Update 3: Attacks continue on Lebanon and Iran, from Israel. Iran let two ships thru, then closed the Strait again. The original announcement from Pakistan said that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire, but then Israel said it didn’t, and now Trump says the same.
As ceasefires go, this isn’t one. I’ll probably write a new article when the situation becomes more clear, but so far the “Israel has Trump on a leash” hypothesis looks strong and the “Iran will not agree to a ceasefire” point looks like only needs to be modified to “no ceasefire is possible until Israel is beaten into the ground.”
Update: I’ll leave this up, but there’s a ceasefire, which I didn’t expect. Three possibilities:
1) Iran is getting the deal it wanted, and won the war.
2) They’re making a mistake.
3) Quite possible that Israel blows the ceasefire up.
Update 2:
This is Iran’s statement, if Trump did agree to all of this Iran just won:
In this plan, America is fundamentally committed to guaranteeing non-aggression, the continuation of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, the acceptance of enrichment, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, the termination of all resolutions of the Security Council and the Board of Governors, the payment of Iran’s damages, the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, and the cessation of war on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon.
However Israel has said they will not cease attacks unless Iran opens the Hormuz, and they will continue attacks in Lebanon. In principle the agreement is between the US and Iran, and doesn’t include Israel, so Iran could just re-target all the drones and missiles which would have been used to America and Gulf States to Israel. Given Israel appears to be withing a few days of running out of interceptors, I think it’s clear who’d win that. I hope they do, and don’t abandon Lebanon. If they do, we’ll see how much control Israel has over Trump.
First, the war was started by America and Israel, not by Iran. There was no threat from Iran. This makes starting the war a war crime, the same crime for which many Nazis were hung at Nuremberg.
Second, there is no evidence that the Iranians had or were trying to get nuclear weapons. This is the consensus of the American intelligence community, who were under ferocious pressure to find otherwise.
Third, every person who condemns Iran without noting that that America started the war discredits themselves.
Fourth, every person who condemns Iran’s attacks on Gulf States without noting that the reason those states are being attacked is that they allow the US to launch attacks from their territory, discredits themselves.
Fifth, Iran has clearly stated that all the Gulf States have to do to stop being attacked is to stop allowing attacks from their territory and stop allowing Americans to have bases there.
Sixth, by both international law and by common sense, if you allow attacks on a third country from your country, you are a co-belligerent, whether or not your own military is involved. This matters specifically because the closer air power is to where they’re bombing, the more often they can bomb. The bases also matter because they hold (or did, till the Iranians destroyed most of them) communication and radar systems which aid America.
Seventh: If the Bushehr nuclear plant has had missiles land as close as the auxiliary building. The Russians have taken the threat so seriously that they have withdrawn their technicians. It is on the coast and if there is a containment breach, given the prevailing winds, fallout will contaminate the Persian Gulf. This will end desalination, which is how the Gulf nations get almost all their drinking water. It is also likely that the radiation will make the UAE and parts of Oman uninhabitable. All the oil from those regions will never be usable again.
Notice that such a containment breach will damage America’s allies far more than Iran. The map above is only partly accurate, the winds change and often blow south or west and not just southwest. Iran does have blocking mountains which should protect it quite a bit, but radiation is nasty stuff.
Eighth: Iran is capable of entirely destroying Israel. If nuked and possibly in the case of a containment breach, the majority of their arsenal will continue to exist. It is almost all hidden in deep underground mountain missile bases. In such a case Iran can retaliate by:
- Destroying Israel’s desalination plants, which provide 80% of the drinking water;
- Hitting the Dimona nuclear reactor and causing a breach would render Israel (a very small country) uninhabitable; or,
- Iran has enough 60% enriched uranium to make dirty nuke bombs and send them by missile. Once again, this would make Israel uninhabitable.
Iran does not need nukes to destroy Israel. It can do so any time it chooses and this is a fact which American and Israeli planners seem to discount. Iran is a fairly ethical nation as nations go, and they also don’t want to kill Palestinians and Lebanese. But there are 32 Mosaic commanders. If Tehran is nuked, well, all it takes is for one of them to decide to get revenge.
Ninth: At this point Iranian missiles are getting thru a lot, because interceptor stockpiles are depleted. Claims of high interception rates are as believable as similar Ukrainian claims.
Tenth: it is not possible, absent perhaps dropping many nukes, and perhaps even then, to take out Iran’s ability to launch missiles. And even then if any are left, well, it won’t take many to wipe Israel off the map.
