I had a longer post in the works but I deleted because everything is changing every five minutes and to be honest I think it is at least as likely not that full hostilities resume in a matter of days.
I hope everyone gets their sovereignty back and America stays out of everyone's backyard. Until that happens the US doesn't really have its sovereignty.
If you're in Germany, another EU country or the UK i think you have less to worry about with America impeding your sovereignty than the dipshits running your country.
The imposition of the CoronaPrank sealed the limitations of Canada's sovereignty and revealed Canada for its fealty to the Global BORG project and to Zionism.
Absolutely. And China has been buying millions of barrels of sanctioned oil from Iran and Venezuela at deep discounts for years. Well, it looks like Trump put an end to that, didn't he? Now only Russia is left to supply China with sanctioned oil. That's a monopoly, of sorts. Does anyone think Putin is going to keep giving them deep discounts out of generosity?
Initially I opposed this war, because I thought it was Israel's war. Now I'm beginning to see a method in Trump's madness. This is a geopolitical war against China, and it looks to me like continuing it actually makes sense.
The day before the 'deal', Trump bombed every bridge and railroad in the NW corner of Iraq. Retaliation toward the Kurds who received guns/ammo and were supposed to be fodder but backed out (US has double crossed them in the past and Turkey is looking for kurdish blood, old feuds). Guess who built those roads and bridges? Think Silk Road. China.
How is Iran collecting the money? In yuan. Chinese yuan.
This is about economic destructions of one's enemies. It's about the dollar hegemony (petrodollar). The debt levels are obscene in the West. 2030 is almost here....bye-bye dollar, welcome digital wallet and surveillance.
A problem with these tariffs, as I’ve been writing here from the start, is that there is a large number of goods that the US needs in large quantities from China. This particularly includes goods required for re-industrialisation, e.g. in electrification of more production processes for full automation using robotics. The tariffs create revenue (i.e. load on US business and consumers), without for now phasing out income tax, but they do not help at all in repatriating manufacturing due to bad targeting, unpredictability due to use as a flexible political instrument, and their exploitation by the frankly corrupt and mercurial nature of too many characters in the Trump admin.
Seeing spectacular maximally abstracted war profiteering due to insider trading on strike timings while mfg output has been shrinking basically since Trump entered office is a sad spectacle.
The only space where a material economic race has recently been going well for the US and its bloc has been AI. This needs a huge amount of semiconductor production and grid buildout. The former requires a lot of helium, the production of which has been hit particularly hard by Iran’s Qatar strikes and the Strait closure; the latter is very much dependent on Chinese exports, which China is probably not too inclined to bend over backwards for, under various sanctions.
Meanwhile China rapidly advances down the structure size race in their homegrown photolithography, i.e. own semiconductor manufacturing.
To the victor go the spoils. Military, the US militarily is the Victor. They don’t have the power left to defeat us as was displayed last Sunday. After Trump’s Truth of Bridges, etc, Iran requested negotiations. The previous plan remains in his back pocket. The deal was requested by Iran of the victor. The onus remains on Iran to comply.
There is only the "Pyrrhic Victory for the "LINDSAY GRAHAM CLASS''".
The Fatmericans have to leave West Asia, the Gulf States must make amends to Iran, rid themselves of the Zionist Menace and the Israhelli Zio-Kikes get the privilege of becoming the "Mediterranean Sea Pedestrians", through the strait of Gibraltar... to where exactly?
This seems like a good prediction (that full hostilities will resume).
Trump wants it to be that people do NOT know what he thinks, and do not know what he will do next. On both sides (well, all 15 sides).
Certainly this may have been a strategic pause by the US, to allow for new munitions to arrive, or something else to happen, eg, for the 2nd group of Marines to arrive.
We shall see.
One guess is that he wants it to be clear that the Iranian regime MUST change a lot more.
It is also apparent that either (i) Iran will break any deal made, or (ii) no one person in Iran has control, and can get the missiles and drones to stop. Control is too dispersed.
You can well expect that Trump thinks that these on again / off again pressures will cause the Iranian regime (whatever it is now) to crack. I strongly suspect that there are fissures.
It would be nice if they (the regime people) took the pause to fight and kill each other, to gain power.
But I do think these internal fights (however kinetic they become) give our Intel people a better idea of how the regime is working now (and also how it is NOT working).
I will note that Trump is the only US President naturally suited to wrangling with Armenian rug merchants in the bazaar, so to speak. Sober analyses here probably do not apply.
Rug merchants, very apt. My experience in Istanbul and other places is that anyone who comes up to you on the street is looking to sell you a carpet. Everyone has a father/cousin/brother/uncle/son with a carpet shop.
There's a reason certain expressions are universally and immediately understood.
And it's a good reminder that the Middle East, regardless of how anyone might try to convince anyone else otherwise, is one culture. It's really not many all in conflict. It's a bunch of cousins who all hate one another because they each insist that Grandpa loves 'em best.
