[This Iran war post launched before complete because yet more real-world tasks. Please return at 8:00 AM EDT for the final version]
Trump’s well-established habit of deferring decisions and trying to whipsaw counterparties by radical shifts in position risks not just blowing up his Presidency but what remains of US dominance and the over-optimized, fragile global economy. And he’s surrounded himself with bootlickers who reinforce his fantasy that his serial failures are successes.1 One of the reasons for his insistence that the US is winning in the Iran war and Iran must capitulate is that his information diet about the conflict consists heavily of a daily two-minute video showing the US blowing things up.2 He refuses to read, so even short memos from the intelligence community are ignored.
So how long can Trump stay in his denial bubble, even as relentless timetables are working against him? Iran has successfully trapped the US in not even a long war. The military capabilities of the US and Israel are already fraying, with the situation set to become critical in a month at the outside. That is also the timeframe for real economy damage on multiple fronts to become undeniable. So what happens when they reach a crisis level? Or will Mr. Market awaken from his relative stupor to force some sort of state change on the belligerents’ side?
To Trump’s latest channeling of Nero:
Later Trump told Fox News: “I gave them a 10-day period, they asked for seven.”
He also continued to declare victory in the war, adding: “In a certain sense, we have already won.”…
Trump’s new threat was among a series of statements made by the US president in Washington and on social media on Thursday in which he again criticised Nato allies, described Iran as producing “great negotiators” but “lousy fighters”, and repeated his claim that the war he launched last month had already been won.
“They now have the chance, that is, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting at the White House. “We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare.”
We’ll turn later in the post to the latest speculation on what the US might do if it actually Does Something before April 6. A new article by Ken Klippenstein contends that the idea of a ground assault or raid is fakery, that some of the forces supposedly in or en route to the Middle East have not budged. Larry Johnson disagrees with this reading.
In the meantime, Iran is letting a few more ship of different nations traverse the Strait….far too few to have any economic impact. As of now, this is yet another marker that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, but also points to how they might operate a much higher volume passage and toll system.
To the increasingly visible damage the US is suffering: many sites have described how Iran has done colossal damage to US bases across the region; Richard Medhurst gave a detailed early account. A new article by Simplicius gives an update, keying off an astonishing article, both in substance and framing from the New York Times,Iran’s Attacks Force U.S. Troops to Work Remotely
Yes, sports fans, US servicemembers being forced off bases is “working remotely”. By that standard, an amputation is a”body trim”. Simplicius piles on in NYT Admits Iran Rendered Virtually All US Gulf Bases Uninhabitable. Key points (emphasis his):
NY Times admits that Iran’s strikes have driven US forces from most of their bases in the Middle East:
Iran has bombed U.S. bases across the Middle East in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli war, forcing many American troops to relocate to hotels and office spaces throughout the region, according to military personnel and American officials.
So now much of the land-based military is, in essence, fighting the war while working remotely, with the exception of fighter pilots and crews operating and maintaining warplanes and conducting strikes….
As we have seen, the USS Gerald R Ford has flunked out of the Middle East, US bases are in ruins or deserted, and US strategic air defense radar installations have gone up in smoke. As others have noted, no adversary in history can be said to have achieved such an effect against the US—except maybe the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.
And the damage is ongoing, as weapons stock depletion is getting close to critical levels.
The Payne Institute’s recent disclosure regarding the first 16 days of 'Operation Epic Fury' confirms that the conflict evolved into a terminal industrial trial that the Western coalition is fundamentally incapable of winning.
By expending over 11,200 advanced munitions at a… pic.twitter.com/b2IWHXmc6m
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) March 27, 2026
From the underlying article at the Royal United Services institute, Over 11,000 munitions in 16 Days of the Iran War: ‘Command of the Reload’ Governs Endurance:
While American and Israeli forces achieve some tactical success by striking thousands of targets, the wider coalition is also downing drones and intercepting missiles by expending multi-million-dollar missiles that cost a fraction of the price…
This asymmetry is rapidly depleting high-end stockpiles. As shown in Table 1, our Payne Institute proprietary ledger tool tracked Iran war munition expenditures, which shows coalition forces expending 11,294 munitions in the first 16 days of the conflict, at a cost of approximately $26 billion.
The article includes two essential tables that are too large to screenshot. The first is Munition Count for US, Israel, and Allies in the 2026 Iran War, which itemizes the weapons use. The second, and arguably more important, shows depletion rates. The key section of that tally:
From the commentary:
As Table 2 shows, over a dozen munition types have been expended by the coalition at a rate that appears to be unsustainable. Already, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger noted on 19 March that global stockpiles are ‘empty or nearly empty’ and that if the war continues another month ‘we nearly have no missiles available’.
And the biggie, and again this is only the top section of the table due to its size:
The authors drily note:
As seen in Table 3, our analysis shows the magazine abyss for the coalition is coming soon.
What stands out most about Table 3 is that the US military is approximately a month, or less, away from running out of ATACMS/PrSM ground-attack missiles and THAAD interceptors. Israel is in an even more precarious spot, with its Arrow interceptor missiles likely to be completely expended by the end of March. While the war could proceed with other munitions, this implies accepting greater risk for aircraft and tolerating more missile and drone ‘leakers’ damaging forces and infrastructure. The precariousness of this ‘empty bins’ issue could possibly explain why President Trump is already suggesting the ‘winding down‘ of the Iran war; it could take years to replace what was expended in only 16 days.
While the defence industrial base is producing most of these munitions at present, they are incredibly complex and difficult to surge, meaning it will likely take at least 5 years to replenish the 500 plus Tomahawk missiles already fired in the war. Worse, sourcing critical defence minerals, rare earths, and materials to make the weapons and munitions is complicated by China. China controls most of the world’s gallium and germanium, and Beijing has imposed numerous mineral export controls since 2023, to prevent the US and its allies from acquiring these necessary inputs for the defence industrial base.
So the point is soon approaching where limited US and Israel effectiveness, save perhaps terrorism and nukes, will plunge dramatically.
From the start of this conflict, we have cited experts who have described the ever-intensifying real economy effects of the near-total halt of traffic through the Persian Gulf, not just energy supplies but urea for fertilizer, sulphur, helium, medications and plastic. The damage to Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facilities and other energy assets has made this bad situation only worse.
We had also warned that evidence that various essential inputs were under serious stress or even becoming critically low would become hard to deny starting at the end of March, which is also the time when key inventories, such as LNG and oil shipments in transit, are depleted.
And Israel’s supposedly superior military is also starting to crack. From Aljazeera’s live feed:
Israeli chief of staff warns military will ‘collapse in on itself’ due to soldier shortage
The chief of staff of the Israeli military has warned that it will “collapse in on itself” due to growing demand and a shortfall of manpower as it fights multiple fronts.
“I am raising 10 red flags before you,” Eyal Zamir told a security cabinet meeting on Wednesday, according to Israeli media reports. He said that it wouldn’t be long before the military was unable to perform routine missions.
He said the military needs a “conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service”.
Friendly reminder, he worked as Secretary of Defense in the 1st Trump administration lol https://t.co/81hwhkWhil
— J. Strand (@DJ_Ajaxx) March 25, 2026
And most of the world is sleepwalking into a monster real economy crisis, which is sure to exact a huge toll on financial markets and national budgets. What sectors will get some support? Which ones will be gored?
Consider warnings that not only are shortages coming, but are imminent:
From the UK’s The Times yesterday:
The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (hat tip reader Ben Panga) describes the increasingly dire state of food supplies. From The longer Trump’s war drags on, the worse the coming global food crisis:
The war in the Gulf has hit the epicentre of global fertiliser production. It has shut off the supply of urea, ammonia and sulphur for 27 critical days in the agricultural calendar.
China, Russia and Turkey have now greatly compounded the shortage by imposing their own curbs on fertiliser exports in recent days. Close to 45pc of globally traded nitrogen is cut off, disrupted or at risk.
