REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 6, 2026 06:34
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Monday, April 27, 2026 2:50 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


By Week’s End, Trump’s War Will Be Plainly Illegal

By Erwin Chemerinsky | April 27, 2026, 5:02 a.m. ET

Mr. Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/opinion/trump-iran-war-powers.html

President Trump’s war with Iran is almost certainly illegal: Congress hasn’t declared war or authorized it by statute, and it wasn’t precipitated by an imminent attack or a national emergency. If the war continues through Friday without congressional approval, it will clearly be illegal, having passed the 60-day threshold and the 48-hour notice period that the president is given, under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, to conduct this kind of military operation.

Whether you support or oppose this war — or, as Mr. Trump has called it, this “excursion” — time will be up. And it is the obligation of the federal courts to say so.

The resolution, often called the War Powers Act, was adopted during the Vietnam War. It applies when American troops are engaged in hostilities or in situations in which hostilities are impending — such as during this war with Iran.

Despite Mr. Trump’s saying, on Thursday, “Don’t rush me” regarding the war’s timeline, the act requires that the president withdraw our military from participation in hostilities after 60 days unless Congress has declared war, has authorized a 60-day extension or is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack against the United States. The president can extend this by 30 days if he certifies to Congress in writing that an “unavoidable military necessity” regarding the safety of our armed forces requires it.

The Iran war began on Feb. 28. For these purposes, the clock started running on March 2, when the president formally notified Congress of his military action against Iran. Congress has not declared war or done anything to authorize the war, and its refusal to do so in no way constitutes the requisite approval to continue the conflict — the War Powers Resolution doesn’t come with a check box for opting out.

If the president and Iran’s leaders don’t reach an agreement to end the war before the deadline, every indication is that Mr. Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate will ignore the act. To try to justify continuing the war, there’s a good chance they’ll come up with some new form of legal-sounding double talk. If that’s the case, it will be left to the courts to uphold the law. Suits should be brought, including by service members and by members of Congress, to enforce it.

Unfortunately, recent efforts to enforce the act have been dismissed by the courts as involving political questions that they cannot decide. For example, in Crockett v. Reagan, in 1982, a Federal District Court dismissed a lawsuit by members of Congress that challenged U.S. military assistance to El Salvador. In Doe v. Bush, in 2002, a Federal District Court dismissed a suit to enjoin President George W. Bush from invading Iraq. The court said that the issues raised were political questions “beyond the authority of a federal court to resolve.” Kucinich v. Obama, in 2011, challenged America’s military actions in Libya as violating the act and the Constitution. A Federal District Court dismissed the case.

These decisions make meaningless Congress’s war powers. In the face of congressional inaction, and without judicial enforcement, there are realistically no checks on the president’s ability to unilaterally wage war. If the federal judiciary, up to and including the Supreme Court, won’t uphold its responsibility here, it will nullify our Constitution’s design that two branches of government should be involved when our country goes to war.

The courts haven’t always been so reluctant. The Supreme Court decided several cases arising from the Quasi War, an undeclared naval war with France between 1798 and 1800: In Talbot v. Seeman (1801), the court emphasized the importance of Congress’s involvement in any type of war. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that the “whole powers of war” were vested in Congress. In Little v. Barreme (1804), the court held that even during wartime the president cannot authorize actions that violate acts of Congress.

In the Prize Cases, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of Abraham Lincoln’s blockading Southern ports in 1861. In a narrow 5-to-4 decision, the court ruled that although the president cannot initiate war, as the commander in chief he could meet an armed rebellion with force. It did not, however, question its own authority to rule on a president’s war powers.

The notion that courts cannot enforce constitutional and statutory provisions concerning war powers has no historical foundation. Nor is there any basis for arguing that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional as an infringement of the president’s powers as the commander in chief. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” That last phrase has immediate and obvious relevance when it comes to our military blockading or boarding ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Constitution’s framers unquestionably intended that the power to use military force lay with Congress. During his presidency, George Washington wrote: “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”

Yes, presidents control the execution of wars, but they don’t decide whether to take the country to war. While in Congress, James Madison wrote: “Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued or concluded.”

The courts should simply hold that the War Powers Resolution requires the president to end our involvement in the war with Iran unless and until Congress authorizes it. This shouldn’t be — and isn’t — different than any other injunction on any administration to comply with the law. Mr. Trump might disregard such an order. But that isn’t a reason for the federal judiciary to abandon its duty to enforce the law.

Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school and a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, April 27, 2026 9:35 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Jeezus, THGR, spamming the board again?

You were asking what you were wrong about? Just about every one of your threads is wrong, irrelevant, or misdirected.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Robert Barnes' interview on Trump's advancing dementia. (If Barnes' description is correct, fronto- temporal dementia.)

According to him, life in the WH is like living in an abusive household. Everyone is tiptoeing in fear of setting off a rage, not passing along negative news, and not correcting Trump's confabulations.

He made the point that "the left" created such a caricature of Trump that they're oblivious to his very real decline.


THUGR: I told you so. Again and again, I told you so and you didn't listen, did you?


No, bc most of what you posted was either complete hogwash (TRUMPRUSSIACOLLUSION!!) or irrelevant.

John Kennedy was a compulsive womanizer, high on steroids for a back problem and suffering from Cushing's syndrome.
Nixon was a paranoid drinker.
Kissinger was an amoral sociopath.
Johnson was a vicious political infighter concerned about his popularity but clueless about foreign policy and military affairs.
Carter was personally clean but ineffective.
"Billy Bob I feel your pain" Clinton was a personally charming, intelligent sociopath.
Obama was a charming devious CIA tool.

There's a difference between moral and personality defects and disconnection from reality.
Reagan suffered from Alzheimers. USA was governed by his wife.
Biden (most likely) has advanced Parkinson's and dementia. The USA was governed by Sullivan and Blinken.
Trump appears to be suffering from either PTSD or frontotemporal dementia.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger


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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 7:19 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Complex that supplies 70% of global critical PCB base targeted in Iranian strike — attack could fracture the already disrupted electronics supply chain

By Etiido Uko | April 27, 2026

A single military strike may increase the cost of your next gadget.

Iran hit the Jubail petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia on 7th April, bringing the production of high-purity polypropylene ether (PPE) resin, a critical base material for manufacturing PCB laminate, to a complete stop.

Reuters reports that SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation), which operates in the Jubail complex and accounts for approximately 70% of the global high-purity PPE supply, has been unable to resume production and supply since the event.

The impact of this strike was almost immediate, as is the reality of supply chains, and has rapidly flowed down to all industries downstream of the facility, leading to severe shortages of the critical material.

More at https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/complex-that-supplies-70-pe
rcent-of-global-critical-pcb-base-targeted-in-iranian-strike-attack-could-fracture-the-already-disrupted-electronics-supply-chain

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 8:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Oil Squeeze Tightens
Time is not on the world economy’s side
Paul Krugman
Apr 28, 2026

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-oil-squeeze-tightens

Still on vacation, but taking a brief vacation from the vacation to catch up on news and weigh in on something that is more important than Trump’s ballroom: the ongoing consequences of America’s disastrous war with Iran.

The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Iran has made a proposal for reopening, but Trump, according to the New York Times, is “dissatisfied” with the plan, among other things because “accepting it could appear to deny Mr. Trump a victory.” Indeed: Claiming victory tends to be hard when you’ve lost, badly.

How long will it take before Trump accepts the reality that he doesn’t have the cards, that in the end his Iran venture will be resolved in a way that leaves Iran stronger and America weaker than before the war? Markets are growing increasingly pessimistic. Here’s the price of Brent crude:

The price drop after the ceasefire was announced has been almost completely reversed. And the longer reality denial lasts, the worse it will get.

As I argued a week ago, ultimately the energy crisis is physical: if the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf remains deeply depressed, at some point there has to be enough “demand destruction” to bring consumption down to match the reduced supply.

That process has barely begun. According to a recent note from Goldman Sachs (no link), here’s what is going on with world oil supply and demand:
Quote:
Extreme inventory draws. We estimate that 14.5mb/d of Persian Gulf crude production losses are driving global oil inventories to draw at a record 11-12mb/d pace in April.
Translation: So far, despite much higher oil prices, demand for oil has fallen by only a fraction of the loss of supply. Instead, the world economy is running by taking oil out of storage. Since there’s only so much oil in the tanks, this can’t go on. So if the Strait doesn’t reopen, prices will have to soar high enough — and inflict sufficient economic damage — to destroy another 11 or more million barrels a day of demand. That’s a lot.

But Trump is talking about his ballroom.

This may seem weird, but it makes sense if you view it psychologically. Trump is clearly dissociating. His fragile sense of self-worth depends on constantly believing that he’s a winner while others are losers. Now he’s faced with the reality that he, more or less single-handedly, led America to humiliating strategic defeat.

He’s losing on other fronts, too. The fall of Viktor Orban was a big defeat for Trump. So, I’d argue, is the survival of Ukraine, which appears to be gradually gaining the upper hand over Putin’s Russia despite Trump’s attempt to betray our erstwhile ally.

So Trump is coping by tuning out the war he started, focusing on a grandiose, ego-boosting project that lets him assert dominance over servile Republicans and businesses that are footing the bill.

But while he may be done with his war, the war isn’t done with him — or with the world economy. And the longer his fugue state lasts, the worse the damage will get.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 2:22 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Delusional.

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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 3:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Iran Is Flooded With So Much Unsold Oil That It’s Stashing It in Derelict Tanks

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-is-flooded-with-so-much-uns
old-oil-that-its-stashing-it-in-derelict-tanks-ed8e62b1?st=DYjd2T


That doesn't sound anymore like the strategy of the winning team than ordering your own women and children to form rings around power companies and sing.

I know you guys hate Trump so much you want to see America lose this war, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.



--------------------------------------------------

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 4:44 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Iran Is Flooded With So Much Unsold Oil That It’s Stashing It in Derelict Tanks

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-is-flooded-with-so-much-uns
old-oil-that-its-stashing-it-in-derelict-tanks-ed8e62b1?st=DYjd2T


That doesn't sound anymore like the strategy of the winning team than ordering your own women and children to form rings around power companies and sing.

I know you guys hate Trump so much you want to see America lose this war, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.



--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
So far, the Iran War has cost $200 billion. That's $588 for each American, and there are 340,000,000 of them. It is simply enough that a comedian can explain why Trump didn't win, despite Trump saying a thousand times he won:

Bill Maher Flat-Out Blasts Trump on War He Supported: ‘He Keeps Saying We Won And We Didn’t’

Maher’s monologue: Lately, Trump, on the war, has been so chill. Have you noticed that? I know it’s not like him to veer erratically. But a couple of weeks ago, it was, if you don’t do what he was saying today, I’m going to destroy your civilization, bomb the sh*t out of you. Whoa.

And now it’s like, was it really a war? It’s more of a situation, really, I think.

And the problem is he keeps saying we won, and we didn’t. We didn’t.

Hormuz is not open.

The Iranian people did not do an uprising.

The regime is still in place. We did not win. Sorry.

https://www.mediaite.com/media/entertainment/bill-maher-flat-out-blast
s-trump-on-war-he-supported-he-keeps-saying-we-won-and-we-didnt

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, April 28, 2026 5:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Shut up, idiot.

We're tired of being blasted with your anti-American propaganda everyday.

Fuck you, loser. You lost. Everything.

The world you thought you knew is long dead and will never come back.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Wednesday, April 29, 2026 7:27 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut up, idiot.

