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Iran War: Trump Mulls Kinetic Options, Mojtaba Warns, US Consumers Suffer

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[This Iran war post is light at launch because gym. Please return at 8:30 AM EST or refresh this page then for a final version]

Trump received his widely-anticipated CENTCOM briefing on Thursday on military options in Iran. There is ample speculation as to what he might do, as opposed to stick with the plan he recently he said he preferred, which is simply to persist with the blockade beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

The wee problems here are not just the fact that Trump and the US have lost, even if he might be able to execute a few more moves rather than giving in to the inevitable. It is that he is under both temperamental and Zionist pressure to Do Something, when anything other that de-escalation will make this bad situation worse. Trump is addicted to domination and is habituated to believe that gesture and action will advance those ends, rather than letting a trajectory, even when favorable to him, play out. And as Judge Napolitano and Douglas Macgregor discuss in a fresh talk that we have embedded below, one of the most powerful Zionist advocates in Trump’s circle, Miriam Adelson, just visited the President to push for a short round of intense air strikes, since a long one like the unproductive one launched at the start of the war is no longer possible.

Some reports on what allegedly went down in the CENTCOM review:

Even though the list below may not map exactly on to what CENTCOM actually suggested, it’s close enough to give an idea of how limited US capabilities are. Please do click through to read it in full:

My personal fave is Gallipoli 2.0. Per Gorbachev:

Plan one is to seize part of the Strait of Hormuz with ground forces. Marines on rocks at the foot of a 4,000-meter wall. The strait is 21 nautical miles wide. Iran owns both shores. IRGC Navy fast-boat squadrons are based at Bandar Abbas and Qeshm, prepositioned for forty years. Sea mines are laid. Khalij Fars anti-ship missiles sit on the Zagros above the landing zone. No shore. No cover. No exit.

That one is da bomb by virtue of being the most clearly dopey (again, please read the tweet in full for more detail as to why) and would do the most harm to the US (a visibly broken jaw might finally persuade us to back off) while not crossing the Iran red line of harming its energy infrastructure. Iran has promised would result in it wrecking energy production all over the Gulf States. That would assure a global depression, widespread famine, a collapse in public health system and other cheery outcomes. It still might appeal to Team Trump as going most directly (if also in a massively ill-conceived manner) after the immediate aim of contesting Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The US has still been bulking up and what it has been sending in seems more consistent with yet another Special Forces caper than an air-only campaign:

But CENTCOM seems awfully excited about its shiny new wunderwaffen:

Before you give up hope that Trump might stay his current TACO course and not escalate, even some of the most deranged Iran haters are arguing against more kinetic action. From the premier US foreign policy magazine, Foreign Affairs, in Let Iran Defeat ItselfAmerica Should End the War but Keep Up the Pressure [COFFEE WARNING]:

It’s easy to see why the White House has seemingly abandoned its efforts to topple the Islamic Republic wholesale. Research shows that it is extremely difficult—perhaps impossible—to down a government through a bombing campaign. Practical experience, meanwhile, shows that successful regime change endeavors can produce a wide array of unfortunate consequences…The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals who now control the country are, if anything, more hard-line than their predecessors… It would be better for Iran and better for the world if they lose power and are succeeded by actual representatives of the population.

I know I should step back and let the author of this travesty, Richard Nephew, continue to discredit himself, but the trope that Iran is not democratic is too patently dishonest not to call out. Former US ambassador Chas Freeman has argued that Iran has a directed democracy, in which certain topics are outside public discussion and influence, and that’s not very different to the way the US operates. Back to the article:

That does not mean Washington should return to war and keep fighting until the regime is finished. That is a task for the Iranian people, and they are up to it: over the last five years, Iranians have taken to the streets in increasing numbers to protest the regime’s repression and economic mismanagement. There is a reason Trump began the war with a call for them to resume demonstrations. But it does mean Trump must help their cause by being very selective about the peace deal he signs. Any deal that affords Iran widespread sanctions relief—even if it features hard limits on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, missile programs, and support for proxies—could give the hard-line Iranian leaders Trump helped install a new lease on life. Instead, then, the United States should pursue more modest arrangements, like one that continues the current cease-fire agreement while opening the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining intense pressure on the Iranian system. Such an outcome won’t be as satisfying for Trump, who wants to make sweeping deals. But it is the best way to prevent Iran from rebuilding its damaged military over the long term—and to get actual regime change.

If you have the stomach to read the article in full, it has even more fabrications and distortions. I am sure readers will have plenty of fun with the paragraph above alone, starting with its assumption that there will be an eventual agreement. The US refusal to adhere to them and the lack of any competent negotiators on the Trump team alone look like insurmountable obstacles.

Defenders of Nephew would point out that he is arguing for an end of combat operations. But he’s calling for continued economic war, when that backfired with Russia and has not broken Iran.

Turning instead to the leading representative of the realist school of foreign policy, John Mearsheimer from his latest conversation with Daniel Davis:

Starting at 11:05:

So, you know, the idea that that Iran is now on the ropes and all we need to do is just apply a little more military pressure and it’s all going to end happily for us is delusional. And as we’re going to talk about, Danny, uh we have lost this war big time. This war is a catastrophe for the United States. And what’s happening here on Fox is that all these people who were in favor of the war, helped push us into the war and have been cheerleading all along don’t want to quit now because they’ll end up with egg all over their face. So what they’re doing is saying, “Let’s continue the war because we’re on the verge of victory.” And they’re hoping for a miracle. But miracles don’t happen in my world.

This segment also includes a long extract (with presumed machine translation) of a statement by Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei on the occasion of Persia Gulf Day, commemorating when the Portuguese were kicked out in the 1600s. This was still voice-only; Mojtaba is widely rumored to have been disfigured1 in the missile strike that killed his father and his wife.

Some of Mojtaba’s remarks are making the rounds:

Mearsheimer speculated that Trump would keep the blockade on as the least self-harming option that would allow Trump to pretend he had not (yet) lost. However I don’t see that option as viable for all that long. Larry Johnson and others have pointed out that the US navy can’t stop all that many ships and keeping its current or a similar level of assets in place is costly. The leakiness of the current operation is generating discussion of extending the range of interdictions, as the US has been (Venezuela style) chasing ships very far from the Gulf to secure their capture. Sports fans, this is an admission of weakness. Not only is the US too feeble to mess with shipping on a a grand scale, but even the attempt risks provoking China to Do Something, when they have many many many ways to drop a hammer on us.

And the blockade still is massively harmful. Transit levels are very low:

Iranian officials are having to explain in the sort of baby talk that the Pentagon might understand why a blockade is not easy:

And as we have said, shippers very early on said they would need to see an end to the war (meaning Iran defeated) or convoys to feel safe:

In an admission the current blockade has not and is unlikely to move Iran, the Administration is reheating another dish rejected by allies, that of joining the US to force open the Strait of Hormuz. From the Wall Street Journal in As Hormuz Traffic Stalls, U.S. Pitches New Coalition to Get Ships Moving Again:

Just weeks after President Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz “COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS” only to see ship traffic stall, the administration is now asking other countries to join a new international coalition that would enable ships to navigate the waterway.

The effort, called the “Maritime Freedom Construct,” was spelled out in an internal State Department cable sent to U.S. embassies on Tuesday that called on U.S. diplomats to press foreign governments into signing up. The U.S.-led coalition would share information, coordinate diplomatically and enforce sanctions, according to the cable.

Iran is sticking to its guns over the question of foreign, erm, naval security operations in support of the US, such as help from NATO. From TASS:

For Iran, any foreign presence in the Strait of Hormuz, including that of a European coalition, is unacceptable, Mohammad Reza Sabouri, Iran’s ambassador to Italy, said in an interview with TASS.

