Who's the biggest bullshitter on the Iran non-peace treaty as the MOU threatens to unravel?

That header is of course the first thing to remember. There IS NO "peace treaty."

There is a 60-day ceasefire which now SEEMS to be OK, with a "Donald John Trump" signature on the US side Wednesday of an MOU where he clearly TACO-ed, along with the signature of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

On Shitter, and presumably on other social media, Israeli Zionist Jews, American Zionist Jews, American Zionist goys, and general neocons are all excoriating Trump, including Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ affiliated with any of those groups.

MAGAts who aren't necessarily pro-Israel or anti-Israel, but just blind suckers of Trump's micropenis are in an ongoing state of denial. Wednesday night, after posting my Substack version of the actual treaty and Trump's clear TACO-ing, I finally said explicitly: I block you unless you admit T-Rump TACOed. And I did with multiples.

The flip side? Not everybody in Iran is signed off. The opposition is no more powerful, I think, than in 2015, but they've got T-Rump 1.0 and 2.0 facts in evidence to support their case. Here's the nutgrafs:

A major factor pushing even a government heavily influenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to seek detente with the U.S. is the dire economic condition inside Iran after years of sanctions and the destruction of Iranian civilian infrastructure during the recent war. Several million Iranians are believed to have lost their jobs directly or indirectly as a result of the recent fighting, blockade, and internet shutdown. The International Monetary Fund now projects that Iran’s GDP will contract by 6% in 2026, with consumer prices rising nearly 70% during the same period. 

The Iranian economy is dominated by a network of semi-governmental institutions with ties to the security establishment. These firms largely control the flow of imports, exports, and energy resources, and are also tasked with navigating the complex web of sanctions the country faces when trading abroad and repatriating funds from the sale of oil and gas. 

For conservative skeptics of the MOU, who doubt the deal will bring a durable end to the war, these powerful business conglomerates are seen as the forces pressing the government hardest to move forward. Known in Persian as “khusulati”—a blend of the words for “private” and “government”—these firms stand to regain access to billions of dollars of frozen funds, as well as new business opportunities in Iran’s oligarchical economy.

That said, despite the ultra-hardliners, who may in this case get their heads thumped by Khaminei fils, Mojtaba Khamenei et al, they know they can close Hormuz again.

And, anybody who saw T-Rump's post-signing news conference knows he looked crushed, and fully 80 years old. 

(Sidebar to the link above? There ARE female journalists in Iran, contra the lying Islamophobes.) 

That said? there’s plenty of stated and unstated asterisks in that statement that are bridges to be crossed between now and June 19.

Bibi has spoken, to say he doesn’t feel bound by the agreement vis-a-vis Lebanon.

Will Trump do more fake yelling at Satanyahu? Will The Dissident, and even more, John Mearsheimer, not fall for that this time? 

In Drop Site’s first piece, various Iranian talking heads already noted that attacks on Lebanon would not go unaddressed. Will only Israel be attacked, or will the Great Satan (Greater than Satanyahu?) have Middle East military bases targeted again as well?

Quite possibly yes, according to a new piece from Drop Site. Iran has warned Trump that unless he restrains Bibi in Lebanon as forcefully as needed, it will torpedo the MOU by an unannounced attack on Israel.

That said? As noted in my Substack link, Point 1 has degrees of ambiguity about Lebanon. The Iranians know that, too. 

“Regarding Lebanon, we have warned both the mediators and the American side that if the regime fails to comply with the existing agreement, Iran will respond with substantial military measures without prior public notice,” said the Iranian official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Should the United States intervene, conditions particularly those related to the Strait of Hormuz could rapidly revert to a wartime environment.”

On the "not authorized to speak publicly," is this one of the ultra-hardliners mucking around? Maybe not: Those "technical talks," scheduled to start today, have been postponed. 

Technical talks that were scheduled to begin Friday in Switzerland were postponed, with Iranian officials citing the continued attacks in Lebanon. Some officials have also denounced the prospect of Iranian leaders being photographed meeting with Trump or other U.S. officials responsible for assassinating the country’s Supreme Leader. U.S. officials have acknowledged the delay, but have not confirmed the reason. Late Thursday, the White House said Vice President JD Vance—who has been put forward as the public face of the U.S. negotiations—would not be traveling to Switzerland as previously announced, saying, “The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable.” A senior Pakistani official claimed the meeting was canceled because of religious observances related to the Islamic month of Muharram, a period of mourning for Shia Muslims.

