Share your sentiment. They bounce from Jew-hatred to Trump-hatred to America-hatred like caffeinated chihuahuas albeit with smaller brains and testicles and more yappiness. I've been quite enjoying the leftie pivot to the reflecting pool in the days before the Iran agreement. While sane DC residents were enjoing the weather, the now-beautiful and clean parks and World Cup visitors are extolling Buccees, brisket and American friendliness, the left turned into an all-algae-all-the-time complaint fest. "Nooooo....nooooo....the algaeeeee-eeeeeee!" Cheered me right up.
Please share with me again the rightie-right’s apoplectic rage over President Barack Obama once wearing a tan suit. Because I can never hear that story too many times.
Yep. When I read some of the comments on your site, (I can only stomach a handful each time), many of the comments strike me as being troll-on-troll, perhaps even a bunch of paid political hacks, or even dare-I-say, good ole USA gov agents of sorts playing silly games...
I heard him say he's the boss and he turned his back on that scumbag Starmer. He's upsetting the right people, so he's good with me. China is obviously backing him they cut back their oil purchases by 5mbpd. And Putin handed him the soccer ball remember. The media going ape about the MOU is glorious. Soon we'll be learning what Obama's JPCOA was really all about as he lamely whines that it's been copied.
If he betrays Netanyahu, I'll forgive him for his betrayal of the American people. Putin played nice with the Oligarchs (all but one Jewish) and then betrayed them. Why? Because they were sucking Russia dry.
China may have cut the oil purchases for their own reasons. What they did was ban the export of refined oil (gas, kerosene etc.). China has a big share of the world's refining capacity so this accomplished three things:
1. Caused Chinese refineries to stop ordering any more oil than was required for the domestic market
2. Held down the global price of oil, and the price of refined products in China (i.e. kept the price of gas for Chinese motorists affordable).
3. Caused shortages and price spikes for gas (but not crude) primarily in countries which import refined products from China.
It is possible that this was explicit cooperation between China and US - but also may not have been as it was in China's (the government at least, although not the refining companies) own interest in any case.
So destroying Iran's Navy , Air Force , nuclear program , decapitating their leadership three layers down , destroying their economy and their military industrial capacity all while boxing in our main geo political adversary 'CH-II-NA ' in a manner of months while sustaining unprecedented minimal loss of US personnel is the biggest US foreign policy blunder in history eh ?Lol , what's hilarious is your misplaced sense of your own ability to sway peoples opinions away from reality in service to both your unmitigated TDS and your love of all things Demon---- ( Oh sorry James , I promised I wouldn't ) er I mean Democrat stealth self immolation of America party of deranged psychotic commie parasite LOSERS such as yourself !!!!!!! Now go take your sad pathetic attempts at " neuro linguistic programming ( you really must try the clams linguini , its absolutely to die for )and stick it where the sun don't shine Mkay " Matt" ? Nobody is swayed by your politically motivated malarkey . You think far too highly of your powers of persuasion( in the service of your psychotic and demonically possessed agenda . GFY .
Looked at another way - unlike so many of his predecessors he does at least seem to have got out of the war fairly quickly. Assuming that he really has got out of the war that is - and this is not just a market headfake to make some stock moves before we start up the war again.
Mind if I tell you to “bug off loser” from up here in Alaska? It’s much kinder than tieing you to a tree and dousing you in bacon grease then leaving you to explain your miserable self to the bears😜
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
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.
I have read/heard that Starmer is as dirty as it gets and the White Hats are blackmailing him into playing the role of useful idiot. Trump et al are going after the lower hanging corrupt fruit. I am not sure how much of what we see is theater or misdirection. I believe Venezuela was taken out of the equation well before we heard about that operation. This is so complex and convoluted it makes my head hurt.
The alliances and loyalties are complex and long-standing, so yeah, unraveling BS is a lengthy process. I figure at least 2 more administrations to get this done, providing MAGA stays strong and remains the voting influence it now has.
Only following up with action, the phase shift in what Trump and Vance have been saying for the last week will there be MAGA enough to keep Trump from impeachment
Those approval levels in the tank reflect the Boomers who watch Fox are the ones still buying
Leaving the majority of us let’s say not very motivated to get out and vote
The meme goes no matter who we vote for we get Bibi, it has a very Uniparty look
I thought that's what we were doing with NYC. (Movie, Escape from New York, is often brought to mind.) Well, 2 cesspools would be barely adequate for the number of idiots we need to dump in them.
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.
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.
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.
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👍👍
Well if you prescribe to a biblical world view at all its common knowledge that evil can never really be completely eliminated on this here mortal coil ,by us here mortals anyway , and so your lawnmower analogy dovetails nicely into that .
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
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.
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.
I agree with most of what you say here, but how did we lose the Iraq war? It went like greased lightning for us. What we lost was the postwar occupation of Iraq, which was quite the cock-up. The war and the occupation were linked, of course, but not the same thing.
The slow train wreck of our occupation (same for Afghanistan) should have taught us plenty, but there is no evidence it did. How we pulled it off successfully in Japan and West Germany, but failed in a couple of anarchic sand kingdoms, should occupy many minds among politicians and military analysts.
@Cankerpuss Great comment, you explained very well how these wars and the war budget function. It's all a big grift, and a huge part of the economy now (since the elites gave away the manufacturing base, and financialization of what's left of the economy). Well said.
Unfortunately Iran is a threat to the world. They are only weeks away from achieving 90% weapons grade uranium while at the same time developing ICBM force. There is only a brief time for a few economically balanced partners on this planet to allow unhinged religious zealots destroy the future of humanity.
No, it is NOT threat to the world. Iran hasn't invaded another nation for more than 200 years while the USA has military bases in more than 150 nations throughout the world. But you are okay with that, right? For some reason you see Iran as a threat and the USA is the big cuddly teddy bear in the room. It baffles me. Iran doesn't even have enough water to supply its own cities and people and you think they are threat to the world? Please.
You've been watching too much Sean Hannity or listening to too much Mark Levin. Turn them off.
No, uranium enrichment from yellow cake reactor grade (5%) to weapons grade (90%) is exponential. At Iranian current levels of 60%, reaching 90% only takes 12 weeks. See https://missilestrikes.com/nuclear-status/
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.
