146 Comments
User's avatar
James Howard Kunstler's avatar

The trolls are out in force this morning, naturally.

Scott Clifford's avatar

Had a friend in Florida turn me into your writings. I very much enjoy your points of view. Thanks!

Kathy Christian's avatar

It's no fun without them.

Scott's avatar

The London banksters are obviously the group that keeps funding Ukraine and Hezbollah, as you alluded to. What can be done about them? Or is it just a waiting game as they appear rather suicidal, given the sorry state of the UK these days. They are not our allies and likely never have been

Ben's avatar

London has been trying to destroy the US from day one.

After Iran we should start taking apart their empire of dirt, starting with Canada and ending in London.

Scott Clifford's avatar

We have been. Trump’s reorganization of the world’s power started his first term. Continues full steam. The reorganization starts with London. The UK is in its death throes. They have no money for the military. They have no willpower for the fight that must be done inside their own borders.

dbriz's avatar

Ah, but they have London bankers and MI6. Hold on the obituaries.

Gary Edwards's avatar

Is Alberta the first step?

After all, every other thing is about oil.

Cankerpuss's avatar

They want their 13 colonies back as well as the rest of the Commonwealth back. Never got over the butthurt of their fore fathers when they lost it all.

Damn the torpedoes's avatar

And Mike Pompeo’s first meeting in his role as CIA director was to meet with his counterparts at MI6. Traitor! London has been the source of constant terror funding and the destruction of American markets for decades. And Trump’s whole point of everything he does is to take them out of the picture and restore American economic greatness.

Denise Eagan's avatar

isn't the U.S. also funding to the tune of $40million per week. From what Ive read, we can't get that spigot turned off by Congress. please correct me if i'm wrong on this, which i hope i am.

NothingButNet's avatar

Great rat behavior analogy!😂😂😂 I’m hoping Trump is using this time to compile intelligence on the new IRGC leadership - who they are and where they live, so that when the inevitable misbehavior comes he can push a button or two and eliminate this new leadership (and perhaps their entire families) along with the various military/infrastructure targets. While this may simply become the lawnmower approach, periodically trimming back the radical Islamists, it would be reasonably effective, at least until another spineless Democrat occupied the White House. Thanks for a great post, JHK👍👍

Raymond R's avatar

Whether or not I agree with you JHK, and this time I mostly agree with you, I always appreciate your concise style and clear writing. English composition teachers should require that their students read your columns as examples or good writing

Howard Skillington's avatar

It's a virtual certainty that Israel will scuttle any agreement by continuing to bomb Lebanon.

James Howard Kunstler's avatar

Skillington -- What are they supposed to do? Just let Hezbollah fire rockets at them? Maybe Iran has some responsibility to make Hezbollah cut it out.

Paul B. Cohen's avatar

A rabid dog cannot be reasoned with.

Steve's avatar

They had no part in the negotiations. In that part of the world that is known as a Stupd Move.

Gary Edwards's avatar

They are about to be defunded.

rd3's avatar

They certainly will try.

Thomas Madden's avatar

The US war with Iran is playing out very badly. . . just like the recent US wars with Iraq and Afghanistan did. The US has gone to war in the Middle East four times since 1991, and none of the wars worked out well for it. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, each time expecting a different result. It just seems like the US is in a never-ending cycle of war in that region, "depleting" our military assets, therefore "requiring" that we fire up the armaments factories and churn out replacements. . .the military-industrial complex thrives on these pointless, endless wars. It's a shame. Our road/bridges/tunnels/infrastructure are all awful, and we can never seem to find the money to repair them, or stop going bankrupt generally speaking, but somehow we have untold billions for pointless, endless wars. Trump is accelerating the decline right now.

Cankerpuss's avatar

It's not insanity, TM. They know what they are doing and they know why they are doing it. They cannot justify a $ 1 trillion dollar defense spending budget if there is no war to fight. The military / industrial complex is one of the deep state puppet masters pulling the strings from the dark closets of the Pentagon. These wars have nothing to do with spreading America's chosen brand of "democracy." These wars are all about taking taxpayer dollars from us and from millions and millions of future Americans and funneling that money into the pockets of the CEOs of the Raytheons, Lockheeds, Boeings, Northrup-Grummonds and many others and keeping them awash with unimaginable amounts of cash.

War has become a financial commodity, just like our health care and our homes. Think of the economy having a war generates.

If these wars were about spreading freedom and stopping a tyrant the US would have been successful in each engagement. However, the fact that the US has lost every illegal war it has inserted itself in since World War 2 tells you that it isn't about winning the war and spreading freedom (The USA is not the greatest example of "freedom" these days). It's about money. It's always about money. War is always about money. The few elite making the bombs, missiles and tanks become incredibly wealthy while the rest of us suffer the depredations of war, either through being bombed or having our money stolen through the silent tax known as inflation resulting from the constant printing of worthless paper dollars.