According to him, Tehran urges Europe to take into account the region’s historical and geographical context, as well as the root causes of the crisis.

“From Iran’s perspective, any foreign interference or presence in the Strait of Hormuz is unacceptable. This also applies to recent plans and statements presented as initiatives by the United Kingdom and France, as well as by the European coalition. Iran rejects and condemns these plans and actions, considering them unacceptable,” the diplomat said. He called on European countries to address the root causes of the current situation, namely the actions of the United States and Israel against Iran as a coastal state in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

Now if there is no kinetic action in or around the Strait of Hormuz for a month, and cargo buyers signaled they would eat the tolling costs, it seems likely that shipowners would come to accept the new normal of Iran imposing new procedures and transit fees. But quite a few would need to see a period of smooth and safe operation before they routed vessels back into the Gulf.

Earlier we had mentioned another useful talk, between Douglas Macgregor and Judge Napolitano:

Macgregor says that Putin and Netanyahu also had a very recent conversation; I have yet to find independent confirmation. Regardless, Macgregor sees kinetic action as more likely than Mearsheimer does. He argues that Netanyahu has gotten in the position of controlling the US military and president and is going to make as much use of that as he can. Macgregor does point out that Iran has retaliatory options other than destroying energy assets across the Gulf, such as enlisting Ansar Allah to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait or cutting communications cables in the Gulf.

Briefly to economic updates. The stock market rallied smartly on the initial report on first quarter GDP growth at 2.2%. As Michael Shedlock explained, AI cap ex was almost entirely responsible. Yours truly is leery of GDP reports that attribute groaf pretty much solely to one narrow sector. I recall an initial GDP release in the dot-bomb era that came in at over 2%, due solely to computer investment. The final revision took it down to 0.5%

Other news based on March data was more sobering:

Jeff Snider looks at other indicators of consumer distress:

And to another key vector of damage, jet fuel shortages. From City A.M. in UK Airlines Race to Secure Jet Fuel as Summer Travel Crisis Looms:

  • Global jet fuel shipments have dropped to their lowest level since records began in 2017.
  • UK ministers are considering allowing airlines to use Jet A fuel to ease supply pressure.
  • Airlines face higher costs, weaker bookings, short-seller pressure, and potential summer flight cuts….

Earlier this month, major UK carriers had warned they only have five or six weeks of supplies remaining, leaving Brits’ summer holidays in peril.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week that summer holidays could be cancelled…

Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister, said on Sunday that Brits could see higher flight prices for as long as eight months due to the Iran war…

But the government is scrambling to prevent flights from being scrapped altogether, with ministers poised to give UK airlines permission to use a type of fuel which is currently used only by US carriers.

Airlines in Britain, Europe and most of the world use “Jet A-1” fuel, while planes in the US use “Jet A” fuel, which has the same specifications but a lower freezing point.

The two fuels can be used in any jet aircraft, and a relaxation of the rules would provide a major boost to UK airlines as they hope to avoid cancelling flights.

The Times of India published Air India may cut 100 flights daily as jet fuel prices hit; flights on these routes to be affected. The carrier operates 1100 flights per day, so this is a meaningful reduction. The planned cuts are on both domestic and international routes but foreign destinations such as Singapore, Europe, North America and Australia set to take the biggest hits.

Last but not least:

Stopping for today. See you tomorrow!
____

1 The excuse has been that he has been out of view for his safety. But if he has had his face badly damaged, plastic surgery could take a long time. 30 operations is not uncommon to remedy serious damage.

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113 comments

  1. ambrit

    So now the UAE is the client state of a client state. No wonder that errant sheik decided to break away from it.

  2. ambrit

    What worries me about the deployment of the Non Beta tested ‘Darkeagle” missile is that the best-case use of it is as the delivery system for nukes.
    Stay tuned and, as always, stay safe.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Fortunately Dark Eagle is barely out of the testing stage so you would not risk using them to deliver nukes. Too much could go wrong. But this is like the war in the Ukraine where every few months another weapons system would be deployed against Russia whether it be M-777 artillery, HIMARS or some missile system which would be good for a few headlines until the Russians developed countermeasures.

      1. hk

        I suspect the use of this Dark Eagle will lead to the missiles going dud and gifting whatever tech US has developed for it to Iran, and from there, to Russia and China–if it ever happens that is.

        1. barefoot charley

          Their hypersonic tech is so much more advanced than ours, I suspect our duds will only give derisory giggles.

    2. Curious

      There only point has to be headlines. With only 8 of them ever produced, it’s a joke even in that regard.

      Aside from nukes, the US is a paper tiger against a well entrenched enemy.

    3. PVDSteve

      The whole Dark Eagle story feels like more ads for US defense companies to get more contracts and export sales than anything else. Those weapons, even when tested successfully and produced at scale, are for taking out a relatively small number of strategic, vulnerable targets behind layered air defenses. That’s a weapon designed for war with Russia or China, not Iran. The weapon’s evasion capabilities are unnecessary against Iran’s depleted air defenses (a missile is much less likely to be taken out by a passive IR system than a jet), and their extended range would only be a major asset if you had a lot of them, not half a dozen. The mosaic distributed defense strategy Iran uses makes these another hyper expensive waste of time.

    4. Acacia

      It’s all very predictable and by now rather tedious. A couple of Dark Eagles will be fired with significant press fanfare. The US military will gush about how fanTAStic they are, and the Western media will dutifully lap it all up. “Let the good times roll” will come up on the MIC jukebox.

      None of the gravy train riders “journalists” will bother with what Iran says about the attack, whether the “Dank Eagles” actually did real damage, etc.

      Then, about six weeks later, we will learn that, no, actually, two of the three “Dark Eagles” pranged and missed their targets by a long shot.

      But by then the hype will have been cemented, and the “issues” will be spun as “only a temporary setback”.

      Lather, rinse, repeat.

      1. Paradox of Unrealized Power

        I think the point right now is to secure funding for more hypersonics in the upcoming budget.

        PVDSteve’s comment about “feels like ads” is very correct in this regard

        BTW, the payload for these missiles is kind of low.

        It will be really interesting to see if upcoming budgets reserve a lot of funding for non-petroleum high density energy sources…

    5. Revenant

      If you listen to the clip Yves posted above of Mojtaba Khameini addressing the Iranian people on the anniversary of Persian Gulf Day(*) then from 0:38 he says that

      “Ninety million Iranian people… will use all their technological abilities, political powers, missile powers, NUCLEAR POWERS to defend their country”.

      Nobody has commented on this wording which seems, um, kind of important! Perhaps the US is not the only one playing a nuclear posture game?

      (*) Persian Gulf Day would be a great primary school event, much better than World Book Day: what have you come as, George? The Defeated Arrogance of the West, Miss!

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        That is FALSE. No Making Shit Up.

        Daniel Davis brought it up early in his talk with John Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer immediately warned that one could not be sure of the translation, and then added:

        It’s not 100% clear what he meant but if he’s talking about defending Iran with nuclear power one could assume that that means he’s talking about building a nuclear deterrent does sound like that and as we know he unlike his father has been a proponent in the past of Iran going nuclear. So, it is possible. I wouldn’t want to make any final judgments at this point based on that limited information that we just saw, but it is possible that he’s sending a signal that Iran is thinking about or is going to get nuclear weapons.

        Chas Freeman was very early to say that the US/Israel war gave Iran a very strong reason to want nuclear weapons. Others have echoed that.

        The fatwa against nuclear weapons is still in place. Admittedly, some have argued that the fatwa does not bar building them, just using them.