Mainstream media talking points only. You've been watching too much pro-Republican Sean Hannity. Name the last terrorist attack that has been sponsored by Iran on American soil, and I'm not talking about some illegal American military base a fart, skip and a jump away from the Iranian national border.
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.
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!
US also allowed open borders and the bombardment of perhaps 20 million illegal aliens. They also, under the presidents you cite, basically funded a wide sex and drug trafficking agenda. What was done then is immaterial now. And who exactly are ‘people who really know about the Iranian nuclear program’??? Utter BS.
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.
@Ben NY was already well on its way to complete destruction from good ol' capitalists. Maybe they elected Mamdani to take the fall and be the scapegoat? He is likely to rule from the center and not do much to shake things up, as all the "socialist" campaigners and politicians who "talk a good game" on the campaign trail (see Obama, Bernie Sanders, etc.).
"what part of, “death to America” don’t you understand?" Why are you so afraid of words and empty threats? There used to be a phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones..." I suggest developing a thicker skin, and becoming less paranoid lol
You sound like Senator Lindsey Graham, if he was honest for one moment of his life. He has made it clear that he is Israel first, and has openly said that he told his constituents to send their sons and daughters to go fight in the Middle East. He's a catcher, not a pitcher, BTW. Did you see those pictures of him at Disney Land, by himself with some kind of bubble blower in his hand, a few weeks ago?
I go back and forth on that one , the alternate explanation being that like it as not those five nations the neocons circa Bush ll had on their play list have all come to pass and the middle east is actually starting to take on a different appearance than it did back when Baby Bush said this here war on terror was going to take a long ass time . remember all that ? I do . Not chearleading it , just pointing out the facts , Iraq , Syria , Libya , Lebanon , Iran . See the underlying continuity of the long term geo strategic plan for the middle east continuing on apace while most peoples short attention spans are fixated on the latest laser pointer cat distraction ?
WTF is Israel doing in Lebanon in the first place? Ethnically cleansing it in order to expand its borders and take land by force. This is why Hezbollah does what it does. No other reason. It's not because of Islamic fanaticism, it's because of Zionist fanaticism.
Israel has been getting away with this for so many decades thanks to relentless, unblinking support from the USA. Being defeated by Iran has now, at long last, curbed that support. Trump sees his options are either to give Iran what it's asking for or they will destroy the world economy. They have the means and demonstrated capability to do just that, by flattening what's left of the Gulf oil infrastructure. And the USA lacks the ability to stop them, or it would have done so by now.
Maybe Israel has a responsibility to realize that it is the maniac in the room, and needs to come to its senses at long fucking last.
Regardless, I think Trump has decided to cut and run.
Bibi is about to learn the same lesson that countless former allies, employees, cabinet members, attorneys, and supporters have already learned: with Trump, loyalty is a one-way street.
He's not loyal to Israel. He's not loyal to the United States. He's loyal to himself.
Calling that TDS doesn't make it false. It just avoids dealing with the evidence.
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.
We're a long way from home when we're in and around their home. So they fight back, sometimes effectively. That sometimes has increased to often. If they destroyed our bases, they can destroy our ships at any time.
I also don't understand why Jim characterizes the Iranians as insane and "maniacs" every week. Israel wants to destroy their culture and they want to preserve it. What's irrational about that?
Because he is either part of or victim of decades of western media propaganda.
Is Iran a showcase of liberalism? No. Neither is Israel or the Gulf States in general. Iran under the Mullahs is far less repressive than under the Shah whose secret police carried out more murders and tortures in a year than the Mullahs in ten.
The fact of the matter is despite years of sanctions, overt as well as covert western attempts to create regime change in Iran, this “oppressive, horrible regime” has resulted in a nation where doctoral candidates outnumber those in the US by a five to one margin. Where female STEM graduates outnumber the US by 39% to 12%. Where their literacy rate is ten points higher than ours and women are at 98% literacy rate compared to 40% under the Shah.
The 10,000 or so Jews living in Iran by choice are free to worship in their synagogues and protected by fatwa. Is it a picnic for them? No. But if they wanted to “kill all the Jews” they have a funny way of doing it. In reality Israel has killed off far more Palestinians by a large measure. So who’s the crazed regime?
Each of us has an inherent level of bias. What distinguishes one perspective from the next is the degree of pure objectivity applied equally at every level of analysis.
If one is unable to find fault with an individual or entity they trust or have trusted at other levels, that may indicate selective bias without objective cause.
To the best of one's ability in the quest to ascertain it, the nearest understanding reflecting objective truth should be the sole arbiter in framing one's views.
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.
BOOGA BOOGA! The old worn-out antisemite accusation has lost its power from decades of abuse. The great majority of hatred directed at Israel has been caused by Zionists, like you. Go ahead: call me one. ZZZzzz...
Quite candidly, I've quit giving a shit about what happens in or to Ukraine, Russia, and much of the rest of Europe at this point. Half of Europe is becoming more Islamic-dominated rathole than civilized Western civilization. How native Europeans think that will turn out OK is a mystery to me, in part because the Islamists overrunning Europe, unlike many of their Islamic counterparts in the Mideast, don't have the oil to sell to keep their regimes financed once they take politically take over European countries. Europe ain't gonna look like a forested version of Qatar; it's gonna look like Yemen with forests and grass, until the forests get cut down for firewood.
As for Ukraine, it's been trying for years now to mix a corn-pone version of Fascist/Socialism to run its country, with a ton of WEF and U.S. leftist/neo-con funding propping it up. It's gone from being the breadbasket of Europe to being the basket case of Europe. Ukraine's claim to fame is bombing Russia and killing Russians--Russia being the major oil and natural gas supplier to much of Europe. Were it not for the U.S. being nice guys and sending oil to Europe during the Iran dustup, Europe would be heading for 1700 A.D. by now--it may still get there.
Meanwhile, Russia is now, thanks in large part to the war in Ukraine, a very dangerous country. How so? Well, the war in Ukraine has made it painfully obvious that the Russian military's much bragged upon conventional capability really is not very capable. No one should take much solace in that because such European gloating about it ignores the fact that Russia holds a massive stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear warheads that it can deliver to anywhere that it chooses to. And it may choose to if it runs out of alternatives in Ukraine. And what would the U.S. do about that? Well, many Americans might just say, "Do nothing"--after all, most of Europe hasn't done jack-shit for the U.S. in years, and certainly hasn't in the Iran affair. Which proves, once again, what morons the Socialist wusses running "free" Europe are--they are the ones who would benefit most from helping the U.S. end the radical Islamist threat from Iran. But, did they help? Not really.
