The Fire Horse in Chinatown today helping to melt that snow! ??
— Michelle Wu ?? (@wutrain.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 2:23 PM
Congress holds the power to declare war – not the President.
I will be joining Senators Kaine, Paul and Schumer in forcing a vote on our war powers resolution to make it clear: Congress has not authorized this use of our military.— Sen. Adam Schiff (@schiff.senate.gov) March 1, 2026 at 8:58 PM
Trump's attack on Iran was not America First.
Trump was played by Israeli PM Netanyahu and the Saudi Crown Prince. Putting Americans at risk to advance their personal ambitions is a complete betrayal of the American people.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202…— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@vanhollen.senate.gov) March 1, 2026 at 2:34 PM
for reference, 73% of americans supported the war in iraq in 2003 — two years after 9/11 and two years of the bush administration making the case for it. this will be different, iran's in much worse shape to begin with, but it's starting wildly unpopular and will only get worse with consequences
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 1, 2026 at 8:30 PM
News media in general is pretty friendly towards wars—especially ones launched by Republicans-so its telling that off the bat Trumps already getting skeptical to critical headlines even from outlets that are typically pretty friendly to him
— Daniel Gilmore (@gilmored85.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 9:28 PM
After Trump launched a new war on Iran, he did not rush back to the White House or make an Oval Office address to rally the nation as other presidents have done. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago to attend a glitzy political fundraiser. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/u…
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 1:09 PM
… On Sunday, Mr. Trump had yet to make a public appearance. He posted a second video to social media describing the continuing attacks and again calling on the Iranian people to “take back your country.” Late in the afternoon, he began his trip back to Washington, the only event on his public schedule.
Mr. Trump’s remarks were limited to the two videos and conversations with individual reporters and outlets, including The New York Times. His decision not to give a formal address came after he made little effort before the attack to lay out the case for a military assault against Iran.
His lack of public engagement, after launching a military attack that could spur a broader conflict and has already cost the lives of at least three U.S. service members and dozens of people in Iran, Israel and other countries in the region, was a striking departure from how other presidents have handled the gravity of war….
Mr. Trump’s allies have argued that his communication strategy has adapted to the changing media landscape, where many Americans get their news and updates from social media. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, celebrated Mr. Trump on social media on Saturday night as “focused,” invoking a term used by the MAGA base for critics of the president’s approach.
“NO PANICANS!” Mr. Cheung said in a statement on X. “TRUST IN TRUMP!”…
On Saturday, the president did not make himself available to the press pool, a group of reporters who are assigned to follow his movements and record his remarks. Those reporters last saw him Friday night, when he waved as he descended from Air Force One after landing in Florida.
Instead, he made his case on Saturday with an eight-minute video posted on social media, which was edited and not broadcast live.
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Mr. Trump said, without specifying those threats. Key elements of what he and his advisers did assert in recent weeks about why Iran was a threat were false or unproven…
The president did not let the bombing of Iran upend his schedule, including his plans to attend a fund-raising dinner to support MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC.
Ms. Leavitt said Saturday that Mr. Trump had no intention of breaking that commitment. The fund-raiser, she said, was “more important than ever.”
Optics.
@thedailybeast.bsky.social
www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hosts-…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 1:40 PM
Reporter: What’s your message to the families of the fallen?
Trump:
(via @acyn.bsky.social)— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 7:52 PM
Oops.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 10:13 PM
You fools in the media ivory towers don’t realize that in the critical election year, when Donald trump triumphantly campaigns to the country about how he helped kill the supreme leader of Iran, a man with the blood of countless Americans on his hands, American voters will shower our president with…
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 10:01 AM
…praise and plaudits ranging all the way from “who are you talking about” to “I can’t buy anything”
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 10:02 AM
There’s that number.
— Malaclypse the Middle (@malaclypse.bsky.social) March 1, 2026 at 6:39 PM
On The Road – Albatrossity – Ducks (not in a row)
Baud
Trump is unifying the Middle East!
Lapassionara
I think Netanyahu is driving this, so who knows when it will stop.
p.a.
Bibi will have the US bomb Israel if it keeps him out of jail.
Baud
Baud
I wonder what racist thing Trump will do next to shore up his base.
prostratedragon
News site just getting started: Iran War Dispatches
Baud
I was hoping that horse actually breathed fire. Am disappointed.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He is uniting all the despots, elected and otherwise.
prostratedragon
Thought for the day:
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Attack another blue state.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Probably. But that almost seems stale now. He needs to do something fresh.
Betty Cracker
I dunno, guys, sounds like Cheung is panickin’ to me.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He will do it where his most loyal fanbase, i.e. the beltway media can watch the show. Maryland.
Suzanne
@Lapassionara:
Netanyahu is evil and smart. Trump is evil and stupid. This is a bad combo.
Scout211
The Guardian live updates:
. . .
The full Centcom statement reads:
Suzanne
Side note: when and why did Magdi Jacobs (Mangy Jay) go fully insane? She’s now supporting this invasion of Iran as an anti-authoritarian and anti-Trump measure.
Ostensible liberals supporting an authoritarian committing regime change against another authoritarian (without approval of Congress, I might add) — and calling it an anti-authoritarian move! — is the kind of take one has only when one’s brain is fully cooked by the internet.
prostratedragon
Politico: Moscow gloats over potential oil price spike from Iran war
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Wait, what? I kinda lost track of her when I quit Twitter, but she used to be pretty level-headed. Wow.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Whoa. That sucks
ETA: I completely get why Iranian expats might be cheering Khamanei’s death. But that “silver lining” does not make what’s happening ok.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I feel bad because I think she’s had some issues in her personal life, but I also think she’s fallen off the deep end in the last couple of years.
p.a
Kuwait uninformed about the proceedings because any Arabic-speaking US military has been sacked?//s I hope.
Joey Maloney
@p.a.: That’s pretty much what Bibi is doing now, only using the transitive property of blowing shit up.
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: “Are you a PANICAN, or are you a PANICAN’T?”
p.a
@Joey Maloney: The old joke about Israel & KSA fave marching song: Onward Christian Soldiers…
Suzanne
@Baud: Yeah exactly. One can agree that Khameini is/was terrible and repressive….. and still think this invasion is a terrible thing. The biggest reason: it’s not likely to reduce their oppression, just replace one bad regime with another.
I hope for a better outcome for them.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
He is giving off a certain “All is well! Remain calm!” vibe, isn’t he? :D
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
@Layer8Problem:
lowtechcyclist
@Lapassionara:
Riffing off Jethro Tull:
Ol’ Bibi’s stole the handle, and the train it won’t stop going, no way to slow it down
WTFGhost
@Baud: Very few horses breathe fire, Baud.
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
Seriously, I’d been wondering if Putin was part of the push for war, for exactly that reason. Russia needs money to keep financing its Ukraine invasion, and based on local gasoline prices, I assume oil prices must have been low for many months now.
lowtechcyclist
@p.a:
Knowing too much about non-English-speaking countries, which speaking their languages directly enables, is ‘woke’ of course.
Geo Wilcox
@lowtechcyclist: He may end up getting stopped if he keep threatening China with blowing up Beijing. China don’t play that game and Israel will be nothing but ashes if they push it.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Not to mention, it’s killing a bunch of people whose only crime is to have been born in Iran.
Trump, Hegseth, Rubio, and the rest of the people in the Administration driving our foreign policy are mass murderers, pure and simple.