        1. Revenant

          With respect, my first point was entirely factual: that is what the clip says. And my understand from the Al Jazeera clip was the clip is Khameini speaking in English.

          If it is a translation, then maybe there is a translation error but I wouldn’t expect that slip if the writer of the speech was the speaker, even if a professional translated it for him. Those words are too obvious and sensitive!

          My poking fun at whether Iran is now “tickling the dragon” in nuclear terms was speculation but clearly written as such (I am aware of the fatwa, bring a threshold state etc).

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            I have no tolerance for your fatuously misrepresenting what I said. My objection above and in the follow on comment below clearly was to your assertion that “Nobody has commented on this wording”. They provided two examples otherwise, one of which was in the body of the post.

          2. Skippy

            I think the rub is like with the Ukraine dramas mate, albeit with a twist, now e.g. Zman [actor for hire] dropped the nuke word and copped it … now its all back filling. Iran on the other hand can and has done more damage to the West than it has been given in not only dollar terms but, strategic force projection [see empires].

            Not to mention Trumpos mob is all whack about the nuke thingy as it means you are part a special* club of invite only in maintaining the neoliberal order thingy.

      2. Yves Smith Post author

        Also in Tucker Carlson’s AM newsletter, as in before the time of your comment:

        Iranian Supreme Leader Vows to Protect Nuclear Capabilities

        Iran’s Supreme Leader vowed on Thursday to protect his country’s nuclear capabilities, rejecting Donald Trump’s insistence that the Iranians bow to the West and eliminate their ability to develop atomic bombs.

        Mojtaba Khamenei’s remarks came as Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz gives the country strong negotiating leverage. Brent crude traded as high as $126 a barrel yesterday, leading America’s average gas price to approach $4.40. The U.S. hopes its blockade of Iranian ports, an act of war designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil and deprive the country of critical revenue, will force its leaders to flinch.

        Even those who hate Iran should recognize that Khamenei has little reason to give up his nuclear program. The U.S. government has spent this century demonizing Iraq, Libya, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and North Korea, and the only two we have not invaded, Russia and North Korea, have nukes. That is no coincidence. Washington’s foreign policy has made world leaders view nuclear weapons as a tool to protect themselves against regime change. Read more.

  3. YuShan

    “CENTCOM’s push to deploy hypersonic missiles (Dark Eagle) to the Middle East now has a follow-up”

    Wait… they told us that Iran’s air defences had been completely destroyed? Then what use is a hypersonic missile? The only advantage of a hypersonic missile is that it cannot be shot down. If Iran doesn’t have air defences anymore, then just use massive (and cheap) gravity bombs.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I recall reading but cannot readily find that the US had already used something like 25 very heavy bombs (perhaps its MOABs?) versus presumed missile sites, had not taken any out and had only 6 bombs of that type left.

      2. ISL

        David Oalaalou reported that several did not detonate (quel surpris!) and are being reverse-engineered. Iranian penetrators only go to 20 m; the MOAB (GBU-43/B) goes to 60 m and has a yield of 11 tons of TNT. A bomb designed to penetrate is going to survive a straight crash quite well.

        Youtube is not finding the link now, but linked it in yesterday’s iran update comments

  4. m-ga

    Trump’s recent comments about withdrawing troops from Italy, Spain and Germany could be interpreted as a trial balloon for retreat to the Americas:

    https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2049940215590986179

    The framing would be a fit of pique that other countries have not helped the USA resolve the perceived threat from Iran. “If they don’t help us, why should we help them?”, and “We have everything we need already, why are we there?”.

    On Trump’s part this framing might not be deliberate, or even conscious, however it could increase his options and create a possible off-ramp. An advantage of the framing is that the unintended loss of Middle East bases (a USA defeat) can be glossed with the accompanying deliberate withdrawal of troops stationed with former allies.

    The outcome would be a multipolar world, with the USA adopting the Monroe-ish position of domination over the American south with designs to extend north to Canada and Greenland. Wild cards are US pride and Israel.

    1. jefemt

      NC has a timely link today to an article regarding Israel’s forays into central ad south America.
      “They’ already control the US…

  5. BillC

    Plan One critique: flawed altitude stats

    There is no “4000 meter wall” within 50 km of the SOH shore; moreover, there appears to be no terrain >2000m within 100 km of the SOH shore. Per my atlas (Times Atlas of the World, 10th edition, 1999), there is a continuous >200 m rise no more that 25 km from the SOH shore and at least three areas >1000m altitude within 50 km, conveniently spaced east, center, and west of the strait’s point. Thus, there are indeed significant cases of high ground relatively close to shore.

    This quibble may not negate the writer’s argument for option one, but it does suggest care is justified in accepting it. One possible mitigation: 4000 feet altitude might have been intended; the altitude intervals in my atlas can neither confirm nor deny that possibility.

    1. Curious

      The tweet also mentioned the F-35 pilot had been photographed. Is that true? Didn’t see that

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Gah, I should have noticed the 4000 meter bit.

        IIRC he said photos were circulating in Iran.I did see claims like that early on. But one would have expected them to have gotten out by now. So yes, this was self-discrediting on a point not core to his argument.

    2. The Rev Kev

      Still, Iran’s coastline along the Gulf is about 1,770-kilometres (1,100 miles) so even if US troops somehow managed to occupy the entire length, it would still not stop attacks on any shipping by places further inland. Frankly I doubt that there would be enough troops to occupy the coastline and how would you resupply them if you did? How would you get the dead and wounded out while bringing in replacements? Between Manpads and FVP drones, it would be murder.

    3. Polar Socialist

      I guess it’s a typo. A look at Google Maps with contour lines on shows multiple +400 meter mountain ranges very close to the seafront all the way from Gulf of Oman all the way to the northern end of the Persian Gulf.

    4. YuShan

      Yes, I noticed that too and checked an elevation map just to be sure. There is definitely a large flat area that could be occupied. They are not facing a high wall.

      However, Iran’s (anti-ship and other) missiles have enough range that they CAN be hidden in mountains far inland, and if they cannot be taken out from the air, then they would still need to get troops there, which seems impossible. So in that sense the “wall” argument isn’t completely invalid. But troops can be spread out, rather than perched on some rocks in front of a massive wall as was suggested.

      Even IF the US is able to occupy some land there, that still doesn’t allow them to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, so it is still a crazy plan.

    5. Sentience

      The Zagros Mountains gradually rise from the southern coast of Iran, so there are low coastal ridges (like Kuh-e Mand) and then higher peaks a bit inland.

      The most important one is Mount Geno:

      Elevation: ~2,347 m
      Distance from coast: ~25–30 km north of Bandar Abbas

      Also: Kuh-e Khvormuj: Elevation betwwen 1500 to 1950 m
      Distance from coast: ~30–40 km south of Bushehr

      But the altitude is much lower close to the coastline, like
      Kuh-e Mand
      Elevation: ~685 m
      One of the closest low ridges to the central Persian Gulf coastline

      The ‘4000 feet’ most probably refers to Mount Dena, the highest peak in Zagros mountain:
      Elevation: ~4,409 m
      Farther inland (~200+ km) closer to the area of failed US operation to get enriched Uranium. This mountanous area give the Iranian forces the advantage to shoot at low-altitide flying of C-130s and helicopters.

      1. ISL

        It also means the second range has a commanding advantage over the first range if it is overrun – for example, drones fly faster with larger payloads when descending.

