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.)
What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.
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.
Dan Kelly
Thank you Ian.
I hope there’s a deal too.
There may be some, err, structural obstacles to any peace deal. I think this particular comment from a thread over at MOA well illuminates the usual suspects:
It begins with the premise that ‘‘any MOU that requires Zionist withdrawal from Lebanon and cessation of its attacks on Lebanese and Palestinians will fail because the Zionists will never adhere to any such demands.’
It then proceeds to show, via Sputnick, that that is in fact the first demand Iran names!:
‘Iranian Media Publishes 14-Point Iran-US Deal Draft, Revealing Tehran’s Key Conditions
The first point of the plan:
An immediate and permanent halt to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon’
https://sputnikglobe.com/20260612/iranian-media-publishes-14-point-iran-us-deal-draft-revealing-tehrans-key-conditions-1124301003.html
So, far, so good.
But uh oh:
‘Israel will not withdraw from the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. The [army] will continue to defend our borders and our citizens from the peak of Mount Hermon, the mountains of Lebanon, the areas of our land in the Samaria [occupied West Bank] region, and most of the territory of Gaza against the threats posed by jihadist forces and organisations as a central lesson from the events of October 7.
The country’s security doctrine is “sharp and clear” and Israel acts against both “near and distant threats” for outcomes, rather than “compromises and concessions”’ – Israel Katz, ‘Israel’ Defense Minister
And they continue to create the facts on the ground despite the best efforts of the resistance:
Israel orders evacuation of 3 villages in Saida, Zahrani River in its sights
South Lebanon — After having focused its airstrikes in previous days on the districts of Sour and Nabatieh, the Israeli military appeared on Friday to be concentrating its offensive on the Saida region and the Zahrani River.
In the early afternoon, through its Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee on the X platform, it issued an evacuation order to residents of three villages in the district: Sarafand, Tefahta, and Mazraat Sinay, in anticipation of upcoming bombings.
In its message, the Israeli military claimed to be targeting Hezbollah before ordering residents to take refuge north of the Zahrani River, which is located south of the city of Saida, the district center.
The municipality of Sarafand immediately called on residents to evacuate and “go to the nearest safe zone until the threat is gone.” Residents of Qaqaaiyet al-Sanawbar (Saida) also evacuated the Baqbish neighborhood at first, after one of them received a phone call ordering him to evacuate his home, our correspondent in the south, reported. A second call then ordered the evacuation of the entire town.
The idea of a complete disarmament of Hezbollah is considered unrealistic by anonymous defense officials.
The Jerusalem Post reports in this context that the Israeli army is considering pushing Hezbollah beyond the Zahrani River.
They suggest that if Hezbollah could be pushed not only beyond the Litani River, but also as far as the Zahrani River, south of Saida, the volume of threats to northern Israeli villages would be significantly reduced.
The Zahrani River is about six kilometers from Israeli positions, while Nabatieh is about three kilometers away. Hezbollah is said to be concerned about a possible advance by the Israeli army and has reinforced these areas, according to the Israeli daily.
These evacuation orders north of the Zahrani come AMID PERSISTENT TALK OF A POSSIBLE agreement between the United States and Iran.
https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1538060/israel-orders-evacuation-of-3-villages-in-saida-zahrani-river-in-its-sights.html
All of this happening in, on and around the most fertile land in Lebanon.
—
Aoun briefed on damage to Qaraoun Dam after Israeli strikes
Beirut — President Joseph Aoun met Friday with Sami Alawieh, head of the Litani River Authority, for a briefing on the state of installations in the area amid the current war in Lebanon, particularly in light of the recent Israeli attacks near the Qaraoun Dam in western Bekaa.
Alwieh thanked the president for his interventions in averting “a catastrophe at the Qaraoun Dam after the Israeli army targeted its surroundings and vital installations during a series of strikes that directly damaged part of the dam’s infrastructure and its power supply system.”
In recent weeks, Israeli strikes have intensified in the area, with some targeting roads and infrastructure around the Qaraoun Dam and Qaraoun Lake, raising fears of an environmental and humanitarian disaster.
