about eh.
The idea that Oman is a signatory to UNCLOS and thus obligated to allow unrestricted free passage through its terrorial water part of the Strait, and therefore Iran’s scheme to jointly control Hormuz with Oman will never work, seems absurd to me.
1. Don’t nations sign treaties and then later back out of them? For instance USA does this all the time. But other nations with a bit more dignity and honor still does this, from time to time.
2. Before Iran announced its joint-ownership of Hormuz scheme last month, Iranian foreign minister flrew to Oman and had a lengthy discussion with the Omanis. I can’t imagine the Iranian govt announcing something like this if the Omanis objected or were not fully on board.
3. Joint ownership of Hormuz benefits Oman greatly, so why wouldn’t they do it? Iran is doing all the hard work of fighting the evil empire, while Oman just sits back and reaps 50% of the rewards. Seems like a cushy deal to me.
Also, in the larger context of international law: the US and vassals have become increasingly lawless and intl law has become something of a joke. In the US, the constitution is flat-out ignored, and all three branches of govt. are rotten with corruption, no “checks and balances”. Since the US does not abide by law, and not capable of agreement etc. why do other nations feel compelled to adhere to the fine points of intl. law? As noted, Iran (and US) is not signatory to UNCLOS
UNCLOS is a treaty for peace time. During and armed conflict nations are supposed to follow the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.
Accordingly, during a conflict a state can restrict the movement of even neutral vessels at the area of military operations.
One way to look at it is that while there’s no peace, Iran is well within it’s right to collect protection money from all vessels passing trough area of conflict, namely the Strait of Hormuz.
Interesting. Even if us withdraws israel still lurks and will be unable to do things. It might be years, if ever, the 3 parties reach any peace agreement, so let them pay tolls until then.
Interesting comment, so I had a look at the San Remo Manual in the IHL database. My reading is that the Strait of Hormuz has an Iranian part and an Omani part. During an armed conflict Iran can put any restrictions they want on their own part of the Strait. However, Oman is not a belligerent and neutrals and belligerents have a continuing right of passage through Omani waters (subject to the requirements in the San Remo Manual).
Could it be that this right of passage is what the US thought could be used by its warships to transit the Strait? Why would they think the Iranians would meekly accept this, when the US had initiated the conflict with a surprise attack in complete contravention of all “rules” relating to warfare.
My take on the matter is that there are no rights which other States can rely on in the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran calls the shots subject to a need to keep Oman sweet.
Taking this further though, Iran will see a long term need for an internationally agreed end point to the Strait of Hormuz issue. Their timeframe for achieving this will be longer than the US can maintain its current attitude, but they will want a resolution. Iran will not want an open ended ongoing unresolved conflict.
Craig Murray’s written on this and since he was head of the Maritime Section of the British FCO and was the UK negotatiator for UNCLOS he’s something of an expert on the subject.
He claims that–ignoring for the moment the fact that neither the US nor Iran is a signatory, this is what would be the case if they were–UNCLOS remains in effect during wartime and Iran is required to allow passage of neutral commercial ships not trading with the enemy. But since “enemy” includes everybody hosting a US base and allowing it to be used in an attack, such ships are few and far between.
Is there any backup for the idea that Oman would receive 50%? I’ve been wondering if that’s a fact or just something people are throwing around…
No numbers were ever published, as far as I know.
But there was the Iranian govt statement, like a day or two after Aragchi flew to Oman and met with their leaders, saying that Hormuz is Iranian and Omani territorial waters and that the two countries will split the ship transit fees going forward. It might not be 50/50 but it seems like 50/50 would be logical. Given how the territorial boundary is probably midway between their coasts.
Maybe Iran would insist on splitting the *profits* 50/50 (and not the gross income), given how the inspection bureaucracy expenses will have to be paid. But I imagine the expense to income ratio would be pretty dang low, like maybe 1% (2 million per ship passing through, 20k total expense per ship to pay the bureaucrat salaries and the patrol boat/helicoper fuel, etc)
Moon of Alabama picks up on two remarkable statements, one by the Saudis, another by the execrable Robert Kagan that appears in the Atlantic. The Saudis attack Israel for trying to foment conflict between Arab countries, while Kagan says the US has suffered an irreversible defeat.