This ceasefire never should have been announced. First of all, it is not clear that anyone is fully in charge in Iran at this point. Individual commanders in the field may continued to launch strikes regardless of any official cease fire. Those that are possibly in charge are apparently under the impression that they can somehow get Trump to capitulate, and will frame any concession on his part as capitulation.
No matter how one feels about this endeavor, or how it's going, the U.S. and Israel are in it now, and need to finish it in a way that leaves only the barest fig leaf for Iran at most. This includes the destruction of Iran's oil and energy infrastructure. As I noted before, Iran's ability to knock out all energy production across the middle east is uncertain. That they cannot impact other major producers is certain.
I've pointed out repeatedly over the years that one of the primary faults in western thinking is to assume that everyone is just like them. They are not. The current Iranian leadership cannot be treated like the representatives of average western governments. These people are not normal in the western sense. Therefore, they cannot be bargained with in the normal western sense.
If the IRGC commanders currently running Iran cannot be removed, then they cannot be left with anything with which to run Iran. It is really that simple. A negotiated settlement that leaves the current structure in place would be a failure.
Yep. I'm sick of my tax money being spent outside US borders, but that's irrelevant now. It's already been done. Now I want to see this finished permanently and quickly lest it become yet another Afghanistan.
"This ceasefire never should have been announced."
Unless of course the aim was for the US to "virtue signal" that they had tried and tried to take the high road, but the enemy Just Wouldn't Keep Their Word.
Except that you seem to be sarcastic, and implying that this Iran regime (same as the old regime, but different) would SUDDENLY after decades become a reliable partner to negotiate with.
They will not keep their word. Are you suggesting otherwise?
If so, tell us why we should even entertain that idea for 5 mins.
No, furthest thing from my mind. I'm aware they break agreements at a whim, and lie like rugs (and rug peddlers), and that's never going to change. But there's a partisan, complicit segment of the world that howls every time you proclaim that simple truth.
Another world-is-watching example of the truth of it, immediately before bombing them back to the 19th century, would have its own global PR value.
Competent thieves and raiders spend as much time planning a foolproof getaway as they do planning the intrusion. This might be part of that planning.
I'm glad Trump moved forward without getting Israel on board with the ceasefire. They did not partner with us throughout but sought their own ends, so this will set some boundaries.
The risk right now is that the Lebanon bombardment brings down what remains of this arrangement. I get that the Israelis (and I guess the US following their lead) regard the Lebanese campaign as a totally separate theatre but the Iranians probably don't agree.
The current Iranian leadership will not agree to anything that doesn't look like a win for them and a capitulation by the U.S. They've surmised, probably correctly, that the U.S. does not have the intestinal fortitude to do what is necessary to remove them from power, or to incapacitate the Iranian economy. This is unfortunate. A hallmark of American military engagement since 1945 has been a) an over estimation of our enemies, and b) an under application of force. A rare exception to this was the first Iraq war, in which the U.S. Airforce carpet bombed Iraqi positions.
"A hallmark of American military engagement since 1945 has been a) an over estimation of our enemies"
I would have gone the other way. It's always presented as a "week-long cakewalk" that turns into decades. Maduro has been the only raid that actually conformed to the promised pattern.
I would disagree. When the U.S. applies proper force, as in the first Iraq war, things generally go well. Remember the Highway of Death, where the U.S. military shot up a retreating Iraqi column?
In the initial stages of the second Iraq war the story was similar, the Iraqi military was rolled up. Where the U.S. fell down was during the occupation. One of the more famous incidents early in the insurgency was when one of the militias under the control of Muqtada Al Sadr holed up in some old mosque in Baghdad. Rather than simply blow up the mosque (the proper response), our guys negotiated to let these guys go free. Never was an attempt made on Al Sadr's life, they let the guy walk around inciting the insurgency. Fallujah was another incident, a militia holed up in an entire town. The Marines laid siege and eventually took the town, but the more appropriate response would have been to just drop a MOAB on it and be done.
When these wars turn into long drawn out events, it is because the U.S. chooses not to nip problems in the bud. When the problems do arise, the U.S. does not use sufficient force put them down.
I hope that that will be the moment that cues Trump to put his foot down again and decouple from Israel's seemingly blind mission to wreak all the destruction they can with us as cover.
Or there's the other interpretation -- that the US deliberately left both Lebanon and Israel out of the ceasefire accords so that Israel could poke the bear again as soon as the ceasefire went into effect. Questions of honor aside, I can appreciate the tactical advantages of doing this -- it makes Iran continue to look irrational and untrustworthy.
From their point of view, I agree. But I don't see why we have to support every point of theirs. They can go their way in some things, as can we. It might be a good way to move forward in general.
Yeah I am almost willing to credit the US with a 5D chess move here. Or at least, a hostage video. The blinks of the hostage is telling us
“Israel… won’t… allow… peace”.
The US admin can’t say that outright, but Israel is extremely predictable and can be easily exposed into revealing that it is vehemently opposed to any form of de-escalation or actual ceasefire, let alone any peace agreement.