  6. Christopher Mann

    And we’re into a new month. Tick tock, tick tock. Trumps tweets are very telling. His rant about pressure building in Iranian oil infrastructure is obvious projection – All those assets out in the field, slowly, so slowly degrading, people and machines tiring. The pressure building inexorably. The hot season coming. Those troops and machines are going to be in a furnace soon. Heat, pressure, time. And the Iranians watch and wait with the patience and cunning of a millenia old empire, calm and rested in the shade.

    “Let them come, we are waiting for them.”

    1. TimH

      Israel has very good software engineers. Think Stuxnet. I would expect any physical attack to be immediately preceded by non-physical attacks that take out comms (radio, phone, landline COs, satellite) and mess up the control systems for oil processing electric generating/distribution systems.

      In Iran’s shoes, I’d advise very publicly that if one of these goes out then the immediate (seconds later) response would be a launch against certain sites. I’d also have been very busy over the last few weeks putting in point to point wire comms with a simple battery and turn-the-handle ringing, just like during WW1. Works after EMP too.

      1. Es s Ce Tera

        The problem with that premise is the Iranians, a society of engineers, more than anyone else and of necessity, will have learned from Stuxnet and applied those learnings. I suspect we can thank Stuxnet for US/Israel losing this war.

  7. DG Bear

    John Helmer thinks it is Israel that will do the dirty work of nuclear bombs. The article is about Polymarket and Trump family. And, Helmer’s continuation of “Putin is weak”, which P. C. Roberts also believes. Personally I think Putin has been steadfast and true since 2007. I do agree that “uncontrollable Israel” would be the ones to use nuclear weapons.

    “And what is the biggest no-loss wager Trump, Coplan, and their co-investors can run before then? That’s the day and time when Israel launches nuclear weapons against Iran.”

    https://johnhelmer.net/president-donald-trump-told-president-vladimir-putin-he-is-betting-on-irans-surrender-in-exchange-for-the-ukraines/

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      A weak leader would not have been able to stay in power for 25 years and build a military and bureaucracy that could defeat the US and Collective West in a full bore kinetic and economic war. Putin wanted only a Special Military Operation but the US, EU and UK tried to rip Russia’s throat out with its shock and awe economic sanctions, and then escalated further by kicking over the Istanbul negotiating table.

    2. Socal Rhino

      These ongoing criticisms of Putin remind me of a George Carlin joke, along the lines of: anyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster than me is a maniac. There will always be people urging a leader to move faster and more aggressively and others who will complain that he was reckless and a conflict should have been avoided. Maniacs and idiots!

      Polling in Russia have seen lower approval for Putin lately, now only 6 or 7 times what is enjoyed by Starmer and Merz and only 2 or 3 times Trump’s approvals.

  9. The Rev Kev

    ‘OSINTdefender
    @sentdefender
    According to Fox News, U.S. Central Command Commander Admiral Brad Cooper has now briefed U.S. President Donald J. Trump on “final blow” strike options against Iran, should the president choose to resume combat operations against Iran. Per the report, assessed targets include Iran’s remaining military equipment and installations, regime/IRGC leadership, and other infrastructure.’

    This only makes sense if Trump is being told that Iran is on the ropes and that just one more attack will bring the whole country down. Sort of like how Adolf said in ’41 ‘We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.’ Of course Iran would have war gamed this long ago and you can bet that Iran’s response will be as rapid as it will be destructive. Trump might announce afterwards a ceasefire but what if Iran says no, not yet. We still have some more targets to hit and we want to defang the US & Israel of interceptor missiles. Then what does he do?

    1. vao

      “Sort of like how Adolf said in ’41 ‘We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.’
      […]
      Then what does he do?”

      Following the failure to capture Moscow and Leningrad, and after being pushed back by the Soviet counter-offensive of Winter 1941 thus incurring massive losses, the Germans went for a renewed offensive during 1942 in a completely different direction: towards the Caucasus, and then Stalingrad.

      In the case of Iran, a different direction could mean involving Azerbaijan in a Northern offensive…

      1. hk

        Mark Antony’s invasion route, btw… (No, he didn’t succeed, but at least he didn’t become a prop in the Persian production of a Greek tragedy.)

    2. ilsm

      Today seems to be day 60, Iam not sure, of allowed war w/o congress.

      Administration says nay clock stopped 8 April.

      Others say blockade is war operation.

      Who orders Trump to withdraw?

      Constitution crisis.

        1. Oregon Lawhobbit

          Act says “hostilities,” not “war.” Bombing 170 or so schoolgirls to death seems pretty hostile to me.

          1. TimH

            I was responding to the link in Links:

            House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Thursday that it is not necessary for Congress to weigh in on the Trump administration’s military action in Iran because the United States is currently “not at war.”

        2. JohnH

          Everything that the Department of War does should be considered war-related…just like everything that the Department of Agriculture does involves agriculture.

          Maybe Congress should really be voting on the legality of all Department of War activities since March 20, 2025.

    3. JohnH

      I remember when a host at econbrowser claimed in June, 2022 that the Russian economy was slated to shrink by 30%! Others claimed that Russia was running out of missiles!!! Putin was reportedly sick and dying. Ya gotta give them warmongers a constant supply of hope. (I eventually got banned from econbrowser for questioning the expertise of an august member of NBER and pointing out that his department’s public policy web page made virtually no mention of inequality.)

      Back during the Vietnam War there was always the light at the end of the tunnel. Some of us anti-war types joked that the light was coming from the approaching train that was about to run us over!

      1. anahuna

        Robert Lowell’s line about the light at the end of the tunnel is usually described as a quip. Funny, I remember it as part of a poem: “And the light at the end of the tunnel/is the light of the oncoming train”.
        ”
        Either way, the image calls the subway system to mind.

  10. Wukchumni

    I used to frequent pawn shops in search of aged round metal discs, and back in the stone age before the internet, they tended to be jacks of all trades and masters of none, but now information is so freely flowing, the situation must be different.

    The key to knowing how the economy is going vis a vis pawn shops is the redemption rate, or the percentage of loans that get paid off by the owners, claiming back a twisted herringbone 14k necklace or 23k gold ancient Egyptian swizzle stick festooned with lapis lazuli.

    By the way, anything made out of the barbarous relic is much preferred over say, your 85 inch HD TV or Segway in terms of giving out loans-Its instantly salable, and in these not so united states, its mostly women that have some sort of karats, and once they’ve hocked them-the cupboard is truly bare.

    They mentioned a 90% redemption rate in the video and that’s cray-cray. Maybe around 65% now according to a few pawnbrokers I know in Cali.

    Here’s a tale circa 1990 from a pawn shop in the SF Bay area…

    My friend would get proles bringing in a VHS to hock on a Monday and redeem it on Friday so they could watch movies on the weekend. Typically the clientele isn’t the sharpest human beans you’ve ever seen.

  11. JMH

    Remember when the US was supposed to be prepared to fight two major wars on opposite sides of the planet at the same time. And now one regional conflict fought almost entirely in the air for 60 days is about the limit. Exactly what is the short renewed air campaign supposed to accomplish? Or the 2,500 marines on the Hormuz shore? Or the SOF doing something or other? Donnie is looking more and more like Ozymandias in the mountains. Lone and level sands stretching far away being in short supply in Iran. I suppose we must struggle through the issues of face, of the impossibility of enduring the humiliation of owning defeat, of the looming midterms, etc. etc. While that is real politically and psychologically for the DC Bubble and Echo Chamber any one who ever played sports or coached sports is well aware that defeat is part of the game. If you convince yourself that losing is not an option because you have convinced yourself that you are invincible, the probability of getting smacked around is all but certain. What to do? Face reality. Stop whining. Accept your mistakes. Make changes. Rebuild. Forget the hegemony foolishness, the exceptional nation cant. Time to take a “searching and fearless moral inventory.”

