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Iran War: Trump Leans Towards Another Attack on Iran as More Weapons Arrive; Further Confirmation of US Base Damage in Theater; More on War Cost; El Niño as Famine Multiplier

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[Today’s Iran war update has posted before finished, as has become a too-regular practice. Please come back or refresh this page at 8:00 AM EDT for a final version]

There was some hope yesterday after Vladimir Putin called Donald Trump to give an unusually explicit warning against attacking Iran again. The money quote from the statement-in-lieu-of-a-readout by Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov:

At the same time, the President of Russia pointed out that if the United States and Israel resume military action, this would inevitably lead to extremely adverse consequences not only for Iran and its neighbours, but for the entire international community. He stressed that a ground operation on Iranian territory would be particularly unacceptable and dangerous.

Even with that intervention, plus a Putin call to Netanyahu, we thought that Trump was unlikely to save himself from his own worst instincts, of needing always to seem to dominate, which means to keep initiating action, even when a retreat or merely standing pat is the better approach. Douglas Macgregor (who recall has worked directly with Trump) seemed to have the best hot take: that Netanyahu was now in the position of controlling the US military and would not give it up. Macgregor left unsaid the point that others have made, that Israel is not operating rationally but is driven by in Alastair Crooke’s reading eschatological and existential impulses, or if you prefer Alon Mizrahi, by an insatiable need to dominate (which puts them in synch with Trump).

Fresh statements by Trump show him moving away from a weak preference for letting the blockade do its US-presumed damage to Iran’s oil fields (via forcing production shutdowns) to signaling a preference for resuming the fight.

NO1’s lead item today showed Trump signaling an inclination to take another shot at Iran:

CENTCOM briefs Trump on “final blow” against Iran — Fox News reports a 45-minute briefing on remaining military assets, leadership, and infrastructure targets. Trump later tells press: “maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all”. Iran’s latest proposal to Pakistani mediators was rejected by Trump as “not getting there”….

  • Trump’s rhetoric escalated sharply Friday: “maybe better off not making a deal,” “we’re like pirates” on seized tankers, and calling affordability concerns “a line of bullshit“

Breaking Points similarly highlighted that US weapons deliveries to the theater continue at a high pace, in NEW ATTACK IMMINENT? Israel Recievies Tons New Munitions.

And from Larry Johnson:

I think that Trump will order a new attack on Iran in the coming days. There has been a massive movement of US military aircraft into West Asia during the past 10 days. They are carrying supplies of missiles and bombs and additional army and navy personnel. The US military is locked-and-loaded to execute new missions if ordered to do so by President Trump.

CENTCOM Commander Admiral Cooper, along with the General commanding aviation assets and the Admiral commanding maritime assets, have updated plans for a renewed air campaign. They also, in response to an order from Donald Trump, prepared options for taking Kharg Island and/or Qemsh Island, and options for a raid on an Iranian nuclear site.

Iran also believes the war is about to resume:

The Iranian reservations are fully warranted:

Aljazeera provided an assessment of the continuing negotiation impasse. Iran has made a new proposal, but from what I can tell, it is procedural, not substantive. The Wall Street Journal makes much of Iran being willing to talk at all after earlier making the ending of the US blockage a precondition However, Iran wants to deal with the Strait of Hormuz/ceasefire issues first, then address the nuclear enrichment matter. As Aaron Mate stated, and Aljazeera confirms, the Iranian position is that that JCPOA process showed that it will take years to reach an agreement over nuclear enrichment, and so it makes sense to deal with that separately to make it possible to restore some degree of normalcy in Strait of Hormuz transits sooner rather than later.

Trump has non-specifically harrumphed about the new Iran plan. One can imagine that he refuses to believe that negotiating any deal will take all that much time, and that the Iran argument is simply a bad faith ploy to refuse to address the nuclear enrichment idea at all.

The reality is that all this talk over talks is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Iran is now saying in unvarnished terms that it will not let the US push it around in negotiations:

From the remarks by Iran’s Chief Justice, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, in the segment above:

An enemy that has not achieved any of its goals and objectives through aggression and threats cannot impose its will or make excessive demands of the negotiating table. This is our establishment’s decisive and dominant position, and we all stress, under the guidelines of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, that our diplomacy is in line with the field. We do not welcome a war, but we are not afraid of it.

We said from the outset that this war will be a test to destruction. Iran will not concede control of the Strait of Hormuz. At most, it might cut other countries in on its toll-gathering. It will insist on reparations, although could conceivably treat the tolls as an alternative mechanism. It will not back down on the US having to remove its bases from the Middle East. That position is not as extreme as it seems, given that even Russia cannot credibly provide a security guarantee. Russia does not have much of a navy. Russia does not have forces in theater. Iran’s hostile geography and its deep bunkering of weapons is as good a guarantee of safety as any third party could provide. Russia is no about to deploy nukes to defend any country other than Russia.

Security guarantees mean squat when confronted with a rogue power with a blue water navy and many forces stationed across the world like the US. The fact that the US routinely breaks treaties means that any commitment, including its own security commitment, is meaningless.

The only country that could credibly provide them is China, and then not militarily but economically. China could be explicitly authorized to drop much more damaging economic hammers on the US than it has deployed before, like cutting off all drugs and drug inputs, and ascorbic acid. But that is way out of paradigm for how security guarantees are seen as operating.

Mind you, we suggested that Iran might be coming to regard it as sub-optimal to always be reacting to Trump. While their new proposal over negotiation sequencing might be seem as an attempt to assert greater control over events, our belief remains that the negotiations are mere theater. Iran has been saber-rattling that it might take direct action against the blockade, and even the Wall Street Journal has taken notice:

Iranian officials said Tehran could use previously unused weapons to attack U.S. warships, from submarines to mine-carrying dolphins. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened to step up escalation by cutting phone cables in the Strait of Hormuz, which would disrupt internet traffic globally.

We beg to differ with the widespread view among alternative media commentators that the blockade is ineffective. It only has to work just barely in order to deter most commercial vessel operators. So even this very crappy blockade will suffice for US purposes. Mind you, it does not seem credible that Iranian oil fields are at any near-term risk. However, China and the Global South bear ever-rising costs as long as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a trickle, and Iran no doubt would like to collect its tolls and get on with rebuilding its damaged infrastructure sooner rather than later.

The US is also trying to make the blockade less leaky:

With kinetic action momentarily more or less on hold, political wrangling has become more prominent. We’ll largely skip over it because it is too painful in terms of what it reveals about the US sham democracy, but the Administration has been taking shamelessly bogus positions to justify continuing the conflict beyond the 60 days allowed in the War Powers Act….except that did not allow the Trump Administration to attack Iran:

The debate, which included some typically testy remarks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the 60 days (as in Trump trying to say the ceasefire stopped the clock) is also a red herring. The 60 days starts with the commencement of action.1

The hearing also opened up an overdue discussion of the cost of the war. From Aljazeera:

The Pentagon told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the US had spent $25bn on its war on Iran, largely on munitions and equipment maintenance.

But Democratic leaders and several economists believe that number to be a significant underestimate. They say the actual cost to the US economy and the country’s 330 million people could amount to between $630bn and $1 trillion.

Note that the Pentagon $25 billion figure of weapons cost is clearly too light and omits important direct overheads, such as related VA expenses.

CNN has just reported on damage to US bases in the Middle East:

Recall that this follows an NBC account last week. This cat is most assuredly out of the bag:

The New York Times Editorial Board also cleared its throat about on the US’ big ticket, underperforming military:

On paper, the war in Iran should not be much of a contest. The United States spends around $1 trillion a year on its military, more than 100 times as much as Iran…

Somehow, the weaker nation is in the stronger negotiating position.

That reality exposes the vulnerabilities in the American way of war. Tactical success has not yielded victory. Mr. Trump’s recklessness in conducting the war is one reason. But the problem is bigger than any single commander in chief. The United States has left itself unprepared for modern war.

America has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on ships and planes that are good at defeating competitors’ ships and planes but ineffective against cheaper, mass-produced weapons. The American economy does not have the industrial capacity to produce enough of the weapons and equipment it does need. And the country has struggled to fix these problems because of a sclerotic government and a consolidated defense industry that resists change.

The article admittedly then self-discredits by arguing that the US just needs to close the drone gap to restore its primacy. But at least this is a big step in the direction of reality.

As for Israel and Lebanon, Israel has taken a beating even with successfully wrecking Southern Lebanon. From a couple of days ago, but still germane:

And in a tacit admission that the only effective military in Lebanon is Hezbollah, ergo the US has to help the Lebanese government create one to subdue Hezbollah. Good luck with that. Yes, this is a cover to send in little green men and mercs, but will that suffice From The Cradle in White House weighs plan to train ‘vetted’ Lebanese army units to ‘go after’ Hezbollah:

Washington is floating a plan to train “vetted” units of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to disarm Hezbollah, according to comments made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 28 April.

“We’re working towards establishing, is a system that actually works, where vetted units within the Lebanese Armed Forces have the training, the equipment, and the capability to go after elements of Hezbollah and dismantle them,” Rubio told Fox News…

The US has been pushing the Lebanese state into entering a direct confrontation with Hezbollah since the end of the previous war and the start of a 15-month period of non-stop Israeli violations.

Lebanon food crisis likely even with IDF losing the ‘ceasefire”:

And Israel continues to engage in wanton destruction:

And briefly on the economic front:

Finally, we feel compelled to keep hammering on an issue that is getting way too little mainstream and independent media attention, that of the impact of the just-about-to-start Super El Niño, which experts agree will be really really bad:

If you click through and read the entire tweet, the only sort-of mediating factor is that global warming means this El Niño is coming off a higher heat baseline, so the incremental effects may not be as terrible as 150 years ago.

We have warned readers that this El Niño coming on top of the fertilizer shortage will magnify its effect. The usual way to reduce the yield reduction of a strong El Niño, which comes from both unduly dry soil and (perversely elsewhere) excessive rains is to apply extra fertilizer.