We're tired of being blasted with your anti-American propaganda everyday.

Fuck you, loser. You lost. Everything.

The world you thought you knew is long dead and will never come back.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
If the Iranian government is stubborn, like the North Vietnamese government was stubborn back in the 1970's, Trump is going to be in the same difficult situation as Nixon was. How did that end for Nixon, I wonder? Can anyone tell me? This guy can:
Quote:
What people are learning is that military superiority will always be a slave to political necessity and time is a massive political consideration. It remains remarkable that this basic but fundamental lesson needs to be learned again and again.

Two Races Against Time

One of the most frustrating things of the last few months is watching with disbelief as the US government, time and again, assumes that the country it is attacking or threatening will sit there, inert, not adapting. This mistake has led to foreign policy failure after failure, as other states do not play by Washington’s supposed rules and take steps to save themselves. It has happened in the trade war, even in Venezuela (where the Maduro regime seems successfully to have saved itself by abandoning Maduro) and in the Iran War. Iran has taken adaptive steps that the US clearly did not anticipate or prepare for, from small ones like attacking facilities across the region in other Gulf States to large ones such as closing the Strait of Hormuz.
More at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/midweek-update-8-two-races-agai
nst

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, April 29, 2026 3:05 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Maybe Trump won't fail, assuming the Iranians are worse at tactics/strategy/policy than he is. Personally, I wouldn't bet that Trump performs his duties well and keeps control of himself.

The Wall Street Journal isn't ready, yet, to declare Trump lost:

It’s Way Too Early to Declare Defeat in Iran

GLOBAL VIEW By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/its-way-too-early-to-declare-defeat-in-ira
n-ff8ac396

The establishment consensus is hardening. President Trump’s war with Iran is the culminating disaster of the most damaging and misguided American foreign policy in history. Iranian leaders are humiliating the U.S., German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned. "Superpower suicide” is how Wendy Sherman, a top Iran negotiator under President Obama and Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of state, described Mr. Trump’s Iran policy to ABC News. As Ms. Sherman sees it, the Iran war has alienated allies, assisted Russia financially, and weakened America’s position vis-a-vis China. For Fareed Zakaria, the question is no longer whether the administration’s policies will backfire but whether the damage can ever be repaired.

Critics of the war believe Mr. Trump has worked himself into a trap. The military strikes aimed at decapitating Iran’s leadership brought the most radical elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to power. Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz can’t be broken without a politically unsustainable ground war. Spiking energy prices offered Vladimir Putin a financial windfall just as
Russia’s economy was buckling under the strain of sanctions. China gleefully watches America trash its European alliances and deplete munition stocks needed to defend Taiwan. Meanwhile, because the president has done little to prepare the public for a long conflict, Iran has him over a barrel, and he must bribe or beg the Iranians to give him a quick exit from an unwinnable war.

Time will tell, but it would be a mistake for investors and decision makers to assume that Mr. Trump is desperately looking for the exits. Viewed from the Oval Office, the war may seem less costly than critics charge, and the likelihood of a favorable outcome may appear significantly greater than a horrified foreign-policy establishment can bring itself to believe.

True, the war has gone on longer than originally hoped and is taking a toll on the president’s popularity. But he may feel less trapped than critics think he should. Domestically, far-right critics like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens appear to be spiraling into irrelevance as Mr. Trump maintains his hold on the affections of his base. In the Gulf, American naval forces have, without taking casualties, consolidated a crushing blockade of Iran that Tehran seems unable to counter. Financial markets have stabilized and even strengthened despite the closing of the strait. With the arrival of a third aircraft carrier in the region, American military options are expanding. And if European allies are shunning the war, support in the Gulf for a decisive effort against Iran is stronger now than at the outbreak of hostilities.

Trump’s critics think he is desperately looking for an exit. Don’t count on it.

Mr. Trump probably isn’t losing sleep over the conflict’s effect so far on the balance of power with Russia and China. Russia may be reaping windfall profits from the oil-price surge, but American energy companies are enjoying a greater and likely longer-lasting boom. In any case, 2026 has been a bad year for the Kremlin. Its weapons fizzled against Israeli and U.S. missiles; its forces are stalemated in Ukraine; its Africa Corps has sustained a humiliating setback in Mali.

Mr. Trump likely isn’t worried about China’s taking advantage of America’s Middle East focus. Iran’s failures as well as its successes give Beijing food for thought. The ability of cheap and quickly built Iranian drones to harass shipping reinforces the lessons of the Ukraine war. In the Black Sea, Ukrainian drones have confined Russia’s surface fleet to port. That’s an ominous development for a Chinese navy that would need to transport and supply large forces across the Taiwan Strait to mount a successful invasion.

Perhaps worse from Beijing’s standpoint, America’s successful blockades of Venezuela and Iran demonstrate a strategic depth and political will that could greatly complicate China’s goal of reducing Taiwan to obedience. Should China invade or blockade Taiwan, American forces could impose a crippling counterblockade from bases well beyond the reach of Chinese coastal weapons and naval forces. Mr. Trump, it should now be clear, is willing to impose such costly and disruptive blockades even in the face of strong allied and domestic opposition.

War is unpredictable, and Mr. Trump’s critics may yet have their day. While the pressure on the administration is for the moment sustainable, market turmoil or a dramatic collapse in the president’s approval ratings could make a change of course attractive to an often-impulsive administration. Still, for now the president can afford to wait and see how mounting pressure affects the Iranian side. Betting the farm on TACO scenarios seems dangerously premature.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, April 29, 2026 4:01 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Maybe Trump won't fail, assuming the Iranians are worse at tactics/strategy/policy than he is. Personally, I wouldn't bet that Trump performs his duties well and keeps control of himself.


As much as we know you'd love to see it, he won't fail. And this will be wrapped up well before election day.

Quote:
The Wall Street Journal isn't ready, yet, to declare Trump lost:

It’s Way Too Early to Declare Defeat in Iran



No shit. Anybody claiming we were defeated by Iran hates Trump so much that they are cheering for America to lose. You're all braindead meat puppets.


WSJ also said this today...



Iranians Feel the Pain as Their Economy Descends Into a Death Spiral

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iranians-feel-the-pain-as-their-
economy-descends-into-a-death-spiral-47dba669?st=3nEQei

Quote:
Daily struggles

Government revenue has dried up just as the needs of its population are rising.

The war has thrown around one million people out of work directly and another million indirectly, according to early estimates cited by Gholamhossein Mohammadi, an official at Iran’s Labor and Social-Affairs ministry. That is a significant portion of the roughly 25 million people who are normally employed in Iran.

The cost of living has soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching 67% in the month through mid-April from the same period a year earlier, according to Iran’s central bank. The subsidized price of red meat, which was mostly imported through sea routes, has gone up to the equivalent of around $3.60 a pound, beyond the reach of most in a country where the minimum wage is around $130 a month.

Iran’s national currency on Wednesday hit a record low of 1.8 million rial to the dollar.

“Living is not affordable anymore,” said Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. “Iran is at its weakest point.”

Businesses across the country—from manufacturers to retailers—are closing, residents said. The lack of steel and other raw materials is hampering production in various industries. Electronic goods, which are mostly imported, are in short supply and expensive.


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Thursday, April 30, 2026 12:01 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Maybe Trump won't fail, assuming the Iranians are worse at tactics/strategy/policy than he is. Personally, I wouldn't bet that Trump performs his duties well and keeps control of himself.


As much as we know you'd love to see it, he won't fail. And this will be wrapped up well before election day.


--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
There were Nixon voters certain that Nixon was winning in Vietnam. They got very angry when told that the Vietnam War had been lost ten years earlier, when Ngô Ðình Diem, the first president of South Vietnam, was assassinated on November 2, 1963, following a CIA-backed military coup d'état. No facts ever changed the minds of those goddamn buttheads who voted for Nixon. Facts won't change the minds of those who voted for Trump. What thrills me is what happened to the most extreme Nixon supporters -- a series of sad stories, followed by early deaths. I believe the same will happen to Trump supporters because I see them declining in health and dying early all around me. Keep up your self-destructive habits, Trumptards. The World will be better once you are dead from personal ineptitude. And 6ixStringJoker, keep smoking. Refuse to believe "every cigarette you smoke is another nail in your coffin". Instead, cigarettes are your declaration of freedom from rules that sane people follow.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 4:41 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Wow. You are so smart dude. We're all just in awe of your intelligence.

Especially your knowledge from those countless books you've never pirated, let alone ever read.


I'm just wondering now, when all of your idiots fall flat on their faces when the Iran situation turns out well and that nobody with any credibility or integrity will be able to say otherwise in retrospect, what will be the next big thing that your party runs on? I mean, we all know it will be Anti-Trump, but will we go back to an old stand-by, or are you going to cook up something new to scream about?

Don't you ever grow tired of yourself?



Meanwhile, this will be another big I Told You So from the bag, and it will be just one more thing you don't ever apologize for or even admit that you were wrong in the first place. You will immediately go to pretending that the Iranian conflict never happened in the first place, you will never mention it again, and you will ignore any threads made on the topic completely. Because this is exactly what you do all of the time.


But you keep going on and talking about my addictions and personal issues every day and lord over your false sense of moral superiority you get to have over me because you've never once displayed any proof of humanity or even a personality with your posts over the years. You don't even understand how basic human interaction works.

I can only imagine what horrible things you've done and maybe even still do that you hide from the world under all the manufactured virtue a veteran sociopath can muster.


You should know. We really take your personal insults to heart because we have all the respect in the world for you. Not just for you, but for your always correct opinion on any topic. We are truly blessed to be graced with your presence here everyday and your approval means the world to us.




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Thursday, April 30, 2026 6:35 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Wow. You are so smart dude. We're all just in awe of your intelligence.

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Be Evil. Be a dick.
Figure this one out, genius: the Vietnam War ended for the US when the troops were withdrawn by the President. North Vietnam wasn't surrendering to the US, no matter how many bombs the US dropped on it. Two months ago, Trump could have ended his Iranian War by not starting it in the first place, but Benjamin Netanyahu wanted the Ayatollah dead and Iran destroyed just because he felt like it. Iran will not be surrendering, no matter how many bombs the US drops on it. (If this war had really been about Iran's enriched Uranium, Trump would have obeyed the treaty the US signed with Iran about, wait for it, enriched Uranium. But Trump cannot control himself, and he cannot obey.)

I know what has been keeping 6ixStringJoker alive: voting for Trump.

Older Americans who vote live longer than those who don’t – new research

Published: April 27, 2026 8:17am EDT

A study found that voting, like good nutrition and exercise, could extend your lifespan.

Most people know the basics of healthy living that become more important as you grow older: Eat plenty of vegetables, exercise regularly, sleep well, have a social life, limit your alcohol consumption and don’t smoke.

We found that voters were 45% less likely to die within five years after the 2008 election, 37% less likely to die 10 years after the election, and 29% less likely to die 15 years later.

https://theconversation.com/older-americans-who-vote-live-longer-than-
those-who-dont-new-research-279933

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 7:25 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I should probably keep my replies to you under 3 sentences from now on.

You're clearly an idiot.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 7:49 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I should probably keep my replies to you under 3 sentences from now on.

