One reason I try not to post too much about Iran, other than blockade consequences, is that the level of bullshit flying around is so high, and it’s so hard to predict Trump. (He’s declared there was a deal over twenty times.)
However, this seems worth noting: Trump reposting Iran’s foreign minister:
Whether this will lead anywhere? Damned if I know. If I had to guess Trump’s threats to take Karch Island led to the military explaining to him that taking an island that is under artillery, missile and drone superiority by Iran, in a waterway which is mined, with the Iranians still having subs and plenty of speedboats left is a suicide mission.
But that’s just a guess, and probably wrong, since it assumes rationality.
I stumbled upon this graphic, it’s not quite right (the guy on the other side of Khameini is also alive) but it gives a sense of the scale of the leadership turnover in Iran:
Fundamentally the entire senior leadership of Iran was wiped out. The irony is that they were much less hawkish and far less willing to use force than the current bunch. Westerners (Israelis included) just cannot get thru their heads that assassination doesn’t work against functional organizations and societies. The leaders are simply replaced, often with more effective people.
Anyway, I hope there’s a deal that opens the Strait because I don’t want my food prices to double.
We’ll see.
(We’ll return to the “Freedom” series soon, probably with a discussion of Violence and Freedom.)
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Mark Level
In Ian’s “Iran war is ON!!” post of yesterday, thanks to the Due Dissidence Duo, I got comments 15 & 16 directly on the nose. Taco Thursday after usual Taco Tuesday.
Of course, I was very wrong a week or 2 into the (lost) U$A “war”, I thought Scotty Besent or some Adult in the Room might get the senile God-King to ease off before the US economy totally crashes. Well, no, his Ego is too insecure and his Id out of control, as we all know. Under the Naked God-Emperor, unless he can create an imaginary “Victory” and retreat, fool the remaining small CHUD MAGAts that he’s still Large and In Charge.
I’m with Ian, “Daddy’s” Weather-vane brain and mental decline means nobody can predict accurately. Now Aragchi is another matter, obviously, and that is reassuring. So DJT not just talking with the Voices in his Head.
Not too off-topic, Gwyneth Paltrow did an ad for expensive stolen beachfront Ultra-Luxe Apartments on the Mediterranean. A Palestinian village was destroyed, they all became refugees, we all know the story. The New Story though, is her advertising appeared on Instagram, and she got trashed in the comments, negative ratio was some 90%. Not many admirers of the Genocidal Entity, even in the US, much less internationally (some exceptions like the UN Leadership class of course known.)
They also cover her “Goop” Vaginal eggs bullshit and how it caused hundreds of infections in users and subsequent lawsuits, she is a walking shit-show. A very WASPy “Jew”, mom was lovely actress Blythe Danner, but on dad’s side from “27 generations of Rabbis”.
Paltrowich the original name, Russian obviously, some are very Aryan, white, see e.g. the commenter and veteran oil-industry guy, worked for Halliburton, Stanislav Krapivnik, a lot of blonde potential “beasts”, but most of those would rather work for Azov and revitalize Nazism obviously. (Krapivnik is very racist and bad on immigrants, part of his shtick, very gross. But at least he hates literal Nazis as well, once saw him call out the corrupt scum who took Prison Inmates and “rehabilitated” them via Military Service in the Wagner Group.)
Paltrow at least smart enough to OMIT the ad for the Luxury apartments on her own Social Media. Took her 30 million sheckels, she’s too old for most acting gigs now. She is openly genocidal, however.
Her famous ex-husband musician from Coldplay post-divorce has spoken out for and funded Palestinian Charities, I guess living with a Narcissist like her taught him something!! If interested, link here, a bit over 23 minutes–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkMGSY5LS0
Oh, and the Apartments have 2 Towers, what a coincidence. “My coffee needs a coffee,” Hannah Arendt’s banality of Evil.