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Iran War: Trump Whinges About Iran Proposal, China Rejects New US Secondary Sanctions, Ansar Allah Threatens Saudis

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[This Iran war post launched before complete because existing commitments. I will tweak it a bit upon my return and a final version will be ready by 8:00 AM EDT at the outside]

As Trump normally relishes, he is the center of attention over the epochally-important question of “Will he or won’t he resume attacks on Iran?” Iran is not making this easy for him via refusing to include any porcine maquillage in its latest proposal, although one could argue the mere fact of a proposal is an itty bitty concession. The Wall Street Journal tried to pretty things up on behalf of Trump, claiming in a headline that Iran had softened its stance by dropping its demand that the US needed to end its blockade as a precondition to talks. We pointed out that this was a procedural move only, that there was no sign that Iran had relented on its substantive demands, and that that give was offset by what Team Trump was likely to view as an even bigger take, that of deferring discussion of nuclear issues to focus on Strait of Hormuz and other immediate conflict matters. Recall that many commentators suggested that a possible Trump face-saver would be to get an improvement on nuclear enrichment terms compared to the JCPOA, such as no sunset, and call that a win in the face of other massive climbdowns. Iran is not allowing even that.1

Per Drop Site:2

Our reading yesterday was that Trump looked inclined to restart the conflict. His latest signals are consistent with that:

Admittedly, Trump sets out to make it hard to read what he thinks he is up to. But acceding to Iran’s terms is not winning. Hitting Iran is winning until Iran hits back.

In keeping, reader Ann just flagged new Reuters story, Trump says there is possibility US could restart strikes on Iran:

U.S. President ​Donald ​Trump told reporters ⁠on ​Saturday that ​there is the possibility ​the ​United States could ‌restart ⁠strikes on Iran.

Trump ​was ​responding ⁠to a ​reporter’s ​question ⁠at West Palm ⁠Beach ​in ​Florida.

Daniel Davis gives some sound reactions (The archiving sites are currently not responding, so forgive me for relying on tweets rather than Axios source material):

And of course Israel is busy throwing spanners:

Armchair Warlord makes a bigger, if also distressing, observation, that the embarrassing chest-thumping and loud-mouthing-in-lieu-of-logic that is Hegseth’s signature has become common in the armed services…so common that it is not even seen as a disease:

On the kinetic front, all we have are informational tidbits. A wave of military transport planes have left the Gulf, which could indicate movement of material out, or backhaul flights to bring in yet more kit, or simply returning after having completed their rounds. Nevertheless:

The start of this talk will probably be unduly basic for most readers, but Professor Hanke soon makes some important points. He makes his own computation of inflation rates based on daily data and claims Iran’s is at over 100%. But he then states that that does not matter regarding their war posture, they can take a lot of pain and regard this war as existential. He is also an adviser to the UAE government and has developed an optimal oil production model for them. He says he expected the UAE to leave OPEC for the last 2 1/2 years based on that, it was just a matter of timing. He also says the UAE request for dollar swap lines is overblown (and the request has not yet been granted). It is more a free rainy day insurance policy than a sign of imminent need (although I expect that need to materialize faster than Hanke seems to think). They also point out that he average amount of oil on hand in Asia is only about 3 weeks, with Pakistan at only 3 days (Thailand is currently at 108). And Iran is not able to fill Pakistan’s energy hole.3

Janta Ka highlights the escalating row between the US and China over the US imposing secondary sanctions on five Chinese companies:

More from Aljazeeera’s live blog:

China attempts to block US sanctions on companies buying Iran oil

We reported earlier on how the US slapped sanctions on Chinese entities deemed to be involved in the Iranian oil trade, prompting Beijing to denounce Washington’s“ long-arm jurisdiction”.

Now the Chinese Ministry of Commerce has issued ⁠an injunction to block the US sanctions, which were imposed on five Chinese companies accused of buying Iranian ⁠oil.

The ministry named the five as Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery, ⁠Shandong Jincheng Petrochemical Group, Hebei Xinhai Chemical Group, Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical and Shandong Shengxing Chemical, according to the state news agency Xinhua.

It was not immediately clear how the injunction would be enforced.

The issue here is that China cannot do much to stop the US measure, which seems likely to lead as least some companies to restrict their dealing with these Chinese entities. However, the Chinese formal oppostion does set up retaliatory measures, which might force the US to back down.

Janta Ka also features Larry Johnson lambasting the US blockade. However, we again feel compelled to clear our throat. Yes, this move is utterly embarrassing by the standard of a typical military blockade, intended to prevent the delivery of weapons (as in the Cuban missile crisis) or critical material like fuel. In those cases, the aim is close to 100% effectiveness.

Here, even though the US would no doubt like to achieve that, 80/20 is more than good enough to limit oil shipments from Iran (and incidentally other countries, which is why this move to hurt Iran also extends that harm to bystanders). Very few ship operators are willing to risk having vessels captured or damaged, or have crew members jailed or hurt. While I do not know for sure, it seems vanishingly unlikely that war insurance would cover damage or loss of use resulting from running the blockage. That is an operator choice to put the vessel in harm’s way and not innocent victimhood.

And by happenstance, an 80% reduction in Iranian exports is a good guess as to what has taken place. From Alarabiya (hat tip Rui):

With some vessels switching off tracking systems and US forces turning back Iranian tankers, how much crude Iran is delivering to customers, particularly main customer China, is impossible to measure.

Just a handful of carriers carrying Iranian crude have left the Gulf of Oman between April 13-25, oil analytics firm Vortexa said. That’s down over 80 percent from a comparable period in March, when Iran exported 23.4 million barrels, LSEG data shows.

Some of Tehran’s vessels have been intercepted by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.

“At this stage, we estimate that around 4 million barrels of Iranian crude has successfully moved out of the Gulf of Oman. We are not currently able to confirm whether any of those vessels have since been interdicted,” it said in an email to Reuters.

Mind you, even if one can argue the blockade is not as unsuccessful as the embarrassing evasions suggest, it’s still a big loser for the US. First, even this shabby version is very costly. Second, as Trita Parsi explains, Trump self-checked the much-better-for-US-version of a simple ceasefire with the Strait reopening under Iranian management (the US would retain the option of trying to interfere at some later juncture):

Reader urdsama also said yesterday:

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.

Iranian politician and senior IRCG officer Dr. Mohsen Rezaee suggests that the right way to deal with US piracy is to target its aircraft carriers:

Skirmishes and blockade-running continue:

As we pointed out longer-form, Iran has been ramping up other oil export routes, such as via rail to China and through 6 new corridors Pakistan has just opened up.

Iraq is also finding ways to get around the strangulation of the Strait of Hormuz:

Even so, it is not clear how quickly or fully they can compensate for the squeeze on sea-bound exports

Ansar Allah is also threatening escalation against the Saudis, and this warning seems to come out of their own grievances with Riyadh, as opposed to assist Iran (although the fact that Saudi Arabia is already stressed gives Ansar Allah more leverageP. This tweet is from an Ansar Allah spokesperson:

Not clear if this is related to the Ansar Allah saber-rattling:

Some additional economic news sightings. Conditions in Australia are grim:

It is surprising that Thailand is in a much better (but still not great) reserve position than Australia.

Violating the rule, “If making predictions, make them often” [so as to cover as much territory as possible and hopefully later hoist some correct calls], Trump is not going to engage in serious negotiations with Iran. Not only has he not done so far, he does not even know what that amounts to and lacks the personnel who could execute. So any negotiations would be to cheer up Mr. Market and perhaps (in Trump’s mind) give him a better pretext for whatever his next move were to be.

Trump does have a couple of less awful paths, in terms of reducing collateral damage. One is to simply flounce off, repeating his falsehood that the US does not need the Strait of Hormuz and other states need to open it. A second is a weak attack, importantly not on Iranian energy assets, critical infrastructure, or cities so as to hopefully escape the sort of brutal strikes on Gulf state energy production that Iran has vowed. Chas Freeman pointed out early on that under the Shah, Iran seized three small islands, Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, that emirs in the UAE saw as their possessions. Grabbing them would make the UAE happy and their lack of other importance might mean that Iran would only make a relatively minor counterattack (say further pulverizing one of the already largely-wrecked US bases).

Oh, and in any version of stomping off, Trump is sure to fire Hegseth. But how he tells Zionists he had to stand down still makes less dreadful outcomes seem remote.

