The US-Iran War Has Begun

[Innula Zenovka]

That will go super well.

‘There’s no ceasefire’: Gaza paramedic and father of two killed as civilian death toll since October passes 650

Depends on how serious he is about backing it up with threats to suspend financial aid and military supplies. Depends too, I guess, if Iran are prepared cooperate.

 

[Khamon]

Depends on how serious he is about backing it up with threats to suspend financial aid and military supplies. Depends too, I guess, if Iran are prepared cooperate.

Israel, Netanyahu, et al must realize that they cannot trust The Dump any more than Iran or <insert list of every person and entity on the planet> can. He may order the withdrawal of financial aid and military supplies for Israel tomorrow, for any or no reason, and then TACO overnight, or not, as he pleases. They can only go about their business, following their own agenda, and enjoy his largess as long as it lasts.

Negotiating with the US, dealing with the US, capitulating to the US, means nothing, guarantees nothing, is emptiness. Netanyahu and company are not foolish enough to ignore this. They'll continue as they please knowing that our President will do whatever strikes his fancy from minute to minute based not at all on Israel's policies or activities.

 

[Erich Templar]

Worth a read, I think.
g/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Israel, Netanyahu, et al must realize that they cannot trust The Dump any more than Iran or <insert list of every person and entity on the planet> can. He may order

Netanyahu doesn't need a Trump he can trust. He needed a Trump dumb enough to enter the war, and he got him.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Worth a read, I think.
g/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/

Thanks. He lost me here, I think

Chad is not an area of vital security interest to the United States, whereas Taiwan (which makes our semiconductors) is and we all know it.

Neither is the Middle East. The entire region has exactly two strategic concerns of note: the Suez Canal (and connected Red Sea shipping system) and the oil production in the Persian Gulf and the shipping system used to export it. So long as these two arteries remained open the region does not matter very much to the United States. None of the region’s powers are more than regional powers (and mostly unimpressive ones at that), none of them can project power out of the region and none of them are the sort of dynamic, growing economies likely to do so in the future. The rich oil monarchies are too small in terms of population and the populous countries too poor.

Quite apart from the fact that it's not only oil and LPG that come through the Persian Gulf -- much of the world's urea, used for fertilisers, comes from there too, as do sulphur and helium -- the whole world economy depends very much on energy supplies from the Gulf. That's why Iran's ability to close the Strait of Hormuz is so important, and why its threats to bomb oil and gas fields and desalination plants are so effective.

It can very easily tip the whole world -- including the US -- into recession if it chooses, and if Saudi and the other "rich oil monarchies" start feeling the pinch because of falling revenues from oil and gas, they'll be selling redeeming the US treasury bonds whereby the US government has been funding its massive deficit.

The region matters very much to the US because of its potential to tank the US economy.

 

[Free]

Inside Trump's daily video montage briefing on the Iran war

The montage, which typically runs for about two minutes, has raised concerns among some of the president’s allies that he may not be receiving the complete picture of the war.

www.nbcnews.com

Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said.

The daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer, the officials said. One described each daily video as a series of clips of “stuff blowing up.”

They obviously don't even bother with the short oral briefings anymore. Just the snazziest video highlights from his fantasy Call of Duty.

 

[Free]

Oh, ffs...

‘Present’ that Trump said Iran gave US was safe passage of several fuel tankers through Hormuz

The “present” that US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Iran gave Washington was allowing the safe passage of a number of fuel tankers through the Strait of Hormuz in recent days, a senior Arab diplomat and a US official tell The Times of Israel.

The US official tells The Times of Israel that when the Trump administration began passing along messages to Iran through mediators over the weekend in order to test whether a diplomatic off-ramp to the war was possible, it asked Tehran to make a gesture of goodwill.

In response, Iran agreed to allow a number of fuel tankers that weren’t tied to the US or Israel through the Strait of Hormuz in order to help calm global markets, the Arab official says.

The Arab official acknowledges that the safe passage of a small number of tankers is not likely to have a significant or longterm impact on global oil prices, a concession that Iran is not yet prepared to offer while US and Israeli strikes continue.

Turns out the "present" was worth about as much as an Iran Peace Prize.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

If the Middle East wouldn't matter to the states they wouldn't have had meddled so much with the interior affairs of Persia since decades.

A stable Middle East is a major national security concern of the states, because of oil and petrochemical products. The funny thing is that the states could have become almost independent from it with its fracking boom going on, but thanks to capitalism never bothered to. Because they would either need new refineries, or adapt old one to the fracking oil. Investments of billions, they never bothered to do, because purchasing it from the Middle East is cheaper and selling the own surplus to the world, which could have powered the states, also easier to do.

The states are still dependent on oil from the Middle East by own choice and laziness.

Also another thing: all countries on the Arabian peninsula have no farming sector big enough to sustain themselves due to being in a hot desert. So they are thankfully buying tons of wheat, corn, meat and other stuff from everywhere, including America.

The biggest threat to national security of countries on the peninsula is having no electrical power: air conditioning will cease to work, which in summers with about up to 50 degress Celsius/122 degrees Fahrenheit is unfun. Cooling of food will also stop working, also desalination plants and gas stations. It would be a big chaos within a few days.

 

[Noodles]

I don't understand why we are so worried about this Hormuz thing, I thought we, the US, were gling to be using all of our bigliest oil reserves under all those wasted national parks to be oil indipendant. Also we own Venezuela now.

