Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead by 6ixStringJack

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

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 21, 2026 07:00
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VIEWED: 12005
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Saturday, July 11, 2026 5:17 PM

What's that, Shit Golem?

I wasn't paying attention to you.

You should get used to that now.

Because nobody is ever going to take anything you ever say seriously again.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 5:17 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I wasn't joking.

You were the joke all along.

And not a particularly funny one.

And now everybody sees this.

Except for you.

Now carry that fucking weight.

Don't you worry. I know your stupid ass still doesn't get it.

But you will.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 5:49 PM

SECOND

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

President Donald Trump has made "casual butchery of the innocent" a common occurrence in his administration, according to a new analysis from The i Paper, which argued that his conduct is more bloodthirsty than the mob.

The piece, published on Saturday, hailed from veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn and dug into the growing list of violent acts committed against the innocent that Trump and his allies are racking up, including one which he dubbed "the worst single atrocity in U.S. military history since the Vietnam War."

"On the first day of the US-Israeli attack on Iran on [February 28], US missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyiba girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran, killing at least 168 children as they sat at their desks along with 14 teachers – according to the Iranian media – in what may be the worst single atrocity in US military history since the Vietnam War," he wrote, later adding. "The slaughter of the schoolgirls by feckless US military commanders is but one ghastly example of the moral depravity of America during Donald Trump’s second presidency. Trump boasts of assassinating the 86-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but makes no mention of the killing by his side of his daughter, daughter-in-law and a 14-month-old granddaughter whose name was Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani."

He continued: "For the US government, casual butchery of the innocent has become the norm. In the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, US Southern Command has carried out some 196 extrajudicial killings of people in boats whom it claims, without producing any evidence, were 'narco-terrorists smuggling drugs into the US.' According to an Amnesty International report on the killings, the US has released and not prosecuted survivors from the air strikes on their boats, strongly suggesting that it has no proof they were carrying drugs."

Cockburn further cited a statement about these strikes from Amnesty International, which called them both "illegal" and "immoral," and accused the Trump administration of normalizing "extrajudicial killings." He went a step further, echoing the common comparison of Trump to a mob boss and likening his government to a "gangster underworld." However, he also argued that this comparison might, in fact, not be fair to the mob.

"This goes to the moral heart of the matter," Cockburn wrote. "The thought processes and behavior of the Trump administration in these cases resemble those of the gangster underworld, pitiless in targeting the weak and defenseless, respectful only of those who respond to violence with greater violence. If anything, the American Mafia arguably operates with greater moderation than Trump has here, making a distinction between civilians and its criminal rivals."

https://www.alternet.org/amp/trump-mobster-2677206637

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

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 7:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

What's that, Shit Golem?

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Saturday, July 11, 2026 7:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Sunday, July 12, 2026 8:04 PM

SECOND

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

The U.S. launched yet another round of strikes on Iran on Sunday, part of an effort it said was intended to thwart its attacks on traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway crucial to the world’s oil supply.

The latest round of strikes began at 5 p.m. ET, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The goal is to curb Iran’s ability to target commercial shipping in the strait at a time when the U.S. has declared it open for business and Iran has said it’s closed.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/trump-threatens-iran-attempt-assass
inate-open-calls-killing-khamenei-rcna434515

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

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Sunday, July 12, 2026 8:09 PM

SECOND

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

How many times has Trump declared victory in the Iran war?

President Donald Trump has declared victory or claimed the conflict was nearly over dozens of times. An NBC News review identified at least 32 instances where Trump stated the war was won or close to finishing, while CNN documented at least 38 occurrences of him stating that a peace deal with Iran was imminent.

These declarations and their surrounding contexts include:

• 12 Times in March: According to Moneycontrol, he claimed victory at least 12 times in the first month of the conflict alone, notably declaring to reporters, 'We've won this war. This war has been won."

• Five times in 13 seconds: Trump asserted in a speech that the U.S. won the conflict in the "first hour".