Eleven: Iran is not going to sign a ceasefire deal, because they know that Israel and the US will keep assassinating their leaders and eventually launch another war. Well, I was WRONG. I suspect Iran’s making a mistake, but we’ll see. Iran is saying Trump accepted their 10 point proposal, if so Iran won the war and this ceasefire makes sense.
Twelve: There can be no peace deal which leaves the US any bases in the region, because the US is, to use the delightful Russian phrase “agreement incapable.” The US has never kept any agreement it didn’t feel like keeping and it certainly won’t do so with Iran. Any promises to never attack again and stop assassinations cannot and will not be trusted by Iran’s leadership. This means Iran must win the war decisively, in a way that makes it as difficult as possible for the US to attack again (no bases in region) and Israel too scared to do so because they know any attack or assassination will mean immediate and savage retaliation.
Thirteen: The Iranians have included Lebanon and Hezbollah in their demands: Israel will have to withdraw from Lebanon and stay out and not bomb it ever again. Again, this is a maximal goal and requires a complete victory.
Fourteen: Iran is never giving up control over the Strait of Hormuz. This is especially true now that their industry and civil networks have been hit hard. They will need a lot of money to rebuild. They have also said they want reparations. I don’t think that will happen, but I could be wrong. The more damage the US and Israel do, the more Iran is incentivized to use Hormuz as a lever to get money.
Fifteen: A side effect of this war is that weapons stockpiles have been drawn down from the entire world. There was never any possibility of the US winning a war with China, there is no longer any possibility of even fighting such a war.
Sixteen: None of the weapons being used up can be replaced in any significant numbers without Chinese materials, and even if China cooperates it will take at least a decade to rebuild credible stockpiles.
Seventeen: Iran has pushed the Americans back significantly. Their sortie rate has dropped, and they are running out of stand-off munitions. That means they have to fly closer and risk their planes, and if they insist on using Gulf bases they risk planes being destroyed on the ground, as has already happened.
Eighteen: Carrier groups have been forced back to maximum range. They are no longer the Queens of the Sea, and it is not credible that they could be used against China or Russia, both of whom have longer range missiles and in the case of China, enough to simply deplete the entire carrier group’s interception missiles.
Nineteen: Barring the use of nukes, Iran will win this war. The longer it takes and the more damage that is done to them, the more they will use their control of Hormuz and their ability to hit any Gulf State, to obtain the needed reconstruction funds and assistance.
Twenty: Internationally this war is the end of the American global Empire. Everyone knows how to defeat them now. They will retreat to the Americas and try and push around local states. China and Russia are big winners, Europe’s deindustrialization will accelerate and Europe will continue its descent into a meaningless backwards and poor region.
Twenty-One: The economic impact of this war, even if it stopped today, would be bad enough to cause a major worldwide recession. If it continues, we will see economic devastation which will last for years. There will be famines. There will be brown outs and blackouts. Jet travel will only be for the wealthy. International trade will crater due to lack of bunker fuel and most goods will rise in price and/or become rare, how much so depending on where you live. Price increases will be much higher than necessary in the Anglosphere, in particular, as oligarchs use the excuse to jack up prices even more than they need to and governments do nothing to stop them. The AI bubble is most likely toast. Oh, and prices of all devices with chips in them are about to soar throught the roof.
***
This was and is a stupid war which neither Israel nor America should have ever fought. It is an endless series war crime, with deliberate and extensive attacks on civilians and repeated genocidal threats. It has demolished what little credibility remained in the West, as leader after leader condemns Iran and somehow leaves out that America started the war and that Iran’s attacks on infrastructure were retaliations after their infrastructure was hit. It is going to cause economic catastrophe, kill millions from hunger and power disruptions, and if Trump goes completely insane it could lead to the end of Israel and Iran both.
I’ve always said the stupidest war in history was World War I, the “Great War.” But this one may wind up taking the crown.
Finally, if the US had a functioning government, Trump would be impeached or removed under the 25th amendment. It does not, and this war has made that clear. There is no possibility of making deals with America and the only sane policy for every nation in the world is to disengage economically and militarily as quickly as they can while trying to avoid an American attack.
(A small laugh after a grim post)
I don’t care. This is hilarious. 😂 pic.twitter.com/QC13l96YoD
— Freyja™ (@FreyjaTarte) March 30, 2026
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mago
Damn. Ya gotta laugh in this vale of tears.
Counting down to 8 pm
Let’s drop the big one now
See ya on the other side . . .
Net Neutrality
Breaking news: Iran accepted a “ceasefire”. Same old shit, different year.
mago
Just saw that there’s a two week ceasefire agreement among the warring parties.