I love Mr. Kunstler's writings. He's a very talented individual. But I disagree with him on America's inserting itself in all of these wars. Iran isn't the threat to the world. The money printing presses are and the printing presses run because of America's spending on its wars and bloated welfare state.

Nobody gives a shit about this. As long as Iran does what Trump tells them to do, that's all that matters.

Gary Edwards's avatar

What's good for Lockheed is good for America!

Isn't it?

Cankerpuss's avatar

The value of the dollars in my savings accounts and the prices of homes these days says otherwise. But Lockheed stocks are fantastic!

Hawaiian Pizza's avatar

All true. So many people are gung-ho for US power abroad, but those self-same people only ever pay the costs and never see any of the benefits.

Thomas Madden's avatar

Wars are like fires: easy to start, but very, very difficult to end, to put out. Trump is learning that the hard way.

Bill N/A's avatar

Tom, what part of, “death to America” don’t you understand? Do you want to wait until you find out that New York City has been incinerated?

Cankerpuss's avatar

Oh shut up. God. Iran has been 3 weeks away from getting a nuke for 30 years.

New York incinerated? Tell me, Bill, who is the only country to ever actually have used a nuke on another nation? It's not Iran. It's the good old US of A. Ask Japan about that.

Iran hasn't invaded another nation for 200 years and they have not equipment or infrastructure to wage war against the behemoth bully USA on the other side of the world.

You're afraid of the boogie man.

Why don't you focus instead on the deteriorating state of the USA. The constant inflation thanks to money printing to fund all of these illegal wars.

I'm more afraid of the millions upon millions of illegal America hating immigrant interlopers enjoying a free ride on our backs than I am a bunch of poverty stricken Persians on the other side of the world. You don't care about this, do you, Bill, while they eviscerate our culture from the inside with our military spread throughout the world doing who knows what.

Please.

Ben's avatar

It might happen with Mamdani either way.

Self-imposed destruction.

New York will be a larger version of Skid Row, really soon, thanks to the idiot they put into power there.

Another symptom of liberal self-loathing.

Cankerpuss's avatar

Now that is something one should really be afraid of. But the Bills of the world don't give a damn about what's happening here, as long as we are killing Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, and all the others we are currently militarily engaged with.

Thomas Madden's avatar

First of all, the US funded Iran and served as its de-facto ally under both the Obama and the Biden administrations, signing a treaty green-lighting its nuclear program. I am not concerned about people screaming Death to America who are paid with American dollars: that is just theater. Second, Iran never had a nuclear weapon. If Iran did develop one, it would be 1940's technology, a very large, heavy, crude, low-yield device similar to what the US used on Japan. People who really know about their program in depth have said that Iran's nuclear delivery system would be "a truck". To "incinerate NYC" Iran would first have to develop and successfully test fire a nuclear device, then spend decades developing miniaturized nuclear warheads that could be mounted atop an ICBM, and test fire those, while simultaneously developing ICBM's, and testing them. . .perhaps in 50 years with many tens of billions of dollars, they might accomplish that. Maybe. But, for the time being and the near future, they wouldn't be capable of even hitting NYC with a nuclear device in the first place, let alone incinerating it.

Cankerpuss's avatar

You're a thinker, TM. Not one who subscribes to the propaganda bull shit thrown at them by the puppet masters. Bill is. Makes me sick that there are still people who believe some poverty stricken country on the other side of the world is going to swim over there and nuke America. Can you imagine what it is like to be inside one of these peoples' heads? The fear. The hate. The Iranians are coming! KILL THEM ALL or they will kill all of us. Good God almighty!

Gary Edwards's avatar

I get your point Bill, but saving NYC isn't a great counterbalance, many of us kinda thing the bombers would be doing the US a favor.

Only saving DC would be a weaker arguement.

Bob Seidel's avatar

Your ethnic roots have distorted your reality regarding Iran. You're on the wrong side there and losing your reader base.

James Howard Kunstler's avatar

Seidel-- You'd be more credible if you spelled out how I supposedly distort reality, rather just asserting as much.

Ben's avatar

That would require understanding anything other than Jew hatred.

Most of these idiots don't understand why they think the way they do.

Tom's avatar

Here’s an example of your delusion:

“It only demonstrates how delusional and untrustworthy they are.”

This statement applies in spades to the U.S. and Israel for starting this war. In the middle of negotiations no less.

Ben's avatar

This statement ignores forty years of proxy wars directly against the US and US interests, while the US mostly ignored Iran and what it was doing in the region.

