I fear he wants blood, not money.
How come the cease-fire has been more successful in Israel? Is the agreement (e.g., to begin withdrawing from certain zones in Lebanon) being honored on the ground?
An Amazon data center in Bahrain was destroyed recently:
Consider me a little amazed by this as well. I thought as soon as Iran and the US started going back at it, Israel would immediately resume bombing Lebanon.
If I can hypothesize – Iran may see Israel as implacable (i.e. counterattacks/shipping restrictions have no ability to change Israel’s behavior), while Iran’s behavior has very much influenced America’s behavior. They may believe (quite reasonably, IMO) that Trump will back down with enough pain (economic as well as complaints from Arab allies), while Israel will not.
The anti-data center movement has really upped their game.
Hezbollah have been behaving themselves, so the situation hasn’t escalated.
Also, with three months until the elections, Netanyahu doesn’t want more rockets on Israeli civilians. Makes him look bad.
On a personal note, I’m scared that Israel will get sucked back into the war today or tomorrow, like many are saying here. My son is coming home after four months in Seattle - he’s actually on the plane to JFK right now, and he has a long layover before his flight back to Tel Aviv, which arrives tomorrow. I’m scared fighting will start, Israeli airspace will lock down, and he’ll be stranded in New York or even worse, it’s happen mid-flight and his plane will be diverted who-knows-where. Can we take a rain check this time - or at least wait until Friday?
The vanity war cost now stands at 37.5 BILLION dollars.
And why should they? Rememer what was happening when this war was launched?
Iran is still at a position of strength. It’s the US that isn’t taking this seriously.
I saw a headline, I think on the AP, where Rubio was saying that it “would be” bad if Iran were to control the Strait of Hormuz. Would be.
Now Trump is threatening to bomb a bridge or power plant in Iran for each ship attacked in the Strait, smells like desperation to me.
Also, how war crimey is that? IMHO bridges and power plants have always been targets in war since war (and bridges, and then power plants) existed, but I’ve noticed that international law is less permissive than I am.
Exactly correct.
While I have zero sympathy for Rubio, I might be willing to allow for the possibility that he understands this on an intellectual level.
Unfortunately, (for himself? for all of us?), his hands are tied because I’m sure Trump and Hegseth lack the mental capability to ever conceive of the possibility that America and the military isn’t 100% the greatest, most badass, most awesome forces in the history of the world. Even to the detriment that they do not understand that war is not about how many people you kill or how many buildings you blow up. There are an infinite number of other variables that have to be accounted for from logistics and political ramifications to how you define your goals and what counts as success. We’re killing and blowing up lots of Iranian assets. The thought that Iran might actually have the strategic upper hand due to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is simply a non-starter. If we kill more Iranians eventually we’ll “win”. That’s as far as the thinking goes. So Rubio is stuck making idiotic statements like the one quoted above because he has to worry as much about the orange menace in the white house as much as he does the Iranian negotiators across the table from him.
This is the diplomatic equivalent of wearing shoes that are too big, and walking around in pain and making a laughing stock of yourself, because your boss is a thin skinned troglodyte.
But if he says anything else he’ll find himself drug into the White House for an 8-hour meeting with Trump like what happened to Patel the other day. Keeping Trump happy is priority #1 for every single sycophant in this regime. Whatever their technical job is is a distant number two.
And they’re all like that:
‘We got to wrap it up.’ House Speaker Johnson pushes to end Iran war
“Wrap it up” like it’s a birthday party and all the kids are worn out. You know how the US can wrap this up? Pull a Vietnam. Withdraw all US forces and just let the Middle East play itself out for a decade or two. AKA, a humiliating defeat.
Anything less, and Iran can just drag things out for as long as they can stand it. Which will be years. Years of random drone and missile strikes against US forces and their allies. Years of regular disruptions of traffic through the strait. Years of pointless diplomatic “talks”.
I mean, obviously Iran doesnt care, they restarted this shitshow.
And how exactly did Iran do that?
Iran attacked a ship in the Strait.
All those attacks by the US military had nothing to do with it, huh?
There was a cease fire. After that “deal” was made, Iran attacked some oil tankers in the Strait, which cause US attacks to resume.
July 7
Iran is accused of striking three ships in the strait after traffic slowly increases, the most in a single day since late April. The U.S. responds by striking dozens of targets in Iran and reinstating sanctions on Iran’s oil sales. Tehran’s lead negotiator declares that “The era of bullying and extortion is over.”
Of course this administration started the whole thing-
Feb. 28
Israel and the U.S. attack Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials, sparking the war. Iran quickly responds with strikes against Israel and across the Gulf region and asserts control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil and natural gas supplies from the Gulf.
But the end of the recent ceasefire is on Iran.
“When you kick a hornet’s nest, it’s the hornets that decide when it’s over.”
Of course, Iran was always saying that the cease fire was dependant on Iran controlling the Strait, so from their point of view, it was the ships crossing without permission that ended the cease fire.
This is why we need someone smarter and less volatile than Trump in charge of this whole mess. You don’t end a war if you can’t even agree on what you agreed to.
We wouldn’t need such a person if he hadn’t started the whole mess in the first place. The whole mess would’t even be on the radar if he hadn’t pulled out of the treaty with Iran.
What a complete cockup. And so’s the whole mess.