The challenge of nukes today: they were always understood, by the 50s when Hydrogen Bombs were developed and the Russians gained the bomb, to be psychological weapons, since the only practical application was last resort killing of civilians. It was the quintessential Television Paradigm weapon (as much against us as it was against our “enemies”).
Today there is no psychological deterrent: it neither scares people sufficiently and there are sone that would actually use them. This along with the rise in spirituality (which brings the occult front and center) is why some see the world at the beginning of a long term “Holy War.”
Trump: we keep cutting him slack - he has been dragged into this and is a reluctant warrior. Not so sure about this.
He was formed during the Eisenhower years. While Ike quietly made sure no nukes were used and that full civilian control was placed over them, there was a lot of talk in the 50s to 70s about “surviving” the bombs. This was Kissinger’s first popular book. Trump thinks he is a badass and in control so…
The real counter is his view of himself and what he wants his legacy to be. Using nukes would destroy his name, both for using them and the response from the rest of the world.
As a young adult in the 70s and 80s, he got very involved with NYC Jews. Not those that ran the “blue chip” finance shops, but the ones that were like him and had to make their millions from more unsavory means. These shaped his more worldly outlook, they also made him somewhat beholden to them…Pritsker’s and others loaned him lots of $.
Candace Owens coming out yesterday saying that Trump planned to “f-over” Ms. Adelson after she gave the $100M, is instructive of his morals, it also opens the question of whether he was lying to Kirk when he said that.
Trump’s “plan” going back to ‘16 (saying he would be the Jews “best friend), was to undercut Bibi…how dis that go?
When you think the laws don’t apply to you (Nature’s or Mans)…
When Mercouris propounds a position that I find arrogant and based on 'western exceptionalism,' I remind myself that he is British, and that is the nature of the beast.
Joe Kent is exceptionalist squared.
Referring to Iran (vaguely) as "terrorists" and troublemakers, reciting Iran's sins as catalogued by FDD and Jewish Nationalist-dominated media, with the grudging concession that "Iran has never attacked on US soil, and "they are pragmatists." He included in his remarks the plan that "we could ALLOW Iran to manage the Straits and sell its oil ... but after a while, go back and open the Straits ...Our military could do it easily."
IF Americans are increasingly aware that the Iraq war(s) were based. on lies; that is, violations of American and 'western civilizational' principles, why do American rely for policy and analysis on those, such as Kent, who aided in forming those policies and willingly fought in them?
If people are murdered in the course of robbing a bank, do the American people call upon the gang leader or the gunman who planned and participated in the crime for an assessment of the bank management; of how the bank should be treated going forward; of the pros and cons of having killed the bank management and whether subsequent management can be dealt with to enable future heists?
===
John Mearsheimer closed a recent conversation with DropSite:
"It would be really wonderful if somehow we could lean on the Israelis to stop running around the world murdering people. . . .in cahoots with us,[and] destroying huge chunks of countries like Lebanon and Iran and killing huge numbers of people. It would be really wonderful if we could put an end to all of this. And create some sort of peace in the Middle East for the foreseeable future."
EDIT: The Mearsheimer conversation was hosted by Breaking Points; DropSite was among the conversants.
After seeing their surface navy sent to the bottom, and their Air Force wiped out, I would not be too sanguine that they have any subs left either, Mark.
1. Their surface navy wasn't sent to the bottom. They retain huge numbers of super fast missile armed small craft.
2. Their air force wasn't wiped out--it's sheltered in bomb proof sites. We did, however, wipe out their many Chinese made decoys.
3. You're suggesting that after the POTUS made a big boast of sinking an unarmed training vessel he would NOT have boasted of sinking such a dangerous ship as a Kilo class sub? Iran had 3 of these subs, one of which was destroyed at dock, but it still has 2 as well as many midget subs.
A commenter offered an insightful observation but then, for some reason, appears to have deleted his comment. Here's what he wrote:
"The longer Iran controls Hormuz during negotiations/pause to reload, the better its position every day. Unfreezing $100-120 billion in sanctioned Iranian assets which has strategically crippled Iran's currency and economy is now at the forefront of expected conditions—assets that would likely be repatriated to Chinese banks, reinforcing the Petroyuan feedback loop."
