Iran War: US Attacks Iran for Second Day as Trump Rejects Leaked Iranian Outline of Terms, Threatens to Bomb Oman; US Draining of Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Contain Energy Prices Means Energy Cliff Arrives Sooner

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1. hk May 28, 2026 at 6:00 am

   Wilkerson’s remark about FDR is pretty striking–I’d read similar characterization before, from George Marshall, who was not one of his fans, among other places. (I cannot remember where, though). The sense I got of FDR in fact, was that, in many ways, he was a far suaver and more capable (and thus far more dangerous) version of Trump and that we, as a country, really dodged a bullet in 1945.

   The kind of structured version of national security decisionmaking apparatus, in sense, can be dangerous: it empowers the “bureaucracy” and enables the status quo to bury new ideas and fresh thinking from the executive–a dangerous situation in a crisis, perhaps not something to look at with rose colored glasses and, tbh, a critical component of how the Blob came to triumph in Washington. I would suggest that, in many ways, Trump is not wilfully doing what the Blob fundamentally opposes, but the issue with them is that he’s doing it incompetently. So the Blob must be put back in power so that they can do evil with more finesse–to be clear, I’m saying this, not Wilkerson. I do suspect Wilkerson still believes in the government apparatus too much that having better, more empowered institutions would prevent problems: it’s a strange attitude to have had a front row seat to the fiasco of early 2000s.

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   1. Carolinian May 28, 2026 at 7:46 am

      we, as a country, really dodged a bullet in 1945

      Whaaa?? If you are going to make such an assertion I believe you need to back it up.

      What both Wilkerson and Macgregor have talked about is that the senior military in that time were all Republicans and therefore philosophically opposed to FDR and perhaps the New Deal itself. The forces of capital were desperate to reassert control from the populism represented by Roosevelt and with his death that bullet hit the target dead on bullseye.

      As for the above–clearly this country is in the grips of a madman, whatever the medical diagnosis, and that’s the ultimate result of capital’s decades long quest for control. Trump doesn’t care about the American public, says so openly, and is willing to take the country and even the world down with him. The only thing that can stop him would be Congress and they too are in the grips of an oligarchy that has partnered with the Zionist entity.

      We need to see the situation clearly even if the equally corrupt MSM refuse to do so and pretend nothing drastic is happening.

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      1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 8:04 am

         Conservative forces were so shocked by Roosevelt’s long reign that afterwards they passed a law to make sure that no Democrat President would ever be able to serve more than two terms ever again. Of course the same applied to Republican Presidents but maybe they weren’t thinking that far ahead. But with Ronald Reagan, that was just as well as by the end of his second term he was as sharp as Joe Biden was.

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         1. Carolinian May 28, 2026 at 8:49 am

            We shouldn’t kid ourselves by claiming that earlier versions of the USA weren’t also about class war. Those soldiers who fought in the soon to be celebrated Revolution had to struggle to get paid.

            And I’m reading a book–Athens and Sparta–that makes it clear that those early and often idolized societies were also about class war much of the time. Despite recent discussions here suggesting humans just need a change in attitude, history suggests that in any group above hunter/gatherer bands hierarchy is baked in the cake.

            Roosevelt himself was out to save capitalism by bringing the gradiose egos of the Robber Barons back in touch with reality. Now it seems those barons are going to need another lesson and are about to get it good and hard.

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            1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 8:57 am

               Certainly Athens and Sparta were all about class war throughout their history. Classical Athens died when the local elites sold out the common people to the Spartans at the ed of the Peloponnesian war. The Spartans are interesting. A highly militarized society convinced of their racial superiority over a class of helot slaves doing the hard, dirty work beneath them. Why does that sound so familiar?

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            2. Jason Boxman May 28, 2026 at 12:15 pm

               The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber actually talks about egalitarian societies and such.

               It was an interesting read. Weighs in at 720 pages.

               Hudson’s recent book on antiquity covers Sparta and that timeframe as well.

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               1. Rex May 28, 2026 at 3:03 pm

                  Graeber was an unfortunate loss to the COVID pandemic.

                  Some of the books conclusions are questionable, but he wrote to give people hope which is nice.

                  Graeber is excellent at destroying inevitability myths. He is weaker at explaining why coercive systems keep winning even after people understand them.

                  Its seems that the deck is stacked against us. It’s difficult to see any positive change on the horizon.

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         2. Just another Old Guy May 28, 2026 at 9:08 am

            Back in the day I was in Leningrad when Reagan came by as part of a State visit to have talks with Gorbachev. The Marine Security Guards were all in their finest and very excited, as one would expect. At one point there was the obligatory photo op of Reagan surrounded by the Marine contingent. A couple of minutes later Reagan is standing there shaking hands and looking a bit bewildered. He says to the room something along the lines of, ‘When are we going to set up to do the photo of me with the Marines?’ I will never forget the look of horror on several of the Marines faces. One of them even whispered within my hearing “Oh my God”. We have no idea how many bullets we have dodged during my life alone. But that golden bb is coming for all of us and Trump seems destined to deliver.

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            1. ambrit May 28, 2026 at 12:35 pm

               This is Trump we are dealing with here. That “golden bb” is really a gold plated BB. (And probably made in China to boot.)

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         3. Yves Smith Post authorMay 28, 2026 at 2:45 pm

            This is a misrepresentation. The two term restriction was imposed because being in office for four terms killed FDR. He was visibly in poor heath at Yalta. The view was that no one could take the physical cost of more than two terms, and a death in office would produce a disruptive transition.

            Putin disproves that but he has tough Russian genes. And he is able to maintain a remarkably even temperament nearly all the time, so he appears to have trained himself not to get emotionally stressed by things that would have most people breaking china or worse.

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      2. hk May 28, 2026 at 12:35 pm

         I suppose I caught myself in a rhetorical trap via the “dodged a bullet” comment. Since the expansion of the “imperial” state continued without FDR, it’s rather improbable, I suppose, that things would have been that different in the “big picture” sense. Where I see the analogue between FDR and Trump is the “personalist” nature of their “leaderships”: they were and are willing to subvert institutions that got in their way by bullying, threats, and outright lying and suborn tools of policymaking under their direct cntrol–just that FDR was far more subtle about these. Part of FDR’s confidence that he could control the world after the end of the war came from his confidence that he could continue doing these–although, by Yalta, I imagine that even he could see that some people were beyond his manipulation. Still, FDR’s devious manipulative nature made people like Marshall, Stalin, Chiang, and De Gaulle wary, and that went away in 1945. (I bring up Chiang since he was Zelensky and Israel rolled into one, with far greater manipulative skills. The guy played Hitler, Stalin, and FDR to his advantage for a decade…but all his craftiness couldn’t give him a real loyal army or competent enough government.)

         The consequence of FDR’s death was the rise of bureaucratized national security state in conjunction with the empire. Wilkerson (and, well, me, too) lets out his bias against personalistic “empiring” via his (and my) remark. But since we don’t like the Blob, delaying its rise would have been a good thing? Since FDR would have died anyways, the empire was his legacy, and no one could really have managed it “personalistically” in the long run, maybe he did lay the foundation for the Blob one way or another? FDR certainty didn’t want to quit “empiring,” just wanted to run it his own way, in multiple senses (according to his own ideas, via his personal control, and so on), and that was a paradox whose shadow we still live under although we never did see it realized, until, in its twisted form, recent years.

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         1. Carolinian May 28, 2026 at 1:01 pm

            It’s all a question of character and I invite you to visit the Little White House in Warm Springs, GA–the heavy braces, the car he drove with his hands, the humble building–to see why FDR was the real deal however “devious” politically (and no less a liberal than Gore Vidal also protrayed his father’s employer that way).

            FDR was the un-Trump in every possible way.

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            1. John Wright May 28, 2026 at 1:48 pm

               The replacement of FDR VP Henry Wallace by Harry Truman was also significant.

               Wallace was not hostile to Russia, and he may have avoided the costly, for both sides, Cold War.

               Truman put a lot of balls in motion, dropped the bombs to start the arms race, encouraged the French to grab back control of their colony Indochina (Vietnam), established the CIA, recognized Israel.

               Eisenhower subsequently warned about the MIC, a MIC that was birthed in the Truman admin.

               Maybe the USA didn’t dodge a bullet after all.

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            2. hk May 28, 2026 at 3:39 pm

               A lot of less than “good” people worldwide who were incorruptible and “just” in their own mind, who really did try everything in their power to do what they thought were good and noble ends. They were also manipulative, devious, and indeed, extremely brutal and authoritarian. Like Dostoevsky said, it takes people who believe they are doing God’s work to do truly evil things. (I don’t think he wrote in these exact terms, but whatever it was, it was in Russian and I never read the original.)

               I suppose this is where I disavowed being a Korean, yet never grew out of it. Modern history of Korea is greatly misrepresented in the West: Rhee and Park were brutal dictators, but remain hugely popular in Korea because, while devious, manipulative, backstabbing, and brutal they were, they were also deeply honorable and incorruptible personally and were extremely “patriotic” and “just” by their own logic–indeed, much of their misdeeds were justified on the basis that they were doing them for “good, honable, and just” ends. (The corruption angle is often oversold, especially when Koreans who don’t like them talk abou them to the Westerners–“corruption,” whether real or not, is always an acceptable sin that seemingly justifies anything. You always want to say that your villains were knowingly doing bad things. You don’t want to say that they were doing what they believed were right things even when they were using ruthless and devious methods. I disagree with this fundamentally–tyranny is when you use extremely devious, manipulative, and brutal means to achieve your goals, regardless of what your goals are. If you are wilfully subverting the institutions designed to curb these abuses, then you’re halfway there.). People often give pass to people who do terrible things “because they were trying to do good.” I think that’s bullshit, personally: for a politician of any stripe, destroying “functioning” social and political institutions is the worst kind of political crime. If the incumbent institutions don’t work, you need to work hard to reconfigure them within laws to work better without undercutting them, and if you do break them, you need to rebuild a working alternative in its place. This is usually hard, perhaps nearly impossible at times. But nobody shoudl become a president or king to have an easy life: unesay SHOULD lie the head that wears a crown.