• "Total and complete victory": He has repeatedly used absolute terms online, such as claiming a "Total and complete victory, 100%. No question about it," according to The Guardian.

• Diplomatic Deals: He has frequently claimed that his administration's strikes have left Iran desperate to negotiate, declaring the situation finished or nearly complete following tentative ceasefire agreements.

Despite these frequent declarations, the conflict and surrounding military exchanges have routinely resumed, with ceasefires breaking down and the U.S. carrying out further strikes in the region.

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

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Sunday, July 12, 2026 9:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thanks for the update, Shit Golem.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 13, 2026 5:54 AM

SECOND

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

Aspiring to Regional Domination, Iran Is Ready to Escalate Over Hormuz.

New outbreak of fighting over the strait comes as Tehran sees itself as a winner in the war that would establish a new Pax Iranica in the Middle East.

By Yaroslav Trofimov | July 11, 2026 8:53 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/https-www-wsj-com-world-middle-e
ast-iran-deal-strait-of-hormuz-b027c30f-580ee99f?st=wH7zeM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

For the Iranian regime, keeping a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz has turned out to be more important than the tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief from the Trump administration.

That is because Tehran is playing a long game. Iranian officials believe the country has finally emerged as a regional hegemon, after the U.S. and Israel failed to achieve their main goals in the war they unleashed in February. And, as long as Tehran cements this new status by securing permanent arrangements to control the vital waterway—and dominating the Persian Gulf economies along with it—then the rest, including American sanctions relief, will eventually follow.

“This is the only way: recognize the new Iranian order in the Strait of Hormuz,” warned Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission. “The Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats,” added the parliament’s speaker and the lead negotiator with the U.S., Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

This attitude heralds a rocky future, with regular bouts of violence, continuing uncertainty for global energy markets and a Damoclean Sword of renewed strikes hanging over the Gulf monarchies.

“The Islamic Republic will become even more of a gangster regime. Its takeaway from the war is that concessions are won through coercion—by attacking its neighbors, threatening the Strait of Hormuz and driving up the price of oil,” said Karim Sadjadpour, Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Like Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic believes that its security depends not on the prosperity of its people, but on the insecurity of its neighbors.”

And, just like Russia in its own neighborhood, the Iranian regime views the oil-rich Gulf monarchies as belonging to its own natural sphere of influence—a sphere denied to it by American meddling ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Now that America has failed to protect these Gulf states from Iranian attacks, Tehran’s drive to institutionalize Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz reflects its ambition to establish a new Pax Iranica in the Middle East. After all, the Gulf countries, to a varying extent, rely on the strait not just for their oil and gas exports, but also for other vital supplies, from consumer items to food.

Keep reading at https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/https-www-wsj-com-world-middle-e
ast-iran-deal-strait-of-hormuz-b027c30f-580ee99f?st=wH7zeM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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

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Monday, July 13, 2026 5:56 AM

SECOND

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

How Trump failed to secure the Strait of Hormuz in his poorly developed ‘deal’ with Iran

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/us/politics/trump-strait-of-hormuz-
iran-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xFA.nTaN.wiXixce04ava

The New York Times reports:

For two months, under a quiet arrangement with the U.S. Navy, commercial tankers turned off their transponders to avoid detection by Iran as they crossed the perilous Strait of Hormuz to carry oil and gas out to the world.

The military offered some air cover in case Iran attacked, as naval officers directed the vessels over the radio to hug Oman’s coast, opposite Iran’s shore. That enabled a steady increase in traffic through the strait from May to June, during a tentative cease-fire in the war.

But a framework deal that President Trump signed with Iran last month helped bring that effort to a fiery end because of its language giving Iran official power in the strait and its vagueness in important phrases.

Mr. Trump celebrated the agreement, reached on June 14, as the reopening of the strait. “Ships of the World, start your engines,” he wrote on social media. “Let the oil flow!”

But critics say it actually formalized a reality that Iranian officials have made clear throughout the war: They now control the strait.