On the Duran last night, Alexander Mercouris said that the archly conservative, pro-West, pro-Israel, anti-Muslim world, Daily Telegraph newspaper had an opinion piece by David Blair in which he called for Israel to be reigned-in.... ''🇮🇷 'As America’s truce with Iran dissolves into greater bloodshed, the US president must rein in Israel or face an embarrassing retreat' | Writes David Blair'' Unheard of!
The Strait of Hormuz - which at its narrowest is only 21 nautical miles wide - is Iranian and Omani territorial waters.
Under UNCLOS Part III (Arts. 37-44), the applicable regime is "transit passage," not "freedom of navigation." Transit passage gives coastal states regulatory authority over sea lanes.
Hmmm. Then what has the US Coast Guard been doing in the Gulf? LOL! Or patrolling the Indian Ocean and other oceans where the US has no coastline? Americans, unfortunately, pay no attention to this stuff, and our elected reps and officials are paid to either be complicit or to look the other way. The days will come when that will change.
Yesterday Zheng Llwen, Chair of Taiwan's Kuonmintang Party (founded by Chiang Kai Shek), which is the main opposition party, met with Xi in Beijing. This was her first meeting with him in over 10 years and a very clear rapproachment and peaceful messaging came out in the public statements. It seems to me that watching the American military debacle, and inability to effectively protect her client states' infrastructure, has caused a moment of clarity of thought in Taiwan's Opposition.
Not only has Trump gained worldwide opprobium for his poor diplomatic and strategic thinking, including using punitive tariffs and restrictions (including Taiwan) which brought about a great strengthening of relations between Russia, China and other SE Asian countries, but now he has also caused a greater unity between Taiwan and China, despite USA's military sabre rattling there.
Oh, how I love this moment in time. Not for the death and destruction, which has been going on
all my life long and is no different now, except that now the boot is on the other's foot and we may be able to at last understand what we have been doing to others all this time.
No propaganda to gloss it all over will be able to hide the horror of that.
As painful as this is going to be for many in the western world, we ensured that there was no other way . All power to Iran for pulling it off.
Listened earlier to Glenn Diesen and Larry Wilkerson on the demise of NATO and more. Wilkerson roasted Mearsheimer: "You have to accomodate this power shift, not fight it. Because if you fight it you'll wind up in John Mearsheimer's sandbox with the Thucydides trap." He then diverged to poetry, citing the last stanza of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," -
[the world] Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
If only we had diplomats of his caliber instead of the Three Stooges.
Thanks for another excellent roundup. A personal request - please take a day or two off. I just counted 17 articles from Monday to Friday. You deserve a break.
I think it was Alastair Crooke who said recently "The war is lost but the fighting continues". At this point, there is no path for the US to any semblance of success or victory; the only option is how much more we lose. Trump COULD make ersatz lemonade out of the giant bowl of lemons in front of him as follows:
1) State that the US set out to free the people of Iran from the murderous theocratic dictators who previously ruled; while that effort regrettably resulted in collateral damage it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and a new, reasonable regime is in place.
2) As there is a new regime in place, it's time for Iran to rejoin the community of nations and is warmly welcomed back; as part of that return the US will work to return frozen assets and remove sanctions to ease the transition.
3) The world has figured out that the operation near Isfahan was not simply to recover our downed airmen; in fact it was so that we could confirm that Operation Midnight Hammer did indeed destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities - and Delta Force made that determination. Iran has no nuclear weapons.
4) Charging a reasonable toll for ongoing maintenance of the Straits seems appropriate (particularly since on balance it will raise the price of oil which will benefit all exporters) and the US will not object (again, it doesn't hurt us). After all, ships pay to go through the Suez Canal.
5) Our GCC allies have determined that self-defense with less reliance on outside powers is in their own best interest and in support of this goal we will transition our bases to the host countries to use for their own defense (along with their purchase of US weapons).
See, it's not that hard. Of course each statement is the "win spin", aka a lie, but if that's what it takes to resolve the situation and get the US out then it's an acceptable price to pay. You'll note that the five points maps closely to the Iranian 10 point proposal.
Unfortunately the probability of this lemonade being made is zero.
Ed, I think the problem is that the US political order isn't well adapted to running an empire with central control over foreign policy--FP ends up being part of the mix that's fought over by the interest groups that control our political life and influence the two political branches of government.
I knew there had to be something up with that Melania statement, which is absurdly untruthful.