               Am I being overly harsh on FDR? Perhaps. In the international arena, at least, he did lay the foundations for United Nations, although who knows how it’d have turned out if it were FDR rather than Truman who put it together. The way FDR operated domestically, though, makes me skeptical that he’d have been a great institutions builder: FDR, like most of his successors, was a good political tactician, but he was no “Founding Father,” who, for all their flaws, understood the need for a set of long term institutions that would be self-sustaining for a reasonably long time. The only serious potential counter FDR had to the inevitable encroachment by the “empire” institutions were, well, himself (thus the “personalist” nature of his rule.) His subordinates and colleagues, he managed by divide-and-rule (I don’t think Wallace was any more of FDR’s “successor” than Truman was–FDR was, like I was saying, manipulative to his core, literally to his dying day, and wily and manipulative leaders don’t designate a clear successor, no matter where, because that means they are giving up on power. (One should remember Diocletian fondly for this reason, if anything else.)

               In an ideal universe, yes, I think I’d look upon more favorably on him if FDR designated a clear successor with a plan to wind down the “empire” state, both in foreign policy and domestic realms (I’m actually even more skeptical about the latter than the former, tbh–I have trouble seeing FDR fighting against the post WW2 Red Scare given how quickly he rounded up Japanese Americans, for example) after he retired or, as it happened in real life, he died. He didn’t. We keep imagining that he would have done something had he lived–which I think is in the same league as the Kennedy mythologizing, or, even Lincoln mythologizing (stories about how the aftermath of the Civil War would have been better managed had LIncoln lived.) Maybe. But I think making saints out of dead presidents who’d have worked miracles if only they lived is a downright dangerous exercise.

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         2. pjay May 28, 2026 at 1:38 pm

            “Where I see the analogue between FDR and Trump is the “personalist” nature of their “leaderships”: they were and are willing to subvert institutions that got in their way by bullying, threats, and outright lying and suborn tools of policymaking under their direct cntrol–just that FDR was far more subtle about these.”

            It would seem that the goals to which this “personalist” leadership was directed would matter, as well as the nature of the institutions which were “subverted.” Without making FDR any sort of saint or martyr, are you saying that none of these “powers” were used for positive ends, especially when contrasted to his conservative opposition, some of which were *actual* fascists? And comparing FDR to Trump… I mean c’mon, man. Further, I can’t for the life of me see how Roosevelt, however wily and manipulative, contributed more to the postwar national security establishment and its increasingly fascist nature than Truman who, given his inexperience and simplistic Cold War ideology, turned to right-wing hawks to advise him and laid the foundation for the real natsec world that would really take-off with Ike and the Dulles bros.

            Roosevelt was no saint, but he was strong enough and willful enough to *resist* many of the powers that be to get some positive things done. Bullying, threats, and manipulation are not *always* bad, depending on the ends to which they are used. In this there is a parallel to Kennedy, who also was certainly no saint or socialist. But like Roosevelt he was willful enough to resist some very powerful forces calling for much worse responses to the crises of his day. Again, who knows the “what ifs,” but you can make a strong argument that the deaths of both had major historical consequences, and not for the better.

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   2. Kilgore Trout May 28, 2026 at 9:17 am

      Had he lived longer, I doubt FDR would have used atomic bombs on Japan, correctly seeing them as really aimed at our ostensible ally, the Soviets. He certainly made clear to Churchill that after the war, Europe’s colonial empires in India and Indochina would not be revived. Some of the great “what-ifs” of post WW2 history. Maybe even no Cold War had he lived.

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      1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 9:28 am

         I note that FDR died at the very advanced age of 63 years of age due to ill health. Now we have a President that is 79 years of age and will be 80 in about a fortnight’s time. Maybe Rubio will give him Cuba for a birthday present.

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         1. t May 28, 2026 at 10:02 am

            A very infirm 80 and he was never a quality specimen.

            We all, I suppose, know people who are fit and active well into their 80s.

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            1. What? No! May 28, 2026 at 10:51 am

               My dad is 90 and just finished writing another book, my mom is 93, gets around with just a cane and has no trouble touching her toes. My father in law is 90 and wrote a research paper last year on prime numbers.

               They’re UK stock and I refer to this generation as The Inmortals. Another one of those things that’s not evenly distributed.

               My cohort by contrast seems generally more sickly and we’ll be lucky to make it into our 80’s., I think.

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               1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 10:53 am

                  Especially with repeated infections of Covid over the decades.

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                  1. ambrit May 28, 2026 at 12:39 pm

                     Added on top of our “New and Improved Neoliberal Medical Access System.”

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                  2. Sibiriak May 28, 2026 at 4:28 pm

                     Trump is no Agesilaus II.

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                     1. hk May 28, 2026 at 4:56 pm

                        But is Iran Thebes?

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      2. pjay May 28, 2026 at 9:55 am

         Yes, I am also puzzled by the “dodged a bullet in 1945” comment. Roosevelt certainly increased the power of the Executive Branch and Federal bureaucracy significantly in the wake of the Depression and WWII. And though this was continually denounced as “socialism” by right-wingers and Republicans (and continues to be), my own view, which I imagine is similar to most NC readers, is that far from being a “class traitor” Roosevelt acted to save capitalism from itself by introducing those necessary “social-democratic” reforms that would characterize Western democracies after the war.

         But I have a hard time understanding how the US and the world was better off under Truman than it would have been under Roosevelt had he lived. It is almost certain that foreign policy took a hard right turn under Truman. And though he had more of an everyman personae than the patrician Roosevelt (my working class and union-man grandfather loved him), Truman did not do much to stave off conservative retrenchment of domestic policy either. Who knows what would have happened under Roosevelt. But based on the evidence at hand, I can’t see how it would have been worse.

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         1. Laughingsong May 28, 2026 at 1:38 pm

            “ . . . my working class and union-man grandfather loved him”

            OMG, this. My similarly working-class, union man grandfather also loved Truman, I believe even more than Kennedy (one of my earliest memories is Kennedy’s death; I lived with my grandparents at the time, and the furor in the house made me think that a family member died).

            Hated Nixon with a passion too. I remember him and Grandma sitting at the table playing cards and listening to a radio broadcast about Nixon’s impeachment travails. At one point my grandmother said sarcastically “Oh, poor dear boy”, and grandpa grumbled in response “yeah, poor dear boy b*$tard” followed by a short stream of invective in Sicilian.

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      3. Lefty Godot May 28, 2026 at 11:35 am

         FDR seemed to think he could manage Joe Stalin, so the abrupt lurch into the Cold War was unlikely to have happened if Roosevelt had lived through the end of the war and even just a year or so beyond. But the economic and political apparatus he had set up (Bretton Woods and the United Nations) was geared to having the US be the new British Empire. Maybe under his direction it could have been more benevolent, but with Truman and then the Dulles brothers that was not the direction it took.

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         1. elissa3 May 28, 2026 at 12:39 pm

            The key event IMHO was the substitution of Truman for sitting VP Henry Wallace in the 1944 election. A very different USA might have emerged had this not happened.

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            1. frank May 28, 2026 at 2:06 pm

               That is when the New Deal died and the Cold war was born in my opinion.

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   3. Steve H. May 28, 2026 at 9:35 am

      > Trump is not wilfully doing what the Blob fundamentally opposes, but the issue with them is that he’s doing it incompetently.

      His hacking away at regulatory oversight seems pretty competent. When Gruber and Krause resigned from the FDA under Biden, it had the same direction of effect, only slower.

      It’s the Blob itself that’s been caught in it’s own slime track, and any president would seem incompetent with regard to Hormuz et al. Would Kamala Harris be doing better? Punching Iran has been a rite of passage for presidents since Reagan, only they never punched back. Now the expensive platform model of the Pentagon has been exposed by the missile-&-drone crew, and financialization has corroded the ability to materially respond in a timely manner.

      The President is allowed to grift in exchange for taking the blame by successors. What’s happening now is beyond the Blob. That’s why Wilkerson can’t see it, for all his insight he is a member of the Blob, and thinks a competent officer corps could solve this.

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      1. JP May 28, 2026 at 11:17 am

         Rhetorically punching Iran and Russia has been a right of passage for politicians since WW2. How else could one get elected without invoking the enemy.

         The question isn’t would Kamala be doing any better. The question is would she have gutted the advisory process and been so stupid to have launched such an operation. She would have deferred to her neoliberal string pullers who would have been cognizant of the repercussions of a closure of the straight.

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         1. Chris in OK May 28, 2026 at 1:45 pm

            Let’s all remember that this is Bibi’s war. Based on Kamala’s statements during the campaign, she absolutely would have launched such an operation when Bibi asked. Her string-pullers are the same as Trump’s.

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            1. Rex May 28, 2026 at 3:11 pm

               Exactly, Kamala would not have started this war on her own. She would have been dragged into by Israel.

               She is more loyal to the political elite that anointed her than the American people. So even if she realized how damaging it was to claim she would have done anything differently than Biden had. She could not express it as she would rather maintain the status quo than be humanitarian.

               After all, her husband believes that criticizing Israel is “anti-semetic”…
               https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/29/doug-emhoff-antisemitism-israel-gaza/

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   4. Glen May 28, 2026 at 11:10 am

      FDR was certainly the President that created the current version of the American Empire. Trump is the President that has vastly accelerated it’s decline. FDR saved capitalism; Trump is capitalism run amok.

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2. Victor Sciamarelli May 28, 2026 at 6:43 am

   It’s difficult to discuss the Trump-Iran negotiations seriously. They never were serious and should now be viewed as a farce. Iran views the US as an existential threat. Thus, I can’t accept that the current war is about nuclear enrichment, support for Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., which is not existential. Then the question becomes; what else is Trump trying to achieve? This war is about oil, US power and empire, conquer Iran, put a leash on China, and keep Russia down.

