Two days ago, Donald Trump was whining that he wasn’t going to win a Nobel Peace Prize, despite the fact that he had been so great at negotiating peace in the world.
I am very happy to report that | have arranged, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a wonderful Treaty between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of Rwanda, in their War, which was known for violent bloodshed and death, more so even than most other Wars, and has gone on for decades. Representatives from Rwanda and the Congo will be in Washington on Monday to sign Documents. This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World! | won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this, | won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the War between India and Pakistan, | won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the War between Serbia and Kosovo, | won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for keeping Peace between Egypt and Ethiopia (A massive Ethiopian built dam, stupidly financed by the United States of America, substantially reduces the water flowing into The Nile River), and | won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for doing the Abraham Accords in the Middle East which, if all goes well, will be loaded to the brim with additional Countries signing on, and will unify the Middle East for the first time in “The Ages!” No, | won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what | do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/lran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!
He really, really wants a Nobel prize to put on his mantel. Obama got one, you know.
So yesterday he went golfing, and made an unconstitutional attack, an act of war, on Iran, sending B2 bombers to drop bunker-busters on Iranian nuclear sites. Not that he cares about the Constitution — it’s not as if Congress will suddenly grow a spine — or that he cares about loss of life, or that he cares that he has now embroiled the country in another massive, futile war in the Middle East, he’s got to prop up his belief that he’s a strong man. This is just standard petty tyrant shit, lashing out with violence because he’s not good enough to use American strength to do something right. Blow something up, sure, yeah, that works in the movies, so it’s what he’s going to do.
Donald Trump: Remember what I previously said–Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is.
Actually, Obama negotiated a nuclear non-proliferation treaty with Iran.
Hello, 2003. I never wanted to see your ugly face again, with your baseless accusations of Weapons of Mass Destruction to justify wrecking another nation, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, wasting thousands of American lives, spreading more chaos throughout a region on the other side of the world. All because Trump wants a “Mission Accomplished” banner of his very own, or, somehow, a Nobel Peace Prize. I expect he will at least get a bump in his favorability ratings, because this is a rogue nation in which many of the people will shout “YEE-HAAAW” and cheer as the bombs fall on some other country.
We’ve got the rage virus burning through the US. And you all know what you’ve got to do to stop a zombie.
Iran now has incontrovertible evidence that it can’t just threaten to build a nuclear weapon, it needs to actually have some like North Korea does.
An expensive Kowtowing to Israel.
I asked the bubblebot, so take this with due caution, but seems on the right ballpark:
Based on available reports, the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 21, 2025, involved the use of at least 14 GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs)—12 dropped on Fordow and 2 on Natanz. With each MOP estimated at $3.5 million, the munitions alone would total approximately $49 million.
That figure excludes:
– Deployment costs of six B-2 Spirit bombers, each costing around $2 billion to build and hundreds of millions to operate and maintain.
– 30 Tomahawk missiles launched from submarines at Natanz and Isfahan, each costing roughly $1.5 million, adding another $45 million.
– Logistics, refueling, mission planning, and post-strike assessments, which could push the total operational cost well into the hundreds of millions, if not more.
So, while the direct ordnance cost is around $94 million, the full mission cost likely exceeds $500 million, depending on how you account for aircraft usage and support infrastructure. A costly message, both in dollars and diplomacy.
Not sure the cost factor is the point here, John.
I read Yemen will join the war on Iran’s side, I read the Strait of Hormuz will be closed, I read Iran’s FM is on his way to Russia to talk to Putin. This whole situation is only good if you are long Oil, because the oil price will go up 10% at market open tomorrow. For the world, it’s a disaster.
“
Iranthe entire non-nuclear world now has incontrovertible evidence that it can’t just threaten to build a nuclear weapon, it needs to actually have some like North Korea does.”A comment I saw on Bluesky sums it up.
It is a good thing congress isn’t alive to see this happening.
For some context, under the US constitution, the power to declare war is reserved for the US congress.
AFAICT, the input of the US congress in this decision to start a war was zero.
Congress did approve of the war in Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the war in Iraq as well.
Since Chump’s ambition for a Nobel Peace Prize was mentioned, and for those who missed the story, Pakistan stated their desire to do the nomination. https://is.gd/GWxdPG They said that his “stellar foresight and great strategic statesmanship […] stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker.” My guess is some backroom deal with China, Russia, or the Trump government would be a more likely reason for the statement than any actual belief.
Medvedev says that “several countries” were prepared to supply Iran with nuclear weapons.
Medvedev is a drunken internet troll.
He is also both the former president and former Prime Minister of Russia and a high Russian official.
These countries could be Pakistan, Russia, North Korea, or China.
I don’t actually believe this though.