/s

 

[Innula Zenovka]

How Trump has created a situation he cannot get out of

26th March 2026 The choking of the Strait of Hormuz and an unwanted regime change in Iran mean Trump cannot simply walk away There is a proverb about what is the difference between a clever person …

theemptycity.com

Regime change, but not the kind Trump hoped for ...

As this outstanding piece in the Economist explains, the military-political leadership in Iran has fragmented and decentralised. There is thereby nobody with overall control, just disconnected and local forces with only loose central direction.

As such, there is also effectively nobody for Trump to bluster or bully.

The United States attack on Iran is almost a perfect model of stupidity, to place alongside the Pyrrhic victory or the marches on Moscow.

The Economist article to which he links

 

[Beebo Brink]

Netanyahu doesn't need a Trump he can trust. He needed a Trump dumb enough to enter the war, and he got him.

So I keep hearing everyone carp about Netanyahu and Trump, but there is almost complete silence about the role of Mohammed bin Salmon (aka MBS) played in urging this conflict.

MBS and the other Sunni Arab countries are enemies of Shia Iran, but are constrained from direct combat against them because they all fall under the larger umbrella of Muslims, and their religion frowns on killing fellow Muslims. Instead, MBS has effectively hired Americans -- as if they were a mercenary army -- to attack Iran. It's a theological loophole.

Israel has skin in the game, but MBS does not. No troops, no weapons, just money in the pocket of Trump, Witkoff, and Jared Kushner. MBS is the silent partner, and so far this shadowy role seems to be working for him. Israel gets all the heat and antisemitism, while the Arab states sit on the sidelines and escape criticism.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Muslims never had a problem with killing their own kind if they do belong to the wrong part of Islam. Otherwise Pakistan would never do terrorist attacks in India, which has about 200 million muslims.

KSA's problem is of a special kind: they've got Makkah and Madinah. Sunni or Shiit doesn't matter, both must go there in Islam, so both will be in the yearly stream of pilgrims.

Giving them lots of leverage to do bad stuff.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

So I keep hearing everyone carp about Netanyahu and Trump, but there is almost complete silence about the role of Mohammed bin Salmon (aka MBS) played in urging this conflict.

MBS and the other Sunni Arab countries are enemies of Shia Iran, but are constrained from direct combat against them because they all fall under the larger umbrella of Muslims, and their religion frowns on killing fellow Muslims. Instead, MBS has effectively hired Americans -- as if they were a mercenary army -- to attack Iran. It's a theological loophole.

Israel has skin in the game, but MBS does not. No troops, no weapons, just money in the pocket of Trump, Witkoff, and Jared Kushner. MBS is the silent partner, and so far this shadowy role seems to be working for him. Israel gets all the heat and antisemitism, while the Arab states sit on the sidelines and escape criticism.

The KSA and the other Gulf monarchies are presumably also mindful of the same very real military and economic considerations that make attacking Iran a very bad idea, as I fear the US is about to demonstrate.

I don't think they wanted either the US or Israel to attack, because they feared being dragged in, precisely as they are being.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The KSA and the other Gulf monarchies are presumably also mindful of the same very real military and economic considerations that make attacking Iran a very bad idea, as I fear the US is about to demonstrate.

I don't think they wanted either the US or Israel to attack, because they feared being dragged in, precisely as they are being.

So where do the reports of MBS urging the U.S. to continue attacking Iran come from?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

So where do the reports of MBS urging the U.S. to continue attacking Iran come from?

According to the New York Times

Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been pushing President Trump to continue the war against Iran, arguing that the U.S.-Israeli military campaign presents a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East, according to people briefed by American officials on the conversations.

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www.nytimes.com

How reliable a source are "people briefed by American officials" (not even the officials themselves)? Considering the number of contradictory, and often clearly fanciful, statements made on the record by American officials over the last few weeks, I'm not too sure.

 

[Soen Eber]

According to the New York Times

Loading…

www.nytimes.com

How reliable a source are "people briefed by American officials" (not even the officials themselves)? Considering the number of contradictory, and often clearly fanciful, statements made on the record by American officials over the last few weeks, I'm not too sure.

Not to mention MBS's own vivid fantasies.

 

[Free]

Not to mention MBS's own vivid fantasies.

Are they any worse than Trump's?

 

[Free]

Trump has been saying our war excursion in Iran is going really well for the U.S.

'13 US Bases Uninhabitable': Iran Strikes Force Troops Into 'Remote War'

Iran’s sustained missile and drone strikes on American military installations across the Middle East have rendered several key US bases “largely uninhabitable", forcing troops to disperse into temporary facilities, including hotels and office spaces.

A report in The New York Times said the shift has effectively pushed parts of the US military into a form of “remote warfare" with ground personnel operating from makeshift locations even as air operations continue from functional bases.

Many of the 13 US military bases in the region have been severely degraded, NYT reported, with those in Kuwait, located next to Iran, suffering some of the heaviest damage, American officials and military personnel said.

 

[Soen Eber]

Are they any worse than Trump's?

They show the same detachment from reality, such as "The Line" and "Neom". He's also the one who killed a Saudi born U.S.journalist IIRC. Once a person has escaped reality, you really don't want them influencing your life in any way, especially if they join forces.

 

[Free]