Let’s discuss three possibilities.
U.S. Is Considering ‘Winding Down’ Iran Operations
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump Is Considering ‘Winding Down’ Iran Operations
President Trump said the U.S. is considering “winding down” its military operation in Iran, adding that other countries would need to police the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier Friday, the president said he could “have dialogue” with Iranian leaders, but added, “I don’t want to do a cease-fire…You don’t do a cease-fire when you’re literally obliterating the other side.” The Pentagon is sending three warships and thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East, in the second deployment of Marines to the region in the past week.
Close to Meeting Objectives
Truth Social: We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran: (1) Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to them. (2) Destroying Iran’s Defense Industrial Base. (3) Eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including Anti Aircraft Weaponry. (4) Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability, and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation, should it take place. (5) Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others. The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
We are so close we need to send more troops and battleships.
Trump Pauses Sanctions on Some Iranian Oil
Lie of the Day
Who Wouldn’t Want Stuff like This to Wind Down?
Q&A on Winding Down
Q: Is sending thousands more troops and three more battleships to the Mideast consistent with winding down?
A: No, but Trump didn’t say he was winding down, only that he is considering winding down.
Q: What does considering mean?
A: Nothing, especially from Trump
Q: Would Trump like an off-ramp?
A: Yes, that’s highly likely. But Trump also wants something for nothing every time. That makes a quick off-ramp unlikely.
Q: Trump does not want a cease-fire, but he wants a dialog. Does that make sense?
A: Yes and no. Iran says it does not want a cease-fire except on its terms and the same applies to Trump. In that sense, they both do and don’t want a cease-fire. The don’t win.
Q: Would a dialog go anywhere?
A: Obviously not.
Q: What are Trump’s goals?
A: He expected a quick victory but that didn’t happen. It’s still not clear what the goals are now. His statements keep changing and they are often contradictory.
Q: What does winding down even mean?
A: I don’t know, you don’t know, and perhaps not even Trump knows. He just says stuff without thinking.
Q: Take a shot at it.
A: OK.
Three Possibilities on Trump’s Angle
- Trump wants out of the mess he made by turning it over on Europe and China. Actually, that’s a given, but that’s not necessarily what Trump meant by winding down. Regardless, Europe and China want no part of the Mess Trump made.
- Winding down means nothing at all. Trump just says stuff. He might even deny he said winding down.
- Trump is saying anything that he thinks may get the price of oil down. But if oil dropped, even if he did mean winding down in some fashion, Trump would likely want something else.
My guess is that it’s some combination of all three, with an emphasis on three.
Certainly the market would like things to wind down. But winding down is so inconsistent with everything else Trump is doing and saying.
If the bond market doesn’t believe winding down, why should I?
Related Posts
March 20, 2026: Trump Seeks $200 Billion for the War, Says ‘We’re Not Putting Troops Anywhere’
It’s $200 billion today, how much tomorrow?
March 20, 2026: Trump Sends Thousands More Troops and 3 More Warships to the Middle East
One day after saying ‘We’re Not Putting Troops Anywhere’ comes this announcement.
March 20, 2026: The Odds of at Least One Fed Rate Hike by October Surge to 25 Percent
What Happened?
- Fed Governor Christopher Waller changed his tune from supporting rate cuts.
- Trump is sending more troops and warships to the Middle East. This has rattled the markets.
Trump will say anything to calm down the bond market. That’s at least part of his message.
It means they have 48 hours to open the waterway or Trump is going to take out their powerplants.
Trump Considers Winding Down’ Iran Operations. Great, But What Does that Mean?
–
It means he said one minute ago.
That’s it.
Finish.
For that meeting.
–
What that means, tuck tail and run….
It looks like the plan is to seize Kharg Island and Iran’s oil permanently as a move against China.
How we get from here to there is the big question. This would probably require that Iran be leveled like Gaza. That’s why nukes will probably be used before this is all over.
Israel gets what it wants (destruction of Iran) and the U.S. gets what it wants (the oil and leverage over China).
Mish
Are you confident that he doesn’t want oil prices to stay high and for the global economy to crash??
Means it is time for Cuba
Bad news for the oil market. US lifted sanctions on the Iranian oil at sea and Iran noted they have no oil to offer.
There is 140 million barrels of Iranian oil at sea. Why do you make dumb statements?
If we simply leave Iran will soon be in control of the whole region, right? Without us the Israelis and the Gulf states can’t fight Iran at all.
If Israel then resorts to nukes, I can’t picture the outcome.
If they don’t, what will happen to them?