As for the reason for cancellation? The Iranian claim of Muharram, especially important to Shi'ites? Per Scott Anderson in "King of Kings," 40-day mourning anniversaries and similar litter the Shi'a religious calendar.

The piece then goes on with lies by Bagger Vance and other things. That said, behind the lies is Vance being sent out to publicly attack Netanyahu, and his allies in both Israel and indirectly in the US. Also of note is that the IAEA-overseen process for dealing with Iran's enriched uranium is what it had proposed before the first attack. 

That said, why should we assume this is anything much more than a more intense round of performance theater? Yes, the piece is by Jeremy Scahill, and he's pretty smart and pretty connected, but John Mearsheimer, to name a name I've named before in the last month or two, has fallen for the Trump-Netanyahu schtick before and Scahill isn't otherwise perfect. (Biggest example of that is Scahill going along with Glennwald in turning over all the "unused" Snowden files to Pierre Omidyar, as noted here. ) Beyond that, Politico reports that Trump is basically pushing Vance to stick his neck out on all things Iran.

Beyond that, in the same rant, Bagger Vance said that he does not think the MOU requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. Due to the ambiguity of point 1, it's possible. 

And, with the Switzerland talks on hold? The Lebanon ceasefire is now off again. 

As for “Peace Deal”? Yeah, Pakistan’s prime minister called it that, as noted on The Dissident’s piece and elsewhere. And? First, it’s not true; it’s just a ceasefire. Second, he’s got reason to puff it.

Here's links from Tuesday evening, updated in light of my Substack piece up top.

First, the NYT.

• Iran says “no tolls, but fees,” at Hormuz. Per Spock, “a difference that makes no difference is no difference.” Apparently that's going away, though.

• Per Bagger Vance and my link whole thing is only about a page and a half long. That’s about right for an actual ceasefire, actually. That’s why Vladimir Vladimirovich doesn’t sign off on fake ceasefires proffered by NATO.

• Iran’s president said most the major stakeholders are cautiously on board. He's now signed, so he's on board.

• Speaking of Vlad the Impaler? Trump thanked him and Winnie the Pooh, Xi Jinping, for their help. Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, if they haven’t started asking already, being still stuck on kvetching about Trump’s surrender to Iran, will soon start asking how much Trump surrendered to one or both of them. And, what Trump said about Xi is a flat lie, as, with coordination with Iran, Chinese-bound (even if not Chinese-flagged) tankers HAVE sailed through Hormuz after Iran shut it down.

• Trump claims it’s stopped Iranian nukes. It did no such thing, and besides, you started Iran on the path to partial enrichment because you abandoned the Obama deal.

• Lebanon? Trump joins Satanyahu and claims it’s not part of the deal. Really? Then why your most recent play-acting yelling. Pakistan as well as Iran says it is.

So, right there, the prologue to a ceasefire isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Could there be deliberately ambiguous language? Possible. It happens all the time in diplomatic negotiations.

But, it almost never happens when specifics of battle are mentioned. Something is either on the table or off.

That leads us to the bottom line, not only from the NYT, but in general:

Hanging over the next round of U.S.-Iran negotiations will be “a history of broken promises, non-compliance, and even the tearing up of agreements,” Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said in comments reported by state media. “We are planning the negotiation process and the implementation of the agreement on the basis of mistrust, past breaches of commitments, and previous experiences.”

Another NYT piece speculates about what’s not in there that Satanyahu is mad isn’t in there. Nuff ced.

OK, next?

Drop Site reported that Iran used professional psychologists to craft its messages to Trump. Nice idea. May have helped in the short term. Won’t make a degree of difference in the long term.

Now, on to Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, Never Trumper Rethugs and other detritus.

The Bulwark uses poop emojis to call it a “Giant Bag of Dogshit.” That it is, but there’s a neocon or four running around there who would still like Bibi to off Iran.

Francis Fukuyama, mad that he can't lament The End of Iran™, gets a bunch of shit wrong, starting by framing a memorandum of understanding to establish a ceasefire as though it were an actual agreement.