President Trump has been doing his best (best of any President in the last 47 years) to bring some stability to the Mideast. I hope that he is successful. But, his main thrust now needs to be to end the de facto Socialist revolution occurring in America, exit NATO and the UN, concentrate on securing the Western Hemisphere from Chinese Communist influence, reduce our dependence on the Communist Chinese junk flooding into the U.S., and to put the American peoples' interests first. That will be a challenge--many will try to stop him, by any means possible. A recent poll reflects the hatred that the "New Left" has for America. Only 29% of Democrats polled say they love America. My conclusion from that poll, if the poll is accurate, is that over 7 out of 10 Democrats are nothing but America-hating piles of shit.
You do realize Russia has only used reservists in the fight with Ukraine.
Not a fan of Russia, but I also have no skin in the game against them either.
The far right appears to have a deep-seated hatred of America as well.
While we are at it, nuke delivery systems and nukes themselves require extensive maintenance. I suspect they have not kept up with any of it, as the very tires of their convoys rotted off, leaving them stranded.
Russia seems to be the essence of a paper tiger, great at defense, using nature as a defensive measure, but on the offense, they fall apart over and over.
Bingo, Ben. The military industrial complex just wants to make money and hates nationalists. MAGA is very different from America First. Come out from among them, Ben.
This ‘situation report’ sums things up comprehensively and well. Western Europeans are dying out — fallow and barren comes at a price. Priority for Western Hemispheric interests is the strategic imperative. The anti-American global-progressive-leftists are intent upon remaking the world, see Jacobins, Fabians, Bolsheviks, Red Guards, Antifa — if we let them. Those with low throw-weight (and testosterone) need to take a seat. The world belongs to the vibrant.
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.
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.
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.
Do you not remember the Marshall plan and the US rebuilding Europe and Japan?
Do you not remember the fiasco after WW1, punishing Germany creating Hitler?
It is the entire Sunni group that will administer the $300 billion, and I really doubt if much missile or nuke buying will happen.
The best way to conquer an enemy is to make them a friend.
Iran will not run open loop with a single dollar, 60 days from now if things do not progress, he we go again.
BTW, whatever happened to all the disaster effects of 300 dollar oil and 10 dollar gasoline go? The same place as all the other bullshit promulgated by the MSM and their trolls on this blog.
Of course I remember the plan as well as the fiasco. There is a body of opinion saying that Macron deliberately trolled Trump by offering to hold the signing at Versailles, precisely because of the analogy to the ending of WWI.
As for the Marshall plan, the difference here is the USA actually did enact regime change in Germany, before financing its reconstruction. In Iran, Trump tried and failed to change the regime, before capitulating and acceding to Iran's demands. It's as if the USA had been the aggressor against Nazi Germany, only to be fought to a standstill and create the Marshall Plan to enable the Nazis to rebuild. (Except even the mullahs are nowhere near as evil as the Nazis were, but that's the limits of historical analogy for you.)
But there is no analogy in either WWI or WWII to the USA's decades-long backing of its bloodthirsty client ethnostate in the Middle East, or of the sudden reversal in Israel's fortunes. All because Iran has successfully defied the USA for five decades now, and the USA now understands that pushing Iran any farther will lead to Iran shooting the world's oil economy, and thus the U.S. economy, in the head.
The "disaster effects" haven't happened... *yet*, and that's for one reason: China, like the USA, has stockpiles and sharply reduced its oil imports, from 10.6 million barrels/day last year to 6.8 million barrels last month.
That's around a 40 percent decrease. Don't kid yourself, they did Trump and the entire world a huge favour by limiting demand. Trump still needs to make the deal stick, or the disaster effects are still very, very much on the menu.
Daddy, Daddy, JHK! There are people posting here who don’t necessarily agree with you! Or, worse yet, they are saying things that are openly CRITICAL of Dear Leader and some of the decisions he makes!
This is intolerable and unAmerican. Please shut all dissenting voices down, like like they do in other countries led by authoritarians.
I shout “TDS!” loudly every time I encounter one of these heretics, but it’s not enough! We need you to make them go away so I never have my cult-like worship of Dear Leader questioned!
Hater Spite aimed at a person or cause no matter what the real story is. They are typically products of the MSM propaganda. No matter what contrary info they see, makes no difference. Their targets get speared and negative comments abound no matter what. Known for name calling when they do not have counter arguments. TDS is just one form. JHK does not censor dissension, he censors jerks.
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.
The Iranians are masters of defensive war. They are too deeply dug in. Our bombs destroy the portals, but underneath all is fine. So they dig out and hit us back just as hard.
I love the weasel-word 'potential'. The not 'potential' but actual answer is, whether they survive or not, they have enough capacity left to destroy all the remaining oil infrastructure in the Gulf, and they can get the job done before the USA is able to stop them. They have a knife to the jugular vein of the global oil economy, and the USA isn't quick enough on the draw to rescue it.
No matter his big talk, the USA can't escape the effects of a global depression, and Trump knows it. That's their weapon. Iran has no interest in hitting the USA for its own sake: what they want is to survive, and to get the USA and Israel's boot off their neck. And now, they have the Paul Atreides solution: whoever can destroy a thing, has the control of that thing. Frank Herbert was a prophet.
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.
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.
The Iranians have shown themselves to be far more disciplined, strategically savvy, and diplomatically capable of crafting an agreement than Israel or the US. They have been the only grownups in the room and the only civilized participant. Our host is too bigoted against Muslims to accept or admit that, and his dittoheads have no mind of their own or clue about legitimate sources of information.
And a poor case it is. Rational behaviour is rational behaviour. I don't call it something it isn't because of a difference of values.
Sure, Iran oppresses girls, women, gays. Saudi Arabia does the same -- gay sex is a capital offence. And they're a valued ally. Meanwhile, Israel has received unstinting American support for decades, and they drop Palestinians off roofs:
The fact of the matter is despite years of sanctions, overt as well as covert western attempts to create regime change in Iran, this “oppressive, horrible regime” has resulted in a nation where doctoral candidates outnumber those in the US by a five to one margin. Where female STEM graduates outnumber the US by 39% to 12%. Where their literacy rate is ten points higher than ours and women are at 98% literacy rate compared to 40% under the Shah.