So to put it bluntly, you are wrong.

UncleBob9's avatar

Wearing your *totenkopf* t-shirt around town, or are you a closet antisemite, Herr Seidel?

🇮🇱🕎🇮🇱🕎

rd3's avatar

Cool it with the bullshit. Bob.

Ben's avatar

But Bobs nasty post is A OK?

rd3's avatar
2hEdited

I agree with it. Nothing nasty about it.

My grandfather was from Ireland. In his mind, no Irish person could ever do wrong. It wasn't worth arguing with him. He couldn't be rational on matters relating to Ireland.

Ben's avatar

Your blind spot obviously.

I don't see bobs post as being anything but reality.

rd3's avatar

I have no idea what you're talking about. Are Ron Unz, Max Blumenthal, etc. antisemites?

A poll in the Jerusalem Post says that 40% of American jews agree that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Are they all antisemites?

William Wallace's avatar

Bobby you smoking the drapes?

Paul B. Cohen's avatar

The Iranian people en masse disagree with you, as does simple logic and morality.

Ben's avatar

Talk about being blinded by ideology.

David "JC" Penny's avatar

Plenty of drama moving forward... not new, but at least it'll keep the hyperbole stoked.

One angle I haven't seen mentioned has to do with Trump's petulant side. He's quite famous for making it hurt for people that cross him. With that, I see, at least in the background, this MOU complete with all the "they can have missiles" rhetoric as a poke at the GCC for wanting no resolution... just commerce. Taken from a Saudi perspective [forget the Israeli gambit for now] and see what they see: A funded, armed, arrogant Iran with control of the strait. I can almost see Trump in a sidebar with their king saying, "OK. You wanted it bad....you got it bad. Let me know when you grow some stones."

Jim touched on it here: "Get an Islamic Middle Eastern country to help clean up that mess..." Yup.

Should be fun.

Ben's avatar

That should have been on the table from day one.

All those Sunni nations should have been in on this to the hilt instead of bribing the US to do it with "investments" in the trillions.

How much do they spend on their little armies and Air Force?

Carolyn's avatar

No more NATO and stop support of Ukraine. Enough is enough

GonzoDon's avatar

JHK doesn’t even mention the $300 billion “reconstruction fund” in the MOU which will be available for any use Iran chooses.

That tells you all you need to know about today’s “analysis “.

James Howard Kunstler's avatar

Gonzo Don -- You obviously don't understand what that fund consists of and how it is designed to be used. We're not just handing over that money, and it's disingenuous for you to imply as much.

Hawaiian Pizza's avatar

Except the USA has spent the last 47 years doing everything in its power to halt, prevent and undo Iran's development, whereas it's now going to facilitate it. All while ceding it (with Oman) control over the Strait of Hormuz. Instead of free and clear passage, which served U.S. interests, Iran will be able to collect "service fees".

Iran has already demonstrated effective mastery over the Gulf region. Just think what they'll be able to do with this kind of financing.

Hawaiian Pizza's avatar

Yeah, the cope, cope, cope copecope... We're here to read the cope, cope, cope copecope. (h/t Meryn Cadell)

Kunstler clearly still has a rager on to bomb, punish, destroy Iran if that can possibly be managed somehow. The problem is, the war failed and it failed definitively within the first few days. If the 'Atlas of Iran's Missile Cities' were all that important, it would have enabled the USA to take those sites out sometime between March and now. Either they can't, or if they made the attempt then Iran would nonetheless have time enough to finish the process of destroying the remaining oil infrastructure within its reach and plunge the global economy into a Trump Depression.

Clearly, Trump's generals were able to make him understand this, which is why Trump has made the only move possible which is to accede to Iran's demands and tell Israel to pound sand.

FinemRespice's avatar

Whenever I see one of those "Coexist" bumper stickers, the song from Mr. Rogers, with a slight rewrite, comes to mind: "One of these things isn't like the others, one of these things just can't get along..." Islam in a nutshell.

FinemRespice's avatar

It seems like fantasy to believe that any "deal" with the Islamic regime will overcome centuries of "belief" and practice. They just bide their time. It is a belief system that is completely, totally and irrevocably incompatible with any other belief system. Plan accordingly.

Hawaiian Pizza's avatar

This is one of those statements that tells you a lot more about the speaker than about the topic. Yes, Iran is run by mullahs. But they have acted exceedingly rationally in their own interest, and in the interest of overcoming US/Israeli aggression against them and returning to the community of nations.