You're clearly an idiot.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
How about not replying at all? Instead, continue to kill yourself with tobacco, one of the few legal forms of suicide. I've seen many Trumptards end themselves, so why not you?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 7:49 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump tells aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2026/04/29/trump-tells-aides-to-prepa
re-for-an-extended-blockade-of-iran/

The Wall Street Journal reports:

President Trump has instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran, U.S. officials said, targeting the regime’s coffers in a high-risk bid to compel a nuclear capitulation Tehran has long refused.

In recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted to continue squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from its ports. He assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried more risk than maintaining the blockade, officials said.

Yet continuing the blockade also prolongs a conflict that has driven up gas prices, hurt Trump’s poll numbers and further darkened Republicans’ prospects in the midterm elections. It has also caused the lowest number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began.

Since ending the major bombing campaign in an April 7 cease-fire, Trump has repeatedly walked back from escalating the conflict, opening space for diplomacy after earlier threatening to destroy the entirety of Iranian civilization. But he still wants to tighten the grip on the regime until it caves to his key demand: dismantling all of Iran’s nuclear work. On Monday, Trump told aides that Iran’s three-step offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and save nuclear talks for the final phase proved Tehran wasn’t negotiating in good faith, The Wall Street Journal reported.

For now, Trump is comfortable with an indefinite blockade, which he wrote Tuesday on Truth Social is pushing Iran toward a “State of Collapse.” A senior U.S. official said the blockade is demonstrably crushing Iran’s economy—it is straining to store its unsold oil—and sparked fresh outreach by the regime to Washington.

Trump’s decision represents a new phase of sorts of the war and highlights the fact that the president, who always seeks a quick and salable victory, is devoid of a silver bullet. [Continue reading…]

As the UAE decides to leave the powerful OPEC oil cartel, Pakistan has opened itself as a land corridor that could help Iran get around the Strait of Hormuz blockade – so where do these developments leave Donald Trump’s long term plans for the Iran war and the shape of the Middle East?

In this episode of The Fourcast Indicators Matt Frei and Mark Urban delve into the latest developments in Washington and Tehran and look at how Hezbollah’s new drone tactics could be forcing Israel to recalculate it’s approach in Lebanon:



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:34 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Transcript: Krugman on How Trump Accidentally Screwed Himself on Iran

As the president continues to struggle with the Iran fiasco’s global economic fallout, Paul Krugman explains how Trump has boxed himself into a corner—and why it could soon get much worse for him.

The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent / April 29, 2026

https://newrepublic.com/article/209630/transcript-krugman-trump-accide
ntally-screwed-iran

Paul Krugman: Good to be on again.

Sargent: So Trump rejected that proposal from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, perhaps in part because it would not address Trump’s demand for total termination of Iran’s nuclear program. But the New York Times had an extraordinary detail about the Iranian offer: “A U.S. official also said that accepting it could appear to deny Mr. Trump a victory.” Paul, apparently that’s the single most important factor in all of this, right?

Krugman: That’s what’s been holding everything up. For most of us, by about a week into the war, it was obvious that basically America lost. But Trump cannot bring himself to acknowledge that.

He’s been trying—he’s threatening to bomb them back into the Stone Ages, and he’s been threatening war crimes, and he’s been imposing counter-blockades against the blockade—all of which seems to be because he cannot seem to accept that actually he screwed up badly. There is no good outcome for the United States here. All we can do is accept something that actually leaves Iran stronger than it was, but he won’t do it.

Sargent: Well, we just learned that gas prices rose on Tuesday to the highest level in four years. It’s well over $4 a gallon on average. Brent crude is over $100 a barrel again. Paul, can you just walk us through the basics of how those developments are tied to the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed?

Krugman: Yeah. Before this war, about 15 percent of the world’s oil flowed through that strait. And it’s other stuff too—natural gas, helium, fertilizer—but right now let’s focus on the oil.

So 15 percent of the world’s oil goes through that narrow passageway, which is extremely easy for Iran to block. That 15 percent—there’s really not much of an exit. There’s no real way around the Iranian blockade. A little bit of stuff can go by pipeline, but not much. And that’s a lot of oil being denied to the world market. And of course, the price of oil has gone way up.

But if this continues, he ain’t seen nothing yet. Because the really interesting thing—I cited some numbers from Goldman Sachs in the Substack—although the price of oil is way up, consumption of oil is only down a little bit. And mostly what’s happening is that they’re drawing down inventories of oil, that people who have oil in storage tanks, with oil that was already on tankers, is being used up, which is all happening out of the belief that the strait will reopen soon and prices will come down.

As people start to realize that that’s not about to happen—which has been happening just over the past couple of days—then the prices have to go much, much higher.

Basically, the price of oil has to go high enough to inflict enough economic damage—we have to somehow or other stop, reduce the consumption of oil by another 11 million barrels a day. Convenient thing is that right now, world oil consumption is about 100 million a day. So that’s also about 11 percent. And it takes a huge price increase to do that.

It’s not easy to wean yourself off oil, in the matter of weeks, which is what we’re kind of expecting has to happen. So this can get much—it’s ugly already. It’s ugly politically, obviously, for Trump and the Republicans to have gas hitting its highest level in four years. But it’s going to get a lot uglier very soon unless Trump swallows his pride and accepts that he actually lost this war.

Sargent: Well, just to clarify what you’re saying here—in other words, in order to get the world to demand less oil in keeping with the fact that there’s less supply, the prices really have to go up a lot.

Krugman: I mean, think of it. There’s a certain amount of oil available, which is less than it was. You can’t burn a barrel of oil that isn’t there. So one way or another, people have to be induced to burn less oil. And the way we do that—it’s a world market—the way we do that—in effect nobody decides on it, but what happens is just that the price of oil, there’s bidding for barrels of oil, and the bidding drives the price up until the demand for oil has fallen back in line with the supply.

And the thing—a crucial point again—is oil is, to use the jargon, it’s inelastic. It’s very hard for people to switch away from oil. Give me five years and we can all be driving electric cars, but next month, we can’t. So the prices have to go really, really high to make that big of a dent in oil demand.

Sargent: Right. And so this is where your argument comes in. It’s sort of a structural argument about the situation. You wrote that Trump doesn’t have the cards in the standoff with Iran precisely because the longer we wait, the harder it gets for the world. So I guess the only way out—the only way this can be resolved—is in a way that leaves America weaker and leaves Iran stronger. Can you explain that?

Krugman: Yeah, I mean, basically Iran clearly still has the ability to block that strait. They have drones, they have missiles. The United States bombed a lot of their sites, but not enough. And these things are really easy to hide. They have speedboats.

And, if you want to think of the maximally vulnerable target—a fully loaded oil tanker. You want to hit something with bombs that will go off with a big bang and a lot of flames, it’s an oil tanker.

So Iran has the ability to block the strait. And they have every incentive to do that until they feel that they’re not facing an existential threat—the Iranian regime. So really, the strait does not get open until Trump accepts a deal that is sufficiently favorable to the Iranians for them to start letting tankers through again.

By definition—the strait was open before Trump started his war—Iran is clearly going to want to charge tolls on it. Iran is not going to cancel its nuclear program because...they’re hurting too. The United States has a blockade. Iran can’t export oil—it’s among the countries now that can’t sell oil. And they also can’t import food, which is probably more important. But they are prepared to pay that price. So in this waiting game, basically they have by far the upper hand.

Another—well, another president would not have started this idiot war in the first place. But in any case, given the situation, would say, okay, we need to face reality. I need to face reality. I messed up and I’m not going to get something that looks like victory out of this. But Trump so far won’t.

Sargent: Well, you mentioned that there’s pressure on Iran as well. And I want to ask you—is there a scenario where the pressure on Iran actually does matter and forces them to the table on terms that are more favorable to Trump?

Trump had this missive on Truth Social where he said, “Iran has just informed us that they are in a state of collapse. They want us to open the Hormuz Strait as soon as possible.”

Is this just complete bullshit? I mean, is there a scenario where the pressure on Iran does sort of force them to the table on terms that would make Trump feel a little more like a winner, or whatever the only thing that matters is?

Krugman: Yeah, it’s one of those things where—is this unadulterated bullshit? No, it’s adulterated bullshit. I mean, Iran is hurting. Their economy normally depends overwhelmingly on selling oil. And again, they actually import food. So there’s going to be a lot of unemployed, hungry Iranians, a lot of economic disruption—maybe even, if this goes on long enough, maybe even runaway inflation in Iran.

But this is a fanatical, theocratic regime which is completely willing to kill its own people to stay in power. That is not going to force them to cave. And on the other hand, the whole world economy outside the Persian Gulf is looking at very nasty consequences, including the United States and the political consequences of—I guess, $4.18-a-gallon oil today and much more than that for diesel, by the way. So there are other things that are hurting even more.

It’s very unlikely that the United States is prepared to deal with multiple months of this stuff. So, yeah, it’s not the case that [it’s all] Iran is hurting us and we aren’t hurting Iran. But if you ask who is going to have to cry uncle sooner, it’s almost certainly us.

Sargent: Well, beyond this one missive on Truth Social, Trump keeps making the opposite argument in a bigger sense. He keeps saying Iran has been totally defeated. And as you mentioned, it’s true that Iran’s military has been badly degraded. But Trump also says time is on his side. He doesn’t feel rushed to make a deal at all. He’s perfectly happy to wait until Iran submits and gives him his way—that’s almost exactly verbatim what he’s saying.

Paul, I think the temptation is strong to read that as sort of typical Trumpian bluster, but it seems plausible to me that he doesn’t understand the situation at the most fundamental level, in the sense that he doesn’t understand that Iran has some leverage here precisely because he can’t accept that thought [that] he’d be the submissive one and they’d be the dominant one. And that doesn’t compute in Trump’s brain. Do you think that’s plausible, that he just doesn’t know that he is kind of on the losing end of the situation in some ways?

Krugman: I think he’s in a kind of superimposed state where at some level he does know, but he can’t bring himself to admit it, even to himself. We got into this mess, he pulled us into this mess, in part because he has a completely wrongheaded notion of what war is about. He thinks if we have more bombs and we can kill more people, then of course we have the upper hand. That has never been what war is about. It’s always about ends and means and ability to inflict pain.

And he reverts to that over and over again. I’m not a young kid and I remember Vietnam and body counts. And a lot of what Trump says is reminiscent of the body counts. We have destroyed—actually, it turns out that we were much less successful in destroying their missiles and drones than a lot of the claims. In any case, that is not what it’s about.

But Trump just has this, I have the ability to carry out violence, so surely I can’t be losing this war if I can do violence and they can’t do equivalent amounts of violence in return. Except the problem is that it’s not what they can do to America’s military. It’s what they can do to oil tankers that try to exit the Persian Gulf.

Sargent: Right. In his head, he’s always the winner. So he can’t be losing. Isn’t that the basic size of it?

Krugman: Yeah, all of it ties together. I mean, the inability to accept that they lost the 2020 election is part of the same syndrome, you know. A guy who can’t admit that he lost a presidential election to Joe Biden is not going to be able to admit that he lost a war to the mullahs of Iran.

Sargent: That seems like a plausible reading. So The Times has this other report laying out how Republicans are anxious about the midterms, and the factors they cite are the war, gas prices, and affordability more generally. They’re describing this with words like “bleak.”

But it seems like Trump—who keeps saying time is on his side, as we mentioned—isn’t letting that intrude on his calculations either. And yet Republicans can’t push him to change course because they’re not allowed to say he’s not in the midst of a glorious triumph. Paul, what do you make of that dynamic?