The crunch is happening just as the big farming belts of the northern hemisphere near the spring planting season and just as Australia approaches winter planting. It is the blackest of black swans.
Abdolreza Abbassian, the former head of commodities at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, said the markets did not yet seem to grasp the full gravity of what was already in the pipeline.
“It will be bad enough even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened tomorrow but if the war goes on for another month or more, it is going to be a really horrifying crisis unlike anything any of us have ever seen before,” he said.
A second crisis is building up in parallel. The two risk colliding in 2027. Atmospheric scientists expect an El Niño pattern in the South Pacific this year and next, leading to hotter weather, longer droughts and lower crop yields.
A team at Columbia University has warned the world could hit 1.7 degrees above pre-modern levels in 2027, a “regime shift” that smashes through the heat thresholds of wheat and corn, and increases the risk of multiple breadbasket failures. Could it go non-linear? We will find out.
Jean-Marie Paugam, from the World Trade Organization, said the fertiliser shock is a greater immediate threat than the oil and gas shock….
China is the world’s biggest producer of fertilisers by far, accounting for 15pc of global urea exports and 30pc of phosphate fertilisers. It tightened export curbs on most of its output last week, hitting the market at the worst possible moment.
Russia is the second largest. It followed suit this week, imposing a one-month ban (for now) on shipments of ammonium nitrate in order to meet “the needs of the domestic market during the spring field work period”.
Turkey has joined the stampede, even blocking the transport of urea.
And a further cheery observation:
America is scarcely in better shape. It imports a fifth of its applied nitrogen. The Fertilizer Institute says the US does produce its own phosphates, but it needs sulphur from the Gulf to make it possible.
American farmers were in a structural depression before this crisis because of spiralling input costs. They now face a 70pc jump in diesel prices. The fuel tracks the global market regardless of Donald Trump’s “energy supremacy”.
A quarter of US farmers did not pre-buy their fertilisers. None will escape the long-tail consequences later this year.
We had warned early on about sulfuric acid as a key input where supply would come up short if the Iran war did not end pronto:
🌐⛽️ Sulfuric acid shortage from the Iran war is now hitting commodity production hard.
Sulfuric acid is vital for extracting metals from ore. The market was already tight—prices up 500% pre-conflict. The Middle East supplies 24% of global sulfur, and stockpiles last just weeks… pic.twitter.com/VPLysPhKmJ
— Vitamvivere (@Vitamvivere) March 25, 2026
If everything reopened tomorrow it would take 6 months for the energy supply chain to rebalance
This will be the shock of a generation and few are paying attention
— Don Johnson (@DonMiami3) March 26, 2026
Note that even this seemingly urgent language minimizes what is set to happen. Shortages and sudden price hikes across a vast swathe of key inputs does not translate into a 1970 stagflationary shock. It means widespread business failures. That means job losses, plus knock-on damage to their customers, which will trigger further cutbacks and closures. And when those ventures die, it’s not as if new companies will suddenly spring up when the epic struggle over control of the Strait of Hormuz ends.
Even if Trump’s media skills, honed with 14 years on reality TV, are keeping oil price below where they ought to be, given the reality of continued Iran choking of traffic of the Strait of Hormuz, with no relief in sight, and a long normalization period can’t be held in abeyance for much longer, and I doubt to the end of his new deadline of April 6.
The landing page at Bloomberg signals only rising investor unease:
While the anxiety signals are stronger at the Financial Times:
The pink paper gives pride of place to Iran’s traffic management in the Strait of Hormuz. The article has an overtly Iran hostile tone (erm, who started this war?) and much of it will be old news to readers who have been following war development closely. It does underscore early on that Iran plans to discriminate among carriers based on the posture towards Iran of the nations contracting for the cargoes:
Tehran’s foreign ministry this week said “non-hostile” vessels would be allowed to pass through “in co-ordination with the competent Iranian authorities” — but that US, Israeli or any other “participants in the aggression” would not.
Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would impose a new order in the strait after the war, insisting that the country exercises sovereignty over it “even if some might like to view it as international waters”.
As we said, possession is 9/10th of the law. From later in the article:
Prior to the conflict about 135 ships passed through the waterway each day. But since the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, traffic has dropped to a trickle. Between March 1 and 25, there were just 116 transits, down 97 per cent compared with the same period in February, according to S&P Global.
Ships that have made the passage have been largely linked to Chinese, Indian or Gulf state owners. Several were dark fleet vessels sanctioned by western powers for trading Iranian oil.
The failure to mention other nations that have secured passage is noteworthy:
BREAKING: Thai oil tanker transits Hormuz Strait after talks with Iran
🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/Gdioc4YUk8 pic.twitter.com/hyuLGLLzzd
— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) March 25, 2026
BREAKING: Thai oil tanker transits Hormuz Strait after talks with Iran
🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/Gdioc4YUk8 pic.twitter.com/hyuLGLLzzd
— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) March 25, 2026
JUST IN : Massive diplomatic victory for Spanish 🇪🇸 PM Pedro Sánchez
Iran 🇮🇷 embassy in Spain has said that they are receptive to any demands by Sánchez regarding Strait of Hormuz 🔥
This came after the embassy agreed that Spain stood for Iran and was committed to… pic.twitter.com/stcAy1swLf
— Times of Iran News (@Timesofiraan) March 26, 2026
Towards the end, the article does make a backhanded acknowledgement of other nations’ carriers securing passage:
Two Pakistanis involved in back-channel contacts with Iran said some third-country vessels were reflagging as Pakistani to pass through the strait.
“Lots of shipping lines are changing flags to be sailing under Pakistan registration,” said one, a diplomat. The other said the arrangements were intended as “an olive branch to Trump”.
Iran’s embassy in Madrid said Tehran was “receptive” to any request for Spanish ships to travel through the strait, saying it considered Spain to be “a country committed to international law”.
And get a load of this:
Shipping companies needing to pay for passage would have to get around sanctions placed on the Iranian regime and its Revolutionary Guard, which have been designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, EU and other western countries.
But Claire McCleskey, former head of compliance at the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, said Iran had established clandestine payment networks.
Using Chinese payment systems is “clandestine”. Help me.
Due again to being tardy, we will be brief about what Team Trump might be up to, if anything, regarding a ground operation in Iran. Ken Klippenstein says it is fake news:
Military sources tell me that for weeks, the Pentagon has exaggerated the readiness and potency of the Marines, setting in motion a media frenzy that is part stupidity, part disinformation to spook Tehran, and part manipulation to please Donald Trump.
“We got two Marine expeditionary units sailing to this island [Kharg],” Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News Sunday. “We did Iwo Jima. We can do this.”
Sounds scary, right? Here’s the reality.
On March 13, headlines blared that the “three-ship” USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, carrying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, was ordered from Japan to the Middle East. Over the next week, news outlets across the globe literally tracked the supposed 2,200 Marines making their way moving west through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean.
In actuality, one of the three ships, the USS San Diego, never left Japan and is still there. And the other two ships, carrying just 1,500 fighters, are sitting at Diego Garcia, roughly 4,260 kilometers from Iran’s coastline.
And that second Marine Expeditionary Unit? Contrary to some reporting that said that the USS Boxer Group left Hawaii on March 19, it departed San Diego. It will have to cover approximately 22,200 kilometers to reach the region and wouldn’t be able to arrive until mid-April at the earliest. Navy sources in San Diego say it is still unclear to the unit itself whether it is headed for the Gulf or just moving to the Pacific to cover the departing Tripoli group.
Not exactly imminent!
I e-mailed Larry Johnson, who had not yet seen the article. I expect him to say more along these lines either in a new post and/or on YouTube appearances. His reply:
Everything is in place with the exception of the 11th MEU. They arrive next week. But, you don’t deploy the Special Ops units just to have them sitting around. The Marines are irrelevant. It was the massive movement of Special OPs forces. That is confirmed.