And the last severe El Niño produced famine on a large-scale basis. From the Journal of Climate in Climate and the Global Famine of 1876-78:

From 1875 to 1878, concurrent multiyear droughts in Asia, Brazil, and Africa, referred to as the Great Drought, caused widespread crop failures, catalyzing the so-called Global Famine, which had fatalities exceeding 50 million people and long-lasting societal consequences. Observations, paleoclimate reconstructions, and climate model simulations are used 1) to demonstrate the severity and characterize the evolution of drought across different regions, and 2) to investigate the underlying mechanisms driving its multiyear persistence. Severe or record-setting droughts occurred on continents in both hemispheres and in multiple seasons, with the “Monsoon Asia” region being the hardest hit, experiencing the single most intense and the second most expansive drought in the last 800 years. The extreme severity, duration, and extent of this global event is associated with an extraordinary combination of preceding cool tropical Pacific conditions (1870-76), a record-breaking El Nino (1877-78), a record strong Indian Ocean dipole (1877), and record warm North Atlantic Ocean (1878) conditions. Composites of historical analogs and two sets of ensemble simulations – one forced with global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and another forced with tropical Pacific SST – were used to distinguish the role of the extreme conditions in different ocean basins. While the drought in most regions was largely driven by the tropical Pacific SST conditions, an extreme positive phase of the Indian Ocean dipole and warm North Atlantic SSTs, both likely aided by the strong El Nino in 1877-78, intensified and prolonged droughts in Australia and Brazil, respectively, and extended the impact to northern and southeastern Africa. Climatic conditions that caused the Great Drought and Global Famine arose from natural variability, and their recurrence, with hydrological impacts intensified by global warming, could again potentially undermine global food security.

So again, we urge you to do what you can to get in front of the coming food supply shock.

All for today. See you tomorrow!

____

1 I have reservations about some of the commentary, but this segment does show, if you have the stomach for that sort of thing, key moments from Hegseth’s recent appearance before the House Armed Services Committee:

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176 comments

  1. Rui

    I agree with your assessment that there is a lot of copium going around concerning the USA maritime blockade. It has been far more effective than many want to admit. When if ever would China decide to start escorting ships trading goods from or to Iran?

    1. Christopher Mann

      So the US has succeeded in doing what Iran threatened to do? What am I missing? The US is now “winning”?
      Fill me in folks, I can’t keep up with the 11th dimension chess moves of Trumplestiltskin. 🤷🏼‍♂️

      1. Rui

        Iran never threatened to block itself and its allies, and is enduring a real cost by the USA maritime blockade. The USA succeeded in making the blockade the same for all.

        1. Christopher Mann

          But surely the Iranians gamed out that if they blockaded the straits, their own ships would not be given free passage? Are you suggesting that they naively thought they could selectively block traffic and that their own tankers would not be interefered with? That does not sound like the Iranians.

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            No, I think Rui’s idea is entirely correct. The Trump blockade is a massive act of self harm. Trump had prioritized getting more oil on the market to contain energy prices to the degree that he gave a temporary oil sanctions waiver to Iran cargoes at sea and one for Russian energy that I believe is still on.

            Moreover, the proper way to open the Strait would have been to try send a convoy. Trump has been repeatedly begging NATO allies for ships to help do that. Iran likely gamed that out and not this half-assed, more-effective-than-it-ought to be fallback.

            1. thoughtfulperson

              The u.s. blockade, I would guess, was not expected by Iran because it is not in the u.s. interests as Yves points out. The blockade increases pressure on the u.s., as a whole, as it further constricts global oil supply.

              But let’s unpack “pressure on the u.s.”: If you are one who cares little for allies, and conditions in countries that are your main suppliers of goods (take a walk through Walmart or target and you will find goods primarily from Asia) you will feel less pressure. If you care little for the working classes in the u.s. (anyone who commutes is now spending more on energy, incl. electricity) you will feel less pressure. So someone like Trump and his sycophants – none of whom will ever face re-election – will not be much worried about these things or the coming famines.

              Maybe Trump really doesn’t feel any pressure and maybe he doesn’t give a ——- about anyone or anything other than his net worth!

              1. Paradox of Unrealized Power

                Just sort of curious…if an energy seizure causes GDPs to drop, say, 5% over 12 months, with a corresponding increase in debt to GDP ratios, does this trigger a wave of sovereign defaults across the world?

      2. Who Cares

        For the same reason that Iran doesn’t have to sink every ship in the Persian Gulf but target only a few to effectively blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
        Sure it is less then a 10% that your ship gets pirated by the US but no ship owner wants to take that risk. So the only ships leaving/entering are Iranian or Chinese

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          Not even likely Chinese. It has 70 ships still bottled up in the Gulf.

          The best stats I found were from Aljazeera, which shows 19 Chinese ships transiting but that was from March 1 to April 15 when the US blockade started April 13. And there was ton of bad/dishonest reporting, of conflating ships that had left the Strait of Hormuz with ones that had gotten past the blockade, which is further east. For instance, one Chinese-owned vessel, the Richard Starry, was reported as leaving the Strait when 2x it turned back rather than run the blockade. The first instance even made Reuters:

          https://www.reuters.com/world/china/sanctioned-tanker-turns-back-strait-hormuz-day-after-gulf-exit-2026-04-15/

    2. JW

      Do you have comparable numbers of Iranian ships crossing the Gulf of Oman?
      The Iranian ‘shadow fleet’ is not insured by western insurance, so the effect of US ships is not likely to affect that situation. I understand the Iranian ships hug the coast line within Iranian and Pakistan waters, the US ships do not approach within 200 miles concerned about missile./drone attacks.
      So yes the US ships are providing an extra inducement to non-Iranian ( and non-Chinese?) to stay clear of the area, but don’t seem to substantially affect Iranian ships ( and maybe some ships of other favoured nations) .
      That is being supplemented by using rail to and from China and reportedly 6 new road transit channels from Pakistan. Also the flow from and to Russia via the Caspian is unaffected, as are air links to and from China/Russia which could represent 33% of trade flow.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        This is an assignment and a violation of our written site Policies. You are just as able to use search to find an answer as I am.

        We reported previously that it was nearly entirely Iranian ships that were getting past the blockade. At least 2 as of April 29 had been captured, per Aljazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/29/trump-vows-to-maintain-iran-blockade-tehran-threaten-practical-action.

        There are over 70 Chinese ships bottled up in the Gulf. There are also “shadow fleet” as opposed to Iran or Chinese flagged ships that take cargoes to China. It seems that non-Iranian ships are much more leery of taking a risk of being boarded than Iranian vessels.

        You seem to miss that the blockade is able to deter a lot of vessel and cargo owners. The overwhelming majority said at the very start of the war that they were not willing to take safety risks, that they required either a real end to the war or military escorts to resume operations in the Gulf (ex getting stranded boats out). That means even the crappy US blockade will assure destruction of the global economy if it goes on much longer. That is not in Iran’s interest. It will kill China as a customer, FFS. China is already in deflation and has an even higher private debt to GDP level than the US, which = big time financial crisis risk.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          Thanks for running that down.

          It bothers me how much readers fall into black and white thinking/tribalism. Because they (correctly) oppose the US hegemon (backing the Gaza genocide alone is more than enough reason). they do not sufficiently question not-well-substantiated anti-US messaging.

          1. catchymango

            I agree. And anyways, as an unabashed “tribalist” (if being anti-genocide can be called tribalism) isnt it better for your “tribe” to have clear-eyed analysis rather than self-delusion?

        2. urdsama

          At the risk of sounding a bit contrarian, I would argue that a blockade works on two levels. First is the physical act of the blockade – does it prevent the opponent from movement, either of goods/people/etc.? Second is the political impact – does it force the opponent to radically change or abandon the position that led to the blockade?

          When applied to the current situation with Iran, I would agree that the physical act has been largely successful, but I would argue the political impact has been a huge failure. Therefore, while there are definitely impacts to Iran from the blockade, in terms of changing the landscape of the current conflict I feel they are largely irrelevant from the Iranian perspective. They will stay the course of letting the US and Israel make unforced errors and harming their own interests. Additionally, while the options for getting oil out via other means (mainly to China and Russia) may be small in volume, they are large in terms of political messaging.

          The one area of serious blockade failure on the physical level is the specific nature of the blockade. While some initial non-oil/LNG shipments were intercepted, the current US strategy has succeeded on stopping oil and LNG. Since relations between Iran and Pakistan appear to be in good shape, Iran has no issues getting food and other essentials across that border. Interviews with Professor Mohammad Marandi and Nima Alkhorshid, while being slightly different on some details, both paint a picture of Iran being in good shape with regards to food and day to day necessities. In this case, it is very unlikely the current situation will force Iranian leadership to worry about civil unrest creating issues internally. To add to this point, Professor Marandi recently mentioned that the Iranian people appear to be more unified behind the government than ever before. The “double-tap” attack on the girls school on the first day of the attack, resulting in over 150 girls being killed, has unified Iranians against the US, even among those who were not favorable towards the current government. That attack has also given younger generations of Iranians first hand evidence of what older generations saw themselves. This has the effect of radicalizing younger generations that prior to recent events may have felt such stories were exaggerations or mere propaganda.

          So while blocking 80% of oil does have an impact and can look impressive, I would argue it is more powerful for Trump’s PR purposes and less so from a perspective of actually getting Iran to change course. If anything, it will do the opposite.

          1. Really?

            Curious as to why his interesting analysis is not being featured here at Naked Capitalism.

    3. lyman alpha blob

      As a Congressman noted to the idiot Hegseth the other day, blockading the strait Iran is already blockading would be like President Madison saying that the British just burned down Washington, but don’t worry, we’re going to burn it down too.

      The only ‘winning’ the US is doing is Charlie Sheen style. At some point, nobody wants to be around a crack addled ignoramus in a self inflicted downward spiral, no matter how much money they have.

      1. Bugs

        It’s very hard to watch Hegseth’s angry barking nonsense but that’s just sublime. If Congress started to hold these toytown fascists in contempt and lock them up, that would be a start.

        1. John Wright

          I watched the Hegseth vs Moulton exchange and wondered if Hegseth is as simple as he projects.

          Hegseth focused on the problem of Iran getting a nuke, seemingly unaware that having a nuke is important for defense stature in the world community.

          Example: North Korea.