Quoting the WSJ on 'news' is repeating leftist perspectives--only their OpEds can reasonably be considered centrist or conservative, certainly not their reporting. I doubt that Israel was blindsided by this, and any assertion they were is for PR and plausible deniability purposes only. And no, Trump was not conned, duped, pressured, manipulated, or forced into any arrangement with Israel. If the commentariat would take one hour to read Trump's National Defense and National Security Strategies, this looks to be one more piece of a much larger strategy to usher in a new geopolitical arrangement.
That's one way to look at it. I just hope that's not it. And I know Trump is very, very pro-Israel, but that doesn't mean he agrees with everything, whether or not he's in cahoots with a larger picture. There's a lot of crazy stuff that we're hearing about daily, and seeing. It overwhelms me.
Of course anything can happen in this crazy, mixed-up world so it is indeed hard to venture anything definitive about what is going on and what is likely to happen. My guess though is that the US will not resume any hostilities, at least for the so called 2 week cease fire period and probably not after that. Iran is saying they are not happy that their proxies in Lebanon continue to get hammered by the Israelis and have therefore threatened to resume firing missiles upon Israel even though nothing in the pseudo 10-15 point secret plans specified that Lebanon equals Iran. But if they do that, they may be surprised that without the US pulling on the Israeli leash, the Israelis may actually carry out the program that the POTUS outlined would occur if the Strait of Hormuz did not allow international shipping to pass through which, at least, for now is still the case. It certainly would make sense for the Israelis to so economically cripple Iran that their and their allies ability to threaten Israel would be dramatically diminished. The Emperor Napoleon once responded to an inquiry regarding how he proceeded to undertake a military campaign with the reply "On s'engage et puis on voit." First you commit yourself and then one sees how things shake out'. The best laid plans often go awry after the first shot anyway but that does not mean that one stays out of the fray because of the uncertainty of the outcome. I think that is where we are right now, trying to figure out how things are shaking out.
The mediator, the Pakistani PM, explicitly stated that the ceasefire includes Lebanon, in his announcement of the ceasefire. I can accept it’s possible Israel wasn’t consulted (as they claim) - the Trump admin is easily that incompetent. However the admin can be in no doubt whatsoever that the US agreed with Iran, via Pakistan, that a ceasefire in Lebanon was an explicit condition of the ceasefire. So the US is openly, blatantly and provably lying again. Just like Witkoff and Kushner did in the previous negotiations. The world sees it, even Israel sees it (hence their loud complaints). Only MAGA Boomers in their retirement villages believe the obvious lies of the US admin.
Do you have any sort of point? The facts are crystal clear. Trump is lying to our faces our out of his mind. Possibly both. I don’t dispute that Israel might not have been asked to include Lebanon, but the US clearly did.
- the US wants out because they are the stewards of the global economy and trumps political future will not survive a hard recession
- the israelis and the gulf countries are net losers, but, the iranians are unable to inflict sufficient damage like they can do the gulf states. Ergo, Israel has no incentive to stop
- the americans are incapable of actually reigning them in, to the extent that they would militarily deny them support
What is known today is the entire Iranian regime that exsisted on March 1st 2026 is dead, clergy dead, the Iranian Navy, Airforce personnel and equipment destroyed, the IRGC crippled, the Nuclear facilities decimated, the Intelligence apparatus & warning systems destroyed, military focused infrastructure destroyed. But if Bagdad Bob's cousin Ali Bob is saying Iran is victorious over their imaginary foe The Great Satan I suggest one take their words with a grain of salt.
America is likely negotiating with a few who'd like to see the sun come up tomorrow.
No one wanted this war but 47 years of Iranian (directly or indirectly invovled) violence against the US, Isreal (Oct 7th) and others and with enough enriched uranium to create a nuke that could reach the USA, Israel, neighbors and the EU on missle's capable of further distances they lied about having it was time to bring the Iranian regime to its knees.
The world has changed for the better elimanating a suicidal regime.
Thankfully America and Israel have leaders with big balls. 🇺🇸🇮🇱
The U$A/Israhell Epstein class has never had any business in the Persian Gulf. Those GCC countries are as good as fake, their leaders do not support their people.
The U$A itself is collapsing, as its citizens materialist fortunes decline everyday, their spiritual fortunes greatly impoverished being led by a Death Cult.
"The world has changed for the better elimanating a suicidal regime."
"Thankfully America and Israel have leaders with big balls"
What balls? World's leading "Tranny Nations" instead!
I read a Substack post about how this "ceasefire" is simply a window in which Trump is maneuvering serious military assets into the region, and when and how they might be deployed. If that post is even half right, it seems clear Trump does not expect the ceasefire to lead to any meaningful peace negotiations. But as he might say, I don't want to have to do that, but I probably will. Me, I have no clue, and appreciate your continued analysis.
I think that is a serious possibility, that it is about gaining time to stage forces. But, if Iran just continues attacking in the meantime then it's unclear what the US gains by just standing down. Also Trump and administration officials spent this morning talking as if the war was basically over and you had Hegseth at a press conference declaring maximum victory. I get that misdirection is a thing but it's kind of odd to go out on a limb like that if hostilities are going to resume in a few weeks – discrediting at the very least. I don't know, I guess we'll see.