I wish I could hope for a day when they will be in the dock, being tried for their war crimes.
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: Things are always different when it’s your country, and, when you swim in a filthy sea of untruths.
To be brutal, I could see being glad Trump did this, thinking it would sink Trump conclusively, and, being hopeful that the leadership is dead, maybe sound, sensible people will take over.
The thing is, in any revolution, the ruthless always take power, even if they’re thinking they’re the good guys, acting from purest of motives, and, the most ruthless are rarely the best people. Also, too, everything Trump touches dies.
I do see reason to hope that this sinks Trumpie-bear-and-the-ridiculous-republicans, but that’s because everything Trump does is stupid, and is as likely as not to have devastatingly stupid results, and warfare, hell, maybe he’ll manage to get a few more planes dropped off of aircraft carriers.
Geminid
I looked up oilprice.com this morning’s prices. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark was $72.59 per barrel. It was $67/bbl going into thr weekend. It was around $56/bbl in early January, before the US military build commenced in the Middle East.
Murban Crude, a benchmark for Gulf oil, was $82/bbl. That has risen in tandem with the WTI price over the last two months but it jumped even more this weekend.
I’ve found Rudaw English has good coverage of this war. It’s based in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. Iraqi Kurdistan borders the Kurdish-majority provinces of western Iran.
Barbara
@lowtechcyclist: People running Kuwait speak English. It’s widely if not universally taught in Kuwaiti schools.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You should read what she has to say before passing judgment. She has a much more nuanced view of what’s happening than the 2 line blurb in the comments.
FWIW this is my view.
Iran has been terrible to its people and has propped despicable organizations in its neighborhood under the Ayatollahs.
Also, this foreign policy of executing leadership that we don’t like is a terrible development whether it is Iran or Venezuela. It diminishes us and makes the world unstable.
oldgold
Strange stuff:
1.Only mentions Iran in passing during 2 hour. SOU delivered just 96 hours before initiating war;
2.Flies to Mar-a-Lago on eve of war;
3. Despite functional limitations and bad optics stays at resort for the weekend; and,
4. 60 hours into the war has not publicly addressed the American people.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m not on X so your link doesn’t take me to her comments.
me
Warmongering walrus has doubts about warmongering for a change. John Bolton Sounds the Alarm on Trump’s Iran Gamble
Baud
@oldgold:
Trump was hired to break norms.
WTFGhost
@p.a: Oh, great, now the ones responsible for sacking the Arabic translators have been sacked. Soon we’ll be having moose messages in the credits again!
@Layer8Problem: Flashing back to “it’s called cannabis not can’tabis”:
“It’s called crack, not cran’t.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if you smoke some.”
— most West Wing employees by this time.
@lowtechcyclist: “We haven’t hit an iceberg, and if we had, it certainly isn’t the cause of our listing, and, even if it were the cause of our listing, you do all remember this ship is unsinkablubblubblub”
@lowtechcyclist: Plus, Trump needs to pump up prices, so people will come in to develop Venezuelan oil.
Expletive Deleted
I suspect the image of the fighter nosediving is going to be seeing a lot of use as the apt metaphor gif of the year.
prostratedragon
@Barbara: That friendly fire conclusion sounds a bit hasty, shall we say.
lowtechcyclist
@Geo Wilcox:
Bibi threatened to blow up Beijing? Holy shit, I missed that. 🫨
Xi isn’t gonna drop the bomb on Israel. He and the Chinese leadership in general play the long game. But I’m sure China will find a way to make Israel experience consequences.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud:
Magdi Jacobs
@magi_jay
·
Feb 28
Shapiro here is the governor of PA not the influencer
Link to his statement
prostratedragon
Pahlavi watch:
Reza Pahlavi was a young man about town in NYC during the early 80s.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks. I agree that tweet doesn’t indicate a pro-authoritarian view.
I think it’s probably premature to be happy for the Iranian people though.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: We need to wait and watch before making declarative statements, on that we are in agreement.
cmorenc
@Suzanne: Never heard of Magdi Jacobs before, even in this almost-top 10k blog.
RevRick
@lowtechcyclist: This is an illegal war under international law. If an imminent threat is posed to a nation, then a preemptive strike is permitted, as in the Six Day War. But there was no imminent threat. This was an ugly preventative war, based as it is on a hypothetical nuclear warhead atop a theoretical ballistic missile.
This is an unconstitutional war. Only Congress can make war. It is a usurpation of their power, not that many GOP Senators and Representatives care. They are complicit.
Then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, in a speech on July 4, 1821 warned against the impulse of “going abroad seeking monsters to destroy.” Doing that might gain us power on the world stage, but at the cost of the soul of the nation, which is liberty. The Iranian regime was monstrous, but we aren’t the world’s dictator.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: boy that’s some seriously professional communications there, eh? THAT’s what I like to see coming from my White House! (eyeroll)
“Trust in Obama!” said no one, ever, because only trump & Co are this ridiculous.
prostratedragon
@oldgold:
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
The crazyfication factor in that last tweet👀👀👀🤔🤔
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne: Given that Trump’s plan, according to Jonathan Karl, was to put the #3 or #4 person in charge, clearly the repression would have continued.
It is impressive how stupid these people are.
LAC
@lowtechcyclist: Great, the Despot Olympics is definitely a great way to start the week. All we need is Hegseth setting fire to the torch with his whiskey soaked breath. “Operation Epic Fury” sounds like something he would come up with.
Jeffro
Fixed that for ya, NYT
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne:
I’m. Uh. Not getting off the boat, but is the logic here that we should be for it because Trump is heightening his own contradictions?
If so that’s kind of the secular version of the fundie I mentioned the other day who voted for Trump BECAUSE they think he’s the Antichrist (to make the prophecies happen so Jesus can return!)
Jeffro
@me: man…hell hath surely frozen over when John. Freaking. Bolton. is saying, “whoa now on this attacking Iran thing”
for real
mappy!
Venezuela,Iran, CubaAssassination R Us.
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
“NO PANIC, NO PANIC, YOU’RE THE PANIC!!!!”
zhena gogolia
@cmorenc: See her full statement at #46.
rikyrah
@prostratedragon:
No lie told.
I stand by this.
The Founding Fathers, flawed as they were, saw the Orange Menace coming over 250+ years ago.
What they never accounted for was the other branches of our Republic turning their backs and betraying their oaths to the CONSTITUTION.
THAT, IS WHAT THEY FAILED TO SEE.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: See #46.
Geminid
@cmorenc: Magdi Jacobs goes by the Twitter handle, “Mangy Jay.” She’s been reposted here under that name.
Trivia Man
@WTFGhost: Now that Rump is his own oil state (Venezuela slush fund), suddenly high oil prices look like a swell idea.
Spanky
@oldgold: What would look different if the country was being run by a cabal of advisers while a mostly brain dead president slowly dissipates?
WTFGhost
@Chief Oshkosh: So we’re definitely clearly stating that the US is okay with assassination for regime change.
Man. I’m sure that’s okay – there is no easy way to assassinate people in the US, because the Iranians don’t have missiles that can reach us yet, and just like Charlie Kirk, Patron Saint of Getting Shot reminds us… um… damn.
I don’t think I would have enacted a policy of deliberate assassination if I lived in America, and had any love of, you know, spaces where there are 100+yd lines of sight.
Chief Oshkosh
@prostratedragon:
One of the least-accomplished, biggest know-nothings on the planet has a say about this?