    1. Wukchumni

      Isn’t this just another sordid bankruptcy for a guy that never learned any lessons from all of the previous ones, as there was always a banker willing to help him out of a jam and onto the next scam.

      1. Revenant

        This was my disheartening take as I started reading this post. Trump views everything as a real estate financial negotiation where everybody in it knows that they will take a write-down, it is just a question of who and how much, and nobody dies.

      2. KLG

        I think that’s the point. With Donald the Businessman (sic), not one of his abject failures had any consequences for him. IIRC he likes to say he never “personally” went bankrupt. Probably true as far as it goes, but what about the contractors he is said to have stiffed because “working for Trump” is worth more than money in his mind? This probably goes back to his bone spur days, or before. Could it be the “Absolutism of Reality” (Hans Blumenberg) is about to bite? Finally.

  13. .Tom

    Yves wrote: “Iran has a directed democracy, in which certain topics are outside public discussion and influence, and that’s not very different to the way the US operates. Back to the article:”

    I think the paragraphs from the article you quoted nicely exemplify the power of orthodoxy in USian political discussion. There are constraints.

    Nephew needs to uphold the myth of the USA a free and democratic society, benign keeper of international law, and promoter of liberal values around the world while actually proposing policy that will advance US’ imperial interests. That already imposes a lot of constraints on the text he may produce. Now he faces constraints imposed by reality: the US stands utterly humiliated by Iran in military, diplomatic, moral and PR dimensions. All combined, that’s a lot of constraints. Too many to sensibly work under. But Nephew boldly takes on the task and twists himself into pretzels to navigate those constraints.

    1. pjay

      That Nephew article in Foreign Affairs demonstrates the shrinking parameters of acceptable discourse within our foreign policy establishment. The neocons completely dominate Middle East policy. There is near complete consensus that Iran is the enemy and needs to be taken out. But there is disagreement between neocon factions on the best tactics. Nephew is a “liberal” Democrat neocon who served in the Obama and Biden administrations. So in his view the Syrian model of economic strangulation and continual ideological warfare is preferable to the direct warfare advocated by Likud and neocon right-wingers.

      I couldn’t help but notice that among Nephew’s many establishment affiliations is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Here are the opening paragraphs of its Wikipedia entry:

      “The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), also known simply as The Washington Institute (TWI), is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C.,… focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East.

      “WINEP was established in 1985 with the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the funding of many AIPAC donors, in order to provide higher quality research than AIPAC’s own publications… John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt described WINEP as “part of the core” of the Israel lobby in the United States…”

      Nephew represents the “left wing” of the Natsec Establishment today. The minimal “realist” types who negotiated Obama’s JCPOA have been banished to powerless think-tanks like the Quincy Institute. They might still get the occasional article into Foreign Affairs, but they won’t get close to political influence any time soon.

      The neocons are a cancer that has metastasized throughout our foreign policy institutions and continues to destroy whatever healthy tissue remains.

    2. Yves Smith Post author

      This is clever and very much appreciated. I may use your and pjay’s observations if the opportunity arises.

      A different sort of confirmation, which even though dated and based on a fictionalization of the underlying story, is germane.

      I just saw the movie Nuremberg (Russell Crowe as Goehring is terrific). A US military shrink is assigned to the top Nazis being tried, including Goehring, and the movie focuses on his relationship with Goehring. The therapist later writes a book. When interviewed about it (and I assume in the book too), he maintains that there was nothing special about Germany for it to have produced these men, that you find people with these tendencies anywhere and societies need to be vigilant about keeping them from amassing power.

      The idea that Americans could behave the same way was rejected with prejudice.

      1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

        THANKS FOR THE MOVIE REC!

        BIG FAN OF RUSSELL CROWE EVER SINCE GLADIATOR, BUT IVE BEEN HOLDING OFF ON NUREMBERG BECAUSE I FIGURED IT WAS ZIONIST.

        ALSO, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ABOUT WHAT AMERICAN POPULATIONS WILL ALLOW. THE CULTURE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD IS JUST SHUT AND DO AS YOUR TOLD.

        IM NOT VERY GOOD AT THAT, OBVIOUSLY!

        IM TRYING NOT TO GLOAT TOO MUCH BECAUSE I KNOW THE POOR ARE ABOUT TO GET HAMMERED BY THE RICH BUT ITS SWEET SWEET VICTORY KNOWING THE EMPIRE IS GETTING ITS ASS HANDED TO IT.

        THE RICH LOCALS WILL NOT LIKE BEING CALLED OUT PUBLICLY FOR BEING LOSERS & LIARS.*

        * h/t 🎩 Explosive Media

      2. Basil Pesto

        worth a watch? I had assumed from its marketing that it was going to be rah-rah liberal/american exceptionalism but maybe I did it a disservice.

    3. ISL

      Which is why the Lego videos hit hard.

      In his latest Tio talks, Warwick Powell makes the argument that parliamentary democracy is not even trying to appear to be delivering on its promises of actual democracy for non-billionaires (oligarchs) and suggests the new world that is being born with haste will adopt new structures to represent the will of the people (who will be in a pitchfork and burning state of mind). Its a very measured and well constructed argument.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKlCWR-Z1eQ&list=PLSorNP5MtONKaezRcMwVji5njgqlplEQC

      1. .Tom

        ISL wrote “Which is why the Lego videos hit hard.”

        I hadn’t thought of that connection but I think you’re spot on.

        Just earlier today I was trying to think of a way to present the idea that America’s great tradition of protest songs (e.g. Country Joe at Wookstock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRl6-bHlz-4 3min NSFW) has been vacated by American artists and the vacuum filled by Iranian Agit-Lego (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R7xUxtd5Bk 8min). My theory, that in our totalitarian situation, i.e. the constraints Yves, pjay, and I mentioned above, it’s near impossible to truly believe in a better future, is just too depressing to mention and doing so just makes matters worse to say so. Thank god for Explosive Media. And by god I mean that god is love and love is a transitive verb.

    4. Kouros

      Pushing against the Overtone window:

      Ms. Maxime Bertrand / Mr. Brent Bambury,

      I am a regular Saturday morning listener to Day 6, typically tuning in during my weekly errands in Victoria, BC. I have long appreciated the show’s ambition and range. It is precisely because I hold it to a high standard that I feel compelled to write today.

      During the segment on the Strait of Hormuz, featuring maritime historian Salvatore Mercogliano, our host Brent Bambury employed the phrase “Iranian malfeasance” to characterize Iran’s actions in and around the strait. I want to be direct: that phrase is not neutral journalism. It is an editorializing choice — and one that carries the full weight of a deeply lopsided historical narrative, without acknowledging that narrative exists at all.

      Context is not optional in responsible journalism. It is the journalism.

      Let us review, briefly, what has never been described on Day 6 — or in most Western broadcast media — as malfeasance:

      In 1953, the CIA and MI6 jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh — a man who had the audacity to nationalize his country’s own oil. Operation Ajax was not Iranian malfeasance. It was celebrated in Western capitals.

      When the United States welcomed and sheltered the deposed Shah in 1979 — a man whose SAVAK secret police had tortured and disappeared thousands of Iranians — no CBC host reached for the word malfeasance.

      When the United States actively supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran from 1980 to 1988, providing him with satellite intelligence, dual-use technology, and diplomatic cover even as he deployed chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians, no one on Western radio called it malfeasance.

      When the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988, killing all 290 civilians aboard — including 66 children — in Iranian airspace, over Iranian territorial waters, the United States government not only refused to apologize but awarded the ship’s commanding officer the Legion of Merit. That, apparently, was also not malfeasance.