Reader ThirtyOne found this tidbit arguing that a Chabahar landing seemed the most likely measure if an assault was on:
More kinetic updates IRGC’s Wave #83: Iran Deploys Full Arsenal of Drones, Missiles in Assault on US, Israel Strongholds Hindustan Times
Iran is target Lockheed Martin engineers in Israel. Recall that they by contract provide maintenance on their systems. Note the second part of this video is Trump blathering3:
Stopping here for today. See you tomorrow!
_____
1 To list only a few: Ukraine, where he had an opportunity to cut losses and make the conflict look like a Biden failure but is now being forced to by events and has cemented Russian distrust of the US. Tariffs, where Trump’s love of the exercise of power has alienated allies like India and quietly Southeast Asia, and still showed China to be the dominant economic pawer merely by wielding a rare-earths-denial threat. And that was just one of many leverage points China has to exploit. The EU, where at the Munich Security Conference in 2025, US officials dressed down European leaders with the only plausible reason for this conduct to be for them to bear more of the costs of their defense…when even what is nominally their own kit is dependent on critical US parts and we can’t ramp up production to a meaningful degree.
2
⚡️🇺🇸 NBC: U.S. President Donald Trump receives a daily video montage of the biggest US strikes on Iran, typically lasting about two minutes and described as “stuff blowing up."
The highlight reel is part of his briefings, but allies have expressed concern that he may not be… pic.twitter.com/M6YuY49TUy
— War Monitor (@monitor11616) March 25, 2026
3 From the Centre for International Governance Innovation in 2025:
The key issue for the F-35s is that the US manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, controls aircraft software updates, restricting even trained military personnel from making most repairs, which means that the military often must ship the equipment back to the manufacturer or authorized repair depots. In 2023, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the US military’s heavy reliance on contractors for F-35 repair and maintenance, which has resulted in lengthy and costly delays, with repair times averaging 141 days. The GAO concluded that US military repairers often lacked the training and hands-on experience to repair the aircraft. This is largely because the primary manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, along with other military contractors, provides inadequate training materials, limits the repairs that military technicians can undertake and restricts access to the aircraft technical data, which the contractors regard as unique and valuable proprietary data.
The case of the F-35s highlights that even the US military does not have the right to repair its equipment, as manufacturers set restrictive warranty provisions that limit repair by military personnel.
I presume that “We had also warned that evidence that various essential inputs were under serious stress or even becoming critically low would become hard to deny starting at the of March, ”
is meant to say the end of March, though it would be more poetic as the “Ides of March” on multiple levels.
Fixing…thanks!
Duplicated tweet about the Thai tanker that was allowed to cross the strait, too.
Fixed a bit ago, please refresh your browser,
Miss Lindsey says we “did Iwo Jima”. Maybe he never knew that the u.s. suffered more casualties on Iwo than the Japanese, albeit fewer deaths. The American public was outraged at the blood letting of marines and sailors on Iwo. I am a Viet nam vet, USMC, 68-69 and cannot express how angry I have become with our government.
Lindsayette also overlooks the fact it took three Marine divisions (c. 70,000 troops) to capture Iwo Jima. Going by the current news reports, the “buildup” for this caper consists of about three battalions of actual boots on the ground. Hmm.
I think “Flags of Our Fathers” should be required reading for every federally-elected politician before taking office (although Ms Lindsey may get stalled by references to “hot-bunking” aboard troop ships). Also, although voluntary enlistment skyrocketed in WWII, draftees comprised a larger percentage of deaths in that conflict.
Anyone with a son or grandson nearing age 18 should be aware Selective Service (current annual budget is $31.1 million) registration is still required within 30 days of that date. After December 18, 2026 all these potential young troopers will be automatically registered via AI from federal records. Don’t think all you old farts are off the hook, males up to 64 years of age were impressed into “essential” production jobs during the Big One.
PS: Also a Vietnam vet (Chu Lai 1967-68)…seen the meat grinder up close.
yes he’s effeminate and a bachelor but that’s not the point is it? how do you suppose this mockery lands for esteemed members of the commentariat who happen to be gay?
I am not the woke police and in fact object to the substitution of id pol for class analysis as the focus of social justice. But Yves has called out bad faith argumentation for so long that the ad hominem gave me pause. Such a small thing, such a slippery slope.
Speaking as a gay man, I approve wholeheartedly how we discuss the effeminate warmonger from the Carolinas. This is more acceptable territory than Trump being Putin’s butt boy, which was incredibly offensive.
Lindsay is baying for the blood of my countrymen, no matter what their preferred sexuality. That alone is abhorrent and subsequently, we don’t need to be polite. It is patriotic and required to start push back with every ounce of venom we have. Shame can break a person.
J.D. Vance warns that Iranian operatives wearing nuclear suicide vests will walk into USA supermarkets and kill tens of thousands. I’m not sure the Vice President is the smart realist of the Trump team.
Hey, hey, hey. That is President of the United States J.D. Vance in 2028 that you are talking about. Just don’t ask him about the nuclear hand grenades.
The scariest part is that he may be.
It’s not a reflection of what he really thinks, it’s propaganda designed for the cult, aka “Stepford MAGA”, who “100% support” his war.They are in a self-imposed social media bubble, as one maga supporter said:
https://x.com/i/status/2037263641053982814
Luckily he only has a half-life of about 3 years left, but authorities insist nobody enter the hard right radiated zone until the year 2525, if man is still alive.
Nuclear suicide vests? Sounds like a brand new scary word salad to keep the proles (deplorables) subservient. Also, I do not recall an instance of an Iranian suicide bomber. Consider this, Donnie assassinated General Soleimani in 2020 in the face of a long standing executive order outlawing assassination.The Israelis use assassination on an industrial scale. Iran does use assassination as a weapon as far as I know. Why not? I know my answer.
The Iranians don’t use suicide bombers because they have no need to. They have better means of delivery. As used by the Taliban or the Islamic State, suicide bombings are intended to be mass casualty attacks, either on symbolic targets associated with foreigners (hotels etc.) or part of attacks on military forces where the insurgents blow themselves up to avoid capture. Iranian attacks and assassinations abroad have been mostly against Iranian dissidents or political opponents, rather than mass casualty attacks, and often done through proxies such as Hezbollah. Obviously Vance is fantasising: the weight alone would preclude that.
Hezbollah is an ally of Iran. ‘Proxy’ is the preferred Natostan slur.
I suspect we will soon see a daily terror alert warning flag being raised by Trump on the East lawn to keep us hiding in our basements.
The govt probably still has them in storage somewhere. Waste not, want not. / ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeland_Security_Advisory_System
“Nuclear Suicide Vest” sounds like a fitting metaphor for the Trump administration.
>>>will walk into USA supermarkets and kill tens of thousands.
WOW, and just about hit 50% of yearly American suicide levels. think of the children!
Am I the only one who recalls that this is basically the plot of “The Peacemaker” (1997, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman)? Except there it wasn’t a vest, it was a…ye gods…Soviet nuclear warhead from a dismantled ballistic missile, somehow small and light enough to be carried by a 50+ year old music teacher in a school backpack, which said music teacher wished to physically walk up to the UN building in NYC so as to blow it up. In retaliation for his (Bosnian) family dying in Sarajevo due to Bosnian Serb shelling. Somehow. Hooray for Hollywood screenwriters.
Now, the real question is – does Vance realize it, or is he really that dum-dum…
Right. The portable-nukes-in-suitcases hysteria. / ;)
Well, see. this is why we gotta have more surveillance on everyone in the US all the time, don’t’cha know. / ;)
J.D. is heavily invested in those surveillance tech companies. He’ll make a bundle off of “keeping you safe” ™, imo. And that’s what really counts. Surveillance capitalism: $ilicon Valley’s new frontier. / ;)
/ ;)
We are overdue for a false flag…
And when it comes in mass fatality form, start the countdown for tactical nukes.
Projection? Maybe Vance knows something about who those “Iranian” operatives really are…
No high school physics class required for Yale Law.