____

1 Iran does have a valid point: the JCPOA negotiations took years.

2 I was not able to find any account on the English version of Tasnim, both scanning articles and via a site search.

3 Professor Hanke gives the impression that Iran can’t provide enough even on an absolute basis, but Iran already has commitments to China and so has only so much it can send to other nations, plus its heavy sour crude is not a perfect

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141 comments

  1. Ignacio

    The “easy”, inertial, default way for the US is to double down on everything they have been doing for decades: sanctions, bombing, embargoes… with the recent addition of sea piracy which is another way of doubling down. The mechanisms are there ready to go for it and the chains of command are too used to this. I don’t see Trump as anyone ready and willing to break that tradition.

    1. Cocomaan

      Plus continuing this strategy until someone in Iran launches a missile gives them permission to invade, which is what some parties would love to see happen.

    2. JohnnyGL

      3 weeks ago, I’d have agreed with you, wholeheartedly. But, now, I’m starting to wonder why they’re dithering so much? They’ve already moved as many relevant military assets as they need to the area. If they’re going to shoot, they’re as ready as they can get.

      So, what gives?

      Well, Trump seems to think the blockade is working. And, as Yves points out, it is, to a degree, in that it’s reducing imports/exports and causing hardship, and the situation seems to be deteriorating.

      Plus, we need to point how how bizarrely successful the market manipulation has been. This administration is hell-bent on keeping markets happy, and they are winning for the moment by that metric.

      The real world metric of retail gasoline prices tells a different story. But this is DC, where reality is rarely allowed to intrude on their political agenda.

      So, how long can this go on for? Well, one lesson from history is that markets can disconnect from reality for months on end, but the eventual hangover becomes that much worse. How many terrible subprime mortgages were issued in the 1st half of 2007 that never should have been issued if the correct market signals were allowed to pass through?

      I think this connects with the AI bubble, too. There’s a huge number of big, consolidated companies and market players that really want to keep pretending everything is fine when it’s very much NOT fine at all. The more effort these players put into maintaining and pumping the bubble, well, that means that disconnect from reality can last longer. This isn’t about the Trump Administration and a rogue president in DC. It’s about congress, it’s about the political culture of they moneyed class of DC and the coalition of domestic and international forces that have every incentive to keep this party going as is.

      I think we need a framework which ties in several bubbles of disconnect from reality, there’s the AI tech bubble, the military industrial complex bubble, the pentagon’s internal bubble and culture of insulation from accountability, the oil industry bubble, the imperial arrogance bubble and foreign policy interventionist bubble. Last, but certainly not least, there’s a the corporate consolidation problem and financial architecture that fuses all these things together in a consolidated way we haven’t seen previously.

      So, obviously, a deeper analysis of the above is beyond my pay grade, but what are things that can break the present situation of an unstable temporary equalibrium (as Alexander Mercouris has described)?

      1) Iran Breaks it.
      2) The US breaks it.
      3) Something outside penetrates and breaks it. Houthis? Israel?

      1) The blockade causes enough pain that the IRGC starts to feel like it’s being ground down to bits like Syria was ground down and worries about internal discipline and stability start to become a problem as the feeling of unity and excitement from the war starts to wear off. This would probably take months, at least. Iranian society seems poised and patient for a fight.

      2) I think the markets are the thing to watch here. This is the factor that the elite forces I described above care about so much. It’s the thing that binds them together. The administration only justifies the present blockade as winning because the markets seem content for now.
      A) If the deterioration in the real economy causes a wave of bad earnings warnings, that could tank markets.
      B) If one of the Gulf regimes suffers a financial break down because of budget problems and has to start liquidating assets, that could cause a cascade. The UAE dollar swap hints at this becoming a problem, albeit contained for the moment.
      C) There is a strong gravitational pull on oil prices to go higher. The temptation to arbitrage the backwardation in oil markets has to be strong. Buying 1-2 month oil futures and just holding to maturity seems like easy money, if you can stomach the roller-coaster. Oil traders have to be itching to do this to a greater degree than at present.

      3) Israel actually seems remarkably content to chew on Southern Lebanon for the moment. I think they’re reigned in their appetite for destruction and reduced it into bite-sized morsels for now. They’ve still got their hands full dealing with Hezbollah at a distance. It’s costing them a lot in terms of personnel. How long can this last?

      Anyone else have ideas on what’s going to disrupt the present ‘unstable equalibrium’?

      1. Wukchumni

        When Lutnick testified before the House that 1 Gold Card had enabled someone to attain American citizenship, after claiming 1,000 had been sold some months ago, was a huge tell.

        To yours truly, it’s a Bizarro World example of McGovern’s gaffe of 1972~

        I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket.

        I think we are pretty close to the end of this long playing charade on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but how the curtain comes down, is yet to be determined.

        “Yesterday, I sold a thousand.”

        https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HG4JszQET4s

      2. Howard L

        Iran announcing a few functioning nuclear weapons might change the calculus but this is short term very unlikely but long term a very possible outcome.

        1. Wukchumni

          Khan!

          Pakistan gives the nuclear genie to North Korea, but not Iran?

          Abdul Qadeer Khan[a] NI & BAR, HI, FPAS (1 April 1936 – 10 October 2021) was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgical engineer. He is colloquially known as the “father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program”

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

        2. JohnnyGL

          They won’t do that in the short-medium term. At least not until this war is truly over.

          They really need to keep Russia and China onside. Overtly testing a bomb would cause difficulty with those relationships, at least in the short term, even if they’d get over it, eventually.

          Those two countries reducing their support levels puts the Iranian war effort at risk in a way they won’t want to risk.

            1. Yves Smith Post author

              That was a primitive “gun” type bomb. Not in use now, so not a germane example:

              Gun-type fission weapons are fission-based nuclear weapons whose design assembles their fissile material into a supercritical mass by the use of the “gun” method: shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another. Although this is sometimes pictured as two sub-critical hemispheres driven together to make a supercritical sphere, typically, a hollow projectile is shot onto a cylindrical spike, which fills the hole in its center. Its name is a reference to the fact that it is shooting the material through an artillery barrel as if it were a projectile. Developed and deployed by the Manhattan Project, gun-type designs were quickly replaced by the more efficient implosion-type weapons.

              All known gun-type fission weapons have used highly enriched uranium (HEU). The high spontaneous fission rates of plutonium isotopes make it very impractical for use in gun-type designs, as in the abandoned Thin Man design. Additionally, the efficiency is low, increasing the amount of HEU required and weapon weight. The main reason for this is the fissile material does not undergo compression (and resulting density increase) as does the implosion design. Instead, gun-type bombs assemble the supercritical mass by amassing such a large quantity of uranium that the overall distance through which daughter neutrons must travel has so many mean free paths it becomes very probable most neutrons will find uranium nuclei to collide with, before escaping the supercritical mass. HEU could be more efficiently used by the composite cores of early implosion-type weapons….

              The method was applied in four known US programs. First, the “Little Boy” weapon which was detonated over Hiroshima and several additional units of the same design prepared after World War II, in 40 Mark 8 bombs, and their replacement, 40 Mark 11 bombs. Both the Mark 8 and Mark 11 designs were intended for use as earth-penetrating bombs (see nuclear bunker buster), for which the gun-type method was preferred for a time by designers who were less than certain that early implosion-type weapons would successfully detonate following an impact. The second program was a family of 11-inch (280 mm) nuclear artillery shells, the W9 and its derivative W19, plus a repackaged W19 in a 16-inch (406 mm) shell for US Navy battleships, the W23. The third family was an 8-inch (203 mm) artillery shell, the W33.

              South Africa also developed six nuclear bombs based on the gun-type principle, and was working on missile warheads using the same basic design – See South Africa and weapons of mass destruction.

              There are currently no known gun-type weapons in service: advanced nuclear weapon states tended to abandon the design in favor of the implosion-type weapons, which were also used to create boosted fission weapons and thermonuclear weapons. All known gun-type nuclear weapons previously built worldwide have been dismantled.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon

              1. hereweare

                Why not a germane example? If Iran wanted nuclear weapons quickly, might it not go for the simplest method, at the cost of weight and efficiency? Iran might need to design a delivery system that can cope with the weight, but that might be easier and quicker than designing an implosion bomb that probably would need testing.

                1. InquiringMind

                  It wouldn’t be a true threat because they’d need to deliver it in a B29 bomber.

                  2. JohnnyGL

                    Well, they’ve already gotten close. They did bomb a US base with an old US-made F-5!!!