      The nearly five decades of comprehensive sanctions — designed explicitly to strangle the Iranian economy and immiserate its civilian population — have never been so colourfully labelled.

      The repeated assassinations of Iranian scientists, generals, and officials — many carried out by Israel, sometimes in direct coordination with the United States — occur in a rhetorical vacuum on shows like yours, acknowledged if at all as mere background noise.

      And now, most recently: Iran was engaged in diplomatic negotiations — negotiations that, by multiple credible accounts, were proceeding constructively — when it was subjected to a catastrophic military strike that began with the killing of over 160 schoolgirls and claimed the life of the Supreme Leader. When Iran responded, that response became the predicate for the phrase our host chose so casually: Iranian malfeasance.

      This is not journalism. This is a narrative laundry service.

      The Audacity of the Legal Claim: “We Are Acting in Self-Defence”

      What makes the deployment of phrases like “Iranian malfeasance” on a public broadcaster particularly irresponsible is that it launders — without scrutiny — a legal claim so threadbare that it has been formally shredded by the very lawyers who once served the US State Department.

      The Trump administration has named its war against Iran Operation Epic Fury and has attempted to justify it under international law as an act of self-defence. On April 21, 2026, the State Department’s Legal Adviser, Reed Rubinstein, issued a memorandum making that case. It was publicly dissected the very next day by Brian Finucane — a former attorney-adviser in the State Department’s own Office of the Legal Adviser, now a senior fellow at NYU School of Law — writing in Just Security, one of the world’s foremost peer-reviewed law and security journals.

      His conclusion was unsparing. The US has failed to show that either Israel or the United States suffered an armed attack by Iran, which is necessary to justify the use of force in self-defence. In other words, the foundational legal prerequisite for the war does not exist.

      The administration’s central legal manoeuvre is to claim there is an “ongoing armed conflict” with Iran that dates back years, thereby bypassing the requirement to demonstrate a specific triggering armed attack. But this argument collapses under the weight of the administration’s own prior statements. President Trump himself declared the June 2025 war with Iran to have come to an “Official END,” and in October 2025, the State Department proclaimed on social media that Trump had ended “8 wars in 8 months,” listing “Iran and Israel” as one of the conflicts supposedly ended. You cannot simultaneously declare a war over and then invoke its continuity as legal cover for starting it again.

      More damning still is what the administration omits entirely from its legal narrative: the question of necessity. Under international law, force in self-defence is only lawful if peaceful alternatives — including diplomacy — have been exhausted. The Trump administration did not mount a serious diplomatic effort; and rather than the February 2026 negotiations having reached a dead end, according to the Omani mediators speaking shortly before the US attack on Iran, negotiations were due to continue the following week with technical discussions. The United States attacked Iran not at the end of a diplomatic road, but in the middle of one.

      As for what actually motivated the attack, Finucane points to Trump’s own words: judging from his own repeated statements, President Trump sought to do a “Venezuela” in Iran — emboldened by the tactical success of the decapitation raid into Caracas, Trump hoped for another short and sweet military spectacle that decapitated the regime.

      That is not self-defence. That is a war of choice, dressed in legal clothing that doesn’t fit.

      When our host uses the phrase “Iranian malfeasance” in this context — without any of this background — he is not summarizing a geopolitical reality. He is amplifying a narrative that the United States itself cannot legally substantiate.

      A note on the legal and geopolitical framing your segment omitted entirely:

      The Strait of Hormuz is not international waters. Under UNCLOS, it falls within the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. Iran’s jurisdiction over the strait is a matter of international law, not aggression. The right of “transit passage” exists under treaty — it is not a blank cheque for military operations by foreign navies thousands of miles from their own shores.

      Furthermore, the GCC states hosting US military bases — bases used for decades to encircle, pressure, and periodically strike Iran — are, under applicable UN resolutions and the laws of armed conflict, potentially implicated as co-belligerents. When those territories are used to conduct or facilitate attacks on Iran, the framing of Iran as the sole threatening actor is not just incomplete. It is false.

      What I am asking:

      I am not asking Day 6 to become a platform for Iranian state positions. I am asking for the elementary journalistic standard of contextual honesty — the same standard your show applies, admirably, to many other subjects.

      When the word malfeasance is reserved exclusively for one side of a seventy-year conflict — a side that has been subjected to foreign-engineered coups, proxy wars, civilian massacres, assassinations, and economic siege — that word choice is not incidental. It is a political act. And when it is deployed with the casual authority of a broadcaster funded by Canadian taxpayers, it deserves scrutiny.

      I trust the Ombudsperson’s office will give it that scrutiny.

      Respectfully,

      xxxxxxxxxxx

      ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
      CBC Ombud
      Tue, Apr 28, 5:26 AM (3 days ago)
      to BRODIE, me

      Dear xxxxxxxxx,

      I write to acknowledge receipt of your email.

      I have shared it directly with Brodie Fenlon, General Manager and Editor In Chief of CBC News, along with the request that your concerns regarding the use of the term malfeasance be addressed.

      Programmers are asked to try to reply within twenty working days.

      Sincerely,

      Maxime Bertrand
      CBC Ombud
      ombud@cbc.ca
      http://www.cbc.ca/ombudsman

      3. pjay

        I did not see your comment until this morning. I just wanted to add my thanks for such an eloquent statement. I hope they have the integrity to respond. Thanks again.

      1. ISL

        Those bases are within Iran’s long-range missile range – so perhaps Iran will do Italy a solid…. Could be one of the surprises mentioned by the IRGC.

  15. Tom Stone

    It is well known that Iran has a lot of missile armed fast attack boats, I wonder if they have any missile armed slow attack boats that look like Dhows or fishing boats?
    There’s a lot of maritime traffic in that area, a few more small boats that look right shouldn’t arouse suspicion and even an unsuccessful attack on a carrier would get the USN’s attention…

    1. Safety First

      You do not need boats.

      Even last generation anti-ship missiles could easily go multiple times the width of Hormuz. Which means all you need is a few ground-based launchers concealed in the nearby hills, dales, glens and heaths. Or mountain caves, if you prefer. Supplemented by drones, both from the air and of the semi-submersible variety (which have already been “battle-tested” blowing up either one or two tankers near Basra). Hell, if you just look at the northern part of the Strait, there are even places to hide ATGM teams – one of those won’t take out a destroyer (most likely, unless it hits ammo storage or something), but a few successive hits will make any reasonable captain not want to press his luck.

      Yes, in principle you could also stick some anti-ship missiles on speedboats, drop some uber-advanced mines, have subs wait on the bottom of the Strait in ambush, start area bombing with ballistic missiles with cluster warheads…but why? Again, the easiest solution is to literally park 20 Exocets (or some equivalent) within 25 miles of the midpoint of the Strait and wait. Back in 1982, six Exocets, fired “blind” (i.e. in the general direction of the enemy ship grouping) by the Argentines, from about 20-25 miles out, scored three hits and sank two ships. Imagine what two dozen modern missiles might do (which is why the USN studiously keeps 200 miles plus away from any potential shoreline launch sites).

      1. Tom Stone

        I was thinking more along the lines of the Red Sea, or the open sea as places to use “Slow” attack boats that look innocent.
        If a carrier 200 Miles off the Iranian coast can be attacked, successfully or not, the USN will have to retreat further from the shore.
        Which reduces the effectiveness of carrier based air bigly.

      2. Ed S.

        Thank you for highlighting the topic of anti-ship missiles.