Now, like others, he uses this as an occasion to excoriate Trump. Natch. But, Trump deserves excoriation from an anti-Zionist angle, from an anti-imperialist angle, not from Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™

Now, like others, he uses this as an occasion to excoriate Trump. Natch. But, Trump deserves excoriation from an anti-Zionist angle, from an anti-imperialist angle, not from Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™

He gives the game up here:

The MOU that Trump celebrated is a worse agreement than Obama’s 2015 deal, which Trump endlessly castigated in the past.

Shock me.

Just before that, after listing everything NOT in the MOU, Fukuyama said:

The reported “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) kicks all of the contentious issues down the road into negotiations that are to take place during the 60-day ceasefire. Trump treated all of these issues as having been conceded already, but if that were the case, why weren’t they in the MOU? It is very unlikely that Iran will budge over the next two months, since it is precisely these issues that speak to the regime’s core identity.

He does get one thing right. Trump’s bullshit is on the rise:

Trump stated that if Iran didn’t agree to these outstanding terms, he would re-commence the war and possibly make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues. It is hard to know whether such an initiative is more ludicrous from the standpoint of countries in the Middle East, including U.S. friends like Saudi Arabia or the UAE who would now be paying explicitly for U.S. protection, or from domestic opinion in the United States, where everyone would like to be done with the region as soon as possible.

As for what I said about him above? The Persuasion Substack, in addition to him, has Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ junior member Yascha Mounk as founder, Glenn Greenwald wannabe and walking odiousness Thomas Chatterton Williams, wingnut David French, etc.

Speaking of Trump bullshit? A Tuesday evening AP story has the roundup. Lies about Obama sending cash to Iran in 2015 of course top the list. Claims that oil is already flowing and other bullshit. In reality, oil won’t get back to normal for months, even if there is a formal signing on Friday. That 60-day clock will be ticking, especially with Iran talking about “fees” for Hormuz and Bibi still running off at half-cock.

Finally, let’s turn to Mondoweiss, as always a voice of reason.

Dissident, Mearsheimer and others could stand to read it for this gimlet-eyed take on the T-Rump/Satanyahu relationship alone:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that “We will remain in the security zones for as long as required to defend our country.” Security zones, in Netanyahu-speak, mean occupied territories.

He went on to say, in Trumpian fashion, “Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon. If we had not acted at the time we did and with the power we did…Iran would already have atomic bombs.”

That is, of course, a complete lie, one contradicted by every intelligence assessment in Israel, the U.S., Europe, and everywhere else that has assessed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

It’s a mark of Netanyahu’s desperation that he feels the need to say it. It is also a mark of his need to pacify Trump by affirming the false narrative of an American victory.

Bingo.

Actually, not quite yet bingo.

Add this follow-up:

Tehran is surely as unimpressed as so many of us are with Trump’s public, epithet-laced scolding of Netanyahu. As I’ve noted, Netanyahu is also unimpressed with it. Words, no matter how harsh or vulgar, carry no weight here. Only the threat of real consequences will force Netanyahu to back off in Lebanon, and no one, including the Iranians, knows whether Trump will impose them on his ally.

NOW “Bingo.” What’s so hard about understanding that?

So, why did Iran sign off if the Lebanon issue isn’t decided, among other things?

Mondoweiss is good there, too.

It starts by referring to the January protests. It notes that, even if Israel played a fair role in them as instigator, the net result was that Iran killed thousands of its own people and remains an authoritarian, repressive government highly unpopular with some swaths of the populace, and at least moderately unpopular with huge segments. The Revolutionary Guards are still massive grifters, to boot.

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Finally, Israhell and that "Samson option," especially nuclear versions.

Much of what you have heard is true. 

The Institute for Middle East Understanding has the basics.

Israel has nuclear-missile submarines as part of its weaponry. The Germans sold them the subs as "conventional" ones knowing they could be upgraded. 

Israel is believed to have stolen both bomb-grade uranium and technical know-how from the US, possibly as much as 100 kilograms on the uranium, per Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Or possibly 250 kilos, per Wiki's page. Weirdly, Sy Hersh, in his book "The Sampson Option," claims Israel did NOT steal any HEU.

See also the Guardian. 

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That said, no, Israel did NOT whack Jack. Stop it. 

Unpacking Joe Kent's resignation

The big news, seen via The Dissident?

Joe Kent has resigned as Trump's head of counterintelligence, the guy who runs the National Counterterrorism Center. 

Several thoughts.

