Luke Grames

student of impermanence, RT/follow != endorsement

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

Why Iran believes Israel will attack again before October

Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week.

Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep—and not entirely unwarranted—suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then “see where the hand is,” two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months.

From Tehran’s perspective, the agreement hands Israel a significant advantage in any renewed war with Iran—one it lacked in February. By allowing Israeli forces to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, the deal appears to contravene the MOU while fundamentally reshaping the military balance. Israel’s continued presence in these strategic positions would make it far more difficult for Hezbollah to mount the kind of offensive operations that proved critical during the previous round of fighting.

That matters because, in February and March, the Iranians say they used only about 40 percent of their offensive capabilities against Israel, because Hezbollah carried much of the remaining burden. At the time, pundits in the West were debating why Tehran hit the UAE harder than it did Israel.

Read full analysis on Substack: https://t.co/3hgu4mgahu

[Rosemary Kelanic @RKelanic]

Oil markets are running on borrowed time — and the clock keeps on ticking.

Understandably, there’s lots of focus on tankers coming OUT of Hormuz, but not enough on what’s going IN (or not going in).

Once the pent up supply in the Gulf drains, we’re back to the pre-MOU supply crunch unless shippers feel safe enough to allow tankers in for new loadings.

Without a steady stream of new tankers in, countries like Iraq and Kuwait won’t be able to resume prewar production.

The bigger story here isn’t what’s exiting the Persian Gulf, but whether and when Gulf producers can put the ~11 mb/d of shut-in production back online.

Otherwise we’re still just draining stocks, depletion cushion — not restoring flows.

My hunch is we’ll see some level of resumed production — Kuwait and Iraq announced they’re in the restart process — but it’s likely to remain tentative until we see massive inflows for lading.

And THAT will be delayed by political uncertainty plus the time it takes to reposition tankers from all over.

So now is not the time to relax, folks. Trump is acting like the pressure is off — and he’s trying to haggle the MOU details — but like so many aspects of this war, the oil supply rebound is just an illusion.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

⭕️ Drop Site News publisher Dr. Nika Soon-Shiong says she has been removed from the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), after opposing a proposal to reexamine who qualifies as a journalist for CPJ’s database and protections.

🔹The announcement comes after writer Mohammed El-Kurd reported that CPJ had formed a “special task force” to consider excluding journalists affiliated with what it describes as “state-backed propaganda outlets” or “terror-affiliated organizations,” as well as journalists deemed to have engaged in certain “behaviors and activities.”

🔹Soon-Shiong published an email she sent to the board arguing the proposal would politicize CPJ’s mission, could exclude journalists based on their employer or alleged conduct, and undermine protections for journalists, particularly those covering Gaza.

🔹She writes that the proposal followed discussions of a Free Beacon article targeting her and accusing Drop Site News of extremism over its reporting on Gaza. Soon-Shiong said she was informed Monday that she is no longer a CPJ board member.

🔹An internal CPJ email shared with Drop Site calls reports that the organization plans to change its definition “false allegations” and “untrue.” It says the review, led by CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa team, is focused on its documentation of journalists killed in the Israel-Gaza war after some individuals previously listed as journalists were later determined to have been combatants, and is expected to be completed in July. CPJ publicly announced that it had removed 20 names from its list of Palestinian media workers killed by Israel after 8 were given obituaries by militant groups. Another 12 were removed for undisclosed reasons.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🇴🇲 Oman Backs Iran’s ‘Service Fee’ Plan for Hormuz

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi laid out the Sultanate’s position on the Strait of Hormuz in an interview with Monte Carlo Doualiya, published by the foreign ministry, lending weight to the legal framework Iran has proposed for charging ships.

🔸FM Al-Busaidi said Oman opposes tolls on transit itself, which he said are “prohibited” under international law, but drew a “clear distinction between transit fees and maritime, environmental, and navigational services that may be discussed voluntarily with the benefiting states and companies,” the same distinction Iran has invoked to justify proposed “service fees.”

🔸 He also said responsibility for clearing the roughly 80 mines and securing shipping lanes rests primarily with Iran under the memorandum, while Oman is contributing through regional and international efforts.

🔸 “The foreign minister explained that such services may include enhancing navigational safety, protecting waters from pollution, and improving preparedness to respond to accidents or emergencies, noting that existing models such as the Strait of Malacca and Singapore could be drawn upon.”

🔸 He said Oman and Iran agree any future arrangements for the Strait will remain within international law and the rights of the coastal states.

The remarks align Oman more closely with Iran’s legal interpretation of the proposed charges than with Washington’s position that no fees should be imposed on passage through an international waterway. The dispute over “service fees” has become one of the central issues to the US-Iran talks that U.S. says are resuming Tuesday in Doha.

[Luke Grames @inductivemacro]

@AmeliaBarty you literally have no idea what you are talking about

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

Fable is currently export controlled & rumors are that 5.6 will also be subject to an approval framework. Whatever jiu jitsu the Chinese are using to get us slow down our own frontier models while letting their models run free appears to be working. Who is capturing who? 🧐🇺🇸

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.

1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.

2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.

3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.

4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.

5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.

6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.

7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.

The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.