Krugman: The moral, intellectual, emotional collapse of the Republican Party is in a way a bigger story than Trump. I mean, yeah, he’s a world-class, bizarre, dangerous person, but what makes him able to do this is the submissiveness of his party.

The celebration of a guy who is an absolute disaster at presidenting—he has led, more or less single-handedly, on his own decisions, his own faith, his own judgment, he has led America into one of our worst strategic defeats in our history. He took on this relatively small military power in Iran, figuring that he could destroy the regime and install his people in a few days, and he lost the war.

But his party will never admit that. They’re busy—just an item that crossed earlier, a couple of hours before we recorded this—the State Department is getting ready to put Trump’s picture on U.S. passports. This cult of personality around a guy who is objectively maybe the biggest loser in the history of U.S. presidents. It’s just amazing.

Sargent: Yeah, I just want to clarify that that was a report in The Bulwark about the passports and Trump’s face. Can I ask you about the global economy? You mentioned that it’s in pretty rough shape right now. What do you predict is going to happen with the global economy over, I don’t know, the next six months to a year?

Krugman: Well, tell me what’s going to happen with the Strait of Hormuz, and that makes all the difference in the world. I don’t think the global economy was in dire straits. There were some wobbles, but it wasn’t that bad before the war. And if the price of oil stayed where it is right now, then we’re talking about a significant but not catastrophic hit to global growth.

The trouble is that the world has not adapted to 15 percent less oil yet. If the strait stays closed, it will have to. And I tried—I did this in a Substack post a few days ago—if your forecast about world oil prices does not lead to a severe economic blow to the world economy, your forecast is too low. Because there’s no scenario in which we get by with 15 percent less oil that doesn’t involve a global recession.

So if the strait stays closed, one way or another we will have a global recession. I don’t know what oil price that will mean—$150 a barrel, $200 a barrel. I can do some economic algebra there and try to give you an estimate, but it’s really all over the place. High enough that we have a global recession, because that’s the only way to reduce oil consumption that much that fast.

Sargent: Right. And that’s built into the structural situation that we described earlier, right? In the sense that Iran knows that if the strait remains closed, the global economy could very well go into recession. So that incentivizes them to not give in, right?

Krugman: Time is very definitely on their side. We’re burning through whatever oil was in storage very fast. And as that happens, the situation gets grimmer. They’re suffering too, but time is on their side. It gives them every incentive to hang tough for something that looks like a victory to them.

And this is another thing where I don’t think Trump understands. For him, everything is about appearance and illusion, and he’s going to goose the markets and try to produce confidence. He’s done that now four times—he’s goosed the markets by saying peace is around the corner.

And the problem for him is that this ends up being about brute physical facts. The oil is there or it’s not. And you can play confidence games for a while, but at a certain point, the reality of are those barrels actually on their way to markets or not is the story. And the Iranians are in control of how that story plays out.

Sargent: Well, maybe you can explain something to all of us. Why do the markets keep going up when he gooses them? Can you explain that dynamic? It’s still something that puzzles me. It seems very obvious that Trump is goosing the markets and yet the markets get goosed. Why?

Krugman: Anybody who tries to explain what the stock market in particular does—God knows. It’s not a good predictor of the future. My old teacher, Paul Samuelson, famously said that the market had predicted nine of the last five recessions.

So the market has got its own psychology. I think we went through a long period when anybody who went optimist, people who bought the dips, did very well. And it takes a while to end that psychology. Now, I think the stock market—God knows.

The oil futures market is more tied to concrete events. I think the problem with that market is they keep on thinking that Trump is going to be rational. Every time he says something that sounds like he might be willing to acknowledge reality, the oil futures drop because people think, so he’s finally ready to recognize reality. And they’ve done that four times now. And I’m not sure it’s going to happen again.

The Lucy and the football analogies seem a little too flippant for this situation. But I think that’s really where it is. At a certain point, the markets stop doing that. So far, I think people, to the extent that there’s a story, is that people in the market keep on betting that, yeah, he can’t be that crazy. And that is not a good bet.

Sargent: It seems like a terrible bet. Just to close this out—Trump may not be winning in Iran, but he’s demanding his ballroom. You made the case that he’s obsessing over the ballroom because it’s an easy area for him to assert dominance over Republicans and over donors who have to pay tribute to him.

I just want to add something to your argument. The ballroom obsessing is clearly a problem for Republicans in the midterms. It’s sort of a symbol of how out of touch he is with voters’ concerns and problems. But here again, even the most vulnerable Republicans are required to go out and cultishly declare that the ballroom has to happen and that it would be the greatest accomplishment by any leader in world history.

Now that’s a dynamic that’s just deeply baffling, but almost sort of weirdly satisfying because their continued hagiography about Trump could screw them almost more than anyone else.

Krugman: Yeah, I mean, Marie Antoinette had nothing on Trump. Here we are, people are complaining about gas prices, there’s a war, and he’s always obsessed with his gilded ballroom. And yeah, I think that for him, it’s an escape. He fantasizes about giant ballrooms.

And for his party, the Republican Party functions as if it was a totalitarian police state, even though, we don’t actually live in a totalitarian police state—not yet. But I think if you’re a Republican politician, first, if you take on Trump, you think he still has the power to destroy you politically. And also, you’re probably a little afraid. Defy Trump and legal action will be taken against you. Who knows, maybe even a MAGA mob will show up. And I think that there’s a real element of intimidation, both political and to some extent even physical, going on here.

Anyone who had the character to stand up to that has left the Republican Party. What’s left—what we’re left with is the people who are willing to debase themselves for the sake of Trump. And it’s become a habit with them. They just do it regardless.

Sargent: So is there a scenario where Trump accepts something in between what he wants and what Iran wants—is there a scenario where Iran makes an offer like that and Trump accepts it and then just declares victory and goes home? Do you see that as a possibility?

Krugman: At a certain point, the sheer damage that’s being done by this closed strait will—I think even Trump will have to at some point acknowledge it and face up to it. I actually think is that the substance of what’s going to emerge is going to be pretty much what the Iranians are demanding. I don’t see—why they would give any significant substance here?

But they might be willing to use evasive, clever language to provide something that Trump and his propaganda machine will, with great effort, spin as a victory. I’m not sure how they’ll do that, but I think the most likely scenario is that effectively Iran remains—it’s collecting tolls and does not give up its nuclear program. Basically it’s the Iranian plan, but that somehow the language of it makes it sufficiently obscure that Trump can go out and say, see we won a great victory.

Sargent: Well, and thinking about Trump’s psychology a little more—he could just say, well, I won because I’m a winner, so I can only win.

Krugman: Yeah. He has never acknowledged defeat on anything. He never acknowledges having been wrong on anything. So he will do that. And the question is only whether they offer him enough cover to do that. Iran is in this for a lot of reasons, and many of them are horrible and crazy, but it’s not for ego. So they are probably willing to assuage Trump’s ego as long as they get the substance of a deal that is overwhelmingly in their favor.

Sargent: Very plausible outcome. Paul Krugman, thanks so much for coming on, folks. Make sure to check out Paul’s Substack—it’s just great. It’s so informative day in and day out. Paul, thank you so much.

Krugman: Thank you.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 9:10 PM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Iran War Comes for the ‘King of Chemicals’

The conflict is wreaking havoc on an obscure sector that is more important than you’d think.

By Christina Lu | April 17, 2026, 2:10 PM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/17/iran-war-sulfur-supply-chain-sulf
uric-acid-fertilizer-mining/

For a commodity essential to everything from pharmaceuticals to agriculture and mining, sulfur rarely makes headlines. But the Iran war is showing why the world should pay closer attention.

That’s because by throttling global energy markets, the widening conflict is also wreaking havoc on the global trade of sulfur, which today is largely produced as a byproduct from the oil and gas sectors. Once converted into sulfuric acid—known as the “king of chemicals”—it powers operations across the fertilizer, metals, and pharmaceutical sectors. Which means that any disruptions to the sulfur market reverberate far beyond it.

Given its dominance in energy production, the Middle East is also a sulfur powerhouse. The region accounts for about half of all global sulfur exports, with top destinations including China, India, Indonesia, and the United States, said Meena Chauhan, the head of sulfur and sulfuric acid research at Argus Media, which provides global energy and commodity market intelligence.

But the Iran war—as well as the resulting standstill at the Strait of Hormuz—have strangled those flows, scrambling supply chains worldwide.

“Now we’re in uncharted territory really, because of how important the Middle East is,” said Chauhan.

Part of the problem is that even before the Iran war began in February, the sulfur market was already quite tight. Prices had been nearing three- or four-year highs as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as new demand from the fertilizer sector and Indonesia’s nickel industry, said James Willoughby, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, an energy research firm.

All of those pressures have only intensified with the Iran war. As the conflict has bludgeoned energy production, sulfur prices have skyrocketed, indicative of just how intertwined both sectors are. The sector has now come under so much strain that countries are taking measures to insulate their own economies from the shock. Turkey announced a ban on sulfur exports last week, and India is also mulling its own export restrictions, Reuters reported.

Starting in May, China is reportedly also planning to stop exporting sulfuric acid produced as a byproduct of copper and zinc smelting. China is the leading global sulfur importer as well as a major sulfur producer, with Chinese production last year accounting for about 16 percent of the global market—although all of those volumes are consumed domestically, said Chauhan.

At the same time, China is also the world’s biggest single exporter of sulfuric acid, with those exports last year accounting for 20 percent of the global sulfuric acid trade, Chauhan said. Top destinations include Chile, which relies on sulfuric acid in its copper sector; Indonesia, which has a booming nickel industry; and Morocco and Saudi Arabia, which use sulfuric acid for processed phosphates, she said.

Beijing’s potential measures are likely aimed at shielding its own economy from external pressures, analysts said. “It’s very clear, given what an important commodity this is, the ban is in effect a strategic reaction to protect domestic consumers,” said Sangita Gayatri Kannan, who researches mineral and energy economics at the Colorado School of Mines.

But all of those trade restrictions, which come on top of the Iran war’s economic shock waves, are only set to continue to drive up prices and squeeze a market that was already facing immense pressure. That’s because sulfuric acid isn’t easily replaced or immediately substitutable, and it will be difficult for anyone to cobble together enough sulfur supplies to make up for the trade that has been disrupted by conflict in the Middle East.

“Even combining all of those potential bits of supply around the world would still not be enough to meet the volume that the Middle East exports,” said Chauhan.

Since sulfuric acid underpins phosphate fertilizer, the global sulfur crunch promises to further strain agricultural markets, which have already been feeling the pain of the Iran war. The Middle East is a major fertilizer hub, and weeks of war and shipping disruptions have sent fertilizer costs soaring around the world.

It also spells trouble for the mining sector, which relies on sulfuric acid for extraction and processing. Asia-based traders of dry sulfur are reportedly now scrambling to secure alternate supplies, Bloomberg reported, while Indonesian nickel producers who import the bulk of their sulfur from the Middle East may be forced to make production cuts.

Robert Friedland, the founder of Ivanhoe Mines, said in a post on X that the Middle East is the source of more than 90 percent of the sulfur imported into Africa.

“I have heard that traders are already struggling to source any. Sulphuric acid prices will therefore significantly increase across Africa,” he wrote. “If the disruption lasts longer than ~3 weeks, copper oxide operations will have to close as they’ve run out of acid.”

If the Iran war continues to throttle energy production and global trade, a prolonged sulfur supply crunch may leave even more firms with little other choice than to quash production or shut down.