First,  per the Tweet/Shit on Shitter by Kent, that link above, even Looney Laura Loomer has enough brains on this one to dig up an old Shit and show him to be more than a bit of a hypocrite, arguably. Go read all the responses; it’s the old chimps eating a human face.

In the letter he does claim "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation." He says that the US had essentially neutralized Iran since Trump's 2020 assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Loomer calls up a September 2024 Shit of his, after the domestic assassination attempt on Trump, in which Kent says:

Iran has been after Trump since January of 2020, when he ordered the targeted killing of the terrorist Qasem Soleimani.

Dead to rights. 

Well, not totally human.

Per his Wikipedia page, Kent is kind of a political whore. If he had really had integrity and less whoredom for political office, whether elective or appointive, he would never have taken the counterterrorism job in the first place. But, he decided to whore himself out.

And, he's obviously not well-read, either. Per James Bamford, Israhell was very much behind Trump's 2016 election, and his 2020 bid for re-election, too. (And surely, 2024, though Bamford's book came out in 2023.) I'm sorry your wife was killed in an arguably stupid war — setting aside whether it was "Israel-manufactured" or not —, but you had five-plus years since then to be reflective, and you still took this job.

And, you still stayed on this job after the start of the war. (That said, contra the Blue Anon yappers, you quit before anybody quit Team Biden after Oct. 7, 2023 and his blank checks to Israel.) 

Now, in terms of the war, pivoting from him to Demented Donald? How does he spin this one? Not very well, I'm sure. 

And, our answer came in quickly. Like Demented Don's wont, it involved no pause for actual thought. 

Before we get to Trump's response, let us note Kent claimed that Trump had been duped by a "misinformation campaign." No mention of names, but we all know he's talking about Satanyahu, the person formerly known on Shitter as Netanyahu, as he did mention "high-ranking Israeli officials." I love it, and am stealing it, while also being pissed I didn't think of it myself. (But, it also includes the self-inflicted wounds mentioned above.)

Now, Demento Don:

Trump later told reporters "it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat. Every country recognized Iran was a threat."

Shock me. Actually fairly low on his bluster scale. (And, per Loony Laura Loomer, Joe Kent claimed Iran was a threat 18 months or so ago, and presumably felt the same way when taking Trump's job offer.)

Meanwhile, at Vox, Zack Beauchamp says we shouldn't align ourselves with other claims in Kent's letter to Trump, either. And, for this, you have to look at Bamford, you have to look at Kent's own background, and take this all in.

You also have to look at what came in Kent's letter after "high-ranking Israeli officials," which was:

[I]nfluential members of the American media ...

Now, that's not necessarily accusing them of being all Zionist. And, it's not antisemitic. Nonetheless, that, plus the other things I mention, lead us to Beauchamp. 

Here's Beauchamp:

In fact, Trump has been hawkish on Iran for decades. Back in the 1980s, he called for troop deployments to the country and a US-led campaign to seize control over Iranian oil. In his first term, he tore up a nuclear deal designed to prevent war and assassinated a top Iranian military leader. 

Moreover, Israeli leaders have lobbied every president in the 21st century to go to war in Iran; Trump is the only one who said yes. This suggests the key variable is less Israeli power over US foreign policy generally than the specific preference set and worldview of this president.

I think he protests a bit too much. But maybe not too too much.

Beauchamp then reminds us that we were in Syria in 2019 when Shannon Kent was killed was under President Trump.

I think a Candace Owens running with this letter is indeed antisemitic. I think that there may be some people already crafting a "framing story" for when the finale of this war indeed turns stupid. I know Kent has himself flirted with white nationalists.

But, I don't think this is all about antisemitism in Republican opposition to the war. Also, whether Kent is right or wrong on his framing, one can say that intervention in Syria was, if not "manufactured" by Israel, then at least "pushed" by it and not be antisemitic. 

Beyond that, Syria under the Assads was long seen as an ally of Iran and a conduit for Iran to work with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Beauchamp either knows that and is protesting too much, or doesn't know that and should shut up. That's rhetorical; I know he knows this. So, why is he doing something that is gaslighting, or at least halfway there? 