[Cline @cline]

We've kept hearing how GLM-5.2 beats Opus 4.8, and are skeptical of benchmarks - so we tested them on a real bug from the Cline repo. While both models fixed the issue, GLM was the winner in terms of cost and code quality:

- GLM used twice as many tokens (GLM 1.1m vs Opus 660K) but cost half as much (GLM $0.41 vs Opus $0.81)

- Opus finished quicker - 1.6 min and 12 tool calls vs GLM 4.7 min and 28 tool calls

- GLM cleaned up dead code and verified the build compiled before completing. Opus didn't - it left type errors that passed tests but broke the production build.

Both runs used the same Cline harness prompting and tools, so it seems GLM is RL trained to spend more tokens verifying its work before completing. Impressive work by the @Zai_org team!

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Some common-sense things Trump said today that were nevertheless shocking:

Everybody else has ballistic missiles, why can’t Iran?

The frozen money belonged to Iran, and the U.S. needed to release it otherwise nobody would trust the dollar system. Why should we steal their money?

Neighboring countries use nuclear power for electricity, why can’t Iran?

Israel shouldn’t knock down entire buildings in Beirut every time a drone or two crashes harmlessly in the desert.

Trump would’ve become Herbert Hoover in a few weeks once oil ran out and the market crashed. He had no choice but to end the war.

[Esfandyar Batmanghelidj @yarbatman]

Iran will not repatriate most of its new oil revenues. The entire reason the country has more than $120 billion in accumulated gross international reserves, frozen in accounts around the world, is that it keeps the vast majority of its oil revenues abroad in order to be able to pay for imports. Iran's annual import bill is over $70 billion!

Yes, Iran can run a trade surplus under normal conditions because it also has sizeable non-oil exports. But it also has $300 billion in war damages it needs to address.

The idea that this MOU is some bonanza for Iran ignores how the trade account works in large and complex economies. Iran is not Guyana.

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

The reaction to the Iran deal is so unhinged. Trump basically just said 'Let's treat Iran like a normal country and stop bombing them and stealing from them' and most political leaders are losing their minds.

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

Adam Schiff is more hawkish on Iran than Trump, and he represents a significant chunk of elite Democrats. He’s also a corporatist, though not as much as Trump.

[Saagar Enjeti @esaagar]

The next 65 days until the final deal is signed will be the greatest fight in the Israel lobby's history. They will stop at NOTHING to derail it. The closer it gets, the more unhinged they'll become

Perhaps the highest stakes 65 days in modern history

[Esfandyar Batmanghelidj @yarbatman]

I remain skeptical about the prospects for a comprehensive US-Iran agreement, but the signing of the peace deal is a very bullish signal for the future of the Middle East and the prospects for a new flourishing in the aftermath of war.

Given the unprecedented nature of the war in the Gulf, the diplomacy that was necessary to get a peace deal signed, and the mechanics of its implementation, we should consider this the first *regional* peace deal in the history of the Middle East. Every major power in the region had a hand in the deal's formulation and the consensus building necessary for its adoption.

There is a long road ahead, but the logic and framework of this peace deal could underpin a new regional security architecture for the region. If Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Oman, and Egypt continue their engagements on the issues raised by the outbreak of the war, the understandings reached since February (on redlines, vulnerabilities, capabilities, and interdependencies etc.) could become the basis of new norms and institutions. Among the regional powers, the UAE may continue to hedge, but I think they can be convinced about the merits of this approach and the reported steps taken to help shore this deal indicate momentum in that direction.

How this deal came about should completely shift the received wisdom about the sophistication of regional powers when it comes to managing escalation and pursuing diplomacy. Too many policymakers in Washington and European capitals have held their counterparts in the Middle East in low esteem, refusing to listen to them, to recognize their agency, to appreciate their wisdom. It was Arab, Pakistani, Turkish, and Iranian diplomats who got the world out of a crisis, one created by Washington and abetted by European governments all too eager to see their bases, aircraft, and munitions used to wage war in the Middle East, especially in the "defense" of Israel.

For its part, Israel, which has twice instigated war against Iran to avoid a reckoning over the genocide it committed, should be isolated until it abandons its zero-sum approach to security. There is another way. In the past year, every single country in the region has shown itself to be more moderate and responsible than Israel.

The remarkable thing about this war and its conclusion is not that regional powers responded to the threat posed by Iran, but rather that these powers, including Iran itself, were able to manage the chaos created by Trump at the behest of Israel, and that they did so by reaching a consensus position on what an acceptable peace looks like. This is a significant and positive development for the region and it deserves to be celebrated and consolidated.

[Phil Stewart @phildstewart]

IRAN'S FARS: IT HAS BEEN DECIDED THAT MARINE TRAFFIC THROUGH THE GULF WILL BE REGULATED BY IRAN IN COORDINATION WITH OMAN

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

i can think of no circumstance where an ai model that is a critical national security risk for foreigners somehow becomes safe for all americans to use.

[Peter Beinart @PeterBeinart]

More eloquently than almost anyone else in Washington, @tparsi warned that this war against Iran would be a catastrophe. His reward? The Trump administration is reportedly considering deporting him. This is how America makes itself both stupid and unfree.

Anyone who cares about intelligent debate, freedom and basic decency must speak now.

[Vinod Khosla @vkhosla]

Lower capital gains tax rates is redistribution. Only upward redistribution. AI will capital juice returns further and compress labor share of income more. Why not equalize the two rates? $400B in tax savings that can be used to help people who are impacted by AI?

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Some of those who were against cancel culture were genuinely against cancellation. The rest just wanted to cancel different people.