LJ has, in other presentations this week, emphasized the importance of the blow that Trump has delivered to the world economic order (as has Alastair Crooke), as well as the military debacle--both of which I tried to emphasize yesterday (and other days). He rightly points to the centrality of Israel in this, which I believes outweighs the oil industry giants in terms of electoral politics in the US. If there is a chance for the US political establishment to regain some degree of control over foreign policy it may come from the economic crisis ahead. Other countries are facing reckonings based on energy and other resource supply issues, but the US uniquely faces a combined debt and monetary crisis that ties into the energy crisis (and many domestic political and social problems). The pressure to come to grips with all of the above will be urgent and will work against the death grip of Jewish Nationalism on our politics.
If you come across the interview this weekend from Amanda Ungaro, please post it in the comments. I'm curious as to what she says.
That said, Amanda was arrested for fraud at a medical spa in Florida, which led to finding out her visa expired years ago. That's what got her deported.
***Asia is collectively rejecting the Israeli-American War against Iran and preparing for the post-American era in the Eastern Hemisphere.***
Japanese crude oil tankers are heading east toward the Strait of Hormuz. These vessels are assembling with others at the entrance to the waterway during the ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
Meanwhile, Republic of Korea (ROK) Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is sending a special envoy to Iran to discuss bilateral concerns between the ROK and Iran, and to clarify navigation problems in the Strait of Hormuz.
Spain is reopening its Embassy in Tehran. Madrid is walking away from Washington and toward Tehran. Soon Spain’s walk will become a European sprint.
These developments make it difficult but not impossible for Washington to restart the war for Israel. But if Washington resumes the offensive they risk blowing up the world economy in what the international community will view as Washington’s sabotage of Iran’s “Istanbul moment.”
Judge Nap and all the guys are great thinkers and I wish they'd all been some part of the cabinet BUT they are still thinking that T is just going off the rails and could be guided back.
NOPE, he's gone off his nut, worse every time he doesn't get what he wants. He doesn't have the mental capacity to straighten up and fly right, nor does he want to.
Personally I think that he's been replaced so often that the clones and actors are just not high quality anymore.
And for them to talk about what will happen in November is nuts. T will be gone long before then, God willing.
Ironically, sulfuric acid was an Iranian discovery:
"Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Al Razi was born in Al Rayy, a town on the southern slopes of El Burz mountains near present-day Tehran, Iran, in the year 865 AD (251 Hegira). His early interests were in music. He then started studying alchemy and philosophy.1 At the age of thirty, he stopped his work and experiments in alchemy due to eye irritation by chemical compounds he was exposed to. Among his discoveries in alchemy, he is credited with the discovery of sulfuric acid and ethanol." Full article at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6074295/
Thanks very much, Mimi, for pointing out this important man--Al Razi--that I had never heard about before. The article at the link says: "His books in medicine, philosophy and alchemy had greatly effected the human civilization, especially in Europe. Some authors considered him the greatest Arabic-Islamic physician and one of the most famous known to humanity."
My Western schooling in the USA did not include the names of great physicians, chemists, and philosophers that lived in or close to the Fertile Crescent.
Yes. And even the thoroughly "Western" alchemists, not least Paracelsus, were thoroughly framed as practitioners of witchcraft (I summarise crudely) a long time ago already.
No matter what Trump tries to do at this point the economy does not turn easily. It takes time.
By cutting off all of these critical petrochemicals as well as oil from the world markets you have impacted supply chains all over the place and they will not be coming back online anytime soon. If you were to stop the war right now with all of the destruction and damage that’s been done to the Oil states you’re looking at a minimum of 24 months before you get any normalcy back.
That means there’s going to be a global recession, no matter what . There is no way Trump can turn things around for the midterms in a matter of a few months when it’s going to take at least 24 to 36 months to see any of that happen substantially.
Trump is absolutely incapable of seeing what he has done, not only through the United States, but the rest of the world. You know this causes into questioning exactly what kind of IQ Trump has. What exactly were his grades at Fordham and Wharton?
I don’t think this guy is smart as he likes to think he is otherwise he would’ve thought out all of these different implications and he did not. What is even more disturbing is that the people around him seem to have very high IQ’s either. It’s like we have total mediocrity or worse in charge of this country. Prime example Pete Hegseth, that guy couldn’t even command a company much less run the department of defense and tell the generals what to do. He doesn’t know himself.