An explosive device stuffed with radioactive material – i.e. “a dirty bomb” is very well within the capability of any nation with a nuclear power plant.
You might also want to check the Wikipedia entry on “suitcase nuclear device”.
I’d think Vance would be more concerned if there were rumors of a nuclear sofa.
“many American troops to relocate to hotels and office spaces throughout the region”
If hamas did that it would be called using human shields
And Israel would attack them anyway.
Yes, and by recent doctrine it also gives the other side a loophole to strike “civilian targets” and say they are military targets.
Iran did strike a hotel.
Iran escalation dominance will result in Iran committing war crimes as well.
An eye for and eye will make the world go blind.
According to Marwa Osman Iran has now explicitly announced that hotels in the region hosting coalition soldiers will be targets.
https://x.com/Marwa__Osman/status/2037405472307736771
https://no01.substack.com/p/march-22-26-invisible-wounds
has a nice plot of how dispersed the Iranian power grid is – its largest plant is 3% national power ( Israel’s largest is 20%). Also points out how dependent some of the Gulfies are on desalinated water, which Iran has promised (and has kept its promises to date) to hit if the US (enables Israel with logistics) to hit Iranian power plants.
Well worth a read – many other nuggets.
This brings to mind an anecdote from the final stages of World War II. In an attempt to hide their repeated defeats from the public, Japanese generals started calling troop withdrawals “redeployments.”
Its as good as the “strategic retreat” (surrender) from Mariupol of Ukrainian troops.
Can we just go straight to the “There are no Americans in Baghdad!” stage of propaganda? The war’d be over pretty soon then…
This tweet has been embedded two times. Maybe you meant to embed something else the second time?
Fixing….
Trump told Fox News: “I gave them a 10-day period, they asked for seven.”
I guess Iran was happy to wait to resume till Good Friday, but Trump prefers Easter Monday. Religion getting in the way again.
All done! If you arrived before the time of this comment, please refresh your page and re-skim.
The weapons being used to murder schoolgirls in Iran are not replaceable.
I expect the weapons remaining will be used at home when Trump’s rage at being thwarted overseas becomes incendiary.
He is not sane and he is surrounded by bootlickers and ideologues some of whom want to turn the World into a radioactive cinder because that will bring about the second coming of Christ.
And the “Opposition” consists of firebrands like Mayo Pete and Antoinette of Color while waiting in the wings we have JD Vance.
Hoo boy.
That photo of Trump receiving his “daily briefing” backs you up. Zoom in on the eyes.
I’m struggling with these questions: Does the Trump regime have an overarching strategy driving its actions here in Iran (and up until this point? Is alienating our allies and crippling the world’s economies the actual objective here? Or is the incompetence so bad it wasn’t conceived as the likely outcome here?
No.
We have long said Trump is all tactics, no strategy…which per a saying attributed to Sun Tsu, is the noise before the defeat.
Heard today that the Trump regime is modelling a world with oil at $200 a barrel. But that means that they never did this before the war when you would think that they would have gamed out the different consequences of military action. They never had a Plan B in other words.
They barely had a Plan A
I’m still chuckling at the commenter who a while ago said we went into this war like “Leroy Jenkins”…
US Strategic Planning : Blow something Up —> Miracle Happens —> US lives happily ever after.
No “Plan-”, more like A-“hole”.
To be fair, Plan B is illegal in many red states.
I also wonder if maybe he does have something up his sleeve. Many were saying how he had no chance of success in Venezuela, that they have so many guns per capita and want to fight, then he took out Maduro. When Delcy Rodrigues took over, many thought he was bs-ing, myself included, when he said they got what they wanted and that they would now control Venezuela’s oil, yet he was telling the truth.
If you notice the same socialist/Chàvezism government is in power in Venezuela. It is making concessions to the USA in the face of some pretty nasty US treats but basically much the same concessions Maduro was considering. It has not been invaded or experienced real regime change.
If the USA shows signs of weakness I wonder just how compliant Venevuela will be.
The incompetence is indeed that bad.
Watch the video of General Mattis above. Just one readily available example.
At this point today Trump’s brain is 78.8% mashed potato and he is surrounded by yesmen so he is actually impervious to reality. This is true even in the military and intelligence where telling the boss what he wants to hear instead of the truth makes you worse than useless.
Trump has big balls and Iran needs to understand that and surrender. That’s it. That’s the plan.
Trump has no strategy, but the real question is do the gray people behind the curtain that are pulling Trump’s strings have a strategy. Is it still the old guard Deep State types, or have enough of the reality TV people gotten their hands on the levers of power that we’re seeing a discontinuity of the agenda? Because, so far, there has been remarkable continuity of the agenda from Clinton to Dubya to Obama to Trump 1 to Biden. And war on Iran was always part of that agenda. But maybe the new kids on the bloc have rushed things without thinking them through to satisfy the needs of the internet propaganda machine? It would be the FOMO War in that case.
The “15,000” targets obliterated reminds me of the weekly casualty counts on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite during the War in Vietnam:
Americans: 50-250 killed
North Vietnamese: 1000-2000 killed
I was 10-16 years old during the worst of that war. And I think those numbers are what developed my bullshit detector at such a young age. Teachers did not appreciate it at times, while my parents rolled their eyes.
The first real book I read as a college freshman was The Best and the Brightest. Downhill ever since and I occasionally look at my Draft Card as a reminder.
Ah, the nightly news ‘body count’, which came to be known as The Five O’Clock Follies.
Per Wiki: The Five O’Clock Follies.
I remember Vietnam
and images on TV
They talked of good guys and bad guys
and killing VC
There were flag-draped coffins
and the Taps melody
No longer allowed for the public to see
Who’s winning the war?
Son Volt, Anacostia
Thank you, mrsyk. I’d never heard that one.
Sometimes we forget the virtue of a simple lament.
Great book. Fire in the Lake is another. And another A bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Viet Nam. I fell in the cracks, too young for Korea and too old (and married and a father) for Viet Nam.
I have a more modern memory. When the US (“NATO”, uh-huh, sure) was bombing Serbia in 1999, there’d be daily briefings on the telly, first from the NATO spokesman, the utterly loathsome Jamie Shea, and then an hour or two later from the Pentagon. Both would enthusiastically report on various numbers of Serbian targets destroyed, including Serbian tanks-guns-automobiles deployed in Kosovo. And the CNN types in the room would keep some sort of a running tally, which reached into the multiple-multiple thousands.
And then the Serbs capitulated (not due to the bombing, but that’s another story), and CNN sent their idiots with cameras into Kosovo to document their military units’ withdrawal. And I still remember the utter shock of the CNN flunkey reporting while filming the trains filled with Serb equipment pulling out, when it turns out that most of the US “body count” turned out to be made up, that the US had hit maybe 200 vehicles rather than 2000+, and most of the Serb armored units that had been in Kosovo were still in full battle readiness…
…and then beginning a few months later the Pentagon exerted mighty, mighty propaganda efforts to make everyone pretend that didn’t happen, and the air war “worked”, but that’s a whole other story.
Why do you put “NATO” in scare quotes? The operation was agreed by the NAC and planned and commanded from Brussels and Mons, and involved air and maritime forces from various nations. Every NATO nation wanted to get involved, to the point where ships firing missiles in the Aegean had to deconflict with each other. The British under Tony Blair (who began the trend of daily press conferences, subsequently initiated by the US and NATO) were especially enthusiastic and pushed hard for a military operation. It failed miserably in its own terms of course, but it was a NATO operation.
I started protesting the Vietnam war in high school as well. My parents did not notice. My HS history teacher recommended that I read The Nation magazine.
Americans: 50-250 killed
North Vietnamese: 1000-2000 killed
The ratios aren’t too far off for total Vietnamese killed vs total US killed
What could a TACO even look like if Trump wanted to (I don’t think he does, but as a thought exercise). Let’s assume that neither side is going to publicly comment and say “we lost, they won” and this just drags on. I wonder if Iran would be fine to keep the toll in the straight going, further establishing the precedent and if the GCC countries could find a way to capitulate without saying “we lost”. It all seems implausible but I’m trying to see if there is anyway Iran just doesn’t keep the status quo and win everything outright.