On May 27, an Israeli drone strike in the dam’s vicinity killed a Lebanese Army soldier. One of the access points to the dam, located within the facility itself, was also targeted, along with components of the power supply system and adjacent buildings.
https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1538038/aoun-briefed-on-damage-to-qaraoun-dam-after-israeli-strikes.html
—
Meanwhile, back in the occupied West Bank:
Israel finances 61 new settlements in occupied West Bank before even approving them
While the world’s attention is focused on the war between the United States and Iran, the Israeli government was due to approve on Thursday, June 11, a plan to finance the establishment of 61 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to Axios journalist Barak Ravid, citing a source familiar with the matter.
[yes Ravid is unit 8200 but this is real not propaganda]
The government is reportedly preparing to allocate more than $350 million over several years to build the settlements, even before planning procedures are completed.
That is what distinguishes the project from previous waves of settlement expansion. Until now, new settlements had to pass through a multistep approval process, including a period during which objections could be filed — primarily by Palestinian residents and NGOs — followed by validation from the Higher Planning Council…
https://archive.ph/QnENR
—
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/06/iran-open-thread-2026-123.html/comment-page-5#comment-1369173
spud
FDR, churchill, stalin, truman, never stopped, stopping meant the enemy has breathing room to come up with more and better weapons, and better defenses.
putin has never figured this out, the chinese think they are untouchable.
but north korea never took its eyes off of the prize, knowing full well what would happen if they did. today they are heading for super power status.
hope cuba has learned something out of this before its to late.
Iran has two choices right now, slavery or freedom. if they have been warned a nuke is coming, well they had time to develop their own and hit back. if they did not take advantage of that time, they are bigger fools that we thought
better to have a free nation that is severely damaged, then a nation enslaved with no hope of future freedom.
different clue
I think Western leaderships can be forgiven for thinking well-targetted assassinations can work after enough of them for long enough.
It worked in America, after all. From Kennedy to X to King to Kennedy ( and numerous less famous others), every potentially and/or visibly effective counter-fascist leader with tens of millions of followers in America was assassinated to the point where counter-fascist lay citizens here had no leadership left to turn to and the KlanMAGA Christianazians and the Richie Riches came ever closer to total monopoly of governmental power here.
( I think our Canadian friends and neighbors might have some trouble understanding the role that Deep State Assassinationism over some decades has played in the decay of American self-governance. After all, the last Governmental Assassination of a non-Governmental leader that I am aware of in Canada was the Governmental assassination of Louis Riel way back in 1885 under color of Judicial Law and Process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel )
Well . . . gotta get to work.
spud
this is suicide, will they ever learn?
9. Reaffirmation of non-proliferation commitments — Iran would formally reaffirm its adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and restate that it does not seek nuclear weapons.
you have to hand it to the north koreans, they never took their eyes off of the ball, they maintained and enhanced their sovereignty even under punishing sanctions and blockades, never was foolish, understood completely what the west was all about, and even today with nukes, they have never rested, knowing full well the west will look for ways around the nukes, and they keep upgrading and upgrading.
in the not to distant future, iran will find that their missile program will have been circumvented, then full scale war and enslavement.
ya got DUMB!!
Dan Kelly
‘From Kennedy to X to King to Kennedy ( and numerous less famous others), every potentially and/or visibly effective counter-fascist leader with tens of millions of followers in America was assassinated to the point where counter-fascist lay citizens here had no leadership left to turn to and the KlanMAGA Christianazians and the Richie Riches came ever closer to total monopoly of governmental power here.’
I largely agree although ‘KlanMAGA Christianazians and the Richie Riches’ leaves no room for Zionism which isn’t simply a component of, nor certainly in any way itself run by, the former.
In other words, the words ‘klan’ and ‘maga’ often have specific very powerful mental imagery-narratives associated with them.
‘Christianazians’ is one of these words you like to invent and its cute and all but it has no meaningful practical purpose and it certainly doesn’t encompass Zioinism-Jewish Supremacism (not ‘the jews’) within its narrative power.
