Endless wars don’t end by definition. So what about Iran?
The Iran War Is Over Writes Ken Klippenstein
Please consider The Iran War Is Over by Klippenstein the day after the election.
The Democratic tsunami isn’t just washing away living fossils like Susan Collins, but U.S. military contractor profits as well.
Shares plummeted today as investors anticipated a retreat from the Iran war. (This despite the fact that the Dow shot up by about 3 percent today — its best day since April.)
Then there’s Big Oil, which also sees the writing on the wall: the Strait of Hormuz will re-open, depriving them of their excuse for price gouging — the most overlooked scandal this year, as I’ve written.
[Mish: I disagree about price gouging but let’s continue]
Trump said:
“Well, we’re going to work with the Democrats to make sure things go well for our country. Very important. They’ve already called and they want to work with me.”
So you can expect the Trump-Mamdani bromance to expand and maybe even produce some concessions.
At the top of the concessions list will be Iran.
So not only is there not going to be a nuclear strike on Iran — a fiction propagated by Tucker Carlson this week (which Trump actually dismissed in the Politico interview) — but as I reported on Monday, it’s unlikely there will be any major strikes on Iran now.
Trump also gave Vance’s post criticizing the Iran war his blessing, saying: “I thought it was good.”
That does not mean it will be easy for Trump to extricate himself before a Democratic Congress is seated in January.
Just yesterday, Iranian armed forces chief of staff Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi laid out five conditions for Iran:
- Ending fighting on “all fronts,” including Lebanon and Gaza;
- Lift sanctions and release frozen Iranian funds;
- Pay reparations;
- Recognize Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz;
- Provide security guarantees against future attacks.
There is an immediate and possible negotiating package that Iran offered on Monday, but it represents a hardliner position that is a nonstarter for Washington. The U.S. “diplomatic” position is that Iran must give up its nuclear aspirations and capabilities first, something that Trump doesn’t really care about.
What he does care about is money and business, so some combination of ending the naval blockade, cancelling sanctions, freeing up money for Iran, and allowing Iranian oil sales to resume is most likely on the president’s mind.
And then there’s actually ending the Iran war, as in ceasing to see the Islamic Republic as an enemy of the United States and reversing 47 years of being stuck as the American Satan. But endless war never quite ends, that’s why it’s called endless war.
Remember that only Joe Biden actually “ended” a Middle East war, in Afghanistan. Except that it is now another character in the endless war game. Obama may have pretended to end the Iraq fighting, but some American forces stayed in Iraq and they built up in Syria to fight ISIS. In his second term, Donald Trump does seem to have withdrawn those forces, closing the largest U.S. base in Iraq at Erbil and closing the Syrian bases at Qasrak and al-Tanf.
That is, if American forces actually withdrew. If experience is any guide, U.S. fighting just continues if only in more secret form. Now, instead of “boots,” there’s covert operations, special operations, normal operations taking place in the shadows, and even loafers on the ground (that’s the very definition of “endless” war).
And for every Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria, something takes its place: there’s been a massive buildup in Jordan, forces stay in Kuwait, and there’s a new and growing American presence in Israel. “Over-the-horizon” operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan continue from Qatar, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and the other Stans. There is never a real end, and certainly the military is not bugging out because it can say that it is leaving democracies behind, or even stability.
But who knows? Maybe someday there will be a Trump hotel in Tehran.
Energy Prices
- West Texas Intermediate WTIC Crude is down to 88.65 as I type.
- Brent is 96.05.
- AAA Diesel is 6.2564
- AAA Regular Gasoline is 4.1003
All of these prices are lower than a month ago but higher than a year ago.
If Trump goes after Iran, the prices will go back up,
So are we in an endless stalemate?
It would behoove Trump to work out a deal, but the price of a deal may have risen.
I don’t pretend to know what will happen. But I agree with Ken Klippenstein that it’s unlikely there will be any major strikes on Iran now.
The county is sick of the war and Trump. Perhaps even Trump realizes that, even if he won’t mention it.
Importantly, the warmongers like Hegseth (perhaps on his way out the door) certainly won’t be pushing it.
Final Comments
Trump says he’s glad he did it and would do it again.