Russia or North Korea might think about it but Pakistan and China wouldn’t, not enough to gain for them.
Russia is one of Iran’s few allies. They use huge amounts of Iranian Shahed drones to terrorize Ukrainian civilians, Enough that they make them under license in Russia.
They aren’t happy about the US Iran war.
1 2 3 4 What are we fighting for? I don’t know, and I don’t give a damn, next stop Iran.
So, now we’re at war with Iran. And, as the old saying goes, all’s fair in love and war. Does Trump truly believe that Iran will now crawl to the negotiating table with a gun at its head? If they do, I’ll be shocked. What would they gain from negotiating with Trump now? His promise not to attack them again? His word isn’t worth a maggoty piece of moldy bread. My biggest fear, and I’m not alone in this, is that Iran will mine the Straits of Hormuz. They reportedly have 1000s of them ready to be dropped off of small, fast boats. Once shipping through the Straits is halted, guess what? We have about 18 warships, including two aircraft carriers, in the Persian Gulf. What if they get bottled up in the Gulf? Iran is said to have hundreds of anti-ship missiles well hidden in caves along its coast. Fingers crossed. This could get very, very bad.
Breaking news here.
20% of the world’s oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
.1. Can Iran actually do this though?
Questionable.
They don’t control the Strait of Hormuz.
They just have one side of it. Oman is on the other side.
.2. If they try to, we meaning the world and the US are going to have to stop them.
This means a larger war in the middle east.
.3. Their own 2 million barrels a day of oil also passes through the Strait.
There goes their income as well.
.4. Get ready for higher gas prices. I’m sure the price of oil is going up right now.
I’ve heard numbers of maybe up from the current $75 to $100 a barrel in the near future.
Didn’t Trump say something about how he was going to lower the price of gasoline once.
FFS, I hope we don’t end up with $5 a gallon gas in the USA.
That is going to make all those MAGAts with their oversized pickup trucks really mad, when they fill up their 30 gallon tanks.
There’s no question that political leadership in the US is dead or at least asleep at the wheel, meanwhile raking in the bucks. And many people actively support this crap, although quite a lot don’t. But, I despair doing anything about this situation.
Raven @ #10 — Needless to say, gas prices are relative to where you live. Prices in the Bay Area have been around $5 for a while. Despite the ad I keep seeing that tells me gas prices could go to $800 because of oil refinery closures…I’m sure paid for by the oil industry or some GOP funding scam…I suspect a Middle East war will have a much bigger effect.
@11,
“There’s no question that political leadership in the US is dead or at least asleep at the wheel”
F***ing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson came out against this before any Democrat leader did. Tulsi Gabbard was shut up, because she knew it was all crap and had said so publicly. The thing with the Dem leadership gerontocracy is, there are actually all for this war. All these AIPAC donations to them are finally paying off.
Don wants this to go away so he can go back to playing with his sharpie and cheating at golf.
He really seems to be hung up on the, “Peace,” part of the prize.
There is no understanding here.
There is NO peace with Stupid idiot around pooping away in the WH and desecrating all of the hallowed walls of the US Capital. Kick him out, send him to Hell, break up the GOPeePee, send them to Hell as well, and voila! Peace will be restored.
No Iran isn’t going to close the Strait of Hormuz since that would overly affect themselves and their Chinese ally, which is already providing them with eyes on the ground with their helpful spy vessels in the Gulf and mysterious gifts send by plane.They’re not going to attack US targets either since they don’t need to give excuses or propaganda boosts to the Trump regime: they have damned themselves by their illegal actions and the Iranians will pummel them in International diplomacy. No what they’ll do is keep discipline and borrowing someone else’s expression continuously hitting “the head of the snake” and pummel “Israel” every night (and sometimes day) with missiles to stop their economy, destroy their infrastructure (which they have helpfully accommodated in a smaller area than Iran’s). They’ll do this for the next two weeks until “Israel” finally runs out of interceptor missiles. Then one of two things will happen: “Israel” will declare “mission accomplished” or they’ll pressure the US to scale up attacks and finally a ground invasion which is the only way to stop the missiles. And they’ll be waiting for it . But yeah, right now they won’t attack US targets in retaliation for bombs on facilities they had the time to empty of anything important and that there’s still questions about how much were damaged (Trump’s “totally destroyed” can perfectly mean “light damage”). Anyway we’ll see in days if the US is dumb enough to get pulled into a land invasion of Iran.
raven: Iran can easily shut down oil transit through Hormuz. The Houthis managed the much harder task of largely shutting down transit through the Red Sea, despite not having control of the coast near the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and despite not having equally easy access to Iranian weapons as, well, Iran does.