The Dissident, in his second piece about Kent's resignation yesterday, in large part focusing on Beauchamp, reminded us of what Seth Harp said in the must-read "The Fort Bragg Cartel": 

Washington’s efforts to overthrow Assad, who, like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi, was an outspoken and belligerent foe of Israel, redoubled amid the Arab Spring protests. One of the most expensive CIA programs in history, a billion-dollar fiasco code-named Timber Sycamore, plowed thousands of tons of guns and ammo fresh from German and American factories into Syria. ... Chief among the Sunni extremist groups that benefited from the instability in Syria and the flood of black-market arms into the country was the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known by the acronym ISIS.

There's that. 

Also undercutting Beauchamp? Klippenstein weighs in. Re the current war?

It is true that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agitated for war, but the Israeli military is operating more and more of one mind with the U.S. military. The two countries have shared a common war plan against Iran since the Biden administration. That level of cooperation has solidified under Trump, driven more by a true affinity and affection for the technologically and operationally sophisticated friend than anything Donald Trump (or Benjamin Netanyahu) has ordered.

There you go. He doesn't mention what Kent says on Syria, or Kent's odious personal background, but talks about larger objections to the war in both parties.

He does agree with me that this is inside baseball. On that? How Kemp phrases the letter? 

Finally, was this a smear attempt? Max Blumenthal indicates so, noting that Beauchamp was once co-president of "Brown Students for Israel," an avowedly Zionist organization:

Brown Students for Israel aims to be a big-tent community united by the belief in Israel’s right to exist as a state for the Jewish people in all or part of their ancestral homeland. By hosting Israeli cultural events, organizing political programming that reflects a range of pro-Israel perspectives, and commemorating Israeli days of significance, BSI aims to create a place for Zionists — and those curious about Zionism — to connect, celebrate, and engage with one another.

Also, Zack was an intern for Andrew Sullivan (yeah, that guy) when Sully was still at The Daily Beast. Was he forced to intern for him? Probably not. 

As for where Beauchamp stands? Per his own essay at Vox, it would be as a liberal Zionist, I think. But, even before Oct. 7, 2023, one-time liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart realized that modern Israel — and not just Bibi — had narrowed the grounds for that so much as to make it purely aspirational. Beauchamp, assuming he identifies with his essay, obviously doesn't agree, all the more so since it was written after the attacks.

Here's a good critique of his piece, and how unrealistic the idea is given current Israel, not just the middle-aged and older ruling class, but even more, younger Israelis. 

The real, real issue was raised by Beauchamp but not pursued more fully by him — the idea that Trump is an empty vessel.

This is a tool to allow MAGA loyalists, Trumptards, whatever, to maintain allegiance to Trump while calling out specific actions of him. It doesn't have to be Israel who's called out. It could next be Volodymyr Zelensky and the nation of Ukraine, if Trump asks for big new defense spending. It could be the prime minister of Denmark or the EU's Ursula von der Leyen if Trump formally agrees to take his hands off Greenland. 

In other words, you have members of a cult enabling Trump, or the idea of Trump, or the eikon or idol of Trump, because they're still afraid of Trump, and the rest of the cult. 

That said, even Klippenstein may have "bit" a little, or at least not questioned someone else advancing that same idea:

“For a Hegseth who only wants the ‘warrior’ answer, Israeli swagger and combat competence is catnip,” the officer says. 

The source adds that while Trump loves a winner, and he loves action, it is Hegseth and his “impetuousness” that pushes the relentless destroy-the-target, no-rules. no-quarter style of warfare that has unfolded.

Isn't that doing what Kent did? I mean, we all know that "impetuous" is Trump's middle name. Trump has no rules, but will give quarter if you punch back enough and others don't support him. And that's where we are right now.

Is Kent a rat deserting a sinking ship? As of March 11, 17 percent of Republicans said Trump was prioritizing Israeli interests over American ones. Per the Beeb, and other polling a day or two later, 90 percent of self-professed MAGAts were still backing the war.

I otherwise quote from the AP about the reality of what this means:

A special forces combat veteran with ties to right-wing extremists, Kent was considered as much of a loyalist as Trump could have in the government’s top counterterrorism post.

That's about right. Nobody on the left should be running Joe Kent up the flagpole and saluting him. He's a 2020 election "truther," palled around with white nationalists and is a COVID semi-denialist or worse.

Iran War early fallout, plus fearmongering and handwaving

The world currently produces 100 million barrels of oil per day.

Let us say that the Iran War shuts the spigots on 10 percent of that, or 10 million barrels per day.