Iran’s missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the strait essentially shut it down soon after the United States and Israel started the war. Then weeks after the United States and Iran entered a tentative and informal cease-fire in early April, some tankers began taking a southern route through the strait, farther from Iran’s coast.

Now, by striking last week in that area, Iran is trying to force ships to travel through its territorial waters on the strait’s northern side, where Tehran can try to justify charging tolls or fees.

Iranian units attacked three ships on Tuesday along the southern route, the U.S. military said. Mr. Trump responded by ordering airstrikes in Iran. The tensions escalated in an announcement this weekend by Iran’s Navy that it had fired on another vessel in the strait and was closing the waterway “until the end of U.S. interference in the region.”

U.S. Central Command said it hit about 140 Iranian military targets in response, for a total of 310 American strikes over the last week.

With Mr. Trump warning that he thinks the June agreement is “over,” global energy prices are surging again, along with fears of a return to all-out war. Before the war, a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed through the strait from producers in the Middle East.

The latest crisis is an all-too-predictable result of the June agreement, former American officials and analysts say.

[Continue reading…]
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/us/politics/trump-strait-of-hormuz-
iran-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xFA.nTaN.wiXixce04ava

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

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Monday, July 13, 2026 1:51 PM

SECOND

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

The War Trump Can’t Control

President Trump has consistently said the war in Iran will be over “quickly.” Is it becoming one America can’t exit?

By Adam Harris | July 13, 2026, 8:40 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/07/ra-iran-reescalation/6878
49/

Following the United States’ war with Iran can give you whiplash. One day, it’s nearing a resolution; the next, the nations have resumed missile strikes on each other’s military installations, and Iran on Gulf States caught in the destructive web of this conflict. By the time President Trump declared, on Friday, that a cease-fire with Iran was over, the U.S. had already hit more than 140 targets in the preceding days—his words did not make policy; they were simply an articulation of reality.

Though the president has said he would not enter any “forever wars,” America seems to find itself headed toward one. Is there a way out? My colleagues Tom Nichols and Nancy Youssef, who cover the military and diplomacy for The Atlantic, joined me on Radio Atlantic to discuss the conflict that is beginning to feel more like a permanent condition.

Transcript at https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/07/ra-iran-reescalation/6878
49/

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

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Monday, July 13, 2026 8:47 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

"Can't control", according to whom?

Your chronically whining, Anti-American left wing faggot bitches over at the Atlantic.

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2026 7:30 AM

SECOND

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

Suddenly, Hormuz is Less Crucial Than It Was

Why? Because the real energy crunch is coming from the Russia/Ukraine war

Paul Krugman
Jul 14, 2026

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/suddenly-hormuz-is-less-crucial-tha
n

Are we back at war with Iran? Did the war ever stop? The US is, once again, bombing Iran while Iranian drones strike shipping. Iran, giddy with its success in defying America, is demanding sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, while Donald Trump is saying no, he owns the Strait and will collect 20 percent tolls.

Folks, this is bad. U.S. national security policy is now entirely in the service of one man’s vanity. We got into this mess because Trump thought he could win an easy victory that would let him strut around feeling powerful. Now we can’t get out because he won’t admit that his war has been a humiliating failure.

The good news is that Trump’s temper tantrum will probably do less economic damage than one might have expected — because the cease-fire that is apparently over wasn’t doing as much good as one might have expected. The fact is that there is now a disconnect between events in the Strait of Hormuz and the energy prices that matter. This disconnect is coming from a surprising place, another war that was supposed to yield a quick, easy victory but didn’t: Vladimir Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine.

To see what I’m talking about, start with a question: Why was oil so cheap just before this latest confrontation?

Charts, graphs, and more about crude oil prices at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/suddenly-hormuz-is-less-crucial-tha
n

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

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Tuesday, July 14, 2026 7:44 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:
"Can't control", according to whom?

Your chronically whining, Anti-American left wing faggot bitches over at the Atlantic.