Luftritter: not many countries are going to go to bat for Iran. Expect lots of tut-tutting from Europe, Russia, China, etc.
@15,
well the Iranian parliament literally just voted to shut it down.
Oh, and The Onion took out a full page ad in the NYT today too:
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/exclusive-the-onion-nyt-ad-congress-cowardice
Some of it reads: “Now is not the time for bravery or valor! This is the time for protecting your own hide and lining your pocket. Now is not the time for listening to your idiotic constituents drone on about what’s happening to their precious democracy. This is the time for getting down on all fours and groveling.”
rorschach @ #12 — Understood that neither the Dem nor the GOP gerontocracy is going to do anything. There are a few voice in the younger Dem camp speaking up against Taco, like AOC and Melanie Stansbury. I get a fair amount from them, but I suspect that’s the algorithm effect.. They are probably barely a whisper.
My concern with Taco is that he’ll use “the war” as an excuse to declare a national emergency so he can suspend habeas corpus, at least, and possibly postpone the next elections…maybe indefinitely…given that the GOP might loose control of the House next year which would be a hassle for Taco. That might seem extreme, but extreme seems to be the word of the day.
@18.
The Iranians are signaling that they have the right and the option to close the Strait but ultimately it’s their Leader the one that will decide if they do it. And I don’t think he will since it’s a move doesn’t benefits Iran for previous reasons. The only way I see Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz is if they seem an American regime change attack imminent.
@ 15 Luftritter : “They’ll do this for the next two weeks until “Israel” finally runs out of interceptor missiles. “
I think Israel will keep getting and making those interceptors until Iran runs out of its missiles first especially with the IDF & USAF attacking the Iranian launch and manufacturing sites more realistically.
@12. rorschach : “F***ing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson came out against this before any Democrat leader did. “
Is that really a fact? Or an artefact of your news bubble? Bernie Sanders for one has already come out strongly against this latest war and I expect AOC and others have also done so maybe you just haven’t heard about it? Possible yeah?
@18. Rorschach ”@15. well the Iranian parliament literally just voted to shut it down.”
Maybe but they haven’t done it yet :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-22/iran-israel-conflict-live-updates/105445676
So hopefully that can still be avoided. As noted by others already they’ be shooting themselves in the foot as well if they do that.
I expect to see all the traditional media’s tepid opposition to Trump suddenly do an about face and become pro-Trump Trump Trump now.
@ 12. rorschach : Youmight wnat to see :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-are-at-odds-over-israel-iran-war-as-trump-announces-u-s-strikes-on-iran
Which I just google- found :
Among others cited there -and a lot likely saying suchlike things that haven’made the media too.
@21
“I think Israel will keep getting and making those interceptors until Iran runs out of its missiles first especially with the IDF & USAF attacking the Iranian launch and manufacturing sites more realistically.”
Realistic how? If there’s one thing the Military Industrial complex has demonstrated is their incompetence at what they’re supposed to do making weapons, and extremely good a padding their bottom line: some of the best interceptors, like those of THAAD and other systems are basically artisanal missiles that cost twelve million a pop or more and are just made in reduced quantities. And stores of those have been depleted arming the Ukraine and fighting Houthis and “Israel” previously. There were reports of this already. Meanwhile Iran has been stockpiling missiles for a long time. “Israel” is now saying that those supposed stocks of 2000 missiles are closer to 22000 which makes them basically impossible to deplete in the short term since Iran keeps making them. I think “Israel” bet the farm on the decapitation strike on their opening move and a collapse of Iran. Since that didn’t work they’re using their always reliable Plan B which is having the US fight the war for them.
Note that not all or even very many politicians statemenst get published widely in the media. Doersn’t mean they’re not saying things. I wodnered what say Rashida Tlai has been saying so I checked her fb page & look :
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1255924725936808&set=a.406645477531408
As of 15 hours ago.
How about Repo Ilhan Omar :
Via her fb page here : https://www.facebook.com/repilhan
Plus :
Source : https://www.axios.com/2025/06/17/senate-democrats-schumer-trump-iran-israel
Maybe before people slag off the Democratic party they could first actually check and see what they are really saying and not just go by the (lack of) news coverage they (don’t) hear? Too much to ask?
Honest question, slightly off topic but related: Where the fuck are the Democrats?
In Europe, under any previous administration, including Trump’s first time round, we almost daily had a number of news stories in various media (mainstream and not) on statements / positions / initiatives / personalities from the party in opposition, making it clear that both parties were actually politically active. We hear almost nothing about or from the Democrats over here any more, except analysis from outside the party. We occasionally hear about or from Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but nothing from party leadership. There has been a bit since last night about Democrats being unaware of the decision to strike Iran, and some “down with this sort of thing” statements, but fuck all, really.