Anyway, your comment different clue reminded me of this:
‘Think of the Vatican. Does the Vatican pose a threat to us? No. It is a religious, very peaceful State.
If the Taliban want to create an Islamic Amirate, who says that this makes them an enemy?
Is anyone claiming that Bin Laden is of the Taliban or that he is Afghan? Is Bin Laden of the Taliban? No; he is not of the Taliban and he is not Afghan.
Were the terrorists who hit New York City of the Taliban? Were they from Afghanistan? They were neither Taliban nor Afghan.
Then, what was the reason for the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan?
If I truly wanted to deceive my American and British friends, I would encourage them to send more troops and I would encourage them to persist in this bloodbath. But they will never succeed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Look what happened to them in Iraq, which is a desert.
It is even worse in mountainous Afghanistan.
If I wanted to deceive them I would tell them to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But no, I want to save the citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So I tell them: leave Afghanistan to the Afghans; leave Iraq to the Iraqis.
If they want to fight each other, they are free to do so. America had its Civil War, and no one interfered in it. There were civil wars in Spain, China and countries all over the world — no place on Earth has been free of civil wars. Let there be a civil war in Iraq. If the Iraqis want to have a civil war and fight each other, that is fine.
Who says that if the Taliban form a Government they would possess intercontinental missiles or the kind of aeroplanes that hit New York?
Did those aeroplanes take off from Afghanistan or Iraq?
No; they took off from American airports [under ‘Israeli’ ‘security’]
So why is Afghanistan being struck? The terrorists were not Afghans or Taliban or Iraqis.
Why are we silent?
We must never be war devils: anyone who does not speak the truth is a silent devil.
We are committed to international peace and security. We do not wish to scorn or ridicule humankind. We want to save humanity.
As President of the General Assembly, Mr. Ali Treki should open an investigation of the assassinations file — in addition to the war files.
Who killed Patrice Lumumba, and why?
We merely want to record it in the annals of African history; we want to know how an African leader, a liberator, came to be assassinated.
Who killed him?
We want our sons to be able to read the history of how Patrice Lumumba, the hero of Congo’s liberation struggle, was assassinated. We want to know the facts, even 50 years on. That is one file that should be reopened.
And who killed Secretary-General Hammarskjöld? Who fired on his aeroplane in 1961, and why?
Then, there is the assassination of United States President Kennedy in 1963.
We want to know who killed him and why.
There was somebody called Lee Harvey Oswald, who was then killed by one Jack Ruby.
Why did he kill him?
Jack Ruby, an Israeli, killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed Kennedy.
Why did this Israeli kill Kennedy’s killer?
Then Jack Ruby, the killer of the killer of Kennedy, died in mysterious circumstances before he could be tried.
We must open the files.
The whole world knows that Kennedy wanted to investigate the Israeli Dimona nuclear reactor.
This involves international peace and security and weapons of mass destrucion. That is why we should open this file.
Then there is the assassination of Martin Luther King, the black reverend and human rights activist. His assassination was a plot, and we should know why he was killed and who killed him.
Then Khalil Wazir, or Abu Jihad, a Palestinian, was attacked. He was living peacefully in Tunisia, a Member State, and that country’s sovereignty was not respected.
We cannot keep silent.
Even though submarines and ships were detected along the coast of Tunisia, where he was killed, no one was accused or tried.
Abu Iyad was also killed, and we should know how he was killed. He was killed in ambiguous circumstances.
In Operation Spring of Youth, Kamal Nasser, a poet, Kamal Adwan and Abu Youssef al-Najjar, three Palestinians, were killed in Lebanon, a country that is a free, sovereign State member of the General Assembly.
They were attacked and killed while sleeping peacefully.
We should know who killed them, and he should be tried so that those crimes against humanity are not repeated.
We have already talked about the size of the force used in the invasion of Grenada — 7,000 troops, 15 battleships and dozens of bombers — and President Bishop was killed even though Grenada was a Member State.
Those are crimes, and we cannot keep silent. Otherwise, we will look like sacrificial beasts.
We are not animals.