How did that work out with Lebanon and Gaza?
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
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Trump just announced that Iran surrendered so he called off armageddon — for now. In two days this may, and most likely will, change. But for now, Iran has surrendered and apologized and promises to give all the oil to Trump and to name Tehran, Trumpran.
Taco, taco, taco mannnnn — Trump’s got to be the taco mannnn ……….
Bibi has to be pissed. Time to release the Epstein files, Bibi. Or JFK him. Maybe both.
Where is the bone saw? In the shop for repairs. Where is the fatwa on Trump? Khashoggi gets cut into pieces for what? And yet Trump pulls a Charlie Hebdo and insults Allah and Islam and …. crickets. He taunts the Jihadists. Salman Rushdie loses an eye and nearly his life and for what? What they did pales in comparison to Trump and yet the Muslim thugs won’t touch a hair on Trump’s head. Where the hell is the micro drone in Trump’s navel that was threatened/promised? Did Putin tell you not to do that so you obeyed that order? Putin needs Trump in order to destroy America entirely. Millions, if not tens of millions, of Iranians must die so Trump can proceed to destroy America entirely so Russia can corner the oil market?
ZapMan
Per the Middle East Spectator, 2 week cease fire and the Iranians claim Trump essentially accepted their 10 pt proposal.
https://t.me/Middle_East_Spectator/30566#
Ian Welsh
Yup, looks like I was wrong about a ceasefire. I suspect Iran’s making a mistake, but we’ll see. Some commenters say Trump has basically agreed to Iran’s terms. If so, Iran won. If not, this is a mistake. We’ll see.
Jefferson Hamilton
Iran is definitely making a mistake. The US cannot be trusted, and they should have known from the beginning they were going to have to sink the whole ship by the time it was through. Unless they’re pulling a US and agreeing to something just to get the bombers to fly home so they can launch a massive strike to liquidate the GCC and Israel in relative peace.
spud
Ian:
Well, I was WRONG. I suspect Iran’s making a mistake, but we’ll see. Iran is saying Trump accepted their 10 point proposal, if so Iran won the war and this ceasefire makes sense.
BINGO. two weeks to come up with another half baked scheme pushed by oligarchs that have a insatiable need for more.
they don’t care about munitions, they are like hitler who bellowed at his generals to attack in may of 1945.
so they will never quit no matter how poorly the empire is equipped.
the U.S. economy is basically in a free fall, watch the markets soar.
Israel will break the truce.
the iranians will have egg on their face, if they survive that is.
and i hope we do not find out russia and china pushed iran into accepting, because if they did, the oligarchs will take that as a signal of weakness, and go for the gusto!
the peace must be complete, and embarrassing to the empire, and enforceable.
well average americans, and people in general in north america, it will be savage for us.
Carborundum
I’m not going to hold my breath – at a minimum this is likely to take a while to work through. There are significant elements of both frameworks that are mutually incompatible and phrases like “workable basis on which to negotiate” and “acceptance of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal as a basis for negotiations” are doing a lot of work in their respective diplomatic statements. Again, the guys likely to eat the shit sandwich are the “allies” living in the immediate neighbourhood.
Of the possible outcomes stated above, right now, I’d put my money on #2. (My view, this would be less a mistake than an acceptance of reality and a conservation of power in service of strategic objectives, but I’m sure it will be billed as a mistake / grand victory by folks who don’t have to do any dying or killing.)
mago
No way the belligerents will honor this ceasefire.
Snakes in the grass speak with forked tongues.
I don’t know the backstory, but were I given to giving advice, I’d counsel Iran to break their eggs before they break yours, or in other words, bust their balls before they bust yours. Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.
Poul
Two weeks is so short a time period than nothing useful can be done by either side to strengthen the war effort. The US is looking at years of rearming before they are back to pre-war levels.
The only advantage I can see is that the US/Israeli pilots gets a break. The key is what results a deal will bring Iran. If the US caved why should Iran not accept a cease fire? An advantageous end to the war is a rational basis for accepting a peace.
THarry
Maybe Iran will use this ceasefire time to get a few nukes. We’d all be safer.
StewartM
I am reminded of a line from the LOTR from Theoden to Saruman:
Saruman: “Can we not have peace?”
Theoden: “We shall have peace, when you answer for the burning of the Westfold, and the children that lie dead there! We shall have peace, when the lives of the soldiers whose bodies were hewn even as they died against the gates of the Hornberg, are avenged! When you hang from a gibbit for the sport of your own crows…! We shall have peace.”
Now make “Saruman” into “Bibi” and you have it right.