Per Reuters about 7 hours ago, the Straits never opened. About 5 hours ago the Iranian National Security Council stated that the Straits would not beopened and around four hours ago the IRGC Navy announced any unauthorised vessels trying to transit would be targeted and destroyed.
No they won't. The whole concept of negotiating with Iran is a farce. Iran "negotiating" means lying, buying time, and continuing its attacks, which it is already doing. We broke a lot of stuff, but I don't see that we are anywhere that we have not already been in almost fifty years.
Iran has remained stationary and has not ventured to North America to prosecute similar terrorism, like the U$A. Iran has no imperialistic ambitions like Fatmerica.
Fatmerica, or U$A/Israhell Epstein Class do not understand individual nations sovereignty.
Therefore, this imperialistic behaviour continues, and gets more odious each day.
About 4 hours ago, per WSJ, Iran advised the Pakistani mediators that Iran will not be going to Islamabad to negotiate unless and until the ceasefire includes Lebanon.
The Americans negotiating a peace that opens the strait would be welcome. Hopefully Israel doesn't kill the Iranian negotiator. If such a peace decouples the US from Israel, so much the better.
Their belligerence far exceeds their weight. Which would be fine, they can behave however they want, but the Americans have protected them from the consequences of that behaviour. Either through direct military action, such as Iran and Iraq, or with American tax dollars to fund or supply its weapons Were that not the case, they would need to be far more temperate with the larger, more populous nations that are in its neighbourhood.
Neutralize Fatmerica's ability to wage war, then NEGOTIATIONS!
The U$A/Israhell Epstein Class has no credibility, integrity, agreement capability, morals, ethics, values... what is redeemable from this inhuman co-operation?
Fatmericans must leave West Asia; the Occupiers of Palestine... not so good luck.
I had a longer post in the works but I deleted because everything is changing every five minutes and to be honest I think it is at least as likely not that full hostilities resume in a matter of days.
The fog of war.
Funny how with infinite sources of info in this connected world we don't really have the slightest idea what is going on.
Maybe the EU disinformation apparatus can clear it up for us?
We had our teeth cut with the CoronaPrank Media Industry Projection.
Thanks Eugyppius.
Ha ha ha. "The Ministry of Truth!"
There is one thing im certain of:
There is no way Trump actually thinks the Mullahs will honor this ceasefire.
If thats the case then you can be damn sure he has a plan.
Everything else can be be debated.
"There is no way Trump actually thinks the Mullahs will honor this ceasefire."
There is no way Trump actually thinks HE will honor this ceasefire. He can "plan" all he wants.
Iran has never lost any credibility defending themselves since 1979, and that is not debatable.
Im not going to debate you because you are right.
Have you ever thought for a second outside the box that this really about China?
TUMP JUST DECLARED WAR ON CHINA
Nobody is calling this what it actually is.
50% tariff on ANY country supplying Iran weapons, effective immediately, no exceptions.
Sounds like an Iran policy. It's not.
Russia barely trades with the US. North Korea doesn't at all.
The only country this actually destroys is China.
China funneled $75 billion into Iran's war machine.
China sent AI intelligence on US carrier positions directly to Tehran.
5 Chinese ships were caught delivering missile fuel chemicals while the bombs were still falling.
The tariff isn't just 50%.
China is already at 145% from the ongoing trade war.
Add 50% on top. That's 195% total. On $500 billion in annual trade.
That's not a tariff. That's an economic execution.
Trump got a 14-day ceasefire with Iran yesterday.
It'll be over in 48 hrs. That ceasefire was never going to hold...and Trump knew it.
Iran was the cover story. This is the US-China economic war going to the next level.
U$A will not win.
The U$A?Israhell Epstein Class just want power/money.
The rest of the world want their sovereignty, and the Palestinians and Iranians are leading the way.
Blood and Soil defeats Money every time.
I hope everyone gets their sovereignty back and America stays out of everyone's backyard. Until that happens the US doesn't really have its sovereignty.
If you're in Germany, another EU country or the UK i think you have less to worry about with America impeding your sovereignty than the dipshits running your country.
The biggest loser here is the EU. Maybe Ukraine..
Unfortunately, Canada is a limited suzerainty.
The imposition of the CoronaPrank sealed the limitations of Canada's sovereignty and revealed Canada for its fealty to the Global BORG project and to Zionism.
Absolutely. And China has been buying millions of barrels of sanctioned oil from Iran and Venezuela at deep discounts for years. Well, it looks like Trump put an end to that, didn't he? Now only Russia is left to supply China with sanctioned oil. That's a monopoly, of sorts. Does anyone think Putin is going to keep giving them deep discounts out of generosity?
Initially I opposed this war, because I thought it was Israel's war. Now I'm beginning to see a method in Trump's madness. This is a geopolitical war against China, and it looks to me like continuing it actually makes sense.