Trump's release of 172 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve in the US, plus the International Energy Administration's announcement of 400 million barrels of release from global reserves, detailed here, is 57 days of relief. (That's if the two releases are separate; if not, 40 days.)  More on the IEA move here; if you're wondering, that would be one-third of its reserve. If Iranian damage to Gulf Arab refineries is severe enough, that won't be easily replenished. The US reserve has about 415 million barrels, per CNBC. So, this would be about 45 percent.

Is Trump still hoping he can force Iran's ruling regime to collapse? Won't happen. 

The end of the month until the US can escort tankers? That 10 million barrels of damage by Iran might be small. 

UPDATE: The actual amount of oil going through Hormuz is about 20 million barrels of day. Currently, trans-Arabia pipelines, beyond what they already carry, cannot handle more than about 6 million additional barrels at best. See here for more. 

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 "Iranian drones could strike California!" Change "Iranian" to "Japanese," "drones" to "submarines," and we're right back in 1942. Only this is surely Trump Admin rumor-mongering with even less basis in fact, targeting California cuz California.

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As for the fallout? It's more than oil prices, at least in Merikkka. How direct the connection is, I don't know, but mortgage rates are going up in Middle America. Homeowners will notice that soon after gas prices. 

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Since Sen. Mark Kelly has beat the rap on his unlawful orders comment, due to this thing called the First Amendment, does he think Trump has issued unlawful orders to start the Iran war? You're pretty quiet, Mark. Well, you did say something about how the Senate needs to return to Washington and do its duty, but you're otherwise quiet. 

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Meanwhile, the car ramming of the Dearborn synagogue? Without condoning it? Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Blowback, even when indirect, is still blowback. Non-Zionist Jews as well as goys have been warning against this since Oct. 7, 2023. 

Texas Progressives talk votes, Iran

Off the Kuff did his initial analyses of the 2026 primaries. 

SocraticGadfly had a roundup of coverage, reaction and issues with the first week of war in Iran, including callouts both of most mainstream media coverage and of actions and reactions by much of both duopoly political parties.

Steve Toth and his backers surely can't handle the truth, per Dan Crenshaw, but Dan? You're not a reliable dispenser of it yourself. Have fun playing your tiny violin in the corner.

Calhoun County GOP officials, because of hand-counting ballots, missed a state-mandated reporting deadline. Will any local officials actually be subjected to the Class B misdemeanor penalty prescribed by law? The Secretary of State's office punted, saying any legal action is in the hands of the county attorney's discretion.

Will banning institutional investors from buying homes stop a housing shortage and price-gouging? Shock me that the dude representing Redfin doesn't think so. Shock me more that he presents institutional investors as fighting housing segregation. Pontificating aside, he's right that more housing is needed.

Daniel Lubetzky, the guy who created the Kind health and hiking bars, wants to improve healthcare. Like Mark Cuban, the guy he followed on Shark Tank, his ideas here are incrementalist and at the edges. Will they be achieved? If so, will they be better than nothing? Probably no on the first, maybe on the second, just like his liberal semi-Zionism that was behind Kind's founding. 

Forrest Wilder talked about the newest revival of "Will Texas Turn Blue?" G. Elliott Morris says "yes," at least on Luke 1 says Abort It Pander Bear James Talarico.

Were votes deliberately suppressed in Dallas County? Per The Barbed Wire, I would say no by local GOP offices, no by the Secretary of State, but maybe yes by Kenny Boy Paxton and the Texas Supremes. 

The Observer covers the weirdest primary upset — Dallas County DA John Creuzot's stunning loss. 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said with the primary over, we can get back to the more essential business of organizing ourselves and in his case, continuing to ignore Palestinians.

Audubon Texas is urging everyone to turn off all non-essential nighttime lighting on buildings and other structures from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. each night, to help migratory birds get where they're going.

Bay Area Houston hopes you weren't fooled by phony endorsement slates.

Pete von der Haar has seen this movie before. 

The Lone Star Project reminds us that John Cornyn is in a bad position no matter what happens with the possible Trump endorsement.

What's next from and vis-a-vis Iran?

First, in the week ahead, we will find out whether President Masoud Pezeshkian or Iran's remaining top mullahs, even without an appointed successor to Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader Khamenei, have more control in the country, I do believe. That's in part as divisions seem to be arising between Pezeshkian and other avenues of leadership over targeting the Gulf Arab states. More on that here.