Arnaud Bertrand points out how similar Robert Kagan’s analysis is to his own.
https://arnaudbertrand.substack.com/p/americas-chief-warmonger-says-the
Similar, that is, except for ignoring the suffering caused by the war, ignoring “how we got here”, and the suggested way to deal with the situation:
Well, that’s not what he said. Here’s the actual paragraph from Kagen’s article:
Here’s a shared link from our account to the whole article:
Kagen’s article in The Atlantic
Kagan is just incoherent. In one paragraph he notes Iran can easily retaliate by destroying Gulf oil infrastructure, which is why according to him Trump can’t do even some token bombing run just to declare big victory and go home, then few paragraphs down he speaks as if ground invasion and regime change are real options, just with some heightened costs and risks that Trump is unwilling to take for some reasons.
Those are real options because we have given a loaded gun to four year olds. In so many ways the formerly unthinkable has happened across the political spectrum. Trump has already proven that all options are actionable. Your options, on the other hand are gold, bitcoin or a hole in the ground.
Actually, the gun is empty, which is why US/Israel are in pickle now.
Well….
There are still those “not-so-depleted” uranium rounds available for the gun.
Though I agree with much of the consensus that the fallout (heh) from using those would be very ungood.
Kagan? I wouldn’t bother wasting my time.
I read the Kagan opinion piece and found it resigned to a USA defeat and overall diminishment in the world.
Kagan did not approach exactly how the USA got it so wrong with its well funded state department, extremely well funded defense department, well paid Iran experts at well funded think tanks and the “advising” lobby.
Perhaps his editorial is simply a way to get out front of the USA defeat so he and his wife can preserve their well paid expert status.
Yes, and keep in mind that Robert Kagan has been vehemently anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, and pro-Democratic party (the Clinton wing), advocating the “muscular internationalism” / “liberal interventionism” version of U.S. imperias lism.
His brother, Frederick Kagan, is more aligned with traditional Republican party views. (American Enterprise Institute)
The Atlantic Monthly was founded in Boston in 1857 by members the of the eastern estblishment including Francis H. Underwood, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell. It was anti-slave and anti-imperialist to the core. Certainly the leading intellectual journal of its day and read by all of the bourgeoisie of any standing.
It passed through a number hands over the years without losing its literary standing until 1999 when it was sold by Mort Zuckerberg. By this time the magazine was becoming thin indeed. Adverizing was drying up. Subsequently its political and cultural orientation changed drastically. Around 2000 I recall seeing a cover story by David Brooks about the bohoization of the American middle class. This should have marked the nadir of the long history of The Atlantic, but it got worse.
Shortly thereafter the US invaded Afghanistan, and warhawks were by this time deeply ensconced on the masthead. Michael Kelly was an editor at this time who died in Iraq while pumping up the volume. Maureen Dowd wrote a saccharine remembrance of him which speaks volumes. Neolibs and facile wordsmiths have populated its pages since the turn of the century. But the mag itself is now very hefty and the cash is coming in. Created by giants and inherited by midgets…Robert Kagan fits right in.
Kagan seems pretty quick to declare a neocon regime change project to be a failure when it’s not his own.
But after 4 years of complete and utter failure of Project Ukraine that he and his wife Victoria Nuland started (yes Russia is now stronger and richer and more united than ever, biatches), has he offered even the tiniest bit of contrition or a mea culpa? Hell no, it’s still we must fight to the last Ukrainian alive to destroy Russia.
Wilkerson was on Breaking Points this morning and was asked about the Kagan article. He responded that Kagan is negging the Trump admin and neohawks. That is, goading them into “doing something” or acknowledging the worst US defeat in history.