   According to worldometer.info and other sources, the top five countries with the largest oil reserves in order are: Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada, Iraq. Together they maintain 62% of the world’s oil supply. The top nine countries in order include: UAE, Kuwait, US, Russia. Thus, nine countries maintain 83% of the world’s oil supply.
   The US controls Venezuela’s and Iraq’s oil which when sold the money is deposited in the US. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE, are basically US vassal states; that’s roughly 60% of global reserves.
   Moreover, Trump made more than half serious remarks about annexing Canada. Russian oil is sanctioned. An important piece on the chessboard is Iran, with the third largest reserves, and which Trump was convinced was weak and could be easily conquered; that plan did not work so well; but he hasn’t given up.

   It’s worth noting, by Executive Order on Feb 14, 2025, roughly 3-weeks after his inauguration, Trump ordered “Establishing the National Energy Dominance Council” which states, “The Secretary of the Interior shall serve as Chair of the Council. The Secretary of Energy shall serve as Vice Chair of the Council.”
   Among other things, the NEDC would, “Provide to the President a recommended National Energy Dominance Strategy to produce more energy that includes long-range goals for achieving energy dominance…”
   From the WH: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/establishing-the-national-energy-dominance-council/
   Iran proved resilient. We are headed toward a precipice. Yet, I’m convinced Trump believes he should persevere, and that, even if economic damage is done, the US will eventually control all ME oil and emerge in a stronger position vis á vis Europe, East Asia, especially China, and other G20 countries. In the Trump brain he is a conqueror and any negotiated settlement means defeat. Iran will capitulate, but if it doesn’t, Trump will take us over the precipice and not to worry, because he’s the greatest president ever.

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   1. JP May 28, 2026 at 11:41 am

      Growing up I always thought the leaders had all the information, understood the big picture and made considered decisions. I slowly came to realize the leaders were just as f**ked up as the rest of us. There is very little vision at the top or among the upwardly mobile. It is all just a quest for power and money. Thinking Trump is trying to achieve some unseen goal is just being hopeful for some coherence.

      There are the loyal underlings that try to paint a picture in his head, which he then subsumes as his own. Then there is his strong inclination to favor the opinions of those who line his coffers. I wouldn’t over estimate his capacity for original thought.

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   2. LawnDart May 28, 2026 at 2:59 pm

      It’s difficult to discuss the Trump-Iran negotiations seriously…

      As of this hour, PressTV still makes no mention of any “negotiations” let alone an “agreement.”

      I also note that today I have been unable to access Iran Front Page, Tehran Times, nor the Fars News Agency… I really need to invest in a good VPN, ’cause this is bulls**t.

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3. Michaelmas May 28, 2026 at 6:45 am

   YS:’…the fabulously mercurial Trump…’

   I don’t know, Yves. How about ‘human-shaped sack of excrement’ as a more worthwhile descriptor? Because Trump is so worthless that irony and sarcasm are useless to apply in his case.

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   1. erstwhile May 28, 2026 at 8:05 am

      Excrement, used responsibly, helps to improve a plant’s growth and quality. Trump improves absolutely nothing, but resembles (is) a parasite destroying its host; in this case, the country and the world. For this reason, I think that he’s at en end. Think of the manic pervert as the pre-eminent target in the world.

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      1. Kilgore Trout May 28, 2026 at 9:24 am

         I’ve long taken to thinking of the President’s office as the Offal Office, but offal has its uses (haggis, hot dogs), but Hair Furor? Just no. In his 2nd term, everything he’s done is destructive.

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   2. ISL May 28, 2026 at 9:06 am

      An item that is worthless has a value of zero. The decreasing US economy, geopolitics, morality, etc., are all negative values – much less than worthless.

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   3. Yves Smith Post authorMay 28, 2026 at 2:51 pm

      Mercury is toxic.

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4. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 7:07 am

   ‘Currie contends that other experts have not made sufficient allowance for the magnitude of “minimum operating reserves” such as fuel that will stay in pipelines, hence his somewhat more dire forecast.’

   Perhaps another factor would be companies hoarding oil supplies now so that when crunch time comes, that they could charge fabulous prices for the oil that they have. The net effect of this were it to happen would be the removal of a large amount of oil from the supply side leading up to the shortages leading to shortages to getting more critical.

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   1. LeMon3 May 28, 2026 at 8:07 am

      I love the way the US is exporting the SPR just now. It really reminds me of the 19th century famines in Ireland and India. “Export profits are far more important than feeding the locals.”
      Such a damned colonial outlook. I guess the capitalists are the colonisers in this instance.
      OTOH, as a citizen of one of the exportee vassal states, I’m very grateful for the largesse. After all, Straya has been running on fumes for months and we would be seriously rooted without those imports…
      Oops not supposed to be a response to Kev – I hate mobile user interfaces.😠

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5. Lou Anton May 28, 2026 at 7:48 am

   From footnote 2: “U.S. officials involved in the negotiations sent indirect messages to the Iranian side through intermediaries urging them to “ignore Trump’s tweets,” saying his public statements are “purely for domestic and media consumption”.

   I wonder to what extent Trump is sidelined not just in these negotiations, but in his whole presidency? Whoever is in charge (maybe Wiles? Wiles + Vance?) just let’s him plan his ballroom, put his picture up everywhere, call reporters, pardon his pals, and goof around on his smartphone (tweet, call a guy to buy stocks, whatever).

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   1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 28, 2026 at 8:22 am

      This is disproven by the New York Times expose of the decision to go to war in the first place. His advisers provided intelligence and estimates saying why it would be risky and probably fail. But Netanyahu was present and argued for going ahead and Trump took his (and the Mossad) claim that the regime would fall over in days if attacked.

      Similarly, the Navy is not at all happy to have its ships and seamen kept in theater for so long.

      And Wilkerson is in a far better position than you to make a reading.

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      1. Feck May 28, 2026 at 10:23 am

         If you 2 want to really understand how nutty is in charge you gotta go back to the beginning 35- 40yrs ago. Short clip explains it
         https://youtube.com/shorts/9aqvESSiIvk?si=f_43SNFcbj0rWf-z

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   2. Tom Stone May 28, 2026 at 10:18 am

      Trump is not a rational actor, that has become crystal clear.
      Susie Wiles bragged that she was Trump’s chief enabler and compared her relationship with him to her relationship with her Father, Pat Summerall.
      Daddy was a very high functioning Alcoholic.
      Wiles is SUPER CO to Trump, manipulating Trump for his own good, just like she manipulated Daddy the drunk.
      Trump is nuts and SuperCo is trying to fix everything, trying to control a madman while pretending everything is FINE, JUST FINE.
      I hope she sees pictures of the schoolgirls of Minab every time she closes her eyes, for as long as she lives.

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      1. Oregon Lawhobbit May 28, 2026 at 12:40 pm

         I hope she sees pictures of the schoolgirls of Minab every time she closes her eyes, for as long as she lives.

         That would require empathy and a conscience, two characteristics not notably found in Creatures From The Blob.

         cf. Madeline Albright’s remark regarding half a million dead being “worth it.”

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         1. Rex May 28, 2026 at 3:22 pm

            Yeah these people are psychologically hardened to feel nothing for anyone but those they choose to care about. Remember what our new overlord Musk told us “Empathy is suicidal”.

            They have organized themselves in a way that they never need to even view the negative consequences of their actions.

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6. dingusansich May 28, 2026 at 8:02 am

   Yesterday Daniel Davis spoke with Art Berman, an energy analyst. He gave an enlightening (to a non-expert) overview of the crisis and a this-oil-is-not-the-same-as-that-oil explanation of why Persian Gulf supplies matter, a lot.

   Reply ↓
   1. Kilgore Trout May 28, 2026 at 9:29 am

      I listened to that interview as well, and agree. Berman was excellent, his presentation clear and straightforward. And with a passing mention of Peter Turchin.

      Reply ↓
7. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 8:37 am

   ‘Trump insisted that Tehran would agree to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — a key Trump demand — in return for sanctions relief, according to two regional officials and one senior Trump administration official.’

   I doubt it. Under the old JCPOA, Iran was supposed to get sanctions relief. But when Obama had pulled a number of sanctions as part of that deal, he then brought in a whole raft of new sanctions on spurious grounds. The Europeans were keen to go in because for them, there was big money to be made in buying and selling things to the Iranians but Obama threatened them with how they may be in violations of some bs sanction or another so the Europeans had to back off. For the Iranians, there was very little of that promised sanctioned relief. Certainly they are not going to believe any Trump promise of sanction relief, especially when he has said previously that it would be contingent on Iran ‘behaving themselves.’

   Reply ↓
8. Aurelien May 28, 2026 at 9:11 am

   I’d be surprised if Trump is playing games at different levels here, or if he’s even capable of doing so. But the pretence that some kind of “negotiations” are occurring not only keeps the markets happy, it enables him to pose as the tough negotiator who is relentlessly driving the Iranians into the corner with more threats and bombardments. He can actually present the negotiations as an escalatory enterprise. The Iranians are probably happy to go along with this, as time is on their side, and US military potential is declining all the time.

   But there may be another game being played here. Consider: there is now no possibility of Trump achieving his objective of being the President who avenged the humiliation of 1979 and the half-century that followed, and destroyed Iran’s power in the region. The position is getting worse, not better. Whether Trump will survive the next two years, medically, intellectually, politically, I’m not qualified to say. But before long there will be a successor, who will want to distance themselves from Trump and get the best deal on offer, which at may not be much. Control of Hormuz is lost, because Geography. Iran will be the dominant power in the region, and the oil-producing states will tread respectfully, because they will have no choice. The only real question for the US is what they can salvage, and that is something that Trump cannot confront, nor allow others to. So this may be the beginning of the post-Trump era, when groups who have no intention of going down with him start making exploratory contacts with Iran, not in the form of “negotiations”, let alone documents, but rather quiet understandings. If we were to do this after Trump, would you accept that? Supposing we gave way on that, would it help? I have no proof that this is happening, I’d simply say that if it isn’t, it’ll be the first time in modern political crises that it hasn’t.

   Reply ↓
   1. Colonel Smithers May 28, 2026 at 9:24 am

      Merci, Aurelien.

      I would like to highlight what you say about the neighbours having to tread carefully as they won’t have a choice. This is the view of the British military and diplomatic professionals. How do I know this? A Whitehall based officer I have known for two decades said so à over lunch à couple of days after the fighting began. Their view echoes what you have said about Europe and Russia, smaller boys don’t pick fights with big boys on the school playground.