        While all focus is on the Straits themselves, ISTM that the entire Gulf is just a shooting gallery for modern missiles and even drones. The Gulf is about 350km wide at its widest point. Iran can simply say that NO ship will leave without its permission and any that try will be targeted. So even if the US took physical control of the Straits on the shore via ground troops does not prevent Iran from exerting effective control of transit through the Straits.

        What am I missing?

        1. amfortas

          missing:that the usa is currently led(sic) by morons operating on a 60 year old playbook of domination, and based on assumptions of power projection that were last operative and achievable under, maybe, bill clinton. ie: we’re all frelled. truly the worst timeline.

      3. JohnnySacks

        Exocets are ancient tech, their only use would be mixed in with drones as decoys before the real weapons come out, Soviet and Chinese Moskit Sunburn anti ship ramjet missiles. Iran has been buying them for decades and luckily our Navy knows better and hopefully won’t become fish food delivery vehicles.

    1. Revenant

      Interesting. That doesn’t match the broadcast (which is in English) recorded in the Al Jazeera clip above!

  17. dearieme

    I’ve opposed this war from the start – a reckless adventure, and that would be true even if in some sense the USA eventually won. But a war has two sides (or in this case three) and I suspect that nobody outside Iran has any idea of the pressures inside Iran. I don’t mean necessarily the popular pressures – I guess (but do not know) that they could readily be suppressed.

    I’m thinking of the pressures on the rulers. As “revolutionaries” many of them will have made themselves rich. Because that’s what revolutionaries usually do. When will their concern to preserve their riches start to open cracks in that ruling class? I have no idea but I don’t suppose anyone else has either. It might be rather a desperate gamble for the USA to soldier on in hopes that they will crack. But it’s only a gamble – I laugh at claims from people to be in the know and therefore to be certain that no such cracks will appear. They might, they might not. I’d not want to gamble on cracks opening quickly enough to suit the US but then I wouldn’t have gambled on this silly bloody war in the first place.

    In other words I think the Iran-supporters are too cocky in their assessments. I ask “how do you know?” Because I distrust certainty whether from Hegseth or Ayatollah Autopen.

    1. leaf

      I recommend starting with Alastair Crooke’s book, Resistance, the essence of the Islamist Revolution.

    2. Quintian and Lucius

      The Iranian side, notwithstanding having a kinetic advantage, has done an incredible job messaging – it really puts Russia in relief since the Iranians are somehow a better external-propaganda outfit (Russia has not managed to explain or justify itself to westerners at any point this century). That is a partial explanation for alternative media confidence in Iranian tenacity.
      More concretely though we must keep in mind that Iran has been sanctioned to the umpteenth degree for a good long time now. To the extent revolutionary leaders have enriched themselves, and of course I’m not in their books and wouldn’t understand them anyway, is it not plausible that they would’ve done so with relationships unrelated to their current aggressors? Analysts have long made reference to the occidentaphilic class you can find in the InterContinental Tehran Hotel – that cadre has been at arm’s length from power for some time.
      The Russian example is also instructive here. There are a great many of what are called the oligarchs in Russia who, in the year 2006, had very deep relations with and investments in the west. Since then, they’ve seen NATO expansion, sanctions, more sanctions, the mass freeze of Russian assets both formally and supposedly national, and so on. Whatever their original preferences are, it has become clear that working with the west as a Russian is an unreliable gamble. The Iranians have experienced much of the same.

      1. Sean

        Does it make the Russians worse at propaganda if I believe 45% of what they say and 12% of what we say
        ?

    3. Socal Rhino

      I generally prefer to avoid speculation anyway and in this case I always come back to the simple point that the plan for Iran is Libya/Syria and the Iranians know it. They don’t have an acceptable alternative.

    4. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      BECAUSE IRAN AND THE IRGC ARE HONORABLE PEOPLE.

      UNLIKE THE TRUMPIAN EPSTEIN PEDOS WHO LEAD AMERICA.

      IRAN, RUSSIA, CHINA, IRAN, NK, BF, MALI – THESE COUNTRIES FIGHT FOR THEIR PEOPLE AND TELL THE TRUTH.

      THIS AMERICAN 🇺🇸 PATRIOT STANDS WITH HIS BROTHER & SISTER REVOLUTIONARIES IN IRAN 🇮🇷 .

      CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT THEIR COMBINED PEOPLES ECONOMY COMES UP WITH AND MAYBE ONE DAY AMERICA CAN SHARE IN THESE RICHES!

  18. Ann

    Bloomberg: Ukrainian Drone Strikes Push Russian Oil Processing to Lowest Level Since 2009

    https://www.kyivpost.com/post/75186

    Hegseth says clock paused on deadline to seek approval for Iran war

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgz7l5v03po

    Iran threatens ‘long and painful strikes’ on U.S. targets if Trump resumes bombing

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-khamenei-message-hormuz-9.7182478

    Israel just quintupled its PR budget to $730 million; experts say it won’t work

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-just-quintupled-its-pr-budget-to-730-million-experts-say-it-wont-work/amp/

    Ukraine sees path to Japanese arms after Tokyo eases export rules

    https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/ukraine-sees-path-to-japanese-arms-after-tokyo-eases-export-rules

    US Navy turns to AI firm Domino for options to counter Iranian mines

    https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie-reuters/2026/05/01/us-navy-turns-to-ai-firm-domino-for-options-to-counter-iranian-mines

    1. ISL

      I do not need AI to know there are NO solutions to Iranian mines. As I also do not need AI to know there are no military solutions. Now if I could get the Pentagon to send me tens of millions of dollars to expand that sentence into a 100 page report with DeepSeek…. I would be part of everything wrong with Western militaries but richer. Sadly, I was raised not to be a leech or vampire squid.

      I am not going to read that article – but the headline says its marketing for raising capex.

    2. The Rev Kev

      ‘Israel just quintupled its PR budget to $730 million; experts say it won’t work’

      You can’t polish a turd no matter how much money you spend doing so.

      1. hk

        True, but you can cover it with gold colored sh*tflies and pretend that they are gold.

  19. The Rev Kev

    Watched that John Mearsheimer conversation with Daniel Davis and it was pretty good. Mearsheimer came right out and said that the US is screwed. Trump might want to keep the blockade going forever but the pressure will be more on Trump as the world’s economy starts to implode. How long until countries complain publicly how their economies are being wrecked simply because Trump does not want to be seen as the loser in this conflict. Yes, the Iranians have their blockade but they are already legislating their toll booth for the smooth passage of ships in and out of the Gulf. It is Trump that want to stop all ships though the US Navy can’t do it. trump may not care but his stance is wrecking relations with most of the countries in the world.

    1. chuck roast

      I get a bit annoyed with Mearsheimer’s use of the word “regime” to describe the Iranians. So, somehow they are illegitimate? Tens of thousands of people dancing in the streets and thousands more surrounding key infrastructure defying American and Zionist bombs. We should have such a regime and loyal population.

      Which leads me to his use of the word “we.” This warmongering clique and their adjacents are “we”? Really? The “we” I’m thinking of is the “we” that didn’t lose this war. It’s the “we” that are ecstatic at any imperial retreat and humiliation. Or even the “we” that don’t give a fig and simply just want to be left in peace to mind their own business. Mearsheimer, the Realist, should be a little more careful with his words.

    2. amfortas

      when..at what threshold…does the chinese navy show up and say “move aside, please, we got shit to do”?
      from what ive gathered over several years, there aint a damned thing our navy could do at that point.
      a bully is only a bully until he is challenged….as i know from very personal experience.

  20. John Merryman

    Bibi is certainly tugging on one ear, but Mr. Market is definitely tugging on the other ear. Bibi might have the goods, but Mr. Market is just bigger. I think I’m putting my imaginary Polymarket bet on Mr. Market. Not so much because of Trump, but the ground underneath him.