            2. Paradox of Unrealized Power

              As an aside, it is very possible that Iran has actually reached the stage of not requiring Uranium as a first stage of a thermonuclear device.

              If so, this would turn out to be a fascinating development

      3. lyman alpha blob

        I don’t have an answer to your question, but on a related note, I do wonder about the lack of discussion in the corporate media about this blatant market manipulation by the US government. We have heard the gospel of ‘free markets’ preached for decades now. You’d think some capitalists might complain about Uncle Sugar’s finger placed on the scales. But instead it’s crickets. I suppose if the blatant manipulation makes all the right people richer, nobody bothers to call out the heresy.

        1. jsn

          The Upton Sinclair moment, “ It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”, can linger languidly as it inflates its Minsky moment.

          Twenty years of QE is torquing invisible, private and sovereign balance sheets around the world into pretzel shapes impossible to achieve without digital fiat.

          The vastness of the stash of privately held dollar claims is an unmapped and at present mappable territory. The drawing of that map will likely reveal a vast crater.

      4. Timmy

        To your point, at the very beginning of the war, Richard Bookstaber wrote a column in the NY Times on March 16 that was linked by Yves in the daily Iran War NC post. It was entitled “I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse”

        He argues essentially what you reference….

        Markets treat AI, private credit, mega-cap tech, energy, Taiwan, and Iran as separate stories.
        In reality, they are one tightly coupled system.
        AI infrastructure depends on electricity, semiconductors, financing, and geopolitical stability.
        Energy shocks from Iran ripple directly into AI economics.
        Therefore what looks like multiple macro trades is really one interconnected fragility network.

        You are seeking to understand what breaks first and causes the entire network to unravel.

        1. JohnnyGL

          Indeed, I am!

          I didn’t foresee the war having a unifying effect on this constellation of forces in the direction of just closing everyone’s eyes to physical realities. But, the AI crowd knows how to play this game very well, they just need to extend this strategy into the energy space. And, for two months, it’s been working out reasonably well for them. They’ll continue doing so until it stops working.

      5. ilsm

        “They”, are the product of the MIC. “They” may be as ready as they can but….

        That “ready” is several orders of magnitude less than needed to successfully operate against Iran. Whatever “success” might be IDK!

        In terms of shock and awe, the example of Linebacker II “they” are hugely short of that force, and Iran is at least 5 times the challenge that North Vietnam posed in late 1972.

        The ground attack. The entire U.S. war making establishment is far short of necessary forces and even worse in inadequate logistics.

        Iran is 8000 miles from U.S.! US de-industrialization means it is years (a decade) to refill the U.S.’ weapons’ magazines.

        Trump will shoot, he will send an insignificant commando. He will send more profit to MIC.

        In the end Trump’s Iran game will be bigger mistake than GWOT.

        He will make Iran pay for ousting his Shah.

      6. TimH

        I think this connects with the AI bubble, too. There’s a huge number of big, consolidated companies and market players that really want to keep pretending everything is fine when it’s very much NOT fine at all. The more effort these players put into maintaining and pumping the bubble, well, that means that disconnect from reality can last longer.

        When OpenAI has gone public, and the insiders have sold their stock grants, THEN the AI bubble will be allowed to collapse.

        2. ilsm

          OpenAI IPO submission if true and complete will torpedo AI bubble.

          Cash raised for capex is keeping them “solvent”. While reporting only earnings before immense interest expenses is acceptable to media pushing certain AI dogma.

        3. JohnnyGL

          Can they keep the party going quite that long? I’d certainly agree that OpenAI seems to be a hugely important piece of the puzzle that has become TBTF among the tech-bro crowd. This is in spite of the fact that they burn through cash at a furious pace.

      7. InquiringMind

        It also seems like Trump might be viewing the strategic oil reserves (of the US and other meaningful* nations) as house money: he’s got time to play the options while those resources are cushioning things.

        * ie, not scheiß-holes

        1. ilsm

          SPR is 397 million barrels as of last week. Commercial crude stock drawing as well.

          Effect to reduce U.S. imports. Some may be net exports.

    3. .Tom

      I think so too, Ignacio. This whole mess with missiles, bombs, fighter jets, and aircraft carriers just isn’t very effective in political terms. If you want to beat up an imperial foe or get a reluctant ally back in line, what tools are available? I’d say #1 is financial, and #2 is economic. American institutions taking care of the dollar and international banking are one weapon here and it’s being used at about its limit these days. What the empire can ramp up is using the navy to disrupt sea trade.

      Ofc without a sensible strategy within which to operationalize those weapons there’s not much point but it’s not clear that this empire does strategy any more.

      Btw, you got your comment timestamped more than 2 hours before the page went online. I’m impressed!

  2. The Rev Kev

    ‘Recall that many commentators suggested that a possible Trump face-saver would be to get an improvement on nuclear enrichment terms compared to the JCPOA, such as no sunset, and call that a win in the face of other massive climbdowns.’

    Going by memory here but I believe that just before Trump launched the war on Iran, that the Iranians made an offer of a nuclear deal in the negotiations which included a no-sunset proposal in it. It was a great deal but then Witkoff went and told Trump that the Iranians said that they told him that had enough enriched uranium for eleven nukes and Trump actually believed him. But then again, this war was never about Iran’s nuclear industry but was all about breaking up Iran and stealing their oil.

  3. dearieme

    From the Daily Telegraph:

    “That moron Trump had better stop bombing Iran. If not, he could easily start World War 12.”

    1. JohnH

      Funny symptom of the younger generation’s unfamiliarity with Roman numerals. I saw some other person standing behind a podium, reading from the script about World War Eleven (WW II.)

          1. Martin Oline

            Made me look, but the telegraph is restricted to users. Yahoo spilled the beans with this:

            “The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, it was used to detain and deport German, Japanese and Italian immigrants during World War II.” Unfortunately, though, it would appear that Ms Omar is unfamiliar with Roman numerals.

            Because instead, she solemnly intoned the immortal words: “during World War Eleven”.

      2. Lowell Sherris

        They can’t read an analog clock or read cursive either. But, is that really more important than knowing lots of pronouns?

        1. hereweare

          – while apparently not knowing the difference between pronouns and adjectives.

  4. sporble

    Small – but relevant? – typo in the text above the 2nd Drop Site tweet:
    Seems it should read “… IRAQ (not Iran) has been ramping up other oil export routes…”

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      No, Iran has been ramping up other oil export routes as we described. It has a rail link to China, opened in 2025, through which it plans to send more supply. It will take advantage of the six routes Pakistan has also opened up. Russia wants to be as helpful to Iran as it reasonably can be, so perhaps shipment to/through Russia is an option.

      I agree the tweet with the Iraq sending oil via Syria was mis-placed in light of that and will revise.

      1. upstater

        While there are railways connecting China and Iran, they transit former Soviet republics. There are news reports of merchandise trains completing that route, with 15 day transit times. These are similar to the China-EU trains but those require transfer containers to 1520mm cars at the Kazakhstan border and back to 1435mm at the EU borders.

        I cannot find any links indicating that that the China-Iran rail line has been entirely re-gauged to 1435mm (standard gauge) from the USSR 1520mm. That would be essential for oil trains. Further, as I commented a few days ago moving a quarter or half of Iran’s oil going to China, it would require hundreds of trains (loads and empties) in motion on that route. Not to mention hundreds of locomotives and thousands of tank cars. The line transits many mountain ranges, where operations are very challenging. Iran oil movements would require massive infrastructure on a torturous route of several thousand kilometers.

        This surely can be done, but moving Powder River Basin coal at scale took a decade to develop and 2 decades for huge tonnage. It was 100+ daily trains of ~125 cars and 12-15,000 tons.

        1. Alanp

          Not sure how it works with oil wagons, but with passenger coaches and some freight, the wheel sets are changed at the border. Coaches are jacked up, wheels pulled out, other guage rolled in. Takes about an hour or two

          1. Polar Socialist

            Not on the border, really. Iran has about 100 km of rails in the “Soviet” gauge for cross border traffic, so the switch happens in the closest marshalling yard/transport hub.

            I believe oil is transported in standard containers, basically a cylinder within a steel frame, which should be relatively easy to lift from a flatbed car to another.