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Immediately after Pearl Harbor, President FDR could have bragged that he, personally, drove the Japanese Fleet out of Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was never again attacked! But, for some reason, FDR felt a need to collapse the Japanese government, not just protect Hawaii. And so began a war that continued for 1,364 days, unlike Trump's War with Iran, which he said was Won On Day One.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5967020-donald-trump-da
y-one-iran-war-graham-death-daylight-savings/

It was exactly 1,364 days (or 3 years, 8 months, and 22 days) from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to the formal signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.

Today is the 137th day of Trump's War with Iran (or 10% of Roosevelt's War with Japan) https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/

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

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026 6:11 AM

SECOND

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

Who Really Controls the Strait of Hormuz?

Since the war began, Iran has only expanded its power over the waterway.

By Will Gottsegen | July 14, 2026, 7:32 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/07/who-controls-strait-of
-hormuz/687920/

Yesterday, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the United States would become the “GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” blockading Iranian ports and ensuring the safe passage of non-Iranian vessels. And in the spirit of “FAIRNESS,” he added, the U.S. would charge vessels a fee for the trouble.

Then, this morning, an amendment: Trump disposed of the fee idea while still indicating that he intends to assert control of the strait and resume the blockade. Now, Trump says, the Gulf states will be making “the Trade and Investment Deals” with the U.S. as a form of compensation. But the particulars of those deals (and of which states will participate) remain unclear.

Today marked the fourth consecutive day of strikes across Iran. The cease-fire has disintegrated—Trump formally notified Congress yesterday that the war has resumed—and negotiations have collapsed. If American forces do try to reassert power in the strait, they’ll face a difficult path. Iran is still clamping down on ship traffic, and recent violent clashes in the waterway have once again dramatically reduced the number of vessels entering and exiting the Persian Gulf. The United States’ ability to exert control in the strait could depend on its ability to erode the system of dominance that Iran has established in recent months.

Dominance in the Persian Gulf has never been clear-cut. In the early 16th century, Portuguese mariners brought their cartaz system of permits to the Strait of Hormuz, overseeing the waterway for more than a century. In 1622, the joint forces of Persia and England’s East India Company seized it. The Strait of Hormuz is now broadly understood as an international zone, and yet portions of the waterway remain contested. Its narrowest stretch is just 21 miles wide—meaning that, according to a United Nations convention, it is entirely within the territorial waters of Iran and nearby Oman. Neither Iran nor the U.S. are party to the UN treaty, but the U.S. nevertheless recognizes it as international law, Michael Poznansky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me.

The U.S. has assumed some responsibility for the Strait of Hormuz in the past. Defense of the Persian Gulf was at the core of the Carter Doctrine—Jimmy Carter’s attempt, in 1980, to respond to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Iran periodically attacked foreign vessels in the strait during the Iran-Iraq War of the ’80s; in 1987, the U.S. Navy launched Operation Earnest Will, escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the strait for more than a year. During that war, the Iranian regime threatened to fully close off the strait but decided against it, realizing that the damage to its own economy would be too great. Iran has repeated this threat over the past two decades, but it never actually followed through until February, in retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli strikes on its land and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Despite the persistent threat of Iranian interference in the strait over the past half century, its leadership was never guaranteed to be able to enforce an effective blockade. But what remains of Iran’s military, decimated by months of war, has still proved capable of maintaining the transit restrictions that the regime announced in the spring. The persistent threat of mines, and of its nimble boats that can harass or attack other vessels, has kept ship traffic to a minimum; the number of crossings on Sunday was the lowest it had been in a month.

Past efforts to break Iran’s stranglehold over the course of this war have failed. In May, American forces began escorting some vessels through the strait as part of an initiative called Project Freedom; it ended after just two days, in part because Saudi Arabia declined to let the U.S. use its military bases and airspace. European allies could provide support for potential U.S. missions in the Gulf, as they did during Operation Earnest Will, but Trump has now eroded many of those relationships.