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.
Sunni Gulf nations = NATO as both just want Uncle Sam to take care of them.
How many NATO, EU, WEF, OPEC conferences have been conducted to find out new ways to sucker the US. How much of the contention between the US and Russia has been put in place by Europe?
Who exactly is the US biggest foreign enemy?
Then, we need to acknowledge that our biggest enemy is domestic, the Democratic Socialist movement and its ability to dupe ignorant folks.
Lavrov chastised them in much the same manner. Arrant playboys and greed heads who wouldn't lift a finger to help their brothers in Palestine. The Shia were willing to help even though Palestine is mostly Sunni. But their own co-religionists didn't give a god damn.
This whole fiasco is about using US forces to defend Israel from Iran. Iran is no threat to the US, only to Israel.
Israel should not be America's problem. It's a distant foreign country which has repeatedly proven it has no respect for America, bombing the Liberty, selling Pollard's stolen secrets to the USSR, and manipulating Congress via AIPAC.
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!
That, and the EU is resource-poor. For that reason, 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.
The Middle East is the home to three major religions including dozens of offshoots, a mixed bag of royalty, impostors, crypto-whatevers, carpetbaggers, looters (think oil) and migrants. It is the home of ancient civilizations and crazy politics with 5,000 years of struggle and unrest.
It is the world's most sticky political tarbaby. Many of the MAGA faithful were proclaiming it'd all be over within a week when Operation Epic Fury was launched at the end of February. It's been epic all right, and so far has showcased the limit of high-tech warfare and is testing the limit the limit of how little hot air and agreement incapable parties have in moving forward towards peace.
The epic part may be moving in a different direction now, and could more easily become the catalyst/scapegoat for a broader conflict. In times of Decline, which gets little to no recognition from the MAGA faithful, this is how things roll. The pie of wealth is shrinking, and many paths lead to violence as human nature drives all parties to cling to their standards of living. Good luck to us all - we'll need it.
The trolls are out in force this morning, naturally.
Had a friend in Florida turn me into your writings. I very much enjoy your points of view. Thanks!
It's no fun without them.
Share your sentiment. They bounce from Jew-hatred to Trump-hatred to America-hatred like caffeinated chihuahuas albeit with smaller brains and testicles and more yappiness. I've been quite enjoying the leftie pivot to the reflecting pool in the days before the Iran agreement. While sane DC residents were enjoing the weather, the now-beautiful and clean parks and World Cup visitors are extolling Buccees, brisket and American friendliness, the left turned into an all-algae-all-the-time complaint fest. "Nooooo....nooooo....the algaeeeee-eeeeeee!" Cheered me right up.
Please share with me again the rightie-right’s apoplectic rage over President Barack Obama once wearing a tan suit. Because I can never hear that story too many times.
You knew he was going to be a great president because of the razor sharp crease in his pants.
Wasn’t Trump the one that began bitching about the algae? lol
That was before he spent $14 million of our tax dollars to not solve the algae problem.
Yep. When I read some of the comments on your site, (I can only stomach a handful each time), many of the comments strike me as being troll-on-troll, perhaps even a bunch of paid political hacks, or even dare-I-say, good ole USA gov agents of sorts playing silly games...
So you don’t believe Trump shits his pants and raped children with his bestie?
Your P-resident literally did that. Project much?
What other P-resident do you know of who raped children with his best friend?
Nixon?
🫵🤡
‘Your P-resident literally did that’
Trump isn’t my P-resident beta boy.
I don’t worship pants shitting child rapists.
You do.
Gaslight much?
Pathetic.
Everything Trump touches turns to shit.
You are complicit
It is literally all they have.
All they have?
A rapist grifter felon pussy pants shitting loser?
It’s trolling to point out what a pants shitting loser Donnie is?
Did you hear him shit his pants during his talk?
I heard him say he's the boss and he turned his back on that scumbag Starmer. He's upsetting the right people, so he's good with me. China is obviously backing him they cut back their oil purchases by 5mbpd. And Putin handed him the soccer ball remember. The media going ape about the MOU is glorious. Soon we'll be learning what Obama's JPCOA was really all about as he lamely whines that it's been copied.
If he betrays Netanyahu, I'll forgive him for his betrayal of the American people. Putin played nice with the Oligarchs (all but one Jewish) and then betrayed them. Why? Because they were sucking Russia dry.
Why would he ‘betray’ Bibi?
Bibi slept in Jerad Kushner bed when Kushner was a boy. His parents would make him sleep in the basement lol
Trump is Putin’s bitch, but Putin is now Ukraine’s bitch.
Did you see Ukraine hammer Moscow?
Putin is going to get taken out from within.
Everything Donnie touches turns to shit.
Excellent response.
Great example of a real loser troll accusing others of being what he/she is.
I'm think Mr. Matt's first name is "Door".
China may have cut the oil purchases for their own reasons. What they did was ban the export of refined oil (gas, kerosene etc.). China has a big share of the world's refining capacity so this accomplished three things:
1. Caused Chinese refineries to stop ordering any more oil than was required for the domestic market
2. Held down the global price of oil, and the price of refined products in China (i.e. kept the price of gas for Chinese motorists affordable).
3. Caused shortages and price spikes for gas (but not crude) primarily in countries which import refined products from China.
It is possible that this was explicit cooperation between China and US - but also may not have been as it was in China's (the government at least, although not the refining companies) own interest in any case.
So Isreal AND China own Trump?
So much for America first and no new ME endless wars 🙄
So you didn’t hear him shit his pants?
Yep he’s Putin’s bitch for sure lol
I just think it’s hilarious how badly he shit the bed with Iran.
The biggest foreign policy blunder in American history.
What a deplorable pants shitting rapist.
Hey at least he fixed the reflecting pool and built himself a $1 billion golden ballroom.