If we’re gone and Iran is in charge, they will presumably stop destroying infrastructure, and will run the Straits to their own benefit. China and Russia will benefit as well.
It almost seems like Trump is going to destroy Israel (at their own behest) for the benefit of China and Russia. I don’t think that is how he sees it but it kind of looks that may be the upshot.
(I have no dog at all in this race; I belong to a peace church and we hold that Jesus Christ forbids all war. I am just trying to work out what is going on.)
I don’t think Iran will be or want to be in full control of the region, as they have not shown themselves to be an invading power. From what I gather, they are demanding reparations and if those are not forthcoming they might claw that back over time by being the Hormuz toll operator.
The ideal situation I think would be to recognize Iran as an essential part of ME security – a stabilizing force, working with other Arab nations to secure the Strait and prevent interference from foreign actors. This is anathema and a foreign concept to the West because Iran is portrayed as a destabilizing element because they have long fought against Israeli/U.S. efforts to subjugate the ME. Unfortunately, it looks like Arab leaders are slow to get on the right side and boot U.S. out, and with oil revenues choked off their regimes could destabilize rapidly. This could get very bloody with smaller wars raging across the region even with the U.S. out of the picture. But I don’t think the U.S. is going to give in that easily.
As for Israel, I would hope they come back to reality, prosecute zionist leaders who fomented this disaster, engage in gov’t/societal reform, and with their neighbors to secure Palestinian rights and right to self-govern. Right… I think it’s far more likely they are torn apart internally and as a state becomes carved up after much blood is spilt. They might choose to use nuclear weapons first, and at that point are doomed to be destroyed by a nuclear counterstrike that eliminates the nation in its entirety.
Who would launch the counterstrike?
Multiple possibilities. Iran, foremost. I’m assuming the fatwa against nuclear weapon development has already been secretly removed and they are working on enrichment from 60% to weapons-grade which is far easier than what they have done so far and could be only weeks away from completion. Given Iran’s technical expertise it may only take a few months to create a handful of lower-yield nuclear weapons using tried and true designs that do not require testing.
There’s no doubt Iran has built extensive underground complexes, virtually impervious to all but direct nuclear strikes (and even then, ???). The question is, would U.S./Israel know where to strike to ensure all the enriched material is destroyed? Complicating matters, just as mosaic strategy has been employed to decentralize command and control, nuclear material could be dispersed to multiple locations.
But let’s say U.S./Israel succeed in destroying it all, preventing a nuclear counterstrike from Iran. Now we have martyred a nation, with hundreds of millions of angry Muslims motivated to destroy Israel. I wonder about Pakistan, although they have at least publicly denied they would strike Israel with nuclear weapons in retaliation.
Aside from Iran itself, North Korea comes to mind. They and Iran have had good relations including military cooperation. North Korea could easily load a few nuclear-tipped missiles onto diesel-powered submarines and finish the job. In 2024 Anne Jacobsen published a book about a plausible nuclear attack scenario in which North Korea used such a submarine for an attack against the U.S., but it could apply just as well to Israel.
Pakistan.
Last summer, Pakistan offered nukes to Iran, when they were attacked.
Pakistan publicly denied that they would retaliate with nuclear weapons if Israel nuked Iran. I’m not sure who or what to believe. Israel has reportedly up to 400 nuclear weapons, so if they thought Pakistan pledged to strike they’d probably take out Pakistan simultaneously (and they might do that still). The whole situation is exceedingly dangerous.
It’s illegal to transfer nuclear material or bombs from one country to another.
Russians are so freaking stoopid! 🤣🤣🤣
Trump is fighting for Russia and China.
Trump’s Iran war is eerily similar to Putin’s Ukraine war. Both started their respective conflicts thinking they would win in a few days.
Despite the initial bombardment, both Iran’s and Ukraine’s leaderships remained intact and determined to resist invasion, with their populations rallying around them. Despite expending billions in precision munitions, Russia’s and America’s bombardments failed to achieve even a tactical victory.
Just as Putin leaned in and turned his two week “Special Military Operation” or SMO into a four year grind, so too is Trump looking to wade into his own Iranian meat grinder.
Putin arrests journalists for calling his SMO a war, while Trump threatens charging CNN with treason for reporting about military casualties in Iran.
Putin wanted to win his war before Russia’s May 9 celebrations so he could throw a parade in Kyiv, while Trump wants to defeat Iran before our 250th anniversary on July 4.
Hopefully Trump follows the midterm election year stock chart and wind this thing down by the end of May or things will get bloody.
Good Observation!
The key difference is that Russia’s military has grown much stronger as they have learned from early tactical errors, adapted to realities of drone-based warfare, and cranked up industrial military output overwhelming the capabilities of NATO/U.S. to respond in kind.