      It won’t surprise you that this view is disputed by the politics professionals. They push back by using information from think tanks, including the ISW, and Israel.

      With regard to your conclusion, we meet at the races in a month. I will ask in person.

      Reply ↓
   2. Oregon Lawhobbit May 28, 2026 at 9:49 am

      Iran will be the dominant power in the region, and the oil-producing states will tread respectfully, because they will have no choice.

      And Israel will do … what? Reach a peaceful accommodation with their neighbors?

      Reply ↓
      1. raspberry jam May 28, 2026 at 9:55 am

         Netanyahu’s reign is not going to last forever and when he goes the secular vs theocratic split must be resolved or Israel will will not survive as a state either due to internal or external pressures.

         Please do not take this comment as some handwavey dismissal of the Zionist capability for havoc in the region. I’m stating plainly that either the seculars triumph and salvage some form of a state that has no choice but to scale back their ambitions or they don’t and the theocratic state is obliterated.

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         1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 10:16 am

            If Netanyahu is booted out, you wonder if he will flee to America for refuge so that he does not end up in an Israeli prison. Trump would welcome him with open arms I believe and Bibi would find himself with a cozy job in a think tank somewhere and making big bucks on the speaking circuit. And for all we know, he would plot his return to power in Israel one day. After all, he is only 76 years old and would say that Israel needs him.

            Reply ↓
            1. raspberry jam May 28, 2026 at 10:27 am

               please watch a recent video of him. he’s very clearly in bad health and has declined precipitously over the last year. he is going to be dead within a couple of years regardless of the outcome of the next few months.

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               1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 10:35 am

                  Sorry raspberry. I should have included a /sarc tag at the end of my comment. I sometimes wonder of him if it was the wrong brother that got killed at Entebbe.

                  Reply ↓
               2. Carolinian May 28, 2026 at 6:55 pm

                  Alastair Crooke said some time back that he has heart problems.

                  Reply ↓
         2. vao May 28, 2026 at 11:22 am

            This is quite significant: Israel will reach a fork in the road soon, as the Netanyahu era comes to an end. The USA will have to acknowledge a change in its Near East position — or is already working in that direction in the background — as the Trump era comes to an end.

            Now, I am just wondering what will happen with Turkey, since Erdogan has been at the helm for 23 years already (as prime minister or as president), is 72 years old, and his electoral strength has been eroding in the past couple of years. The Erdogan era may also be coming to an end.

            If those three are replaced, then following Aurelien and raspberry jam, the Near East may undergo not so much a reconfiguration as a recognition of a new configuration that started being put into place already a year ago or so.

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         3. Oregon Lawhobbit May 28, 2026 at 12:44 pm

            Please do not take this comment as some handwavey dismissal of the Zionist capability for havoc in the region.

            Nah, I take it as part of a polite and thoughtful discussion of the issue, a valuable input answering my wondering question, from someone with far closer experience to the question than I have…

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   3. Mikel May 28, 2026 at 11:09 am

      “So this may be the beginning of the post-Trump era, when groups who have no intention of going down with him start making exploratory contacts with Iran, not in the form of “negotiations”, let alone documents, but rather quiet understandings.”

      As the popular meme question goes:

      Are these non-Israel influenced groups in the room with you now?

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   4. Bugs May 28, 2026 at 11:34 am

      This sounds reasonable, but Israel is indeed the wild card. They have the potential to create chaos in ways we can’t, or perhaps don’t want to, imagine.

      I saw a video with the traitor Jonathan Pollard, who is planning on running for a Knesset seat, where he said that he has been insisting on nuclear strikes on Iran from the beginning of the war. The theocratic faction is willing to blow it all up and maybe take Israel with it.

      Reply ↓
   5. Carolinian May 28, 2026 at 7:02 pm

      I believe it was Wilkerson–maybe Macgregor–who claimed to have inside knowledge that after the midterms the big money boys plan to shove Trump out. They will then have Vance to take care of their priorities.

      Reply ↓
9. ISL May 28, 2026 at 9:16 am

   A Hemingway truism – “How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

   If performance and status are a bluff of at least a partial bluff*, you cannot react to an oncoming disaster, as admitting you are less than you appear is feared to have a snowballing effect – credit access cuts, boycotts, geopolitical challenges, etc., “Whistling by the graveyard,” rather than face your mortality (or bankruptcy – a Trump specialty).

   *The US economy no longer has its manufacturing basis, only financial/contractual inertia and the US military (brand US shines dimly), which is showing signs of paper tiger-ism – out of standoff munitions, ships that are targets, dysfunctional air defenses, etc.

   Reply ↓
10. hemeantwell May 28, 2026 at 9:17 am

    Thank you, Yves — and commenters, too — for relentlessly calling attention to the underlying parameters of this mess. It seems that the military experts we rely on have converged on a resumption early next week of heavy strikes against Iran, implying attacks on infrastructure. The tit for that tat will be Iran doing the same against participating states, including Israel.

    The likely consequences of that are well known here. What I’m near-staggered by is how this will mesh with Russia’s apparent commitment to escalation in response to Israeliesque attacks on civilians by the Kiev regime, attacks which, to speculate, reflect the interest both Kiev and European NATO members have in blocking US withdrawal from the war. I’m hesitant to spin out possible scenarios. However, the fact that a crisis cascade of that order will be handled by this impulsive, fantasizing administration makes it seem that the wave of apocalyptic dramas on our entertainment menu have been appropriate to our time.

    For reasons that I think are obvious it might be a good idea to start the NC fund-raising drive soon.

    Reply ↓
    1. You're soaking in it? May 28, 2026 at 5:31 pm

       LOL, I love it! Here, Yves, take my electrons now before it’s too late!
       (Aaah, they flow automatically anyway.)

       Still, not a bad idea, get people to give now while we still can. Grid knows, Yves and crew have earned it.

       Reply ↓
11. Socal Rhino May 28, 2026 at 9:21 am

    I have not seen anything from Oman on Iran’s proposal to manage the strait. Given their general neutral stance I would not be surprised if they are waiting to see this resolved.

    On retired commentators and economics, I wish Larry Johnson, an obviously very sharp guy and generalist, would be exposed to the difference between trade currencies and the reserve currency, and what petrodollars meant in terms of recycling gulf profits.

    I was impressed by Danny Davis interviewing Berman. Davis seems like someone who is genuinely trying to make sense of things and brings an open mind.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 28, 2026 at 10:10 am

       Please ignore military people talking about economics. This is one of the problem with YouTube: talking heads are way too free with views way outside their area of competence. They don’t even bother citing experts, which would enable one to determine the basis for their claims. Instead most in that crowd spout barely-digested libertarianism or dubious neoliberalism.l

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       1. Oregon Lawhobbit May 28, 2026 at 12:48 pm

          In other words, “Making Shit Up” and “Failure To Cite.” Two major sins here at NC…. :-)

          Reply ↓
    2. InquiringMind May 28, 2026 at 2:25 pm

       Oman must be playing footsie, leaning toward, if not agreeing with the Iranian strait-management plans or else the US wouldn’t be so strenuously twisting their arms about it.

       Treasury also weighed in today: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/28/us-treasury-threatens-oman-with-sanctions-over-hormuz-strait

       Maybe Oman has some concession they want to prise out of the US in order to play ball here and reject Iran.

       Reply ↓
12. Expat2uruguay May 28, 2026 at 10:05 am

    4 That can be read as confirming increasingly-voiced concerns that there will be no midterms if Trump’s approval ratings are still at bargain-basement levels.

    Can someone direct me to which part of the article this applies?

    Reply ↓
    1. Yalt May 28, 2026 at 10:24 am

       I took it as a reference to Trump’s “I don’t care about the midterms.” The footnote number in the text there is six, not four, but it’s the only footnoted passage that tracks. And there’s another footnote six elsewhere that does correspond to one of the fives.

       Reply ↓
       1. Steve H. May 28, 2026 at 10:34 am

          > I don’t care about the midterms.

          I believe him. There aren’t enough reformist candidates to turn the tide, and even if there were, the administration seems fine with lying and obfuscation. He behaves as if he doesn’t think Congress can touch him.

          Note that his statement is not inclusive of the 2028 Presidential election.

          Reply ↓
13. Ann May 28, 2026 at 10:16 am

    Pentagon puts building blocks in place for Cuba invasion

    https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/27/cuba-us-military-attack-00938740

    Russia signs military partnership with the Taliban

    https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-afghanistan-military-partnership-taliban-new-deal/

    Judge allows Trump to implement mail-in voting executive order

    https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-allows-trump-implement-mail-in-voting-executive-order-2026-05-28/

    Medical expert gives surprising sign Trump may have a heart issue: He said readouts from Trump’s physicians indicate a possibly deadly potential health issue.

    https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/05/medical-expert-gives-surprising-sign-may-have-a-heart-issue/

    Pentagon says US military personnel are reportedly being targeted using location data

    https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/pentagon-says-us-military-personnel-are-reportedly-being-targeted-using-location-2026-05-28/

    Reply ↓
    1. Oregon Lawhobbit May 28, 2026 at 12:51 pm

       Medical expert gives surprising sign Trump may have a heart issue: He said readouts from Trump’s physicians indicate a possibly deadly potential health issue.

       https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/05/medical-expert-gives-surprising-sign-may-have-a-heart-issue/

       But … but … wouldn’t he have to HAVE a heart (and not the ones on his desk) for that to be true????

       Reply ↓
14. Amateur Socialist May 28, 2026 at 10:33 am

    Found an interesting if depressing movie online over the holiday weekend: The Apprentice a 2024 biopic of Trump that focuses on his early days of Manhattan real estate, when he was mentored by one Roy Cohn. The film is accurate or at least consistent with contemporaneous accounts of their relationship including their falling out at the end when Cohn is dying of AIDS which he pretty much denied his entire life. The film never found a release here in the US probably mostly because of the timing near the election. It’s streamable for free on Tubi and some other services with ads.