At this rate, I’ll vote for anyone who declares that the Murdochs, Weisses, etc. will be immediately investigated for, hell, for just breathing good air.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Magdi has been vociferous against antisemitism emanating from the horseshoe left, that makes her a target for attacks by our progressive betters.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
That play is getting old, because, one way or another, the Blue cities in Blue States are finding ways to fight back. They bet on the Blue Cities and Blue States buckling to them, and that hasn’t happened.
Also, Black people are still resting, and the visuals of them mistreating YT PEOPLE just doesn’t hit the same way for their evil purposes.😒😒
Trivia Man
Instead of a resolution condemning the war, i am convinced by the opposite argument. Push for a vote granting AUMF. If the resolution says NO NO NO, he can veto it for half assed cover.
If APPROVAL fails it strikes me as s crystal clear denial. IANAL, YMMV
schrodingers_cat
@Trivia Man: It is. But it is something that they have done again and again.
narya
Someone referred to the operation as “Operation Epstein Fury,” and I’d like to see that picked up . . .
rikyrah
The Mayor of New York City hit a good one with the street shoveling hiring of regular New Yorkers. Those sidewalks have never looked so clean. And, I don’t just mean the Upper East and West Sides. New Yorkers walk everywhere, so having clean sidewalks after a snow blizzard is very important. People not mad about the hourly rate paid when they can walk the streets and not worry about slipping and sliding. It is good government.
Chief Oshkosh
@LAC:
Hey Baud! There’s your fire-breathing horse(‘s ass)!
Trivia Man
@mappy!: If it were still Fidel in charge cuba would 100% be on the table.
Trivia Man
@narya: I’M DOING MY PART
(insert Starship Troopers gif)
Barbara
@Trivia Man: I don’t think resolutions can be vetoed though I understand what you’re saying.
jonas
@Trivia Man:
Trump: “Oh, so oil prices are too low to make investing in upgrading Venezuela’s infrastructure worthwhile, are they?”
*Bombs Iran*
Trump: “So how do you like them apples?”
Also Trump: “These high oil prices are the fault of woke liberals!”
Trivia Man
@rikyrah: Team Evil had a clever counterattack based in ID requirements for the shovelers. Bad faith, false equivalency, and many more fallacies – but dollars to doughnuts it comes up in EVERY discussion on voter id this year.
prostratedragon
@rikyrah: Actually, I think they did fear it. But if you try to guarantee somehow that that can’t happen, do you still have a democracy?
Not saying we should never think about modifying the Constitution, or voting systems, mind; but in the end it still comes down to what eclectic brotha said.
Geminid
@Geminid: Rudaw English posted this four hours ago:
And more recently:
She was at Khameini’s home when it was hit in the first minutes of the war Saturday.
Now Rudaw English is carrying live coverage of Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine’s press briefing at the Pentagon.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh yes this, it was clear that Bibi is all for the Iran War because it will derail Trump’s plan to rebuild Gaza.
prostratedragon
@narya: It’s catching on. I’ve seen it in different places this weekend. Also Operation Epstein Disruption.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Here’s the longest tweet I’ve seen from her on this:
So, in short: “I’m not saying invading Iran is justified…. but I’m not not saying that, either.”
Good Lord.
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
100%
That, plus the downside of having essentially ZERO requirements to run for and win the presidency.
No prior government service requirement. No mandatory putting of assets in trust. No background check. No tax disclosures. No bans on felons running for office.
jonas
@Jeffro: Bolton is fine with attacking Iran. His whole life has been leading up to this moment. I think what concerns him is that Trump is doing this for shits and giggles and to seize oil fields, not to fundamentally change the regime and democratize the Middle East. As if that was ever going to happen either, but Trump’s not even pretending there’s some higher, nobler goal here.
YY_Sima Qian
@Scout211: This follows another friendly fire incident by the USN during the war against the Houthis, where 1 F/A-18 was shot down & another narrowly escaped. In both cases the U.S. aircraft operated in very permissive environments, facing not aerial opposition.
Tony Jay
WAPO Editorial Analysis
Any day now, I imagine.
narya
@prostratedragon: Good. Like “Kavanaugh stops.”
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: It seems to me that if we wanted to kill the Iranian pro-democracy movement, this would be the most effective way to do it.
prostratedragon
@Trivia Man:
From Thursday:
Matt McIrvin
@Tony Jay: Could they blink something in Morse code?
Geminid
@Suzanne: I thought that was fairly sound analysis on Magdi Jacob’s part. I’m glad you posted it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@prostratedragon: He’s happiest when he’s decorating.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, I don’t see anything problematic there either.
Jeffro
someone on BlueSky noted that trumpov & Co are trying to do “drive-through colonization” and that’s just about right
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s a shame when one’s safest and most productive activity is producing travesties.
Raoul Paste
@mappy!: Apparently it really now IS the Department of War, not the Department of of Defense.
Jeffro
oh good
we don’t have much going on at the moment, we should definitely stir up some shit with Cuba
Betty Cracker
Trump is totally incoherent on Iran in a way that’s probably going to get a lot more people killed than the initial bombing toll, unless they wisely disregard everything he says.
In the video that announced the attack, he told Iranian civilians the hour of their freedom is at hand, urged them to stay inside during the bombing and overthrow their government when the all-clear sounds. He twice warned the military to lay down their arms or face “certain death,” a threat that rings somewhat hollow due to a lack of enforcement capability on the ground.
The next day, he told a reporter he’s ready to “negotiate” and said the admin is trying to identify an official with whom to negotiate, but oops, we killed all the ones on the list, so we’re still looking. This is basically the Venezuela option, i.e., decapitate the regime but leave the shitty existing government in place and deal with the successors.
Well, which is it, motherfucker? Sure sounds like he went into this without a coherent plan and is in reaction mode. Not ideal!
jonas
@Tony Jay: I’m glad I caught your byline there before putting my fist through the computer screen.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I loathe her whole framing that “justification” is a separate discussion from success, I.e. “what happens next”. I do not care if your intent is good if the effect is bad, because you have no skillset to execute. We all lived through endless, grinding wars that happened because we had no successful strategy to “win the peace”. Good intentions do not mean a damn thing, and FFOTUS/Bibi do not even have good intentions.
I don’t know anybody (especially a liberal) who has watched Trump and Netanyahu for twenty minutes would respond to this unprovoked invasion with equivocate-y nonsense.
prostratedragon
I hate even to post this:
Since sometime in the 45 term I have suspected the guy was envious of someone else’s numbers.
p.a
Very old Onion article (Arafat); “Palestine Leads World in Production of Rubble”
jonas
@Betty Cracker: “Rise up and overthrow your oppressors! By the way, meet the new boss, same as the old boss…”
Insert Nathan Fillion gif here
Suzanne
@Geminid: IMO, she is irresponsibly separating “justification” for this attack from discussion of “what happens next”. That is ludicrous and dangerous. Also the implication that Israel is more justified in doing this. Stop.
We’ve knocked over an apple cart with no reasonable plan to clean it up. Just blew up a bunch of little girls in doing so. Made no case to the American people that this is in our or their best interest.
Kayla Rudbek
@schrodingers_cat: I think I did see something about that on Bluesky (that at least 100 ICE/CBP vehicles are being sent to Maryland from Minnesota)
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
THIS.
Scout211
@Betty Cracker: Thank you for that summary.