We’re dealing with a bad alchemy of messianic meets messy, and neither can take it on the chin and move on.
If they offered Trump 10% of the revenues from the tolls, that might seal the deal.
Let the Russians escrow the funds as a neutral 3rd party. Then, the Russians get to confiscate the money to compensate for the EU stealing from the Russians.
More seriously, no one’s really been able to articulate an acceptable solution. The Israelis and US Neocons want regime destruction, and nothing less.
Iran won’t feel secure until they’ve forced a complete US withdrawal from the region.
The Israelis and US Neocons want destruction and anarchy, to knock Iran out as a functioning country for the foreseeable future. Regime change per se would be an added bonus, but is not the essential point of their thinking, in my opinion.
2 water buffalo and an elderly peasant woman counts as 10 VC dontcha know.
My neighbor was a Marine machine gunner in a Patton tank, newly arrived in Vietnam a week before the Tet Offensive, and situated in Hue, where the deal went down.
In his first few days of action, there were 6 villagers and 6 water buffalo walking single file about 100 yards away when the tank commander tells him to waste them… they had no weapons on them and he related that to the tank commander who wore a necklace with 17 human ears, who curtly asked who was the tank commander, waste ’em!
rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat
Been my neighbor for over 20 years and slowly the horrors of his war have leaked out.
A joke at the time was that if an 89 year-old peasant woman and two 5 year-old kids were wasted, you would add up their ages and that would give you a kill count of about 100 Viet Cong.
True story here – at the time if your unit got a really good kill count, they would send them to watch the Bob Hope USO Show in person.
Hegseth says in the 1st Hindustan Times vid that warthog A10s and Apache helicopters are flying over the strait. Video evidence anyone?
Do you believe anything Hegseth says? Seriously?
Baghdad Pete strikes again!
Are the pilots wearing nuclear suicide vests in case they’re captured?
Certainly possible; why would the Iranians reveal firing positions to take out a handful of helicopters? Let them fly all up and down the strait – they can even blast ‘flight of the valkyries’ for tomorrow’s recap clip. Unless an Apache can lift a tanker ship I don’t see how it means anything, strategically.
Good point.
Warthog is Hegseth’s nickname for the White House bartender and he likes his whisky strait, no chaser.
Strait is the gate, and narrow the way.
“I am raising 10 red flags before you,” Eyal Zamir told a security cabinet meeting on Wednesday, according to Israeli media reports. He said that it wouldn’t be long before the military was unable to perform routine missions.
He said the military needs a “conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service”.
Friendly reminder, he worked as Secretary of Defense in the 1st Trump administration lol https://t.co/81hwhkWhil
====
The start of this section is about an Israeli official, but the end is about General (Ret) Mattis. It’s not clear what the transition is intended to be; presumably some remarks by Mattis are missing.
I read reporting that there are ~20,000 sailors trapped on the roughly 3200 ships on the wrong side of the Strait. I wonder what the timeline on their rations is before that becomes its own problem that has to be solved.
Also, I haven’t seen but I would expect shipping rates to start skyrocketing as that supply remains trapped and the price of oil stays high. I know during the crunch in COVID and Chinas 0 COVID lockdown, container ships to the us went from 5k to 50k
There are so many moving parts, it’s hard to keep track of everything. However some days ago already, there were reports that the water rations on some ships had run out, and the port authorities in the gulf weren’t exactly helpful, more like refusing to let them dock…
This is probably becoming its own problem as we type, yes.
You know Pezeshkian once said those words more or less, “Many things are happening, so many things are happening at once that sometimes I have no idea what’s going on.”
The late Raisi seemed to have a much better of idea of what was going on
I’ve read that many of those trapped ships are running out of supplies, but when they radio to port requesting a place, they are refused, because all the other ships are in the same pickle and there aren’t enough berths for all of them.
‘and still showed China to be the dominant economic power merely by wielding a rare-earths-denial threat.’
Alexander Mercouris was saying on The Duran that though the Chinese have said nothing publically, that they have restricted even further deliveries of refined rare earths and other materials to the US. They can see that Trump is drowning in a quagmire of his own making so they are tossing him an anvil.
They have already greatly choked them. They have imposed an onerous licensing process to make sure the rare earths are used only in civilian applications.
This can easily be made into the sort of bureaucratic deep freeze at which the Japanese are expert, of feigning being cooperative while doing the least important 40% of what needs to be done slowly.
And no Western firm would dare complain if the Chinese were being, erm, fastidious about their new rules.
So I suspect the reality is worse than what the press is saying.
They have imposed an onerous licensing process to make sure the rare earths are used only in civilian applications.
Maybe the US can steal the Russian technology and know-how needed to harvest chips and whatnot (e.g. “civilian use only rare earths” from China) from washing machines in order to build more Patriot missiles….
In that video Alexander was also saying that countries will have to sell their US treasuries as they will be needing the money. And then there was the question of where all that Gulf money would be heading to as they seek safety for their funds. And then he said this-
‘Hong Kong used to get between two and four billion dollars of capital inflow from the Gulf each month before this crisis began. They’re now getting capital inflow from the Gulf at the rate of $40 billion a week.’
The times they are a changin’.
A Chabahar landing will not necessarily translate into Iran suspending its missile offensive or opening up the Strait. Analysts who propose it will offer Trump a fantasy victory have trapped themselves in his fantasy world. They demonstrate that a real resolution of the conflict has become unthinkable because it involves either a delusional restoration of the credibility of the US and Israel as negotiators, requiring near psychotic levels of denial on Iran’s part (a repeat of their June war blunder), or the destruction of the offensive potential of the US and Israel and a drastic change in their strategic goals. I don’t see such a change happening, and I don’t see how we can get out of this dilemma.
I did not have a chance, due to time pressures, to discuss this topic myself.
The tweet does not make that claim. It says merely that a Chabahar landing would most fit the type of operation that Trump like and the resources being assembled, and not that it would achieve any strategic outcome.
I’m trying to highlight that any reference to Trump concocting a victory ignores how the baked in features of this crisis, unfolding over months, will make it impossible to close off attention to it with a victory claim. The article linked by ISL above, which impressively distills what you and others have already said, suggests a kind of foreclosure of foreclosure options, there’s no moving on because the disaster is impossible not to see. To put it perhaps too strongly, all the speculations about Marine and Special forces landings are irrelevant because they don’t address Iran’s core strategic strength, its missile force and the lack of strategic alternatives that Iran has to its destructive deployment.
In a way, this is a version of what you’ve discussed recently as a perception bias. We can fill out that narrow cognitive emphasis by regarding at as part of an obsessive-compulsive syndrome, in which anxiety is mastered by ritualized attention to details, to solutions that are not relevant to the problem the obsessive-compulsive is trying to manage. From this angle we’re looking at a breakdown of that defensive system.
While not being any kind of an analyst or expert, I’d propose, if we must assume a Marine landing, Gwatar Bay slightly to the east from Chabahar.
The surroundings are mostly flat beyond artillery range and the eastern shore is Pakistan. It’s the only place in Iran where US could retain most of the advantages (IRS, firepower, air force).
It’s sparsely populated, barren landscape, but the Marines could set up anti-ship missile batteries and stop Iranian tankers from exiting the Gulf of Oman. Just what the new Marines are supposed to excel at, I believe. And if manure strikes the punkah, Pakistan (and safety) is just 10 miles away.
The question is what is supposed to happen even in the case the operation is successful and US occupies some part of Iran. The assumption seems to be that Iran will be eager for some sort of a deal, like opening the strait and giving up the uranium in exchange for the occupied land. But what if Iran instead simply continues to fire missiles and counterattacks on the land? Sort of like what happened in Ukraine with their Kursk operation, where Putin was expected to panic and trade Donbas & Crimea for Sudzha. Then such win quickly turns into death trap, where you are required to constantly feed it with resources just to keep it occupied, because retreating to original position will be loss in its own right.