          One can wonder if there is a reset switch inside Hegseth that could be triggered by Apple or Microsoft.

          He may spend his remaining time on earth as a malevolent laughing stock who won’t even be welcomed back at Fox News.

      2. Yves Smith Post author

        Oh, very good the way Moulton stays deadpan with the stupidity and just presses on. I would have found it impossible not to get visibly annoyed.

    4. ilsm

      BRI is/was built to address US Navy power to disrupt trade, initially it was addressing a blockade of Malacca.

      The extent that BRI is handling some of the load should be considered.

      More BRI investment to come!

    5. Yves Smith Post author

      To your point, China has not done so and more than enough time has passed for it to start running convoys. In fact one commentator claimed early on that China had naval vessels in the Indian Ocean and could get them to the Persian Gulf environs in 2-3 days.

      1. Oregon Lawhobbit

        I wonder if China is … not “worried,” let’s call it “awarely concerned” … about possible results from confronting US warships if China decided to start running convoys. It may be that it figures it has enough cushion for at least awhile, and that a “wait and see” approach may be more prudent.

        It could certainly go for a “shut down the blockade or we shut down our exports to the US” option, but that would be an economic hand grenade and I can imagine more of that wariness regarding what the pirate mad dog might do in a thoughtless lashing-out frenzy.

        1. Birch

          Is there any chance, at all, that some smart conspiracy has plotted to stop the infinite growth mentality in it’s tracks? A catastrophic collapse now would mitigate a worse outcome a generation from now. It’s starting to feel uncanny to me.

    6. Dingleberry

      Iranian ships 🚢 are hugging their coastlines 🏖️ to go in and out of the region 🌍, where the USN don’t dare go due to still-intact Iranian coastal defense batteries. 🚀
      When the US chases and seizes a ship far away from Iran, they in turn seize one of the many stranded ships in the Hormuz in a tit-for-tat action. ☯️

      Vessel Seizures — Tit-for-Tat Tracker
      Iran: 11
      US/UK: 4

      Source: hormuzstraitmonitor.com

  2. The Rev Kev

    It’s a strange period that we are in with the Iran war. After several weeks fighting it all suddenly came to a quick stop. And right now, after a coupla weeks of minimal action, we are waiting to see if the fighting will start up again which all depends if Trump is stupid enough to do so. It’s like the second Phoney War. After the fall of Poland in 1939, the western front was mostly quite with the Germans and the French/ British staring at each other across the front until the Germans launched operations again several months later. It’s all kinda like that-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

    Still, if Trump stars the war again to force Iran to accept his maximalist terms, then I would expect the Iranians to hit back much, much harder to make Trump realize that there will be no Iranian surrender. Not now, not ever.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      If we are aware that the US is shipping new munitions to the area, certainly Iran is too. And they likely have the surveillance capabilities to know where in Israel the weapons are going. As Yves mentioned above, how long are the Iranians going to be content just reacting to Trump’s actions? If they used some hypersonics to take out these shipments before they could be used against them, they would be justified in doing so and the world, other than the deluded fools in the West, would cheer them on.

    2. Oregon Lawhobbit

      You mean another Sitzkrieg, Rev?

      See how much better it sounds in the original German!

      It might also be compared to a very slow motion game of chicken, with each side waiting to see if the other blinks first. Though I would not disagree with Yves’s observation above that Iran may be considering it to be sub-optimal to, again, be the reacting party. While it may make for good press to be seen as the victim, arguably the US blockade is still making Iran (and the world) the victim and, maybe, just maybe, it’s time for Iran to return the favor of a surprise resumption of kinetic war.

      I do have to somewhat admire the US attempt …

      … to make lemonade out of lemons and describing the current “not shooting at each other”* as a “termination of hostilities” in order to get around the requirements of the War Powers Act.

      Though given that nobody’s going to try and enforce the Act, I’m not sure why the Trumpians even bother.

      *not really a proper ceasefire, right?

      1. JP

        Last I checked a naval blockade is an act of war. It is also is very possible that even with depleted missile supplies the US and Israel could pound Iran’s cities and infrastructure to an uncomfortable degree not evident from an armchair. I am also quite sure that Iran is counting the cards.

    3. ArvidMartensen

      You don’t fight on your opponent’s battleground.
      And this is where Iran is, fighting on the US battleground, strategically and tactically.
      And psychologically, because the US controls western and eastern minds through 80 years of unrelenting US soft power propaganda.
      So we have all imbibed the Kool Aid, that intelligent, civilised, rational people have talks. Interminable talks. Everything can be negotiated with talks. Every round of talks controlled by US negotiators is evidence of superior Western morality and intelligence. And if you don’t agree to talks then you are a rogue state, inferior morally, a terrorist etc.

      Anyone who has followed all the decades of negotiations that the US insisted on for a Palestine two state solution can see these talks for what they were. They were a cover for the slow genocide, now fast, that is Gaza and the West Bank.

      The US attacks, so voila, Iran retaliates. The US decides on a ceasefire, so voila, Iran takes part in a ceasfire. The US wanted talks and more talks. Of course they did. While they were replenishing their armament. Now Iran is waiting to see what the US is going to do next.

      While the US is free to game plan the next step to entirely suit themselves. They’re arming up. Since when do you allow an attacking army to have a rest if they’re losing. ‘Sure boys, we’ll stop shooting while you bring in reinforcements’. And there isn’t much of a cavalry coming to Iran’s aid either atm.

      If an enemy knows that they control timing of battles, the extent of the battles, whether a battle happens or not, then the enemy is in charge. They might lose the skirmishes, but eventually they will win the war.

  3. Who Cares

    I think Trump is trying to get even more slimy with the war powers act.
    Declare the end of this war. Then start a “new” war in a week or two. And everyone in congress and senate will cluck that they can’t do anything about it, especially Democratic leadership fighting their own to stop them from trying to put an end to this clown show again.

    2. The Rev Kev

      Nobody is asking him the question that if the war is at an end, then why is the US Navy still chasing ships as part of the blockade.

      1. Oregon Lawhobbit

        Obviously that’s a different war! Or is just plain ol’ piracy,* which is not really war, ya know…

        *I wonder if Congress would issue letters of marque again, and if, instead of to privateers they could issue them to USN vessels…

        1. Oregon Lawhobbit

          Oooooh!!!! Put up a bunch of buoys with “STOP” signs on them, then pull the ships over for Failure To Obey Traffic Control Device!

    3. Bill Carson

      Then Trump could add the “end of this war” to his dubious list of wars he has ended. We must be up in double-digits by now. Surely the Nobel committee will take note!

    1. mrsyk

      Thanks again for the straight-talk coverage.
      I wonder if “famine” will be 2026 word of the year.

      1. The Rev Kev

        A tweet above said ‘A CBS News poll finds that over 70% of Americans say they are having difficulty affording essentials like food, housing, and health care.’

        If things get bad enough, and Trump is just the person to make it so, it may come down to Americans being told gas, food or housing – pick two.

          1. ambrit

            Eventually, those of us on the bottom rung, or close thereto, will be told: “The new economy. It’s a steal at twice the price!”

  5. Greg

    Delivering bombs and missiles to Israel by airplane is dumb: they are best moved by boat.

    Using planes means the total tonnage is small, compared to what could have been shipped, especially if Trump decides when the ceasefire is broken and therefore knew he had enough time to use boats instead of planes.

    1. ilsm

      Some of those airlifted “bombs” are a lot of electronics and cost more than $3 million bucks a piece.

      Some of those bombs are coming from “magazines” in other theaters in small numbers. Airlift is justified by item value and smallish loads spread out over the world. Seems (ADS-B tracks) the C-17s pick up in Luxembourg where munitions from around the “system” are marshaled.

      What is happening: US is expending ordnance procured and maintained to fight other “large” wars. Could this be a “shifting of assets” justified and budgeted for one war to a completely separate war, and may require consent of the appropriating authority aka congress? “Anti deficiency” is spending money not appropriated for the specific use! Another legal avenue. If only US had a government of laws.

      US next shooting spree with cost combat readiness around the world! Those expensive weapon!

      In testimony Hegseth could not say whether he budget $33 billion or $53 billion to build new arsenals for the MIC. Used to be the MIC sellers had the floor space, now Hegseth and Trump will build it!

      I think the guy from SNL would have done better than Hegseth!

      Two sure results of the next Trumpian assault on IRI: expenditure of weapons which will be years from replaced, and the results more civilian casualties and less strategic effect.

      I suspect in the bowels of the MIC someone simulated out how much more effective a ton of precision bombs are opposed to INS nav delivered bombs in the Vietnam expenditure spree.

      Bombing IRI is not like doing Hanoi and Haiphong.

      1. Oregon Lawhobbit

        Bombing IRI is not like doing Hanoi and Haiphong.

        How about this, though:

        The US still has plenty of “dumb” munitions, the good ol’ Not-Very-Different-From-WWII gravity bombs. What if the plan is for the “One Big Strike Over A Couple Days” to use a bunch of the various B-planes, just like happened in Hanoi?

        Bonus points for the Trumpian war fervor if some of those planes get shot down by the Eeeeeevul Persians, in which case the War Must Go On.

        1. thoughtfulperson

          The war must go on and more justification for more MIC spending. A win-win in the old world where the u.s. fought wars for the sake of more bomb purchases. But destroying the world economy will change the equation. Even Trump and his billionaire buddies will lose money! Destroying the world economy is a lose-lose, yep, even for billionaires. Now admittedly our oligarchs have their heads in the clouds. It may take some time for awareness to filter up to those lofty heights (just like trickle down economics works very slowly).

          1. thoughtfulperson

            But, what if these actions by Trump are thought through, and all intentional? Crazy, but add the shock doctrine to the philosophy of Curtis Yarvin, technocracy ideals of Elon, Theil’s musings? A depression would be quite a shock to the system, and quite an opportunity for those looking to remake the world. Even if the coming depression is just chance, I would certainly not put it past our oligarchs to try their best to take advantage of any situation.

        2. ilsm

          I have been thinking….. Iran is a lot more difficult than North Vietnam.

          Iran shoots back, unlike North Vietnam.

            1. hk

              I guess what ilsm means is shooting back at US assets, not just in self defense… But Iran can’t shoot back, at least not directly, at US….