    The movie is depressing because of what I think it explains about his approach to the Iran War. Cohn explains his three rules of winning to Trump which he acknowledges Trump learns well:

    1. Always attack
    2. Deny Everything
    3. Never admit to a loss, they are all actually wins

    Cohn actually says during the film that “Truth is malleable, you make your own” a credo he pretty much lived by his entire life.

    I think if you expect trump to continue applying Cohn’s 3 rules it means this war isn’t ending, at least not until regime change comes to the US.

    Reply ↓
15. Hickory May 28, 2026 at 10:38 am

    I’ve been trying to understand these supposed cliff dates for when energy shocks will really show up in practice. And I don’t see how people get to a date of July 4/9 or even late July. I want to better forecast this but it’s hard to find good numbers. I’d like to share some notes and see if others can add/correct anything.

    I’ve tried to find actual figures for SPR drawdown and distinguish ‘barrel bottom’ from ‘operational minimum’, meaning the amount where engineers would stop withdrawing to preserve the storage facility.

    This site gives the SPR levels: https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_ending_stocks_of_crude_oil_in_the_strategic_petroleum_reserve

    I’m seeing on May 15 there were 374m barrels in reserve. Looking at previous weeks, stocks dropped ~5-10m barrels/week. Conservatively forecasting at the high end, 10m barrel/wk release until the reserves are empty, that means 10m barrels/wk for 37 weeks, or about 8.6 months before the SPR is empty from mid-May, meaning early 2027.

    I’ve read the SPR operational minimum is 150m barrels, so let’s say we have an effective SPR stock of 374m – 150m = 224m barrels. Doing the same math, assuming a 10m barrel/wk drawdown, that gives us 22.4 weeks or a little over 5 months before the SPR hits operational minimum.

    Obviously the gov’t might decide to stop withdrawals earlier, for example to protect military petroleum supplies.

    I understand other countries don’t have the same reserves or may hoard them, and there are other kinds of buffers like floating stocks as discussed in the Brookings article “the Timing of the Impending crude crisis”. But my reading of the US SPR is that we’re no where near to a barrel-bottom by any definition, and definitely not 6 weeks (ie July 4). I’m not sure why the Brookings article shows the SPR running out after July (see the light blue areas in figure 2).

    That Brookings article gives a figure (fig 1) showing floating stocks, but they’re also at ~105m barrels and have been fluctuating between 90 and 140m since the war started (ie 3 months). So what changes that suddenly causes these floating stocks to drop to zero on July 4 after they’ve been oscillating for 3 months?

    Logically it really seems like there will be an energy crisis in the US soon, but the data I’m actually finding doesn’t say there’ll be one by early July. Does anyone see what I’m missing? Are there other major stocks that are depleting much faster than the SPR/floating stocks? Are other countries’ supplies about to run out/be hoarded? What is the thing that would cause early July to be a severe inflection point?

    I welcome anyone’s thoughts.

    Reply ↓
    1. silver salmon May 28, 2026 at 1:41 pm

       My understanding is that the situation is complex & so the calculations can only be approximate.
       Much of what I say here comes from the excellent & sobering Davis/Berman discussion linked above.

       The US imports 6.5 million barrels/day. We need the heavier oil from the tar sands & the middle east to make diesel, jet fuel, and other non-light products (gasoline is light). The SPR is probably filled with domestically produced oil, which is light. So those 10m barrels/wk don’t help with the domestic shortfall of middle weight crude. Instead the SPR drawdown is used to suppress/mitigate international prices.

       So it sounds to me like the wall that we will hit first in the US is for the inputs needed to make diesel, jet fuel, and eventually fuel oil (used for heating in the Northeast). Berman said in the linked discussion above, that the best oil for making diesel comes from the Persian Gulf & from Russia which is why, he said, we un-sanctioned Russian oil.

       Berman also makes the point that the economy runs on diesel, not gasoline. He said that transportation, mining, and agriculture all run on diesel.

       So, perhaps that is the wall that Berman, Curry, and others are worried about.

       Reply ↓
16. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 10:51 am

    Karen Kwiatkowski, who has appeared in recent videos such as todays, has an interesting history-

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

    I have a lot of respect for that woman.

    Reply ↓
17. raspberry jam May 28, 2026 at 11:09 am

    Barak Ravid says a 60 day deal has been reached, prepare for the kinetics to start

    Reply ↓
    1. raspberry jam May 28, 2026 at 11:15 am

       Israel says nope

       this is so tedious! right on schedule, signalling to those connected to get their shorts and bets in before the market closes!

       Reply ↓
    2. Timmy May 28, 2026 at 11:19 am

       Here is Bloomberg’s update on this report. How can it be remotely credible for (even) Axios to publish this with the claim that the agreement includes traffic through Hormouz is going to be unrestricted?

       “Iran and the US have reached a deal to extend a truce and work toward an agreement to end the war, Axios reported, sending oil prices lower on hopes the three-month conflict could be nearing a resolution.

       The agreement is for a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and for negotiations to start on Iran’s nuclear program, Axios said, citing two US officials and a regional source involved in the negotiations. US President Donald Trump still needs to approve the terms, it said.

       Oil prices fell on the news to near $94 a barrel, having earlier gained on a more pessimistic outlook for a deal. The Axios report sent the S&P 500 to a new record high.

       The memorandum of understanding would state that shipping through the vital Strait of Hormuz would be “unrestricted,” Axios reported. Iran would have to remove all mines from the strait within 30 days, according to the report.”

       Reply ↓
       1. David Vogt May 28, 2026 at 11:22 am

          What mines? The US government has repeatedly assured us they bombed all the minelayers!

          Set your watches for the inevitable “Uh… well, it’s finalized, but we’re still working out the wording…”

          Reply ↓
       2. ChrisFromGA May 28, 2026 at 12:32 pm

          In a truly sane society, Axios’ reputation would be so tarnished that it would be placed in the same category as those tabloid papers you used to see at the grocery store checkout line. The ones that would scream “Elvis seen at a shopping mall!” or “New evidence that aliens exist!”

          I will note that the half-life of the effectiveness of these obvious attempts at market manipulation is shrinking. Crude oil is higher on the day, although down from earlier highs. And I had CNN on the radio coming back from a doctors appointment, and they did not even mention the Axios report at the top of the hour. The lead story was Trump going after E. Jean Carroll by weaponizing the DoJ. So we may be at the end of the road for these lies to have even a small effect on markets.

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          1. Timmy May 28, 2026 at 12:43 pm

             Al Jazeera has the most active Iran war live feed by far and they haven’t picked it up in the two hours its been out. Its ridiculous on the surface and makes sites that do (Bloomberg – top of the page posting) look like lap cats.

             Reply ↓
          2. David Vogt May 28, 2026 at 1:18 pm

             The breathless reporting on peace deals over the past month makes the MSM coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq War look like Pulitzer material by comparison.

             Reply ↓
       3. boshko May 28, 2026 at 1:58 pm

          Axios reported, sending oil prices lower on hopes

          ‘nuf said.

          rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

          Reply ↓
    3. Mikel May 28, 2026 at 3:33 pm

       New York Times getting in on the trolling:
       https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/28/world/iran-war-us-trump-deal/

       This sentence:
       “Mr. Trump has not signed off on the emerging framework, and it was not clear if it matched Iran’s understanding.”

       Tacked on at the end of this bit of “news” is a section called “Here’s What Else We’re Covering”:
       Strikes in Lebanon: The Israeli military widened its offensive against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia, in Lebanon on Thursday, striking Beirut for the first time in almost a month and pushing deeper into the country’s south….

       And they say it’s not clear if this alleged “negotiation” matches Iran’s understanding.

       Reply ↓
18. Ann May 28, 2026 at 11:30 am

    FBI Arrests CIA Official with $40M in Gold Bars in His Home

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/us/politics/fbi-arrest-cia-official-gold-bars.html

    Ukraine to Be Fully Integrated Into EU Air Defense, Drone Priorities, Von der Leyen Says

    https://www.kyivpost.com/post/76995

    U.S. and Iran reach deal but need Trump’s final approval, officials say

    https://www.axios.com/2026/05/28/iran-peace-deal-trump-approval

    Norway will come under France’s nuclear umbrella, leaders say

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/norway-will-come-under-frances-nuclear-umbrella-leaders-say-2026-05-27/

    China’s amb to ‘Post’: Beijing pushes Iran from ‘extremist path’ after Trump-Xi summit – interview

    https://www.jpost.com/international/article-897653

    Reply ↓
19. .Tom May 28, 2026 at 11:38 am

    The government’s use of the SPR to manipulate prices reminds me Norman Lamont in Sep 1992 and ERM. It’s not really analogous I suppose but such schemes have their limits and that of the SPR is rather obvious and tangible.

    Reply ↓
20. Bill Carson May 28, 2026 at 11:47 am

    I, Bill Carson, noted expert on geo-international relations, the history of war, and petroleum engineering, and winner of the D.H. Lawrence Prize for promotion of peace and free love in the Middle East, am making the following prediction (I would bet a tenner on the polymarkets with this information, but I’m too old to set up another username and password.), to wit:

    Trump is the not going to launch another major round of attacks against Iran anytime soon and never if he can help it. There will be mowing of the lawn (or, as he calls it, Whack-a-Mole) to limit any imminent threats and to keep Iran’s attention focused on the US forces in the region and to distract them from what Israel is doing in Lebanon and elsewhere. This will be an extended period of “cease fires” (you cease, we fire) to allow room for “continued negotiations.” So long as the Dow remains at or above 50,000 and WTI remains at or below $100 (it’s now parked below $90 so yippee!), and Iran launches only reactionary attacks to US acts of aggression, there will not be another major US operation.

    Iran says they want to bind Israel from aggression in Gaza and Lebanon, but as of right now, Israel has continued its bombings, invasions, and genocide 2.0 in southern Lebanon, and Iran hasn’t done anything to stop it. Iran is getting played by Israel and the US here. At some point, like Gaza, it will be too late to save southern Lebanon.

    We are in a “slow stew” situation, and the US would like nothing more than to normalize the closure of the Straight of Hormuz and hopes other countries will find workarounds to the loss of this source of oil and other resources. It’s going to be a tough slog, but Trump and his ilk are hoping to use this opportunity to make billions.