What a bootlicker lol
So destroying Iran's Navy , Air Force , nuclear program , decapitating their leadership three layers down , destroying their economy and their military industrial capacity all while boxing in our main geo political adversary 'CH-II-NA ' in a manner of months while sustaining unprecedented minimal loss of US personnel is the biggest US foreign policy blunder in history eh ?Lol , what's hilarious is your misplaced sense of your own ability to sway peoples opinions away from reality in service to both your unmitigated TDS and your love of all things Demon---- ( Oh sorry James , I promised I wouldn't ) er I mean Democrat stealth self immolation of America party of deranged psychotic commie parasite LOSERS such as yourself !!!!!!! Now go take your sad pathetic attempts at " neuro linguistic programming ( you really must try the clams linguini , its absolutely to die for )and stick it where the sun don't shine Mkay " Matt" ? Nobody is swayed by your politically motivated malarkey . You think far too highly of your powers of persuasion( in the service of your psychotic and demonically possessed agenda . GFY .
Looked at another way - unlike so many of his predecessors he does at least seem to have got out of the war fairly quickly. Assuming that he really has got out of the war that is - and this is not just a market headfake to make some stock moves before we start up the war again.
Mind if I tell you to “bug off loser” from up here in Alaska? It’s much kinder than tieing you to a tree and dousing you in bacon grease then leaving you to explain your miserable self to the bears😜
Do you mind if I remind you that you’re worshipping a pedo rapist pants shitting retard grifter?
Ok cool lol
Why are you bringing Joe Biden into this?
O? So you hate Biden too? Lmao
You forgot the algae.
Can’t Trump just cover the algae pool mess with a tarp so no one sees it?
And the $1 billion crater and the $70 million claw surrounding the White House lol
Both of which have been needed for decades.
It is trolling to do so forty times.
Showing you to be of very low IQ.
The grade school troll.
He literally just shit his pants on live tv.
I guess you didn’t ‘see’ it.
Please keep up!
You seem very preoccupied with his flatulence.
Is this some weird kink?
No, don't answer that you be as weird as you want, but please keep some of your obsessions to yourself.
If you don’t listen for forty times. Then I need to tell you 41 times.
Trump is a pants shitting child rapist who surrendered to Iran.
You are complicit.
People stopped reading the incessant slop after several repeated posts.
No— were you there sniffing on your knees? 🤡🤡🤡🤨
Do you regularly feast on what Donnie leaves in his depends?
You're a really gross human.The disgusting way you speak? SHAME on you....
Did Trump just grab your pussy?
He sure grabbed yours and lost his fist up to the elbow.
Did you know Dumb had a b at the end?
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
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.
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.
Ah, but they have London bankers and MI6. Hold on the obituaries.
I have read/heard that Starmer is as dirty as it gets and the White Hats are blackmailing him into playing the role of useful idiot. Trump et al are going after the lower hanging corrupt fruit. I am not sure how much of what we see is theater or misdirection. I believe Venezuela was taken out of the equation well before we heard about that operation. This is so complex and convoluted it makes my head hurt.
The alliances and loyalties are complex and long-standing, so yeah, unraveling BS is a lengthy process. I figure at least 2 more administrations to get this done, providing MAGA stays strong and remains the voting influence it now has.
It's a good thing we still have freedom of speech...at least we know who the useful idiots are.
They all know about the mass rape of British girls. They're all in on it. It's policy as per the Kalergi Plan.
Only following up with action, the phase shift in what Trump and Vance have been saying for the last week will there be MAGA enough to keep Trump from impeachment
Those approval levels in the tank reflect the Boomers who watch Fox are the ones still buying
Leaving the majority of us let’s say not very motivated to get out and vote
The meme goes no matter who we vote for we get Bibi, it has a very Uniparty look
You say that like its a good thing .
Is Alberta the first step?
After all, every other thing is about oil.
Minerals aka mined stuff is also huge.
Trump gets it; the Marxist Democrats don't.
Trump shit his pants, and then he shit the world economy.
Who would have guessed that a guy who had 6 bankruptcies would bankrupt the entire planet.
And you’re still chowing down on his shit filled depends.
Pathetic
"...and ending in London."
Oh, Lord no!
We can take England away from the Eastern Invaders, but let's just build a wall around London and not let anyone in or out.
I thought that's what we were doing with NYC. (Movie, Escape from New York, is often brought to mind.) Well, 2 cesspools would be barely adequate for the number of idiots we need to dump in them.
Sounds like a recipe for WW3.
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.
Most Americans have zero clue about the British; they have managed to get the focus on one tiny country and off themselves.
Most bootlickers think all the badass Italians have already illegally immigrated, so Trump can turn another one of our allies against us.
Hey, at least Putin is still his friend lol
Yep, the Hamilton system which is probably the real reason he got shot.
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.
💯🎯
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.
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👍👍
Well if you prescribe to a biblical world view at all its common knowledge that evil can never really be completely eliminated on this here mortal coil ,by us here mortals anyway , and so your lawnmower analogy dovetails nicely into that .
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
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.
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.
I agree with most of what you say here, but how did we lose the Iraq war? It went like greased lightning for us. What we lost was the postwar occupation of Iraq, which was quite the cock-up. The war and the occupation were linked, of course, but not the same thing.
The slow train wreck of our occupation (same for Afghanistan) should have taught us plenty, but there is no evidence it did. How we pulled it off successfully in Japan and West Germany, but failed in a couple of anarchic sand kingdoms, should occupy many minds among politicians and military analysts.
@Cankerpuss Great comment, you explained very well how these wars and the war budget function. It's all a big grift, and a huge part of the economy now (since the elites gave away the manufacturing base, and financialization of what's left of the economy). Well said.
Unfortunately Iran is a threat to the world. They are only weeks away from achieving 90% weapons grade uranium while at the same time developing ICBM force. There is only a brief time for a few economically balanced partners on this planet to allow unhinged religious zealots destroy the future of humanity.
Iran is just weeks away from having fearsome nuclear weapons, and always will be.
The US includes as many unhinged religious zealots as Iran.
No, it is NOT threat to the world. Iran hasn't invaded another nation for more than 200 years while the USA has military bases in more than 150 nations throughout the world. But you are okay with that, right? For some reason you see Iran as a threat and the USA is the big cuddly teddy bear in the room. It baffles me. Iran doesn't even have enough water to supply its own cities and people and you think they are threat to the world? Please.
You've been watching too much Sean Hannity or listening to too much Mark Levin. Turn them off.
That sounds just like those tall tales about WMD's in Iraq. Remember how well that war went?