Damn, Ukrainian triangulation with the Israelis not working as hoped? (lol)
From Ukrainian envoy laments lack of Israeli ‘interest or appetite’ for country’s drone expertise, Times of Israel
Doctors Fear Trump’s Mental Decline Will Trigger Nuclear War
https://www.thedailybeast.com/doctors-fear-trumps-mental-decline-will-trigger-nuclear-war/
Lebanon urges US to put pressure on Israel to stop attacks and demolitions
https://www.reuters.com/world/lebanon-urges-us-put-pressure-israel-stop-attacks-demolitions-2026-05-11/
Pentagon reveals location of nuclear-armed submarine after Trump rejects Iran proposal
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5872704-ohio-class-missile-submarine/
EU greenlights sanctions on Israeli West Bank settlers
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-greenlights-sanctions-on-israeli-west-bank-settlers/a-77123631
China’s Long Game – Beijing is patiently waiting for the United States to flame out.
https://archive.ph/We6GM
The delegation list of Execs going to China with Trump this week:
Tim Cook of Apple
Larry Fink of BlackRock
Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone
Kelly Ortberg of Boeing
Brian Sikes of Cargill
Jane Fraser of Citi
Jim Anderson of Coherent
Larry Culp of GE Aerospace
David Solomon of Goldman Sachs
Jacob Thaysen of Illumina
Michael Miebach of Mastercard
Dina Powell McCormick of Meta
Sanjay Mehrotra of Micron
Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm
Elon Musk of Tesla
Ryan McInerney of Visa
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/us/politics/trump-china-musk-cook.html
Those doctors can rest their mind and not worry. It’s not gonna happen.
Trump does have mental disease and he already tried to get the nuclear codes, and the rest of the US neocon cabal refused (military, to be precise… upper echelon of US military are all neocon political animals or otherwise they would not have risen within the ranks). Even as despicable human beings as these US neocons are, they are pragmatic and careful as far as their own survival goes (at least the ones without dementia). They like spending money and protecting their considerable wealth.
They know by now that nuking Iran will trigger a massive retaliation against Israel that will destroy it as a nation (just a few good missile hits on Dimona nuclear plant and their desalinization plants will do the job). At that point there is nothing holding the Israelis back from going full Samson and launching their 150 nukes at Muslim countries. That much radioactive fallout all at once might raise the radation levels in the DC beltway enough so as to force the neocon elites to go live in their Greenbriar bunker for months. They don’t want that. Who knows what will happen to their luxury vacation homes during that time, maybe the angry plebs would’ve burned it all down.
US issues new sanctions over Iran’s oil shipments to China
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-issues-new-sanctions-over-irans-oil-shipments-china-2026-05-11/
EU agrees to restore full trade ties with Syria
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/11/eu-agrees-to-restore-full-trade-ties-with-syria
Pakistan allowed Iran to park military aircraft on its airfields despite mediator role in conflict with U.S.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pakistan-iran-military-aircraft-on-its-airfields-us-mediator-role/
Trump Blurts Out Vile Plot to Steal Midterms as Polls Take Brutal Turn
https://newrepublic.com/article/210212/trump-blurts-vile-plot-steal-midterms-crushing-new-poll-hits
Many Americans think Trump assassination attempts were fake, survey finds
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/05/11/trump-assassinations-staged-conspiracy/
Republicans Try to Erase Trump Impeachments From the Record
https://newrepublic.com/post/210262/republicans-erase-trump-impeachments-record-congress
Frustrated Trump learns he doesn’t have the cards on Iran
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260511-frustrated-trump-learns-he-doesn-t-have-the-cards-on-iran
US flying more spy planes over Cuba, just like it did before Venezuela attacks: report
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cuba-spy-planes-trump-rubio-b2974409.html
Fuel, munitions and food: Trump’s Iran war rips across US economy
https://www.ft.com/content/145eccf2-14d8-4819-bd75-5674a5818f7c
Republicans Rally Around Feeble Way to Lower Gas Prices
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-endorses-feeble-way-to-lower-gas-prices.html
White House plans to reduce barriers to beef imports in an effort to lower prices
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/11/trump-executive-order-lower-beef-import-tariffs-00914323
Iran’s claim on the undersea cables is
according to Radio Free Europe
re: Richard Medhurst
An Armed Robbery of the World’s Energy Supply
May 11, 2026
A forensic investigation into how Washington leveraged the war in Iran to replace Nord Stream, save the dollar, and establish total command over the world’s fuel from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean. Richard Medhurst reports.
https://consortiumnews.com/2026/05/11/an-armed-robbery-of-the-worlds-energy-supply/