Without hyperbole, are they really just as asleep, clueless and weak as they seem? Or is there some real activity happening at party level which just doesn’t make the news here?
@ ^ mudpuddles : Nice timing!
#26 Democrats are probably being ignored by the media because Trump keeps threatening to sue and otherwise hamper institutions who ask inconvenient questions.
Honest question, how do we know those were weapon sites?
naziyahoo pulls strings making puppet tRUMP bomb Iran. Congress, especially corporate owned dems, just roll over and pee on themselves like scared puppies. The magat and his cockroaches and the useless DNC are pushing us further down the death spiral!
I have always tried to work on peaceful projects that benefit community. But, all I can do now is scream into the night!
I’ve heard NO real response to the magat bombing of Iran, except AOC declaring:
The president’s disastrous decision to bomb iran with out authorization is a grave violation of the constitution and congressional war powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.
The fraud that is mainslime news, reports tRUMP’s bullshit calling Tulsi Gabbard’s statement about intelligence reports that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon. BUT, they have not mentioned the IAEA stating they have NO evidence Iran is making a nuclear weapon.
Welcome to the DEATH SPIRAL.
@25 StevoR wrote about R. Tlaib and Ihlan Omar’s response.
I reply, thanks StevoR, I am so distraught I didn’t catch that. They, along with Jamie Raskin and AOC and a few others are on the correct side of this issue. But, they are horribly outnumbered by the magat cockroaches in congress.
Two theocracies with leaders who are there to avoid being in prison attack a third theocracy. There are so many stupid and false stated reasons for this attack but a very big underlying origin of all of it is religion.
Next up: White House raises a banner saying “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”.
@26
Yes. Unfortunately.
The Democrats were the traditional home for the the American Israeli votes but the Republicans managed, over the course of several elections, to peel away the right wing Jewish vote, same as they managed to peel away the conservative black vote.
The Democrats are afraid to speak out against Bibi’s atrocities and war crimes because they love them some campaign donations and are afraid to lose still more Jewish votes to the GOP, so don’t expect the mainstream Democrats, with a few notable exceptions, to stop supporting Israel in the current, completely avoidable clusterfuck. As was pointed out on a different thread, the conflict was already slowing down because both sides were running out of things to launch at each other. Then Cheetolini threw gasoline on the fire by involving the US with the stupid missile strikes. Jesus fucking Christ, does he look at all the available options and literally chose the worst? Every time?!
The Democrats have their eyes on the prize that is the 2026 midterm elections, in which they are hoping that US dissatisfaction with Cheetolini’s disastrous running of the US will allow them to flip the House and Senate back to a blue majority and potentially pave the way for a Democratic president in 2028. So yeah, don’t expect them to grow a spine or sense of morality anytime soon. There are some voices on the Democratic side speaking out against US involvement but they are mostly on the fringe and in the minority.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/22/us-iran-strikes-congress/
That said, Fetterman (D) supported Trump’s move. WTF.
Proof that we are living in the Bizzaroworld timeline–and I’m gagging on the words–I finally agree with something MTG said. Even a blind pig will find a acorn once in awhile but still.
Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard are also opposed. The problem is that all of them have their social/political power from supporting Cheetolini, so I expect them to fold like wet laundry and fall in line sooner rather than later.
If there was ever a time for cholesterol to do its thing on Tangerine Palpatine, the time is now.
@32 THIS
@7 Medvedev is the Russian version of Hegseth. I’d take anything he said with more than a few grains of salt. When Putin was temporarily inconvenienced by term limits in Russian elections, Medvedev was Putin’s hand-picked sock puppet/placeholder. Those pesky election laws have since been removed, so Putin is now dictator for life, as per usual for Russian politics.
And yes on #5
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/F7VqPr17mm4
@19 Yeah, the suspense of elections and habeas corpus is my worry too. It might be the only thing that actually wakes Congress up but given that the Republican hold on Congress is tenuous, I would expect the Republicans to fully back it, regardless of how they feel about Iran, as a means of holding on to vulnerable seats. It will mean that Congress will have basically given up all actual political power but given that the majority of Congress seems to be in it for the money and perks and not the power, I don’t expect the majority of them to be too upset over it. Kind of like how the Supremes woke up to the danger a little too late.
@28 Natanz and Isfahan were known sites for enrichment and potential/probable nuclear weapon facilities.
Natanz was the target of Stuxnet as a probable enrichment/weapon facility and was inspected by the IAEA.