Its amazing how much the two of us are consistently on the same page
The day before the 'deal', Trump bombed every bridge and railroad in the NW corner of Iraq. Retaliation toward the Kurds who received guns/ammo and were supposed to be fodder but backed out (US has double crossed them in the past and Turkey is looking for kurdish blood, old feuds). Guess who built those roads and bridges? Think Silk Road. China.
How is Iran collecting the money? In yuan. Chinese yuan.
This is about economic destructions of one's enemies. It's about the dollar hegemony (petrodollar). The debt levels are obscene in the West. 2030 is almost here....bye-bye dollar, welcome digital wallet and surveillance.
My apologies, not Iraq but Iran. Sorry. Late night post.
A problem with these tariffs, as I’ve been writing here from the start, is that there is a large number of goods that the US needs in large quantities from China. This particularly includes goods required for re-industrialisation, e.g. in electrification of more production processes for full automation using robotics. The tariffs create revenue (i.e. load on US business and consumers), without for now phasing out income tax, but they do not help at all in repatriating manufacturing due to bad targeting, unpredictability due to use as a flexible political instrument, and their exploitation by the frankly corrupt and mercurial nature of too many characters in the Trump admin.
Seeing spectacular maximally abstracted war profiteering due to insider trading on strike timings while mfg output has been shrinking basically since Trump entered office is a sad spectacle.
The only space where a material economic race has recently been going well for the US and its bloc has been AI. This needs a huge amount of semiconductor production and grid buildout. The former requires a lot of helium, the production of which has been hit particularly hard by Iran’s Qatar strikes and the Strait closure; the latter is very much dependent on Chinese exports, which China is probably not too inclined to bend over backwards for, under various sanctions.
Meanwhile China rapidly advances down the structure size race in their homegrown photolithography, i.e. own semiconductor manufacturing.
See my earlier post about the silk road
Can’t see what you’re referencing here?
They lost their hand on Sunday.
To the victor go the spoils. Military, the US militarily is the Victor. They don’t have the power left to defeat us as was displayed last Sunday. After Trump’s Truth of Bridges, etc, Iran requested negotiations. The previous plan remains in his back pocket. The deal was requested by Iran of the victor. The onus remains on Iran to comply.
There is only the "Pyrrhic Victory for the "LINDSAY GRAHAM CLASS''".
The Fatmericans have to leave West Asia, the Gulf States must make amends to Iran, rid themselves of the Zionist Menace and the Israhelli Zio-Kikes get the privilege of becoming the "Mediterranean Sea Pedestrians", through the strait of Gibraltar... to where exactly?
You are replying to the wrong person. Not my comment.
Michelle Dostie
3d
"To the victor go the spoils. Military, the US militarily is the Victor"
Seek help.
In a matter of minutes, love the title of this article
This seems like a good prediction (that full hostilities will resume).
Trump wants it to be that people do NOT know what he thinks, and do not know what he will do next. On both sides (well, all 15 sides).
Certainly this may have been a strategic pause by the US, to allow for new munitions to arrive, or something else to happen, eg, for the 2nd group of Marines to arrive.
We shall see.
One guess is that he wants it to be clear that the Iranian regime MUST change a lot more.
It is also apparent that either (i) Iran will break any deal made, or (ii) no one person in Iran has control, and can get the missiles and drones to stop. Control is too dispersed.
You can well expect that Trump thinks that these on again / off again pressures will cause the Iranian regime (whatever it is now) to crack. I strongly suspect that there are fissures.
It would be nice if they (the regime people) took the pause to fight and kill each other, to gain power.
But I do think these internal fights (however kinetic they become) give our Intel people a better idea of how the regime is working now (and also how it is NOT working).
"The better to eat you with, my dear!"
I’m not convinced they ever stopped?
More like a brief lull rather than a cessation.
Halftime.
Ha yes. Wonderful title.
I will note that Trump is the only US President naturally suited to wrangling with Armenian rug merchants in the bazaar, so to speak. Sober analyses here probably do not apply.
Rug merchants, very apt. My experience in Istanbul and other places is that anyone who comes up to you on the street is looking to sell you a carpet. Everyone has a father/cousin/brother/uncle/son with a carpet shop.
Word to the wise
There's a reason certain expressions are universally and immediately understood.
And it's a good reminder that the Middle East, regardless of how anyone might try to convince anyone else otherwise, is one culture. It's really not many all in conflict. It's a bunch of cousins who all hate one another because they each insist that Grandpa loves 'em best.
And these are people whose families have been fighting each other for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Probably over a carpet too.
This ceasefire never should have been announced. First of all, it is not clear that anyone is fully in charge in Iran at this point. Individual commanders in the field may continued to launch strikes regardless of any official cease fire. Those that are possibly in charge are apparently under the impression that they can somehow get Trump to capitulate, and will frame any concession on his part as capitulation.
No matter how one feels about this endeavor, or how it's going, the U.S. and Israel are in it now, and need to finish it in a way that leaves only the barest fig leaf for Iran at most. This includes the destruction of Iran's oil and energy infrastructure. As I noted before, Iran's ability to knock out all energy production across the middle east is uncertain. That they cannot impact other major producers is certain.