This is a worry:
NBC found a flaw in Hegeth’s statement this morning. He confirmed that there were no troops on the ground but did not answer the question of whether that would be a future plan.
Pete Hegseth does not rule out boots on the ground
Trump told us he was in control and could end this immediately or maybe in five days. Now boots on the ground may be an option.
PNAC part two, boogaloo!
Jackie
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Trump’s no Planican, that’s for sure.
The actual attack plan was formulated by some folks up your way– the CENTCOM staff at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. I think part of Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine’s job is to keep Trump from micro-managing it.
Susan Wiles seems to working with Caine to that end. At least, that’s the impression I got from pictures taken at Mar-a-Loco this weekend.
Belafon
@prostratedragon: Build a government that can function properly if no humans in it do the right thing.
Tony Jay
@jonas:
Like the Byzantine emperors of old, I find a little bit of harmless exposure to poisons can be helpful in building up an immunity to their effects.
frosty
From the WaPo editorial board? That’s a tell.
ETA: @jonas: Glad you figured it out, I didn’t!
ETA2: Nice job, Tony Jay. You had me fooled.
Scout211
@Jackie: I’m not sure that Hegseth is the useful idiot that they expected him to be. Yikes.
Spanky
@Kayla Rudbek:
Well this’ll be fun. We’re not “Minnesota nice”.
Soprano2
@me: Oh man, we really are in the upside down now!
Warblewarble
Rest assured “God is on his throne” . Same as when Hakims ancestors were shipped to America.
jonas
@prostratedragon: This just another in a long line of Project 2025 attempts to prove evangelical Christianity and its perceptions of gender norms is correct and take vengeance upon the libs for banning gay conversion therapy. Just as all the attacks on universities under Trump is revenge for forcing Christian segregation academies and universities to integrate in the 70s. I’m sure next they’ll try tying all federal science funding to teaching creationism in biology and geology classrooms.
WTFGhost
@Trivia Man: The war powers resolution doesn’t require a signature, just a simple majority in both houses. Whether it will get that simple majority is another question.
@rikyrah: Well, you can’t really prevent a corrupt system if enough people are willing to lie to corrupt it. The courts could be playing us fairly, but they’re not. The administration, and Congress, could be playing us fair, telling us mostly-true things, rather than thinking of us as mushroom citizens (kept in the dark and fed BS), but they aren’t.
If Republicans had just admitted the donald had committed crimes, that, yes, if he had those documents, he was in big trouble; that yes, he shouldn’t have tried to overthrow the election, and that yes, he was convicted fairly and properly of accounting fraud, pursuant to another crime, making it 34 felony convictions, well, maybe we wouldn’t be here. But when they’re all willing to lie, so outrageously, how do you design around that?
Unfortunately, I feel this is like – what did Asimov have in his Foundations series, a “Seldon crisis” or somesuch, some predictable, necessary crisis that has to arise for humanity to grow past it?
I think America had to come up against a totally corrupt political party, one that’s corrupted itself over generations, so we could figure out how we’ll grow from the experience, and be a better nation, without overcompensating. e.g., one red state decided to prevent a governor from issuing health emergencies any longer, because oooooh, evil-covid-shutdown! So that’s likely going to lead to pointless suffering and death, and that’s why we can’t tie future people down… we need a better way.
Geminid
@Suzanne: I thought Jacobs got it right. Those are in fact separate questions.
Ed. And I thought her comments in other posts, about people dismissing the agency of Iranian, hit the mark. I think I’ve seen that here.
Spanky
@Jackie: What ever happened to the time honored tradition of fragging?
jonas
@Tony Jay: Lol!
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: These people are IDIOTS who know NOTHING about Iran. The Shah was hated by Iranians of their day! He was as bad as the current government. The guy I dated in college from Iran was sent here to go to school specifically to keep him out of the Shah’s army. He was repressive, as bad as these people are. They exchanged one dictator for another, although that’s not what they thought they were doing at the time. This is as dumb as the people who thought they were going to install Ahmed Chalibi as ruler of Iraq; hell, it’s probably being run by some of the same people or their disciples. Good grief…..
Soprano2
@Baud: I agree, it’s hard to be glad for people who are having bombs dropped on their heads by us right now because FFOTUS’ ego needed a boost. Especially since we have no idea how it’s going to turn out. What’s happening in Venezuela right now, does anyone know? The press lost interest in that pretty quickly – we captured Maduro, problem solved as far as they’re concerned.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Strong disagree. I don’t care how much someone needs surgery — I am not going to attempt to perform it. I don’t know how. America doesn’t know how to stabilize Iran, either.
Of course, I also think that the Iraq War was an unjustified debacle that led to massive suffering and death and destabilization.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you. I can’t believe someone actually typed that she’s “supporting” it, which is such a misleading interpretation of what Magdi’s actually written.
Actually, I can…people have been misrepresenting her views here for a very long time because she doesn’t shy away from complexity and multiple things being true and being open to being wrong in a way that is much more challenging than simplistic binary narratives. I would encourage people to read her actual words. She’s been signal-boosting the voices of people who have been the victims of Iran. Iranians, Syrians, Yemeni, and yes, Israelis too. You can’t just hand wave away decades of terrorism targeting the entire MENA region, killing of Americans as well, attempts to meddle in elections all over the world (including ours), and the horrible oppression of Iranian minorities subjecting them to harsh Islamic rule. You can oppose the way this war has happened, oppose Trump, oppose Netanyahu etc., and still be open to the fact that this regime falling may be a net good.
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: More proof, if we needed any more, that he’s a psychopath.
Anyway
Netanyahu, KSA regime, Egyptian dictator — all live in total fear of any kind of democracy coming to the Middle East.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
The trick is to be read as visibly bending backwards, pate to taint, in order to avoid any words or phrases that might cast a sliver of shadow across the Orange Palace’s shifting narratives.
The sneering at Dems is their version of a palate cleanser.
LAC
@Betty Cracker: Exactly! He is too busy siphoning money, adding gold lame to his shitty statutes and plastering his mottled orange facade to buildings to actually have to offer any coherent plan. That’s for suckers .
Omnes Omnibus
The fact the the government of Iran is awful does not change the fact that this war is illegal under both US and international law.
trnc
@Jeffro:
This! It was bad enough to have to choose a president in the late 18th century when some voters had almost no access to information about the candidates. Amazingly, it’s worse in a world of information (and misinformation) overload.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: On Fox News evidently the big news from New York City is that the police got in the middle of a big snowball fight and that’s bad for Mandami somehow. I had to laugh, who the fuck cares about that other than people who watch Fox News?
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Sing it.
gene108
@prostratedragon:
People in power, from all parties, operating at a basic level of good faith is required for the rule of law to work.
It doesn’t matter what the laws are when the legislature decides to do nothing to prevent illegal actions by the executive.
Doesn’t matter what the laws are when a country’s highest court decides a former executive indicted for crimes has absolute immunity.
As long as Republicans are party over country on everything laws are meaningless.
There’s no system that can survive when people running it or have power in it operate solely for their own interests.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Spanky: “Sic semper tyrannis” seems uncomfortably apropos these days, doesn’t it?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. Also, we don’t have to pretend that the Iranian regime was blameless and wonderful because of who is currently in the WH and how this operation went down.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@WTFGhost:
I get what you’re saying, that unfortunately there’s often a lack of widespread foresight that allows problems to get bulwarked before they come up, but this tells a story where half a thousand (and climbing) brown people have to die for America’s character development.