“It’s not just about willingness to pay anymore,” said Kannan of the Colorado School of Mines, because “if the material is not available, to what extent can you do anything about it?”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, April 30, 2026 10:16 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


It'll be fine, Sally.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Friday, May 1, 2026 7:38 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It'll be fine, Sally.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
The Iran War’s Ramifications Have Only Just Begun

U.S. goals haven’t been met, but the war will cause long-term disruptions.

By Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire | April 30, 2026, 1:47 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/04/the-iran-wars-ra
mifications-have-only-just-begun/687004/

President Trump, celebrating Tehran’s declaration that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen to commercial shipping, posted on Truth Social on April 17, “IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE.” The opening didn’t last. But, in his haste, Trump had inadvertently spelled out possibly the most consequential result of his eight-week war: The Strait of Hormuz now looks, in practice, like the “STRAIT OF IRAN.”

Although none of the Trump administration’s goals—an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, destroying Iran’s missile capability, neutralizing proxy forces, regime change—has been fulfilled, the war has led to enduring changes. Two sweeping conclusions—one short-term, one longer—have become clear, experts in defense, diplomacy, business, and economics told us.

In the short term, despite an indefinite cease-fire that kicked in last week following an initial two-week pause in hostilities, a durable end to the war isn’t coming anytime soon. The disparity in U.S. and Iranian demands for how negotiations should proceed, along with blockades by their respective forces in the strait, has locked the two sides in a stalemate. Many Americans still expect a quick end to the war’s economic strain. But that’s unlikely. At a Vanderbilt University panel discussion on warfare this week, the moderator asked when the effects of the war might end. A retired general, a retired CIA analyst, and an energy-industry executive said anywhere from two to nine months, prompting a collective intake of breath from the audience.

Meanwhile, the economic geography of the Persian Gulf is likely changed forever. Iran now has greater authority over the strait than before the war began and stands to benefit from its closure. Iran might start charging exorbitant tolls for all ships that cross the strait. Or a consortium of nations, including Iran, might manage the waterway and split the profits. And if Tehran is willing to formally return the Strait of Hormuz to an international waterway, free and open for all, the regime has proved that it can close the strait at will, despite being confronted by the world’s most powerful military. “Even if Iran does not have explicit control, there is now always an implicit measure of control,” Richard Haass, a former high-ranking State Department official under President George W. Bush, told us. “Because they have shut it once, now they know they can do it again.”

That gives Iran extraordinary leverage over the roughly 20 percent of global oil and liquefied-natural-gas supplies that used to pass through the strait. In response, energy companies and shippers are exploring options that could involve billions of dollars in investment in new pipelines, port expansions, and alternative (though hardly fail-safe) routes through the Red Sea. Such a rewiring of global trade routes—akin to supply-chain changes made after the coronavirus pandemic—could ultimately render passage through the Strait of Hormuz unnecessary. But any such result is likely years away.

In the meantime, the grip Iran has on the strait is expected to disrupt business, keep global energy and fertilizer prices elevated for years, exacerbate inflation—and make it much harder for Trump to claim a win in the war he started.

On Tuesday, Trump asserted on Truth Social that Iran was in a “State of Collapse” and wanted to soon open the strait, which Tehran also relies on to export its oil and gas. But Iran has shown no inclination to abandon its leverage, and no further negotiations are scheduled.

Trump has appeared reluctant to resume hostilities, though that option remains available. Vice President Vance and some Pentagon officials have privately expressed concern about the rate at which the U.S. military burned through weapons supplies in the first two months of the war. An Iranian suggestion on Sunday to delay dealing with the future of its nuclear program while the two sides figure out how to handle the strait seems like a nonstarter. That leaves the two countries in a test of who can endure more economic pain.

Read: The Pentagon may not be giving Trump the full picture of the war

Trump-administration officials have been surprised at Iran’s resilience after U.S. forces struck more than 13,000 targets. But they told us they believe that the U.S. naval blockade, over time, will apply pressure on Iran’s economy that is too great for the regime to withstand. Or Iran will run out of oil storage, which would seriously crimp its ability to export. Either scenario might force a return to the negotiating table and, eventually, the reopening of the strait, U.S. officials believe. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, estimates that Iran has absorbed roughly $144 billion in economic damage—about 40 percent of its prewar GDP—since the war began. Even before that, the country was under economic duress.

Yet Iran may be reluctant to abandon its hold on the Strait of Hormuz, precisely because the waterway has the potential to replenish its coffers through tolls. (Trump had previously seemed willing to accept this, though the White House, under pressure from Gulf States, has since cooled on the idea.) And pushing Iran to the point of yielding could take months or even years, potentially tying up U.S. military resources to enforce the blockade, respond to disruptions, and enforce the terms of any peace settlement.

At least 21 U.S. ships are now in the region—a level not seen since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That size of force may become a new baseline for U.S. presence in the Gulf, at least in the near term, heightening the challenge of responding to other global hot spots and driving up the already steep cost of the war. Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst told Congress yesterday that the conflict so far had cost $25 billion. During the same hearing, Representative Ro Khanna of California claimed that the war will cost the average American household $5,000 a year in increased gas and food prices. Trump may face his own imperative to make concessions, given those costs and what the war has done to his popularity: A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that the president’s approval rating stood at 34 percent.

The White House has heard from unhappy Gulf and European allies about the strait’s closure and the unwelcome prospect of future Iranian control. China, whose economy was already struggling, depends heavily on the strait and has urged its reopening. A senior White House official told us that Trump is concerned that the issue could complicate his summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing in a little over two weeks. Yet there are no signs of a quick resolution.

The global economic damage from the first two months of the war has been stark. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been reduced by about 90 percent, from some 120 to 150 daily transits to a handful, according to a new dashboard by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. This week, Brent crude reached its highest level in four years, at $126 a barrel. The gas-station billboards that line so many American roads reflect the increase: The average price of a gallon of gas hit $4.18. Trump met with American energy executives at the White House Tuesday to warn them that the blockade may persist for weeks or more. Prices of other goods, such as pharmaceuticals, have also spiked. The World Bank forecasts a 16 percent rise in food-commodity prices this year, driven by increased transport costs and the supply squeeze on the fertilizer industry, which relies on exports from the Gulf. The International Energy Agency has said that the world is on the brink of “the biggest energy security threat in history.”

Shippers, energy producers, and the governments of the Gulf petrostates are planning to recalibrate by holding excess supplies in case of shocks rather than squeezing efficiencies from just-in-time supply chains. Existing infrastructure might help, at least in part, but comes with its own risks.

Two major pipelines cross Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea. Both are already running at capacity—and the Red Sea is vulnerable to disruption by Houthi militias supported by Iran. The Habshan–Fujairah pipeline brings oil from a major field in the United Arab Emirates to the port of Fujairah, which sits on the other side of the strait from Iran, and the UAE government could expand facilities there. An Iraqi-Turkish pipeline can move oil to the Mediterranean, but that would add miles and time to shipping routes.

Various discussions are under way about building new pipelines across Saudi Arabia to ports in Oman, or across Iraq for export to the wider world. Pipeline operators may also employ more incremental remedies, such as moving oil faster through the pipelines by injecting drag-reducing agents or increasing the number of pump stations.

The prevailing question facing those whose economic survival relies on Gulf exports is no longer when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, but what role the strait will play in the postwar marketplace. Perhaps in anticipation of the disruptions to come, the UAE announced Tuesday that it was leaving OPEC, which it has long threatened to do, allowing the small country to chart its own course outside OPEC quotas.

Before investing billions, Gulf nations and companies are likely to want some reassurance that those new investments won’t become Iranian targets. In addition to shutting down traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran in the past two months has hit energy infrastructure in neighboring countries. In Saudi Arabia alone, daily oil output is down by 600,000 barrels because of Iranian strikes, a Saudi state news agency said earlier this month. The Fujairah port, a potential new alternative, also has been targeted by Iranian forces.

“All these solutions don’t solve the problem that Iran is a bad actor that can threaten ships or oil infrastructure around the region,” one senior oil trader who was not authorized to speak on behalf of his company told us. “None of these solutions take away Iran’s ability to strike the oil infrastructure that supplies the global marketplace.”

Read: No good way out

One diplomat from the Middle East stressed to us that anything other than a return to the strait’s prewar status of being free and open would be unacceptable. But other observers aren’t sure how feasible that is, noting that countries dependent on the strait may decide to work with Tehran instead. “The longer this goes on, the higher the likelihood that countries will look to protect their own economic interests and cut deals with the Iranians, even if that triggers the wrath of the U.S.,” Richard Nephew, a former U.S. deputy special envoy for Iran, told us.

Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, told us in a statement that “the blockade will continue until Iran makes an agreement that is acceptable to the United States. The Strait is international water, and we are not going to let Iran toll the Strait.”

A multinational consortium to administer the waterway, perhaps charging a modest toll, might be the least bad option, Haass, the former State Department official, told us. But that also would not preclude Iran from someday moving to shut the strait again. “One of the ironies of this war is that Iran discovered that it had this weapon,” he said. “There was so much talk about nuclear ability, but they have the strait.”

Such a solution could itself set a dangerous example to the rest of the world. If Iran were allowed to effectively charge a toll for use of the Strait of Hormuz, other nations could seek to do the same for other busy shipping lanes, such as the Strait of Malacca, which connects the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Taiwan Strait, which carries exports from China.

“We need to demonstrate we’re actually not prepared to leave the strait that way,” Fred Kagan, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told us of the Strait of Hormuz. And U.S. adversaries need to hear that “if they are going to try to close a critical waterway or a critical choke point, they are going to pay a price, one they ultimately find unacceptable.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Monday appearance on Fox News that the U.S. would not tolerate Iran “trying to normalize” its control of the strait.

How the U.S. and its Gulf allies might avoid that reality is a question that will linger long after the fighting has ended.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, May 1, 2026 5:08 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Pentagon is lying about the cost of the war

By Ryan Mancini | May 1, 2026

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Thursday that he heard estimates that the cost to the U.S. is around $50 billion. He said the higher estimate would be based on the “billion dollars a day” spent for more than 60 days since Feb. 28.

“I’m going to try to make some inquiry into what they based their estimate on, because $25 billion is considerably below all the other estimates I’ve been seeing for the past two months,” King told the outlet.

On Thursday, CNN reported that the Pentagon’s estimate failed to account for repairs to damaged U.S. military bases in the Middle East, with sources telling the outlet that those repairs could raise the cost by between $15 billion and $25 billion.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/iran-says-pentagon-lying-about
-cost-of-war/ar-AA22b45f

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, May 1, 2026 5:41 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It'll be fine, Sally.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
The Iran War’s Ramifications Have Only Just Begun

U.S. goals haven’t been met, but the war will cause long-term disruptions.

By Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire | April 30, 2026, 1:47 PM ET


Don't reply to me with anything from The Atlantic.

It will be fine, Sally.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Saturday, May 2, 2026 7:57 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Don't reply to me with anything from The Atlantic.

It will be fine, Sally.

--------------------------------------------------

Be Evil. Be a dick.
Trump asks, "We Won, But Why Hasn't Iran Surrendered?" Because Trump is not getting a surrender until the US Army invades and conquers, as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran knows how poorly those two invasions went for the US Presidents involved. An Iran invasion will go poorly for Trump.

The Real Reason Iran Hasn’t Struck a Deal

The standoff isn’t about hard-liners blocking pragmatists inside Iran, but about both sides believing that they have won the war.