It took a long time, but the test came on February 28th and they passed with flying colours. Iran has achieved an overwhelming success and looks like being the new regional hegemon around the Persian Gulf. Rational actors acting rationally. It's Israel that has behaved like a Bronze Age tribe, making war on all its neighbours relentlessly, taking their land, killing and ethnically cleansing their populations. You should learn to recognize who is a rational actor and who is not.

Gary Edwards's avatar

Wow, the collecting $7000 crew has widened.

John Schrauth's avatar

One of the best and most concise reports as always.

The thing that has just smacked me upside my head is that the EU with its Globalist, Atlanticist, Neocon machinations and this insane desire to go to war with Russia, one must conclude The EU IS A DEATH CULT!

Kathy S.'s avatar

That, and the EU is resource-poor. They, perhaps even more than our own neocons in the Rand Corporation and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), just can't stand it that Russia EXISTS, sitting as it does on top of all that oil, gas, gold, uranium, timber, minerals, etc. They feel that by rights all those goodies should be THEIRS, and they just will not give up their determination to get their grubby hands on it all. Therefore, Russia, that great, 1,000+year-old nation, must be made to cease to exist.

Corrin Strong's avatar

I don’t know how this will all play out, but I did play with rats in college and the one thing I learned is that they learn quicker from positive reinforcement than from negative!

Paul B. Cohen's avatar

Then consider that for the Iranian Islamists holding sway, positive reinforcement is seeing their jihadist efforts cause havoc and weaken your resolve to resist (assuming you’re not one of them).

Kathy S.'s avatar

Similar with dogs and with children!

Joanne Plamondon's avatar

Reminds me of that parlor game "Twister," where people twist themselves into pretzels in vain attempts to keep from toppling over...

Liber8or's avatar

Don't know how Bruce Springstein got from "Born in the USA" to where he is now. Give me The Highwaymen or The Traveling Wilburys.

https://youtu.be/UMVjToYOjbM?si=itZ941KiM4E6uv6b

rd3's avatar

Bruce isn't the boss of anything.

You are correct about The Highwaymen and The Traveling Wilburys. The two greatest supergroups of all time.

Matt's avatar

‘Bruce isn’t the boss of anything’

Yet you still know he’s ’The Boss’

🤭

paul Vincent zecchino's avatar

Boss of socialist moralizing bullshit.

Matt's avatar

Born in the USA is about a Vietnam war veteran who can’t find any work.

Bruce felt that shooting a citizen in the face and shooting another in the back as he was on his face was a terrible injustice and an insult to democracy.

You never knew Bruce Springsteen.

But now I guess you do.

Liber8or's avatar

I agree. Good point. But I think the Bruce of Today has gone off the rails and is no longer functioning. (Like the entire Democrat-Socialist group)

Matt's avatar

But that logic makes no sense.

You never knew what he stood for, but he still stands for it. Going off the rails implies no longer functioning, or changing your position.

He has gotten older, sure, but he’s still working hard and putting on great shows.

I’m not sure you’re able to separate your hatred of “democrat-socialist group” with the ideology of a superstar musician 🤷‍♂️

Did you see all the superstars who turned out for Obama’s library?

Ben's avatar

He stands for making money, nothing more.

Matt's avatar

Donald Trump?

Yep. He’s personally made $4 billion since he was installed a second time.

$4 billion in one year of selling out the presidency of the United States.

And you cry about “the boss”?

Where are your priorities?

Ben's avatar

Another one with severe TDS.

Where are your priorities?

Chopping the nuts off little kids and letting 40 million invaders steal everything not bolted down and raping their way across North America?

paul Vincent zecchino's avatar

Springsteen was never anything more than an over hyped bar band whose dour music makes one want to jump off a cliff.

He stinks.

First heard him fifty years ago at a friend's home. Another visitor had a springsteen album, raving about it.

After listening a few minutes, all I could think of was 'make it stop, please please make it stop.'

Matt's avatar

Bruce is a hard working musician.

Trump can’t get hard.

Bruce plays 4 hour stadium shows for 80,000 people

Trump can’t get Milli Vanilli

Bruce will live on forever.

Trump will be impeached and in prison next year.

See what it means to be The Boss now?

rd3's avatar

Bruce is a blowhard douchebag and always has been.

Matt's avatar

Anyone who didn’t know Bruce’s feelings from the beginning is a blowhard douchebag and always has been.

rd3's avatar

He's just not that good. I can put up with obnoxious artists if they're good. He's just not good enough to bother putting up with his faggotry.

Matt's avatar

That’s great! You don’t like his music.

And you don’t like his politics.

You’re entitled to your own opinion!

But can you imagine being a fan of the boss and just finding out today that he’s a liberal who thinks Trump is a pants shitting murderous scumbag?

That’s embarrassing.

It shows how out of touch and disengaged you people tend to be.