(And that’s if you’re not counting Bush II’s and prior misadventures in the middle east, which paved the way for this shit.)
That’s not a framing I care for.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: who’s his Dr. Mengele?
schrodingers_cat
@UncleEbeneezer: You are most welcome!
BTW Joe Biden or Kamala Harris would have never done this. So we have the Uncommited Movement among others to thank for this.
Someone will be right along to call you an Islamophobe.
*Begins countdown
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Ain’t it funny how everything this administration does seems to benefit Russia and Putin?
And NOTHING it does ever HARMS Russia or Russian interests?
William of Ockham is screaming.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I think they believe the American people already see Iran as evil, so they don’t have to make the case. It’s a foolish belief, but I think that’s what they believe.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Why vote for the lesser of two evils when you can vote for the guy you believe is the GREATEST of evils?
Geminid
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I’m curious: did the drone strike on the UK base in Cyprus create much of a stiramong Greeks? I read that Greece’s Navy is sending a couple ships that way in response.
Belafon
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Sick simpering tyrant?
Spanky
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: To be clear, I was referring to Kegsbreath. As he will surely continue to make these stupid statements, and US personnel will continue to be killed and, probably worse, captured, somebody with access to appropriate weaponry is going to make the calculation that the cost of shutting him up is lower than leaving him to mouth on.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Scout211:
Pete Hegseth does not rule out boots on the ground
That’s in contrast to what whack job Anna Paulina Luna was saying Sunday evening of on all outlets, MS NOW.
The hosts pushed back on many of her lies which resulted in nothing more than everybody talking over each other. It was actually refreshing to see.
But one thing that she kept saying was how there would be ‘no boots on the ground’. It was clearly a talking point she was there to push.
Which all means this (mal)Administration has no plan other than to help Bibi finally bombbombbombIran.
Jackie
Wall Street acting predictably: Oil, natural gas and gold prices surging, while everything else is in the red – 🔻-443 +/-…
Soprano2
@Jackie: This is an old belief, that the reason we’ve lost wars is because we’ve been too soft and used “rules of engagement” rather than being like Ghengis Khan. I’ve heard that said about Vietnam. What these idiots don’t understand is that the rules are for our protection as much as other people’s.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
She took an awful lot of words to say, “hey, look – even an illegal, immoral, unethical, and just plain STOOPID act of aggression against another sovereign nation has its up side!”
CaseyL
Besides Trump’s own pathologies, the US war in the MidEast is also being driven by a bunch of crackpot Christian End Timers who have been longing for Armageddon since forever.
I wonder what our “allies” in the conflict will think about that once it is made clear to them – as Hegseth is doing.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Who is pretending that the Iranian regime is wonderful and blameless?
trnc
@Raoul Paste:
Wait a minute – are you telling me Donald is not actually a peace loving dove?
Scout211
Just to remind everyone why this is happening now (not that jackals really need reminding )
Judd Legum:
The money behind the new Iran War
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: Hegseth makes Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz look like a bunch of geniuses.
lowtechcyclist
@Tony Jay:
Comes across to me as just a bunch of random blithering, rather than any sort of coherent thought.
trnc
@prostratedragon:
What kind of “testing” will be done? Letting the other inmates loose to beat the shit out of trans people until they’re dead or can no longer speak for themselves?
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin: I’m sure nepobobby has binders full of candidates.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” all over again.
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
So: more people we’re hurting because they have had the misfortune to be born in the wrong country.
Swell. Just swell.
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: Yeah, it turns out spending two years building support for a really bad idea can turn a nation really bloodthirsty and we still haven’t recovered. You have people who can write that every few years the US should kill a bunch of people in some small country, to show we mean business, or that the whole point of the Iraq was was just to say to the Middle East “suck on this!” which might make sense if Iraq had attacked us, or helped the people who attacked us, but instead we’re saying “suck on us just beating up someone at random!”
Also, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, so sometimes people have to say something something vital American interests, even though all the lies were apparent before the whole thing started.
Once you realize how much of warfare is fought for stupid reasons, by stupid people, it becomes easier and easier to simply become anti-war.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: I think that was Tony’s parody of the style.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I have seen bsky and X posts on how Khamenei loved Jane Austen.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: THANK YOU. Jesus chicken-fried Christ, to see a bunch of head-nodding here of all places with a “well, ackshually, regime change in Iran is a *good* thing, no matter how it comes about” stance…is a bit crazy-making.
Must be time to step away from here again…
trnc
@Scout211:
I’m surprised he didn’t claim that he’d have it fixed by day 1 of his presidency.
Old Man Shadow
Do you really think he feels anything? Do you think he loses an ounce of sleep during his day thinking of the dead and wounded? What, in his long history of sociopathy, narcissism, and misanthropy have given you any evidence for assuming he would pause or think or consider before ordering someone’s death or sending troops to their deaths?
He is not a normal president. Even by the debased standards of modern Republican presidents, he is not normal.
The man would turn America into a sea of glass and kill all 340 million of us without a second thought if he thought it would gain him something.
Dave
@Matt McIrvin: Hegseth is what happens when you put an insecure sub-replacement level Major with a chip on his shoulder in a position of actual power.
I despise him for so many reasons but he in this one area he is genuinely authentic.
Tony Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
Job done.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca:
Not to mention….. achieving the up side requires much more competence, international relations knowledge, and humanitarian concern than that exhibited by FFOTUS and Bibi in their political careers thus far. Anyone with basic pattern recognition skills should see that immediately.
How many times are we gonna destabilize regimes and then be Shocked Pikachus when the results are suboptimal?
Spanky
@Old Man Shadow:
I think it gives him a woody.
trnc
We might not be able to prosecute Hegseth after a pardon, but nothing can stop the next president from handing him over to Iran to face (ahem) prosecution there.
Jackie
@Matt McIrvin:
And shows FFOTUS as the stupid, clueless idiot we already knew him to be.
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus:
Someone should explain to Trump that he’s authorized other countries to remove any American leader they don’t like.
Sure Lurkalot
@Geminid:
Pictures of her in a curtained room at a country club?
Susan Wiles worked to an end, to get a sundowning narcissist re-elected. A year and a few months in, here we are. That’s how “smart” Susie is.
WTFGhost
@Miss Bianca: I’m getting a bit of “don’t tell me this has to end in tragedy!” vibe. Plus… what, this is the biggest political event in 50 years (roughly), and it disrupts a nasty system, so maybe.
I mean, what if someone bombed the SOTU, so a Democratic speaker ascended to the Presidency, (the Rs died in the SOTU) I’m sure there’d be some US expats saying that they hope we’re going to stop invading other nations, and they’re not saying mass political assassination is a good thing, but, maybe there’s hope.
UncleEbeneezer
@Geminid: Kareen Rifai, who is Syrian, has been mentioning the fact that Iran helped kill five-six THOUSAND of his people and displaced millions, but oddly the progressive stance is that it’s wrong for him to celebrate the toppling of the regime, even though he is very adamantly anti-Trump. I’ve seen Yemenis, Israelis and Iranians posting similar things about their own stories of friends/family tortured, killed, raped by Iranian proxies or the Iranian regime itself. Their celebration is completely justified and doesn’t in any way make them Imperialists, MAGA or any less progressive.