Given Iran’s demonstrated ability to influence ship traffic, the project of ensuring freedom of navigation in the strait might require a permanent U.S. effort, Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. This could end up being cumbersome and dangerous, Takeyh explained, given the military assets involved in escort missions and the inevitability of Iranian interference. And even then, ship traffic may not return to prewar levels.

Trump’s social-media posts over the past couple of days have gestured at the desire for a strong and continued American presence in the strait—a profound shift on the part of a president who spent years decrying the country’s role as “the policemen of the world.” He may soon come to realize that policing the strait does not always mean controlling it.

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

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026 10:28 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
"Can't control", according to whom?

Your chronically whining, Anti-American left wing faggot bitches over at the Atlantic.

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, President FDR could have bragged that he, personally, drove the Japanese Fleet out of Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was never again attacked! But, for some reason, FDR felt a need to collapse the Japanese government, not just protect Hawaii. And so began a war that continued for 1,364 days, unlike Trump's War with Iran, which he said was Won On Day One.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5967020-donald-trump-da
y-one-iran-war-graham-death-daylight-savings/

It was exactly 1,364 days (or 3 years, 8 months, and 22 days) from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to the formal signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.

Today is the 137th day of Trump's War with Iran (or 10% of Roosevelt's War with Japan) https://hormuzstraitmonitor.com/

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

CAN'T CONTROL? ACCORDING TO WHOM?

I don't need any of your bullshit dialog on any topic.

I asked you a fucking question. Do not quote my question and not answer it, fuckwit.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 20, 2026 8:30 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:

CAN'T CONTROL? ACCORDING TO WHOM?

I don't need any of your bullshit dialog on any topic.

I asked you a fucking question. Do not quote my question and not answer it, fuckwit.

Trump lost to Iran. It is over, kind of like Bush, who lost to Afghanistan, but he didn't realize it. Bush went into Afghanistan to kill Osama bin Laden, but Osama was in Pakistan. The US Army searched for years unsuccessfully because it was looking in the wrong place. How much did that search cost? $8 trillion. Trump has already spent hundreds of billions on the Iran War. The price will keep going up until the next President, or the one after that, declares the war is over.

Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar

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

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Monday, July 20, 2026 8:31 AM

SECOND

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

How success in Venezuela set Trump up for disaster in Iran

Not every country can be run from afar.

By Joshua Keating
Jul 20, 2026, 5:45 AM CDT

https://www.vox.com/politics/495917/trump-venezuela-iran

Last week presented a stark contrast in the trajectories of the Trump administration’s two riskiest foreign policy ventures. On July 13, the President Donald Trump formally declared a return to military action in Iran, making clear that a war that he had anticipated would last just four or five weeks will stretch past the five month mark and probably longer. Trump appears increasingly frustrated by Iran’s failure to concede to his demand to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, comparing the country to a “great boxer”: “You think you have them beat, and then all of a sudden he comes back and he gives you a shot.”

Key takeaways

• After removing President Nicolas Maduro in January, the US is now effectively controlling Venezuela via new President Delcy Rodriguez. On the other hand, after five months of fighting, Iran shows no signs it will accede to Trump’s demands.

• Trump cited Venezuela as a model for how he would like to control Iran and spoke of finding another “Delcy" to run that country, but it should have been obvious that was never going to work, given the differences between the two countries.

• Trump has spoken of attempting regime change in other countries, particularly Cuba. The question going forward is whether the experience of Iran has changed his views on how easy this would be.

On the far side of the globe, however, the other country Trump attacked this term has proven much more manageable. Venezuela’s government — now led by former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who took power when Nicolás Maduro was captured in a US raid in January — agreed to talks with an opposition leader handpicked by the US that aimed at “strengthening democracy.”

The New York Times reported earlier this week that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is effectively the “viceroy” of Venezuela, ruling the country in absentia from Washington, DC. (“Viceroy” is traditionally an official who governs a country or colony as a direct representative of a monarch.) The US has direct control over the revenues Venezuela receives from selling its oil abroad, giving Rubio effective power over the country’s budget. The grip is so tight, the Times reports, that Rodriguez asks for White House approval before appearing on Fox News, much to Trump’s delight.