  6. Carolinian

    Simplicius making sense in latest post

    Victory is won by the nation with the greatest moral-spiritual alignment and unity, not the nation with the most gizmos, gadgets, and fancy “cheap” toys. In fact, if you did a study you’d likely find there is an inverse correlation between higher technological fetishization of the military-industrial apparatus and an attendant lower moral-spiritual fiber of its people. This process is not an “accident”, but a natural self-evolving feedback loop between a people and their culture’s slow detachment from unifying cultural principles toward the void-filling materialism that naturally sprouts like weeds in a patch of dead lawn.

    “The moral is to the physical as three to one” or perhaps now ten to one since Napoleon’s day. Trump wants a war that Americans don’t want to fight and the Israelis want a war but want America and some IDF bomber pilots and their secretive assassination bureau to do the fighting for them. It’s all decadent right down to the ground.

    1. Polar Socialist

      Oh, you mean beatings will continue until the moral improves?

      It was for moral purposes the WW1 generals executed their own soldiers, and often send them running uphill poorly equipped against machine guns – with some élan one can push trough, surely. And if one can’t, is just due to lack of spirit.

      My take is that if you did a study, you’d likely find there is a direct correlation between higher technological fetishization of the military industrial-apparatus and using that apparatus for colonial domination. And there’s a comparative selection bias towards people with less advanced weaponry fighting back successfully against colonial forces because of a unifying cause and a sense of righteousness.

      1. Carolinian

        Well a fair amount of the Brit upper class paid a price in WW1. Kitchener was torpedoed.

        And the death toll before that in the colonies due to disease was horrific. Some price was paid for all that domination.

        We Americans watch TV. When we did have a draft army in Vietnam there was a huge pushback and rightly so. Our elites may want to go all Masterpiece Theater and pretend to be Edwardians, but concerning the rest of the world–ordinary USians are just not that into you. Yes the “Greatest Generation” fought after FDR had to manipulate the country into WW2.

        We are not really empire material. Somebody tell the Deep State.

    2. Oregon Lawhobbit

      But what if you have morale AND gizmos? ;-)

      Polar Socialist is right, though, and one problem is that the birds and stars are, for the most part, buying the hype about the US military and its might. After all, it’s not like THEY are going to be leading the charge out of the trenches of Hormuz. That’s a job for the little people.

  7. The Rev Kev

    ‘The Pentagon told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the US had spent $25bn on its war on Iran, largely on munitions and equipment maintenance.’

    Who believes that one? The Iranians blew up one advanced radar system and it cost over a billion dollars just by itself. The Iranians themselves have reckoned that the US has spent at least four times that amount which is probably closer to the truth though my own guess would be much larger when you add in all the ancillary costs such as having a whole fleet sitting at sea doing not a lot. It all adds up.

    1. Yeti

      Also “They say the actual cost to the US economy and the country’s 330 million people could amount to between $630bn and $1 trillion.”
      That works out to $3,000 for each and every American, $50/day. Then the added costs associated with this action. I fail to understand why the streets aren’t full of enraged taxpayers.

  8. JohnH

    “Final Blow” is inevitable. It’s just what American Presidents do when faced with total humiliation.

    Recall Nixon’s “Christmas bombing” campaign of 1972. In 11 days, “More than 20,000 tons of explosives were dropped, including on civilians.” It was all pointless and futile.
    https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/christmas-bombing-of-vietnam/

    Also recall David Petraeus’ “surge” in 2007. Republicans’ loss in the 2006 election was widely regarded as a mandate against the Iraq War. But despite winning Congress, Democrats let Bush and Petraeus surge an additional 20,000 troops into Iraq. It was pointless and futile. Instead of ending the war Pelosi just wanted to saddle the Republicans with the stigma of the war.

    And then there were the many surges of the Afghanistan War, which did nothing but postpone the collapse of the occupation for more than a decade.

    Let’s hope that “final blow” is actually the final one, not just in terms of military action, but also to the Trump presidency. Hopefully after victory in the midterms, Democrats won’t let Trump to lurk around and let the war linger, as Pelosi did after her anti-war mandate of 2006.

    1. Amateur Socialist

      Hopefully… Democrats won’t… let the war linger…

      I will lay even money the Democratic Party won’t allow the war to be debated. Based solely on the deafening silence we’ve seen the last 60 days. The 2028 primary season is already shaping up to be another game of “But did you vote to stop the war before it turned into a quagmire” double speak reminiscent of John Kerry’s entertaining dance regarding his Iraq votes in 2004. Sigh.

      I try to enforce Gramsci’s “optimism by will” on myself regarding the future, but it’s tough. I try to be encouraged by Plattner’s victory in ME. The voters appear to be very receptive to messaging that questions the US alliance with the state of Israel. But the lobbies are really suppressing the debate to the extent they can.

      1. Paradox of Unrealized Power

        Wasn’t that quote taken from a series wherein the once-invincible galactic empire suffered a stunning, irrevocable collapse only to be replaced by some tiny place at the margins of the empire that began its run by holding on to its nuclear technology and balancing neighboring powers?

  9. PVDSteve

    The extra maddening thing about all the weapons buildup happening is that everyone on both sides knows that a new round of attacks will not change the outcome of the war except in making it worse for all involved. The US was in an incomparably stronger position militarily before it launched the war and was unable to stop Iranian fire. No collection of missiles, bombs, or special operations throat-slitters they send to the theater will change that. As long as Iranian fire can’t be suppressed, and short of a total nuclear devastation of the country it cannot, Iran controls the Strait, period. Even leveling Tehran to the ground would not change that. There’s no 5-D chess move the US can pull to come out of this the winner, from any angle. Destroying the production in the gulf will cause far more damage to the US economy than it would provide gains to US oil majors. China will not collapse from the loss of Gulf oil, in fact all the permanent monopolization of oil by the US would do is push the rapid adoption of Chinese green energy tech around the world into overdrive.

    None of these consequences takes some strategic genius to foresee, and yet we’re all forced to watch this idiotic train of destruction keep plowing down the tracks.

    1. Samuel Conner

      Hmmm … weakening US military power and promoting global de-carbonization of energy systems, at great cost to US (but even greater cost to many other countries).

      It would be a 5-D chess move if these were actually the intended outcomes. The thought is offered mostly in jest that US defense industrial policy seems almost calculated to nudge US in the direction of “peace through lack of strength”, a kind of surreptitious peace (or at least “less warlike”) policy. Think of how aggressive we would be if, at the current level of defense expenditure, “combat power generated per unit of GDP expended on defense” were comparable to that of Russian Federation or PRC.

    2. Es s Ce Tera

      How very World War I, isn’t it.

      As with the First World War we have:

      Attrition with no real gains or advances.
      Severe worldwide shortages of food, fertilizer, fuel, and raw materials.
      Countries fragmenting (UAE so far).
      Empires collapsing (US, EU).
      A coming redrawing of geopolitical boundaries not in favour of the attackers.

    3. hemeantwell

      Much the same sentiment here, PVDS.
      However, I think Alistair Crooke’s emphasis on the importance of eschatological thinking in Zionist strategy is on the mark. If so, we’re no longer talking about whatever dimensional chess but instead about a form of thinking that is only linear, involving faith and demonstrations of faith to attain a Final Goal. And then there’s recruitment to eschatological goals via Epsteinian blackmail. The exalted and the sordid, hand in glove, tipping the balance of history.

    4. Jeff W

      “…yet we’re all forced to watch this idiotic train of destruction keep plowing down the tracks.”

      It’s sheer lunacy—the whole world sees it and yet seems powerless to stop it. And the US “has to” get in its “final blow,” as JohnH notes above, when faced with humiliation—which is reinforced, unfortunately, by President Trump’s own propensity to lash out and dominate. Somehow that preserves the US’s “prestige,” if any remains of it—although the rest of the world (along with many within the US) sees it for the supremely irrational, self-defeating act (and, of course, destructive to others) that it is. (I get the impression that the Iranians leaders, who, from my point of view, have been acting pretty sensibly throughout this whole thing, feel like they are dealing with a completely crazy adversary on the other side—which seems like a fair assessment.)

      So, in the end, we get “the rapid adoption of Chinese green energy tech around the world [pushed] into overdrive,”—not just because of the permanent monopolization of oil by the US but also because who wants to rely on some energy source that can be cut off externally via some far-off choke point or pipeline at any moment?—and the stunningly precipitous decline of the US imperium, the US having shown itself to be incapable of dealing with the rest of the world on anything but the most dominating terms. (At least with Rome, you got a Pax Romana and some pretty good infrastructure improvements, no matter how dominating Rome was.) Perhaps those are salutary results but we will have taken the least desirable route, short of, perhaps, nuclear war, to get there.

      1. Tom Stone

        Trump looks like a man trying to fish a big gooey turd out of a punch bowl, using a butter knife.

    5. JP

      The multi-dimensional chess that is happening is not coming from the pentagon. The GOP platform was for a smaller global foot print. Less NATO, less entanglement. but ego and the need to win overwhelmed the 2025 visionaries. The US was overextended already but it was not obvious until the receipts began arriving. War has often involved the broken window fallacy. That it stimulates an economy. But money for expendable weapons and military maintenance is money that could be realized as real social wealth like health care and, lets say, home appliances. What this kind of military expense really does is make the money worth less. What we call inflation. So washing machines cost more and you are on your own for health care. We are on the edge of general social failure.

      The stock market is on a tear, immune to the costs of war, at least until the cost becomes evident when bills come due for the physical build out and maintenance. But then we will have enough AI profit to make up for the deficit. That hokum and oil profits is what is holding up the market. At least until demand destruction sets in.

      Meanwhile we have the combined environmental impingement of global warming, this year’s el nino, fertilizer shortage, new disease vectors and over population. These environmental potentials may well be more devastating and much much longer lasting then any disruptions from mere political activities.

      1. JP

        But if China were to develop viable fusion power it would it would allow vertical stacking in the petri dish.

  10. ChrisFromGA

    We have our first corporate victim of Tacos insane, illegal war. Spirit Airlines.