Spanky
Let’s hope that these engagements will become known as The Epstein Wars.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
Judging by the history of every foreign regime we’ve ever meddled with since the end of WWII…for a long time to come. Particularly if we as a nation are so stupid as to keep electing Republicans, which we undoubtedly are.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Haven’t read Jacobs’ comments since I quit the Nazi site, so I can’t speak to how she framed Iranian agency directly. But the box Trump-Netanyahu put Iranian civilians in this weekend seems almost customed designed to rob them of agency, i.e., simultaneously saying, “Rejoice, we killed the bad guys, take back your country!” and “Never mind, we’re looking for a new autocrat to deal with who will be more amenable to our grift.”
Possibly Jacobs has some insight on the situation that I lack, but I’m finding it hard to see this situation as anything other than an incredibly tragic clusterfuck. And it’s one perpetrated by two odious, autocratic crooks who are more interested in clinging to power and staying out of jail than what happens to their own citizens, let alone the citizens of any other country.
jonas
@Scout211: Yeah, the plan at this point seems to be just to blow enough shit up to decapitate Iran’s leadership, permanently cripple the military, and collapse the economy, thereby turning it into a third-world backwater to the benefit of Israel and the Saudis.
What could possibly go wrong?
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: Jacobs took a lot of words to analyse the situation in Iran. That was her focus, and that analyses was worth reading.
It’s true Jacobs did not condemn this attack in absolute terms, but I don’t see how that disqualifies her opinions. Like it or not, this war is happening and I think it’s right to examine its potential effect on the Iranian people critically.
trnc
@Jackie:
Hegseth and Trump don’t care. There’s no such thing as an unacceptable number of US military casualties if they think this will benefit them in some way.
Spanky
@Belafon: And let’s don’t forget that recent wars have evolved new weaponry like drones that are resistant to jamming. I doubt that the WH defenses have kept up.
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin, @trnc,@lowtechcyclist:
Per the article it looks like they will use a suite of techniques rigorously deveoped on Little St. James Island and at Rancho Zorro, NM, called sexual bullying. The kayfabe version refers to “psychiatry” and “psychtropic drugs.”
Miss Bianca
@UncleEbeneezer: Fine. Let any actual Iranians feel great about the US bombing the shit out of Iran to get rid of Khameini…in the few days they’ve got to feel great about it before they either get blown up themselves or watch more of their loved ones get blown up in the days to come.
That doesn’t mean I or anyone else has to feel anything but horrified about it.
jonas
Because from Vietnam to Afghanistan, we didn’t really lose. We were stabbed in the back by DFH’s and the liberal media that caused the country to lose its nerve just as we were on the verge of winning. This time will be different, though!
LAC
@Miss Bianca: Oh please don’t dip out I share your disbelief of any propping up viewpoints that act as if this omnishambles excursion will lead to to anything but a list a future war crimes. You are not alone on this. The current leadership in this country and Israel will only lead to a vacuum in Iran to be filled by another hard liner. And this administration is too busy with its propaganda to have any honest assessments of what will happen in Iran to its people
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: There are a lot of dumdums on Bluesky, I saw someone there cheering for American soldier deaths and expressing hope that as many Americans get killed as possible (“they deserve it for taking orders from a child rapist”). It’s gonna happen, it’s not characteristic of anything. Some of them are probably Russian trolls too.
The thing that occurs to me is, we assassinated a despot who is 86 and probably didn’t have a long time left, in a manner that makes his death obviously martyrdom by enemy action. Is that in any way constructive? Presumably he’s got a succession plan.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: you know, we’re going to have to agree to disagree about this. I don’t see Jacobs’s “analysis” as being thoughtful to the degree that you do. I stand by my original analysis of HER analysis.
jonas
And any troops foolish enough to get killed in one of Dear Leader’s glorious operations were just “losers” anyway who obviously didn’t have what it took to be MAGA.
Jeffro
@Professor Bigfoot:
Seems like fewer and fewer folks are shaving with that razor these days…sigh…
As the saying goes, if he were an official, paid Russian asset…what would he be doing any differently?
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Nothing about this misadventure is constructive. I am going to go and do my work now and leave the discussion for all the middle east experts on here.
Last word on Magi Jay she is thoughtful no matter what the topic. She is a nuanced thinker than many here who think they know everything about everything. Even when I don’t agree with her, she is worth reading.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Where is M’nemaxa when you need him? We sure could use an Eldritch entity like him again, mister.
Deputinize America
@lowtechcyclist:
Of course, every Shahed that lands on a luxury block in Dubai or a military airfield in Kuwait or Doha, or a freighter in the Gulf, or a US naval base in Bahrain or a financial center in the UAE is a Shahed that can’t be bought by Putin and used on Ukraine.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, thank you. The Iranian regime was terrible, and destabilizing it without a solid, legal, effective strategy to replace it with something better….. is a monstrous thing to do. It exposes the Iranian people to even greater risk.
That’s why I find this idea that one can sit back and “analyze” the justification for this war separately from any strategy for success to be the worst kind of seeing-people-as-things pseudo-intellectualism possible. Those are people’s lives we’re playing with.
PatD
I’m fairly sympathetic to diaspora peoples who are forced to flee repressive, murderous authoritarian governments. That includes Persians, Cubans, Palestinians etc. They won’t always vote the right way but you can understand their worldview and motivations, to a degree.
So it’s perfectly understandable why some would cheer on this war and the killings of some truly evil people. That doesn’t make this war any less illegal and unconstitutional.
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
This makes me so angry. There really is no bottom to their evil.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: I didn’t want my country to start an illegal war in 2003. I didn’t want it to start one now. A policy of decapitation of disfavored rulers is also bad for international stability. Who’s next? Who decides? If the Iran, the Middle East, and the world end up in a better place, it will be despite what the US and Israel did not because of it.
Matt McIrvin
@WTFGhost: Nothing HAS to end in tragedy, and I hope it doesn’t. But there are intelligent actions and there are dumbshit actions.
I think some people out there are falling into the trap I did in 2001-03, getting caught up in the nuts and bolts of the news, paying attention to the actors who seemed most rational and looking for any crumbs of hope in the mess, to the point that I eventually ended up weakly assenting to some shit that was very bad. I am OUT of that game. I know a bunch of people personally affected by this one. The people at the top running it are way dumber even than Bush’s crowd. There’s nothing good about it.
YY_Sima Qian
@UncleEbeneezer: Whether the Islamic regime falling (still a highly uncertain prospect) is a net good (for Iran or the region) depends entirely on the aftermath following that fall, as we have seen in Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia & Libya. Did the ME region become safer & more stable after the fall of Saddam? Was Israel’s strategic position improved by Saddam’s fall? Did the Sahel become more stable after Qaddafi’s fall?
The fall of the Islamic regime can be a net good, but little of what Trump or Bibi are doing is conducive toward that possibility.
This particular intervention is indefensible because Israel & the US attacked w/o provocation or imminent threat, in the middle of negotiations where Israel at least was not likely acting in good faith, where the US reps did not know what they were doing or how to parlay w/ the Iranians, & immediately proceeded to assassinate the leadership of the adversary nation. All of these actions would once have been considered the pale. It is precisely because the IRI & the DPRK engaged in some of the such activities that they earned the reputation of being destabilizing & threatening rogues.
