@JoshKulinski Thank you so, so much for the work you put in at Bungie over the years. This game has been such a joy to play because of people like you and your friends.
@Shell You really need to fix your apps! Fuel rewards app now requires the Shell app which requires a phone number - oh but it doesn’t accept that my phone number is valid - the same number that my Fuel Rewards account already uses. wtf.
Thinking of Bill Buckley today. Interrogated as a hostage by Iranian intelligence. Bill was the CIA station chief in Beirut, who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. #Iran#EPICFURY#NeverForget
Four weeks ago Saudi Arabia told Iran it would never allow its airspace or territory to be used for attacks. The Crown Prince personally called the Iranian President to deliver that message. It was published by the Saudi Press Agency on January 28.
Today the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement that erases every word of that call.
The Kingdom “condemns and denounces in the strongest terms the treacherous Iranian aggression.” It calls the missile strikes a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty” of the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan. It pledges “full solidarity” with every attacked nation. And then the line that changes everything: Saudi Arabia is “placing all its capabilities to support them in all measures they take.”
All its capabilities. All measures.
That is not diplomatic language. That is a blank check written in the middle of a war. Whatever the UAE decides to do, Saudi Arabia just said it will support. Whatever Bahrain’s response, Saudi will back it. Whatever Jordan, Qatar, or Kuwait determines is necessary, Riyadh just pledged everything it has.
One month ago Saudi Arabia was Iran’s diplomatic shield in the Gulf. The kingdom that brokered the 2023 rapprochement with Tehran. The country that told Washington it would not participate. The monarchy that built its entire post-Vision 2030 foreign policy on balancing between Washington and Tehran without choosing.
Iran forced the choice this morning by firing missiles at Riyadh.
AFP correspondents confirmed explosions in the Saudi capital. The kingdom that spent three years rebuilding ties with Tehran just had Iranian ballistic missiles in its airspace. The country that told America it would stay neutral just watched its sovereignty violated by the same regime it was trying to protect from American strikes.
This is the strategic catastrophe Iran’s leadership failed to game out. Every war-game in Tehran assumed the Gulf states would remain neutral or at worst close their airspace. Every IRGC calculation assumed Saudi Arabia would pressure Washington for restraint. Every diplomatic channel Iran maintained through Oman and Qatar assumed those relationships would survive a military exchange.
None of those assumptions survived contact with Iranian missiles landing in sovereign Gulf territory.
Iran attacked the UAE. One civilian dead in Abu Dhabi from debris. Intercepts confirmed by the Emirati defense ministry. Iran attacked Qatar, the country that hosted its diplomatic back channels. Intercepted, zero damage, confirmed by Qatar’s Interior Ministry. Iran attacked Kuwait, neutral for thirty years. Missiles dealt with in Kuwaiti airspace per KUNA. Iran attacked Jordan, which shot down two ballistic missiles. And Iran attacked Saudi Arabia, the one country whose neutrality was keeping the entire regional balance from collapsing.
The Saudi statement warns of “grave consequences of continuing to violate the sovereignty of nations.” It demands the international community “take all firm measures to confront Iranian violations.” This is the language of a state preparing legal and political justification for what comes next.
Iran did not just retaliate against Israel this morning. Iran turned every neutral state in the Gulf into an adversary with a single salvo. The coalition that Washington spent months trying to build and could not assemble, Tehran assembled in one morning by attacking everyone simultaneously.
The next 72 hours will be defined by what “all capabilities” and “all measures” means when translated from Arabic diplomatic language into military coordination between six countries that now share a common enemy they did not have yesterday.
The US just handed Iran a document that is not a negotiation. It is a capitulation order.
The Wall Street Journal obtained the American demands presented in Geneva today. Destroy Fordow. Destroy Natanz. Destroy Isfahan. Hand over every gram of enriched uranium to the United States. Zero enrichment permanently, no sunset clauses, no expiration dates. Behave for the rest of your lives. In exchange, minimal sanctions relief upfront with more only if you comply with everything forever.
Iran’s counterproposal, approved personally by Khamenei, arrived showing almost no change from the previous round. A 3-to-5 year enrichment suspension. Increased IAEA oversight. Willingness to dilute stockpiles. But zero flexibility on the one demand Washington says is non-negotiable: permanent zero enrichment on Iranian soil.
The gap between these two positions is not a negotiation gap. It is the distance between sovereignty and surrender. And no government in the history of nuclear diplomacy has voluntarily dismantled its own program, surrendered its own fissile material to its adversary, and accepted permanent restrictions with no expiration while that adversary had 500 aircraft parked on its doorstep.
The FDD’s Andrea Stricker called it a “suicide mission.” She is right, but not the way she means it. These demands are designed to be rejected. A proposal that requires a sovereign nation to physically destroy three of its own facilities and hand its enriched uranium to the country threatening to bomb it is not diplomacy. It is the paperwork you file before the paperwork becomes irrelevant.
Barak Ravid confirmed today’s talks were both indirect and direct, with a pause for consultations. That pause is the tell. When both sides need to consult after the first session, it means the positions presented were further apart than either side expected to encounter. Araghchi’s “good outlook” from yesterday has already collided with the reality of what Washington put on the table.
Now hold this against what is happening outside the room.
The demands say destroy Fordow. The F-22s at Ovda exist to destroy Fordow. The demands say dismantle Natanz. The B-2s at Whiteman carry the GBU-57s that reach Natanz. The demands say eliminate Isfahan. The Tomahawks on two carrier strike groups are programmed for Isfahan. Every demand in the document has a military equivalent already in theater. The negotiating position is a target list with diplomatic formatting.
Iran is being asked to do voluntarily what the United States is prepared to do by force. The document is not an alternative to the strike. The document is the strike translated into legalese, presented one last time before the translation becomes unnecessary.
Geneva is not where this gets resolved.
Geneva is where the historical record gets established. The United States offered terms. Iran rejected the core demand. The diplomatic predicate for military action was constructed in a hotel conference room while 500 aircraft waited outside.
The curtain went up today in Geneva. But the show was never in the building. The show is on the tarmacs at Ovda, on the flight decks of the Ford and Lincoln, in the bomb bays of B-2s sitting in Missouri, and on the coral runway at Diego Garcia where the refueling corridor begins.
Geneva is the intermission. The next act does not require a negotiating table.
https://t.co/BrzGRrU3VW
🔥🚨VIRAL NOW: Strippers were spotted standing in attention and pledging for the National Anthem in Club E11EVEN with Team USA in Miami Florida. This is one of the most American videos of the decade.