No, uranium enrichment from yellow cake reactor grade (5%) to weapons grade (90%) is exponential. At Iranian current levels of 60%, reaching 90% only takes 12 weeks. See https://missilestrikes.com/nuclear-status/
It's worse than you think.
What's good for Lockheed is good for America!
Isn't it?
The value of the dollars in my savings accounts and the prices of homes these days says otherwise. But Lockheed stocks are fantastic!
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.
Wars are like fires: easy to start, but very, very difficult to end, to put out. Trump is learning that the hard way.
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?
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.
BS. They are the #1 backer of terrorism globally.
Mainstream media talking points only. You've been watching too much pro-Republican Sean Hannity. Name the last terrorist attack that has been sponsored by Iran on American soil, and I'm not talking about some illegal American military base a fart, skip and a jump away from the Iranian national border.
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.
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!
US also allowed open borders and the bombardment of perhaps 20 million illegal aliens. They also, under the presidents you cite, basically funded a wide sex and drug trafficking agenda. What was done then is immaterial now. And who exactly are ‘people who really know about the Iranian nuclear program’??? Utter BS.
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.
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.
I guess you’re not a knicks fan either lol
@Ben NY was already well on its way to complete destruction from good ol' capitalists. Maybe they elected Mamdani to take the fall and be the scapegoat? He is likely to rule from the center and not do much to shake things up, as all the "socialist" campaigners and politicians who "talk a good game" on the campaign trail (see Obama, Bernie Sanders, etc.).
No he will absolutely shit the bed in New York.
One big steamy pile.
I get your point Bill, but saving NYC isn't a great counterbalance, many of us kinda think the bombers would be doing the US a favor.
Only saving DC would be a weaker arguement.
"what part of, “death to America” don’t you understand?" Why are you so afraid of words and empty threats? There used to be a phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones..." I suggest developing a thicker skin, and becoming less paranoid lol
Think of how much money they're making. They LOVE them some Israel! The United States? It can dry up and blow away once they have made their money.
You sound like Senator Lindsey Graham, if he was honest for one moment of his life. He has made it clear that he is Israel first, and has openly said that he told his constituents to send their sons and daughters to go fight in the Middle East. He's a catcher, not a pitcher, BTW. Did you see those pictures of him at Disney Land, by himself with some kind of bubble blower in his hand, a few weeks ago?
No, I don't follow him like you do.
I go back and forth on that one , the alternate explanation being that like it as not those five nations the neocons circa Bush ll had on their play list have all come to pass and the middle east is actually starting to take on a different appearance than it did back when Baby Bush said this here war on terror was going to take a long ass time . remember all that ? I do . Not chearleading it , just pointing out the facts , Iraq , Syria , Libya , Lebanon , Iran . See the underlying continuity of the long term geo strategic plan for the middle east continuing on apace while most peoples short attention spans are fixated on the latest laser pointer cat distraction ?
It's a virtual certainty that Israel will scuttle any agreement by continuing to bomb Lebanon.
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.
WTF is Israel doing in Lebanon in the first place? Ethnically cleansing it in order to expand its borders and take land by force. This is why Hezbollah does what it does. No other reason. It's not because of Islamic fanaticism, it's because of Zionist fanaticism.
Israel has been getting away with this for so many decades thanks to relentless, unblinking support from the USA. Being defeated by Iran has now, at long last, curbed that support. Trump sees his options are either to give Iran what it's asking for or they will destroy the world economy. They have the means and demonstrated capability to do just that, by flattening what's left of the Gulf oil infrastructure. And the USA lacks the ability to stop them, or it would have done so by now.
Maybe Israel has a responsibility to realize that it is the maniac in the room, and needs to come to its senses at long fucking last.
Got that wrong. Ever been to the south in Lebanon? Israelis aren’t angels but when fighting the devil, do you capitulate or fight back?
My solution would completely eliminate any conflict between Zionists and anyone else in the Middle East.
Regardless, I think Trump has decided to cut and run.
Bibi is about to learn the same lesson that countless former allies, employees, cabinet members, attorneys, and supporters have already learned: with Trump, loyalty is a one-way street.
He's not loyal to Israel. He's not loyal to the United States. He's loyal to himself.
Calling that TDS doesn't make it false. It just avoids dealing with the evidence.
A rabid dog cannot be reasoned with.
True, you can't be.
They are about to be defunded.
They had no part in the negotiations. In that part of the world that is known as a Stupd Move.
They certainly will try.
Your ethnic roots have distorted your reality regarding Iran. You're on the wrong side there and losing your reader base.
Seidel-- You'd be more credible if you spelled out how I supposedly distort reality, rather just asserting as much.
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.
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.
We're a long way from home when we're in and around their home. So they fight back, sometimes effectively. That sometimes has increased to often. If they destroyed our bases, they can destroy our ships at any time.
I also don't understand why Jim characterizes the Iranians as insane and "maniacs" every week. Israel wants to destroy their culture and they want to preserve it. What's irrational about that?
Because he is either part of or victim of decades of western media propaganda.
Is Iran a showcase of liberalism? No. Neither is Israel or the Gulf States in general. Iran under the Mullahs is far less repressive than under the Shah whose secret police carried out more murders and tortures in a year than the Mullahs in ten.
The fact of the matter is despite years of sanctions, overt as well as covert western attempts to create regime change in Iran, this “oppressive, horrible regime” has resulted in a nation where doctoral candidates outnumber those in the US by a five to one margin. Where female STEM graduates outnumber the US by 39% to 12%. Where their literacy rate is ten points higher than ours and women are at 98% literacy rate compared to 40% under the Shah.
The 10,000 or so Jews living in Iran by choice are free to worship in their synagogues and protected by fatwa. Is it a picnic for them? No. But if they wanted to “kill all the Jews” they have a funny way of doing it. In reality Israel has killed off far more Palestinians by a large measure. So who’s the crazed regime?
That would require understanding anything other than Jew hatred.
Most of these idiots don't understand why they think the way they do.
165 schoolgirls killed.
Water treatment plants and hospitals and bridges destroyed.
All war crimes.
Are you intelligent enough to understand?
Are you so stupid that you ignore that they have shot at every country in the region and killed civilians all over the Middle East?
So as long as Iran is killing people, it's to be ignored?
You are a complete liberal moron.
Yip! Yip! Yip!
On behalf of all of here, please ask your boyfriend to swat you with a rolled up newspaper.