Chahbahar is also 400 miles from Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf and 900 miles from Isfahan…not exactly the ideal spot to start a ground invasion.
Gwadar Bay is entirely in Pakistan. There is another bay, bisected by the border, called Jiwani Bay (at least on the Pakistani side).
Sure, taking the Iranian side of that Bay might be easier than taking Chabahar, but the only “strategic” target there is an Iranian Coast Guard base at Pasabandar (only Iranian town on that Bay).
Chabahar is a real port city, so taking it would mean (1) depriving Iran of an important port and (2) we could (theoretically) keep supplies flowing to our troops there through the existing docks. That second part is iffy, though; Iran might blow the docks, mine the port, etc, and missiles and drones from up in the hills (the rest of Iran…) would still target the logistics tail.
OTOH, your Jiwani Bay “plan” would fit the Trump Doctrine perfectly: more Kayfabe Warfare, where we do something which looks impressively painful (like “obliterating” the entire Iranian Nuclear Program last July with a few B-2s) before declaring “victory” and going home.
Hmm, if we go that route, who will play the part of the grizzled old leatherneck Jarhead when they make the new version of “Heartbreak Ridge”? Clint Eastwood is too old, and Chuck Norris has moved on to that Cage Match in the Sky; I’ll bet you a six-pack of PBR that they go with Mark Wahlberg…
Chabahar is also an important port for India. It gives it direct maritime access to Afghanistan and Central Asia without passing through Pakistan.
I am not sure of its status at the moment but the US seizing and likely destroying it is not going to make India happy.
These oh so inviting bays along the coastline which Iran has apparently forgotten, left undefended, with nary any military presence at all. Why, it’s an invasion planner’s dream!
US wants a cease fire (same as with Russian Federation), mainly to get its war of choice (for greater Israel) off the headlines before the mid terms.
What Trump wants is Iran to stop shooting until he does another 28 Feb surprise decapitation/assassinate strike after close of markets on Friday 6 Nov 2026. US elections being 3 Nov.
Netanyahu wants Tehran!
Yes, if they want to invade something, then Chabahar appears to be the most viable option. But then what? Iran can still block everything coming out of the Gulf. While at the same time bombing the American troops and resupply with missiles and drones continuously, inflicting a continuous stream casualties. Chabahar seems to me a long way from anything that matters. Iran can just box them in and keep doing what it is doing now. At least so it appears to me.
Boots on the ground would likely be a disaster. Doing so to stop Iranian exports contradicts American goal of maintaining some supply to keep prices from exploding. But consider the optics. The general public might wake up to the reality of physical shortages in a week or two just about when the U.S. launches this moronic ground invasion to completely close Hormuz. Would be very funny if the Americans get all the blame for the shortages.
T was promised a short war. (By whom? By Bibi?)
T wants an off ramp.
Bibi wants a long war with US involvement. Dreams of ‘Greater Isr’.
Iran wants a long war. Hopes of smashing the Western economies and the petrodollar to stop the recurring Western backed coups and invasions on Iran.
T and his advisors have blundered into quicksand. Get ready for higher prices and supply chain disruptions. / imo.
I’m calling it the Zeus Crisis mainly because it’s Suez backwards, and almost fits into the Fourth Turning, but its only 70 years ago that the English and French had to acquiesce to a higher power and forfeit future forays afield.
Zeus was the main Greek God, and we went to war over the main God in the Golden Billion, a neo-Fourth Crusade.
Seems to be a given that we’ll lose hegemon status as the world reels from our actions, can you imagine the distress foreigners would feel seeing Trump’s nom doubloon that resembles a 7.6 earthquake on the Richter scale, on our Federal Reserve Notes?
Ya know, when I saw the model of the new dime I thought the front image didn’t look like Washington’s image at all. However, it does look a lot like T in a powered wig. / ;)
Adding T’s signature to the dollar bill is explained in this Politico article.
( A good sense of the humorous absurd when reading this is recommended.)
““The President’s mark on history as the architect of America’s Golden Age economic revival is undeniable. Printing his signature on the American currency is not only appropriate, but also well deserved,” Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment on the duration of the change or where on bills the signature will appear, though the official announcement did note that the signature would appear on “future” U.S. paper currency “along with” the Treasury secretary’s signature, which is on the bottom right of the face of bills.
“There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/26/trump-signature-us-paper-currency-00847546
Perhaps it’s part of a “plan” to reshore manufacturing by driving down the value of the USD.
“Treasurer Brandon Beach”
That name is fake, right?
Stanislav with Glenn Diesen paints a rather grim picture of the fertilizer crisis and argues for mass class-based starvation this fall and winter – he has reported that in Italy, a professor friend of his, many Italians do not have enough money come week 4, now! And ERs in UK have been reporting treating people for severe malnutrition, now! Perhaps a let them eat cake moment is coming for Europe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qirByIpJTMM
– around minute 30, he reports how significant the Russian military contributions have been that provided to Iran. money quote “Iran’s survival is existential to Russia.”
I was much impressed by his description of what it may take to restore oil and gas production in the GCC states. Depending on the level of damage ee is talking years in some cases. If he is correct, predictions of things returning to normal in 6 months when shipping routes and so on get sorted out are pipe dreams.
For those unacquainted Stanisav Krapinski, he was born in Russia or Donbass, career US Army officer, and several years experience as a director of supply chain management in various parts of the world for Halliburton plus director of supply chain management on at least two large Russian plant expansions.
The WAPO had an article today about the number of Tomahawk missiles fired. Over 850. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/27/iran-war-tomahawk-missiles/
It goes to disclose the alarm in the DOD (or is that DOW) about the draw down. “One official characterized the number of Tomahawks left in the Middle East as “alarmingly low,” while another said that without intervention, the Pentagon is closing in on “Winchester” — military slang meaning out of ammunition — for its supply of Tomahawk missiles in the Middle East.”
Thank you for our daily dose of reality. While I don’t follow the MSM very closely the complacency–judged by scanning the headlines–is amazing.
And it should be contrasted with the five alarm fire coverage of Russsiagate and the early days of Trump One. Clearly the notion that he might be leading some sort of popular revolt was what really gets them into a panic. Perhaps a true market crash will finally wake them up. Too late?
It’s actually pretty amazing how mild the market response has been, thus far. We haven’t even broken 1yr lows on the S&P 500.
Even Brent crude is bouncing around levels from early 2022. The disconnect from reality is really something to behold.
In another month or two, I suspect we’ll be getting surprise Fed rate cuts in the middle of the day to damp down the chaos. But, from what I hear, the Fed can’t print barrels of oil.
Ted Postol recently talked about Iran using three strategically dropped small nuclear bombs on Tel Aviv to counter Israel/US use of tactical nuclear weapons.
As best we know, Iran does not have that capability at present. However, is it possible for them to use their 400 plus kilograms of 60% enriched material to make a dirty bomb, accomplishing a similar result, making Tel Aviv uninhabitable?
Well, first, that 400 kg is not all in solid form. Some big fraction (I do not know what exactly, and the Iranians won’t tell me for some reason) is gaseous, for example. It’s the same problem with a potential US raid to “remove” the stuff, you can’t just pick it up and carry it around easily.
But even if all 400 were solid…I doubt that would be enough to spread over the 68 square miles of Tel Aviv urban area (per Wikipedia). Especially since you’d need to pair the radioactive material with explosives in each warhead to effectuate the actual spread. That’s the thing with any dirty bomb, unless you do a Chernobyl-type 225 tons of TNT explosion dispersing tons and tons and tons of radioactive material, you’re not going to get a very big bang for your buck.
Much easier to just make an actual nuke. Or, even better, conventional-missile every power and water plant in Israel, plus drop a dozen or so tons of explosives on the Dimona reactor.