As for those who say that Israel is America’s “friend”, Medhi Hasan nails it:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nB5wDFsbnjA
Yep, Israeli veterans get free school; ours sleep in the streets. They get free healthcare; we get gouged. And we essentially pay for it!
Yeah, THarry, Iran having nukes would be one option. Another would be Russia and China (you can’t trust the US) putting Iran under their nuclear protection and stationing a small number of troops (‘tripwire protection’) there.
Stephen Howe
If Iran does open the strait, Trump will start reneging on any deal. He’s always running some sort of con and I can’t see the US or Israel giving up on destroying Iran and taking it’s oil.
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Hey Bob, you and I must be stoopid. We can’t make heads or tails of the madness yet everyone else seems to understand it fully and has it all figured out. They have read and understood the tea leaves that comprise Donald Trump.
Medhi Hasan? Too funny. I watched a minute of his program and once again, like Ian said, Trump trips up the smart people, or I should say the people who think they are smart. The latter half of that statement is important because Trump not only trips them up but in fact exposes them as frauds. Trump reveals they are not smart at all and in fact rather dumb.
During that one minute, the analysis proceeded as though Trump could be taken at his word. As though Iran could be taken at its word. The fact is, it’s the fog of war and neither can be taken at their word so who knows what the truth is?
Smart people would realize with Donald Trump, it’s perpetually the fog of war whether there is a war or not. But hey, it’s their job, the media pundits who are legion, to provide something so they pretend and the insane false reality is thus perpetuated. At least some smart people like Marins acknowledge the inevitable cognitive dissonance that manifests from such mental gymnastics.
spud
there is now talk of product talks on regime change this morning. how legit that is is anyone’s guess, but if true, someone sold them out.
and if true, either there was a coup, or russia or china, or all three think appeasement works. if they did, they just cut their own throats.
Jan Wiklund
To the last paragraph: Yes, really, but do they have the opportunity? See Cory Doctorow’s remark on EU’s seeming surrender at https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/04/digital-subjugation/:
If Trump wishes, he can close down Europe by prohibit their access to networks and servers controlled by the US, which keeps a lot of Europe running. Europeans have understood that and began in 2017 or so to build alternatives. But they are not nearly close to start – and now the threats come. Stop, or we will annihilate you. And the technicians who are building them have already been thrown out from SWIFT and other systems, like the judges of the International Court.
Is there any realistic way of cutting the dependency on this rogue state?
bruce wilder
oh, my
only 21?
game theory with ignorant players thinking they are pretending to be crazy is not a particularly useful tool. in game theory, if the players can, by recursion, work out a “solution” and prove it to the other players, no one plays the game. yet, here, in this case, the game is being played.
naturally, the rational analyst, who thinks there is an “obvious” solution, or at least a bounded space for a solution, and sees highly destructive game play continue anyway, wishes for a better class of players.
the “fact” that matters most appears to me to be that we, humans, have a bad class of players in power and able to choose how to play. whatever the game is that chooses who plays for the rest of us, we are losing badly that game.
Mark Level
So like many others, including Ian, I have to say “I was wrong” about some thing(s), primarily, first, I interpreted the Yi King answer wrongly. The 2 hexagrams I got were, 1st, #55 (a Martial number but not a martial hex), “Abundance.” I assumed DJT had agency, Hexg. Judgement is “ABUNDANCE has success./The king attains abundance./Be not sad./Be like the sun at midday.” Commentary says abundance is great, a “great ruler” may obtain it (don’t think that is Donny, likely Iran) and it lasts only briefly!!
The IMAGE is “Both Thunder & Lightning come:/The image of ABUNDANCE./Thus the superior man decides lawsuits/And carries out punishments.” Well, we know who maybe, for now, “won” & it ain’t the Empire.
Only the first (bottom) line moved, “9 at the beginning means:/When a man meets his destined ruler,/They can be together 10 days,/And it is not a mistake./Going meets with recognition.” (I had the same initial 3 thoughts as Ian, like other commenters I think the Iranians really rolled the dice here, odds 50/50 it’s a major mistake. But maybe the US is whipped? And maybe the folks who really run things know it? Pause and try to come back in 6 months.)
Movement to 2nd Hexagram, “Preponderance of the Small.” (Last word important, Donnie Small Hands hates the Small, Bigly.)
THE JUDGMENT: “Preponderance of THE SMALL./Perseverance furthers./Small things may be done; great things should not be done./The flying bird brings the message;/It is not well to strive upward,/It is well to remain below./Great good fortune.” (This I think applies to both parties; Iran retreats to Status Quo Ante, with Oman has continued control over Hormuz Straits; US Hegemon backs down for now, though Donnie’s weather vane brain can break that at any moment.)