    The deadly duo of Bibi and Taco killed thousands of jobs and a cheaper option for US fliers. Looks like the Summer of Rage ™ is off to an early start.

    1. The Rev Kev

      If that had been one of the major airlines, then I bet that Trump would have bailed them out – after they donated one of their airliners to him.

      1. ChrisFromGA

        No doubt Delta, United, and the other larger carriers will benefit. Get ready for higher fares, fewer options, and surveillance pricing.

        Get your travel rage on!

      2. jo6pac

        Silly he would only do if they named the airlines after him. trumpster air.

        Oh and throw in a little gold paint.

    3. curlydan

      Wasn’t it only cheaper if you could fit all your items for a week long trip in a tiny backpack? That airline was fee bonanza… but still not enough to keep it afloat.

      1. chuck roast

        Operating an airline is simply a loser business model. When was the last time you heard anybody say an investment in a particular airline was a good investment? Eventually they will all end up like your local bus system…run by some regional governance body. Flyin’ Amtrac.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      That ship is in need of repair and its crew is overtaxed. Many experts point out that the US had two carrier battle groups in theater before….and aircraft carriers are just big fat targets. Destroyers and other ships far more useful.

      And the Navy has not been much of a player save for the leaky blockade. It has reportedly had to husband ammo.

      1. Polar Socialist

        Will Schryver, among others, some time ago pointed out how totally insignificant and invisible the US carriers were during the Ramadan war.

        If it wasn’t for the flooded toilets and the “laundry fire”, we would not know they kinda participated.

  12. The Rev Kev

    ‘Brian Allen
    @allenanalysis
    Take a close look at this.
    NBC News published a major investigation this afternoon. Six reporters. Six named sources inside the US government. The story breaks open something the Trump administration has been hiding for two months.
    The damage Iran did to American military bases in the opening phase of the war is far worse than the Pentagon has admitted. Repairs will cost billions of dollars.    ‘

    Of course if the US never built back those bases then that would be billions saved. The US told the Gulf States that those bases were there to protect their countries but all it did was to turn their countries into targets instead. Without those bases, they may have ever been attacked at all.

  13. DG Bear

    “None of these consequences takes some strategic genius to foresee, and yet we’re all forced to watch this idiotic train of destruction keep plowing down the tracks.”

    I am reminded of the movie/book ‘The Grifters’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grifters_(film) Only one grifter comes out alive.

    We are a nation of grifters. I saw a graph of the Trump family’s four billion dollar increase in wealth. There is money to be made.

    Yesterday was May Day. A perfunctory review of the history of labor makes it abundantly clear the rich do not care about you or I.

    2. ambrit

      The sad theme of “The Grifters” was that the one grifter who was planning to get out of the game was destroyed by the sociopaths surrounding him.
      A nation run by sociopaths does not end well.

      1. jm

        Based on the novel by the great Jim Thompson, though I think his Pop. 1280 better captures Trump at war.

        I’m also thinking it’s time to reread Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.

    3. Dalepues

      Great movie and a great cast. Nominated for four Oscars. And no, the rich do not care about you or me.

  14. Tom Stone

    Trump is not a rational actor, it is important to keep that in mind when trying to understand what the US and Israel will do.
    Based on past actions I expect Trump to do something stupid to the point of insanity, with no consideration given to the consequences .
    As to Congress and the Constitution, AIPAC bought both the Dems and the Thugs they will do nothing that upsets their owners.
    Expect this group to do the stupidest possible thing at the worst possible moment.
    When a Government pisses away what legitimacy it had all that is left is force, both at home and abroad.

    1. Bill Carson

      But Trump is a rational actor if only you recognize what motivates him. By far, Trump’s biggest motivation right now is legacy. He wants to be The President Who Accomplished All the Things the Other Presidents Couldn’t.(tm) Hence, Trump Ballroom, Trump-Kennedy Center, and the Arc de TRiUMPh.

  15. ciroc

    On paper, the war in Iran should not be much of a contest. The United States spends around $1 trillion a year on its military, more than 100 times as much as Iran…

    Somehow, the weaker nation is in the stronger negotiating position.

    That reality exposes the vulnerabilities in the American way of war. Tactical success has not yielded victory. Mr. Trump’s recklessness in conducting the war is one reason. But the problem is bigger than any single commander in chief. The United States has left itself unprepared for modern war.

    Considering that U.S. military spending during the Vietnam War was over 100 times greater than North Vietnam’s, it’s reasonable to question when the United States was truly prepared for “modern war.”

    1. dearieme

      Since 1945 the USA has not won a war of consequence that lasted longer than one battle (unless you view the first Iraq war as two battles, one an air campaign, the second an armoured battle).

      So I don’t see any new lessons in the Iran war.

    2. Paradox of Unrealized Power

      It’s a nice quote, but the author’s emphasis is wrong. The US has many problematic ways of preparing for and executing a war, but I think the real lesson is that a $1 trillion budget cannot negate geography. Nor could $10 trillion, for that matter.

  16. Wukchumni

    Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for he
    We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot
    Drink up me oil tankers, yo ho
    We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot
    Drink up me oil tankers, yo ho
    Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for he

    We extort and pilfer, we filch and sack
    Drink up the free oil, yo ho
    Maraud and embezzle and even hijack
    Drink up the free oil, yo ho
    Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for he

    We kindle and char and in flame and ignite
    Drink up the accolades, yo ho
    We burn up Iranian cities, we’re really a fright
    Drink up the accolades, yo ho

    We’re rascals and scoundrels, we’re villains and knaves
    Drink up me Hegseth, yo ho
    We’re devils and black sheep, we’re really bad eggs
    Drink up me Hegseth, yo ho
    Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for he

    We’re beggars and blighters and ne’er do-well cads
    Drink up me hearties, yo ho
    Aye, but we’re loved by MAGA, ye gads
    Drink up me adulation, yo ho
    Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for he

    Yo Ho A Pirate’s Life For Me – The Pirates Of The Caribbean

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB8C8awaBhc&list=RDQB8C8awaBhc

    1. The Rev Kev

      And yet if Iranian missiles start flying their way, it will be more like the ballad of Sir Robin-

      ‘Minstrel
      Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot
      He was not afraid to die, oh, brave Sir Robin
      He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways
      Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin

      He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp
      Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken
      To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away
      And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin

      His head smashed in and his heart cut out
      And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
      And his nostrils raped and his bottom burnt off
      And his penis split and his—

      Sir Robin
      That’s, that’s enough music for now, lads’

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8&list=RDBZwuTo7zKM8&start_radio=1 (1:26 mins)

      1. Samuel Conner

        And let’s not forget the second act, in which “he bravely ran away”

        Discretion can be the better part of valor.

        One wonders whether there is much of either in present US leadership.

      2. Paradox of Unrealized Power

        Sir Patrick Spens would be a more fitting ballad for this lunacy, I think–it even includes the predictable ending…

  17. JohnH

    The Lebanese army is a much maligned force. Its effectiveness will never get any better for one simple reason: Israel fears that a well armed, well trained Lebanese army could be a threat not just to Hezbollah, but to Israel. Fact is, with Shia representing close to half of Lebanon’s population, any putative Lebanese army would be forced not just to depend heavily on Shia recruits but would ironically train them to fight the enemy!

    All this talk about requiring the Lebanese stand up to Hezbollah is just meaningless blather, designed to absolve Israel of the atrocities supposedly justified by Lebanon’s refusal to stand up, act responsibly and kill off the Shia themselves.

    1. ilsm

      American advisors in Vietnam 1955. American advisors in Lebanon.

      History rhymes!

      1. Christopher Fay

        I’m thinking of General Betrayus’ training of the Iraq army with a large crowd of ghost soldiers, soldiers getting their signing bonus and AK then going over the wall. When the CIA backed ISIS showed up one weekend, it was the Iranian affiliated militias that saved Iraq’s bacon.

    2. The Rev Kev

      Lebanon has already had one civil war and do not care to repeat the experience. They have been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt. Certainly they are not going to have another one on behalf of Israel much less the US.

    3. Aurelien

      The LAF is indeed much maligned: it is a well-trained and effective fighting force, currently engaged, for example, on the Syrian border against foreign Islamic fighters reorganised by the new government as the 84th Division. It’s not capable of becoming, and does not want to be, a threat to Israel, and there’s no reason to think the Israelis believe it ever might be. It doesn’t want and doesn’t need highly-sophisticated heavy weapons but it desperately needs to pay its personnel properly: they earn virtually nothing with the crash of the Lebanese pound.

      Everybody recognises that Hezbollah ultimately has to go, since you can’t have a second army in your country trained, equipped and paid by a foreign power which is more powerful than the army of the state, and acting as an agent of that power. But this has to be done slowly and carefully, and there were tentative steps in this direction before Trump ruined everything. There is no question of forcible disarmament, and the US has been told so many times. But there are two problems: the Shia population, on the Syrian border as well as in the South, has to be convinced that the LAF has the forces and the capability to protect them. And Hezbollah will not disarm quietly, because its entire raison d’être is to be a military force. Otherwise it’s just another political party. And Iran would stand to lose a lot of influence in the region, as well as an auxiliary force that can strike Israel from another direction, as well as provoking them into expensive and damaging conflicts. It goes without saying that neither Iran nor Hezbollah welcomes the possibility of peace, because peace would massively reduce their power and influence. Poor Lebanon stuck in the middle of all of this.

      1. The Rev Kev

        ‘Everybody recognises that Hezbollah ultimately has to go’

        C’mon, man. You know as well as I do that if it ever happened, then Israel would roll in and at the very least take over half of Lebanon and fill it full of “settlements” after bombing the local residents out. It’s called Greater Israel for a reason you know. Some of those Israeli settlers already have maps showing where they will be putting those settlements in Lebanon. You cannot have peace with a racist, expansionist power on your border.

      2. JohnH

        :And Hezbollah will not disarm quietly, because its entire raison d’être is to be a military force…which was created to resist the Israeli occupation 45 years ago. LAF should be spelled LAUGH because it has neither the power nor the inclination to protect the Lebanese population against Israeli predations.

        Lebanon (and Gaza and the West Bank) have a right to defend themselves. So far Hezbollah has been the only force relatively successful in that basic human right.

