Having gone into considerable depth about the huge inflation crisis that is emerging rapidly in my weekend Deeper Dive (which will be worse than we experienced in the 70s and 80s), I’m going to give just a brief but impactful summary of the numerous ways in which Trump’s War re-escalated just over the weekend while I was writing the Deeper Dive.
We approached the weekend on Friday with VP Vance’s big semi-summit peace talks under the Schmeasefire agreement without any agreement, which Trump had offered as an escape boat from his threats of immediate genocide in Iran. Vance left the meeting, saying “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement.” Iran said it didn’t want a ceasefire, but Netanyahu tore a page out of the Trump playbook and claimed “Iran is begging for a deal now!” Apparently not, since they didn’t accept a single term.
Since Israel’s contribution to the ceasefire was to pummel Lebanon harder than ever before, Iran responded during negotiations by bombing a Saudi pipeline that serves as an alternative route for Saudi oil by transporting the oil over to the Red Sea, rather than out of Persian Gulf ports. That eliminated another 10% of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity, taking yet more oil out of play for an extended time.
Overall oil production from OPEC nations has fallen 27%. That’s production. Shipments, of course, have fallen much worse, but shipments can be restored more quickly than production if they are merely being threatened or just a handful of ships are sunk to scare all others from moving. So, that represents the longer-term damage at this point in the war if the war were to end today.
But it didn’t end today. When Iran walked away from the deal, Trump noted he is restocking all US military ships in the region with bigger and better weapons to get ready for phase two and was already moving mine-sweeping ships into the strait to start clearing it for transit. Iran immediately sent a stern warning to the ships that they would destroyed if they didn’t turn around, so they turned around.
Trump then announced he would be setting up a blockade of his own to assure no ship moved through the strait going to or from Iranian ports so that Iran stops benefiting from the much higher prices the president has secured for Iran for its own oil and to make sure it is unsuccessful at charging its ~$2,000,000 toll per ship. So, now both sides are trying to grind each other down in a war of attrition.
Trump lied, as has become daily practice, by making a big public fake-news claim that other parties were going to join him in supporting the blockade with their ships. The other parties of former allies immediately responded in their new customary style and told him there was not a chance: “Don’t drag us into this.”
Mr. Trump’s proposed blockade “makes no sense,” Spain’s defense minister, Margarita Robles, said in a television interview. “Since this war started, nothing makes sense,” she added. “This is another episode in the downward spiral the world has been dragged into….”
She also said, in another article,
Trump and Netanyahu “want to impose rules on the international community, which is illogical.”
“I’ll save you the waiting period: Iran is not going to capitulate,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel who studies Iran and its proxies. “This regime believes that the damage that will be sustained by this act will be bigger for the U.S. and the international economy than for Iran.”
One of the funnier moments in the now constant parade of Trump lies was that he warned Iran that none of their navy ships had better attack US navy ships carrying out the blockade.
“If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is quick and brutal.”
Apparently the president’s dementia caused him to already forget that over the weekend he announced that Iran’s navy had been completely eliminated. Not a single ship was left. I guess Iran has some very fast ship builders.
Of course, a move like this escalates things, so Iran immediately raised Trump’s bet and threatened that it will order its pals around the block, the Houthis, to blockade the strait going into the Red Sea, which will completely close off the Suez Canal again, blocking all merchant traffic and not just oil.
The Bab al-Mandeb [the Gate of Tears] — a narrow chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden — carries roughly 12% of global oil shipments and serves as a vital trade corridor between Asia and Europe, making it a strategic target for escalation that could further strain global energy markets.
The oil market, seeming to already have had it brains batted out by so much Trump jawboning, responded by lowering prices because, yeah, that makes sense. Only the day before, it had escalated prices way up.
Trump then presented himself to the world as Orange Jesus via an AI image of himself dressed like Jesus, using miraculous energy from his hands to compassionately heal the sick (even as he kills thousands). I suspect our wounded soldiers and Iran’s did not feel the healing energy. But the sheer arrogance of Trump’s act immediately brought accusation of “blasphemy” from his MAGA supporters, so he quickly took the posted image back down.
I’m thinking the Don’s hubris has notched up a little too far with his now familiar claim of being God’s anointed clearly rising to the level of meaning anointed like Jesus to be the miracle messiah. His prophets of profit have Fed his head with this stuff, and his narcissistic ego has readily accepted it as revealed truth about him. Suddenly, the memes about Trump being the Antichrist are hitting a little too close to home.
As the last Trump to sound off before Armageddon, the president also criticized his competition for religious prominence in these end times by denigrating Pope Leo as a “weak man” of little talent, apparently, running a failing Vatican. (O.K., Trump actually stopped himself short of using his standard refrain that whatever operation his critic is running is a failing enterprise; but he gave the pope several swift kicks in the chops.)
Turkey, meanwhile, got angry with bonehead Bibi over his escalated attacks on Lebanon and criticized him as the “Hitler of our time.” More significantly, Turkey’s leader threatened to enter the war against Israel.
Iran, meanwhile, was not cowed by Trump’s threat of sinking its already completely obliterated navy and said it will use its ghost ships to bring US ships to a similar end at the bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker. That’s when the US ships that were in the strait turned fantail and ran away from the non-existent threat of the completely sunken navy. (Non-existent given that the truthful Trump also said Iran’s air force was entirely taken out and all their radar destroyed.) It’s amazing how they can scare the “greatest military ever” with nothing.
Here is a photo of Iran’s non-existent “fast-attack ships” that the president said he will sink if they attack the US:
The ships under the IRGC’s control are still largely operational and capable of policing the key water route President Trump has vowed to reopen, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The IRGC’s navy is vast, small, and speedy, allowing the attack vessels to evade satellite detection and hide in underground pens along the rocky coast of the 20-mile-wide strait, said Chris Long, a former British navy official in the Persian Gulf.
“It will be a long time before the US can take all those out,” Long told the WSJ.
…the Islamic Republic has pivoted to an asymmetrical navy, with the IRGC tasked with policing the Strait of Hormuz while Iran’s conventional navy patrols other waterways in the Gulf.
Well, that’s pretty good naval survival then, if it will take “a long time” to take out what is left.
I’m not doubting the greatness of the US military or putting it down in anyway, just the lying clown that runs it who believes he is as anointed by God as Jesus, who also added a “Praise God” to his latest attack threats again and probably an “Alahu Akbar,” as is his new practice. After all, one prominent theory about the Antichrist is that he is supposed to be the leader of multiple religions, so being bilingual in your God praises is essential for the role.
We also have intel now that …
China may have shipped missiles to Iran, and Beijing is allowing some companies to sell Tehran supplies that can be used in military production, American officials said.
So, it might not be just the US that promises bigger weapons and more of them when Phase Two begins.
Read the full article here