Each of us has an inherent level of bias. What distinguishes one perspective from the next is the degree of pure objectivity applied equally at every level of analysis.
If one is unable to find fault with an individual or entity they trust or have trusted at other levels, that may indicate selective bias without objective cause.
To the best of one's ability in the quest to ascertain it, the nearest understanding reflecting objective truth should be the sole arbiter in framing one's views.
Wearing your *totenkopf* t-shirt around town, or are you a closet antisemite, Herr Seidel?
🇮🇱🕎🇮🇱🕎
Cool it with the bullshit. Bob.
But Bobs nasty post is A OK?
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.
BOOGA BOOGA! The old worn-out antisemite accusation has lost its power from decades of abuse. The great majority of hatred directed at Israel has been caused by Zionists, like you. Go ahead: call me one. ZZZzzz...
Bobby you smoking the drapes?
The Iranian people en masse disagree with you, as does simple logic and morality.
Talk about being blinded by ideology.
Quite candidly, I've quit giving a shit about what happens in or to Ukraine, Russia, and much of the rest of Europe at this point. Half of Europe is becoming more Islamic-dominated rathole than civilized Western civilization. How native Europeans think that will turn out OK is a mystery to me, in part because the Islamists overrunning Europe, unlike many of their Islamic counterparts in the Mideast, don't have the oil to sell to keep their regimes financed once they take politically take over European countries. Europe ain't gonna look like a forested version of Qatar; it's gonna look like Yemen with forests and grass, until the forests get cut down for firewood.
As for Ukraine, it's been trying for years now to mix a corn-pone version of Fascist/Socialism to run its country, with a ton of WEF and U.S. leftist/neo-con funding propping it up. It's gone from being the breadbasket of Europe to being the basket case of Europe. Ukraine's claim to fame is bombing Russia and killing Russians--Russia being the major oil and natural gas supplier to much of Europe. Were it not for the U.S. being nice guys and sending oil to Europe during the Iran dustup, Europe would be heading for 1700 A.D. by now--it may still get there.
Meanwhile, Russia is now, thanks in large part to the war in Ukraine, a very dangerous country. How so? Well, the war in Ukraine has made it painfully obvious that the Russian military's much bragged upon conventional capability really is not very capable. No one should take much solace in that because such European gloating about it ignores the fact that Russia holds a massive stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear warheads that it can deliver to anywhere that it chooses to. And it may choose to if it runs out of alternatives in Ukraine. And what would the U.S. do about that? Well, many Americans might just say, "Do nothing"--after all, most of Europe hasn't done jack-shit for the U.S. in years, and certainly hasn't in the Iran affair. Which proves, once again, what morons the Socialist wusses running "free" Europe are--they are the ones who would benefit most from helping the U.S. end the radical Islamist threat from Iran. But, did they help? Not really.
President Trump has been doing his best (best of any President in the last 47 years) to bring some stability to the Mideast. I hope that he is successful. But, his main thrust now needs to be to end the de facto Socialist revolution occurring in America, exit NATO and the UN, concentrate on securing the Western Hemisphere from Chinese Communist influence, reduce our dependence on the Communist Chinese junk flooding into the U.S., and to put the American peoples' interests first. That will be a challenge--many will try to stop him, by any means possible. A recent poll reflects the hatred that the "New Left" has for America. Only 29% of Democrats polled say they love America. My conclusion from that poll, if the poll is accurate, is that over 7 out of 10 Democrats are nothing but America-hating piles of shit.
You do realize Russia has only used reservists in the fight with Ukraine.
Not a fan of Russia, but I also have no skin in the game against them either.
The far right appears to have a deep-seated hatred of America as well.
While we are at it, nuke delivery systems and nukes themselves require extensive maintenance. I suspect they have not kept up with any of it, as the very tires of their convoys rotted off, leaving them stranded.
Russia seems to be the essence of a paper tiger, great at defense, using nature as a defensive measure, but on the offense, they fall apart over and over.
Bingo, Ben. The military industrial complex just wants to make money and hates nationalists. MAGA is very different from America First. Come out from among them, Ben.
I'd volunteer to be Ben's sponsor if he'd be baptized.
Is that like co-signing a loan? Would his sins fall upon you if he relapses?
This ‘situation report’ sums things up comprehensively and well. Western Europeans are dying out — fallow and barren comes at a price. Priority for Western Hemispheric interests is the strategic imperative. The anti-American global-progressive-leftists are intent upon remaking the world, see Jacobins, Fabians, Bolsheviks, Red Guards, Antifa — if we let them. Those with low throw-weight (and testosterone) need to take a seat. The world belongs to the vibrant.
Cornpone? Classic anti-White hate speech.
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.
No more NATO and stop support of Ukraine. Enough is enough
Is that you, Putin?
No……it’s Annette from Detroit☺️🇺🇸
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 “.
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.
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.
Do you not remember the Marshall plan and the US rebuilding Europe and Japan?
Do you not remember the fiasco after WW1, punishing Germany creating Hitler?
It is the entire Sunni group that will administer the $300 billion, and I really doubt if much missile or nuke buying will happen.
The best way to conquer an enemy is to make them a friend.
Iran will not run open loop with a single dollar, 60 days from now if things do not progress, he we go again.
BTW, whatever happened to all the disaster effects of 300 dollar oil and 10 dollar gasoline go? The same place as all the other bullshit promulgated by the MSM and their trolls on this blog.
Of course I remember the plan as well as the fiasco. There is a body of opinion saying that Macron deliberately trolled Trump by offering to hold the signing at Versailles, precisely because of the analogy to the ending of WWI.
As for the Marshall plan, the difference here is the USA actually did enact regime change in Germany, before financing its reconstruction. In Iran, Trump tried and failed to change the regime, before capitulating and acceding to Iran's demands. It's as if the USA had been the aggressor against Nazi Germany, only to be fought to a standstill and create the Marshall Plan to enable the Nazis to rebuild. (Except even the mullahs are nowhere near as evil as the Nazis were, but that's the limits of historical analogy for you.)
But there is no analogy in either WWI or WWII to the USA's decades-long backing of its bloodthirsty client ethnostate in the Middle East, or of the sudden reversal in Israel's fortunes. All because Iran has successfully defied the USA for five decades now, and the USA now understands that pushing Iran any farther will lead to Iran shooting the world's oil economy, and thus the U.S. economy, in the head.