        1. elissa3

          For all the negatives about Hezbollah, they are in their own country, defending their land and their homes.

          From what outside country they get their support, and for whatever reasons is always secondary to the above basic fact.

          1. Gretzn

            And whatever countries support Hezbollah, they are many orders of magnitude less hostile to Lebanon (and Not just to the Shia either) then those supporting the sellout “government of Lebanon”.

            Frankly, it’s obvious that everybody, the Christians, the Druze, even the Sunnis would be far better off if the Shia took over the whole thing.

      3. Christopher Mann

        “Everybody recognises that Hezbollah ultimately has to go”

        Who’s everybody? The Western establishment? Cos the rest of us recognise that Israel has to go. You can’t have a genocidal regime in your region that constantly destroys everything and anyone that it perceives in its paranoid rages as a threat. The settlers need to go home, the Palestinians need their state and Europeans need to stay the hell out of the Middle East.

        1. hk

          Agreed. TBF, I have not met many Lebanese who were crazy about Hizb’ullah (they were all in the States, so probably a biased sample), but they all recognized that if it’s a choice between Hizb’ullah and Israel, Hizb’ullah is the better choice. No one seemed to have much confidence in the Lebanese army to actually “fight” a real army, even as they recognize its value as a constabulary force.

      4. KD

        Everybody recognises that Hezbollah ultimately has to go, since you can’t have a second army in your country trained, equipped and paid by a foreign power which is more powerful than the army of the state, and acting as an agent of that power.

        Isn’t there a third army in Lebanon “trained, equipped and paid by a foreign power which is more powerful than the army of the state, and acting as an agent of that power”? I don’t think Hezbollah is the army that “ultimately has to go” . . . and if the third army leaves, then I don’t think Hezbollah will be going anywhere.

      5. Retured Carpenter

        “neither Iran nor Hezbollah welcomes the possibility of peace, because peace would massively reduce their power and influence.”
        Interesting PoV. I guess that is why on February 28th Iran struck the decapitation blow against USA and israel and killed their top leaders during negotiations.
        Are you for real, Aurelien?

      6. vao

        “And Hezbollah will not disarm quietly, because its entire raison d’être is to be a military force. Otherwise it’s just another political party.”

        The second part of your statement is correct, the first part is wrong.

        Hezbollah is not just a military force. Besides the political party, it is also an organization with a comprehensive health care network — hospitals, clinics, ambulances; schools; housing and waste disposal services; and social services.

        In a similar way, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or its Palestinian variant Hamas, had/have a political party, a military branch, trade unions/professional organizations, educational institutions, social services…

        We find the equivalent in pre-WWII Europe:

        The most important communist parties had militias, trade unions and professional organizations, schools and educational institutions, youth organizations, summer camps, cooperatives, etc.

        Fascist movements had not just a party and an armed militia, but also sports clubs, women’s organizations, youth organizations, etc.

        In other words: the “entire raison d’être” of those movements is/was not “to be a military force”, but to seize power and make sure they can retain it; this is why they support their action by grounding it in every possible aspect of social life. Armed forces constitute just one aspect of it.

        In other words: contrarily to what politics have devolved to in our liberal European countries, or amongst other Lebanese communities (esp. Christians and Sunnis), Hezbollah takes politics and power seriously.

        And this is the right way to do it: for historically all the aforementioned movements proved to be incredibly resilient when facing their enemies, because they are not just “a military force” (military dictatorships have only the single pillar of military force — one military defeat, and they collapse), or just “another political party” (which can be easily wiped out in elections or by force), but are built on broad ideological and social foundations.

        1. hk

          Central European parties still have their own sports clubs and the like–talking about political parties in Austria with Austrian colleagues (well, just one that we know personally, not just professionally) always sounded confusing, until Wolf would remind us Americans about how Tammany Hall rolled, or, us part time Japanologists about “support clubs” that Japanese politicians run…

      7. curlydan

        “the Shia population… has to be convinced that the LAF has the forces and the capability to protect them”

        How could the southern Lebanese ever be convinced that they’re safe under the LAF against the IDF ? It’s a Catch-22. If the LAF gets even close to being powerful enough to protect the south, Israel will knock them back and degrade the LAF’s capability.

        1. hk

          The thing is that Lebanese military will never be stronger than a constabulary force: no one, including Lebanese factions themselves, will allow it. The only thing that the Lebanese state has that Hizb’ullah doesn’t, in theory, is that it can negotiate with Israel in a way that the latter can’t, or at least, faces great obstacles in. The trouble is that, after all that has happened in the last few years (for many, last few decades), the ability to talk to Israel “legitimately” doesn’t have any credibility.

          It’s really Israel’s fault: if they actually negotiated in good faith with the Lebanese state (and if the latter did not act as mere factional organs) to deliver security for the Lebanese in the south, Hizb’ullah would have lost a lot of credibility. That never happened. So obnoxious Hizb’ullah might be to many Lebanese who are not in their camp already, they are still the best preferred choice for most of them, as far as I can tell.

          1. Gretzn

            The entire purpose of the lebanese military is to serve as Kapos once Israel turns Southern and eventually all of Lebanon into another giant concentration camp, with the enthisiastic support of both of Aurelien’s home countries.

            That’s their only purpose, the only reason why the West is trying to build them up, to help genocide their own people.

        2. Polar Socialist

          Well, as Aurelien himself points out, LAF does not want to challenge Israel, so it won’t ever be able to protect Lebanese people.

          In the end, LAF and Israel have to go, for there ever to be resemblance of a peaceful, civil society in Lebanon.

        3. JohnH

          The Zionist excels in proposing Catch-22.

          Classic example:
          Israel- “we won’t negotiating until you stop firing”
          Resistance- “OK we’ll stop firing.”
          Israel- “Great! Now that you’ve agreed to stop firing, we see no need to negotiate.”

          1. The Rev Kev

            Another example-
            Israel- “We won’t stop bombing you until you agree that Israel has a right to exist as a country.”
            Resistance- “OK, we recognize you as a country.”
            Israel- “Great! Now recognize Israel as a Jewish country for Jews only.”

            1. hk

              Without a clearly defined set of borders, so we can expand whenever we feel like it….

              Unless Israel defines its borders, ie clearly state what is not theirs to claim, it does not even have a basis to claim a right to existence. (Whether a country has a right to existbis one step farther.)

      8. schmoe

        “And Hezbollah will not disarm quietly, because its entire raison d’être is to be a military force.” Not necessarily, Hezbollah also provides medical services to the Shiite population:

        https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2019/08/E_169_19.pdf

        “The Islamic Health Organization is a Hezbollah institution which provides health services
        to Hezbollah operatives and to the Shiite society in general. The organization was
        established in 1984, about two years after the establishment of Hezbollah, in wake of the First
        Lebanon War and the Lebanese civil war. At first, the organization included two medical
        centers: one in the Bir al-Abed neighborhood, in Beirut’s southern suburb; and the other in
        Ghazieh (a Shiite village in the Sidon area)”

      9. EGrise

        It’s not capable of becoming, and does not want to be, a threat to Israel, and there’s no reason to think the Israelis believe it ever might be.

        vs

        the Shia population, on the Syrian border as well as in the South, has to be convinced that the LAF has the forces and the capability to protect them.

        That’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? A Lebanese army strong enough to protect the Lebanese Shia would have to be strong enough to be at least somewhat dangerous to Israel, because they’re the biggest threat.

        Perhaps Hezbollah ultimately should go, but I can’t see that happening until Israel does likewise.

        Edit: basically what curlydan says

    4. NotThePilot

      All this talk about requiring the Lebanese stand up to Hezbollah is just meaningless blather, designed to absolve Israel….

      And not only. I think the first part of your comment actually explains a lot of what’s going on in Lebanon, and not just with Hezbollah. The financial crisis, the breakdown in public services, the judicial corruption all follow from the same fundamental lie.

      AFAICT if the post-Civil War Lebanese state has a unifying principle, it’s pretending “the Maronites” (as a political faction) are still major players with real influence. Even if the Civil War itself was a disaster with no winners, it seems pretty clear in the 30 years since that the Phalangists & allies have weakened in every way (including demographically).

      The price of entry to the current Lebanese political system is going along with the fiction. Something as simple as calling for a census OTOH is out of the question. Doing so means breaking the spell and reconciling the “Lebanese people” the gov claims to represent with the actual population.

  18. Ann

    Trump teases US will be ‘taking over’ Cuba ‘almost immediately’ in Florida speech

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-teases-us-taking-over-cuba-almost-immediately-florida-speech

    Trump says it’s ‘treasonous’ to say US not winning war in Iran

    https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/trump-iran-war-news-treason-video-b2969246.html

    Step off, Chuck! Democrats stunningly warn Schumer to stay out of races after Maine Mills meltdown

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/schumer-senate-democratic-primaries-mills-b2969045.html

    Trump is calling himself ‘the most powerful person to ever live’ in private conversations, allies say

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-private-conversations-iran-war-dictator-b2967476.html

      1. hk

        I think, historically, the quote belongs to Vespasian, with a knowing smirk on his deathbed. It takes someone extraordinary to leave the world with a joke at its absurdities of which he’s at the center.

        1. Carolinian

          Maybe they both said it. Are you implying that the BBC miniseries not strictly accurate? /s

    2. JohnH

      “Chuck! Democrats stunningly warn Schumer to stay out of races” Schumer is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Democrats’ inanity and corruption. He and Jeffries are Wall Street and Zionist bagmen, just as Pelosi was for Silicon Valley.

      The Democratic National Committee has scaled back some of its plans as donors remain reluctant to give, despite candidates’ recent victories.
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/10/dnc-fundraising-challenges/

      The DNC refuses to show any signs of becoming more appealing. DNC Chairman Favreau won’t even release autopsy and lessons learned from 2024 election debacle, where they blew $1 billion and came away with nothing to show for their extravagance. https://truthout.org/articles/releasing-full-2024-election-autopsy-would-be-navel-gazing-dnc-chair-says/

      My hunch is that the autopsy reveals little and only repeats and summarizes well known contradictions, such as the disparity between wealthy donors’ selfish interests and the aspirations of the broader voting public.