THE IMAGE: “Thunder on the mountain./The image of PREPONDERANCE OF THE SMALL./Thus in his conduct the superior man gives preponderance to reverence./In bereavement he brings preponderance to grief./In his expenditures he gives preponderance to thrift.” The Superior Man is the 6,000 year old Persian civilization. USA incapable of Superiority, except (like the Zio-Monsters) in murder, theft, destruction.
Most commentators make good points. Even LAS (his legendary 49-50% rightness.) “Saner heads” prevailed, clearly, for the time being.
To the meat of Ian’s commentary: His 3rd point, Israel will sow Chaos and Death, QED. I thank Stewart M for the Mehdi Hassan comment, they no longer care about Hasbara or a good “public image” they are insane wanna-be Spartan Fascist Warriors (like the Ukrainians, in whose case that cosplay is becoming increasingly threadbare), they only Kill and Destroy. And (for now) they’re 100% coddled and protected by Uncle Shmuely, whatever the Murican people think of that.
Nearly all 21 points are excellent, I will quibble in a couple of spots though: 5th point very important. Will the Gulf Monarchies back off? Qatar likely to ally with Iran as Oman is openly, & if Bahrain survives it will be Iran-allied. Saudis sunk in Evil and Zionism (even though an actual Greater Israel would swallow half or more of their territory, this is openly flaunted). Egypt a fascist dictatorship, Black Iron Prison, but largely sitting things out. However Egypt does NOT appear on the list of countries with US bases, here– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases
Some countries are wild cards. Erdogan a deceitful scumbag, but his economy and popularity are crashing, Turkiye very vulnerable. Pakistan on the fence. Going even outside the region, not just China and Russia are Iran-allied, Malaysia is, the Philippines are!! Bangladesh pro-Iran, not that that matters much. Wind blowing one way, and not toward USreal, I think.
Point 14 shaky, I think. Point 15 solid. Point 16 a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!!17 & 18, all the clowns leading up to and including Donnie made US the “paper tiger” that Nixon had nightmares about. Point 19, even if Israel (Donnie even with Hegseth seemingly lacks the Will) drops a Nuke or 2, Iran will survive. The Zionist Entity will make itself more widely hated (that is still possible, though worldwide hatred by the majority is already here), and hasten its own end. But hey, cornered rabid animals got to lash out.
spud makes many good points, per usual. But I do believe the Iranian leadership are on top of their game and have mapped out all possible scenarios (or nearly so), will respond expeditiously to any and all treachery. They hold all the WINNING cards. Yes, I’m confident Russia and China were in the mix here, and they value Stability, Caution and a Slow Grind Victory over moronic US/Zio “Shock and Awe,” piles of dead bodies. I have cited before Ali Abunimah’s take a couple days after the Oct. 2023 genocide started, mentioning Vietnam. The Hegemons can bomb, kill indiscriminately, but are inevitably driven out, and the cultures survive and even thrive. (See today, Vietnam and even Cambodia.)
Poul’s mostly correct, but a break was needed, if you’re being strangled (economy) hands loosening on the neck is something. THarry, completely agree of course.
Oh, excellent take by Bernhardt over at MoA, and a video nearly as good as the one Ian shared, see here: https://x.com/CarlZha/status/2041690840033361944
US can’t win actual wars, USreal have lost the propaganda war with RoW. Iran’s leadership have far lower rates of religious fanaticism than the Zio-Supremacists and Trump Fascisti, that’s for sure. Just as Ian’s video showed, US destroying itself, though I will agree it will be, likely in 6 months at most, primarily a threat to its nearest neighbors.
One last question: Did all the talk of 25th Amendment make Donnie Back Down, Baby Got Back? I wouldn’t discount it. So Dimmies Did Something for first time in years, a bouquet of roses for them!!
marku
Another chance for Trump insiders to front run the market?
Whatever, it beats Armageddon, even if only 2 weeks. Or less…
DMC
China has explicitly stated that if the Zionist regime resorts to nukes, it will be the last thing they ever do, so I think that’s off the table, at least in the current situation. The Israeli army is nearly at the breaking point, according to the chief of staff, so how long they can continue on the offensive is anybody’s guess but if they decide to continue solo, then my guess would be “not long”.
Dan Lynch
Put yourself in Iran’s shoes and ask what victory looks like? If the U.S. abandons its Middle East bases and if Iran charges tolls for Hormuz — with the implicit threat that Hormuz could be shut down again — I would call that a victory. Two weeks is not enough time for the West to rearm so Iran will not be disadvantaged if the ceasefire fails.