He needs to explain to the world what he gained besides a total repudiation in the election and higher prices for everyone.
Trump’s Legacy: A stupid, arrogant man, started a stupid war. The result was one of the biggest political wipeouts in History.
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November 14, 2026: Congratulations to Trump for Turning Texas Blue. No Mere Mortal Could.
I Congratulate President Trump for Major Victories Tonight
How are the Democrats in Congress reacting to the Midterm elections?
It certainly looks like they are assuming that Americans love them. Dems in Congress are practically breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for their success. Undoubtedly the Democrats in Congress will elect Chuck Schumer as Majority Leader of the Senate and Hakeem Jefferies as Speaker of the House, because they believe America has re-affirmed their desire to have more of the same from Democrats.
Trouble is, when your only campaign slogan is “We’re Not Trump!” it means that the election was a referendum on Trump, not an endorsement of Democrats. Dems will likely spend the next two years opposing and attacking Trump, in order to try to curry favor with the electorate for 2028. They can’t see that the electorate wants an end to corruption, big money out of politics, the US to decouple from Israel, massive healthcare reform, affordable housing, and the US to stop waging and supporting wars everywhere.
Team D knows full well what Americans want. They aren’t going to give them any of that, however.
Something I wrote elsewhere:
Vance = Captain Obvious. The problem is thet he did not point out the obvious eight months ago.
Team R is calling him disloyal, which is a sure sign that he is pointing out an inconvenient and blindingly obvious truth.
And they are surprised? Before he was nominated, Vance thought Trumpstien was the antichrist.
The midterms are a sunk cost. He’s not suddenly going to start working with Democrats. I think more war is likely than not.
I think Klippenstein is wrong about Trump not attacking Iran again.
Today the NYT is reporting the US and Israeli militaries have drawn up plans to resume major combat operations against Iran. Targets are said to include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal.
The real reason Trump waited until after the election to do these strikes? They won’t end the war, they will have exactly the opposite result, dragging the US deeper into the conflict. If he thought these forthcoming military strikes would have ended the war, obviously he would have done them before the election.
Don’t kid yourself.
Team D is already cuing up a repeat of 2006. You may recall that in 2006, Team D was swept into Congress on a wave of antiwar sentiment. Before the election, Pelosi was promising impeachment to start within 100 days.
Once elected, impeachment was dropped like a turd. Not only did Team D cheerfully fund Bush’s wars, Pelosi threatened to replace the Chair of the Ho-use Appropriations Committee if he held funding up.
Notice that Harris, Ossoff and others already are saying an impeachment would be “divisive”.
Whether or not you disagree or agree with either of these two former Trump supporters, this analysis of the election results is worth a watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q50ORL8ptz8&pp=0gcJCSkMAYcqIYzv&ra=m. Robert Barnes gives 33% chance to each of these outcomes with Iran:
1) Trump stays crazy and re-attacks Iran 2) he just walks away and lets Iran do what they want including charging tolls for passage and 3) Trump actually starts honoring the terms of the MOU he signed in June – including coughing up frozen monies.
Those aren’t the odds I’d give. I think #3 is really unlikely. That video is 75 minutes but goes by quickly because Barnes is opinionated.
Israel sees its window of opportunity closing, and Israel still has The Files.
If the democrats get them released, that card burns.
A very important issue that needs to be addressed immediately and a top priority.
The recent buildup of forces assumed the blue wave would not happen so decisively. The big picture shifted in a day.
Suddenly the whole strategic landscape for Trump (thus, for us) grows more fractious. This is true despite its being foreseeable (to a reasonable president): a war with no public consent at all, primed this whole mess. It is the ultimate Trump reversal on a promise. I foresaw here, he would continue to scale up whatever misbehavior he was doing, until he found a wall he could not bull through, that would stand while he splattered against it. Fortunately it wasn’t nuclear war, world depression or some such. Yet.
It is wrenching, like driving on the freeway, shifting into reverse and suddenly letting the clutch out. He had no real plan other than quick easy victory in Iran. He has even less of a plan now. He’s just blowing hot air out his backside, in a worsened situation. At least maybe we have a path left back toward sanity. but again, my word for this whole landscape ahead is fractious. Hopefully it doesn’t go utterly fractal, while we try to patch something together.