Whatever legacy Donald Trump thought he was going to have and leave is now in complete disarray, and I have no doubt that he will go down as the absolute dumbest and worst president in the history of our country .
I don't think it's a matter of IQ. I think his frontal lobe dementia makes him impulsive and thoughtless. I think his narcissistic personality disorder makes him incapable of thinking of restraining himself or trying to take care of his citizens. (Let alone the rest of the world.)
The oil shock will run up inflation across the board and cost consumers plenty... the Fed will be able to do nothing as far as tightening rates while this happens... then at some point consumer demand will crater into a recession and inflation will lessen also.. affording the Fed the ability to print more money. Clear as day and history always repeats itself.. or at least it rhymes.
Wilson...installed two planks of the communist manifesto (progressive income tax, Federal Reserve - strong central bank), got the US interwoven into European affairs via World War I and made the mess that resulted in World War II.
My vote is for Trump. But those who came before prepared the way for him by magnifying our debt. It's not just low IQ. It's lack of restraint (thinking he's invulnerable). It's delusional belief that he can win wars and always get his own way. A low IQ person doesn't have to start a nuclear war in order to prove that he's invulnerable.
And to top it all he appears to be an inveterate gambler. Gambling that Netanyahu would tell him the truth?? How dumb is that? That regime change would happen--after the failure of the 12 Day War? What a dumb gamble.
The challenge of nukes today: they were always understood, by the 50s when Hydrogen Bombs were developed and the Russians gained the bomb, to be psychological weapons, since the only practical application was last resort killing of civilians. It was the quintessential Television Paradigm weapon (as much against us as it was against our “enemies”).
Today there is no psychological deterrent: it neither scares people sufficiently and there are sone that would actually use them. This along with the rise in spirituality (which brings the occult front and center) is why some see the world at the beginning of a long term “Holy War.”
Trump: we keep cutting him slack - he has been dragged into this and is a reluctant warrior. Not so sure about this.
He was formed during the Eisenhower years. While Ike quietly made sure no nukes were used and that full civilian control was placed over them, there was a lot of talk in the 50s to 70s about “surviving” the bombs. This was Kissinger’s first popular book. Trump thinks he is a badass and in control so…
The real counter is his view of himself and what he wants his legacy to be. Using nukes would destroy his name, both for using them and the response from the rest of the world.
As a young adult in the 70s and 80s, he got very involved with NYC Jews. Not those that ran the “blue chip” finance shops, but the ones that were like him and had to make their millions from more unsavory means. These shaped his more worldly outlook, they also made him somewhat beholden to them…Pritsker’s and others loaned him lots of $.
Candace Owens coming out yesterday saying that Trump planned to “f-over” Ms. Adelson after she gave the $100M, is instructive of his morals, it also opens the question of whether he was lying to Kirk when he said that.
Trump’s “plan” going back to ‘16 (saying he would be the Jews “best friend), was to undercut Bibi…how dis that go?
When you think the laws don’t apply to you (Nature’s or Mans)…
Deeply disturbing conversation: Duran with Joe Kent.
https://theduran.substack.com/p/the-duran-daily-1cf
When Mercouris propounds a position that I find arrogant and based on 'western exceptionalism,' I remind myself that he is British, and that is the nature of the beast.
Joe Kent is exceptionalist squared.
Referring to Iran (vaguely) as "terrorists" and troublemakers, reciting Iran's sins as catalogued by FDD and Jewish Nationalist-dominated media, with the grudging concession that "Iran has never attacked on US soil, and "they are pragmatists." He included in his remarks the plan that "we could ALLOW Iran to manage the Straits and sell its oil ... but after a while, go back and open the Straits ...Our military could do it easily."
IF Americans are increasingly aware that the Iraq war(s) were based. on lies; that is, violations of American and 'western civilizational' principles, why do American rely for policy and analysis on those, such as Kent, who aided in forming those policies and willingly fought in them?
If people are murdered in the course of robbing a bank, do the American people call upon the gang leader or the gunman who planned and participated in the crime for an assessment of the bank management; of how the bank should be treated going forward; of the pros and cons of having killed the bank management and whether subsequent management can be dealt with to enable future heists?
===
John Mearsheimer closed a recent conversation with DropSite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9wXqYaAJOQ
"It would be really wonderful if somehow we could lean on the Israelis to stop running around the world murdering people. . . .in cahoots with us,[and] destroying huge chunks of countries like Lebanon and Iran and killing huge numbers of people. It would be really wonderful if we could put an end to all of this. And create some sort of peace in the Middle East for the foreseeable future."