Sanctions, Israel, and Gaza may remain unresolved issues, but everyone can see the writing on the wall. Israel has lost public support and U.S. voters are tired of subsidizing it. The war has shown that no country can count on the U.S. to be their protector — not Israel, not the Gulf dictators, not South Korea, not Japan, and not Taiwan.
Meanwhile, climate change is not going away, and we should be cooperating to figure out how to live without oil instead of fighting over control of oil.
Feral Finster
“Barring the use of nukes, Iran will win this war. ”
That initial dependent clause is doing a lot of work for you.
Bob
Well, @Ian you were brave to post that when you did. Meanwhile the “ceasefire” has come and gone. Lebanon is being subjected to unbelievable savagery by the demonic entity and I guess we are waiting to hear the whoosh of Khoramshars headed towards occupied Palestine again.
If it’s true that the Iranians can meaningfully hurt the entity, I think it’s time now for them to get to it.
Meanwhile, I remain mostly bamboozled. I assumed that the Chinese must have had a word with the Iranians and said enough is enough. The Iranians need the help of the Russians and Chinese to continue their fight. And surely the ruling class of China and that of the West don’t want the collapse of the globql energy system to occur just yet.
Is the vile entity really so powerful that no one can get them to hit the “off” switch on those fuckers?
Who does this benefit to allow them to murder people and destroy the global economy?
Hormuz is closed. Someone said that’s Iran’s atom bomb. The Saudi pipeline to the Red Sea has been struck too.
Madness.
Bob
Addendum. I think it was Medvedev who said Hormuz is the Iranians’ atom bomb.
Jefferson Hamilton
If they get nuked, they liquidate the GCC and Israel via total destruction of oil and desalination infrastructure (if they have any constitution whatsoever). Then it’s lights out for the global economy. Maybe they can’t “win,” in such a scenario, but no one else can, either.
different clue
If the IranGov were to breach the Israel nukeplant containment and spread fallout over Israel, that would make Palestine just as uninhabitable as Israel, since Palestine hopes to re-emerge where israel now is.
Likewise, if the IranGov were to spread dirty-radwaste or fresh dirty rad-material all over Israel, that would make Palestine just as uninhabitable as Israel, since Palestine hopes to re-emerge where Israel now is.
Since we assume that the iranGov cares about Palestine as much as the IranGov says it cares, the IranGov will find some non-nuclear way to get Israel defeated and deleted over the fullness of time. This is assuming that the IranGov really cares about Palestine and also that the IranGov feels that while Israel may have more watches, Iran has more time.
different clue
Another thought just occurred to me. Some time ago I offered a newstory about how the US Gov sent a special kind of plane to the Persian Gulf . . . a Plane that can use super-long radio waves to communicate with underwater submarines, including the nuclear missile kind.
Carborundum replied that such a deployment didn’t seem to make much sense because it would be for counter-nuclear deterrence, and Iran has no nukes against which to deter.
So here is the thought which occurred to me. That special-planes deployment would not be about counter-nuke deterrence. It would be about nuking Iran or israel or both to set off a general worldwide thermonuclear war so that Christ can come again real soon. ( Perhaps for shits and giggles they would try to make it look like Israel diddit. Perhaps they wouldn’t even care). The armed forces are now ruled and ordered by an unstable mix of Armageddonite Rapturaniacs and Hegsethian Christianazians. Trump is just the empty Trojan Head in which these creatures hide and from which these creatures operate. These creatures are the real humanoid entities which are actually governating America at this point in time.
I don’t think Carborundum in particular or our Canadian neighbors in general understand the nature of either Armageddonite Rapturania or Christianazianity, both of which have several tens of millions of ardent followers in this country.
Y’all got no idea of what kind of radioactive humanoid filth and sewage we have up in here.
Ah well . . . I voted for Harris. But my little vote wasn’t enough all by itself.
Feral Finster
@Bob:
“Meanwhile, I remain mostly bamboozled. I assumed that the Chinese must have had a word with the Iranians and said enough is enough. The Iranians need the help of the Russians and Chinese to continue their fight. And surely the ruling class of China and that of the West don’t want the collapse of the globql energy system to occur just yet.”
Russia does not want to make war on the West. They want to be allowed to join it.
Fools.
For its part, China just wants to be able to sell things and hopes that the Americans will turn on them last.
Fools.
“Is the vile entity really so powerful that no one can get them to hit the “off” switch on those fuckers?”