The IAEA were denied inspection rights to Fordo and Isfahan but they are known nuclear facilities and highly probable enrichment facilities. (Highly probable = the rest of the planet believes that they are enrichment facilities but there is no actual proof yet by the IAEA.)
https://www.nti.org/education-center/facilities/isfahan-esfahan-nuclear-technology-center-intc/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_facilities_in_Iran#:~:text=The%20nuclear%20facilities%20located%20in,(NFRPC)%2C%20and%20the%20Isfahan
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9r4q99g4o
raven @5: “AFAICT, the input of the US congress in this decision to start a war was zero.”
It’s a special military operation.
Thank you StevoR for rounding out the picture.
Asking for the consent of congress is a technicality; it’s a fig leaf of opposition at best and more probably a legitimizing maneuver to make the war criminality go away. Everyone knows Congress will rubber stamp any war with overwhelming votes Yea. War with Iran has bipartisan support in the ruling class. I agree with @12 rorschach, all these AIPAC donations are paying off.
The thing I’m wondering is if this was the plan all along when the collective Biden restarted talks on the nuclear treaty — a ruse meant to lure Iran’s political leadership out into the open. Trump is demonstrating what the president from either duopoly party would have done at this moment.
Alas for your attempted punditry, beholder, but none of this–zero, that is–would be happening were it not for Trump repudiating the treaty with Iran in his first term. He broke it, not Biden.
How you ostensibly don’t get that there would not have been a need to restart talks about the nuclear treaty except for Trump and therefore blame Biden is just part of your shtick. Bah.
Here is another opinion about attacking Iran:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/opinion/israel-iran-attack-nuclear-pre-emptive-strike.html
@ 34
Yes, their strategy seems to be let Trump become so despicable and hurt and abuse millions in the hope that the callous, braindead American voter suddenly grows some empathy and come running back to them. That way, they don’t have to do anything politically risky like stand for anything or run on any substantive policies.
Akira, what’s not substantive about their policies?
cf. https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024_Democratic_Party_Platform_8a2cf8.pdf
#42 chesapeake, wow.
Amos Yadlin [Mr. Yadlin is a former chief of Israeli military intelligence] wrote a piece entitled , what a surprise.
“Forty-four years ago this June, I sat in the cockpit on the Israeli air force mission that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. In one daring operation, we eliminated Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions. In 2007, when I was serving as Israel’s chief of defense intelligence, we destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria built with North Korea’s help near the Euphrates River.
Today the challenge is far greater: Israel faces an advanced, sprawling, multisite Iranian nuclear program, deeply fortified and far more complex. Yet despite the scale, a successful Israeli campaign holds the potential not only to neutralize a grave threat but also to reshape the strategic landscape of the Middle East and make the region profoundly safer.”
Oh yeah, does it not feel safer already?
Opinions abound.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/417460/iran-attack-trump-war
@ StevoR, #27 Haha! Yes, good timing..
But my question (to phrase it better) is: what are the Democrats as a party doing, and not just about the Middle East crises, but about the whole shit show of the current situation in the US, apart from the few “usual suspects” making statements? Of course it’s important that individual politicians speak out, but it mostly the same limited bunch all the time (the Squad, Newsom, Sanders, etc.). And speaking out is not action, it’s not actually doing anything concrete. It’s necessary but on its own it doesn’t serve as anything close to a real, effective, practical remedy to the increasingly rapid advance of authoritarianism or the harm it’s causing.
@silvrhalide, #34 Thanks for that perspective. Sadly that pretty much sums up what it looks like from this side of the Atlantic. Listening to Hegseth and Cain today it was clear that despite this week’s earlier Trump line of “I have made no decision on attacking Iran” (which the majority of major news media everywhere believed and parroted like complete fucking idiots), the decision was made at least 2 weeks ago, and probably much earlier than that. And it seems that the utter lack of any actual political opposition (not just rhetoric) gave the Trump administration complete confidence that they could break international law with hardly more consequence at home than if they were caught jaywalking.
I get the idea that the Democrats may be waiting and pinning everything on the 2026 mid-terms, but if that’s the case then it would seem to overlook two big huge obvious points: that winning an election requires more than just hoping enough people hate the incumbents to vote them out, it also requires a significant sales pitch to get those folks to the ballot box on your behalf; and the likelihood that the 2026 mid-terms won’t be massively fucked-with by Trump & co. to tilt everything in their favour is fairly close to zero.
Excuse the cliche, but it seems things are going to get much worse before they get better. The Democrats will continue to radiate ineptitude and slide into irrelevance, and countless thousands more people in the US and elsewhere will be hurt, impoverished, disappeared, and killed, before someone or some group with a concrete strategy for effective opposition stand up to be counted.
“And it seems that the utter lack of any actual political opposition (not just rhetoric) gave the Trump administration complete confidence that they could break international law with hardly more consequence at home than if they were caught jaywalking.”