EDIT: The Mearsheimer conversation was hosted by Breaking Points; DropSite was among the conversants.
After seeing their surface navy sent to the bottom, and their Air Force wiped out, I would not be too sanguine that they have any subs left either, Mark.
1. Their surface navy wasn't sent to the bottom. They retain huge numbers of super fast missile armed small craft.
2. Their air force wasn't wiped out--it's sheltered in bomb proof sites. We did, however, wipe out their many Chinese made decoys.
3. You're suggesting that after the POTUS made a big boast of sinking an unarmed training vessel he would NOT have boasted of sinking such a dangerous ship as a Kilo class sub? Iran had 3 of these subs, one of which was destroyed at dock, but it still has 2 as well as many midget subs.
A commenter offered an insightful observation but then, for some reason, appears to have deleted his comment. Here's what he wrote:
"The longer Iran controls Hormuz during negotiations/pause to reload, the better its position every day. Unfreezing $100-120 billion in sanctioned Iranian assets which has strategically crippled Iran's currency and economy is now at the forefront of expected conditions—assets that would likely be repatriated to Chinese banks, reinforcing the Petroyuan feedback loop."
On the Duran last night, Alexander Mercouris said that the archly conservative, pro-West, pro-Israel, anti-Muslim world, Daily Telegraph newspaper had an opinion piece by David Blair in which he called for Israel to be reigned-in.... ''🇮🇷 'As America’s truce with Iran dissolves into greater bloodshed, the US president must rein in Israel or face an embarrassing retreat' | Writes David Blair'' Unheard of!
A point of law raised by Rnaud Bertrand:
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2042833312172167568
The Strait of Hormuz - which at its narrowest is only 21 nautical miles wide - is Iranian and Omani territorial waters.
Under UNCLOS Part III (Arts. 37-44), the applicable regime is "transit passage," not "freedom of navigation." Transit passage gives coastal states regulatory authority over sea lanes.
Hmmm. Then what has the US Coast Guard been doing in the Gulf? LOL! Or patrolling the Indian Ocean and other oceans where the US has no coastline? Americans, unfortunately, pay no attention to this stuff, and our elected reps and officials are paid to either be complicit or to look the other way. The days will come when that will change.
Yesterday Zheng Llwen, Chair of Taiwan's Kuonmintang Party (founded by Chiang Kai Shek), which is the main opposition party, met with Xi in Beijing. This was her first meeting with him in over 10 years and a very clear rapproachment and peaceful messaging came out in the public statements. It seems to me that watching the American military debacle, and inability to effectively protect her client states' infrastructure, has caused a moment of clarity of thought in Taiwan's Opposition.
Not only has Trump gained worldwide opprobium for his poor diplomatic and strategic thinking, including using punitive tariffs and restrictions (including Taiwan) which brought about a great strengthening of relations between Russia, China and other SE Asian countries, but now he has also caused a greater unity between Taiwan and China, despite USA's military sabre rattling there.
Oh, how I love this moment in time. Not for the death and destruction, which has been going on
all my life long and is no different now, except that now the boot is on the other's foot and we may be able to at last understand what we have been doing to others all this time.
No propaganda to gloss it all over will be able to hide the horror of that.
As painful as this is going to be for many in the western world, we ensured that there was no other way . All power to Iran for pulling it off.
Listened earlier to Glenn Diesen and Larry Wilkerson on the demise of NATO and more. Wilkerson roasted Mearsheimer: "You have to accomodate this power shift, not fight it. Because if you fight it you'll wind up in John Mearsheimer's sandbox with the Thucydides trap." He then diverged to poetry, citing the last stanza of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," -
[the world] Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
If only we had diplomats of his caliber instead of the Three Stooges.
Mark,
Thanks for another excellent roundup. A personal request - please take a day or two off. I just counted 17 articles from Monday to Friday. You deserve a break.
I think it was Alastair Crooke who said recently "The war is lost but the fighting continues". At this point, there is no path for the US to any semblance of success or victory; the only option is how much more we lose. Trump COULD make ersatz lemonade out of the giant bowl of lemons in front of him as follows:
1) State that the US set out to free the people of Iran from the murderous theocratic dictators who previously ruled; while that effort regrettably resulted in collateral damage it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and a new, reasonable regime is in place.