Speaking of Chernobyl, Tel Aviv is less than 100 miles north of Dimona. It looks like winds will be blowing from the south tomorrow, Saturday, March 28…
It must have loads of depleted uranium, which is highly incendiary, and would leave a nasty toxic mess even if warheads were intercepted.
I believe the consensus opinion (correct me if I’m wrong here) is that Iran can do the job, that is effectively reduce ISR to operational rubble with “conventional” weapons.
Imo, the real question here should be “Can Iran deter team z from using nukes?”.
If the speculation by the House of Saud the the US War plan was devised by Clod or chat GPT is correct it makes a lot of sense.
Anyone who tries to tell Trump something he doesn’t want to hear gets fired and one of the things he does want to hear is that AI is AGI.
My bet is that Pete Hegseth looked at the past Wargames which all showed Iran winning a War of this type and said to himself “I really like my new office”, then gave an LLM repeated prompts until it showed TRUMP TRIUMPHANT! within 48 hours.
Pete has ordered the Dept of War to go all in on AI and I suspect this was supposed to be proof of its potency.
Now I’m waiting to find out who “Stabbed America in the Back”.
The time has come for AI videos of Pete doing one-fingered push-ups while quoting bible verses.
We know it can be done! Some weeks ago Links featured a video of a shaolin master doing push-ups on 4 fingers (both indexes and middles), and his feet weren’t even touching the ground…
Throw in the Bible verses and you’re (Heg)set(h).
Don has a feeling
A beautiful war ceiling
The smell of grasp
Just makes you pass
Into a whet dream
You’re here today
No future fears
Jesus’s Realm will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
You look around you
Things they astound you
So breathe in deep
You’re not asleep
Open your mind
You’re here today
No future fears
Heaven will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
Do you understand
That all over every land
There’s a feeling
In minds far and near
Things are becoming clear
With a meaning
Now that they’re all knowing
Pressure sure starts growing
It’s true life flies
Faster than your lies
Could ever see
You’re here today
No future fears
Your stay with Jesus will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
Dawn is a Feeling, by the Moody Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVSh568-82k&list=RDqe7m1VzD2Fk&index=7
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/26/trump-iran-putin-netanyahu-hormuz-oil-gas-cease-fire/
Has anyone seen this warmed-over proposal from Trita Parsi and George Beebe? Looks like a sensible idea that should have been implemented BEFORE 2/28/2026. But, the Israelis and US Neocons wouldn’t countenance anything of the sort.
It seems like the Quincy Institute (it spite of the sympathetic hearing they get from the Indy media community, because they try to use diplomacy) suffers from the same insularity that the entirety of the western foreign policy establishment has. They spend their time thinking and talking with one another and pay no mind to what the facts on the ground are and what the other side is saying. This has been happening right along with the fake Ukraine-Russia peace talks, too. It’s become a consistent pattern.
The Iranians have listed their demands, go read them! They have a clear plan to implement their demands by force if the demands aren’t met, too, and they’re visibly succeeding!
So Hamas should have built a base to be destroyed by Israel on the first day and then when they fought within urban areas, they could say they were working remotely.
Israelis are losing tanks at a high rate. You’d think after watching the war in Ukraine for 4+ years they’d put some cages on these, but no, of course not.
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava
Good point that. I saw a video today of a Hezbollah FPV drone skimming over a region before going after a Merkava tank. And it was only after reading your comment that I remembered that it did not have any cages surrounding it at all. Maybe too much hubris at work.
Palestine Chronicles says Hezbollah claims to have destroyed over 100 Merkava tanks since the Israeli operation began.
Apparently the Hezbollah is not using it’s file and rank fighters, but it’s special operation Ridwan Forces. While they engage the IDF on the ground, they also strike with rockets and missiles on IDF command posts, artillery positions and Iron Dome platforms.
It seems that Israeli casualties are high also because Hezbollah fighters don’t retreat after the initial ambush, but re-engage when the IDF sends columns or helicopters to evacuate the wounded.
You have to wonder if the Russians or the Chinese are helping Hezbollah with real-time satellite imagery. That would tell Hezbollah everything that they would know about what to hit and where to deploy their forces. Certainly the Russians have good cause to give the Israelis a bit of pay back.
That’s interesting about waiting to reengage. Does that reflect what I’ve seen elsewhere about the IDF having so taxed its air capabilities that it can’t provide as much close support as it has in the past? In any case, I’m impressed by Hezbollah’s elan, they’re fired up and have plenty of reasons to be.
All this is true, but missing from the picture is that Israeli forces are (very) slowly progressing and occupying more Lebanese territory, reducing everything to rubble once they have secured a position (i.e. the Gaza treatment) to make it untenable should Hezbollah recapture it.
Israel is apparently now starting an offensive against Hezbollah from the Syrian high ground it controls, and there are speculations that the government wants to redirect the air force from striking Iran to supporting ground troops against Hezbollah instead, since the army offensive is such a tough slog.
I wonder how long Israel and Hezbollah will sustain that asymetric attrition — Hezbollah losing the territory it vowed to safeguard, Israel losing the men and equipment it vowed to send to victory.
Colonialism is at the core of the Israeli identity. The war between “sub-whites” isn’t a teaching moment. Much like the shock and outrage at the Iranians shooting back, they simply can’t conceive of what is happening.
Now the Chinese are getting in on the fun, they’re dropping diss videos, too:
https://x.com/factorydoge69/status/2037388677501104569
Israel is portrayed as a parasitic squid, gotta love it!
Good stuff. Very well done. Keep posting these as you find them.
Ask, and ye shall receive:
https://x.com/alifarhat79/status/2037527452889555297
And it’s a real banger!
Yves Smith noted yesterday:
I am concerned that these excellent and other analysts may be underestimating what the US and Israel could do. The US has reportedly been bombing what it thinks are the entrance areas of underground missile cities, with the intent of rendering them inaccessible and therefore useless.
Israel could launch tactical nuclear weapons at those entrances, at least in northern Iran where I believe I have read that the fallout would not reach Israel. That could be executed shortly before the US ground attack with the hope of overwhelming Iranian responses.
Trying to think this critique through (with obviously only open source information). Right now, Iran is alleged to be conducting about 33 missile strikes a day, which runs to about 1000 per month. Professor Marandi and others have claimed Iran can continue these strikes for a year, so if true, suggests Iran has upwards of 12,000+ ballistic missiles. Presumably, these missiles are widely dispersed consistent with Iran’s mosaic defense strategy. In addition, you have to assume that Iran has multiple missile cities, and only some have been engaged.
Now in terms of strikes, no only could tactical nukes be deployed but the coverage of the assassination of Nasrallah was that something like 8-10 rounds of bunker busters were used to make the kill, so the US and Israel very likely have the conventional ability to knock out these missile cities, if they know the location.
My guess, the US strikes and destroys active missile locations, an extremely successful operation is at best going to score 20-30% of missile capacity. That leaves 9,000 and Iran has to expose new missile cities to ISR capabilities to launch new strikes. It would still take a number of months of whack-a-mole it seems to make this a success. Also, just look at the way Russia has been pounding Ukraine for four years, yet Ukraine retains an ability to launch strikes on Russia (yes, Ukraine has been getting kit from NATO, but nothing prevents Russia/North Korea/China from supporting Iran as well).
The other issue is the coming ground war. . . and not Trump’s marine strike. Hezbollah and Israel are at it, reporting is that Israel is calling up 400,000 reservists (what everyone does before a cease fire) and efforts are at work to ratchet up conscription. Reports suggests that Israel isn’t doing so well with tanks.
Also, I saw an unverified Substack claiming the Houthi’s have spent the last 6 months conscripting and training a ground army, and they are well situated to strike at Saudi, along with closing the Suez and taking another 4 million barrels a day off line of Saudi crude. Iraqi militias may attack Kuwait and Eastern Syria, and thereby pin a portion of Julani’s soldiers in the East away from Lebanon and the West Bank. Iran is threatening ground invasion of Bahrain and UAE, and its not clear what kind of assets they may or may not have already covertly on the ground in those countries. If only a fraction of these developments transpire, the US and Israel are going to have a lot on their hands to be worrying about Iran’s missiles or the Straights of Hormuz.