On the other side of the ledger, NATO/U.S. stockpiles of precision weapons and air defense interceptors have been largely been exhausted. Despite Trump meeting with heads of defense contractors and efforts to expand production, our MIC as configured is not up to the task. It has to be reformed from the ground up, based on realities of logistics, planning, resource acquisition (rare earths, anyone?), and foremost the willingness to shed fancy/expensive systems that are highly profitable but not effective for winning wars against peer adversaries (or apparently even mid-level regional powers).
Bob wrote “Despite the initial bombardment, Iran’s leadership remained intact …”
That is unrealistic. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead. The ayatollah they elected to replace* him, his son Mojtaba, is reported to be injured and in a coma. Some reporters have said, one of them as early as last July, that Iran’s change of government goes deeper, that the ayatollahs and theocracy are no longer in charge and the people now really in charge are those on top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. (Several of those top guys are also dead.)
So we are up against Mao’s Little Red Book, starting with “Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” – How long can Iran’s rulers keep up this fight when the people of Iran would rather not be having this fight? And by what means can the people of Iran overthrow the people who rule them?
(Feel free to ask similar questions of how long can the USA’s rulers keep up this fight when the people of the USA would rather not be having this fight, and by what means can the people of the USA overthrow the people who rule them?)
Trump’s brain are mush
The Truth Social “ordered” by 5 points above are just full of contradictions and about 23 turns. All they reveal is that Trump wants out, it is a mess, but he is great and everything he says is immediately reality — in other words, it’s all projections of the deflections and counter-deflection that his internal world requires to maintain the pretense that he is great.
There is not just loss of decorum, but he seems to have lost any sense that deception requires that you hide your own state of mind because revealing it erases any effect. Trump is not compos mentis.
“How to run the world without alarming the orderlies”
I am now reading that Iran has warned Israel and America that if they put troops on the ground in Iran –then Israel will get their Nuclear Power Plant destroyed. That would turn Israel into a Chernobyl 2.0) ……Who is still stupid enough to cross that Irainian line?
How would Iran do this, given that they are having great difficulty striking anything in Israel. They’ve only managed to hit a few apartment buildings and residential areas and almost all of that has been from scrapnal that was left over after their missiles were intercepted.
Is that a joke? Or are you really that stupid?
Israel is not releasing damage reports. But there has been lots of damage.
Based on insurance claims in Tel Aviv, there have been 7400 claims for property damage in the last three weeks.
Damage reports have come out for US bases throughout the region.
Over the last three weeks, Iran has inflicted significant damage on multiple U.S. military bases across the Middle East, including direct hits on the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, damage to warehouses, radar systems, and satellite infrastructure, and fatalities and injuries among U.S. personnel. The most severe confirmed impacts include 6 U.S. service members killed, 140 wounded, and extensive structural damage at several bases.
🇮🇷➡️🇺🇸 Damage Iran Has Inflicted on U.S. Military Bases (Past 3 Weeks)
Below is a consolidated, evidence‑based breakdown of what Iran has actually done to U.S. installations since the escalation began.
1. Casualties to U.S. Forces
• 6 U.S. service members killed when a KC‑135 tanker crashed in Iraq during Iranian attacks.
• 140 wounded, 8 seriously, according to U.S. Central Command.
• Most wounded personnel have returned to duty.
2. Major Damage to U.S. Bases
Iran has targeted bases in at least six countries: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE.
Damage varies by location but includes direct hits, infrastructure destruction, and operational disruption.
🇧🇭 Bahrain — U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (Fifth Fleet HQ)
This is the most heavily damaged U.S. installation in the last three weeks.
Confirmed damage:
• Headquarters struck by Iranian missiles and drones
• Warehouses destroyed
• Satellite dishes and radar systems damaged
• Surrounding neighborhoods hit
• Airport shut down, dependents ordered to evacuate
Despite the scale of destruction, no U.S. personnel casualties have been reported in Bahrain.
🇶🇦 Qatar — Al Udeid Air Base
• Iran launched ballistic missiles and drones at the base.
• U.S. officials confirm material damage, though details remain limited.
• This base hosts ~10,000 personnel and is CENTCOM’s forward HQ.
🇰🇼 Kuwait — Ali Al‑Salem Air Base & Camp Arifjan
• Iran targeted both installations with missiles and drones.
• Damage reported as “varying degrees of material impact.”
🇦🇪 UAE — Al Dhafra Air Base
• Iranian strikes included ballistic missiles and Shahed‑type drones.