    So that’s my prediction. I’m not making stuff up because these prognostications are based upon current observations and past occurrences. Let’s see what happens.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 28, 2026 at 1:30 pm

       You have not been paying attention, so your claims to expertise indicate that your priors have interfered with processing information.

       Iran has made clear, repeatedly, that the US and Israel would seek to execute a mowing the lawn strategy and they are no longer tolerating that. They have vowed a disproportionate and highly destructive retaliation across Gulf States which would create permanent damage to their oil infrastructure. As we have explained, this is an explicit MAD threat, except with Iran being energy and largely food self-sufficient, it could stand the results of creating a global depression better than the rest of the world can.

       So a big strike will produce the same devastating reaction from Iran as a “mowing the lawn” attack. And consistent with the US planning a bigger strike, we reported that the US has moved yet more refuelers into theater a couple of days ago.

       You also assume rationality. The coming oil cliff in July, which will come even if Iran fully dropped its Strait of Hormuz control plan now (but in that scenario, the nasty price elevation due to bona fide shortages might last only few months) will force Trump to take action, as in either escalate or crystalize a loss. Richard Pape has repeatedly said that leaders in this position, generally less driven by emotion than Trump, more often than not choose to gamble even if the odds of success are low rather than admit defeat. And on top of that (see Fox News), Trump is surrounded by nutters who maintain that Iran really has been badly hurt, all it will take is one more big punch for the place to fall apart.

       Reply ↓
       1. Bill Carson May 28, 2026 at 2:42 pm

          I respectfully disagree. Trump is on the front page of the NYT app stating that he does not object to a PROTRACTED negotiation process. He is not going back to what we did in March. Yes, the US may have assets in the theater—maybe the entire US military is within striking range, I don’t know—but other than minor operations like we have seen in the past few days, Trump is not going back into “bomb them into the Stone Age” mode. He and Bibi have settled on a longer game, which involves “talks,” during which Iran will mostly behave itself because it doesn’t want to be perceived as the aggressor when it is arguably winning the PR battle on the world stage.

          Trump’s addition of the “mandatory request” for all GCC nations to sign onto the Abraham Accords shows very clearly that neither the US nor Israel are serious about settling this conflict.

          In the meantime, that is, during the protracted negotiations, Trump will arrange for more traffic to transverse the SOH, likely “as a favor to” Pakistan, India, South Korea or whomever. This will not mean a return to “regular traffic” levels by any means, but it will provide some relief. If it is only symbolic, that’s still important. Also, I expect that Trump will use back channels and client states to satisfy some of Iran’s demands, such as the release of Iran’s money, but it will be done in such a way as to give Trump plausible deniability, mostly for his critics on the right.

          Now, all of this could change if Iran launches its own attack if the attack is too big for Trump to excuse away, like it did with Iran’s attack on a US base after the assassination of Sulemani. Or it could change if there is a major destabilization in The Market, but in light of the fact that they’ve been able to maintain 50,000 and $90, despite all of the warnings from economists, retailers, etc., a crash may not happen this time because the stock exchanges are so far removed from the real economy. Other than one or both of those things happening, we are in an extended mostly-cease fire. Just wait and see.

          Reply ↓
          1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 28, 2026 at 3:22 pm

             You must be kidding me. You take anything Trump says seriously when he changes his position more often than most people change their clothes?

             And you take this one remark as bona fide while dismissing his Abraham Accords demand, which he’s made at least 3X since he first made it on a conference call of sorts with GCC leaders, including in the post-Cabinet meeting presser? Are you a mind reader, that you can tell when Trump is serious as opposed to caught up in his white matter disease and drunkenness on his sense of power?

             This is the man who swore up and down during the campaign, no more wars, and that fighting inflation was a priority. I cannot believe you tout any claim by Trump as meaning anything, save at most very very consistent ones that reflect the fond wishes of his most influential donors.

             You also airbrush out that he attacked Iran not once but twice while negotiating.

             There will be no deal. I don’t understand how you do not understand that.

             Israel will sabotage any deal.

             Trump will get overwhelming heat if he accepts Iran controlling the Strait, which it will.

             Iran is insisting on getting its frozen assets back and a sanctions waiver, which Trump cannot deliver. He will be eaten alive if he tries, particularly after having repeatedly and loudly said they were never getting them back. And as we said before, a big portion of the frozen assets are encumbered by certifications required by Congress on which Trump cannot deliver.

             Iran has insisted on settling the other issues before they deal with nuclear matters. The most Iran will concede is what it offered before, dilution of their existing enriched uranium to 3%.

             Reply ↓
             1. Travis Bickle May 28, 2026 at 6:28 pm

                Ah, but BC’s line of thinking is a plausible vision of a way forward for DJT. To me it’s trying to see how this thing might play out, however unlikely, because anything else is unsustainable (ie, Is there such a thing as an acceptable global depression?)

                Y’s read is more realistic as far as it goes, in the near term. But how do things finally play out, whether we get lucky or (more likely) don’t?

                One wonders what happens when the rat finally realizes he’s cornered, which may take awhile given his propensity for magical thinking. The situation is not governed by policy or process, but by lizard brain impulses. Who would argue he didn’t go into this thing out of sheer arrogance, thinking it’d be equally pleasurable experience to what he had with Maduro? Seems like what he does next will follow the same “thought process.”

                With a mind similar to a dirt-common abusive spouse, he has now beaten the s**t outta this disrespectful bitch, which gave him pleasure. Yet she has taken everything he had to give and continued to sass him, exposed him and his impotence. With his ego so cornered, Iran should expect another beating, as certainly as the typical abuser would redouble their efforts for a second, more determined round. No longer simply seeking satisfaction, he would be defending his ego against what stands as an existential threat. In the mind of a guy like this, far more is now at stake.

                So, what would the typical abusive spouse do when confronted with a second failure, which everyone but him knows is inevitable?

                There are other ways this could play out that are more positive, but this is not unlikely.

                Reply ↓
             2. Bill Carson May 28, 2026 at 9:02 pm

                I don’t have time to respond to all of your points but maybe I will later tonight.

                But let me just say that you are reading into what I wrote much more than is there or is intended. I hate Trump’s guts. He’s a moron in many ways. I’m not a Republican and haven’t been one in at least 14 years. And yet you’ve assumed I am a Trump supporter simply because of my prediction that he is not going to start another major operation any time soon.

                “There will be no deal.” I agree with you. Did I say there would be a deal? No. Rather, I said that Trump and Bibi will pretend to extend the ceasefires, calling it protracted negotiations, so that Israel can in the meantime bomb the hell out of Lebanon. Have you heard about all of the carpet bombing that Iran has done in the past 3 days? It hasn’t made the news. They’ve ordered like 1 million Lebanese citizens to clear out. And nobody’s doing anything about it. Not even Iran. Maybe Iran’s afraid of being nuked by Israel, I don’t know, but I can’t explain their lack of retaliation.

                “Israel will sabotage any deal.” 100%

                “Trump will get overwhelming heat if he accepts Iran controlling the Strait, which it will.” 1. Trump has no choice. 2. People will care less who controls the SOH so long as the freight starts moving. And 3. Trump will call it something else. He’s already been trying.

                “Iran is insisting on getting its frozen assets back and a sanctions waiver, which Trump cannot deliver. He will be eaten alive if he tries, particularly after having repeatedly and loudly said they were never getting them back.” Again, Trump has no choice. But also, did you read the part I wrote about Trump utilizing back channels and client states? Trump will have no choice but to release funds, but he can do it without writing a big old check that says “From the United States Treasury, Pay to the Order of the Islamic State.” There’s a reason why Trump is paying a guy $13milion plus to fix a fountain that Biden said should cost $2million to fix.

                “And as we said before, a big portion of the frozen assets are encumbered by certifications required by Congress on which Trump cannot deliver.” Um, have you seen how much Trump has been able to do without Congress’s help? $40billion to Argentina! $1.776 billion from the DoJ without any strings or oversight.

                “Iran has insisted on settling the other issues before they deal with nuclear matters. The most Iran will concede is what it offered before, dilution of their existing enriched uranium to 3%.” Yes, I know. I don’t think they will even have to concede this.

                So in conclusion, can we please, please, please, please stop putting so much credence into what Larry Wilkerson says. He and some others have been predicting a large US operation since April 1. It hasn’t happened. It won’t happen because there’s only a downside for Trump and the U.S. So maybe we consider other possibilities.

                But time will tell.

                Reply ↓
                1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 29, 2026 at 7:37 am

                   No, you are the one who is projecting YOUR views onto what I said.

                   I merely said you acted as if Trump’s present statements could be treated as truthful and presented only a tiny part of his litany of lies.

                   It was YOU who chose to go well beyond what I said to make a bogus accusation to shore up your position.

                   The fact that you cannot process what I wrote correctly raise serious questions about your ability to interpret other information accurately.

                   As far as Wilkerson, he has yet to be proven wrong. The US still has far too many forces in theater to intend to do nothing and has been bringing even more in, witness the arrival of even more refueling tankers in the past week. And many ex-military officials (as in ones with experience and contacts) such as Karen Kwaitkowki, Douglas Macgregor, Stas Krapivnik, and Daniel Davis? Larry Johnson (who is merely ex-CIA) comes to the same view from analysis of the movement of forces and assets and his sources. So all these experts see evidence in troop commitments as well as gossip that says it is at the very least 50/50 that Trump make another big attack.

                   And how the hell can you presume to know better than former senior military offices, with ACTUAL combat experience, and numerous contacts? Who made you an armchair general? All you offer is knee-jerk skepticism.

                   And as I pointed out and you forget, many experts expressed some consternation that Trump had amassed was keeping a great concentration of naval assets near Venezuela yet did nothing for a very very long time. Many correctly pointed out an invasion was impossible and were even a bit up in arms at the waste. But then he acted.

                   Reply ↓
                   1. Bill Carson May 29, 2026 at 8:10 am

                      I’m done arguing over this, but I do want to make one retraction/correction to my latest comment. In the next to last paragraph, I meant to reference Larry Johnson and not Wilkerson. I find Wilkerson more credible than Johnson.