I've pointed out repeatedly over the years that one of the primary faults in western thinking is to assume that everyone is just like them. They are not. The current Iranian leadership cannot be treated like the representatives of average western governments. These people are not normal in the western sense. Therefore, they cannot be bargained with in the normal western sense.
If the IRGC commanders currently running Iran cannot be removed, then they cannot be left with anything with which to run Iran. It is really that simple. A negotiated settlement that leaves the current structure in place would be a failure.
Yep. I'm sick of my tax money being spent outside US borders, but that's irrelevant now. It's already been done. Now I want to see this finished permanently and quickly lest it become yet another Afghanistan.
Demand your Armed Forces to come home!
Fatmerica does not belong in West Asia, and never did,
or Venezuela, Europe, S Korea and Japan.
"This ceasefire never should have been announced."
Unless of course the aim was for the US to "virtue signal" that they had tried and tried to take the high road, but the enemy Just Wouldn't Keep Their Word.
I think you are right.
Except that you seem to be sarcastic, and implying that this Iran regime (same as the old regime, but different) would SUDDENLY after decades become a reliable partner to negotiate with.
They will not keep their word. Are you suggesting otherwise?
If so, tell us why we should even entertain that idea for 5 mins.
No, furthest thing from my mind. I'm aware they break agreements at a whim, and lie like rugs (and rug peddlers), and that's never going to change. But there's a partisan, complicit segment of the world that howls every time you proclaim that simple truth.
Another world-is-watching example of the truth of it, immediately before bombing them back to the 19th century, would have its own global PR value.
Competent thieves and raiders spend as much time planning a foolproof getaway as they do planning the intrusion. This might be part of that planning.
The stock market went up. Good enough for a day's work.
No thanks. We should just stop supporting the actual terrorist nation over there and simply conduct commerce with the others.
I'm glad Trump moved forward without getting Israel on board with the ceasefire. They did not partner with us throughout but sought their own ends, so this will set some boundaries.
So let's see what happens next.
The risk right now is that the Lebanon bombardment brings down what remains of this arrangement. I get that the Israelis (and I guess the US following their lead) regard the Lebanese campaign as a totally separate theatre but the Iranians probably don't agree.
The current Iranian leadership will not agree to anything that doesn't look like a win for them and a capitulation by the U.S. They've surmised, probably correctly, that the U.S. does not have the intestinal fortitude to do what is necessary to remove them from power, or to incapacitate the Iranian economy. This is unfortunate. A hallmark of American military engagement since 1945 has been a) an over estimation of our enemies, and b) an under application of force. A rare exception to this was the first Iraq war, in which the U.S. Airforce carpet bombed Iraqi positions.
"A hallmark of American military engagement since 1945 has been a) an over estimation of our enemies"
I would have gone the other way. It's always presented as a "week-long cakewalk" that turns into decades. Maduro has been the only raid that actually conformed to the promised pattern.
I would disagree. When the U.S. applies proper force, as in the first Iraq war, things generally go well. Remember the Highway of Death, where the U.S. military shot up a retreating Iraqi column?
In the initial stages of the second Iraq war the story was similar, the Iraqi military was rolled up. Where the U.S. fell down was during the occupation. One of the more famous incidents early in the insurgency was when one of the militias under the control of Muqtada Al Sadr holed up in some old mosque in Baghdad. Rather than simply blow up the mosque (the proper response), our guys negotiated to let these guys go free. Never was an attempt made on Al Sadr's life, they let the guy walk around inciting the insurgency. Fallujah was another incident, a militia holed up in an entire town. The Marines laid siege and eventually took the town, but the more appropriate response would have been to just drop a MOAB on it and be done.
When these wars turn into long drawn out events, it is because the U.S. chooses not to nip problems in the bud. When the problems do arise, the U.S. does not use sufficient force put them down.
All Fatmerica has to do is leave West Asia, as well as Venezuela, Europe, S Korea and Japan.
Well, Hezbollah is merely an IRGC proxy, so there is that.
You are merely an apologist for Fatmerica's behaviour.
"Tit for Tat", remember!
I hope that that will be the moment that cues Trump to put his foot down again and decouple from Israel's seemingly blind mission to wreak all the destruction they can with us as cover.
You speak as though there is a clear, reasonable, and agreed "agreement".
And that the Iranians, if just we (US/Israel) would behave ourselves, would actually support that agreement to the letter.
But those are hopeless assumptions.
Ex1: Iran is firing many missiles and drones, and almost NONE of that can be laid to the Lebanon fires by Israel.
There is no risk. There is no universe in which this non-agreement ceasefire would ever hold.
Although, out of this mess, we (esp Iran) may arrive at some clarity. Eg, they will NOT get to control Hormuz.
Well, I don't think the Israelis consider it a separate theatre. I think the Israelis are telling the mullahs "we're gonna get your boys, regardless."
[please mark this historical moment where I have disagreed with you.]
Or there's the other interpretation -- that the US deliberately left both Lebanon and Israel out of the ceasefire accords so that Israel could poke the bear again as soon as the ceasefire went into effect. Questions of honor aside, I can appreciate the tactical advantages of doing this -- it makes Iran continue to look irrational and untrustworthy.