Put it another way, through his reckless & bloodthirsty militarism across the region, his complete disregard for international law & laws on armed conflict in waging such wars, all to save his side from prosecution, Bibi has shown himself to be a deeply destabilizing & threatening actor, arguably even more than the IRI from 2024 on (especially after the “Axis of Resistance” was reduced to shambles in 2025). Would you entertain a defense of a rival power assassination Bibi via the means of unprovoked attack on Israel? There is plenty of domestic opposition to Bibi, too, that would not mourn his passing.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
Hard agree. And even with a “strategy for success”, seems to me it ought to be *up to the Iranian people* to decide where, how, and when “regime change” happens in their country. Not the US. Not Israel. Not Saudi Arabia.
ETA: I mean, put it this way. If some foreign actors decided that “regime change” had to happen in the US because of our actions, and took out Trump at Mar-a-Lago, would I be happy that Trump was dead? Yeah, probably I’d cheer. Would I delude myself that this was automatically going to make things better for me or anyone else here? No, I wouldn’t.
And I would feel insulted as shit reading any foreign analysis that came with a chin-stroking, “well, let’s look at the history of the American people to see whether any fears about their ability to form a democratic government in the aftermath are justified before we rush to judgment about this act.”
Dave
@PatD: I can and do but this is also why “expat that fled country X supports this action” carries zero weight with me.
gene108
@Miss Bianca:
South Korea did well after our meddling.
cmorenc
@trnc: The whole idea of the actual selection of US Presidents being done via an electoral college, rather than by popular vote – and the selection of electors determined by state legislatures dominated at the time by the elites of the respective states – was precisely to place effective control over presidential selection to the more knowledgeable elites of the country.
Omnes Omnibus
BTW this little war doesn’t even have the fig leaves of legality that W put in place in 2003. This isn’t something that we should gloss over.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dave: Exactly.
Deputinize America
@Dave:
World is full of failed O4s who shouldn’t even get close to O5.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I wouldn’t say Jacobs has some special insight into situation. I would not dismiss her observations out of hand though. She has spent a lot of time the last couple months listening to Iranians both inside the country and out, and that informs her opinions. I have not put as much time following Iranian voices, but what I’ve seen is consistent with Jacobs’ analysis.
As to the question of agency, the principal reason Iranians don’t have much is a government willing to mow them down with machine guns, and execute the survivors when they arrive at the hospitals.
That happened last month, and I think it’s a big reason the Iranian regime has such gotten such little international support, even from Russia and China. Authoritarians know that when a regime has to massacre tens of thousands of its own citizens in order to survive, it’s not viable long-term.
Some people worry that the Iranians will end up worse off if the Islamic Republic falls, but I sure don’t. There is also a belief that this operation cannot possibly bring about the fall of the regime, but I think that could be projecting our own political imperatives onto the situation.
I’m keeping an open mind on the prospect myself. That’s one reason I’m paying closer attention now to regional sites like Rudaw English and (Turkish) TYT International. They watch these events closely because they’re happening right next door, and they aren’t burdened by the preconceptions many Americans have regarding this war.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dave: IMO he actually has the mindset of the shittiest company-level commander you can imagine.
Deputinize America
Power vacuums in large states are dangerous and best avoided.
cmorenc
@Matt McIrvin: Bush jr’s crowd did at least have a coherent, thought out plan on paper for their mideast adventure, which failed because the assumed premises for their plans were so catastrophically wrong (for just one of a multitude of wrong assumptions, that Chalabi was well-positioned to successfully take over Iraq after Saddam was forcefully deposed). And that wasn’t even the most wrong element in their assumptions. But at least they had a coherent plan, albeit one riddled with fatally bad assumptions.
PatD
@Dave: Yes, it doesn’t change the fact that this war is illegal and unconstitutional. I think it’s immoral too since they could vote to approve this war and do it in all the right ways and I’d still oppose it.
Deputinize America
@Omnes Omnibus:
The mind and morals of Lt William Calley comes to mind.
Gloria DryGarden
@PatD: a lot of the ones forced to flee are the lucky ones, who have means.
YY_Sima Qian
Also, we have just seen how Trump operates w/ the illegal Venezuela adventure. He kidnapped Maduro & removed a dictator, but then he left the Chavista regime in place in its entirety. No relief to the Venezuelans. He got what he wanted from the illegal adventure, though: control of Venezuela’s oil exports, ensuring the US (& likely himself & his associates) getting a cut.
His interest in Gaza is transforming it into a gaudy beach resort, built on top of the ruins & corpses of Gazans, w/ the remaining Gazans either the exploited menial labor or expelled altogether, so that he & his real estate buddies can make bank.
What makes anyone think Trump (& Bibi) are going to effect a net positive outcome in Iran? Of course, Reza Pahlavi is already stroking Trump w/ the promise of US$ 1T worth of wealth extraction for US interests if Trump can topple the Islamist regime (& presumably installing Reza Pahlavi to fill the vacuum).
Jackie
@trnc:
A niggling inconvenience for those who “knew what they signed up for.”
japa21
One of the main criticisms of anarchists is that they just want to destroy without any plans for afterwards. This war is along the same lines.
Yes, it is illegal.
Yes, it is unprovoked.
Yes, the leadership of Iran is/was very, very bad.
But most of all, this move by Trump was just plain stupid.
PatD
@Gloria DryGarden: Yes. But not always. See the ‘boat people’.
Paul in KY
@p.a.: It worked in ‘Catch 22’ (bombing yourself and good things happening).
Scout211
But he and Jared will profit. Check. Mate.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: That sounds logical, unfortunately.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: Must need more ‘likes’ and ‘content’.
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker:
Sure sounds like he went into this without a coherent plan and is in reaction mode. Not ideal!
We’re dealing with Donny Dementia here. He can’t make a coherent plan and if somebody gives him one he can’t remember it.
YY_Sima Qian
In other news, Qatar Energy just announced a halt to LNGs production due to Iranian drones striking its facilities. Qatar accounts for 20% of the word’s LNG production.
Gas prices are soaring in Europe, & Japan/South Korea/Taiwan will get hammered, too. Qatar is the top supplier of LNG to the PRC, as well, but at least it has the cheap Russian gas as an option. We may see the agreement for the Power of Siberia II pipeline from Russia to the PRC closed, after all. The PRC is sure to redouble its efforts to extract the domestic shale gas, although in much more challenging geographies compared to the US. PRC shale gas is more expensive than US shale gas, but nevertheless is ~ 25% cheaper than the piped Russian gas (already purchased at steep discount), & far cheaper than imported LNG. “Green” hydrogen & ammonia produced at scale by solar/wind power is more of a medium term prospect.
Fortunately for the PRC, it is not very reliant on gas for power generation (it uses coal, solar, hydro, wind, nuclear & biomass), more for heating & chemical precursors. Taiwan, OTOH, is highly reliant on gas fired power generation, having shut down its nuclear reactors, & it only has 14 days of reserves (a mass vulnerability in the event of a PRC blockade).
Europe & Japan/SK/TW will be among the most hurt in the event of prolonged war around the Persian Gulf, at least for countries outside of the region.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: Nor have I ever heard of her.
Dave
@Omnes Omnibus: Very much so. It’s fractal. He really was almost vat grown to be “that fucking guy”.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: I posted the below in a previous thread:
Paul in KY
@Spanky: I would hope that it would be a bit more competent than having Cheetolini actually running it.
Paul in KY
@WTFGhost: Plus a few rifles and such floating around in the good ole USA…
Sure Lurkalot
Thread eerily reminiscent of Bush and his axis of evil…maybe it’s time for a new PNAC. Bill Kristol is still around and on the “good” side now, I’m sure he’d help get the gang together.