          2. upstater

            Oil in North America is not transported in containers, rather in tank cars having a maximum loaded weight of 89,000 kg and 35,000 gallons. Oil trains. have 90 cars carrying 75,000 barrels and 2 or 3 locomotives. Switching wheelsets (trucks in the US) would be a huge effort on carloads of a hazardous product. Between China and Kazakhstan some freight cars switch wheelsets, but container trains transload boxes between flat cars of different gauges. Passenger coaches are much lighter weight and only 10-20 cars.

  6. The Rev Kev

    That video by Channel 7 News at the bottom is pretty accurate. The Oz government is doing all it can to pretend that all is well and that there is nothing to worry about instead of getting people prepared for what is coming. Wife is filling up the car as often as she can but the big worry is what happens when diesel fuel runs short meaning trucks restocking supermarkets? John Blackburn makes the point that short term politics trump actual actual planning and he is right. We’re doomed I tell ya, doomed!

    1. leaf

      It looks increasingly likely that Mad Max will be seen as a documentary and not entertainment
      Grim!

    2. Some Guy in Jeju

      It’s the same here in South Korea. They’re promoting May as the “Month to Travel” even as the country is no longer exporting jet fuel and the president is scrambling behind the scenes together secure access to naptha, plastics, LNG, and oil.

      The government previously came out with a weak little “public employees only get to drive to work four days each week” campaign, while also subsidizing the cost gasoline.

      They’re going to just keep the wheels turning, making it all the more painful when things actually do get worse.

  7. Yves Smith Post author

    All done! Please refresh this page and re-skim for added material if you arrived before the time of this comment.

  8. Sibiriak

    urdsama: The “double-tap” attack on the girls school on the first day of the attack, resulting in over 150 girls being killed.. .
    ————————————————————–

    FWIW:

    Press TV and other Iranian media reported that the death toll from a strike on a primary school in Minab has been revised to 155 people.

    The figures include 73 boys and 47 girls killed in the attack, which occurred on the first day of the war on 28 February.

    The reports said 26 teachers, seven parents, a school bus driver and a pharmacist also died in the strike. The updated total is lower than earlier estimates of more than 175 fatalities, according to state media.

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/iran-revises-minab-school-bombing-death-toll-155?topic=War%2520on%2520Iran&nid=436636&fid=554470

      1. Sibiriak

        Amnesty International, 16 March 2026:

        Both girls and boys attended the school and were taught on separate floors.

        * * * * *

        According to the Iranian authorities, 156 people were killed in the attack. On 3 March 2026 , the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency announced that at least 110 school children were among the dead, comprising 66 boys and 54 girls, as well as 26 teachers and four parents.

        On 7 March 2026, the authorities published a collage containing the images of 119 children killed. Due to the ongoing internet blackout and no access to the country to inspect the site and interview affected people, Amnesty International is unable to independently corroborate the number of people killed.
        ———————————————————————————-

        Wikipedia :

        156 people were killed in the strike; the victims included 120 students (73 boys and 47 girls), 26 teachers (all of whom were women), seven parents of students (four men and three women), a school bus driver, a pharmacy technician from a nearby clinic, and a six-month-old fetus. [6]

        [6] links to an Iranian source .

      2. Skip Kaltenheuser

        Iran’s effort to eventually get casualty details right seems impressive, in high contrast to the US and Israel.

        Regarding the Minab facility, single-gender, required by law, requires girls and boys not be in the same classroom and not be on the same floor. Initial reports assuming student deaths were all girls confused this.

        The bigger issue is if the triple-tap strike on the primary school, one of the first targets, was deliberate.

        I attended a long but insightful briefing by the Eisenhower News Network comparing the false intelligence behind the invasion of Iraq to the false intelligence pushing attacks on Iran. Speakers/panelists were all veterans, most of them also former intelligence officials.

        4:49 into the briefing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOpsunua7Bg, I asked the panelists if the strikes on the school, which had a number of children of Iranian officials, was deliberately done to demoralize Iranians as we’ve seen so often done to Palestinians.

        The replies expressed uniform certainty it was both deliberate and previously known that the target was a primary school. They elaborated on both the technologies and protocols involved. For example, cameras on Tomahawk missiles and the ability to abort/redirect right up to the hit, and the highly detailed satellite mapping of every square inch. The school had a website, with images of colorful murals on the exterior walls. Google Earth showed the blue roof.

        At another part of the presentation, former army intelligence captain Josie Guilbeau was emphatic on the matter, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWc15GFkaA

        Israel has done a fine job getting America to mirror its depravity.

        1. Sibiriak

          Why would Guilbeau claim so emphatically in that video (live-streamed on March 26th) that “165 little girls” were killed, when that figure clearly contradicted Iran’s own well-publicized updated reports?

          1. Skip Kaltenheuser

            Earlier than the updates.

            Focus on the tech and protocols described.

            1. Sibiriak

              “Earlier than the updates. “

              No. 23 days after.

              March 3rd : “..,the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency announced that at least 110 school children were among the dead, comprising 66 boys and 54 girls, as well as 26 teachers and four parents. ” (later changed to 73 boys 47 girls, etc.)

              See posts above.

              March 26th : Live-stream with Guilbeau.

            2. Sibiriak

              The Minab attack was a horrific war crime involving, at the very least , criminal negligence. But there’s no reason to keep repeating the “150-165 girls killed” line, imo, as it is factually inaccurate and only undermines the credibility of those who continue to use it.

  9. les online

    US backed Baluchistan terrorists recently attacked Chinese BRI engineers. Israel recently bombed a section of the BRI China-Iran railway infrastructure… BRI and IMAC are competitors…
    Trump and his cronies stand to make oodles from IMAC (As do Certain Israelis)…
    Trump is using US defense forces to further his own Middle East business interests – IMAC… Iranian missiles pose a major threat to IMAC infrastructure… The next sneak attack against Iran will be as soon as the best guestimate at how much damage to US Gulf allies oil and water Irandoes is considered “Acceptable” is arrived at… Iran’s missile capability must be totally destroyed
    The mid-terms may be a factor influencing Trump, but it a mistake to give them over-riding importance… Trump aint gonna give up on IMAC. He’ll use whatever US defence forces necessary to protect his private Middle East business interests…
    https://classautonomy.info/united-arab-emirates-exits-opec-the-end-of-the-petrodollar-and-the-rise-of imec/

  10. Wukchumni

    Why wouldn’t all of the commercial airlines be in the same position as the late Spirit in the sky?

    When airlines die and they lay them to rest
    Gonna go on the carrier that’s next best
    When the Ramadan War caused them to die
    Not goin’ up on Spirit in the sky
    Not goin’ up on Spirit in the sky
    That’s not where I’m gonna go when they die
    When they die and they lay them to rest
    Gonna go on the carrier that’s next best

    Prepare yourself you know it’s a must
    Gotta have another airline lined up when they bust
    So you know that when they die
    They’re not gonna recommend you
    Fly on Spirit in the sky
    Not gonna recommend you
    Fly on Spirit in the sky
    That’s where airlines go when they die
    When they die and they lay them to rest
    You’re gonna go on the carrier that’s next best

    Never been a flier on Spirit. I never flied
    I got a friend named Daedalus
    So you know that when they die
    They’re gonna set me up with an alternative
    To Spirit in the sky
    Oh set me up with a plan B for Spirit in the sky
    That’s where I’m gonna be when they die
    When they die and they lay me off as a guest
    I’m gonna go on the carrier that’s next best
    Go on the carrier that’s next best

    Spirit in the Sky, by Norman Greenbaum

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZQxH_8raCI&list=RDAZQxH_8raCI

    1. ChrisFromGA

      17,000 jobs lost because of Taco’s ego and poor impulse control.

      This is tangible economic devastation for all 17k employees and their families, unlike paper futures “muckets” that can be manipulated or rigged “consumer confidence” surveys. I laughed at the economic dolt Sean Duffy protesting that “we didn’t kill Spirit, it was a failing company.” Spirit had a plan to emerge from Chapter 11, a plan that was strangled in the crib by the high jet fuel prices that were a “but for” cause of its ultimate demise.

      Actions have consequences. Tacos’ pathological ego spreads devastation and ruin in its wake.

      Plan B for fliers is to suck it up and pay higher fares, with fewer options.

      1. Late Introvert

        Feel bad about the jobs, but people need to stop flying. My friends and family get mad about me saying that, but it is true.

  11. Samuel Conner

    Might political developments in Israel (October ’26 Knesset election) change the calculus for DJT somewhat?

    Not a cheery thought that we might have to wait that long.