By Thomas Wright | May 1, 2026, 9:42 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-us-negotiations
-ceasefire/687025/

On Monday, Iran made Donald Trump an offer: It would open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade while nuclear negotiations continued. On Wednesday, Trump rejected this offer, promising to keep the blockade in place until Iran agrees to America’s terms on the nuclear issue. The blockade “is genius,” he said, and “now they have to cry uncle. That’s all they have to do. Just say, ‘We give up.’”

The Trump administration’s explanation for this standoff is that there is an “absolute fracture” in the Iranian regime between the military and the negotiators. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News that “unfortunately, the hard-liners with an apocalyptic vision of the future have the ultimate power in that country,” especially because the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is “untested” and “has not been seen.”

The administration now appears to be gaming out a new course of action: strikes targeting not Iran’s military capacity but the faction inside the regime that it believes is blocking a deal. The president recently reposted a video of the Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen calling for an aerial campaign to do exactly this. According to Axios, the military has prepared options for a “short and powerful” wave of strikes, which General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed to the president yesterday.

The timing of such a move is complicated because of Trump’s state visit to China scheduled for mid-May, which has been postponed once before. Strikes could happen within the next few days, so as to precede the trip, or they could come immediately after it.

But the assumption underlying this approach is almost certainly wrong. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has proved far more resilient than either Washington or Jerusalem anticipated. An institution that has survived multiple rounds of air strikes, international isolation, and the death of much of its senior leadership does not capitulate because a few more names are removed from the org chart. And hard-liners are spread throughout the regime, not just in the IRGC.

Iran and the United States have failed to come to an agreement not because hard-liners are blocking pragmatists inside Iran, but because both sides seem to sincerely believe that they have won the war.

According to Trump, the United States has destroyed Iran’s navy and air force, many of its missiles, and much of its military and industrial capacity. But the Iranian regime sees mainly that it has withstood a war that has aimed to topple it, has demonstrated its ability to attack the Persian Gulf and Israel, and has succeeded in controlling the Strait of Hormuz.

During talks in Islamabad, the U.S. negotiating team, led by J. D. Vance, found that Iran was entirely unresponsive to American demands regarding its nuclear program. Instead of going back to war, Trump opted for a blockade, which Vance reportedly believed would cause Iran to give in after a few days.

But Iran has resisted U.S. demands to completely cease enriching uranium, and to curb its missile program, for years. It has gone to war with the United States and Israel twice rather than concede those points. The Iranian regime is not likely to give away at the negotiating table what it believes America was unable to gain through war.

The Trump administration seemed to expect that the blockade would collapse the Iranian oil industry in a matter of weeks. On April 27, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on social media: “While the surviving IRGC Leaders are trapped like drowning rats in a sewage pipe, Iran’s creaking oil industry is starting to shut in production thanks to the U.S. BLOCKADE. Pumping will soon collapse.” But the Iranians have endured decades of sanctions: They have experience in adjusting their oil industry to cope with reduced demand. They also benefited from a financial windfall at the start of the conflict, when the U.S. lifted sanctions on their oil exports.

Tehran likely calculates that it can outlast the United States in absorbing economic hardship, especially because Trump will face domestic political pressure in the run-up to the midterm elections in the fall. Nor is Iran likely to wait for an economic crisis. If the United States appears to be hunkered down for the long haul, Iran’s leadership may set its sights on blocking off other choke points—for instance, getting the Houthis to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and is essential to traffic through the Suez Canal.

Earlier in the war, the U.S. president seriously considered escalatory moves, such as attacking Iranian infrastructure and sending ground troops to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Now Trump seems reluctant to take these steps, perhaps recognizing that they could lead to retaliatory strikes on infrastructure in the Gulf States and a bloodier and more protracted conflict. He may see a limited wave of strikes as less risky, but Iran will retaliate against these too.

Should Trump restart the war and actually succeed in limiting the fighting to a couple of days, the likelihood is that he will end up back where he is now—with Iran rejecting his demands. And if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for most of May, the costs will accumulate globally. The World Bank estimates that the current supply shock on oil may already be the largest ever. It’s about to get much worse.

Energy and refined-petroleum products from the Gulf have continued to reach the market over the past couple of months, via ships and tankers that transited the strait before the war began. Now that traffic has stopped. Stockpiles have been drawn down. Refined products such as fertilizer and petrochemicals will soon be in short supply. This will affect the rest of the world much more than it will the United States, so the Trump administration may be tempted to shrug it off. The United States may even try to introduce limits on the export of oil, but the pressure on gas prices and inflation will undoubtedly take a toll.

If Trump doesn’t foresee continuing the blockade into the fall, he will confront a choice. He could try to strike a deal with Iran that offers sanctions relief and is stronger than the 2015 nuclear deal—with a longer timeline and more restrictions on enrichment—but that would not fully abolish Iran’s nuclear program and would not address its missiles. The strait would be fully reopened, but Iran would retain the capacity to close it in the event of more Israeli strikes.

Alternatively, he could accept an arrangement like the one the Iranians offered this week, in which the strait reopens but nothing else is settled. The U.S. would give up its embargo without securing a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program or limit its missiles, and the Iranians would reopen the strait without getting sanctions relief.

Some of America’s allies in the Middle East, particularly Israel and the United Arab Emirates, may prefer the second option over the first if they can’t persuade the United States to resume the war against Iran and stick with it for as long as it takes. These countries care a great deal about Iranian missiles and regional power. They know that the country’s nuclear program has already been significantly set back, and they may not wish to see a deal that lifts sanctions without limiting Iran’s missile program or preventing it from reconstituting its proxy network. They may also worry that a nuclear deal would prevent the U.S. from restarting the war so long as the strait remains open and Iran does not breach its nuclear commitments.

The Israelis may calculate that without a nuclear agreement, they can retain the option of striking Iran again in the coming years, and that the Iranian regime, without sanctions relief, is likelier to face an economic crisis that could lead to its collapse.

The United States went to war to deal the Islamic Republic a devastating blow from which it would never recover. The war has damaged Iran’s military capacity, but it also has handed Tehran more leverage over global energy markets and the Gulf States than it has ever possessed. A wave of limited strikes won’t reverse this outcome, and it would not help Trump avoid the difficult choice he still faces between bad options.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 4, 2026 8:11 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The US Will "Guide" Vessels In The Strait--What That Might Mean

Phillips P. OBrien
May 04, 2026

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/taking-the-initiative-in-war-mi
ght

Things remain uncertain now, and the White House is saying that this is not an “escort” mission and US vessels will not go into the Strait to protect the shipping. Instead, according to the Wall Street Journal, what Trump is saying is that the US will include locating “mines and passing along that information to ships transiting the waterway so they can avoid danger, according to senior U.S. officials, as well as identifying generally the safest routes to navigate.”

This is a long way from actually protecting ships and if this is all there is, the US will not be opening the Strait any time soon (without Iranian support). To help answer what this might be, I can see four very different scenarios. Here they are.

1. This is exactly what the WSJ is saying and is an attempt to bluff the Iranians into opening the Strait. If so, it will probably fail.

2. The US is actually signalling that it will intervene forcefully in the Strait, so we should see a significant US escalation soon.

3. Iran is on board with this and the two sides are closer to reaching a deal.

4. Trump is trying to keep the oil markets from rising as it is Monday morning, and there is nothing to this in reality and nothing will actually change.

At this point, your guess about which of these is more likely is as good as mine.

The announcement last night by President Trump that the USA would “guide” worldwide shipping out of the Strait.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Countries from all over the World, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle Eastern dispute going on so visibly, and violently, for all to see, have asked the United States if we could help free up their Ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz, on something which they have absolutely nothing to do with — They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders! For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business. Again, these are Ships from areas of the World that are not in any way involved with that which is currently taking place in the Middle East. I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait. In all cases, they said they will not be returning until the area becomes safe for navigation, and everything else. This process, Project Freedom, will begin Monday morning, Middle East time. I am fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all. The Ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong — They are victims of circumstance. This is a Humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran. Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner. I think it would go a long way in showing Goodwill on behalf of all of those who have been fighting so strenuously over the last number of months. If, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
8.93k ReTruths 39.8k Likes
May 03, 2026, 9:35 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 4, 2026 12:57 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Why is the American media largely silent about Israel’s role in Trump’s decision to go to war?

In a series of Situation Room meetings, President Trump weighed his instincts against the deep concerns of his vice president and a pessimistic intelligence assessment. Here’s the inside story of how he made the fateful decision.

The decision by President Trump to give the go-ahead to join Israel in attacking Iran was influenced by a presentation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February that led to a series of discussions inside the White House over the following days and weeks.

By Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman | April 7, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html

The black S.U.V. carrying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House just before 11 a.m. on Feb. 11. The Israeli leader, who had been pressing for months for the United States to agree to a major assault on Iran, was whisked inside with little ceremony, out of view of reporters, primed for one of the most high-stakes moments in his long career.

U.S. and Israeli officials gathered first in the Cabinet Room, adjacent to the Oval Office. Then Mr. Netanyahu headed downstairs for the main event: a highly classified presentation on Iran for President Trump and his team in the White House Situation Room, which was rarely used for in-person meetings with foreign leaders.

Mr. Trump sat down, but not in his usual position at the head of the room’s mahogany conference table. Instead, the president took a seat on one side, facing the large screens mounted along the wall. Mr. Netanyahu sat on the other side, directly opposite the president.

Appearing on the screen behind the prime minister was David Barnea, the director of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, as well as Israeli military officials. Arrayed visually behind Mr. Netanyahu, they created the image of a wartime leader surrounded by his team.

Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, sat at the far end of the table. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who doubled as the national security adviser, had taken his regular seat. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who generally sat together in such settings, were on one side; joining them was John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, who had been negotiating with the Iranians, rounded out the main group.

The gathering had been kept deliberately small to guard against leaks. Other top cabinet secretaries had no idea it was happening. Also absent was the vice president. JD Vance was in Azerbaijan, and the meeting had been scheduled on such short notice that he was unable to make it back in time.

The presentation that Mr. Netanyahu would make over the next hour would be pivotal in setting the United States and Israel on the path toward a major armed conflict in the middle of one of the world’s most volatile regions. And it would lead to a series of discussions inside the White House over the following days and weeks, the details of which have not been previously reported, in which Mr. Trump weighed his options and the risks before giving the go-ahead to join Israel in attacking Iran.

This account of how Mr. Trump took the United States into war is drawn from reporting for a forthcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” It reveals how the deliberations inside the administration highlighted the president’s instincts, his inner circle’s fractures and the way he runs the White House. It draws on extensive interviews conducted on the condition of anonymity to recount internal discussions and sensitive issues.

The reporting underscores how closely Mr. Trump’s hawkish thinking aligned with Mr. Netanyahu’s over many months, more so than even some of the president’s key advisers recognized. Their close association has been an enduring feature across two administrations, and that dynamic — however fraught at times — has fueled intense criticism and suspicion on both the left and the right of American politics.

And it shows how, in the end, even the more skeptical members of Mr. Trump’s war cabinet — with the stark exception of Mr. Vance, the figure inside the White House most opposed to a full-scale war — deferred to the president’s instincts, including his abundant confidence that the war would be quick and decisive. The White House declined to comment.

In the Situation Room on Feb. 11, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint U.S.-Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic.

At one point, the Israelis played for Mr. Trump a brief video that included a montage of potential new leaders who could take over the country if the hard-line government fell. Among those featured was Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, now a Washington-based dissident who had tried to position himself as a secular leader who could shepherd Iran toward a post-theocratic government.

Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.

Besides, Mossad’s intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin again and — with the impetus of the Israeli spy agency helping to foment riots and rebellion — an intense bombing campaign could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime. The Israelis also raised the prospect of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing the border from Iraq to open a ground front in the northwest, further stretching the regime’s forces and accelerating its collapse.

Mr. Netanyahu delivered his presentation in a confident monotone. It seemed to land well with the most important person in the room, the American president.

Sounds good to me, Mr. Trump told the prime minister. To Mr. Netanyahu, this signaled a likely green light for a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.

Mr. Netanyahu was not the only one who came away from the meeting with the impression that Mr. Trump had all but made up his mind. The president’s advisers could see that he had been deeply impressed by the promise of what Mr. Netanyahu’s military and intelligence services could do, just as he had been when the two men spoke before the 12-day war with Iran in June.

Earlier in his White House visit on Feb. 11, Mr. Netanyahu had tried to focus the minds of the Americans assembled in the Cabinet Room on the existential threat posed by Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

When others in the room asked the prime minister about possible risks in the operation, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged these but made one central point: In his view, the risks of inaction were greater than the risks of action. He argued that the price of action would only grow if they delayed striking and allowed Iran more time to accelerate its missile production and create a shield of immunity around its nuclear program.

Everyone in the room understood that Iran had the capacity to build up its missile and drone stockpiles at a far lower cost and much more quickly than the United States could build and supply the much more expensive interceptors to protect American interests and allies in the region.

Mr. Netanyahu’s presentations — and Mr. Trump’s positive response to them — created an urgent task for the U.S. intelligence community. Overnight, analysts worked to assess the viability of what the Israeli team had told the president.

‘Farcical’

The results of the U.S. intelligence analysis were shared the following day, Feb. 12, in another meeting for only American officials in the Situation Room. Before Mr. Trump arrived, two senior intelligence officials briefed the president’s inner circle.

The intelligence officials had deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities, and they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out. They had broken down Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation into four parts. First was decapitation — killing the ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran’s capacity to project power and threaten its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside Iran. And fourth was regime change, with a secular leader installed to govern the country.

The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable with American intelligence and military power. They assessed that the third and fourth parts of Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch, which included the possibility of the Kurds mounting a ground invasion of Iran, were detached from reality.

When Mr. Trump joined the meeting, Mr. Ratcliffe briefed him on the assessment. The C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: “farcical.”

At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. “In other words, it’s bullshit,” he said.

Mr. Ratcliffe added that given the unpredictability of events in any conflict, regime change could happen, but it should not be considered an achievable objective.

Several others jumped in, including Mr. Vance, just back from Azerbaijan, who also expressed strong skepticism about the prospect of regime change.

The president then turned to General Caine. “General, what do you think?”

General Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

Mr. Trump quickly weighed the assessment. Regime change, he said, would be “their problem.” It was unclear whether he was referring to the Israelis or the Iranian people. But the bottom line was that his decision on whether to go to war against Iran would not hinge on whether Parts 3 and 4 of Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation were achievable.

Mr. Trump appeared to remain very interested in accomplishing Parts 1 and 2: killing the ayatollah and Iran’s top leaders and dismantling the Iranian military.

General Caine — the man Mr. Trump liked to refer to as “Razin’ Caine” — had impressed the president years earlier by telling him the Islamic State could be defeated far more quickly than others had projected. Mr. Trump rewarded that confidence by elevating the general, who had been an Air Force fighter pilot, to be his top military adviser. General Caine was not a political loyalist, and he had serious concerns about a war with Iran. But he was very cautious in the way he presented his views to the president.

As the small team of advisers who were looped into the plans deliberated over the following days, General Caine shared with Mr. Trump and others the alarming military assessment that a major campaign against Iran would drastically deplete stockpiles of American weaponry, including missile interceptors, whose supply had been strained after years of support for Ukraine and Israel. General Caine saw no clear path to quickly replenishing these stockpiles.

He also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran blocking it. Mr. Trump had dismissed that possibility on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that. The president appeared to think it would be a very quick war — an impression that had been reinforced by the tepid response to the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

General Caine’s role in the lead-up to the war captured a classic tension between military counsel and presidential decision-making. So persistent was the chairman in not taking a stand — repeating that it was not his role to tell the president what to do, but rather to present options along with potential risks and possible second- and third-order consequences — that he could appear to some of those listening to be arguing all sides of an issue simultaneously.

He would constantly ask, “And then what?” But Mr. Trump would often seem to hear only what he wanted to hear.

General Caine differed in almost every way from a prior chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, who had argued vociferously with Mr. Trump during his first administration and who saw his role as stopping the president from taking dangerous or reckless actions.

One person familiar with their interactions noted that Mr. Trump had a habit of confusing tactical advice from General Caine with strategic counsel. In practice, that meant the general might warn in one breath about the difficulties of one aspect of the operation, then in the next note that the United States had an essentially unlimited supply of cheap, precision-guided bombs and could strike Iran for weeks once it achieved air superiority.

To the chairman, these were separate observations. But Mr. Trump appeared to think that the second most likely canceled out the first.

At no point during the deliberations did the chairman directly tell the president that war with Iran was a terrible idea — though some of General Caine’s colleagues believed that was exactly what he thought.

Trump the Hawk

Distrusted as Mr. Netanyahu was by many of the president’s advisers, the prime minister’s view of the situation was far closer to Mr. Trump’s opinion than the anti-interventionists on the Trump team or in the broader “America First” movement liked to admit. This had been true for many years.

Of all the foreign policy challenges Mr. Trump had confronted across two presidencies, Iran stood apart. He regarded it as a uniquely dangerous adversary and was willing to take great risks to hinder the regime’s ability to wage war or to acquire a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch had dovetailed with Mr. Trump’s desire to dismantle the Iranian theocracy, which had seized power in 1979, when Mr. Trump was 32. It had been a thorn in the side of the United States ever since.

Now, he could become the first president since the clerical leadership took over 47 years ago to pull off regime change in Iran. Usually unmentioned but always in the background was the added motivation that Iran had plotted to kill Mr. Trump as revenge over the assassination in January 2020 of Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who was seen in the United States as a driving force behind an Iranian campaign of international terrorism.

Back in office for a second term, Mr. Trump’s confidence in the U.S. military’s abilities had only grown. He was especially emboldened by the spectacular commando raid to capture the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from his compound on Jan. 3. No American lives were lost in the operation, yet more evidence to the president of the unmatched prowess of U.S. forces.

Within the cabinet, Mr. Hegseth was the biggest proponent of a military campaign against Iran.

Mr. Rubio indicated to colleagues that he was much more ambivalent. He did not believe the Iranians would agree to a negotiated deal, but his preference was to continue a campaign of maximum pressure rather than start a full-scale war. Mr. Rubio, however, did not try to talk Mr. Trump out of the operation, and after the war began he delivered the administration’s justification with full conviction.

Ms. Wiles had concerns about what a new conflict overseas could entail, but she did not tend to weigh in hard on military matters in larger meetings; rather, she encouraged advisers to share their views and concerns with the president in those settings. Ms. Wiles would exert influence on many other issues, but in the room with Mr. Trump and the generals, she sat back. Those close to her said she did not view it as her role to share her concerns with the president on a military decision in front of others. And she believed that the expertise of advisers like General Caine, Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Rubio was more significant for the president to hear.

Still, Ms. Wiles had told colleagues that she worried about the United States being dragged into another war in the Middle East. An attack on Iran carried with it the potential to set off soaring gas prices months before midterm elections that could help decide whether the final two years of Mr. Trump’s second term would be years of accomplishment or subpoenas from House Democrats. But in the end, Ms. Wiles was on board with the operation.
Vance the Skeptic

Nobody in Mr. Trump’s inner circle was more worried about the prospect of war with Iran, or did more to try to stop it, than the vice president.

Mr. Vance had built his political career opposing precisely the kind of military adventurism that was now under serious consideration. He had described a war with Iran as “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive.”

He was not, however, a dove across the board. In January, when Mr. Trump publicly warned Iran to stop killing protesters and promised that help was on its way, Mr. Vance had privately encouraged the president to enforce his red line. But what the vice president pushed for was a limited, punitive strike, something closer to the model of Mr. Trump’s missile attack against Syria in 2017 over the use of chemical weapons against civilians.

The vice president thought a regime-change war with Iran would be a disaster. His preference was for no strikes at all. But knowing that Mr. Trump was likely to intervene in some fashion, he tried to steer toward more limited action. Later, when it seemed certain that the president was set on a large-scale campaign, Mr. Vance argued that he should do so with overwhelming force, in the hope of achieving his objectives quickly.

In front of his colleagues, Mr. Vance warned Mr. Trump that a war against Iran could cause regional chaos and untold numbers of casualties. It could also break apart Mr. Trump’s political coalition and would be seen as a betrayal by many voters who had bought into the promise of no new wars.

Mr. Vance raised other concerns, too. As vice president, he was aware of the scope of America’s munitions problem. A war against a regime with enormous will for survival could leave the United States in a far worse position to fight conflicts for some years.

The vice president told associates that no amount of military insight could truly gauge what Iran would do in retaliation when survival of the regime was at stake. A war could easily go in unpredictable directions. Moreover, he thought there seemed to be little chance of building a peaceful Iran in the aftermath.

Beyond all of this was perhaps the biggest risk of all: Iran held the advantage when it came to the Strait of Hormuz. If this narrow waterway carrying vast quantities of oil and natural gas was choked off, the domestic consequences in the United States would be severe, starting with higher gasoline prices.

Tucker Carlson, the commentator who had emerged as another prominent skeptic of intervention on the right, had come to the Oval Office several times over the previous year to warn Mr. Trump that a war with Iran would destroy his presidency. A couple weeks before the war began, Mr. Trump, who had known Mr. Carlson for years, tried to reassure him over the phone. “I know you’re worried about it, but it’s going to be OK,” the president said. Mr. Carlson asked how he knew. “Because it always is,” Mr. Trump replied.

In the final days of February, the Americans and the Israelis discussed a piece of new intelligence that would significantly accelerate their timeline. The ayatollah would be meeting above ground with other top officials of the regime, in broad daylight and wide open for an air attack. It was a fleeting chance to strike at the heart of Iran’s leadership, the kind of target that might not present itself again.

Mr. Trump gave Iran another chance to come to a deal that would block its path to nuclear weapons. The diplomacy also gave the United States extra time to move military assets to the Middle East.

The president had effectively made up his mind weeks earlier, several of his advisers said. But he had not yet decided exactly when. Now, Mr. Netanyahu urged him to move fast.

That same week, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff called from Geneva after the latest talks with Iranian officials. Over three rounds of negotiations in Oman and Switzerland, the two had tested Iran’s willingness to make a deal. At one point, they offered the Iranians free nuclear fuel for the life of their program — a test of whether Tehran’s insistence on enrichment was truly about civilian energy or about preserving the ability to build a bomb.

The Iranians rejected the offer, calling it an assault on their dignity.

Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff laid out the picture for the president. They could probably negotiate something, but it would take months, they said. If Mr. Trump was asking whether they could look him in the eye and tell him they could solve the problem, it was going to take a lot to get there, Mr. Kushner told him, because the Iranians were playing games.

‘I Think We Need to Do It’

On Thursday, Feb. 26, around 5 p.m., a final Situation Room meeting got underway. By now, the positions of everyone in the room were clear. Everything had been discussed in previous meetings; everyone knew everyone else’s stance. The discussion would last about an hour and a half.