Year after year, we are attacked. We defend ourselves, our sons and our children, and we are not afraid.
We have the right to live, and the Earth is not destined for violence, but for us all.
We can never live on this Earth in such humiliation.
So those are the wars.
The last file is that of the massacres.
In the Sabra and Shatila massacre, 3,000 people were killed. That area, under the protection of the occupying Israeli army, was the site of a huge and calamitous massacre in which 3,000 Palestinian men, women and children were killed.
How can we keep quiet?
Lebanon is a sovereign State; a member of the General Assembly was occupied, Sabra and Shatila were under Israeli control, and then the massacre took place.
Then there was the 2008 massacre in Gaza. There were 1,000 women and 2,200 children among the victims killed in the massacre in Gaza in 2008.
Sixty United Nations facilities and another 30 belonging to non-governmental organizations were damaged.
Fifty clinics were destroyed.
Forty doctors and nurses were killed while carrying out humanitarian activities. This took place in Gaza in December 2008. The perpetrators are still alive, and they should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBRqqa7ZpeQ
mago
Gonna dip a toe in the water and mention the scorpion and the frog thingy. One can look it up if it’s unknown.
The replacement Iranian leadership who are intelligent and educated must surely know the duplicity of their adversaries and are planning accordingly.
Build a bomb and let everybody know about it, or import a few with delivery systems. It’s a fake out illusionary world. Play the game. Feint and duck, then hit them with your best shot. Stop pretending, risk everything, because you’re finished if not.
Easy for me to say from the comfort of my mountain perch since I’m not on the playing field, but we’re all paying a price wherever we may reside. Tamp it down Iran and allies in this crazed and duplicitous world. Por favor.
Mark Level
Great comments from spud, dan kelly, d.clue, why I keep coming to this site. There’s so much that used to be the part of the Iceberg under the waterline, but now it’s known and openly discussed, the Elites defined things DOWN, the Genocidal Apartheid State is the ne plus ultra that we should all long for.
Well, we should if we are Batya Unger Sargon’s “White Working Class,” tho’ as many have noted here, GrimJim etc. the WWC are poisoned with bad drugs, huge debt, and soul-crushing oppression, poverty, misery.
Trump’s Racism and Caste creation is being seen right now, today, in FIFA’s World Cup, the brown people, Senegalese, Iranians, etc. are publicly partly strip-searched, harrassed, belittled, or banned outright.
RoW is waking up on what US is. I’m old enough to remember the 80s, when despite Reagan, the US still had cultural cachet for its movies, music, technology, etc. Is it now? Methinks not. Jimmy Dore does some great work here detailing the Race-Based Hierarchy, he was and is the “White Nationalist” that the deadheads at NPR were declaring him to be back between 2016-20. Did lifelong Segregationist Joe Biden’s White House do better. On the surface it did, Friendly Fascism beats Full-on Fascism.
FIFA a rip-off and a Racist Clusterfuck, how many 1,000s will go home and tell their populations what the US is. All the tickets the Iranians paid for were stolen after sale and resold for big profits. Brilliant!! If you want the whole world to know your society is run by vicious scum and thieves. Corporate and gov’t alliance Full-On Fascism. But oh, shrieks a silly harridan here, Graham Platner is the REAL THREAT to our future!!
Jimmy Dore and Garland Nixon expose it here, hard to dispute any point made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6zlwARdi9U
david lamy
Another clause:
15. Israel must become a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Jan Wiklund
“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.”
The same applies to the battle cry “down with the government”, as for example the Arab Spring. If one shoots a hole in the power structure it is filled with more efficient people, often people who are more inclined to use violence.
What one needs to get around this is organization of social forces, sufficiently big to overshade the traditional power structures – trade unions, cooperatives, neighborhood associations etc etc. Not easily done, but necessary.
Dan Kelly
‘What one needs to get around this is organization of social forces, sufficiently big to overshade the traditional power structures – trade unions, cooperatives, neighborhood associations etc etc. Not easily done, but necessary.’
I agree and I think a huge problem is that many ‘on the left’ are international travelers who are ‘doing good work’ reporting on atrocities and offerring up their next podcast-substack.