  12. The Rev Kev

    ‘under the Shah, Iran seized three small islands, Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, that emirs in the UAE saw as their possessions. Grabbing them would make the UAE happy and their lack of other importance might mean that Iran would only make a relatively minor counterattack (say further pulverizing one of the already largely-wrecked US bases).’

    I don’t think that that is a viable option. The EAU could militarize those islands like they have already done with another island in the region. These islands also flank the shipping lanes that Iran is setting up and would be in a position to perform an over watch function, a risk that Iran could well do without. And giving up territory to the UAE is definitely not on Iran’s bingo card for this war.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      The UAE can militarize with what exactly? It depends on the US. And do you think Iran will let ship carrying much of anything get near? It reserves the right to inspect all ship entering the Strait.

      They are near the old shipping lane but not the new one Iran has implemented in its territorial waters.

      If the Iran war is reduced to tit for tat attacks on these islands, that would be a monster improvement in where this might go kinetically.

      1. Alanp

        From reading Iranian PressTv website over past years, I think you are underestimating the importance that Iran places on these islands.

  13. Victor Sciamarelli

    Venezuela and Iraq sell their oil yet the money is deposited in the US and controlled by the US. According to the NYT, the US is currently blocking all dollar shipments to Iraq and demanding Iraq distance itself from Iran. This will only further destabilize Iraq’s economy and the region. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/world/middleeast/iraq-us-dollars-shipment-iran.html
    By executive order declaring a national emergency, “President Donald J. Trump Safeguards Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People” https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-safeguards-venezuelan-oil-revenue-for-the-good-of-the-american-and-venezuelan-people/
    If Trump, Bessent, Lutnick et al., control your money; rest assured.
    Trump is all about domination and with control of much of the oil he would dominate China and the world. At least Trump has not said that Iran stole America’s oil like he claimed Venezuela had done. Nonetheless, control of Iran’s oil sales, and perhaps the entire region’s oil sales, all of which would flow to the US under US/team Trump’s control, would be the mother of all wet dreams for Trump and which likely convinced him to attack Iran on 2/28. Meanwhile, annex Canada and Greenland later.
    Moreover, as Trump lies constantly, it’s hard to believe the chaos is all about his “Iran will never have a nuclear bomb” goal. Besides, from Iran’s point of view, prior to the war, it didn’t make much sense to develop a nuke anyway. There are serious players in the region: Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Starting a nuke arms race was not in Iran’s interest. Now, faced with Israel out of control pursuing its own agenda and Trump in charge, Iran now plays a different game.

    1. Bill Carson

      …his “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” goal…

      I think they’ve stuck with that as the casus belli because that was the justification that polled least unfavorably with their focus groups.

  14. The Rev Kev

    ‘Middle East Observer
    @ME_Observer_
    ⭕️⚡️ Hebrew Channel 14:
    Hezbollah is increasing the pace of fire in an attempt to thwart negotiations between Israel and the Lebanese government and impose a new equation.’

    Just goes to show you that the Lebanese government is just like most governments – always ready to sell out their people and country so long as the price is right. Hezbollah, channeling their inner King Leonidas, replies-

    ‘If you want our weapons, come take them.’

  15. jefemt

    I was struck by the photo of the Pentagon, DC, the parking lots at the Pentagon.
    One driver per car, I assume. I wonder if the DC Pentagon fuel use is included in the stats regarding the US military being the prime single user of dino-fuels. Not even a rounding error.

    Over hill, over dale, the caissons go rolling along. Next stop… just desserts.

    1. Goingnowhereslowly

      I’ve lived in DC for more than 30 years. Never been to the Pentagon, but I can tell you that two of our subway lines stop there and it’s a major hub for bus lines. Additionally, lots of housing has been built nearby over the past decade or two. I worked at another federal agency where we had a pretty robust carpooling program, but I can’t say if such still exists at the Pentagon or ever did.

      All of this is a long way of saying that lots of people are working at or visiting the Pentagon on any given day who didn’t drive themselves there in a single occupant vehicle. It’s just that big and that busy. Which is an indicator of a different sort.

      Of course your larger point stands: the U.S. military has a huge carbon footprint as well as causing other environmental harms. I went to the Arlington burial of the brother of a colleague, a colonel who served in Iraq. He died in middle age of a cancer that has been linked to the many burn pits we lit there. I’m told many shared this fate.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Heh, literally there’s Pentagon City, a stop on the subway. Big mall there.

      2. scott s.

        Pentagon South Parking had at least in my day, various locations for “slug lines”. “Slugs” were commuters who made themselves available as riders so a driver could meet the HOV-3 requirement to use the I-395 express lanes. This was in the days before electronic tolling and the ability to set variable pricing that I guess allows anyone to use the express lanes if they pay. Different spots were self-organized to drop off (and pick up in the morning commute) at various NoVa locations.

        In one of her jobs my wife ran the communications and networks for the Joint Staff. Her directorate controlled the parking passes allocated to the Joint Staff and since her folks were 24/7 her office actually doled them out. Very hard to get, even if you were a designated car pool which was required for most parking.

        I think might have been one tiny “open parking” area in North Parking way up next to the Parkway. You would need to get there well before dawn to grab a spot, and it’s a hefty walk from there.

        The “concourse” is a major bus/metro transfer spot. There used to be a shopping area in there, but after 9-11 they restricted access.

        1. Late Introvert

          scott s. wins the interwebs today

          NC attracts the best comments by its very nature. All power to Yves and crew.

  17. Tom Stone

    The corruption of the US Military is exemplified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, every one of them ( There are 8, plus the Chairman, Dan Caine) obeyed blatantly illegal orders to attack Iran.
    Every one of them knew that they were required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice to refuse to obey those orders.
    Every one of them knew that obeying those orders would make them War Criminals.
    Every one of them knew that every War Game run over the last few decades showed that Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz and keep them closed indefinitely.
    Every one of them violated their “Solemn Oath” and betrayed the trust of the American People.
    Why did they do this?
    They like being important and they knew that doing what they had sworn a solemn oath to do would have jeopardized lucrative second careers.
    How lucrative?
    A few hundred thousand dollars a year for perhaps a decade.
    Bought with Money and a title, and not much Money at that.
    Every Member of the US Armed Services is taught that they have a duty under the UCMJ to disobey illegal orders, every member of the US Armed services knows that every member of the Joint Chiefs sold out their Country.
    For Money and a Title.
    This is not good for Morale.

    2. Late Introvert

      Lyin’ Losin’ Generals From The Pentagon

      (actually writing a song named that, don’t cover it yet Wuk)

  18. johnnyme

    Middle East states eye transport resilience with new logistics corridor to bypass Hormuz

    Middle Eastern governments are dusting off decades-old proposals for overland oil and gas pipelines, and urgently drawing up plans for new rail-sea transport corridors in a belated response to the wartime disruption of major maritime trade through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.

    With the threats to these key shipping lanes and economic infrastructure set to linger after the multifront conflict between the US-Israel alliance and the Iran-led Axis of Resistance draws to a close, other governments in the region – led by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates – are looking to build a new trade architecture with multiple nodes linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

    The proposed alternative routes for commercial cargo would flow from ports in the UAE and Oman located outside the Persian Gulf, overland by rail through Saudi Arabia to Jordan, and then onwards through either Egypt’s Suez Canal or the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartus.

    1. JohnH

      This is a possible change from plans being floated earlier this year. They were called The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC.) Israel was destined to become the loading point for shipments to Europe. (Israel as a choke point for ME oil and Indian goods…oh, joy!)

      Since then the Saudis have reportedly been considering replacing Israel ports with Arab ones, like Syria.

  19. The Rev Kev

    ‘China attempts to block US sanctions on companies buying Iran oil’

    I think that what happened was that China checked with their legal experts and found much to their surprise that the US legal system does not actually have jurisdiction over Chinese banks nor does the US get a legal say in who China is allowed to trade with. Imagine their surprise.

  20. ISL

    If we look at the blockade as “Economics” is war by other means to impose your will on the enemy, Iran’s main weapon is the Hormuz shutdown, which is pushing US gasoline prices to a point where the public will force Trump to do Iran’s will (else suffer a depression in a country where 70% of its well-armed populace already cannot afford enough food each month). Whether Iran can/cannot export its oil to China does not deter its main weapon (Iran has no military option to force the US to do its bidding unless it unveils massive ICBM capacity).