• Some penetrated air defenses, causing infrastructure damage.
🇮🇶 Iraq — Multiple U.S. Sites
• Bases experienced incoming missile and drone fire.
• The KC‑135 crash occurred during this wave of attacks.
🇯🇴 Jordan — Muwaffaq Salti Air Base
• Iran targeted the installation with missiles and drones.
• Extent of damage not fully disclosed, but confirmed as material
Wow, thanks for posting. Lots of great information here.
Papa Dave is one of the very few commenters I bother reading anymore.
Jojo — this is a link for you —-on Missle damage to Israel
https://en.yenisafak.com/world/iranian-retaliation-devastates-tel-aviv-sparks-exodus-as-9115-damage-cases-recorded-3715752
A trump thought is like a fart in a whirl wind, the effect is soon undetectable
The deranged taco has no idea where he is most of the time. This situation is becoming more serious by the day, yet few in dc seem to care.
Paraphrasing “A small price to pay to stay tippy top”. Republicans have put their eggs in a demented retard basket
He is dotard.
Im starting to think trump has some sort of obsession( for lack of better words) with energy. He sees how russia had the eu by the balls. Sees china building security with all forms of energy. Ai (the future)demand increasing needs. And thinks energy control is power.
In his old age and typical republican take us back to the 50s glory days he can only use oil. Maybe thats why in Venezuela he pulled the dictator and left someone in charge who would play ball. Maybe that is the carrot bibi dangled in front of him in iran. If he drops the marines on irans shipping terminal i will give this idea more pause.
There are lots of balls in the air. The files / personal profit. Etc.
Now we are seeing the danger of having US military bases all around the world. A lot more targets for a country that can fight back. Nothing Trump can do to stop the Iranians from hitting military bases all throughout the region, or from Iran hitting countries that cooperate with Trump.
Short of Trump dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran, this war will continue for years. Unless the US pulls out of the Middle East entirely, Iran will continue to attack US bases and Israel in retaliation for the strikes on Iran. For how many months and years can the US and Israel continue to shoot down $15,000 drones with $3 million missiles?
> this war will continue for years.
Not too likely – USIS will be bankrupt by then. Going the way of the Roman empire really fast.
26B spent so far at least. Realistic figure certainly much higher – destroyed bases, missile defense, collateral damage, shutdowns soon due to sky-high energy prices for everyone.
Nicely documented bottom-up cost model.
https://iran-cost-ticker.com/
Multiply by 2, 5 or 10? Anyone’s guess.
“Even our bottom-up model captures only a fraction of the true cost:
A dwindling missile supply leads me to believe Trump will nuke Iran. This stops the Islamic regime, and deters China from invading Taiwan anytime soon.
Using even a single nuclear weapon on Iran will virtually guarantee the annihilation of Israel as a nation state by nuclear weapons, and carries a very real risk of runaway escalation. It won’t do shit to deter China. In fact, seeing the U.S./Israel cross that line might be the very thing that triggers a decision to move on Taiwan. They would have a strong incentive to push all U.S. military out of SE Asia, away from China, just as Iran is incentivized to expel the U.S. out of the ME.
Trump is insane enough to use nukes, however it still wouldn’t stop Iran, their military assets are underground. There are many problems with this. Several countries might give Iran nukes, Pakistan may unload tit for tat on Israel and co.. High degree of risk of full on nuclear Armageddon.
It is insane to even contemplate seriously and if anyone thinks this would be an appropriate strategy they are insane.
Attacking Iran was not particularly sane.
This is just classic Trump. Losing the war, achieving none of the objectives, so what do you do? You either do a ground invasion or you leave and declare victory. The latter option leaves him looking like a loser, BUT if he can put other countries in charge of keeping the Strait open (something the US hasn’t been able to do), he can blame all of those countries for the high fuel prices in America. I doubt those countries will agree to be the fall guy for Trump’s folly.
We are stuck in Donnie’s demential loop. He probably doesn’t even realize that he and Nuttyahoo were the ones that started this war. He’ll lose interest, wander off, blame Barack “Hussein” Obama, refuse to take any responsibility for abandoning the mess he created. Meanwhile, the Iranians will reduce everything that’s not a holy site in Israel to a smoking, uninhabitable ruin.
Trump is simply trying to jawbone jittery markets. Additionally he thinks that his “Maybe I will and maybe i won’t” act is oh so clever. Mostly it just means that nobody can believe a word out of his bullsh
itting mouth.