      Instead, I expect Democrats to double down on ‘better messaging,’ AKA more smoke and mirrors coupled with the usual backroom support of militarism, corporate greed and Israeli genocide.. Their only redeeming feature is that whatever Democrats get foisted on voters will not be Trump at a time when increasing numbers want to throw the bum out with little regard for the corrupt, brutal bum that will succeed him,,,think of somebody somebody like Rahm Emmanuel…

      1. Pat

        They are becoming more desperate, I am on the DNC mailing list (oh lucky me). I occasionally click to see what delusional junk someone is saying, but otherwise just note the numbers while deleting. They are now rivaling the last weeks of the Harris debacle. There are a minimum of three emails a day, but often two or three more. And I have never given them money, so it is the equivalent of continuing to cold call the person who has hired you on a job ever.

        I am pretty sure that besides highlighting the deep divide between wealthy donors and voters, that autopsy probably made it clear how disliked their candidates really are and more importantly how much money was wasted on things that lined the rice bowls of insiders, mostly the consultants that have a track record that makes the Mets look good and friends and family of candidates themselves.

        Both parties and the government seem to be running on the all we need is good PR management plan.

        Side note that not many people could make we want to keep Schumer as anything including my senator, but the mere idea of Rahm Emmanuel does.

        1. JohnH

          Why desperation? Republicans are to Democrats as the Harlem Globe Trotters were to the Washington Generals, who only won a handful of games over the years.

          If you can raise and waste a $billion in a political campaign, there’s no reason for desperation, particularly when you’re guaranteed that the populace will regularly rise up and vote for you when they finally realize that they need to throw the only alternative party out.

  19. coin operated

    Just recently found NC and have come away impressed with the quality of the posts. Good job one and all…

    To the topic at hand…I remain baffled that Mr Market hasn’t pulled Trump aside and told him what more kinetic action would bring. And, let’s face it, Mr Market is the only person he’ll listen to (outside of Bibi and Vladdy). We’ve all seen the Iranian target package…50% of energy production in the region comes to a screeching halt with the next kinetic action and, as noted in the links yesterday, we burn more carbon per dollar of GDP than any other industrialized nation. Mr Market can surely put 2+2 together and figure out that this will be bad…right?

    1. Steve H.

      Quoted in post 4/23:

      > With 70% of daily trading done by algorithms, humans have become largely irrelevant to the stock market. So it isn’t people at all moving the market.

      NC archives are a trove.

    2. Doggo

      There is no Mr. Market, it’s just regular normal brainwashed and propagandized Americans. They buy stocks because that’s what they’ve been told again and again their entire lives. “No one can time the market, just buy and hold”. “Time in market is what counts, not timing the market”. “Buy the fking dip”

      In fact a great many people have a setup where a portion of every paycheck goes straight to buying the S&P automatically, no intervention or button-clicking needed.

      Note that hedge fund managers and the other ruling class types are just as brainwashed and propagandized as the rest of the population. Even though some of them actually are in charge of the propaganda operation, as in they own newspapers and such. They create a narrative, and then they believe their own bullshit. It’s an echo chamber of bullshit.

      “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country”. Somebody in the deep state apparatus came up with this narrative and John McStain picked up on it and it spread like wildfire among the ruling class elites in the US. And everybody believed it. And many of them still believe it!

      There is also this belief that the US govt will not allow the stock market to crash. This belief is justified because they’ve done it before. During covid, Jerome Powell said that the Fed will print “unlimited” (his word) amount of money (or QE as they like to call it) to save the markets, and they did so.

      The only way the stock market crashes will be when the real economy gets so bad as to cause widespread business failures, which will lead to widespread layoffs, which will stop the automatic stock buying. And unemployed people who need money for food are also more likely to sell their stock holdings and 401k than employed people.

      To see widespread unemployment will take many more months of high energy prices than the 60 days that have elapsed so far.

      1. tegnost

        They create a narrative, and then they believe their own bullshit. It’s an echo chamber of bullshit.

        I have to think that at it’s base this is why AI is so popular in that caste

    3. Doggo

      Mr Market is the only person he’ll listen to (outside of Bibi and Vladdy)

      Sorry for the double post. I just picked up on the “Vladdy” comment.

      This is what Ron Paul was referring to when he said that Americans are the most brainwashed and propagandized people on the planet. That is literally true, like not even the North Koreans are as brainwashed as Americans are. At least in North Korea, when people read the newspaper or watch TV, they know that they’re seeing what the govt is telling them. It’s not a secret that govt controls the media there, everybody knows this.

      The sheeple in the USA (and I live there btw) watch Fox News and read the Huff Post and think they’re getting independent journalism.

      It’s incredible that even today there are people who still believe Trump is beholden to “Vladdy” Putin. There is literally not one shred of evidence that supports this, other than the invented propaganda that Russian hookers peed on Trump and Putin has photos of the said peeing . This is a fabrication of the US govt deep state, dreamed up by Clinton or one of her flunkies, and spread in the US news media which always, always print what the deep state govt tells them to print. (btw they also never print what the govt doesn’t want them to print)

      Note that Trump tried to assasinate Putin late last year using their Ukrainian proxy to launch a swarm of drone strikes on his residence. Not hard to believe at all, since Trump is addicted to decapitation strikes and killing/abducting foreign leaders who don’t kowtow to the united states.

      The only time you see inconvenient truths being printed in the US news media is when the physical evidence to the contrary is so overwhelming that even they cannot hide it, or if it’s already widely reported in the rest of the world not under their control, or if there’s infighting within the US deep state govt factions. The last one seems to be what is happening right now.

      Also keep in mind that, even though Trump bears the ultimate responsibility for starting this unprovoked war of aggression against Iran (a war in which the US is failing miserably, thank the gods), and I would love to see him hang for his crimes in a war tribunal, it’s not just him. The entirety of the US govt needs to be held accountable. A few days before launching this war, Trump gave his state of the union speech and ranted and blathered about how evil Iran is and how they’re gonna make nukes soon and how we have to destroy the evil mullahs and take away their uranium and cause a regime change there. Everybody stook up and clapped. They gave him a standing ovation, everybody, including all the Democrats in congress.

      Last point: everything you think you know about “Vladdy” are lies. Just like how everything the typical Fox News viewer thinks about muslims are lies. They are just victims of relentless propaganda, they have been lied to their entire life and unfortunately they are comfortable believing the lies. When presented with the truth, they get angry and call you a terrorist sympathizer (I’ve been called that for saying Muslims are behaving better than white Christian Americans) or a traitor (I’ve been called that by explaining that Russians are actually the good guys and the US/NATO/Ukraine coalition are the bad guys)

      Vladimir Putin is not a thug. He is not a stupid retard with colon cancer raging in this bunker in the Ural mountains at how his failed invasion is causing a collapse of his regime (this was the standard talking point in the US news media in 2022, it was in everywhere in the US media).

      Putin is actually IMHO the greatest leader of any major power in the world in the last 200 years. You would have to go back to George Washington to see someone who I might consider placing above Putin. He is extremely capable and competent, and his energy and knowledge (even down to policy detail minutiae) is incredible. The ancient Greeks had a saying, that a good government is a gift from the Gods (because it is so rare). Well I would have to say, the Russian people in the year 2000 have been abundantly blessed by the gods because their nation, under Putin’s leadership, has steadily improved in every measureable way. Like, every year everything gets better in their country. Don’t listen to words, look at their actions and observable real-world physical results. Look at the conditions in Russia in 1999 before Putin took over, and look at the conditions now. The rise in the standard of living, the reduction in crime and poverty, the fiscal condition of the government, reduction of debt, is incredible. Now look at the condition USA was in 1999, and compare that to today. Everything is worse, in every way possible.

        1. Retired Carpenter

          Russia was a “petrostate” during Yeltsin’s time as well. You might compare well-being metrics from the two eras…
          BTW, look up Proverbs 17:28 (King James Version).

          1. Science Officer Smirnov

            The petro fuelled rise to 40&-50% of the Russian budget (esp.2004-2015) from no more than 15% during 2000-2003 bequeathed an economy that raised all boats. So to speak. As a first approximation—

            Makes a clear distinction between U. S. budget and, say, Saudi’s, no? As an aside. . .

            Otherwise please correct the Oxfordenergy plots, numbers, representations.

            I’ll return to my barstool.

            2. Retired Carpenter

              You might have mentioned that the share of petrol in revenues dropped to ~30% after 2015. Suggesting that Putin’s success is primarily due to Russia being a ‘gas station’ is a gross oversimplification, especially when you look at other oil producers who haven’t shown comparable political or economic outcomes.
              Look up Jeremiah 22.3 after the barkeep stops serving you.

        2. The Rev Kev

          Trump is always boasting how the US has all the oil that it needs. So does that make the US a gas station masquerading as a country? Trump should really thank Obama here as Big O boasted how he was responsible for all that extra oil production saying “I did that.”

  20. Ann

    Trump says US Navy acting ‘like pirates’ to enforce Iran blockade

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/2/trump-says-us-navy-acting-like-pirates-to-enforce-iran-blockade

    Japan turns to Russian crude as Middle East energy risks intensify

    https://english.nv.ua/business/japan-resumes-russian-oil-purchases-as-middle-east-supply-risks-grow-50604799.html

    Syria relies on Russia’s oil despite pivot to the West

    https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syria-relies-russias-oil-despite-pivot-west-2026-05-01/

    US Navy signs deal with AI firm for training underwater drones to detect mines in Strait of Hormuz — $100 million would allow drone minesweepers to update their detection algorithms in days instead of months

    https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/us-navy-signs-deal-with-ai-firm-for-training-underwater-drones-to-detect-mines-in-strait-of-hormuz-usd100-million-would-allow-drone-minesweepers-to-update-their-detection-algorithms-in-days-instead-of-months

    1. Glen

      Add this to the article on Japan:

      South Korea weighs Russian crude, naphtha imports amid Hormuz shutdown
      https://biz.chosun.com/en/en-industry/2026/03/18/DMIEBQDSQ5BBTI3SWVXZ2P7UKA/

      I remain astonished that American elites are so casually watching Japan, South Korea, and Germany realign their relations with America. And all apparently because of some crazy need to support Israel with regard to Iran.