    The US goal is to impose its will by blockading the blockade and forcing Iran to open the Straits (actually to surrender) due to revenue loss and resultant domestic economic pain. Since it is leaky, it is far less likely to impose the US’s will than during the actual Trump maximum sanctions “blockade” that China and Russia honored a few years ago – but not today.

    Meanwhile, the US blockade reduces oil on the market (by US actions), which strengthens the Iranian oil weapon.

    Meanwhile, the US’s inconsistency and barbarity are losing US geopolitically. In 1 month, Australia will have no diesel. How will it harvest its fall crops? When Aussies have crying, hungry children, will they force their government to dump their US allegiance? Will Koreans starve for Trump’s insanity or switch alliance to China / Russia, who still have fertilizer and diesel?

    Col MacGregor says to Danny Davis that the US has gone from a City on a Hill to a Leper Colony. Who will do business with a leper colony (and contract leprosy)?

    1. Wukchumni

      Will the Hegemon issue Leper Treasuries?

      Leper colony money was special money (scrip or vouchers) which circulated only in leper colonies (sanatoriums for people with leprosy) due to the fear that money could carry leprosy and infect other people. However, leprosy is not easily transmitted by casual contact or objects; actual transmission only happens through long-term, constant, intimate contact with leprosy sufferers and not through contact with everyday objects used by sufferers.

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

      1. ilsm

        Hitler issued MEFO notes early on…

        What passes for a web search with AI:

        “MEFO notes, formally known as Mefo bills (Mefo-Wechsel), were six-month promissory notes created in 1934 by Hjalmar Schacht, the President of the Reichsbank, “

  21. Ann

    Germany says U.S. troop withdrawal ‘anticipated’, Spain and Italy could be next

    https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5808891/europe-allies-germany-troop-withdrawal-us

    “Beijing Defies US Sanctions — Global Power Clash Begins?”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-02/beijing-tells-chinese-firms-to-ignore-us-sanctions-on-refiners

    Hezbollah deploys a potent new weapon designed to evade Israeli detection

    https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/03/middleeast/hezbollah-fiber-optic-drones-israel-intl-cmd

    UAE lifts all air traffic restrictions introduced since Iran war

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/3/uae-lifts-all-air-traffic-restrictions-introduced-since-iran-war

    1. ChrisFromGA

      Looks like Xi took a leather glove out of his pocket and delivered a slap across the face to Taco. Nice try, but you aren’t going to be extending your illegal blockade into China. We buy whatever we want, and our companies follow our laws, along with international aw, but not yours.

      I still predict the May 14-15 summit never happens. I could be wrong.

  22. JohnH

    Worth reiterating: Trump is not going to engage in serious negotiations with Iran. Not only has he failed to do this so far, he does not even know what that amounts to and lacks the personnel who could execute.”

    Aurelian has a useful piece that deals with “the rather loose vocabulary of “talks”, “meetings,” “discussions,” “negotiations” and the like [and what it a ctually amounts to in practical terms.” https://aurelien2022.[ubstack.com

    There has been a lot of intentionally sloppy language generated by Trump and others to create the impression that the US is interested in peace and coming to terms with Iran.

    We have seen the same dynamic play out with Ukraine, where there were constant reports of “discussions”, negotiations, and talks. The media lapped it up like a starving cat given a bowl of milk. But they curiously missed (most of the time at least) the fact that all this activity consisted of little more than American emissaries sitting around chatting with their European counterparts over appetizers accompanied by fine wine. Russians were almost never a party. Nothing ever came of it all. It was all just a PR stunt to fabricate an illusion of NATO being the reasonable party and occupying the moral high ground. All it did was to kick the can down the road, avoiding any steps that might bring a resolution to the conflict.

    The same is happening in Iran. However, there is a crucial difference which Trump and his crazies have yet to come to terms with–unlike in Ukraine, kicking the can down the road has dire consequences for the global economy. Yet they can do nothing more that spin illusions of “impending progress in talks.”

    Aurelien concludes, “The obsession of the US and Israel with the destruction of Iran, and the Iranian desire to preserve itself and to come to dominate the region, can simply never be reconciled, even by the most brilliant negotiators in history. This one, I’m afraid, will have to be fought out to a conclusion, whatever that might be.”

    Sadly, the mainstream media is totally incapable of understanding the dynamic, creating public awareness of it, and pressuring the jokers to get serious and force them to abandon their maximalist positions for the salvation of their people.

  23. Oregon Lawhobbit

    This deal would amount to a public admission of failure by Trump…

    Maybe the Iranians should toss that – in an explicit, televised version – in as another demand!

    1. Martin Oline

      I try to watch videos from sources that can be trusted. Many blogs, such as Military Summary, have become shameless PR organs for state actors. But, as the Supreme Court has ruled, money talks. The bottom of this video has this posted:

      How this was made
      Altered or synthetic content
      Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated.

      2. MaryLand

        I notice lately some prolific YouTube commenters use dramatic headlines that don’t match their content. I’m beginning to skip them.

        1. hereweare

          Yes. I saw “Iran Just CRUSHED Trump’s Blockade” and thought either this is gross exaggeration, when in fact a few Iranian ships are getting past the blockade while others are being seized, or I’ll soon hear about this startling new development elsewhere, and hopefully not in the form of a thirty minute video.

    2. Tangled up in Texas

      Wilkerson has said many times over the past few weeks that he DOES NOT have a youtube channel. He said it is AI.

    3. ISL

      Slide the time slider, and you can see how mechanical the AI colonel’s head motion is. No body motion at all for an hour.

  25. tyaresun

    In the interest of world peace, I propose that the whole world starts saying that Trump has won. Let us not harp on all the failures every day. I think this the last best path to prevent further disaster.

    1. Samuel Conner

      > I think this the last best path to prevent further disaster.

      On the assumption that public approbation will sate his appetite for further “winning”?

      Unfortunately, I think his thinking may not work that way.

      And we are stuck with the consequences.

    2. JohnH

      If everyone said Trump was winning, he would just move the goalposts…and insist on making Khuzestan a province of Israel.

      That’s what Zionist do. If there is any chance of the enemy accepting their demand, they just make more to avoid having to cease hostilities.

    3. .Tom

      Norway is being completely unreasonable in not giving him a Nobel Peace Prize. They could have saved us from this mess.

  26. Ann

    We Don’t Need Chinese Exceptionalism

    Ian Welsh

    https://www.ianwelsh.net/we-dont-need-chinese-exceptionalism/

    “China industrialized the same way that almost everyone did. They had support from the current industrial hegemon, same as both America and Japan did. (Japan had British help during the Meiji period and American help after WWII.) They ran a protectionist mercantile export policy. Instead of tariffs they used currency manipulation.”

    …

    “What makes China different is what made the US different from Britain: it’s a continental power with a much larger population than the previous hegemonic power. So it can scale better and once it takes the leads the previous power is cooked.”

    1. ISL

      I often like Ian Welsh, but here he is just showing his ignorance. The US and Britain never had a real revolution. China did. BRitain culture society is a short timer compared to China. The US and Britain never killed their oligarchs and kings. And China has NOT risen by genocide of the world while stealing everyone’s resources. In fact its only been at war once in half a century. What is the British record? A year not at war? The US (never not at war).

      Also, China has a different system (similar to Japan), and it delivers faster technological and economic progress than the US or Britain ever did, and its benefits have been more evenly distributed than ever in the US and Britain. Perhaps there is a correlation. If society works for the people, the people work for society (not the oligarchs).

      Not saying China is perfect, but its pure copium to say they are all the same because they are continent scale.

      2. Chris

        The last Emperor of China died in Beijing in 1967, and Japan has an emperor. The successes of these countries are not because they killed the king.

        “Regicide brings happiness” is kind of a Westen obsession.

  27. Ignacio

    Today an interview with FAO chief Máximo Torero (Lima, Perú) was published at El Pais in Spanish. The headline selected on Torero’s words was “We are headed to a food crisis if Hormuz is not reopened soon” He says that first symptoms are starting to be seen in soy and wheat prices (the 8th of may FAO will publish it’s next report on basic food prices for April). Torero says that if the closure lasts 10-20 days longer (than the current 60) the impact (in food prices i guess) will be “serious”. Besides you have to add the risks of a strong El Niño which would cause havoc in many food exporters via drought or floods. Uncertainty is by itself a problem that might exacerbate things. May is a critical month, planting season in many countries.