                      Reply ↓
    2. Chris in OK May 28, 2026 at 2:27 pm

       As Yves said, the draining of various government and commercial oil stockpiles will force something to happen, sooner rather than later.

       I would also contend that Iran’s restraint is out of respect for the Hajj and not wanting to incite the rest of the Muslim world. They really want (need?) to be seen as the only thing that can save the muslim world from the Zionists.

       Not that I am a psychologist, but I absolutely believe that Trump believes that he holds all the cards and that the mighty US military can sufficiently damage Iran such that they will concede to Trump’s demands. I am in the camp that Trump will try a showy round of attacks to try and break the current deadlock. The only question is what they attack. If they keep it to military targets, Iran will attack military targets, and the can will be kicked. This would allow them to lock in another round of profiting from swings in the markets. If they target civilian infrastructure, all bets are off (but their oil longs will go parabolic…).

       Even if they go with Door #1, tank bottoms loom….

       Reply ↓
    3. NotThePilot May 28, 2026 at 4:09 pm

       Iran says they want to bind Israel from aggression in Gaza and Lebanon, but as of right now, Israel has continued its bombings, invasions, and genocide 2.0 in southern Lebanon, and Iran hasn’t done anything to stop it. Iran is getting played by Israel and the US here. At some point, like Gaza, it will be too late to save southern Lebanon.

       I actually think you’re right that most of the war is in a “slow stew” situation, but I don’t believe Iran has abandoned Lebanon or is going to tolerate US forces in the region. I stand by what I said at least a couple weeks ago: this is still just the midgame, and Lebanon + Gaza are now the main contest.

       The opening with lots of gambits, attacks all over the theater, & jockeying for position is over, i.e. culmination for both sides (but Iran with its allies came out on top). Things haven’t reached the endgame yet either though where strategic objectives are obviously resolved; I still think people are underestimating what the Resistance Axis may have planned for the finish.

       So instead we get this mix of feints, probing, & grinding attrition, by Israel in Lebanon especially. To interpret Iran (or Ansarallah & Iraqi PMUs for that matter) not loudly attacking Israel as abandonment is to lose sight of positioning. I think the Resistance Axis has decided this war is for all the marbles in the region, not the on-again-off-again war like you describe. The coalition around Hezbollah can even accept the level of property damage in S Lebanon more if they see it as the last time they have to rebuild, and with funds finally coming in freely without US or Israeli interference.

       I haven’t seen any evidence Hezbollah has lost coordination with its allies either, which implies as bad as the Israeli attacks are, the Resistance Axis strategy is still going where they want it to.

       Reply ↓
21. XXYY May 28, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    In a clip that went round the world, [Thai] TV broadcasters took off their jackets on screen and continued in shirt sleeves to model the desired behavior.

    This reminded me of President Jimmy Carter during the late seventies US energy crisis, when Americans were being urged to lower their thermostats (i.e. use less heat). He famously wore a sweater in a White House broadcast where he urged Americans to use less energy during the crisis.

    The power of example is important. One of the things that Biden, and later Trump, whiffed on during the COVID crisis was wearing respirators in public. Even CDC officials (!) refused to take this simple step.

    Walking your talk, even in minor ways, is something that people really understand and respond to. It’s one of the tools of leadership that is not used nearly enough.

    Reply ↓
22. JonnyJames May 28, 2026 at 12:46 pm

    On AJ live: Looks like MOU was just agreed to, but pending approval from the Mad Emperor, who knows? I would guess it’s largely BS and the US has no intention of following the terms, even if DT approves. More smokescreen to quell any market upset?

    Despite all of the great information here and from the posts, it looks like the BS from the WH and mass media cheer-leaders is still very effective: S&P 500 at record levels, WTI at just under 90/bbl. Nothing to worry about folks, economy is doing great! Can the bubble get any bigger?

    The manipulated Mr. Market does not see any supply-chain disruptions, debt bubbles, or knock-on effects coming soon? Weird, wacky stuff

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA May 28, 2026 at 1:15 pm

       It’s sad that the media lie not only to us, but themselves. As every 1st year law student learns, a contract requires the assent of both parties before it becomes binding. So saying that there is an “agreement” when neither party has agreed, is an outrageous lie.

       I guess it is just part of the timeline we live in, when I was younger this sort of Goebbels level propaganda was only something we read about in history class.

       Reply ↓
       1. David Vogt May 28, 2026 at 1:20 pm

          One shouldn’t need a law school education to know that “We’ve reached agreement, we’re just waiting for both sides to agree and also we’re still negotiating the wording!” doesn’t pass a sniff test.

          Reply ↓
          1. ChrisFromGA May 28, 2026 at 1:26 pm

             That’s a much more straightforward way of looking at it. I fall back on legalism sometimes, but as you say, you don’t need any formal education to sense that they’re backing up a truckload of horse manure and dumping it on us, again and again.

             Reply ↓
             1. doug May 28, 2026 at 1:59 pm

                YET, highly intelligent folks with lots of money on the line are still thinking there is a pony in the pile, somewhere. I am amazed what is believed, day after day, lie after lie. I do not understand human behavior.
                The confidence fairy will eat anything and enjoy it I guess.

                Reply ↓
    2. Mikel May 28, 2026 at 2:40 pm

       Here’s more weird, wacky, and tongue-in-cheek :
       I’ll bet (because apparently that’s what the economy is all about now) that all of those disruptions, bubble pops, etc could happen, there is a temporary fall, then they come back with the number going up again because “markets are forward looking”.
       The number can always recover and go up with that dogma. The market is always “forward looking” to rosy times of rainbows, unicorns, and men on Mars and never “forward looking” about huge problems.

       Reply ↓
    3. Jason Boxman May 28, 2026 at 2:44 pm

       I’m going to go insane in this timeline

       BREAKING: Iran rejects today’s Axios report claiming a US-Iran deal or MOU has been reached, saying “Axios is fake news” and Iran “will not sign any agreement that does not align with our interests,” explicitly rejecting the current deal terms. Iran also does not accept the proposed 60 day ceasefire extension due to continued violations of it and will “respond to any further violation of the ceasefire,” per two members inside the negotiations.

       Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has also not approved or agreed to the proposed agreement and terms.

       https://x.com/HormuzLetter/status/2060059504830722318

       Reply ↓
23. ChrisFromGA May 28, 2026 at 2:08 pm

    I’d like to elaborate a bit on my bone to pick with the media, and the way they are dealing in bad faith with their readership.

    I would hazard to guess that if, in a parallel universe, outfits like Axios were actually held to account for spreading false information, perhaps in a courtroom, they would fall back on a defense of “we’re just reporting what we’ve been told, and we have a duty to report it if it is coming from the White House, no matter how many times they’ve been proven to distribute materially false information.”

    That’s fine as far as possibly shielding them from criminal liability, if in this parallel universe it were a crime to spread false rumors with the intent to manipulate markets. However, it ignores the duty that the media owes to the public of reporting only credible information. If I walk into CNN and tell a reporter that I just saw Elvis at the local shopping mall, I am going to be laughed out of the building. And possibly escorted by a guard.

    Clearly, the Trump administration is abusing the system to a degree that the institutions that participate in media owe it to themselves (and us) to stop enabling the spread of false information. I’ll draw a parallel to the legal system, which is also being abused by Trump. He apparently re-filed a defamation suit against the WSJ, over the piece that reported on the birthday card he sent to Epstein. The first suit was tossed because he failed to understand that the standard for defamation of a public figure is actual malice. He had zero facts to back up a claim of actual malice against the WSJ, so the lawsuit could not proceed. Failure to even state a claim.

    Yet here he is again, weaponizing his lawyers to re-file, under what frivolous grounds, I have no idea. And the suit will clog up the legal system, wasting clerks time, judges, etc. until it is inevitably thrown out again.

    Because he’s President, he can get away with it. He has the money, time, and legal minions to be a vexatious litigant without any consequences. If I were the judge, I’d sanction his lawyers, but that is another tangent.

    Coming back to the media, much like the legal system, they’re being abused and manipulated by a psychopath. One who just happens to be a very powerful psychopath, of course. But that doesn’t absolve them of a duty to be aware of how they’re being manipulated, in this case to allegedly commit insider trading and fraud. And report honestly on how they’re being manipulated, not just accept lie after lie at face value. That is the story, in and of itself. Not the lies that are trotted out day, after day, after day.

    End of rant.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mikel May 28, 2026 at 6:27 pm

       “If I walk into CNN and tell a reporter that I just saw Elvis at the local shopping mall, I am going to be laughed out of the building. And possibly escorted by a guard.”

       Yeah, but what walk into CNN and say you saw Elvis with a negotiated deal between Iran and the US and that will print.

       Reply ↓
24. Ann May 28, 2026 at 2:46 pm

    Israeli PM Netanyahu says he directed the military to take over 70% of Gaza

    https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/28/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-military-70-percent-gaza-intl

    Reply ↓
25. Jason Boxman May 28, 2026 at 2:47 pm

    Meanwhile in physical barrels world

    Global oil stockpiles could hit record lows if Strait of Hormuz remains closed (CNBC)

    Oil stockpiles cushioned the blow from the Middle East supply disruption, but inventories are falling at a record clip as the Strait of Hormuz stays closed.
    UBS expects inventories to approach all-time lows by the end of May.
    Prices will spike to prevent inventories from falling below critical levels that would undermine the whole system, analysts say.
    Rapidan Energy predicts this could happen before the third quarter.

