Urphänomen

Quod Sum, Deus Est

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

"There is no pessimism that is perfect, that does not falter and hope."

[Paolo Mossetti @paolomossetti]

In an interview with @corriere Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa warns about the growing radicalization of Israeli society:

“Unfortunately extremism is gaining traction in this context... the culture of contempt for everything that is not theirs, not only for everything Arab but for everything that is not Jewish, is unfortunately growing. It is a diseased germ within a society, amplified by the media, and something we must work to contain before it becomes truly alarming... Hamas controls Gaza, not the rest of Palestine.”

On the possibility of a two-state solution, he answers cautiously: “Yes and no. And I realize that although I am a Franciscan, I am responding like a Jesuit.”

[Josh Walkos @JoshWalkos]

Anders Sørensen, a Danish clinical psychologist and researcher known for his work on psychiatric drug withdrawal and hyperbolic tapering, spoke Monday at the MAHA Institute summit about psychiatric drug dependency and withdrawal.

Listen closely to what he says.

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

European Jews have waged an annihilationist war against the Palestinians, in order to seize and claim the land for their own. The American frontier offers the closest parallel, where refugee settlers carved out a land of freedom soaked in native blood.

[Maarten Boudry @mboudry]

Calling Israel a “settler-colonialist” state is not just factually and morally wrong — it’s a complete inversion of reality. Israel is arguably the most successful ANTI-colonial endeavour in history: a people returning to their ancestral homeland after 3,000 years of exile, conquest, and foreign domination by Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, Britons, and other assorted colonizers. https://t.co/XFQcCLtpmH

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

"What Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations."

[Aimen Dean @AimenDean]

Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.

First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom.

They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again.

Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that.

But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses.
If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one!

You cannot say:
“Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure”
…only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently:

“Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.”

And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself.

The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore.
The shock came from the American reaction afterwards.

You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles.

And Washington’s response was basically:
“Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.”
Minor incident?!

For the GCC that was madness.

Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.

Everything became:
The deal.
The deal.
The beautiful deal.
The greatest deal.
The mother of all deals.
The ultimate “Art of the deal”
Or perhaps, more accurately:
The ultimate fart of the deal.

Because from the Gulf perspective, this stopped looking like strategy and started looking like desperate political vanity mixed with deadly wishful thinking.

Had the GCC been told beforehand:
“Listen, whatever Iran does to you during Project Freedom, America will not retaliate because we do not want to endanger negotiations…”
…they would have almost certainly refused participation from the start.

The problem was not Project Freedom itself.

The problem was discovering midway through the operation that the GCC countries were apparently expected to sit there quietly as punching bags while Washington played negotiation theatrics with Tehran. So the Saudis and Kuwaitis pulled plug!

Because the GCC know something US usually forgets:

Iran plays the long game.
You can freeze enrichment.
Pause enrichment.
Delay enrichment.
Sign ten agreements.
Twenty agreements.
Forty agreements.

But if the infrastructure remains…
If the centrifuges remain…
If the IRGC remains…
If the proxy network remains…

then eventually the game resumes.

There will be another distraction.
Another pandemic.
Another financial crisis.
Another war somewhere else.
Another paralysis in Washington.
And while the world is distracted, enrichment quietly resumes again.

Ironically, much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile expanded during the pandemic years precisely because global attention was elsewhere.

Judging by the reaction to the UAE attacks, the Saudis and Kuwaitis concluded that Trump’s version of deterrence had become:

“Please absorb the missiles quietly because I’m trying to write the sequel to “The Fart of the Deal.”

[Dead Wrong History @deadwronghist]

Robert McNamara was the US Secretary of Defense who ran the Vietnam War. Decades later, he sat down for a documentary and said something about World War Two that no American official had ever said.

[Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 @mtgreenee]

I’m shocked at the silence of American “Christians” about what Israel did in Gaza and now southern Lebanon.

Our tax dollars, money we work for and pay to our government, paid for this.

When I tried to defund Israel, only 5 other members of Congress voted with me.

Now we are all stained with the blood of the innocent.

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

@joekent16jan19 We cannot "do it now on our own terms" because our terms simply ignore the reality revealed by the war. But what terms we can secure now will be better than what is possible later.

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

New satellite analysis from the European Space Agency reveals the IDF has demolished at least 20 villages and towns in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, reducing communities like Bint Jbeil, Al-Khiam, Markaba, and Taybeh to rubble.

A source in the IDF tells me: "This is needed to secure the north from Hezbollah. Some of these towns will be replaced by bases. In all cases the residents will not be allowed back."

The imagery shows destruction extending beyond combat damage: government offices, schools, hospitals, and mosques have been leveled through controlled demolitions and engineering operations, much of it during the ceasefire period.

An Amnesty International expert described the pattern as similar to what the organization documented in Gaza. IDF sources separately told Haaretz the systematic demolitions are part of a broader policy internally called "Silver Plow," modeled on operations in the Strip.

The plan of the IDF is to destroy 55 villages in their entirety in the first stage. Then other villages are to be taken and destroyed in the second phase.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

Rep Thomas Massie says the FBI and Intelligence Agencies operate using their own secret laws that Americans aren’t allowed to know about

The FBI is using interpretations of the law that are so secret that no one is allowed to even talk about them

This is being used as a secret loophole for spying on Americans

The FBI’s interpretation of FISA is classified (red/white “Top Secret” cover). Even members of Congress cannot publicly describe how the law is being interpreted

They are also using secret interpretations to hid what they are doing in reporting

A 106-page classified FISC opinion reveals another interpretation of the law that allegedly allows the FBI to underreport abuses of the FISA program

He says this is against the Constitution. No constitutional basis exists for secret laws or secret interpretations of public statutes

[Matt Royer @royermattw]

Ashley St. Clair confirmed the WH runs group chats telling these accounts what to post. Within minutes of shots fired tonight, before there was any news of casualties and before the President said this exact talking point, this was the chat in real time.

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

The GOP will lose Trump's coalition and the gains of 2024. In a hard economy, immigration will fade as an issue. And their record on the economy, usually a Republican ace-in-the-hole, will be dismal.
The hurt of the political trap Trump has led them into will be dire.

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

Iran as a political Problem

Ahead of the midterms, Trump likely sought a distraction from worsening polls over inflation, itself brought on by his tariff policy. He decided a quick regime change in Iran would not only be a foreign policy success, but that he could promise...

[Urphänomen @D_WalterRice]

The political problem is not Trump's but the GOP's. Trump, in his 2nd term and famously callous toward anyone but himself, is right when he says he is "under no pressure at all." The Republicans however face several years in the wilderness if they do not separate from him.