      This is like using the last two rounds in your .45 Peacemaker to blow holes in the bottoms of your pants pockets so you can scratch your privates, but you’ve also blown off your feet so you can no longer walk.

    2. TimH

      Deploying AI technology on undersea drones will reduce this risk, especially by making mine detection and removal much faster.

      Curious how it helps on removal.

      1. Samuel Conner

        One can imagine smart mines that detect incoming minesweeper drones, despatch them with their own suicide mini-drones, and then reposition themselves.

        What a lot of ingenuity, effort and resources we put into destruction.

        Some races don’t have winners.

        1. JohnH

          “Modern naval mines and torpedoes such as the CAPTOR mine can be programmed to distinguish the acoustic signatures of different vessels, leaving friendly vessels unmolested and attacking high-value targets when faced with multiple possible targets, e.g. distinguishing an aircraft carrier from its escorts.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_signature

          I would not be at all surprised if Iran has developed underwater drones with low acoustic profiles that could target US Navy vessels’ distinct acoustic signature.

          1. hk

            I think that’s ridiculous, at least as far as commercial vessels are concerned: most, used by practically all nations, are built by a handful of yards to similar specifications (and many have changed hands).

    3. Rod

      Curious about how to very, very quickly solve a tough problem by throwing much money onto it–like the: US Navy signs deal with AI firm for training underwater drones to detect mines in Strait of Hormuz — $100 million would allow drone minesweepers to update their detection algorithms in days instead of months
      I mean days instead of months is a really expediated timeline–even in the usa–with a ton of bucks–but…

      There appears a caveat: Domino CEO Thomas Robinson told the news outlet. “If there were UUVs (unmanned underwater vehicles) in the Baltic Sea trained on Russian ⁠mines, ​and then they needed to be deployed to the Strait ​of Hormuz to detect Iranian mines, with Domino’s technology, the Navy could be ready in a week rather than a year.”
      So, if there are no UUVs in the Baltic trained on Russian mines do we go back to delivery in a year?? And do we get to clawback some of that 100M $ for being misled??

      And again, much kudos to our Host for her work in a Public Service during this whole Debacle, and you too Ann, for pitching in.
      NC is a very special place indeed.

  21. Jackman

    The coming Super El Nino suggests that it’s probably time to revisit Mike Davis’s remarkable Late Victorian Holocausts (https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/3057-late-victorian-holocausts-the-origins-of-the-third-world). It’s a grimly fascinating read, really quite amazing as a piece of original scholarship. It’s a sweeping history of the 1876-78 El Nino as it meets the enervated Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese empires already enfeebled by the architecture of colonial ideas imposed on them. The resulting deaths were in the tens of millions–all of them more or less forgotten today…..

    1. hemeantwell

      Yes, an excellent book. I’d tweak your summary to add that Davis is very explicit that it was not ideas, but the British military, that in the mid-1800s gutted the long established ability of the Mandarin bureaucracy to store and allocate grain to ward off famine. Same playbook they wanted to run in Russia, wreck state capacity because markets, go die, to quote Lambert once more.

      1. Jackman

        Yes, agreed, that is very much Davis’s point.
        And the entire conversation couldn’t be more resonant to the present moment as the coming ENSO droughts and supply-chain crises may wreck global food security, while the neo-liberal straitjacket will once again invisibly distribute the pain so that the holocausts are ‘just unfortunate’ and largely off-screen.

    2. curlydan

      Aren’t El Ninos a redistributor of weather patterns? The North American El Nino’s I remember (1983, 1998, etc) often wound up pushing precipitation from the Pacific toward a more southerly route… So LA is going to get hit with major rains and the Colorado Basin might have a banner snow year after this year’s historically small snowfall?

      1. ACF

        Fingers crossed the Colorado River basin gets a banner year
        So desperately needed

    3. Thistlebreath

      In Los Angeles, “La Cienega” was a swamp until those years. Floods burst open ancient flotsam dikes .

  23. Bill Carson

    The pro-war crowd wants to have it both ways: if the Iranians refuse to talk, it shows how weak they are because they have no leaders, or the leadership is divided into factions with no one in command; but if the Iranians indicate a willingness to talk, it shows how weak they are because they are desperate and begging to make a deal.

  24. KD

    The Iran War has been a great victory of Trump and Bibi. We have barely heard anything about the Epstein files for weeks, and the genocide continues in Gaza and has been expanded into Lebanon, Bibi remains out of prison, and who cares if the plebes have to pay $6 a gallon to fuel their trucks. Plus, who’s getting rich placing bets on oil futures 15 minutes before Trump’s latest Truth Social posts?

  25. Anthony Martin

    Trump’s lack of cognitive ability got the US into this mess in the first place, so why expect his cognitive ability to resolve the issue . With all the rhetoric and possibilities flying….the US uses 139 billion gallons of gasoline per year. In 2025, the average price was $3.00/gallon. If the average price goes to $5/gal, then that will mean some $276 billion dollars will be directed away from the purchase of items deemed ‘less essential’ than fuel which is necessary to earn an income. In addition if inflation is 3%, that would mean, for say an income of $50k (hypothetical example), a loss of purchasing power, $1500, for that wager earner.. Where do those $s go? Where is Keynes on this. Through the fog of war, IMO, if Trump escalates, then the price of gas and the rate of inflation will go up for the US consumer. Trump’s little war on behalf of Netanyahu will now be associated with the price of gas at the pump. In any case, something has to give.

    1. ACF

      Yes
      Gas has started spiking near me, double digit increases overnight, multiple times in a week.
      Stress will build quickly.
      Overly dynamic situation on the horizon

  26. XXYY

    The usual way to reduce the yield reduction of a strong El Niño, which comes from both unduly dry soil and (perversely elsewhere) excessive rains is to apply extra fertilizer. Yves

    One perhaps valuable thing to come out of the climate crisis this year is the advancement of farming with less fertilizer inputs. This kind of exploration and research is never going to happen in normal times, but there’s good reasons for it to be done now.

    I am not a farmer, but I know that it’s perfectly possible to rotate to crops that need less fertilizer, or fix their own nitrogen directly from the atmosphere, such as soybeans. I also know that, in the first world especially, a big fraction of grain is used as feed for cows and other meat animals rather than for human consumption directly. This is extremely inefficient and a very poor way to make use of grains during a shortage.

    My point is that it’s possible to run a food production system in different ways to make better use of available inputs, and this may be a good time to attend to that.

    1. Rod

      and this may be a good time to attend to that.
      The phrase “never let a crisis go to waste” is most famously attributed to Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff.
      If we had serious leadership…imo

  27. In Cold Chud

    Note that the Pentagon $25 billion figure of weapons cost is clearly too light and omits important direct overheads, such as related VA expenses.

    In a conversation with a family friend during the Iraq war (an engineer who had gone to work for a defense contractor several years earlier, after being laid off by a more civilian-oriented firm), he made the “point” that, when anyone antiwar cites a percentage of US government spending that goes to the military, they include the veterans’ budget, which is unfair and dishonest!

    Of course, because the media only ever talks about the Defense Department budget (often described as the “Pentagon budget”), no one who actually matters ever has to submit to the indignity of making such a stupid argument, themselves.

    But when you think of how little our society already cares about the veterans most in need, it really is sociopathic.

  28. Who Cares

    In case the current US administration tries another dip into the we are destroying Iranian oilfields here is a counter argument: Antiwar.com, estimated time to shutting in Iranian oilfields.
    Keep in mind that the article seems to assume empty floating storage. Even with that caveat Iran still has a more then a month time to reduce output from fields to prevent them from being damaged.

  30. johnnyme

    US warns Europe of delays in arms shipments as Iran war depletes stockpiles: Report

    The US warned several European states that they could face arms delivery delays amid their depleted stockpiles due to the Iran war, Financial Times reported Friday.

    The Pentagon reportedly told their European allies including the UK, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia to expect significant delays for several missile systems, the FT learned from nine familiar sources.

    The delays stem in part from mounting concerns about US stockpiles following extensive weapons use in Iran in recent months.

    Two sources said there were also talks about postponing shipments to Asia.

    Link to the paywalled FT article.

    1. The Rev Kev

      You can translate “significant delays” to mean actual years. But any money paid to the US will nonetheless be kept. Whatever happened to COD?

  33. Ann

    Trump says there is possibility US could restart strikes on Iran

    https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-there-is-possibility-us-could-restart-strikes-iran-2026-05-02/

    President Trump says he is reviewing a new Iranian proposal to end the war

    https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-war-ceasefire-negotiations-strait-9317c11e51ba8dfa527b424f931fe04b

    Dutch group seeks court block on U.S. takeover of DigiD provider

    https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/02/dutch-group-seeks-court-block-us-takeover-digid-provider

    Ship allegedly carrying stolen Ukrainian grain seen sailing away from Israel, after importer refuses to unload cargo

    https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/30/world/ship-ukrainian-grain-israel-importer-intl

    Iran says conflict with US ‘likely’ to restart after Donald Trump rejects deal

    https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-894875

    US bypasses congressional review for military sales of $8.6 billion to Middle East allies

    https://www.jpost.com/international/article-894888

  34. Zephyrum

    Requirements for collective action with a military force:
    – Leadership, to provide coordination and unify direction to a common purpose.
    – Discipline, such that the leader has control or authority over their juniors.
    – Organization, so that each person can be individually directed and supervised.
    – Materials, so that each person has the physical means to perform their tasks.
    – Morale, which is sustained confidence combined with ardent determination to accomplish the goals.
    These are the necessary elements of command, according to Knox (1916).

    It’s interesting to speculate how our modern military might rate on these factors. My thought:
    – Leadership: generally good. The top ranks from the commander in chief are abysmal. Below them officers can be distracted by meeting requirements irrelevant to tasks. Some say the top ranks are bloated by useless people, but see Organization below.
    – Discipline: generally good. Strong traditions helps here.
    – Organization: marginal. Large, bureaucratic, ossified structures with no means of change or improvement.
    – Materials: insufficient and ill-adapted, because too much focus on profitable MIC over strategic force support.
    – Morale: questionable, due to lack of moral foundation for use of force. Nobody is fooled, except perhaps short-term.

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