For me, this shows the extreme arrogance of Trump as well as anything. Every President launches attacks against other countries who have done nothing to us. One of the many things that makes Trump so different is that he made no real attempt to sell the war to the American people. Bush/Cheney spent months selling the war on Iraq before going in, based solely on lies, but Trump didn’t even bother trying with Iran!
For weeks after Trump started the war, he gave no clear objectives of what he was trying to achieve. Finally, after months, when all the initial things he mentioned as important (regime change, stopping Iran’s support of the three Hs, eliminating their ability to attack other countries with ballistic missiles, turning over their enriched uranium, helping the ‘freedom fighters’ within Iran, etc) proved to be unachievable, he went with the narrative, repeated endlessly since, that “Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon”. Now, of course, they are far more likely to become a nuclear power than they ever were before.
This war cements Trump’s place as the dumbest and worst President in the history of the US, and that is really saying something.
Two more years…
Iran was foolish not to have gotten The Bomb when it could have.
The Americans and their buttbois and catamites respect only force.
As far as IRAN, which choice will the Saudis prefer – particularly Mohammed bin Salman, who was, according to the New York Times, “pushing Trump to continue war with Iran”.
How would lower oil prices affect their preferences and vice-versa?
And what do we get at the pump, including the effect on production/transportation cost, given the ongoing destruction of refineries in the Ukraine-Russia drone war?
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<<Trump-Mamdani bromance>>
They’ve been flirting like a modern couple on TikTok. Nice when they’re together, and throwing shit at each other online when they’re apart.
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Let’s all keep in mind that “WarMongers” refers to the act of being FOR WARS and non-ending. HEGSETH IS ALSO A BOUGHT-OFF OFFICIAL.
SO, it is not necessarily blood-lust bur MONEY-LUST.
MOST OF THE COVER STORIES for why officials do shit are just a COVER for profit motives. WOULD YOU SELL YOUR SOULS FOR MONEY?
I would not and when I worked with totally corrupt officials or co-owners in my Companies: I GOT AWAY FROM THEM!
Of the five talking points I think the first two are obvious to everyone at the table. I have no idea how you would establish number five. But the remaining items, three and four, are never going to see the light of day.
I think we have lost the option to prevent them from establishing nuclear weapons because we did lose this war and something must be conceited. I would accept Trump resigning
Trump resigning would be a reversal of his entire history. It would sure solve a lot of problems, even with a JD pardon. But I think he will bunker down to the last.
Just know this: If a Muslim follows the Quran fully he is a terrorist as Islam is a political cult that wants world domination much like the Nazies. They use religion as a cover for brainwashing and propaganda. History of West vs. Islam has facts as it’s basis.
If you oppose communists, natzies, dictatorships You will oppose Islam as well.
Most religions are cults, including yours.
No one ever had a problem with Islam to this extent until the Catholic Church made it one for the crusades. We’ve never recovered.
Tell that to the poor souls who had to jump from the World Trade Center due to the Islamist terrorists
Missing the point entirely.
History is not your strong point
Go back to the 14th century instead of just relying on the last 47 years. You might have picked up that I was referring to the crusades.
The American people DISAGREE with your assessment voting in many Muslims across America and there’s nothing you can do about it, absolutely nothing.
He can make a boo boo face and stamp his little feet, and there is NOTHING you can do to stop him!
American voter has very little knowledge of Islam===that is what they count on—but it will change as they watch Europe start to Evict the Cultists
Another internet expert on Islam heard from.
My God you are a racist prick
Your view tends to create and feed a self-fulfilling prophecy of bitter conflict.
Muslims have existed in all sorts of governmental systems.
I have worked with Muslim college students for 4+ decades, and never had a problem with any of them. The incidence of things like cheating or disruptiveness did not differ from other groups.
I think it is correct that minorities tend to be better-behaved when they have not reached a critical mass. To be fair, any minority might grow more loud and assertive past a certain concentration in, say, a classroom or community. I saw this with Chinese (PRC) students in the classroom. So yeah, there is some more abstract argument about immigration and birth rates. but that is a different argument from treating them individually everywhere as pariahs.