Does it really?
Because, best as I can tell, actual political opposition is its meat and drink.
And it just doubles down, ignoring facts.
Can’t shame it, can’t embarrass it, and for sure can’t change its nature.
Another instance of blaming anyone but the actual culprit; next time, maybe don’t elect a Trump, instead of blaming his opponents.
Bah.
@45 morales.
“ Oh yeah, does it not feel safer already?”
I don’t know. It it safer with Iran’s nuclear program possibly destroyed?
Re Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz.
There does not seem to be any obvious reason why Iran cannot do what Ansar Allah , (the Houthis), did with the Bab Al Mandab Strait and close the Straits of Hormuz to select shipping and allow other shipping such as Chinese-bound vessels free passage. Interdiction of the straits is almost certainly going to be with missiles rather than mines.
I am sure the PRC would be happy to supply a list of in-bound and out-bound ship to Iran. Other , non-hostile, countries could do the same.
The facilities are questionably destroyed, maybe. The known ones.
The materials are stashed. cf. my #46
And for me, no, it does not feel safer to have a hot war and the USA doing what Israel wants.
iran wasn’t any more likely to use nukes than india or pakistan. they’ve been functioning under draconian sanctions and being at odds with most of the world – including the sunni majority nations around them – for a long time, and frankly i’d feel massively safer with them having a hundred nukes than our guy having however many (thousands?) we’ve got.
In anticipation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on March 3, expected to blast Obama’s efforts to strike a nuclear deal with Iran, the administration is going after Netanyahu’s record on the last major nuclear debate America had — Iraq.
“The prime minister, as you will recall, was profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq under George W. Bush, and we all know what happened with that decision,” Secretary of State John Kerry said. “He may have a judgement that just may not be correct [on Iran].”
Indeed, Netanyahu was a rather aggressive Iraq hawk back in the early 2000s. “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said in 2002 testimony to Congress. “Once Saddam has nuclear weapons, the terror network will have nuclear weapons,”
Not only did Netanyahu get the nuclear issue wrong — Saddam was not building a nuclear program after all — but he incorrectly predicted that the war would inspire an Iranian democratic uprising that would topple the theocratic regime.
“If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” Netanyahu claimed. “And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”
(https://www.vox.com/2015/2/26/8114221/netanyahu-iraq-2002)
what fucking piece of shit
silvrhalide @34
Fetterman is right-wing has been that way since at least his stroke. His support of Trump’s move against Iran is not surprising in the least.
Yemen just declared war on the USA.
We had a cease fire agreement with them up until…yesterday.
No surprise.
I don’t see that the Houthis can be anything but a big nuisance.
They get all their drones and missiles from Iran and Iran isn’t going to have a lot of extra weapons for a long time.
It will still cost the USA a lot.
We have to put US naval vessels in the Red sea and play whack-a-mole with the Houthis. Our last effort cost us 3 expensive planes and…”$1 billion gone, 7 drones downed, 3 fighter jets lost.
We have better uses for our time and money.
I got a feeling Fetterman’s always been like this, stroke or not. He’s always portrayed himself as a candidate of the workin’ class Joes, and Blue Collar America aren’t exactly known for their racial/sexual/religious tolerance or their desire for diplomacy over military might.
Remember Reagan Democrats? Same mentalities: They may want to keep the factory in town and the minimum wage increased, but despise non-whites and cheer for “the troops.”
jrkrideau@50: the “select” shipping that the Houthis shut down was all of it. They saw a vessel, they targeted it. Iran would do the same.
raven@56: the risk of Houthis taking potshots at passing ships will shut down the Red Sea again, and ships will go via the Cape of Good Hope again. Luckily there’s spare capacity to provide for the longer passages, because the US-Chinese trade is way down.
raven, yeah.
Two citations:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-a-floundering-us-campaign-against-the-houthis-reportedly-led-trump-to-a-truce/
and
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/05/13/nyt-reveals-major-failure-in-trumps-houthi-campaign/
Bubblebot synthesis:
beholder@40–
Your attempts to blame everything bad on Biden have reached the outright pathological.
Another issue with the Democrats pinning their hopes on the 2026 midterms is that it ignores the fact that Trump is busy trying to seize control of how elections are run in the US, from putting his own sycophants in charge of certifying election results to the possibility of using troop deployments to liberal cities like LA, Seattle, and Chicago as a cover for stealing the ballot counting machines (as mentioned by Heather Cox Richardson and Brian Tyler Cohen earlier this week).
@60 chrislawson
I’m perfectly willing to blame Trump for starting a war with Iran. I’m just pointing out that the ruling class support for this war crime is overwhelmingly bipartisan verging on unanimous (with a few holdouts offering a fig leaf of opposition), and if you can’t see that then you aren’t paying attention.