Yes.
KT Chong
Trump was able to intimidate Iran into a ceasefire with increasingly aggressive, implicit but obvious threats of nuclear annihilation. The truth is, Iran has no real way to counter or retaliate against a U.S. nuclear strike. The self-defeating fatwa of the former Supreme Leader is now coming back to haunt Iran. Other countries should pay attention: nuclear weapons are now the only effective deterrence against the Empire that is becoming more and more evil and despicable.
Israel will likely break the ceasefire, and Iran will have every right to defend itself and respond in kind. When that happens, the U.S. government and media will blame Iran, not Israel. But the rest of the world is not blind or dumb — other countries still have their own media and minds independent of the U.S., and everyone will know.
China may not offer a nuclear umbrella to Iran, but it has been tightening exports of rare earths, critical minerals, and key components to the U.S. These are essential for the U.S. to produce and replenish bombs, interceptors, missiles, and other munitions. As those supply chains tighten, the U.S. is beginning to expend its existing, dwindling stockpiles — and the U.S. reportedly has only about 2–3 months of supply left — while China continues to limit resupply to below what the U.S. needs or wants to sustain the wars in Iran and Ukraine — and against the recently emerging anti-American guerilla insurgency in Venezuela that has gone mostly unreported in the West.
IMO, China has a moral duty to apply and even escalate this pressure on the Evil Empire. The U.S. may eventually find alternative sources, but that will take years — too long to change the current trajectory of the Iran war, unless the U.S. resorts to nuclear use. Xi and the CPC are being too cautious, passive, transactional, and inward-looking — i.e., a long-standing civilizational mindset of “erecting the Great Wall and the Great Firewall”; we mind our own affairs and you mind yours, and other people’s problems are not ours. Xi is missing the crisis to seize upon the opportunity to permanently eliminate the U.S. as a threat, not just to China but also to the rest of the world. (In Chinese, the word for “crisis” is a construct of combining two characters: risk and opportunity.)
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Trump was able to intimidate Iran into a ceasefire with increasingly aggressive, implicit but obvious threats of nuclear annihilation.
No, I don’t think that was it. That’s Fox News’ spin. Iran knows better. If anything, it’s the other way around.
Mark Level
I agree with Jeff Hamilton. I think if Netanyahu goes nukular (Bush Jr. word), they are ready to retaliate in full by this time. Either purchased a few from N. Korea or Pakistan, or built one themselves. Even despite all the assassinations, they’re quite advanced in science and technology. Colonel Wilkerson said today with Nima that they’d need to send in 36 or more given the size of the Country. IsraHell is postage stamp-sized next to Iran, they only have 3 major cities so 2-3 Nukes would seal the deal.
True that likely that would fuck things up for the Palestinians. Not that the Zionists would care. They would haz a sad that their Racist Apartheid State faced justice, however. And what if the Nuclear cloud spread to Cyprus, which they imagine they will take over (& might.)
Interesting historical trivia: After the Roman forced Exodus of many Jews from the region when the First Temple was destroyed, about 4-5 decades later a Jewish Tyrant was performing a genocide of the native Cypriots. This led to a 2nd great forced Exodus when the locals prevailed.
Few of the exiles were the modern “Jews”, who are mostly not Semites and originate from 8th century mass conversion in the Khazar regions, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia, etc.
Carbodundum
If you are deploying an E-6B as your critical dial-a-Rapture link, you don’t park the thing on the ramp within range of Iranian strikes, which is what they did. If you’re using it as a radio link, which they have done several times previously in Afghanistan and Iraq, you do.
More generally, I’ll note that there is some very distinct disagreement on the part of the US that the publicly released Iranian 10-point text is what they actually agreed to as the basis for negotiation. If the Iranian National Security Council was as accomplished at its job as it is at writing flowery public statements like that linked in the above update, they wouldn’t be reduced to pretending that losing such a significant component of their forces is some sort of triumph. (Similarly, if the US National Security Council was doing its job, it wouldn’t be reduced to trying to assert that great targeteering somehow makes up for absolutely shit / non-existent strategy. I see nothing in any of this that moves me off my abiding dislike of staff people.)
Glau
“First, the war was started by America and Israel, not by Iran. There was no threat from Iran. This makes starting the war a war crime, the same crime for which many Nazis were hung at Nuremberg.”
It’s a bit ironic that to consistent in your moral beliefs about this, a person would have to be pro-ukraine/pro-Iran. Needless to say, almost no one is in this space. The mainstream media is pro-ukraine/pro-US, almost all of the alternate media is pro-russia/pro-ukraine, and both sides are tossing accusations of hypocrisy at eachother while being smug.
mago
Tempted to take a knee kick at Glau, I exercised rare restraint.