Mr. Trump was in his usual place at the head of the table. To his right sat the vice president; next to Mr. Vance was Ms. Wiles, then Mr. Ratcliffe, then the White House counsel, David Warrington, then Steven Cheung, the White House communications director. Across from Mr. Cheung was Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary; to her right was General Caine, then Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Rubio.

The war-planning group had been kept so tight that the two key officials who would need to manage the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, were excluded, as was Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.

The president opened the meeting, asking, OK, what have we got?

Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Caine ran through the sequencing of the attacks. Then Mr. Trump said he wanted to go around the table and hear everyone’s views.

Mr. Vance, whose disagreement with the whole premise was well established, addressed the president: You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.

Ms. Wiles told Mr. Trump that if he felt he needed to proceed for America’s national security, then he should go ahead.

Mr. Ratcliffe offered no opinion on whether to proceed, but he discussed the stunning new intelligence that the Iranian leadership was about to gather in the ayatollah’s compound in Tehran. The C.I.A. director told the president that regime change was possible depending on how the term was defined. “If we just mean killing the supreme leader, we can probably do that,” he said.

When called on, Mr. Warrington, the White House counsel, said it was a legally permissible option in terms of how the plan had been conceived by U.S. officials and presented to the president. He did not offer a personal opinion, but when pressed by the president to provide one, he said that as a Marine veteran he had known an American service member killed by Iran years earlier. This issue remained deeply personal. He told the president that if Israel intended to proceed regardless, the United States should do so as well.

Mr. Cheung laid out the likely public relations fallout: Mr. Trump had run for office opposed to further wars. People had not voted for conflict overseas. The plans ran contrary, too, to everything the administration had said after the bombing campaign against Iran in June. How would they explain away eight months of insisting that Iranian nuclear facilities had been totally obliterated? Mr. Cheung gave neither a yes nor a no, but he said that whatever decision Mr. Trump made would be the right one.

Ms. Leavitt told the president that this was his decision and that the press team would manage it as best they could.

Mr. Hegseth adopted a narrow position: They would have to take care of the Iranians eventually, so they might as well do it now. He offered technical assessments: They could run the campaign in a certain amount of time with a given level of forces.

General Caine was sober, laying out the risks and what the campaign would mean for munitions depletion. He offered no opinion; his position was that if Mr. Trump ordered the operation, the military would execute. Both of the president’s top military leaders previewed how the campaign would unfold and the U.S. capacity to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.

When it was his turn to speak, Mr. Rubio offered more clarity, telling the president: If our goal is regime change or an uprising, we shouldn’t do it. But if the goal is to destroy Iran’s missile program, that’s a goal we can achieve.

Everyone deferred to the president’s instincts. They had seen him make bold decisions, take on unfathomable risks and somehow come out on top. No one would impede him now.

“I think we need to do it,” the president told the room. He said they had to make sure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, and they had to ensure that Iran could not just shoot missiles at Israel or throughout the region.

General Caine told Mr. Trump that he had some time; he did not need to give the go-ahead until 4 p.m. the following day.

Aboard Air Force One the next afternoon, 22 minutes before General Caine’s deadline, Mr. Trump sent the following order: “Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck.”

Jonathan Swan is a White House reporter for The Times, covering the administration of Donald J. Trump. Contact him securely on Signal: @jonathan.941

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.

A version of this article appears in print on April 8, 2026, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: How Trump Took the U.S. To War With Iran.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, May 5, 2026 5:05 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Operation Epic Fury, meet Operation Colossal Blunder

May 4, 2026

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2026/05/04/operation-epic-fury-meet-o
peration-colossal-blunder/

Scott Anderson writes:

America’s war with Iran has entered a calmer phase: diplomatic posturing, on-and-off-again negotiations and endless wrangling of a settlement. This, of course, is far preferable to the annihilation of Iranian civilization that President Trump was threatening just a few weeks ago. But it raises the question of just what has spurred this turnabout.

The answer is rather straightforward. The American and Israeli bombing of Iran failed to provoke either a popular uprising against the regime in Tehran or its capitulation, however painfully slow Mr. Trump and his advisers have been to acknowledge that. Instead, Iran discovered its ability to shut down the vital passageway of the Strait of Hormuz and send the global economy into chaos.

There are now only two outcomes to the conflict: either the kind of wholesale destruction of Iran that Mr. Trump posited, or a settlement that will leave the government intact and empowered, and a blustering American president humiliated.

The first option is increasingly remote. By publicly threatening the commission of war crimes on an enormous scale, Mr. Trump has given both his domestic and foreign opponents time to marshal resistance. As for the latter and more likely outcome, this was predictable, if only the president and his administration had bothered to take note of a new feature of modern warfare, a feature that can be boiled down to a single word: drones.

The weaponized drone has utterly transformed today’s battlefield. It is the modern-day equivalent of the machine gun of World War I. Because of the drone, the vastly outnumbered Ukrainian military has been able to withstand the Russian Army of Vladimir Putin for the past four years, not only inflicting far greater casualties on the invaders than expected, but doing so at a cost of pennies to the dollar. As the Ukrainians have shown time and again, a $1,000 drone can destroy a roughly $4.5 million T-90 tank. While the Russians have recently made significant strides in drone warfare, this simple weapon has ensured that they’ve grievously paid for their war both on the battlefield and in the pocketbook.

Much of this same dynamic has played out in Iran for the past two months, although without the staggering cost in human lives. Certainly, American and Israeli warplanes can bomb Iran’s military infrastructure at will — and they have, tens of thousands of times — but no amount of bombing can remove the primary retaliatory weapon at its disposal.

On the contrary, Iran can continue to mass-produce drones at a fraction of the cost of the weapons being produced by the other side. What Mr. Trump calls his “excursion” in Iran has already cost the United States at least $25 billion, according to the Pentagon, and significantly depleted its stockpile of sophisticated missiles. That depletion is already causing shortages in other strategic arenas and could take years to replenish. All the while, with their cheap and plentiful drones — assembling a top-of-the-line Shahed-136 drone costs Iran an estimated $35,000 — Iran continues to dictate the terms in the Strait of Hormuz choke point.

But what about continuing the American naval blockade of the strait or launching a ground assault on Iran’s shores, as Trump has also periodically proposed? Granted, matters might get ugly, but surely this will lead to American victory and an end to the impasse, right? Wrong. Build out an ironclad blockade or put 50,000 American troops on Persian Gulf beachheads, and the Iranians will still retain the ability to fire a drone over their heads to hit an oil-laden tanker and paralyze the global economy anew.

More at https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2026/05/04/operation-epic-fury-meet-o
peration-colossal-blunder/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, May 5, 2026 5:53 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Trump says Iran will be ‘blown off face of Earth’ if US ships are targeted in Strait of Hormuz


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Wednesday, May 6, 2026 6:34 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Iran’s Unexpected Resilience

Two months of fighting have emphasized some of the country’s advantages.

By Will Gottsegen | May 5, 2026, 5:18 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/05/iran-unexpected-resili
ence-devastated-military/687069/

By the United States military’s estimation, about 1,550 marine vessels—oil tankers, bulk carriers, container ships, and more—are idling in the Persian Gulf right now. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively blockaded, their crews, many of them uninvolved in the ongoing war with Iran, are slowly using up supplies as they await safe passage through the mine-filled waterway. Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the U.S. would rescue these “victims of circumstance” by guiding them out of the war zone in an as-yet-unspecified way. On Monday, though, Iran’s military rejected the plan, warning that American military forces would be attacked if they approached the strait.

Both sides fired shots yesterday, although the U.S. claims that the cease-fire remains in place. The fact that Iran’s leaders are apparently willing to risk violating the delicate monthlong truce emphasizes just how fiercely they want to protect their hold over the strait. The past 65 days of war have badly punished Iran: Its leaders are dead, its navy and air force have been depleted, and its economy and infrastructure have been decimated. “If we leave right now,” Trump said last week, “it would take them 20 years to rebuild.” But amid the destruction, the country has also found new forms of leverage. Iran had not previously exercised this degree of control over the Strait of Hormuz, and before the war, the country could not have been confident that it would be able to do so. Even in its diminished state, the Iranian military has managed to deter enemy ships and outmaneuver anti-air systems, maintaining that grip on the strait while costing the U.S. billions.

After the U.S. and Israel began their military action, the Iranian government said it would attack any ship that tried to sail through the strait, and began deploying mines as deterrents. Before the war, more than 130 ships passed through each day; yesterday, that number was down to three. The ships that do cross now mostly do so under the strict supervision of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reportedly has been demanding tolls in cryptocurrency and Chinese yuan, and rerouting traffic away from Oman, toward Iran-controlled waters.

Iranian dominance over the strait may well be the new norm. On Sunday, Iran’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ali Nikzad was emphatic that the country “will not back down” from its position on the strait, “and it will not return to its prewar conditions.” That’s because the country’s restrictions on the strait have succeeded on a strategic level, creating a global energy shock and unleashing economic devastation around the world—putting massive pressure on the U.S. and Israel to come to the bargaining table. Trump has demanded that Iran “Open the Fuckin’ Strait,” but as Iran’s threats yesterday made clear, we’re a long way off from the pre-February status quo. Even when Iranian leadership has offered to reopen the strait as part of potential peace deals, as it has over the past month, it has done so with the knowledge that Iran could always reassert control. That’s exactly what happened on April 17, when the country declared the strait open to all; the next day, Iran reimposed its restrictions on passing ships, effectively closing the waterway once again.

The strait is not the only tool available to Iran. As recently as this weekend, Trump said that the country has “no navy” and “no air force.” But U.S. officials told CBS in late April that they believe 60 percent of its navy is still “in existence” and two-thirds of its air force is “operational.” Although the Iranian military is indeed far weaker than the U.S. military, it has also reportedly proved scrappier and more capable than expected. Last week, the Pentagon offered its first estimate of the total cost of the war in Iran thus far: $25 billion. A single high-tech American weapon might cost millions; Iran’s signature drone—known as the Shahed-136—costs only tens of thousands, and has been threatening U.S. partners, such as Kuwait, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan, throughout the region. The anti-air munitions required to shoot them down can cost more than the Shaheds themselves. And when Shaheds do penetrate air defenses, they can be deadly.

Meanwhile, the country’s “mosquito fleet” of nimble, surveillance-dodging boats has been intimidating military and commercial vessels alike, projecting Iranian power in the strait. Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. Central Command, told reporters yesterday that the U.S. “blew up” six small Iranian boats in the area—a possible example of the IRGC’s reduced capacity. More typically, Cooper explained, the Iranian military deploys “between 20 and 40 small boats” when it intends to harass vessels. But a reduction in capacity is not the same as defeat. As my colleagues Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire reported last week, officials inside the Trump administration have admitted to being surprised at Iran’s resilience.

Although Trump insists that Iran has been completely destroyed and that the war is over, reality suggests otherwise. After two months of war with a superpower, Iran is in some respects outmatched: The U.S. said it bombed more than 13,000 targets during Operation Epic Fury. Yet Iran has refused to concede, even as hundreds of its own civilians have died and the rest have suffered from an economic crisis. U.S. efforts to fully degrade Iran’s defensive capacities may ultimately end up succeeding. But the longer Iran is able to inflict economic pain across the world, and the longer its depleted defensive capabilities hold, the more evidence its leaders have that it can continue to stand firm.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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