“I’m just pointing out that the ruling class support for this war crime is overwhelmingly bipartisan verging on unanimous (with a few holdouts offering a fig leaf of opposition)”
Now you are; but I damn well quoted you, and that was not what I quoted.
“Ruling class”, maybe, but they are actually elected.
So, beholder:
Remember how you claimed Harris was a genocidal warmonger?
How one should therefore vote for anyone but her?
How she supported Israel?
I do.
@60 . chrislawson : “beholder@40 – Your attempts to blame everything bad on Biden have reached the outright pathological.”
They were pathological long ago including notably before the election where beholder argued ONLY against the alternative to outtright ascism and Trump thereby helping the fascist tajke-over of the USoA.
Beholder is yet to express any regret, remorse or apology despite the horrendous global consequecnes of their de facto actual choice for POTUS Trump.
Beholder, do you now accept those who argued against you were correct and you were utterly wrong in supporting war-monger and fascist Far Worse Genocide Don Trump?
Are you, beholder, now finally starting to face the reality of what you inflicted upon the world and will you ever do so and have the decency to admit how appallingly badly you and the other “Purity” Disunity traitors to everything progressives value, you shitstain on this blog? Do you now get a faint understanding of the impact your choice is having and that the blood on your hands from your enabling and assistance to Trump now includes -predictably and as predicted by me among others – Iranian blood as wellas gazan blood fromTrump’s Worse Genocide too?
#10 raven
In California, gasoline is already 5 USD per US gallon of gasoline (appx. 1.16 EUR per L of petrol, converting from AUD to USD means it’s about 1.05 USD per L). Unlike Texas which is perfectly willing to poison its air, land, and citizens, we regulate our oil refineries here. As such no new refinery has been built here for decades even though demand has gone up. Part of the higher cost of gasoline here is transporting fuel from TX to CA. Last year one of the few refineries we had decided to close down. Just recently in business news, two more have announced they are planning to leave the state. Bakersfield still pumps oil, so I’m not sure if this is serious.
That 5 USD cost is due to us importing gasoline from Texas. If we have no refineries at all, the price will go higher. As someone who is Green? This is excellent. There are way the heck too many cars on the road, too many of them are ICE (the other bad i-c-e), and even though this cost for fuel is high it isn’t stopping anyone? Eight dollars a gallon was hysterically predicted in this business news article, because of course they were suckers of the dicks of big carbon. If this comes to pass, I will enjoy this.
Oh oh yeah, war is bad. It is not good for children and other living things. We should not do that.
@65 seachange
You’ll enjoy that outcome? Why, because you’re personally wealthy enough to make the necessary adjustments?
Utterly monstrous. The people who are responsible for our dependence on carbon-based fuels won’t feel a thing. Poor people will suffer instead.
What a weird speculation.
Given context, I speculate it’s because it reduces overall use and encourages alternative power sources.
AGW and all that. Promotes development of EVs instead.
Maybe because the petro-authoritarian states depend of selling that oil for revenue.
You know, Russia, Saudi, Venezuela, and oh, Iran.
Could be anyone of a number of things, but you straight away went there.
(Typical of you)
Rubbish.
They’ll suffer either way, but less so if societies can get a grip on fossil fuel demand.
And costlier fuel is the sort of thing that can help achieve that.
@ 66. Trump enabler & de facto Trump voter beholder : “Utterly monstrous. The people who are responsible for our dependence on carbon-based fuels won’t feel a thing. Poor people will suffer instead.”
The same utterly monstrous people YOU beholder helped install in power. remember?. Actually, I’ll never let you forget that.
Did you think of the predicted, predictable and already known victims of Trump & his Fsadscists, of poor people’s suffering – including many poor people who do NOT deserve that suffering before you argued against the only alternative to Trump and voted against the only alternative toTrump last year?
Your failure to respond to my #64 is also noted.
@ ^ Remember which party had “Drill baby drill” as one of it’s slogans?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drill,_baby,_drill
Plus which is now selling off National forests and parks and public land tohighest bidder and scrapping pollution laws and “green tape” to let big Corproations rule unchecked?
See among so many other places :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/white-house-set-to-roll-back-protections-for-nearly-60-million-acres-of-national-forests
Monstrous indeed.
PS. For those who don’t already know Mandy Rice-Davies Applies =
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_he_would,_wouldn%27t_he%3F
It is not, of course, poor people who do most of the travelling by private vehicle. Indeed, the richer you are, the more greenhouse gases you are likely to pump out – and travel by private car and (particularly in the USA) by air is a big part of that. Higher gasoline prices will reduce a lot of the optional travel the better-off go in for, and in the slightly longer term, encourage a switch both to electric vehicles, and to public transport. You know what, beholder, I reckon you’re what we call in the UK a “petrolhead”, as well as a fascist-enabler.