That said, Iran can target "Israel abroad," just as Israel has targeted "Iran abroad" in Hezbullah. Or the US abroad, and I don't mean US military bases in Gulf Arab states. It's done this, or tried this, all before, per the Atlantic. 

THAT said, would Trump really be dumb enough to send ground troops to Iran, after mocking Shrub Bush for Iraq, and starting the Afghanistan withdrawal process? Dumb enough or egotistical enough, he would. At a minimum, he's not ruled it out.

THAT that said, per Palestine Will Be Free, is Trump stupid enough to listen to junior grade Zionist neocons in Merikkka and the likes of Naftali Bennett, if not Bibi himself, and do something to Turkey? Speaking of, how craven will Turkish President for Life it seems Reccep Tayyip Erdogan look over the next week? 

What will NOT be next is Trump admitting any responsibility for killing at least 175 kids in a school bombing. What will also NOT be next is capitalists discontinuing betting on war. What will also also NOT be next is Trump admitting Netanyahu played him for a fool rather than him refusing to green-light an Israel-only attack. (The Dissident's Internet Archive link to a WaPost piece kept resending me to "captchas" time after time and never would load.)

Finally, in all of this, don't forget about Noam Chomsky as militarist. 

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Monday Morning additions:

First, Trump continues to show this war is as Netanyahu's lackey, saying Bibi will be in on on peace talks. 

Second, we have dueling UN resolutions as the Israeli-US lackeys among Gulf Arab states laughably expect Russia to also pick their side. 

Third, and huge, Ms. Unchristian, Karoline Leavitt, refuses to rule out a military draft. 

Fourth, with Ayatollah Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, elected to succeed him, and beyond the smears of Graeme Wood at the Atlantic (not linking) aside, it appears that President Pezeshkian has been shunted aside as far as having final say-so on attacking Gulf Arab states and that will actually ramp up.

As for Wood? Dishonest over Russia-Ukraine four years ago. When I got to the graywall-paywall on his piece about Khamenei fils, I was barfing. Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ scribe. The dood IS a member of the CFR.

The Iran War so far — calling out both duopoly parties and the MSM

First, per Klippenstein, and contra many Democraps as well as Rethuglicans (he calls out both), it's a war.

Mondoweiss notes the lamestream media, whether calling it a war or not, is lining up as cheerleaders. It then doubled down, and said that even people who know about previous such cheerleading are shocked by how blatant it is this time.

As The Dissident notes, Iran was prepared for an attempt to force regime change by assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei and adds the likely backfiring effect in that this will increase the likelihood it builds a bomb.

Per another Klip? I said that Trump cut off both his balls, and gave one to Netanyahu and the Zionists and the other to the U.S. military version of the Deep State.  

Trump now wants to try to get Kurdish militias involved, which risks Iraq and/or Turkey attacking them. 

As for the results? Let's quote the dean of foreign policy realists, John Mearsheimer:

Remember that in the Vietnam War, the US won virtually every battle and lost the war.

Couldn't have said it better myself. 

Meanwhile, former Air Force Academy would-be flyboy Paul Skenes is a disgusting militarist. 

As for the Gulf Arab states getting attacked? As Palestine Will Be Free notes, they brought this on themselves, and Merikkka is going to hang them out to dry just as much as the Gulf Cooperation Council has hung out both Hamas and the rest of Gaza, and Abu Mazen and the rest of the West Bank, to dry. A new post there notes many of them are talking about yanking money from their sovereign wealth funds out of the US to pay for the economic damage Iran has already caused. If a quarter of what's threatened actually happens, it's recession time.

As for Merikkka's Zionist genocide enabling NATO toadies in the UK, France and Germany?

The leaders of France, Germany and the UK issued a joint statement Sunday that appeared to indicate they may get involved directly with the U.S.-Israeli war. “We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” they wrote. “We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.“

Fuck 'em. 

That's even as Israel has now barred the Al-Aqsa Mosque, during Ramadan no less. 

Merikkkans on the street, meanwhile, are worried about high gas prices — prices that have jumped 50 cents a gallon in a matter of days. Dottering Donald the Zionist has staff, like chief of staff Susie Wiles, worried about the fallout even as they continue warmongering:

President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is telling his advisers to bring ideas to the Oval Office to lower gasoline prices in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran, according to two energy industry executives familiar with the conversations. 