The "disaster effects" haven't happened... *yet*, and that's for one reason: China, like the USA, has stockpiles and sharply reduced its oil imports, from 10.6 million barrels/day last year to 6.8 million barrels last month.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Chinas-Oil-Buying-Pause-Wont-Last-Forever.html
That's around a 40 percent decrease. Don't kid yourself, they did Trump and the entire world a huge favour by limiting demand. Trump still needs to make the deal stick, or the disaster effects are still very, very much on the menu.
JHK, your clean-up effort to remove the nuts from the blog is failing again. This blog is returning to the hater majority it was a few months back.
Daddy, Daddy, JHK! There are people posting here who don’t necessarily agree with you! Or, worse yet, they are saying things that are openly CRITICAL of Dear Leader and some of the decisions he makes!
This is intolerable and unAmerican. Please shut all dissenting voices down, like like they do in other countries led by authoritarians.
I shout “TDS!” loudly every time I encounter one of these heretics, but it’s not enough! We need you to make them go away so I never have my cult-like worship of Dear Leader questioned!
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Definitions
Hater Spite aimed at a person or cause no matter what the real story is. They are typically products of the MSM propaganda. No matter what contrary info they see, makes no difference. Their targets get speared and negative comments abound no matter what. Known for name calling when they do not have counter arguments. TDS is just one form. JHK does not censor dissension, he censors jerks.
People can and do get censored and banned from this space for disagreeing too often and too confidently with James Howard Kunstler. Ask me how I know.
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.
The Iranians are masters of defensive war. They are too deeply dug in. Our bombs destroy the portals, but underneath all is fine. So they dig out and hit us back just as hard.
So why don’t they? Simple question.
The potential answer is they do not in fact have much left.
I love the weasel-word 'potential'. The not 'potential' but actual answer is, whether they survive or not, they have enough capacity left to destroy all the remaining oil infrastructure in the Gulf, and they can get the job done before the USA is able to stop them. They have a knife to the jugular vein of the global oil economy, and the USA isn't quick enough on the draw to rescue it.
No matter his big talk, the USA can't escape the effects of a global depression, and Trump knows it. That's their weapon. Iran has no interest in hitting the USA for its own sake: what they want is to survive, and to get the USA and Israel's boot off their neck. And now, they have the Paul Atreides solution: whoever can destroy a thing, has the control of that thing. Frank Herbert was a prophet.
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.
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.
Wow, the collecting $7000 crew has widened.
The Iranians have shown themselves to be far more disciplined, strategically savvy, and diplomatically capable of crafting an agreement than Israel or the US. They have been the only grownups in the room and the only civilized participant. Our host is too bigoted against Muslims to accept or admit that, and his dittoheads have no mind of their own or clue about legitimate sources of information.
Hmmm, under which form of government would a Christian, a female child, a gay person, feel safer, a Jewish State or an Islamic State? I rest my case.
And a poor case it is. Rational behaviour is rational behaviour. I don't call it something it isn't because of a difference of values.
Sure, Iran oppresses girls, women, gays. Saudi Arabia does the same -- gay sex is a capital offence. And they're a valued ally. Meanwhile, Israel has received unstinting American support for decades, and they drop Palestinians off roofs:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8jg0x5xg8o
They rape and torture Palestinians in detention, with impunity for the torturing rapists:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/12/israeli-military-top-lawyer-drops-charges-soldiers-palestinian-detainee-abuse-gaza
They have a disturbing record of dead Palestinian children with single shots to the head or chest, indicating the little ones are targeted:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2025/gunshot-palestine-children-israel-war~v1819649/
Shall I go on? Because this particular well is very, very deep.
“Sure, Iran oppresses girls, women, gays.”
Gays yes, girls, women, not so much.
The fact of the matter is despite years of sanctions, overt as well as covert western attempts to create regime change in Iran, this “oppressive, horrible regime” has resulted in a nation where doctoral candidates outnumber those in the US by a five to one margin. Where female STEM graduates outnumber the US by 39% to 12%. Where their literacy rate is ten points higher than ours and women are at 98% literacy rate compared to 40% under the Shah.
Gays, Israel. Christians, Iran. The Shia are much better than Sunnis in this regard.
Islamic
just.... WOW!
True. Now imagine the hubris and hatred our our Elite who brought them here by the millions to live among us. Those people are the real enemy.
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.
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?
Sunni Gulf nations = NATO as both just want Uncle Sam to take care of them.
How many NATO, EU, WEF, OPEC conferences have been conducted to find out new ways to sucker the US. How much of the contention between the US and Russia has been put in place by Europe?
Who exactly is the US biggest foreign enemy?
Then, we need to acknowledge that our biggest enemy is domestic, the Democratic Socialist movement and its ability to dupe ignorant folks.
Lavrov chastised them in much the same manner. Arrant playboys and greed heads who wouldn't lift a finger to help their brothers in Palestine. The Shia were willing to help even though Palestine is mostly Sunni. But their own co-religionists didn't give a god damn.
This whole fiasco is about using US forces to defend Israel from Iran. Iran is no threat to the US, only to Israel.
Israel should not be America's problem. It's a distant foreign country which has repeatedly proven it has no respect for America, bombing the Liberty, selling Pollard's stolen secrets to the USSR, and manipulating Congress via AIPAC.
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!
That, and the EU is resource-poor. For that reason, 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.
The Middle East is the home to three major religions including dozens of offshoots, a mixed bag of royalty, impostors, crypto-whatevers, carpetbaggers, looters (think oil) and migrants. It is the home of ancient civilizations and crazy politics with 5,000 years of struggle and unrest.
It is the world's most sticky political tarbaby. Many of the MAGA faithful were proclaiming it'd all be over within a week when Operation Epic Fury was launched at the end of February. It's been epic all right, and so far has showcased the limit of high-tech warfare and is testing the limit the limit of how little hot air and agreement incapable parties have in moving forward towards peace.
The epic part may be moving in a different direction now, and could more easily become the catalyst/scapegoat for a broader conflict. In times of Decline, which gets little to no recognition from the MAGA faithful, this is how things roll. The pie of wealth is shrinking, and many paths lead to violence as human nature drives all parties to cling to their standards of living. Good luck to us all - we'll need it.