    Reply ↓
26. Ann May 28, 2026 at 2:48 pm

    Canadian warship transits Taiwan Strait despite China’s warning

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-hmcs-charlottetown-canadian-warship-taiwan-strait/

    The Trump administration is bracing for the potential collapse of Cuba’s totalitarian government as early as this summer, and has war-gamed new military response plans in case the island descends into chaos, U.S. officials tell Axios

    https://www.axios.com/2026/05/28/trump-cuba-squeeze-regime-change

    Reply ↓
27. Ann May 28, 2026 at 2:54 pm

    A strong Canada ‘will help make America great again,’ Carney tells New York business leaders

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-new-york-speech-9.7214907

    Ex-Senior CIA official embezzled $40m in Gold Bars for work-related expenses

    https://apnews.com/article/cia-gold-bars-theft-arrest-689029ef34d6ccb2bb3aaf3f3cc259f4

    LeT turns on its Pakistan masters over recognising Israel

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/let-turns-on-its-pakistan-masters-over-recognising-israel/amp_articleshow/131361851.cms

    EU secures emergency deliveries of potential treatment against hantavirus

    https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/eu-secures-emergency-deliveries-potential-treatment-against-hantavirus-2026-05-28/

    Reply ↓
28. Ann May 28, 2026 at 3:03 pm

    IDF targets Iran-linked missile commander near Beirut

    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1edbohxze

    Trump team ‘drawing up’ plans to stop international flights to some Democratic cities

    https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-international-flights-sanctuary-cities-b2984420.html

    Lindsey Graham branded ‘pathetic’ for saying Nobel Peace Prize should be renamed Trump Prize

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-nobel-prize-lindsey-graham-middle-east-b2985271.html

    Reply ↓
    1. raspberry jam May 28, 2026 at 3:50 pm

       Trump team ‘drawing up’ plans to stop international flights to some Democratic cities

       i have a hard time believing United isn’t going to go over Mullin’s head to address ORD directly with Trump but it is infuriating the vig shakedown by the administration has come to this

       Reply ↓
29. Ann May 28, 2026 at 3:07 pm

    Trump Skips Visit to Soldiers Injured in Iran War at Walter Reed

    https://newrepublic.com/post/211041/trump-skips-visit-soldiers-injured-iran-war-walter-reed

    Fact Check: BlackRock CEO said Americans’ savings and investments will fund data centers, new power infrastructure

    https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-blackrock-ceo-said-130000549.html

    Reply ↓
30. Ignacio May 28, 2026 at 3:18 pm

    Mr Market predicts a rosy AI future despite Hormuz:

    Higher oil prices not expected to derail capex growth, Goldman says

    Reply ↓
    1. Samuel Conner May 28, 2026 at 3:50 pm

       So, the supply side is rosy. Now if they can just find some use cases that are worth the cost of providing them.

       Reply ↓
31. Ann May 28, 2026 at 3:24 pm

    Pro-Trump attorneys have been drafting executive orders that would give President Trump sweeping power over elections, sources report

    https://abcnews.com/US/pro-trump-attorneys-push-executive-order-give-trump/story

    Reply ↓
    1. samm May 28, 2026 at 5:14 pm

       That link didn’t work for me, but this one seems to:

       https://abcnews.com/US/pro-trump-attorneys-push-executive-order-give-trump/story?id=130539044

       Reply ↓
       1. ACF May 29, 2026 at 12:05 am

          Thank you both

          Reply ↓
32. ChrisPacific May 28, 2026 at 4:56 pm

    Re: the X comment:

    You don’t start a war over an “imminent danger” then redefine it as hypothetical after the fact.

    You shouldn’t, maybe, but the US does, all the time. Iraq was exactly like this.

    Reply ↓
    1. NotTimothyGeithner May 28, 2026 at 8:45 pm

       Er, we didn’t. Shrub was always careful to use words that indicated Iraq was a future threat not an imminent one. The vibe might have been different, but the language was a radical departure from the past. Obama reused Shrub’s language.

       Reply ↓
       1. ChrisPacific May 28, 2026 at 10:48 pm

          He avoided the word ‘imminent’ but he also repeatedly made the argument that if the US waited it would be too late. The whole thrust of his political argument at the time was to convince US voters that they’d be attacked if they didn’t do something. There were also the WMDs that they outright lied about, and fabricated evidence. I’d definitely put that under the category of exaggerating a threat as well.

          Yes, they were very careful to use weasel words so that they could argue after the fact that they’d never said what they said, which the current administration doesn’t bother to do. But I don’t see that much difference in practical terms.

          Reply ↓
       2. ACF May 29, 2026 at 12:03 am

          Iraq was painted as an urgent threat, a must-be-neutralized -now threat. Lots of us knew he was lying and marched and organized, but we were totally ineffective.

          Reply ↓
33. ChrisFromGA May 28, 2026 at 5:32 pm

    Scott Bessent refuses to confirm the Axios story, repeatedly:

    https://nz.news.yahoo.com/bessent-refuses-confirm-axios-report-185410553.html

    Bessent is acting WH press secretary as Karoline Leavitt is out on maternity leave.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent repeatedly refused to confirm an Axios scoop from earlier Thursday that said the United States and Iran have reached a tentative deal to extend the ceasefire and launch negotiations over the country’s nuclear program, only telling reporters that President Donald Trump is “not going to make a bad deal.”

    Reply ↓
34. Ann May 28, 2026 at 7:10 pm

    US Army integrates veterinarians into human combat care

    https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/05/27/us-army-integrates-veterinarians-into-human-combat-care/

    Reply ↓
35. Ann May 28, 2026 at 7:11 pm

    Iran Is Now Convinced Trump Has Lost The Stomach To Fight

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/28/iran-convinced-trump-lost-stomach-fight/

    Reply ↓
    1. EY Oakland May 28, 2026 at 8:45 pm

       You have to love this goad. When I see anything attributed to The Telegraph, a bright red ‘Consider the Source’ flashes. Trump’s ample stomach is there for all to see.

       Reply ↓
36. Ann May 28, 2026 at 7:12 pm

    Co-founder of Students for Trump arrested on domestic violence charges

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/28/co-founder-students-trump-arrested-domestic-violence

    Reply ↓
37. Ann May 28, 2026 at 7:20 pm

    Dell wins a $9.7 billion Pentagon software deal after donating to Trump accounts

    https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/27/dell-dod-pentagon-software-deal-digital-infrastructure-trump.html

    Treasury Department confirms it has taken limited steps toward a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump

    https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-250-bill-c48e35fd945fe7983c7481b2fbd6416c

    Republican bill urges “deadly force” to stop abortions in North Carolina

    https://www.newsweek.com/republican-bill-deadly-force-stop-abortions-north-carolina-12005136

    Learning from Ukraine, Hezbollah is now using fibre-optic drones to hit Israel

    https://bbc.com/news/articles/c0r2ydlvk41o

    White House has yet to release results of Trump’s latest physical at Walter Reed

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-doctors-memo-health-physical/

    Italy seizes gold, luxury villas and cash tied to Sicilian Mafia drug-trafficking

    https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/italy-seizes-gold-luxury-villas-cash-tied-sicilian-133376592

    Exxon warns oil inventories will hit dangerously low levels in weeks, forcing prices to shoot higher

    https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/oil-inventory-exxon-strait-hormuz-iran-war.html

    Reply ↓
38. Ann May 28, 2026 at 7:26 pm

    Arctic Ocean food chain is disrupted as a key tipping point has now been passed

    https://phys.org/news/2026-05-arctic-ocean-food-chain-disrupted.html

    The Pentagon Knew Enemies Could Track Troops’ Phones for Years. Now They Are | The US military has long known that cheap fixes could stop location data from exposing its troops. It adopted almost none—and now says adversaries are using the data to target soldiers during a war

    https://www.wired.com/story/the-pentagon-knew-enemies-could-track-troops-phones-for-years-now-they-are/

    The first inflation report under new Fed chief Kevin Warsh is out — and it’s not good

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pce-report-today-inflation-kevin-warsh-federal-reserve/

    Israel strikes Beirut southern suburb ahead of crucial Washington talks

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/israel-strikes-beirut-southern-suburb-ahead-of-crucial-washington-talks/

    Reply ↓
39. Tom Stone May 28, 2026 at 7:47 pm

    I don’t believe Trump has ever visited injured US Soldiers, He might appear in a photo op with someone is a wheelchair while keeping the production as short as possible.
    Trump is not only a germophobe, he is revolted by the damaged and the overweight.
    There are no heavy set Women in his entourage, they are all conventionally pretty and you can say the same for the Men.
    Being Telegenic is a requirement.
    I’m more likely to be on the cover of GQ than Trump is to visit the burn ward at Walter Reed.
    I have visited the burn ward at a VA hospital, the horrors of War are clearly displayed there.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev May 28, 2026 at 7:56 pm

       Well Trump did call dead soldiers losers and suckers so I would imagine he would think the same of wounded soldiers-

       https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-confirms-trump-privately-disparaged-us-service-members-vete-rcna118543

       Reply ↓
40. Ann May 28, 2026 at 9:52 pm

    Scott Bessent Doubles Down on Trump’s Wild Threat to Oman; Donald Trump is apparently ready to expand his regional war in the Middle East.

    https://newrepublic.com/post/211038/donald-trump-treasury-secretary-scott-bessent-threat-oman

    Americans who get Ebola will go to Europe for treatment, not U.S., officials say

    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-ebola-go-europe-treatment-not-us-rcna347364

    Trump Nominee Refuses to Say If President Can or Cannot Do “Whatever He Wants”

    https://truthout.org/articles/trump-nominee-refuses-to-say-if-president-can-or-cannot-do-whatever-he-wants/

    Indiana Lt. Governor calls Islam a ‘demonic death cult,’ sparking criticism from Muslim advocacy groups

    https://fox59.com/indiana-news/indiana-lt-governor-calls-islam-a-demonic-death-cult-sparking-criticism-from-muslim-advocacy-groups/

    US intends to designate two Brazilian gangs as ‘terrorist organizations’, Rubio says

    https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-intends-designate-two-brazilian-gangs-terrorist-organizations-rubio-says-2026-05-28/

    National Park Entrance Fees Are Funding Trump’s D.C. Projects

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/climate/park-service-fees-washington-trump.html

    Reply ↓
41. Ann May 28, 2026 at 10:36 pm

    Why the U.S. Should Wind Down Military Aid to Israel | Washington should no longer be liable for Israeli misdeeds.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/26/israel-united-states-military-aid-gaza-trump-netanyahu/

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42. Ann May 28, 2026 at 10:53 pm

    America’s pile of emergency oil is shrinking fast

    https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/28/business/oil-iran-trump-spr-emergency

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