2) As there is a new regime in place, it's time for Iran to rejoin the community of nations and is warmly welcomed back; as part of that return the US will work to return frozen assets and remove sanctions to ease the transition.
3) The world has figured out that the operation near Isfahan was not simply to recover our downed airmen; in fact it was so that we could confirm that Operation Midnight Hammer did indeed destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities - and Delta Force made that determination. Iran has no nuclear weapons.
4) Charging a reasonable toll for ongoing maintenance of the Straits seems appropriate (particularly since on balance it will raise the price of oil which will benefit all exporters) and the US will not object (again, it doesn't hurt us). After all, ships pay to go through the Suez Canal.
5) Our GCC allies have determined that self-defense with less reliance on outside powers is in their own best interest and in support of this goal we will transition our bases to the host countries to use for their own defense (along with their purchase of US weapons).
See, it's not that hard. Of course each statement is the "win spin", aka a lie, but if that's what it takes to resolve the situation and get the US out then it's an acceptable price to pay. You'll note that the five points maps closely to the Iranian 10 point proposal.
Unfortunately the probability of this lemonade being made is zero.
Ed, I think the problem is that the US political order isn't well adapted to running an empire with central control over foreign policy--FP ends up being part of the mix that's fought over by the interest groups that control our political life and influence the two political branches of government.
Would that Vance had 1/16th the wit precision and intelligence of your mind Ed!
I agree with you, ML...JD Vance does not present as the sharpest pencil in the box.
I would like to recommend a new post by Larry Johnson: "Iran Negotiating From a Dominant Position":
https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/iran-negotiating-from-a-dominant?r=2vzf0g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
He also includes interesting info about Melania's recent speech from the White House.
In the Comments section I linked to an interesting video from southern Lebanon.
I knew there had to be something up with that Melania statement, which is absurdly untruthful.
LJ has, in other presentations this week, emphasized the importance of the blow that Trump has delivered to the world economic order (as has Alastair Crooke), as well as the military debacle--both of which I tried to emphasize yesterday (and other days). He rightly points to the centrality of Israel in this, which I believes outweighs the oil industry giants in terms of electoral politics in the US. If there is a chance for the US political establishment to regain some degree of control over foreign policy it may come from the economic crisis ahead. Other countries are facing reckonings based on energy and other resource supply issues, but the US uniquely faces a combined debt and monetary crisis that ties into the energy crisis (and many domestic political and social problems). The pressure to come to grips with all of the above will be urgent and will work against the death grip of Jewish Nationalism on our politics.
There will be pain in the US, but perhaps--hopefully--the shackles will be broken that have bound the US to JN.
Thank you, Mark.
If you come across the interview this weekend from Amanda Ungaro, please post it in the comments. I'm curious as to what she says.
That said, Amanda was arrested for fraud at a medical spa in Florida, which led to finding out her visa expired years ago. That's what got her deported.
I will keep an eye out for the interview, and I will post it when I see it.
I just read LJ - always on target. Something is up…
P.S. - Sulfuric acid is widely used in mining to extract metals from ores through leaching processes, particularly for copper, nickel, and uranium.
Trump has driven the world away from America:
Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor
***Asia is collectively rejecting the Israeli-American War against Iran and preparing for the post-American era in the Eastern Hemisphere.***
Japanese crude oil tankers are heading east toward the Strait of Hormuz. These vessels are assembling with others at the entrance to the waterway during the ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
Meanwhile, Republic of Korea (ROK) Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is sending a special envoy to Iran to discuss bilateral concerns between the ROK and Iran, and to clarify navigation problems in the Strait of Hormuz.
Spain is reopening its Embassy in Tehran. Madrid is walking away from Washington and toward Tehran. Soon Spain’s walk will become a European sprint.
These developments make it difficult but not impossible for Washington to restart the war for Israel. But if Washington resumes the offensive they risk blowing up the world economy in what the international community will view as Washington’s sabotage of Iran’s “Istanbul moment.”
From The American Conservative.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/we-are-the-barbarians/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/fact-checking-trumps-claims-about-iran/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/
Judge Nap and all the guys are great thinkers and I wish they'd all been some part of the cabinet BUT they are still thinking that T is just going off the rails and could be guided back.