Pay no attention to the people here who have been arrested, deported to 3rd world prisons, currently imprisoned in warehouses, with no due process, the majority of whom had no criminal record other than the misdemeanor of living, working a d paying taxes in America without papers.
In “charge” of our foreign “policy” is a Russian tool whose main goal for his presidency is to unjustly enrich himself and his “diplomats”, a son-in-law in service to middle eastern despots and a real estate developer, all in for the Benjamins.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Please don’t step away. Stay, and call that out when you see it.
Friends tell you when you’re fucking up. They just don’t attack you for it.
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: Preach!
Say it again louder, for the cheap seats.
Gloria DryGarden
@PatD: no of course, and asylum seekers, folks getting here from refugee camps.
Gloria DryGarden
@Sure Lurkalot: devastating, I appreciate your summary.
grr
Paul in KY
@Dave: Very true. He knows he’s waaaaaay out of his league and that the Generals look at him with complete disdain.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: One of the problems with that ‘safeguard’ is that it never was accomplished (elite electors overturn election of a complete shitheel) and then after many years of it never happening, it becomes unthinkable.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Makes Captain Queeg seem like a level headed professional.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: The vast majority of people here agree with you on this issue. I don’t know why it’s so challenging to hear minority voices. This place isn’t isn’t a monoculture and it never will be.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: And I honestly don’t get where you’re coming from. So again, a hypothetical: if the Iranian military took out Trump and Co, would you be sitting here talking about how much unappreciated wisdom there was in any Iranian commenters who opined about how many Americans wanted regime change, anyway, so “this is supposed to be a ‘appy occasion, let’s not bicker and argue over ‘oo killed ‘oo”?
I mean, if you say, “yeah”, that would at least be ideologically consistent.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dave: Yes, he is “that fucking guy” at multiple levels.
artem1s
@RevRick:
If the US was bombing based on who was most monstrous we’d be bombing the monster in Riyadh not Tehran.
LAC
@Miss Bianca: i see somebody watched “Monty python and the holy grail” Great scene 😉
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I would say, No.
But I have never claimed to be an ideologically consistent person because I’m not much for ideology to begin with.
Anyway, your hypothetical is not well-founded. Trump did not slaughter tens of thousands of his own citizens last month, and the Iranian regime did.
Trivia Man
@WTFGhost: The point being that passing “dont do that” gives him tons of wiggle room to say “i am not doing whatever that specific thing is so it doesn’t apply here”.
An approval resolution is much harder to ignore. IMHO
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne: No, that is not at all what she is saying. Good Lord.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
Major brand gas station just down the street and gas is $4.80/gallon. Pretty glad I rarely drive any more.
Ruckus
@jonas:
What could possibly go wrong?
Every damn thing?
Or is it just EVERYTHING?
Marc
I’m sorry man, that is pure comedy gold! It may well bring about the fall of the current regimes (just like the Chjavistas fell :). Show me a single example of a non-occupying aggressor decapitating a government, destroying most military equipment, still leaving millions of guns in the hands of the military, paramilitaries, and police, then the people rise up and magically form a warm peaceful loving democratic society.
This is only about trading one set of clerics for potentially more compliant warlords. Do remember what happened the first time Iranians elected the government of their actual choice.
Geminid
@Marc: You can laugh at me if you want, I don’t care.
glc
@jonas: That’s understandable. It’s well within the realm of plausibility. I wouldn’t react as strongly as you as it seems like a question of how fast that particular corpse is decaying.
I actually know some people who are assisting in that process. They seem to think WaPo + AI = money, but I haven’t caught the details and I have some doubts. It’s worked for Forbes though; they make most of their money from SEO to AI slop about consumer goods and health and run the news portion to keep the SEO functioning. I assume WaPo will be trying for something like that, but with more sophisticated tech involved.
Omnes Omnibus
I am hearing echoes of the liberal interventionists who supported W great adventure. While I have interventionist sympathies, I want thing done the correct way under UN auspices with a viable plan for success. This has less of any of that than the Iraq invasion did.
whca
This.
Martin
@rikyrah: It’s an old program. Mamdani only brought attention to it, and more importantly the attention he brought indicated we should be proud of that program, and that it was the best way to solve the problem. That’s in contrast to how too many Democrats treat government services, which is sort of a necessary evil, and not really something to be proud of. It’s hard to get voters to support these things when the lawmakers don’t seem to believe they’ve built the best solution to a problem.
Bill Arnold
@jonas:
I expect that none of these folks can properly answer the question “what is the gender of God?” properly,
( Gender of God, wikipedia, is an OK start, with references.)
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
The normalization of political assassination as a tool of … statecraft by other means … is particularly bad.
Netanyahu in particular has form here, possibly dating back to the 1990s (Rabin).
The Israelis are far far too comfortable with political assassination as a tool.
Bill Arnold
@jonas:
Small workshops making semi-submersible drones using the Ukrainian “Sea Baby” (and similar) as inspiration. [1]
One or more oil tankers and/or container ships sinking.
The “etc” probably involves boots on the ground.
[1] That’s assuming that the IRGC has not already built and stockpiled such weapons. (Military planners must assume worst case.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: I absolutely agree.
dnfree
@cmorenc: No, GW Bush and company did NOT have a well-thought-out plan for Iraq. James Fallows wrote a memorable article called “Blind into Baghdad” about their failure to have a plan. And the people Bush sent in to implement the new regime were ideologues with little or no experience, even people fresh out of college. The decision to disband the military is widely regarded as disastrous, and it was made with little analysis of the consequences.
sab
I am so phucking glad that I had to spend the day preparing other peoples tax returns instead of being on line.
Not hearing much about the big stinky bill, except folks with lots of qualified overtime are very happy. Tips not so much because tip people have never declared what came in cash.
I always tip in cash not on my credit card. Although they are shafting their own Social Security, but that is their choice.
Stepson had substantial overtime in his last job. Girl friend had already filed for him.
I told him he had three years to amend, and amending obvious stuff is not a big deal.
We might amend for a residential energy credit.
When we moved into our new to us house we had to reolace the air conditioner and the boiler. Either would qualify. I was too fried last year to bother. But I have three years to polish up my taxes.
Kayla Rudbek
@Bill Arnold: I don’t remember where I read this: the assertion that “God created man in his own image and likeness” is a time bomb ticking in the heart of Christianity.
(not sure why it’s not true for all the Abrahamic religions, though Judaism could probably argue it away)
Lyrebird
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks for putting the quote & the Gov. Shapiro statement here.
Both are thoughtful. All I can see is that the malevolent yam is yet again showing his ability to take a bad situation and make it worse. It would be amazing if the Iranian people end up more free and not more caught. (As you totally know) strongmen find having an external attacker so useful in selling their own repression that they sometimes make that stuff up. I am also pretty confident that Trump and friends just made every American less safe for the next decade at least.
Great move while we have a self-absorbed idiot heading the FBI, and someone even worse heading the DOD.
Gloria DryGarden
@mappy!: Ana del Castillo, I think she’s on the View, is Cuban. She has posted a statement about what has ensued in Cuba after our adventure in Venezuela. It sounds like it’s been pretty devastating there. Without the fuel they were getting from V, Cuba can’t refrigerate perishable foods that arrive, not can they transport them. For starters.