Happened upon this article on a Geopolitics subreddit.
It is behind a paywall but the reddit posts summarize the situation very well.
Interesting development:
Is he going on Tucker to deliver some sober geopolitical analysis of the current situation? Or will he go off the deep end and endorse Tuckerite conspiracy theories?
I predict the latter - very publically quitting and then running straight to Carlson screams jumpstarting your new career as a grifter - but we shall see.
Reddit is much less strict about reproducing large sections of an article in their entirety than the Straight Dope is, I will say that
From what I’ve read of his prior record and his resignation letter, I’m expecting closer to this, too.
Summary:
The main criteria are either “who owns the cargo” (e.g., letting a ship with liquified gas through, because the gas is owned by the India Shipping Corporation)…
…or “ownership or crew presence” of the ship itself (e.g., certain Chinese ships, though more recently these have been blocked or attacked)…
…or “destination,” as broadcast by a radio transponder signal called AIS (“automatic identification system”), which includes this info (though I suppose the ship could lie about their destination), quite like the aircraft equivalent (ADS-B).
I was re-reading a story yesterday, in which one character observes that humans are generally bad at looking at “Really Big Numbers”, and then just treating them as if they were infinite. And this is what we’re starting to see with Trump and the MAGAs. Sure, the US military is the largest in the world, the largest in history, but it’s not infinite. But they’re treating it as if it were. Missiles are fired at a rate far above what they can replace. Ships are deployed to more and more places, for longer times, even though there are a finite number of them. Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Iran, everywhere else. They think they can spend without limit, and it’s starting to bite them in the ass.
And their congenital inability to admit error means this will continue until something critical breaks.
He is going full antisemite in the disguise of anti-Israel. I quoted his Xit in the Speculation on Consequences of the Iran War as an example of the legitimation this war is giving antisemites. Well, giving… they are taking it, that much is clear. They really wanted to, now they feel they finally can. Bad miscalculation by Netanyahu, I think.
Given his Nazi-hugging background, I tend to agree.
The ships departing are not using the main channel. Tracking shows them deviating closer to the Iranian shore, actually behind an island. Supposition is that the ships are being checked for cargo and destination by Iran.
Remembering that this is OPEC, not some USA domiciled business operating within the provisions of U.S. antitrust laws with oversight by both the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.
True. I’m sure plenty of shell games go on (hope that’s an apt metaphor).
Well, that depends. If it keeps him out of jail, it served its purpose as far as he’s concerned.
Trump goes looney about an attack on a Qatari natural gas field:
This is what happens when idiots start a war with no mission and no plan. All of this (basically chaos involving Gulf energy and maritime transit) was entirely predictable and this administration had no plan for it.
NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.
Bold of Trump to assume he’s in any position to dictate military policy to Bibi.
Pretty much the whole of WWII could have been avoided if Trump had been in charge back then. He could have just directed Japan and Germany not to attack Allied assets and that would have been that.
After attacking the Iranian oil facilities yesterday, Israel was very careful to note that it had done so in full coordination with the U.S.
You decide who’s lying.
In two weeks.
I don’t think Trump is even in control of anything now. I suspect it’s all in the hands of … Not sure who. But Trump is probably being left out of the loop entirely.
Stephen Miller would be my guess these days, but that’s getting afield of the topic.