Two different countries in two different parts of the world with two different responses to Trumpian military pressure. But when future historians tell the story of how this administration ended up enmeshed in exactly the sort of Middle East quagmire that he had run for office pledging to avoid, they’re likely to devote at least a few paragraphs to Venezuela. The easy success of one operation set the stage for the still unfolding disaster of the other.

Exporting the Venezuela model

In a daring predawn raid on January 3, US Special Forces managed to capture Maduro in a matter of hours, with no US troops killed. Contrary to the warnings of critics that such regime change would result in chaos — and to the hopes of the Venezuelan opposition that it would lead to democracy — Trump and Rubio successfully replaced Maduro with his much more pliant vice president, who has proven more than happy to let Washington call the shots. Trump now regularly muses about making Venezuela the 51st state.

The operation was, the Times reported, “evidence to the president of the unmatched prowess of U.S. forces” and, along with the relative success of the first round of airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program last June, emboldened him to take further military action.

“What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect scenario,” Trump said in early March, referring to prospects for regime change in Iran. And in one sense it worked; the US was able to remove the head of state within hours of launching military action, with Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike.

“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” Trump said, when Iran’s regime was considering Khamenei’s successor.

Trump was not involved. Iran’s Assembly of experts chose the former supreme leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, whom Trump dismissed as “unacceptable” and a “lightweight”.

Despite this, Trump continued to insist that regime change had effectively happened in Iran and that its new leaders were “much more reasonable.” While Iran’s new political system is still very much a work in progress, its insistence on maintaining control of the state and ongoing attacks against shipping and US allies in the region have made it fairly clear that it will not be taking orders from Marco Rubio or anyone else in DC.

Why Iran is not Venezuela

On the surface, there are some striking similarities between Iran and Venezuela: They were once close allies of each other, as well as of Russia and China. Both are oil dependent authoritarian states espousing a revolutionary ideology defined in large part by opposition to the United States. Both are known for sponsoring foreign militant groups. Both have a history of disputed elections and crushing opposition protests. Both have large and vocal exile communities in the US. Both have struggling economies and have spent years under US sanctions.

That’s where the similarities end, however. Start with the military: Iran’s combined forces are roughly three times the size of Venezuela’s and far better equipped, possessing missile and drone capabilities that have spread chaos across the region for months. Iran’s senior leaders came of age during the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and have spent decades engaged in proxy battles with the US and Israel, whereas Venezuela has not fought an interstate war in modern times. It’s telling that Maduro was relying on Cuban personnel for his own security.

Then, there’s geography. Thanks to its fortuitous location on the western side of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has means to retaliate against the US by blocking shipping through the world’s most important energy chokepoint, driving up oil prices. Venezuela may have the world’s largest oil reserves, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the ability to disrupt global energy flows.

Iran was able to attack US allies throughout the Gulf with both its own missiles and via the military groups it supports throughout the region. Despite Trump’s misleading claims that Maduro’s government was in direct control of gangs in the US or weaponizing migration, Venezuela simply didn’t have the same kind of leverage with which to fight back.

There’s history, too. Even at the nadir of relations with the US, when Venezuela was under heavy American sanctions and formal diplomatic contacts were cut off, there were still periodic talks over energy issues and prisoner releases. The US oil company Chevron continued to operate inside the country. Rodriguez herself was a familiar figure to US officials, having participated in talks with both the Biden and Trump administrations.

And finally, there’s ideology. Venezuela’s rulers may still be publicly committed to the “Bolivarian” socialist vision of former leader Hugo Chávez, but, in reality, the regime operates as “an extreme form of crony capitalism with some pretenses of redistribution of oil windfalls to the poor,” said Chris Sabatini, director of the Latin America program at the think tank Chatham House. Senior civilian and military officials were heavily involved in a range of enterprises of varying degrees of legality from the oil industry, from gold mining to drug trafficking. When push came to shove, they were more interested in preserving their fiefdoms than standing up for a long-dead revolution.