    On the risks of famine he says the following “If the Strait hasn’t reopened by the end of May, I can’t say there will be a global famine, but it is very likely that we will face serious problems with access to food and the ability to purchase it. The agri-food sector has been very resilient, but I don’t think it has much more capacity to remain so.”

    First impacts probably to be seen in emergent economies but what about the OECD countries?
    “Some people think this is an Asian problem, but that’s not true. It will spread from east to west, from south to north… Clearly, OECD countries [the club of wealthy nations] have more fiscal leeway to protect their consumers, whereas in Africa, much of Asia, and Latin America, they don’t have the same capacity to control prices, provide subsidies, or cut taxes. But it will affect everyone.“

  28. redleg

    Hegseth isn’t going to get fired before Christmas. I see him as the key link to a coup attempt as midterms get closer.
    Miller and Hegseth might be idiots, but they are ambitious idiots overflowing with hubris.

    1. Wukchumni

      The thin veneer of legitimacy is wearing through on this administration, won’t be long.

  30. David E

    The question I keep coming back to is this: what is China doing? It seems to me that negotiations between the US and Iran are simply not practically possible at this time for a variety of reasons, so what is needed is a third party that can act as a mediator and guarantor of any agreement. And if China wanted to directly exert and expand their influence in the world this would seem to be a golden opportunity to do it. So are they sitting this out because they want to avoid diplomatic entanglements? Are they not playing a public role in ending the crisis because the calculation is that this situation does more long-term damage to American hegemony than it does to China’s long-term security?

  31. XXYY

    In the Daniel Davis Deep Dive piece, Davis clings to the usual Trump-driven binary possibilities in the Iran War. Either Trump acceeds to the Iranian negotiating points in toto, or else he initiates a huge bombing campaign of some kind.

    It seems like everyone, including Iran, is selling Iran short in this whole deal. They have tremendous military and diplomatic agency, yet seem to be limiting themselves to pumping out lists of demands.

    Militarily, Iran has a huge array of extremely accurate missiles with a wide variety of warhead sizes and ranges. They can easily reach most of the targets in the Middle East including two major strategic waterways and large sections of the Mediterranean. Crucially, they can target the entire country of Israel whenever and wherever they want, with accuracies of a few dozen meters or so.

    Diplomatically, they have reached the point where they are the good guys in this war on the world stage. They have clearly been viciously targeted by a couple of the worst men to walk the earth at the present time, Trump and Netanyahu. The US empire is crumbling at this point in history, and Israel has become a pariah state with serious military and economic problems, and in many ways Israel has lost its unquestioning sponsorship of the US and big cracks are showing. Us politicians are starting to see sponsorship of Israel as a losing issue.

    I don’t think the overall conditions have ever been more propitious for Iran to win and the US and Israel to lose in a major conflict.

    I think Iran has done all it’s ever going to be able to do against US military infrastructure in the GCC States, and it occurs to me that Iran could shift its focus to the tiny, crumbling nation of Israel. It could easily target Israel’s infrastructure surgically and with minimal loss of life. It would be possible, step by step, to make Israel unlivable and induce the 300,000 people who keep the country’s economy going to emmigrate. (We have seen this happening in Ukraine, as its cities gradually become unlivable and greener pastures elsewhere become incredibly tempting to its population.) I’m guessing it would not take much of this for Israel to throw in the towel on this war, which would take most of the pressure off Trump, who would then be in a position to claim that he has ended his 11th war or whatever.

  32. Michael McK

    And Israel continues destroying Lebanon and seizing more of the West Bank.
    Sadly, I see Iran’s only option is to start pummelling Israel again. Probably level illegal settlements in Palestine and IDF bases in Gaza too.
    Team American has proven itself totally agreement incapable. Or maybe even worse, all negotiations seem to be a pretense to gain the upper hand.
    Fool me once….

  33. Anthony Martin

    Trump’s poll numbers are directly proportional to the rate of inflation and inversely proportional to the price of gas at the pump. His best option is to resign or suffer the collapse of his presidency via paralysis of deciaion making. The latter is probably the operational objective of Iran. Trump lacked the cognitive ability to avoid the crisis in the Persian Gulf in the first place and he lacks the cognitive ability to resolve the crisis into the future.

  34. Tom Stone

    I’ve been thinking about how Iran could deal with the US Carriers and came up with a few ideas.
    1) Use a “Q Ship} that looks like an innocent Dhow or fishing ship to launch a Torpedo targeted at the Carrier’s Rudder or Screws.
    Imagine trying to tow a Ford class carrier to a repair facility…

    2) ManPads.
    Modern Manpads have pretty good range, hit an F35 as it is about to land…
    They could be launched from multiple small boats and the attack could be coordinated using flags.

    These attacks don’t have to work in the sense of damaging the ship, just the attack will cause them to retreat further from shore.
    This would reduce the effectiveness of carrier launched air and provide a propaganda victory.

    1. Paradox of Unrealized Power

      Actually, if Iran is willing to escalate, it has multiple options to deal with US carriers.
      Even if it is not willing to escalate, it has quite a few options.

      If you want a real intellectual challenge, try to think of ways the US can improve or even maintain its current position in the area over a prolonged period.

  35. Ann

    Scott Bessent says US tightening economic pressure on Iran to hit oil revenues

    https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/scott-bessent-says-us-tightening-economic-pressure-on-iran-to-hit-oil-revenues/4228455/

    A cargo ship near Strait of Hormuz reports being attacked as Iran makes new peace proposal

    https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-war-ceasefire-negotiations-strait-454006a0a9bb19a45a2f299c0869cefb

    Syria state TV reports Jordanian strikes on drug, weapons storage in south

    https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2026/05/03/syria-state-tv-reports-jordanian-strikes-on-drug-weapons-storage-in-south

    Chinese firm shuts Gwadar plant in Pakistan, lays off workers amid losses

    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/chinese-firm-shuts-gwadar-plant-in-pakistan-lays-off-workers-amid-losses/articleshow/130726524.cms

  36. David in Friday Harbor

    Please forgive me if this has already been discussed elsewhere (some days I’m on Comments overload), but aren’t Trump, Hegseth, Johnson, and the House GOP hard up against the War Powers Resolution of 1973 codified in 50 U.S.C Ch. 33, which contains mandatory language that could realistically put Trump at risk of impeachment?

    Depending on how you count, the 60-day limitation on hostilities by the U.S. military ran out on TACO Tuesday of last week. Despite Hegseth’s protestations, the War Powers Resolution is not tolled by any cease fire period since it includes “……into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,” “…into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat,” and deployments where they are, “… in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation.” They’re out of runway for a declaration of war.

    Even those in the military suffering from Hegseth’s deranged “macho gym bro hubris” are able to read 50 years of military jurisprudence upholding the War Powers Resolution. It is an open question whether an agent of the executive branch commits the crime of Murder if they participate in an act of “hostilities” without congressional authorization after 60 calendar days of their commencement.

    The Iranians know this and have no reason to provoke a “defensive” attack by the Americans. A stalemate is to their advantage. A violation of the War Powers Resolution would be under the jurisdiction of the next congress after the mid-terms and even traitorous AIPAC Dems would be hard pressed to avoid at least a very ugly debate on the issue.

      1. David in Friday Harbor

        This article confuses politics and law. The terms of the War Powers Resolution are quite clear, as is Article 1 section 8 of the United States Constitution. Like any law, the War Powers Resolution only has meaning if it is adhered to and enforced by persons acting in good faith. Good faith actors are in very short supply in Washington D.C. any more. That is a political problem. It is up to the congress and not the courts to enforce the War Powers Resolution.

        However, if I were a member of the military with command responsibility I would be very hesitant to execute an order to carry out an act of aggression outside of the 60-day window without the congressional approval required by the U.S. Constitution that I took a solemn oath to support and defend. I suspect that we’re seeing this in play in real time.

  38. Yalt

    It looks like we have our escalation? US to begin escorting ships out of the Gulf tomorrow and vows that interference will be “dealt with forcefully,” Iran orders tankers near the Strait to heave anchor and move towards Dubai or “the consequences are their responsibility.”

    (1) UKMTO received reports from vessel Masters in the vicinity of Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, of calls over VHF directing them to move their vessels from their anchorages. Our client vessels confirm that vessel Masters in Mina Saqr and Ras Al Khaimah have received calls over VHF by the IRGC ordering them to immediately heave anchor and move their vessels towards Dubai, with warnings that the ‘consequences are their responsibility if they do not comply’.

