Writes Philip Klein in "Donald Trump Wasn’t Bluffing on Iran" (National Review).
From the comments over there: "How Barack Obama must feel now, having tried sucking up to the Ayatollah, then bribing him (as did Biden later), and now finally realizing, after mocking Trump and denouncing Trump and lying about Trump, that the president who will be remembered as being truly consequential, is Trump. Sleep well, President Obama. Trump got him."
Which causes another commenter to quote this:
Posts
245 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 245 of 245I have good friends whose parents live in Tehran. Middle class, conservative, not overtly political. Both families are overjoyed about the Israeli/US attacks last year and now. In response to my expressions of concern, both have said that if their home is destroyed or they are killed in the attacks it will be worth it.
Trump just said there will “likely be more American deaths, but that’s how it is”. Tell me how any American military members’ death is justified over Trump and Netanyahu’s war with Iran?
You people sound as gullible as Republicans were when we were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
It’s astounding how Trumpists can just forget what Trump ran on, no new wars, the man who brags about a Peace Council and longs to get Nobel Peace prize.
“…both have said that if their home is destroyed or they are killed in the attacks it will be worth it. “
Do they think American deaths are worth it for them too?
@ Tim in Vermont
Don't you have anything better to do?
Obama's Iran-Hamas Affair has been aborted and soon sequestered.
Were any Americans captured and sodomized? Already an improvement over previous administrations.
Inga,
whether it's worth risking American deaths is a matter for Americans. You can make the case that the attacks advance important American interests, but it is for Americans to decide.
My comment was intended to add to the thread my first-hand knowledge that there are many ordinary citizens of Iran who are willing to risk their own lives to be finally free of this appalling tyranny. That is a fact.
It’s astounding how Trumpists can just forget what Trump ran on, no new wars, the man who brags about a Peace Council and longs to get Nobel Peace prize.
We didn't forget. And you didn't vote for him, so whatever campaign promises you think he's breaking doesn't mean shit coming from you.
"In response to my expressions of concern, both have said that if their home is destroyed or they are killed in the attacks it will be worth it."
With that sort of attitude, they'll never be quoted in the NYT.
$1.99 a gallon gasoline, we hardly knew ya. In fact, we haven't seen you in years.
Globalization is an integrated phenomenon.
$1.99 a gallon gasoline, we hardly knew ya. In fact, we haven't seen you in years.
Not for nothing…
https://www.marinetraffic.org/HORMUZ-STRAIT/ship-traffic-tracker
Trump’s War on Iran Threatens to Drive Up Oil Prices and Inflation ~ WSJ
"Disruption to the Middle East’s prodigious energy exports could have far-reaching economic consequences“Iran warned vessels not to enter the Strait of Hormuz, a vital thoroughfare for nearly a fifth of global petroleum supplies. A surge in energy costs could stoke inflation, threatening the global economy and prompting central banks to halt interest-rate cuts.”
Trump’s War on Iran Threatens to Drive Up Oil Prices and Inflation ~ WSJ
“An attempt to shut the strait for a prolonged period, one possible act of retaliation by Iran, would be the doomsday scenario for global oil markets.”
“Almost a fifth of the petroleum consumed around the world each day flows through the deep channel between Iran and Oman, much of it from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab producers.”
“In the past, big supply outages—or even the threat of them—have led to a surge in oil prices that stoked inflation and rippled throughout the world economy with far-reaching consequences.”
“A surge in energy costs would squeeze consumers and threaten to upend a fragile global economy already battered by trade conflicts.
It could also encourage central banks to stop lowering interest rates, or even prompt some to raise them.”
So, civilian casualties through immigration reform is no longer a viable Choice... choice? Blue lives matter, too?
https://comexlive.org
Oil is up 10% since the close on Friday, it's almost $80, it was $64 just a few days ago.
Jaq (8:03am) says he’s going to give his next absentee ballot to his Trump-hating significant other (“SO”) to fill out and vote however s/he pleases. I am not a lawyer, but I suspect one or both of them will be committing one or more felonies when he does that. If not illegal, it’s certainly immoral and un-American, grossly violating the principle “One man, one vote”.
Of course, we already knew he’s un-American: his repeated insistence that Russia and China, as former long-time colonial occupiers, have a perfect right to invade Ukraine and Taiwan, violates the fundamental democratic principle of self-determination and popular sovereignty. But everything he has ever written about world politics has been perfectly in accord with Putinite policy. He’s a neo-Stalinist.
If you want to cross the Strait, you have to pay the insurance company 10% of the total value of your cargo plus the value of your ship
"Oil is up 10% since the close on Friday, it's almost $80,"
Don't you have to phrase that as a question?
so you're a freight expert now, fantastic,
MAGA coalition was not large enough to just throw the people who believed Trump when he said "I want to bring and end to these endless wars" overboard.
"so you're a freight expert now, fantastic,"
I am quoting from a link I gave you to "What's happening in shipping" a channel run by a former merchant marine sailor.
Iran's Top 20 Attacks On The West
How is this not a war directed at us?
Just asking questions.
Inga said...
“…both have said that if their home is destroyed or they are killed in the attacks it will be worth it. “
Do they think American deaths are worth it for them too?