Hard to fault a country for focusing on its own interests when it’s being framed as a ‘one-bomb country’ by its enemies.
From their point of view, I agree. But I don't see why we have to support every point of theirs. They can go their way in some things, as can we. It might be a good way to move forward in general.
First, the Collective Waste leave Iran alone.
All this is being projected from great distances, while the protagonists go overboard to entice local ethnicities to degrade themselves to proxies.
The eradication of Israhell is the most important action to lead the region back to detente.
The Perfidium really screwed it for everybody back in 1917.
Yeah I am almost willing to credit the US with a 5D chess move here. Or at least, a hostage video. The blinks of the hostage is telling us
“Israel… won’t… allow… peace”.
The US admin can’t say that outright, but Israel is extremely predictable and can be easily exposed into revealing that it is vehemently opposed to any form of de-escalation or actual ceasefire, let alone any peace agreement.
It's almost like (plot twist!) Israel is the actual terrorist state.
Who knew?! 😁
Quoting the WSJ on 'news' is repeating leftist perspectives--only their OpEds can reasonably be considered centrist or conservative, certainly not their reporting. I doubt that Israel was blindsided by this, and any assertion they were is for PR and plausible deniability purposes only. And no, Trump was not conned, duped, pressured, manipulated, or forced into any arrangement with Israel. If the commentariat would take one hour to read Trump's National Defense and National Security Strategies, this looks to be one more piece of a much larger strategy to usher in a new geopolitical arrangement.
That's one way to look at it. I just hope that's not it. And I know Trump is very, very pro-Israel, but that doesn't mean he agrees with everything, whether or not he's in cahoots with a larger picture. There's a lot of crazy stuff that we're hearing about daily, and seeing. It overwhelms me.
Of course anything can happen in this crazy, mixed-up world so it is indeed hard to venture anything definitive about what is going on and what is likely to happen. My guess though is that the US will not resume any hostilities, at least for the so called 2 week cease fire period and probably not after that. Iran is saying they are not happy that their proxies in Lebanon continue to get hammered by the Israelis and have therefore threatened to resume firing missiles upon Israel even though nothing in the pseudo 10-15 point secret plans specified that Lebanon equals Iran. But if they do that, they may be surprised that without the US pulling on the Israeli leash, the Israelis may actually carry out the program that the POTUS outlined would occur if the Strait of Hormuz did not allow international shipping to pass through which, at least, for now is still the case. It certainly would make sense for the Israelis to so economically cripple Iran that their and their allies ability to threaten Israel would be dramatically diminished. The Emperor Napoleon once responded to an inquiry regarding how he proceeded to undertake a military campaign with the reply "On s'engage et puis on voit." First you commit yourself and then one sees how things shake out'. The best laid plans often go awry after the first shot anyway but that does not mean that one stays out of the fray because of the uncertainty of the outcome. I think that is where we are right now, trying to figure out how things are shaking out.
The mediator, the Pakistani PM, explicitly stated that the ceasefire includes Lebanon, in his announcement of the ceasefire. I can accept it’s possible Israel wasn’t consulted (as they claim) - the Trump admin is easily that incompetent. However the admin can be in no doubt whatsoever that the US agreed with Iran, via Pakistan, that a ceasefire in Lebanon was an explicit condition of the ceasefire. So the US is openly, blatantly and provably lying again. Just like Witkoff and Kushner did in the previous negotiations. The world sees it, even Israel sees it (hence their loud complaints). Only MAGA Boomers in their retirement villages believe the obvious lies of the US admin.
The POTUS and the Israeli PM say you are all wet.
Do you have any sort of point? The facts are crystal clear. Trump is lying to our faces our out of his mind. Possibly both. I don’t dispute that Israel might not have been asked to include Lebanon, but the US clearly did.
There are a few truths to this situation
- the US wants out because they are the stewards of the global economy and trumps political future will not survive a hard recession
- the israelis and the gulf countries are net losers, but, the iranians are unable to inflict sufficient damage like they can do the gulf states. Ergo, Israel has no incentive to stop
- the americans are incapable of actually reigning them in, to the extent that they would militarily deny them support
The ceasefire will not survive long like this
Trumps politcal future? He has none. He is in his second term. It’s done now.
There's always the Supreme Court,
I'm kidding, he's an old man.
Hard also not a lawyer. Lol Though I wouldn’t put it past him. Haha
You have no clue, none.
Explain?
Stewards of the economy?
They are the weight behind Global Organized Crime!
That title is simply perfect!
What is known today is the entire Iranian regime that exsisted on March 1st 2026 is dead, clergy dead, the Iranian Navy, Airforce personnel and equipment destroyed, the IRGC crippled, the Nuclear facilities decimated, the Intelligence apparatus & warning systems destroyed, military focused infrastructure destroyed. But if Bagdad Bob's cousin Ali Bob is saying Iran is victorious over their imaginary foe The Great Satan I suggest one take their words with a grain of salt.