    (2) Countries from all over the World, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle Eastern dispute going on so visibly, and violently, for all to see, have asked the United States if we could help free up their Ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz, on something which they have absolutely nothing to do with — They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders! For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business. Again, these are Ships from areas of the World that are not in any way involved with that which is currently taking place in the Middle East. I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait. In all cases, they said they will not be returning until the area becomes safe for navigation, and everything else. This process, Project Freedom, will begin Monday morning, Middle East time. I am fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all. The Ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong — They are victims of circumstance. This is a Humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran. Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner. I think it would go a long way in showing Goodwill on behalf of all of those who have been fighting so strenuously over the last number of months. If, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

    DONALD J. TRUMP
    PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

    1. nyleta

      Looks like the UAE are all in on this, nobody is going to pity them anymore than they will pity the Jordanians. Puzzled how this is going to work with just air power, surely US subs wont be used here, Iran must have detectors on the sea bed.

      Could end up with a physical blockage of the Straight with a jumble of sunk cargo ships blocking the exit.

    2. The Rev Kev

      It could work. Provided those ships pay their toll to Iran before exiting. Otherwise this is just Trump trying to throw those commercial ships to the wolves for pr purposes.

    3. ilsm

      The ships running the strait under USAF F-15’s and A-10s “top cover” from Jordan will not be insured.

      Will Trump obligate the US?

  39. DG Bear

    I normally do not read comments but I have been for the USA – Iran War. They are excellent and add depth and nuance. Thank you all and NC.

    Two minor points:

    Davis – 1st tweet: “…restart the war in a vain hope that one more big military bombing campaign will do what the first 40 days did not.”

    I was reminded that in the Iraq ‘war’ in 2003, the invasion was preceded by 40 days of bombing troop positions. I read then and since then studies that 40 days is a magic number as the tipping point for causing psychological damage – PTSD, depression anxiety, etc. I guess that is why the initial Iran onslaught was 40 days. But, 40 days is nothing compared to the Iraq – Iran War – 1980-88. IR of Iran was only a year old then.

    Davis – 2nd tweet:”This is a world class game of chicken, and the US in particular is faced with something it hasn’t dealt with in over a century: the prospect of an outright defeat.”

    I am not certain what the defeat was over a hundred years ago, (perhaps the Civil War from the Southern viewpoint) but I do remember 51 years ago the defeat in Viet Nam.

    1. Samuel Conner

      I think it was in “A Bright Shining Lie” that I encountered description of US concern that there be “a decent interval” between US withdrawal and the final collapse of the S Vietnam regime.

      It’s hard to see what the fig leaf could be in the current situation.

    1. ChrisFromGA

      US ships cannot enter the Strait, so I am not sure how this latest statement conforms with reality.

      Perhaps, in a spiritual/moral sense, as in “we’re with you! You got this, mariners!” but not in a sense of actual physical form, e.g. an escort for every stranded cargo ship.

      At any rate, Orange Julius thrives on drama and reaction. Note the timing – Sunday afternoon, before the futures markets open. This is his way of trying to influence markets. Pay attention to the half-life time of each “reaction.” If it gets shorter and shorter, we’ll know that the “markets” aren’t buying it.

      1. ilsm

        I presume the USAF will sortie flights of F-15, and A-10 with extensive aerial refueling. The attack planes flying from Jordan or Israel. The KC 135 tankers flying from Israel, refueling enroute and over Qatar.

        Probably a P-8 and Triton drone for surveillance.

        The ships if they move will probably sqwalk international channel position so USAF can provide fighter cover. IRGC listening in!

        Carrier aviators may play but refueling would be well east of the USAF tracks. Also note navy refuelers hardware is different than USAF the refueling aircraft needing a boom for the USAF aircraft and a drogue basket for the Navy.

        Trump probably figures on shooting a lot of million dollar missiles at IRGC speed boats like he did in Venezuela.

        Shoot down a few F-15 and Trump can shoot at IRI again.

        If you were Lloyds would you insure the blockade runners?

        A lot of shorting the NYSE tomorrow morning!

      2. Jason Boxman

        It’s just hot air

        Mr. Trump did not make clear in his post what it meant for the United States to “guide” ships.

        But a statement issued by the U.S. Central Command on Sunday evening indicated that the American role would involve coordinating safe traffic among the stranded ships, rather than escorting them.

        and

        Mr. Trump’s gamble here is also that he can re-establish the status quo before the war broke out on Feb. 28, when cargo ships carrying oil, fertilizer, helium for semiconductor production and other goods did not pay a toll imposed by the Iranians. Some of those tolls have reportedly run as high as $2 million a ship.

        If successful, it would also be a subtle dig at Europeans, who have been organizing a joint effort to keep the gulf open, but only after a cessation of hostilities. Mr. Trump has noted, with some sarcasm, that the Europeans are interested in intervening only after the need for confronting Iran is over.

        But there are risks, as well. It is not clear that all mines in the strait have been removed. And even if Tehran decides not to challenge the new U.S. effort, it is possible that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unit, or even an individual on the Iranian side, may not get the message and could open fire, from land or from a small speedboat.

        Wait, the Iranians un-mined the strait? America certainly did not.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/us/politics/strait-hormuz-stranded-ships.html

      3. nyleta

        They might have managed to slip special operations types on board some of the ships off the UAE and will try for a media win if any get out. If it turns into a real clash it is in a strange part of the straight for it, might be a feint to grab an island around there on the UAE side.

    2. Yalt

      I guess it depends on which unnamed officials you believe. At the WSJ they’re calling it an “arms-length effort” to unblock the strait, a coordinated effort of insurance and shipping companies. How many divisions does Lloyd’s have?

      And at Axios they’re saying that the US will give ships information on unmined “safe” routes.

      This would only make sense to someone who doesn’t think Iran has any weaponry other than the mines.

    2. hk

      I wonder what Ukrainians think they gain by unduly playing up the Germans. Germans won’t be producing real ammunition just because Ukrainian propaganda says so,

  43. Tom Stone

    I predicted that whatever Trump decided to do would be stoopid and aggressive, trying to force the strait of Hormuz is stupid to the point of Insanity.
    And it raises a few legal questions now that 60 plus days have elapsed since the unprovoked assault on Iran began.
    Aggressive, Illegal and Stoopid to the point of Insanity…no wonder it appeals to Trump.
    The families of the dead Americans will get a purple heart in a little case and an American Flag and the Donald may give himself a Medal, he has mentioned that he should get a Congressional Medal if Honor in the past, and it would look spiffy next to his FIFA peace prize.
    Fiction has to make sense, reality…not so much.

    1. ilsm

      Trump insiders bought the last Trump dip, the markets up. They probably ordered big short fort the open!

      Sell off highs buy the dip just as Trump TACO’s on Thrusday.

  44. Ann

    Pete Hegseth is now bringing his wife to Pentagon meetings after he ousted top officials: report

    https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/pete-hegseth-wife-pentagon-firings-b2969875.html

    Will Trump’s Deeply Flawed Iran War Bring Down the US Empire?

    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/will-trump-s-deeply-flawed-iran-war-bring-down-the-us-empire

    Korea weighs Hormuz mission options led by US, UK-France coalitions

    https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/20260503/korea-weighs-hormuz-mission-options-led-by-us-uk-france-coalitions

  45. Late Introvert

    Told spouse today that Trump is planning a new attack and if so plan on world wide depression.

    1. Paradox of Unrealized Power

      What would the US citizens’ (and military, for that matter) reaction be if Iran retaliates by sinking US ships?

      I can virtually guarantee you (and I don’t think this is controversial) that it will not be a 9/11 rally around the flag type moment. In fact, popularity for the war on the Iranian side would be galvanizing and the reaction from the US side would be venomous towards the Trump administration.

      Once this is added to the likelihood that a US attack is unlikely to do much good anyway, that the US lacks radar and ABMs, and that this would further damn the economy (i.e., increase likelihood of post-November impeachment), and I think that Trump will back down (either before or immediately after its next strike). It will do so kicking and screaming, and Israel will try to get in the way, but I think the writing is on the wall.

      And of course, Israel will continue to bomb the hell out of Lebanon. If I were them, I would be more concerned about trying to ensure that my country survives, but then again I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to start the 12 day war in 2025 or this idiocy on Feb 28, either

      1. ambrit

        If I had a Bronze Age Thunder God “on my side,” I wouldn’t worry about starting wars all over the place either.
        As for escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz; who is going to clear the mine fields, and probably under fire too?

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