Last, if we remember the Arab Spring, it was preceded by high food prices resulting from high oil prices. All the factors which lit off the Arab Spring should be in place as fertilizer shortages begin to manifest in lower crop yields and hikes in food prices. We don’t what, if anything, will remain of regional oil/gas infrastructure (as well as electricity and desalination) by the time the crisis reaches maximal escalation.
Regarding Iranian underground missile cities, this morning I saw a IRGC claim to the tune of, “if we showed you one a week it would take over two years to see them all”, (parsing a bit).
That’s a claim of over one hundred.
Patricia on the Twitter has noted that the Iranians have these buried in granite mountains and use a particular kind of concrete that is especially strong, more so than whatever we use in the West. And that the damage to these installations is therefore minimal.
Launches are still made by people; I guess there’s too much ventilation built into these structures to successfully bury the Iranians inside alive or prevent shipments of food. They’re probably supplied for months at a time with consumables.
Iran images appear to show land mines scattered by U.S. forces, a first in years
The land mines were photographed outside Shiraz, a city located about three miles from one of several nearby Iranian ballistic missile sites.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/03/27/iran-us-land-mines/
Exclusive: U.S. can only confirm about a third of Iran’s missile arsenal destroyed, sources say
‘land mines scattered by U.S. forces’
Looks like they are copying the Ukrainians with their deployment of “butterfly” mines over civilian areas. Yes, it is illegal but who is going to tell Hegseth that.
The US is not a signatory to the Ottawa Convention. Ukraine was prior to June 29, 2025 (when it is alleged to have used banned anti-personnel mines). So right or wrong its legal for the US to do so.
1/3 of the missiles destroyed, huh?
Reminds me of that time I got into a fight and blocked 1/3 of the punches with my face! :)
The SmellingRat link from Darthbobber is a good explainer of what the raid’s purpose was.
Darthbobber
March 26, 2026 at 7:20 pm
Bellingcat(!) reports that we’re now dropping Gator scatterable mines in towns. Wonderful.
More B-1s Arrive in UK, as Bomber Force for Iran Ops Nears Two Dozen
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/more-b-1s-arrive-uk-iran-ops/
Re that RUSI report – “Over 11,000 munitions in 16 Days of the Iran War: ‘Command of the Reload’ Governs Endurance”. I found it odd that they did not mention Russia and how they are able to sustain their interceptor program. Then compare and contrast the two systems. Then again, if they had, then likely that report would ever have been published by the RUSI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETeA07YjnSM
Latest HistoryLegends video. He’s right…and like GFC era saying…no matter how bad you think it is…it’s WORSE!!!
US military is NOT ready for Iranian drone teams, if they even manage to touch the ground in Iran, which is debatable in itself.
German ANTI-SPIEGEL argues in a short piece that with Quatar dropping out US has achieved LNG market dominance if one adds Australia as an allied supplier and on that level this war so far has been a success for Trump. (leverage over EU + hurting China)
I don´t know in how far this makes sense weighed against the rising costs all over and the true complexities.
use Yandex to translate (Google here won´t do it since the site´s operator Thomas Röper is sanctioned):
https://translate.yandex.com/en/translate
Trump has reached the goal that the United States dominate the global LNG market
The Iran war the United States is not good, but Trump has reached an important a goal. After the elimination of important LNG in Qatar, the United States will dominate in the coming years, the global LNG market and an unprecedented level of pressure and influence on the economies of other countries are able to exercise.
Saudi Arabia urging US to ramp up Iran attacks, intelligence source confirms
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is said to view US-Israeli war as ‘historic opportunity’ to remake Middle East
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/27/saudi-arabia-us-iran-attacks-mohammed-bin-salman
Thai ship hit in Hormuz runs aground off Iran’s Qeshm Island, Iran’s Tasnim says
The war in Iran sparks a global fertilizer shortage and threatens food prices
https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-fertilizer-exports-farming-3b7c92d58dba0817c3aa8f1db47464b7
Gulf states tell US ending the war is not enough, Iran’s capabilities must be degraded
India clears military purchases worth $25 billion to buy aircraft, Russian S-400 missile systems
‘Unusual’: Two Chinese vessels abort bid to pass Strait of Hormuz despite Iran’s assurances of safe passage
G7 foreign ministers demand an end to attacks on civilians in Iran war
The two Chinese ships turning back is intriguing. Reuters and Bloomberg report much the same.
Possible afraid of the US attacking them and blaming Iran?
Yes my thoughts
Iran mobilizing one million soldiers to ‘create hell’ for any US ground assault: Report
Though we all rightly hate war, wars do teach us certain valuable and fundamental truths: the value of life, the importance of humane societal goals, the astonishing ruthlessness of societal leaders, and also (weirdly) many engineering realities that tend to be forgotten every generation or so.
One thing we are (re)learning in spades in the Ukraine and Persian Gulf wars is the importance of simplicity. Simplicity in technical design, and simplicity in how a society is arranged and organized. A simple system pays rich dividends as it results in something that is understandable, predictable, easy to maintain, and easy to fix.
Western societies have unfortunately come to embrace the opposite of this doctrine, with the results we have been seeing in the last eight decades or so.
I don’t find the ruthlessness of societal leaders at all astonishing. I’ve often witnessed leaders of minor organisations skirting and skimping health and safety, ‘restructuring’, providing defective goods or services, and so on in order to keep things going. And whereas they usually live in the communities affected (or potentially affected), albeit sometimes in a bigger house or more expensive part of town, societal leaders typically live well apart from those they lead.
It’s hysterical to me that the notorious and insatiable land grabber Israel, which seems to want nothing more than to take over all the territory in the Middle East, doesn’t even have the people or military resources to hold on to the microscopic state it has now.
The Israeli chief of staff is warning that the settler colony’s military needs a “conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service”.
When you are in a hole, stop digging.
Iran claims US, Israel struck Khandab heavy water research reactor
Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported that no casualties occured in the incident and that there is no danger to the local population.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-891437
U.S. and Israel Strike Uranium Concentrate Production Plant in Iran
It has been pointed out that it would be difficult for a net exporting country’s currency (i.e. Yuan) to become the world trade currency due to lack of availability. If Iran succeeds in forcing 20% of the world’s energy trade to be done in Yuan how would importing countries get the amount of Yuan required?
I am certainly not an expert in this field but this would seem to push the value of the Yuan up. Would this hurt China’s position in exports? Is this something China would want?
Alastair Crooke is in really fine form w/Danny Davis right now.
He is always good, but this may be the best I’ve ever heard him.
So much detail and I’m only halfway through.
Nuggets:
Iraq is massing to join on the Iranian side and potentially invade Kuwait.
A bunch of history I didn’t know about the genesis of the Syria war.
Facts Only
United States and Israel accused of attacks against Iranian targets
Attacks targeted heavy water research reactor and uranium concentrate production plant in Iran
No casualties reported, no immediate threat to local population
Iraq potentially planning to join forces with Iran
Israeli military requires changes in conscription, reserve duty, and mandatory service laws
Alastair Crooke discusses Syria war's origins and possible Iraqi involvement
Executive Summary
Full Take
The article presents a complex geopolitical situation in the Middle East, with potential conflicts involving multiple nations. The United States and Israel are accused of attacking Iranian targets, while Iraq may be preparing to join forces with Iran against other regional powers. It is important to critically evaluate the motivations behind these actions and their potential consequences for the region's stability and security. Furthermore, it is essential to consider the historical context of these events, such as the origins of the Syria war and possible implications for future conflicts.
Patterns detected: ARC-0024 Ambiguity (unclear motivations behind actions), ARC-0043 Motte-and-Bailey (potential escalation of conflict).