America is likely negotiating with a few who'd like to see the sun come up tomorrow.
No one wanted this war but 47 years of Iranian (directly or indirectly invovled) violence against the US, Isreal (Oct 7th) and others and with enough enriched uranium to create a nuke that could reach the USA, Israel, neighbors and the EU on missle's capable of further distances they lied about having it was time to bring the Iranian regime to its knees.
The world has changed for the better elimanating a suicidal regime.
Thankfully America and Israel have leaders with big balls. 🇺🇸🇮🇱
The U$A/Israhell Epstein class has never had any business in the Persian Gulf. Those GCC countries are as good as fake, their leaders do not support their people.
The U$A itself is collapsing, as its citizens materialist fortunes decline everyday, their spiritual fortunes greatly impoverished being led by a Death Cult.
"The world has changed for the better elimanating a suicidal regime."
"Thankfully America and Israel have leaders with big balls"
What balls? World's leading "Tranny Nations" instead!
Good bye U$A/Israhell!
You really need to get out more.
I'm on the deck riding Strava hill repeats.
Sunny, 7 degrees.
I read a Substack post about how this "ceasefire" is simply a window in which Trump is maneuvering serious military assets into the region, and when and how they might be deployed. If that post is even half right, it seems clear Trump does not expect the ceasefire to lead to any meaningful peace negotiations. But as he might say, I don't want to have to do that, but I probably will. Me, I have no clue, and appreciate your continued analysis.
I think that is a serious possibility, that it is about gaining time to stage forces. But, if Iran just continues attacking in the meantime then it's unclear what the US gains by just standing down. Also Trump and administration officials spent this morning talking as if the war was basically over and you had Hegseth at a press conference declaring maximum victory. I get that misdirection is a thing but it's kind of odd to go out on a limb like that if hostilities are going to resume in a few weeks – discrediting at the very least. I don't know, I guess we'll see.
Here's a link to that post:
https://substack.com/@charliepgarcia/note/c-239909606
Please delete if this somehow violates something. Just wanted to put it out there.
Someone help me with Warball scoring. If one is rooting for US/Israel, and US and Iran claim victory while Israel says defeat, is it called a draw?
There’s nothing like war to remind us here in the US that we mere citizens lack any control over our government. We can do nothing but wait and see.
A supremely clever headline requires a supremely clever lede photo:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GN9zBDSXUAAL2RU?format=jpg
Per Reuters about 7 hours ago, the Straits never opened. About 5 hours ago the Iranian National Security Council stated that the Straits would not beopened and around four hours ago the IRGC Navy announced any unauthorised vessels trying to transit would be targeted and destroyed.
No they won't. The whole concept of negotiating with Iran is a farce. Iran "negotiating" means lying, buying time, and continuing its attacks, which it is already doing. We broke a lot of stuff, but I don't see that we are anywhere that we have not already been in almost fifty years.
Iran has remained stationary and has not ventured to North America to prosecute similar terrorism, like the U$A. Iran has no imperialistic ambitions like Fatmerica.
Fatmerica, or U$A/Israhell Epstein Class do not understand individual nations sovereignty.
Therefore, this imperialistic behaviour continues, and gets more odious each day.
About 4 hours ago, per WSJ, Iran advised the Pakistani mediators that Iran will not be going to Islamabad to negotiate unless and until the ceasefire includes Lebanon.
The Americans negotiating a peace that opens the strait would be welcome. Hopefully Israel doesn't kill the Iranian negotiator. If such a peace decouples the US from Israel, so much the better.
Whats your problem with Israel ?
Their belligerence far exceeds their weight. Which would be fine, they can behave however they want, but the Americans have protected them from the consequences of that behaviour. Either through direct military action, such as Iran and Iraq, or with American tax dollars to fund or supply its weapons Were that not the case, they would need to be far more temperate with the larger, more populous nations that are in its neighbourhood.
belligerence ? LOFL !
Israel has no right to exist.
It was merely a gentleman's agreement between Lord Balfour and Zio-Kike representatives.
The "Balfour Declaration" had no ascent from HoC, nor from the Royal Office.
Neutralize Fatmerica's ability to wage war, then NEGOTIATIONS!
The U$A/Israhell Epstein Class has no credibility, integrity, agreement capability, morals, ethics, values... what is redeemable from this inhuman co-operation?
Fatmericans must leave West Asia; the Occupiers of Palestine... not so good luck.
Give it a rest, Abdulah.
You know nothing of me; I know nothing of you... FAGGOT.
Are you also an acolyte of Lindsay Graham?
Who in their right mind would go to war with the US with the end goal of disarming the strongest military on the planet? Don't be daft.
The U$A will do it because their only spoken option is trying to kill everybody!
Everybody will not want that: 7.8 billion vs. 0.35 billion... sounds fair, eh?
Now I can guarantee the U$A will not be a military factor by 2030:
West Asia wants them out; Eurotrash want them out; N and S Korea are embracing peace and reunification diplomacy; China and Taiwan are also.
Speaking, not firing ordinances at each other.
Make it catch on.
You're funny, I like you.