@70 KG
You would reckon wrong, then, on both counts.
He says he does reckon, beholder, not that he would reckon.
Behold, the reckoning has been reckoned! Heh.
Look, given that you think petrol should remain as cheap as possible for as many as possible, you are seeking to perpetuate the use of fossil-fuels.
The people who are responsible for our dependence on carbon-based fuels won’t feel a thing, and you are clearly one of them, since you want it to be cheaply available on an ongoing basis. Your hypocrisy is not obscure.
@ 66, 70 In point of fact, an increase in gas prices will hit the working poor and the middle class the most.
The very poor will generally not be affected, except as higher oil prices affect manufacturing & food prices. The very poor don’t own cars for the most part and largely travel by public transportation. Since public transportation fares are largely regulated by local government, it tends to be immune to oil fluctuations, since municipalities can afford to run at a deficit. Many municipalities also subsidize public transportation for the very poor, such as free public transportation for senior citizens, kids, people below certain income levels, etc. While the cost of manufacturing/processing & farming will go up, which will increase food prices, the extremely poor can benefit from the reduced air pollution (particularly reduced NOx emissions and fine soot particulate) since their neighborhoods tend to be disproportionately affected by automotive exhaust–black neighborhoods in particular tend to be broken up whenever someone wants to put in a new highway. Asthma and other respiratory conditions are particularly affected by the NOx and fine soot particulates and asthma and other respiratory diseases are a particular vulnerability in the extremely poor, so a decrease in both is a win for them.
https://www.npr.org/2015/09/24/443053672/how-a-little-lab-in-west-virginia-caught-volkswagens-big-cheat
http://wvutoday-archive.wvu.edu/n/2015/09/24/wvu-study-found-elevated-levels-of-emissions-from-volkswagen-vehicles.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6976917/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772416625001822
The working poor will be disproportionately affected. Basically, people who can afford cars but generally not new cars or the better-performing cars. Generally not people who are benefitting from any public transportation subsidies or financial subsidies because of the income gap but still affected by the increase in food prices and the price increase in other consumer goods.
The middle class will also bear the brunt of increased oil prices. The skilled trades are particularly vulnerable, as many of them require trucks, vans or SUVs to transport their tools/equipment. Manufacturers, farmers and business owners will also be affected by the rising oil and energy costs required to do business. Some will make the switch to alternative fuels/vehicles, others will see a decrease in purchasing power as a result of having to spend more to fuel inefficient vehicles like SUVs.
The wealthy won’t feel a thing. Their wealth largely insulates them from from the economic, environmental and health consequences of higher oil prices because they tend to have better health insurance and live in less polluted neighborhoods. Fuel prices will not affect their lifestyles in the slightest.
silvrhalide, I find your eructations interesting:
Financially, in the short term, and mostly for the aspirants in that class that have to hustle.
In the medium to long term, AGW is more significant.
This framing you have adopted is so very capitalistic and unthinking that you don’t realise weal ain’t wealth.
—
Here, listen to yourself:
–extract–
The working poor will be disproportionately affected. Basically, people who can afford cars but generally not new cars or the better-performing cars. Generally not people who are benefitting from any public transportation subsidies or financial subsidies because of the income gap but still affected by the increase in food prices and the price increase in other consumer goods.
The middle class will also bear the brunt of increased oil prices. The skilled trades are particularly vulnerable, as many of them require trucks, vans or SUVs to transport their tools/equipment. Manufacturers, farmers and business owners will also be affected by the rising oil and energy costs required to do business. Some will make the switch to alternative fuels/vehicles, others will see a decrease in purchasing power as a result of having to spend more to fuel inefficient vehicles like SUVs.
–extract–
Your cargo-cult version of comprehensiveness is actually a mess of equivocation.
The working poor is one thing. But you then added the middle class, skilled trades, manufacturers, farmers, and business owners to those affected.
(You USAnian, by any chance? ;)
(You’ve just weakened the shit outta your claim in your attempt to sustain it)
@71, beholder : We all know for a fact and witnessed it ourselves that you, beholder, by your own admission did NOT vote for Kamala Harris and you argued srongly against her and her party – the non-Fascist one of the two – in the lead up to the election thereby enabling Fascism.
That, you beholder are a Fascist enabler is therefore a fact.
That you refuse to recognise this reality is on you not us and does NOT change that fact that you are a Fascist enabler who in effect voted for Trump. Ignoring that doesn’t make it go away or other than it is..