Use the space bar dude and get your talking points aligned.
That is all.
StewartM
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Medhi Hasan? Too funny. I watched a minute of his program and once again, like Ian said, Trump trips up the smart people, or I should say the people who think they are smart. The latter half of that statement is important because Trump not only trips them up but in fact exposes them as frauds. Trump reveals they are not smart at all and in fact rather dumb.
Uh, how? As Hasan’s video scarcely mentions Trump at all, but answers the question of “Does Israel care about the world economic distress its war is causing?” to which Hasan answered “no, of course not, as the US backstops Israel to the nth degree, even at the cost of its own people’s welfare.”
different clue
The current oil-shortage situation could be exploited to further increase the level of totally unregulated drilling all over America and America’s offshore. Separately, it could be used to try bringing mining for oil shale all over the west back to life. Also, it could be used to extort support for strange schemes to take coal and somehow turn it into liquid fuel . . . by hydrogenating the carbon and getting it to form hydrocarbons of just the right size and shape.
I just saw a message about that on You Tube. At one level, the message looks like a pitch to ” send us money” ( invesstment) in a speculative new coal-into-gas facility in West Virginia. At another level, it looks like the first bamboo splinter jammed under the first fingernail in a long-range goal to mine and monetize all the coal in America by turning it into liquid fuel. I will try offering the link here even though I don’t know if
an ad can be linked to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnflQ_l5l-4
maybe this will link to a Belle of the Ranch video rather than the ad I am watching before that video starts.
The ad itself is titled: ” We’re turning coal into cash”. It is brought to us by
invest.frontieras.com/invest_now
Mark Level
Stewart M, thank you for calling out Lie and Suborn’s relentless trolling. Trolls gotta troll though.
I didn’t comment at the time but a couple threads back on the Nat Wilson Turner commentary, LAS really outed himself and where his ideology comes from. He went off on and on about Lenin, all Russians being EVIL at all times and the country “never” changing, just always being Evil Subhumans.
I will admit he seemed well-informed about some parts of Russian history which I’m not overly so, although I have read a lot of history, not even just Hopkirk’s fine book The Great Game. Some years ago I read the 1 Volume version of William T. Vollman’s 7 Vol. Rising Up and Rising Down, which contains various “defenses” of violence, whether over land, women, money, religion, countless possible rationales. He had an excellent section on Trotsky’s repression against the so-called “Kulaks,” riding around the Russian and Ukrainian hinterlands in an armored train, directing the troops. Pretty nasty stuff!! (But not at the level of the Zionist entity of course.)
Anyway, how LAS fully outed himself, after refusing to engage with me about Stepan Bandera, pretending (I guess) not to know who he is!? He spewed spit that could’ve come straight out of the mouth of Victoria Nuland or Chrystia (Christ-complex) Freeland, whose granddad she said was “not a Nazi” despite living in a confiscated Jewish home (family escaped) and given a Jewish printing press (they were exterminated) to write Der Sturmer type pieces for at least 4 years. He never faced justice post-war. So LAS is apparently (like Narcito, little Narco Rubio) a bitter dead-ender from someone whose family lost their properties, maybe their titles, etc.? Thus the genocidal hatred is so serious, and unshakeable.
Glad none of my ancestors were nobility (certainly not that I know of) so I wasn’t imbibing this kind of false Glamour by anyone in my family. Many of my Irish ancestors might’ve been literal slaves, yet they survived. Some of my Spanish ancestors may’ve been Conquistadors, which I consider gross. But I think I fully understand LAS’s fervor now. What a cross to carry around, much as I despise him, I pity him also.
mago
Everybody’s talking and I can’t hear a word they’re saying. . .
I’m so broken hearted that I’ve got nothing left to say . . .
Probably a good thing . . .
different clue
Here is a Belle of the Ranch video about how the IranGov has discovered that yes-it-can shut off the Strait of Hormuz and keep it shut till it gets what it wants in return for graciously permitting it to re-open. She opines that now that they have discovered this for real and for sure, they won’t feel they need a nuke or nukes. She explains why she thinks so.
“Let’s talk about how Trump lost and gave Iran something better than a nuke….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvmjDBTtLtA
I hope Iran is able to keep the Strait closed long enough to bias the American internal system against coal, gas and oil and towards “renewable” electricity. And also bias the American internal system against individual cars and trucks, and against air travel and air freight, and towards rail. Shame on me for hoping so?