More likely is that they are playing options market based on his vacillating ideas
Based on the Donalds –public track record for honesty so far —most Americans by now do not trust anything he says anymore. Iran really knows they are now stuck dealing with a massive child killer snake— named Donald.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
– Isaac Asimov
“He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.” – Michel de Montaigne
The MAGA meatheads would just say that de Montaigne is french.
“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”
Someone in the military has told Donald Trump the truth: the US doesn’t have the military capability of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. We could with a WWII style full-scale invasion of Iran, but that will requires years to build the naval capacity to land hundreds of thousands of troops and equipment, and that is way outside the scope of Trump’s capacity.
So Trump’s winding down is just that, he recognizes he has to bail on this disaster, and bail soon. So he is looking for someone else to blame. And that is going to be the cowardly NATO allies, Japan and China. Unfortunately, these countries have even less capability to open the Strait, and Iran is now selling its own oil as fast as it can at the expense of the US’s gulf allies.
But here’s what Trump is a little too dumb to understand: oil markets are global. The US produces the most in the world, but sell it to the highest bidder. That oil isn’t going to stay in the US, it will go to Europe and Asia, and American citizens will pay the same price as Germans will. Which will be extremely high. I can see gas prices in 6 – 9 months going towards $7 – $8/gallon here in the US indefinitely.
The Iranians have stated that they have two demands for ending the war: regime change in Israel and reparations for their losses in this war from the American people. Trump can’t possibly concede. Once he realizes his choices are either hundreds of billions in reparations to the Iranian people for the death and destruction he’s caused, or permanently higher gas prices, he will have to do something wildly insane to distract his supporters. God knows what that will be.
The upside, Trump will put an end to the internal combustion engine as the American people will begin buying EVs on a mass scale. Trump will have done more for climate change than any democrat could possibly hope for.
Buy Exxon.
Well got to find something bigger than the epstien files. If hes ending this.
Guess hes gonna have to keep killing leaders till he gets terms he can deal with.
Yes more for green energy. In the us it will be personal choice since so much money is donated to politicians from oil. Other counties will realize renewable is in their best interest. Look at the eu. They just got putin to let go of their balls only to be squeezed by the us.
Trump isn’t going to wind down anything, not while Bibi has the tapes.
The docs are right there on the DOJ website… child rape, battery, child trafficking.
Nothing has happened.
Would you mind posting the link to those docs?
The more people who see them the better!
The docs are not evidence enough to get an indictment, much less a conviction. Anybody can accuse anyone of anything.
Action video from the days before AI deepfake is harder to argue with.
“Winding down means nothing at all. Trump just says stuff. He might even deny he said winding down.”
The statment above is the reality. Why? Well because we a dump trucks loads of evidence (past tweets, public statements, etc) that show he just says shit. Oh and Trump is also a pathological liar.
A really stupid pathological liar.
Truly amazing that there are still people who support Trump and think he is great. I wonder what the brain of someone who supports a psychotic, narcissistic, stupid pathological liar is like?
Trump is a bullshitter, in Professor Frankfurt’s sense of the term. He just says whatever is convenient at the moment, without regard to whether it is true or not, only whether it suits his interests at that time.
But you can. bullshit a bullshitter. Maybe that’s why some of us see thru him
I’ve read all the great leaders in history were unpredictable. It’s just, that’s not the same as being predictably unpredictable. Today who knows? Maybe it will come into his little pea brain the possibility Iran could become the 51st state. Rhymes with strait. Could happen.
This is insanity,
Trumpa Lumpa’s actions are the same as if he bombed Rome into a pile of rubble.
Would 500 million Catholics worldwide simply roll over and give up their faith? Hell NO! Will 1.5 billion Islamic people go away because trump kills their clerics and destroys some of their cities? NO!
This is why the framers of our constitution put the separation of church and state as the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Trashing the Constitution is not a good look for an American leader.
Regardless of if Israel owns Fox News, NBC, ABC, CBS and tells us this is a great victory. All it does is create more resentment and another generation of vengeance seekers.
Sigh!
Huh? The Ayatollah of Iran is not the equivalent of the Pope. He’s the equivalent of a Cardinal in any Catholic country.
More over most of the other Middle East countries don’t like Iran. Why do you think we have all those bases there. Hint: It ain’t cause they love US military presence on their land, it’s because they fear Iran.
Also why do you keep rambling about the separation of church and state? Technically if we follow that to the letter of the law in Iran then they can no longer be a Theology since they need to separate church and state. US constitution only applies to America.
If trump won the wars decisively, and liberated a repressed people. He should take one of his yachts through the Strait of Hormuz and jump in a motorcade and drive straight to Tehran. Then, all those that he liberated from this regime could greet him with open arms!