America’s founding concept was a more open society. I know, we are imperialistic white guys. But still, we added more tolerance. That has risks, yes, But it is very costly to give that up.
YOU were working with Muslim who do not practice their Quran teachings
You can’t spell “Nazis” but you’ve read the entire Quran? As in you’ve actually read it, with your eyes, not an AI summary or regurgitation from someone.
One could make the same argument about the Bible or the Talmud, the Bhagavat Gita or any one of a number of texts
How many Christians do you know who follow every rule in the old testament? Give it a rest, you sound like a moron and it’s embarrassing. Every religion has extremists and the senator elect from Michigan is not among them. In fact he’s far more religiously moderate than many of the Christian fundamentalists that maga has been vomiting up 🤮 lately.
This screed coming from someone who cannot spell “Nazi” correctly (twice, and both different misspellings I might add) is pretty much the perfect summary of how retarded you have to be to keep riding the Trump train.
Oh man, that statement made my day.
Yup, we’ve entered a whole new world of stock volatility. If the new sheriff in Texas starts chopping data centers then it’s over for the AI bubble too. It’s time to buy back those oil calls I sold. Then sell again when those Israel owned democrats approve more war funding. Rinse & repeat.
3-Star Mishelin award granted.
Our country doesn’t know how to extricate itself from war. No president wants to be on the losing side, therefore continue until the next guy gets in office. Wash, rinse, repeat….
Trump will do it very quietly
Jesus, wake up. IT IS NOT ABOUT “WINNING” but only about MONEY. ALL of the narratives, such as “We do not want Iran to be a nuclear threat” is just a cover story. IRAN has no such intentions.
American Presidents feed their big suppliers of funny money: THE MIC!
YOU are Mistaken or a cultist
Given the massive military buildup in the middle east, it’s hard for me to buy that there will not be military action. I favor a complete withdrawal, that won’t happen either.
No one has to use the weapons. They have the choice to take them back home and put them back in storage
Where’s the money in that? Next you’ll be arguing for peace!
US is moving Combat SAR and Special Operators to Israel as we speak. Stirkes are imminient.
Sounds like a ground operation.
Not so sure about this . . . Democrats are the Party of WAR . . . just look at History . . Maybe the IRANIAN Conflict ends but the UKRAINE Conflict is now being driven by EUROPE because without UKRAINE Europe is DEAD ! EUROPE badly needs UKRAINE’S Energy Resources and Agriculture. Its EUROPE’S future Bread Basket !
The democrats were the party of war in the 20th century, now both parties have blood on their hands. It must be a real thrill to send some poor kid to go die for his country.
CORRECTED:
“It must be VERY LUCRATIVE to send SPEND MONEY for ENDLESS WARS.”
Irak, Afghanistand, Iran – the three true wars America fought this century and all were started by Republican presidents. Ukraine was invaded by Russia, not by an American president of either side.
Let’s keep the facts straight.
Huh? The donorCRATs continued the war on Iraq and Afghanistan. 0-bama even bombed a fellow Nobel Prize winner in Afghanistan. He also aided the Saudis’ attack on Yemen.
Also, the donorCRATs destroyed Libya and turned it into a failed state with open slave markets. AND they engineered the 2014 coup in Ukraine that eventually led to the attack by Russia.
To pretend that either of these two parties is against war and for peace, is to choose to be obtuse.
Joe Biden withdraw from Afghanistan and took a lot of heat for it. If you can’t tell the difference between the parties in 2026, that’s a you problem.
Cherry picking what fits into your argument does not help anything. But if your objective is to stay biased then you are fine, in your own black and white world of simplicity.
THE UNIPARTY IS THE PARTY OF WARS. COME ON, you are not that misinformed, right?
Ukraine is not a treasure trove of untapped resources. When I lived there, I worked with people who tried to line up interest in this.
No takers, and that before the war trashed infrastructure.
“Democrats are the Party of WAR . . . just look at History .”
So, Dubya was a democrat? Do tell.
The wars and empire are a bipartisan affair.