NOPE, he's gone off his nut, worse every time he doesn't get what he wants. He doesn't have the mental capacity to straighten up and fly right, nor does he want to.
Personally I think that he's been replaced so often that the clones and actors are just not high quality anymore.
And for them to talk about what will happen in November is nuts. T will be gone long before then, God willing.
Ironically, sulfuric acid was an Iranian discovery:
"Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Al Razi was born in Al Rayy, a town on the southern slopes of El Burz mountains near present-day Tehran, Iran, in the year 865 AD (251 Hegira). His early interests were in music. He then started studying alchemy and philosophy.1 At the age of thirty, he stopped his work and experiments in alchemy due to eye irritation by chemical compounds he was exposed to. Among his discoveries in alchemy, he is credited with the discovery of sulfuric acid and ethanol." Full article at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6074295/
Thanks very much, Mimi, for pointing out this important man--Al Razi--that I had never heard about before. The article at the link says: "His books in medicine, philosophy and alchemy had greatly effected the human civilization, especially in Europe. Some authors considered him the greatest Arabic-Islamic physician and one of the most famous known to humanity."
My Western schooling in the USA did not include the names of great physicians, chemists, and philosophers that lived in or close to the Fertile Crescent.
Yes. And even the thoroughly "Western" alchemists, not least Paracelsus, were thoroughly framed as practitioners of witchcraft (I summarise crudely) a long time ago already.
There are still huge amounts of US military supplies and personnel in region and reports of more coming in
Saber rattling or another ground attempt?
No matter what Trump tries to do at this point the economy does not turn easily. It takes time.
By cutting off all of these critical petrochemicals as well as oil from the world markets you have impacted supply chains all over the place and they will not be coming back online anytime soon. If you were to stop the war right now with all of the destruction and damage that’s been done to the Oil states you’re looking at a minimum of 24 months before you get any normalcy back.
That means there’s going to be a global recession, no matter what . There is no way Trump can turn things around for the midterms in a matter of a few months when it’s going to take at least 24 to 36 months to see any of that happen substantially.
Trump is absolutely incapable of seeing what he has done, not only through the United States, but the rest of the world. You know this causes into questioning exactly what kind of IQ Trump has. What exactly were his grades at Fordham and Wharton?
I don’t think this guy is smart as he likes to think he is otherwise he would’ve thought out all of these different implications and he did not. What is even more disturbing is that the people around him seem to have very high IQ’s either. It’s like we have total mediocrity or worse in charge of this country. Prime example Pete Hegseth, that guy couldn’t even command a company much less run the department of defense and tell the generals what to do. He doesn’t know himself.
Whatever legacy Donald Trump thought he was going to have and leave is now in complete disarray, and I have no doubt that he will go down as the absolute dumbest and worst president in the history of our country .
I don't think it's a matter of IQ. I think his frontal lobe dementia makes him impulsive and thoughtless. I think his narcissistic personality disorder makes him incapable of thinking of restraining himself or trying to take care of his citizens. (Let alone the rest of the world.)
The oil shock will run up inflation across the board and cost consumers plenty... the Fed will be able to do nothing as far as tightening rates while this happens... then at some point consumer demand will crater into a recession and inflation will lessen also.. affording the Fed the ability to print more money. Clear as day and history always repeats itself.. or at least it rhymes.
Many economists fear deflation more than inflation and a combo of the two will be our crisis.
I think it’ll be an intense competition between Bush, Biden, and Trump for worst President ever. Low IQ. Zero wisdom.
Wilson...installed two planks of the communist manifesto (progressive income tax, Federal Reserve - strong central bank), got the US interwoven into European affairs via World War I and made the mess that resulted in World War II.
My vote is for Trump. But those who came before prepared the way for him by magnifying our debt. It's not just low IQ. It's lack of restraint (thinking he's invulnerable). It's delusional belief that he can win wars and always get his own way. A low IQ person doesn't have to start a nuclear war in order to prove that he's invulnerable.
Add in Obama and Clinton and the first Bush.
And to top it all he appears to be an inveterate gambler. Gambling that Netanyahu would tell him the truth?? How dumb is that? That regime change would happen--after the failure of the 12 Day War? What a dumb gamble.
Trump ran casinos. He knows the house always wins.
What he didn't know is that the US isn't the house.
But there's no bankruptcy court to bail him.
We have few good options right now.
Dems or Reps?!
No thanks.