(he might want to make sure there are no stones available for that crowd…)
Ive said the same thing regarding the Trump cultists who insist that Iranians are ready to rise up.
Surely seeing Trump in Iran would inspire them, right?
I interpret “Winding down” is a ploy to get other countries involved. Everyone knows the situation is so unstable that the US cannot just walk away.
Chinese diplomacy in the Middle East war: talking with Arabs, voting with Russia
https://chinamenanewsletter.substack.com/p/chinese-diplomacy-in-the-middle-east?triedRedirect=true&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web&utm_source=substack
Yeah, why would they do that?
I’ll go with curtain #3. Continued high prices at the pump will continue to drag down Trump’s ratings. He should have never started this war in the first place. As always, easy to start a war….extremely difficult trying to extract yourself from it. (at least with saving face).
high %rates is killer
Trump usually says one thing and does something else so we shouldn’t be surprised if he tries to put troops on the ground … not sure how he can get out of the Israeli connection … if they really have them between a rock and a hard spot … whatever he’s going to do he has to do it soon because every week that passes puts more pressure on the world economic situation …
It would seem that President Trump has determined that we have oil, so if you want some, protect the Strait and go get some. On the surface this appears brazen, but when you add in the fact that nobody was helping the U.S. get the Strait protected, for there oil, and not ours, I guess he is saying, so now you can go get it yourself. We tried to help, we asked for obvious assistance. We will help if necessary, but it shouldn’t be, as we did all the heavy lifting, as we should have, now you can help yourself.
I see his point, but he did creat the situation. Of course this all helps the Middle East out, far more than the U.S. on a day to day basis. We of course had the primary objective of destroying the Nuclear Capabilities, which we did. That helps protect the World. I see both sides here, but in keeping things real, the evil Iran Nuclear Power want to be is gone now. That’s saying something! They should be able to all pull together much better than this…
Now do Israel’s nuclear capabilities…
[1] Doing the same thing at Dimona as Iran is being accused of now
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/middle-east/israels-nuclear-cheat-code-how-tel-aviv-secretly-forged-its-nuclear-arsenal-in-the-1960s-deceiving-us-scrutiny-article-152133902
[2] Using stolen US enriched uranium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_affair
If he leaves the gulf countries hanging, that will be the end of the petrodollar and with it, the end of America’s ability to grow deficits indefinitely.
It will be America’s Suez Canal moment.
I am not sure the end of the petrodollar is in sight, but it is definitely weakening. It is quite interesting the Iran’s economic attack on the US now seems two pronged. First deny the use of the Strait of Hormuz to US and allied vessels. Then tell the rest of the world (particularly Asian countries) that they can use the Strait, but only if payment for the cargo has been made in a currency other than the dollar (seems motly yuan). Definitely an attempt by Iran to further hit the US economically by decreasing petrodollars. Fewer petrodollars ultimately means the rest of the world buys fewer Treasuries, but it would take quite a while for this to have a significant effect.
I don’t think it’s the end of the petrodollar quite yet but I think we’re soon entering the sunset phase.
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent comment were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this comments section is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
I stated what I think is going on in Trumps head. I thought it was a pretty good capture myself. What part or parts do you disagree with? I have been reviewing this from the start, so what did I miss?
Obviously you have issue with my assessment, so let’s hear yours. What do think is occurring here, and not some emotional rant, but your actual thoughts.
It’s not an incoherent rant; it’s one of the best movie quotes ever, from Billy Madison.
I agree!
They weren’t working on nuclear capabilities, and if they were, we had declared them obliterated in June. Why do you believe our politicians when they lie so much?
Why do you believe Iran so much?
They obliterated the main area, and ability to continue to try and create such, but there is Uranium enrichment and many other areas where science may be or still is creating further advancement. We never did the final inspections so we truly don’t know, but they got lots of $$$ from Obama to do so…
Iran could build a dirty bomb right now and render Israel uninhabitable.
They have the fuel. They have the missiles. Israel’s air defenses are depleted.
They could, but I don’t think they will resort to a dirty bomb. I believe the fatwa will be dropped and they will build functional nuclear devices but only use them in extremis if attacked with nuclear weapons.
The IEAE director again confirmed a few days ago that Iran has 440 kilograms of Uranium at up to 60% enrichment. Are the cylinders buried in rubble, moved or located somewhere else entirely? He couldn’t say.
-Light Weight Reactors require 3-5% enrichment for power production.
-Iran has a research reactor (that US gave them) now running on 20% enriched fuel.
-Nuclear weapons require 20-90+% enrichment.
Maybe Iran is using their research reactor to create radioisotopes in an effort to cure cancer. But why the 60% enrichment?