We can’t build things this way.
Where are all the mutual aid societies?
None of the left podcasters-substackrs ever mention them or, if they do, it’s simply to say we need to build them.
If you go to the ‘World Socialist Website’ you can participate in an online rally! while simulataneously reading about the ‘The SpaceX IPO and the social physiognomy of oligarchy’ and other such things that so many leftists find intellectually compelling and which serve no purpose whatsoever aside from whatever it does for the ego of the authors.
David North has trouble confronting Zionism and any remnants of ‘the left’ are dying under his tutelage…but hey, be sure to donate.
different clue
Well! . . . here is a Democrap House Member objecting to elements he think is in the upcoming Deal with Iran. He decides to deride it as a “surrender document”. This particular Democrap reminds me of Mister Gotcha.
https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
This is one Democrap which should be challenged in the primary, and if the primary challenger does the least bit well, that challenger should run as an independent against this particular Democrap in order to get it defeated, hopefully. I am normally Vote Blue No Matter Who but not in the case of this particular Democrap who is trying to prevent a dignified surrender and escape which is the best America could possibly hope for.
“House Democrat slams US-Iran peace deal as ‘basically a surrender document’ ”
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5923043-iran-deal-criticized-moulton/
different clue
. . . ” while simulataneously reading about the ‘The SpaceX IPO and the social physiognomy of oligarchy’ and other such things that so many leftists find intellectually compelling and which serve no purpose whatsoever aside from whatever it does for the ego of the authors. ” . . .
And not just the ego of the authors. It does the same thing for the ego of the readers who read this material. They can bask in the warm glow of being ever so much smarter than a mainstreamal normie suburbamerican like myself who doesn’t read articles or books like that and who does not even know how many dialecticals can dance on the head of a materialism.
jump
Israel is not helping Donny’s happy day in any way.
Iran is very pissed at Israel bombing Beirut, blames the US, and…is likely to finally hit Israel hard, very hard. Probably not Donny’s idea of fireworks.
spud
different clue:
the sooner americans find out that its all about the stock market, the sooner they will come to the conclusions why we have a oligarchy. even the main stream slightly to the left like Matt Stoller, has figured out the stock market needs to have a massive collapse.
its where the rich hide a lot of their money from taxation. and it gives the rich immense power.
everything since 1993 has been done to keep goosing the market ever higher, to the point today, is that the real value should be at 1993 levels because, there is nothing real under pinning the markets since 1993.
and it will fall, there is nothing holding it up but hot air and the implied promise of socialist bailouts.
from 1993 on wards, i have said, its quite possible under free market capitalism(not smiths or marxs free market, which was to be free of rich parasites), that that kind of capitalist economy, could zero its self in value, because so much value is a pure drug induced illusion.
so watch out below, once the facts become obvious, no one knows where the bottom will be.
Feral Finster
What we have is an agreement to agree, with details to be hammered out later. The agreement to agree has not yet been signed, and there are conflicting version of what it actually says.
So let’s not take a victory lap just yet, what say?
different clue
@spud,
I remember several decades ago telling someone that the “stock market” seemed to me like a whole bunch of cinder blocks levitated in mid air and some day the levitation-force will stop and the cinder blocks will fall back down. I have no idea when that will happen or what will turn off the levitation switch.
But one does want to be sheltered from the falling cinder blocks when they fall.
Yes . . . but how?
Ideas for mid-crash and post-crash survival would be welcome from all submitters ( one hopes) and the two best recurrent threads I can think of for people to offer them would be Ian Welsh’s weekly Open Thread and/or Tony Wikrents Weekly Sunday Wrap-Up.
That way, people looking for such things could read back over every Open Thread and every Weekly Wrap-Up to find such information. The Open Thread might be the best place for Survivalist information and the Sunday Wrap-Up might be the best place for Economic Combat information/thoughts/suggestions. If that is and remains okay with our hosts. And hopefully every such comment would be written with the hopeful possibility in mind: what if 500 million people regularly read this blog? What quality of comment would be worth 500 million peoples’s attention?