I joined the army under Bush because I thought Bush was going to do what Trump is doing now. Turns out Bush was a lying piece of shit neocon.
The Armed forces are being used the right way now.
Iranian women are dancing in the street. The enemies of freedom are being wiped out without the shackles Bush and Obama put on us.
Pieces of shit like you who don't deserve the freedom you were given are mad those women are free.
I wish we could send all of the enemies of freedom like you to Afghanistan and replace you with the decent people of Iran who are going to respect the freedom they will be given.
Jaq said...
MAGA coalition was not large enough to just throw the people who believed Trump when he said "I want to bring and end to these endless wars" overboard.
Trump is ending one of those endless wars.
You are just too stupid to realize that.
Timmeh has 'become tiresome" like trying to teach a pig french
How many U.S. citizens have to die at the hands of illegal immigrants before Inga is against illegal immigration?
Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils...often times, in fact. That's the world we are in.
Emigration reform. Iran is at the nexus of one of the longstanding puzzles to be solved... and one less conflict left to our [unPlanned] Posterity.
Iran, before Afghanistan fell.
"How many U.S. citizens have to die at the hands of illegal immigrants before Inga is against illegal immigration?"
Inga doesn't care. Illegal immigration benefits her political party, so those deaths are acceptable collateral damage.
“It’s astounding how Trumpists can just forget what Trump ran on, no new wars”
Yeah but you voted against him, so you should be happy.
For those who are interested, and still sane and capable of rational thought, the actual oil futures prices going forward by the month, are here:
https://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/CL_.html
@Jaq my advice is you should bet the farm based on the information you're providing, and please keep us updated on your results.
Iran's Top 20 Attacks On The West
This is not a new war. President after president has absorbed attacks from Iran and done nothing. It's clear Iran is not going to stop if we just sit back and take it.
Trump appears to have launched this war because he saw the Iranian regime at its weakest point, not because it presented an imminent threat. Over the past two years, Iran's proxies have been decimated, its nuclear program severely degraded (if not fully “obliterated,” as Trump claimed) and its domestic legitimacy shattered.
Trump may be hoping—much like the January attempt in Venezuela—that a decisive blow could decapitate the regime and open the door to a deal with insiders. That scenario, however, is not unfolding in Iran. Instead, facing what it views as an existential war it has long prepared for, the regime has struck back aggressively across the region: targeting Israel, hitting US assets throughout the Gulf, and disrupting oil flows. The fact that bombs are now falling on neighboring countries that had urged restraint seems to matter little to an Iranian military driven by revenge.
At some point soon, Trump may choose to declare victory and try to move on. As past presidents have learned, starting a war in the Middle East is far easier than ending one.
By contrast, Democrats—and even some MAGA Republicans—have sharply criticized Trump's decision to attack Iran. A YouGov poll from last week found that just 27% of Americans supported using military force against Iran.The public, if not Trump's administration, appears to have absorbed the hard lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The wholesale obliteration of Obama and Biden foreign policy is one of my favorite things about Trump 47.
How many people have suffered and died because of how they dealt with Iran?
“Trump appears to have launched this war because he saw the Iranian regime at its weakest point”
And your point is?
"It's clear Iran is not going to stop if we just sit back and take it."
Question: Recognizing the above, if Iran managed to build a nuclear weapon, what do you suppose they would do with it?
It's hard to keep your story straight when you're just making it up as you go. Trump is once again calling on Iran's Revolutionary Guard and other forces to lay down their weapons—but to whom, exactly? And who’s supposed to grant them this promised immunity? Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh?"
Trump Says War Could Last Weeks and Offers Contradictory Visions of New Regime ~ NYT
"In a brief interview, he said the country’s hardened military should simply surrender their weapons to the Iranian public."
"Among the options he suggested was an outcome similar to what he engineered in Venezuela, in which only the top leader was removed during an American military strike and much of the rest of the government remained in place, but newly willing to work pragmatically with the United States."
"Question: Recognizing the above, if Iran managed to build a nuclear weapon, what do you suppose they would do with it?"
Worst case scenario: Iran with a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missile could kill tens of millions of us with an EMP attack.
Eve Marie writes: "And your point is?"
It does not answer the question of what comes next.
Trump instructed the IRGC to “lay down your weapons” and urged the Iranian people to “take over your government.” Both directives were strikingly short on specifics. The IRGC is under heavy aerial bombardment; even if its members chose to surrender, there is no alternative authority or opposing army inside Iran to whom they could hand over their arms.
Protesters who have opposed the Islamic regime might reasonably ask how they are supposed to simply seize control. Trump assured them, “When we are finished . . . it will be yours to take.” Really?
The apparent hope is that decapitating the leadership and destroying the regime’s military will trigger an organic, spontaneous transition to a new political order—no further U.S. intervention required. History offers little reason to believe this will succeed.
"Worst case scenario: Iran with a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missile could kill tens of millions of us with an EMP attack."
Would people who consider us "The Great Satan" and call for "Death to America!" actually do something like that?
The lesson of this war? Aging dictators should get out while the getting is good. ~ JD Vance
Tim, Tim, go away
No one wants to hear
What you have to say
FYI Price of crude this morning is less than $72 a barrel.
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