Who do you believe?
Oil was moving through the straight. He created the problem. He wants to bag out and leave it to others to clean up the mess. Prob end up just open as soon as us leaves. Well to all but us ships Bibi will be the only issue.
I believe that fate of US bases in Middle East is major headache for White House and Pentagon. The bases were damaged and are basically abandoned while soldiers are hiding in hotels or were evacuated. These soldiers are not boots on the ground, they are shoes on the ground – technicians, logistics personell, commanders, intelligence, telecom guys. The guys who are difficult to replace, they need to be evacuate soon.
Marines and 82nd division are needed to secure the bases. Tough boys who can live under Shaheed drone attacks for weeks or months.
The bases are crucial for US presence in Middle East. They need to be kept at any cost. Without them there is no way to contain Iran in future.
Nobody “lives under Shahed drone attacks for weeks or months.”
They get traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, missing limbs, third-degree burns, and death.
The US needs to GTFO, and focus on its energy independence.
=ough boys who can live under Shaheed drone attacks for weeks or months.
Oh I SEE . it is comedy skit..
When are you leaving to go fight?
Armchair warrior moron
I 100% support Trump’s: (Scroll down):
REMOVAL!
Trump killed the father, wife and children of the current reported hard-line leader of Iran. Do you think he forgives, ever? My guess is he will someday find the way to kill trump and his children. Maybe years after trump is out of office.
Oh no! Anyway.
Purely out of curiosity, whom do you want in his place? Kamala? Newsom? Buttigieg? Those are the Top 3 at the moment…
Huh? How can you replace a Republican with a Democrat? If Trump was removed it goes to Vance. If Vance is removed it still stays within the Republican party.
I thought he was implying a new person at the helm now, and from a different party perhaps… I was simply asking who out of the current Top 3 Dems running for President, would he prefer over Trump.
Option 1 – Boots on the ground:
The US Defense Dept has war gamed/simulated the shit out of this. Sending warships to run the Hormuz gauntlet is a death sentence. A ground invasion of Iran with make Vietnam look like a playground. Iran is not Iraq. It is much bigger, has a much larger population and it is very mountainous. It is like Afghanistan, but much deadlier. Even if the goal is just to secure the coast around Hormuz, the Iranian coastline around the Straits is mainly rocky mountains and steep cliffs. It would be Gallipoli all over again. But let’s say that after much blood and tears, America somehow opens the Strait. Iran’s next step after losing strait’s leverage will be to target and destroy the gulf’s oil infrastructure. So opening the Gulf could end up being an empty victory if there is no longer any oil to be shipped.
Option 2 – Winding down the war:
War ends tomorrow with a victory declaration by Trump, where he accept the status quo and the regime survives. Obviously this will save lives and relief the economic pressure by hopefully unblocking the straight. assuming Iran obliges . But you end up with an Iran dramatically more resentful and paranoid of its neighbors and an IRGC even more influential on Iranian politics than before. And now that Khamenei is dead, Iran will for sure pursue a nuclear weapon at all costs. But even worse, it completely fuck the Gulf countries, who bet their economies on tourism, serving as residence for the global ultra wealthy elite and hosting massive AI data centers.
If the Iranian regime survives and there is the risk of this conflict ever erupting again, who will buy property, go on vacation or build data centers in the gulf countries? If Trump simply declares victory and leave them hanging, the decades of carefully build partnerships the US developed with these countries will go up in smoke and so will the petrodollar. No petrodollar and US deficits will start to matter a lot very quickly.
Conclusion: There is a reason why it took Bibi 30 years to find a US president dumb enough to start this war.
A couple things:
Future conflicts will be started by Israel, just like all the past conflicts
That’s part of it, the other part is that now that the US cow is almost completely milked (see: national debt & note which “group” has the most billionaires per capita – “they” are in the process of moving those ill gotten gains out of the US and converting from dollars to other currencies and assets, see: gold & foreign real estate, etc)
Israel is [1] making it’s pivot towards China where they will team up with China to drive a dagger through the US as well as most of Europe (uncontrolled migration is one of the tools being used to foment collapse), and [2] once Iran is cleared out they will begin their hegemonic assent over the entirety of the middle east, plus Third Temple, etc, yada yada
Iran didn’t start this war – they were attacked.
Option 3. The US and Israel go nuclear.
Correct. The world would be horrified for a few days and then when oil went back to normal everyone would just get on with their daily lives.
Of course, if Russia were to anything even remotely comparable, the howls of outrage would be deafening.
Even if Trump walks away, there is no guarantee that Israel will.