According to some reporting, denied by the Venezuelan government, Rodríguez had been in direct contact with US officials prior to Maduro’s capture, assuring them of her cooperation, which would make this less a regime change invasion than a US-enabled coup. Even Interior Minister Diasdello Cabello, considered the hardest of the hardline Chavistas with a US price on his head, has been more than happy to play ball with the country’s new American overlords.

Iran has widespread corruption, as well, but the regime is far more organized, disciplined, and committed to the radical Islamist ideology of the 1979 revolution. Iran’s leaders had long been planning for invasion and had detailed succession plans in place for when top leaders were eliminated. The fact that the US’s Israeli partners were reportedly cultivating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president best remembered for calling for Israel to be wiped off the map and promoting a long-shot plan to arm Kurdish rebels to mount a ground invasion, is an indication that there were simply no plausible candidates for an “Iranian Delcy.”

It should have been obvious from the start that a quick and easy operation that would replace Iran’s top leaders with more cooperative ones without requiring a dangerous and costly ground invasion by US troops was never a realistic prospect. It’s notable that the administration sidelined many of its own Iran experts ahead of the war, but, in fairness, Trump’s own CIA director dismissed Israel’s optimistic regime change scenarios as “farcical.”

“President Trump has not really taken the time to study the history of Iran-US relations going back to 1979, or even earlier,” said the Middle East Institute’s Alex Vatanka. “If he had studied that relationship, I think he would have taken a different approach.” But Trump may have been thinking less about what happened in Tehran in 1979 than what had happened in Caracas just a few weeks earlier.

The end of hubris?

Many scoffed in January when Trump suggested that the US would be “running” Venezuela for the foreseeable future, but that appears to be more or less what’s happening now. It’s not clear how long this arrangement can last. Discontent with both Rodríguez and Trump is growing in Venezuela, and many in the opposition accuse the government of using the recent devastating earthquake as a pretext to delay called-for democratic reforms. Venezuelans may come to hold the United States responsible for the failures of the government it is remotely controlling.

But the initial success of the Venezuela operation was a vindication for a president who often sees himself as running the world in addition to the United States.

Has Trump faith in his ability to bend other countries to his will been shaken at all by the Iran experience? He has frequently described Cuba as “next” on the list of countries he’d like to “take” after Venezuela and Cuba.

In terms of culture and geography, Cuba may look more like Venezuela. But in terms of its political system, it’s “more like Iran,” said Sabatini. “It’s completely state-centric, vertical, disciplined.” Dealing with a system still fiercely devoted to its founding revolutionary ideology that has been largely isolated from the US for decades, the administration may have no better luck finding a “Cuban Delcy” than it did finding an Iranian one.

Trump still hasn’t ruled out taking over Cuba in some fashion, and Pentagon planners are reportedly examining a range of options for action against the island, though he claimed Rubio wants to “get [Iran] finished first.” If that’s true, it may be a long wait until Iran is “finished.”

On the other hand, Trump is once again talking about taking over Greenland and posting memes referencing his desire to annex Canada. Iran may have proven that Venezuela was the exception, not the rule, when it comes to regime change, but Trump’s ambitions for world domination do not seem to have disappeared.

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

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Monday, July 20, 2026 5:37 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

CAN'T CONTROL? ACCORDING TO WHOM?

I don't need any of your bullshit dialog on any topic.

I asked you a fucking question. Do not quote my question and not answer it, fuckwit.
Trump lost to Iran.

No. He didn't.

You're a fucking idiot, Shit Golem.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, July 20, 2026 11:45 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Since there are no good air defense systems in the region, it's a grudge match and slug fest between America/ Gulf Monarchies + Jordan/ Israel v Iran/ Iraq/ Ansar and Allah(?)/ China(?).