  22. XXYY

    The huge risk at this point is that Iran will either intentionally or unintentionally damage the electrical grid in Middle East countries, perhaps in the course of retaliating to US military strikes.

    Summer is coming in the Middle East and the countries in the region need (a) water and (b) air conditioning for their societies to continue. It’s easy to see that much of the ME is completely uninhabitable if the electric grid goes down for any length of time. This raises the specter of the population of the Middle East having to flee the area and whole countries becoming completely depopulated. From what I have read, this is not a scare story but rather a likely possibility.

    We have seen much of this same effect in Ukraine the last few years as a result of low temperatures rather than high ones.

    Whole societies and populations are teetering on the edge of an abyss in the Middle East as a result of Trump’s and Israel’s war of choice. Of course, this factor will not be given any weight by the morons who run our societies now.

  23. Ann

    Trump Sons Land Massive Military Deal as Family Corruption Grows; Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump also bought a stake in a federally contracted mining company.

    https://newrepublic.com/post/209840/donald-jr-eric-trump-military-deal-mining-company

    Trump Has No Clue What His Supreme Court Has Just Unleashed

    https://newrepublic.com/article/209830/trump-supreme-court-gerrymandering-voting-rights

    ‘Colluding in Broad Daylight’: Trump Praises Louisiana Governor for Suspending Elections

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/louisiana-governor-suspends-elections

    Billions of meals at risk due to Iran war, says fertiliser boss

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwp50v4ye7o

  25. Anthony Martin

    In my estimation, one of Iran’s operational objectives is regime change in the US via collapse of the Trump Presidency. A gallon of gas at the pump is pushing a C-note. At some point, the impact of this will be reflected in the general economy and in the attitude of the voters. The previous statements are connected. Trump this, Trump that, Trump won’t be the individual to resolve the crisis in the Persian Gulf. Where are all the PHDs with their degrees? What is the inflection point of gas prices at the pump? A Side Note: The US Navy has 240 ships. There are some 139 million square miles of ocean. Do the math.

    1. bum

      Hello Anthony,

      A C-note would be $100, the C represents the Roman numeral for 100. A gallon of gas is therefore approaching a V-note

  26. Bill Carson

    Reading all the information about the . . . eight (EIGHT?!?–pathetic!) Dark Eagle missiles, and it occurred to me that the US has a TOP SECRET, but not very secret, SUPER-DUPER weapon at its disposal, and no one in the press or pundit crowd has even picked up on it. It has a purported payload of 250 METRIC TONS!! Talk about your bunker busters! Nobody has ever seen anything like it! There has only been one test-firing of a Dark Eagle missile, but the weapon I’m talking about has been tested ELEVEN TIMES already–six times successfully, give or take. It has never been tested with a real payload, so this is the perfect opportunity! And we can produce these in great numbers–up to 10,000 PER YEAR, according to the company front-man. Who needs drones when you can build 10,000 super-weapons per year? And one of the best things is that it is impervious to Iranian attack, because it would be fired from a small base in South Texas on the Gulf of America.

  27. hoki_haya

    Tulsi’s office sends out continual requests for dialogue, ‘with intelligence agencies or otherwise,’ that the CIA, deeply beholden to Israel, refuses to acknowledge.

    What can I tell you, Tuls? How about this: the President of Iran is a heart-surgeon. His wife and daughter were killed in a car crash early in his career. He did not remarry. He was active in all the resistance to the conflicts we put upon them.

    The question you posed is ‘what would Iran do if America withdrew?’

    i have to say i don’t really understand the question; it still smacks of the self-serving.

    do you think if america admitted it can’t destroy iran that iran would..what? certainly all people have a right to celebrate a victory over fascism, but to understand Shia is to know there is only the desire for life? all your godamn agents ain’t know this? does anyone in the west value life?

    certainly the world will and does note that no, you can’t do everything you want: the world and the souls of its inhabitants are thankfully too vast. the sooner y’all recognize that the better.

    america, this misshapen entity, and the EU in its inherited fascism.

    nice rain comes after the celebratory day of may 1. let it be so simple and enjoyable.

    to answer the question would require a reformulation and reassessment of how you value the lives of your own domestic populace. ‘what would iran do?’
    nothing beyond what you are already doing to yourselves. we wish you would stop chewing on your own bones and spitting the marrow out as something that all must devour.

  28. chuck roast

    Miriam Adelson…I’m into paroxysms right off the dime. But honestly, shouldn’t it be”…the brilliant strategic thinker Miriam Adelson”? OK, all fixed now.

  29. Ann

    Trump ‘unhappy’ with latest Iran proposal, says ‘blast them away or make a deal’

    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/trump-warns-not-sure-were-going-to-get-to-a-deal-with-iran-says-he-is-unsatisfied-with-the-latest-proposal/articleshow/130682367.cms

    Moulton: Hegseth is guilty of war crimes

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5857356-moulton-hegseth-war-crimes/

    The Atlantic: US missile stockpile shortage may be more severe than reported

    https://www.jpost.com/international/article-894527

    Trump Claims It’s “Unconstitutional” for Congress to Keep Him in Check; Donald Trump has hit the 60-day deadline for needing to get congressional approval on his war in Iran.

    https://newrepublic.com/post/209862/donald-trump-claims-unconstitutional-congress-iran

    The National Science Board Fired by Trump was Finalizing a Report on China’s Growing Scientific Edge Over the United States

    https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-04-30/the-national-science-board-ousted-by-trump-was-finalizing-a-report-on-chinas-growing-scientific-edge-over-the-united-states.html

    Exxon Mobil CEO expects higher oil prices due to Iran war: ‘The market hasn’t seen the full impact’

    https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/01/exxon-ceo-iran-war-oil-strait-hormuz.html

    Japan’s low-cost cardboard drones can make war expenses nosedive

    https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/japan-eyes-low-cost-cardboard-drones

    In private, Trump allies tell me they’re done. I know why they’re scared to speak up

    https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-allies-scared-speak-up-4382424

    Majority of Americans say Iran war was a mistake, poll finds

    https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/trump-iran-war-poll-approval-b2969172.html

    1. The Rev Kev

      ‘Japan eyes low-cost cardboard drones that could be hard to detect for military use’

      That’s nothing new. Oz has been building cardboard drones for the Ukrainians for some time now. At least we are not a party to this war. /sarc

  31. Matthew

    Pressure on Trump–from all quarters, including Rs in Congress–is growing by the day. They can’t be doing to much except calculating PR value of ANY move at this stage, squirmin’ and sweatin’. Given Trump’s egomaniacal impulses, my money would be on one last big pyprotechnical outburst (that this may sound ambiguous, emotional or pyrotechnical, says everything) and then a retreat, with a coordinated declaration of victory from as many quarters as possible. Pity Iran that one more huge salvo, if it comes. We HAVE to hope that this means that Trump’s weakened such that declaring martial lost pre-November is a bridge too far, for him, Miller, all the other creeps.

    1. RookieEMT

      It’s gonna get super weird this November but Trump is not gonna get support from the armed forces or police.

      Lunatic Trumpers atop of trucks blocking intersections here and there might be a thing.

  33. Tom Stone

    Trump is not in good health mentally or physically, if he was exposed to some of the expert trolling by Explosive Media or others his resulting tantrum might be too much for his heart.
    People around him are reportedly walking on eggshells and being very careful to protect him from any news that might trigger his rage.
    This is not sustainable, I have seen Families try to appease an elder with dementia because they hoped for an inheritance, and it can work for a while.
    Eventually reality intrudes…

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