Even if Israel walks away, there is no guarantee that Iran will open the strait or stop attacking other countries infrastructure.
Iran is highly likely to keep the strait closed until the US and Israel (or other nations) pay for the reconstruction of Iran.
Iran has the leverage here. They are already charging $2 million for each ship they allow through the strait after inspecting them first.
Technically no one has leverage. Neither the US or Israel need Iranian oil so whether or not oil flows from there doesn’t matter to us (rest of the world has a very different opinion of course).
You can talk about oil prices of course but in an extreme emergency Trump has the ability to set the price of that too and prevent any exports and since we are self sufficient we can keep up the war effort for a very long time.
The United States is NOT self-sufficient in oil. That is something people inadvertently believe because we produce more than we use. “Oil” is not one thing. It comes in a wide variety of grades that produce different products. The US produces a lot of very light oil called “naptha”. You cannot make gasoline or diesel directly from naptha. You have to mix it with heavier crude. The kinds produced in Venezuela and Canada. So the US produces and exports a lot of naptha. It also imports a lot of oil to mix with the naptha to produce gasoline, diesel and all the other grades of usable products. Trump may, or may not, be able to set the price for naptha. But he cannot set the price for imported grades of heavy oil.
“Our quick Middle East excursion has ended. I’m going for a round of golf now.” Don
“But Sir, what about the global ecoomy and the many nations that could completely collapse?” Reporter
“This is the winiingest winning in the hsitory of winning! I have to go now, bye.” Don
Trump’s history so far is that he doesn’t send military to places without wanting to use them. It is really difficult to see a purpose in sensing general purpose marines without some form of land grba in mind.
Kharg Island would send oil prices sky high. Trump will see it as key leverage that the Iranians wouldn’t try to retake for worry of damaging infra-structure. However the regime will see this more of a survival issue and so not be thinkng the same way.
Qeshm Island looks attractive on a map for controlling S of Hormuz but will simply put any occupiers into the cross hairs.
He needs to show Netanyahu who is boss and Putin how to do a land grab.
I think the “allies” need to be mouch stronger in pushing back against any further escalation. Unfortunately Starmer looks like he is starting to do a Blair.
= Putin how to do a land grab.
look here. mor1on who pretends know anything about russia/ ukraine form watching cnn in moms basement !
in middle of 17th century Ukraine was part of Poland and small piece of land in MIDDLE of Dnepr river basin.
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then they started a coup against Poland , got cloberred eventually,
and applied to be part of Russia empire !
then 350 years later , thanks god to russian czars (= germans) and mostly Ukraine party leaders, become biggest France size country in middle of Europe!
i guess they did not taught this in your school, did they?
keep talking boy!
alx
ps
exam question: how Ukraine obtained Crimea for example?
Wow you Russians have a real inferiority complex. Must be hard being irrelevant in the modern world.
Chrump ™: “I am officially lifting sanctions on Iranian oil on a temporary basis”
Iran: “Nah, bro….we good”
Oil prices….BOOM!
Nothing; which is exactly the same as everything elselse that comes out of the mouth of this gobshite, Trump.
Saw the press clip where he says CNN poll has him at 100%
WTF is he even talking about?
Oh…this….yikes
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-poll-maga-approval-cnn-b2941324.html
Of course the cult supports him 100% that is a feature of a cult! The poll means nothing.
According to Trump, anything coming out of CNN is fake news.
The real question is what percentage of the population are ex-MAGA (i.e., is the base shrinking)
reading Mish posts about trump reminds me some movie about doctor and his-her very ill patient!
so doctor takes notes during session,and later he-she must read them again, many times, TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FU11CK PATIENT SAID EARLIER in session cause it never makes any sense at all!
alx
mish is a doctor!
Trump is saying anything that he thinks may get the price of oil down. But if oil dropped, even if he did mean winding down in some fashion, Trump would likely want something else
=====
tried to read=understand couple times. failed!
. i guess I am not stable genius
Correct, then he moves on to Cuba, Greenland, Panama, Mexico, Columbia?
If Trump bombs the tankers Russia has heading for Cuba, will the oil wash up on the shores of Palm Beach? Russia probably has them booby trapped to blow sky high if Trump tries to take them.
Another shit show in the making.
There’s no need to bomb tankers. I could see our military intercepting them though, where we steal the oil. The consequences really begin when we start intercepting tankers bound for China. If this keeps up, at some point, our naval vessels will probably get attacked by submarines – could be Russian, Iranian, Chinese, or North Korean and we might never know.
Trust me, we’d know whose subs it was.
The bottom of the sea is covered in listening devices and cables especially near our shores.