Each side will continue until one runs out of missiles or their assets are destroyed. I don't think infrastructure destruction OR civilian deaths will count.

-----------

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

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Monday, July 20, 2026 11:58 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Shit Golem is just such a compromised stupid fuck that he'll just say anything that comes into his mind and believe anything that he is told as long as they say Trump is a bad boy while they're saying it.

I guaranty you. If we ever lose the war against Iran, every goddamned person living here is going to know about it. HARD.

The fact that Over $151 Million dollars here in America had enough free time and money on their hands to go see The Odyssey this weekend leads me to believe that the reports saying we lost the war to Iran have been greatly overblown.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 6:59 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 guaranty you. If we ever lose the war against Iran, every goddamned person living here is going to know about it. HARD.

The fact that Over $151 Million dollars here in America had enough free time and money on their hands to go see The Odyssey this weekend leads me to believe that the reports saying we lost the war to Iran have been greatly overblown.

What is the connection between movie ticket sales and the Strait of Hormuz being closed?

Eventually, Hollywood will make a movie about Trump's Iran fiasco. Trumptards won't go to that movie because it makes Trump look like an old fool. How dare Hollywood mistreat the greatest President in history?

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

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 7:00 AM

SECOND

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

Trump Is Caught in the Trap He Set

The war in Iran has dealt a serious blow to the idea that the president can slip out of any bind easily.

By David A. Graham | July 20, 2026, 6:39 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/07/trump-is-caught-in-ira
n-war/688006/

The war in Iran has dealt a serious blow to the idea that Trump can slip out of any bind easily. Over the past three days, three American service members died in that conflict: two in Jordan, where Iranian missiles struck a military base, and a third in Iraq, killed by debris during the intentional destruction of an Iranian drone. The official American death toll in the Iran war now sits at 17.

That number is low—still less, for example, than the toll from the 1983 invasion of Grenada—although the military appears to have been keeping quiet just how many troops have been injured. As my colleague Tom Nichols wrote over the weekend, the president’s limp attempt at consolation (“It’s a very sad thing,” he said) is especially dismaying because “Trump has offered no comprehensive explanation about why his administration is ordering U.S. military personnel to put their lives on the line.”

And the death toll may begin to rise, because Trump appears to be on the verge of being drawn into a larger war. As the defense analyst Brynn Tannehill wrote in The Atlantic last week, the president faces only bad choices. The United States could effectively cede control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, accepting a fee system that breaks global precedent and centuries of American policy and granting a hostile power the opportunity to close an important shipping lane at any future moment. Or the White House could embark on a major ground war, because fighting over the past few months has shown the limitations of relying on air power. That would be politically hazardous, likely lead to more American deaths, and suck the U.S. into a long-running presence in the region, and it might still fail. Meanwhile, the conflict threatens to grow even larger as Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen threaten to close some traffic to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Deciding what to do is hard when you don’t know what you want. Trump has vacillated over whether the point of the war is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and whether the war has already achieved that. He’s offered different answers about whether one goal is regime change, and whether that has been achieved. He has suggested that the purpose is to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, even though it was open before the war and even though that may no longer be manageable. The administration has also struggled to explain to skeptical members of Congress why it needs more war funding.

In short, Trump’s misadventure in Iran is a story of hubris. The president didn’t bother to plan or consider the dangers before he started a war, and now it has spiraled to a point where even he seems unable to find a way to wriggle out of a jam. For the first time in a very long time—to some extent, the first time in his life—Trump appears to be facing the consequences of his actions.

These circumstances might give Trump’s critics and opponents a chance to feel some delicious schadenfreude if the results of the blunder were not so terrible. The costs are measured not only in the blood of American service members but also in the deaths of Iranian civilians and of merchant mariners trying to sail through the Persian Gulf, in the damage to the global economy, and in the erosion of American alliances and a long-standing global order. Being confronted with a snare that he can’t escape must be unpleasant for Trump, but people around the globe will face misery because of it.

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

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