JD Vance claims that “President Trump was deeply concerned by the killing of peaceful protesters under the previous leadership. Those leaders are now gone…We’ll see how the new government treats its people. If it continues the same behavior, we’ll assess our options based on its actions.”
Who is gonna tell him that the Islamic Republic executed two protesters yesterday? The White House are literally trying to gaslight the entire world and insulting the intelligence of the Iranian people. The same people who were in charge before are in charge now.
Welp, I think we're done here.
Trump himself is now saying he buckled under the pressure of Hormuz.
It's as bad as it could possibly be. He's saying aloud that Iran can have anything it wants because America can't afford the staring contest.
If this is his own explanation in his own words, then the fact that the sanctions relief is front-loaded...suddenly becomes important. The fact that the inspections regime that will verify compliance will be negotiated by an American side that has already admitted defeat, that needs this more than the opponent needs it...is now significant. And the fact that the proxy system is now recognized as legitimate by the United States -- is suddenly exactly the disaster you feared it might be.
And the fact that America has declared aloud that it's not actually capable of imposing its will even in the world's most vital energy chokepoints, causing its allies in the Gulf to already begin to seek a new accommodation with Iran -- makes all of this worse than Obama and worse than the JCPOA.
Remember: the great unfixable flaw of the JCPOA that none of its boosters ever had a good answer for was that it merely kicked the can down the road. It solved nothing.
Trump's deal, as of this moment, is not even close to accomplishing so much.
"Iran never won a war and never lost a negotiation," Trump famously said of Obama's deal (as a reporter reminded him at today's press conference). Ironic that the Iranians would win a negotiation most spectacularly against a man who styles himself the greatest negotiator to ever grace the White House.
So what does it all mean?
It means that in the coming years, nuclear programs will sprout like mushrooms after the rain throughout the Middle East. It means that many nations will now build out new and larger ballistic missile arsenals.
It means that the state system will give way before the march of the region's transnational ideological axes. Minorities will again be trampled, new wars will be fought by stronger states to dominate the power vacuums within weaker ones.
You're thinking of Israel in Lebanon -- but that's just a specific campaign against a specific enemy. Think Turkey, which right now occupies a region of Syria vastly larger than Israel's presence in Lebanon. Think heightened Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen and a new influx of money and guns to the different sides in Libya.
It means, in other words, that we will have a few more wars to fight, a few more technologies to invent to deal with this new age of cheap missiles and drones -- and also of supersonic Chinese missiles bearing nuclear warheads that Iran will eventually, inevitably, be capable of deploying against us.
And it didn't have to be this bad. (And maybe, when he's heard all the criticism, it won't be.) He could have left something, anything, to concede later. He could have kept the Iranians a little bit in the dark, just a smidgen, as to just how defeated America feels.
Israel's position in all this is simple, and more or less unchanged from last week. America gave us more than we had a right to ask for. But we may be going it alone from here out.
Dust off the nukes. Maybe test one somewhere far away from anywhere. Quadruple the interceptor production lines, double the size of the Mossad and the Air Force. And no, don't let Hezbollah breathe, not for a second.
It's the 1960s again. And Israel will have to defeat a couple more enemies before it can once again eke out a few decades of peace.
One of the most popular questions asked by Muscovites this morning is “What is going on?”
I can answer. Your country started a war of aggression against ours. For years, it has been killing our people.
Now that you know what’s going on, ask Putin when he is planning to end it.
If the U.S. gives 300$B to the "reconstruction of the Islamic republic" it will be the worst offense the United States has committed against humanity in recent memory.
Refortifying and rebuilding the slaughterhouse would be even worse than Carter helping to bring Khomeini to Iran in the first place.
Now you know what it is. Now you're giving it life support, ventilation, prosthetic limbs, and renewed artillery.
I cannot overestimate how devastating this decision will be. It is unforgivable, to say the least.
Amazing Ukrainian ingenuity. This is the cheapest way to neutralize russian threats.
Ukrainian interceptor drones such as the Wild Hornets STING and SkyFall P1-SUN typically cost around $1,000–2,500 per unit, depending on the model and configuration.
Meanwhile, the russian Shahed-type drones cost around $20,000–$70,000 per unit, depending on the model and configuration.
The return on investment is 20 to 1.
Wow. Versailles, 1919. The Allies and Germany signed a treaty to end the war and build the League of Nations, only to watch 60 million die a few years later. The symbolism here is terrifying.
@EmmanuelMacron A Versailles, avec vous à côté, l‘Amérique s‘humilie, Israél est mis en péril, les fanatiques islamistes célèbrent, la Chine sourit. C‘est ça, la „legacy“ des années Macron? Bravo.
Spectacular explosion in the Kapotnya refinery in Moscow, Russia. This silo not only exploded but also catapulted the roof of the building into the air.
@koshercockney You do not even have to go back to 2015. Rubio used this argument to justify America‘s attack this spring. What a defeat -politically, intellectually, ethically.
Wow. Trump allows the Iranian Regime to retain its Ballistic Missile Program:
“They hurt a little location but they dont blow up the planet"
The little location is Israel. Which means that the entire Middle Eastern Conflict will reignite again.