The White House is “looking under every rock for ideas on improving energy prices, especially gasoline prices,” said one of the executives, who was granted anonymity to describe internal administration discussions.

What's coming, coal gasification? The old Fischer-Tropsch process? Don't you laugh; somebody will surely mention it.

Meanwhile, per Bruce Schneier?  

Remember, both American Zionist fellators of Israel, and anti-Zionists as a caution note, if Israel can hack traffic cameras in Iran, just maybe it can do the same in Merikkka. 

Only 53 Democraps in the House voted against calling Iran the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism. ALL Rethuglicans except 3 non-voters voted yes, as did 157 Democraps.

The real answer, of course, is Merikkka is the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism. And, No. 2? No hints.

Update: Whether on accident or deliberately, Iran's Dena, sunk by the US sub, was taking part in a US-coordinated military exercise when it was off the coast of India. TNR notes the exercise required ships to be unarmed, so the start of the preceding sentence is purely rhetorical.

Update, March 10: Here's what might happen in days ahead. 

Texas Progressives - the rest of this week and non-primary items

Texas Progressives offer some recent news roundup insights while saluting the Iranian resistance to American imperialism, especially this Zionist-fueled portion of it. I am sure that I'm the only member of the Texas "Pergressuves" to fully oppose this war, and it's a war, Democraps as well as Rethuglicans who are lying.

As The Dissident notes, Iran was prepared for an attempt to force regime change by assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei and adds the likely backfiring effect in that this will increase the likelihood it builds a bomb. Trump now wants to try to get Kurdish militias involved, which risks Iraq and/or Turkey attacking them.

The Monthly interviews Jenny Lawson, aka "The Bloggess," whom I personally think is kind of "mid,"to use a young kids' social media word, about her latest book. 

Forest Wilder gets the Monthly up to speed in talking about Trump's truly stupid desire to run a section of border wall through Big Bend. Per my Monday roundup about primaries, Ag Commish Sid Vicious Miller is all in, of course.

The Barbed Wire takes a both serious and snarky look at White Date, a dating site that's for exactly who it sounds like it's for. 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said Republican Houston Councilmember Julian Ramirez left his Republican Party & himself off his list of top election security threats in Harris County.

Saraí Bejarano explains why they are fighting to protect Hispanic Serving Institutions in Texas.  

Tom Palladino and Linda Mais urge better support for caregivers.

The TSTA Blog wonders how the State Board of Education would handle the social studies curriculum standards post-Trump.

 

King of Kings and stupidity of stupidities in Iran and the US

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution—A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Note: This is a dense book. It's so dense that I'm surprised Soy Boy gave it 5 stars as well. (That said, his review was relatively light.) It's a serious and detailed book.

You're forewarned.

It's also a great book, which I expected from Anderson. You'll get a long review, but not with spoiler alerts. Rather, I'll reserve more comments, along with bits of analysis, for my site.

With that, let's dig in.

In his preface, Anderson talks about the importance of good history putting forth a thesis and defending it. Bonus point right there.

Next, he notes that many American insiders and Iranian ones as well still aren’t sure why the Revolution succeeded, and think it, by surface lights, shouldn’t have.

From there, picking up serious threads in 1977, with detailed diversions back to Khomeini’s first being sent into exile and both secular and religious dissidents forming various degrees of attachment to him, Anderson narrates a tale of how a mix of hypocrisy, incompetence and careerism in the governments of both Iran and the United States indeed brought this to happen. Per what I said about analysis? For the US, I'll pick up on this at my site.

The little things that make good history?

On page 54, Anderson notes that a young 24-year-old Shah had to practically beg to briefly see FDR during the Tehran Conference. Even then, Roosevelt only slotted him in during a break between meetings with Stalin and Churchill, and nobody bothered taking notes. On the next page, he continues:

“(T)he nakedly parasitic nature of so much of the West’s dealings with the kingdom produced intense hostility. The end result was a complex love-hate relationship with the West born of equal parts attraction, envy and deepest distrust.”

Anderson ties this to the Shah’s Persepolis blowout to celebrate Persia's 2,500 years..

He then moves us forward to Nixon and Kissinger stopping in Tehran after going to Moscow to sign the ABM treaty. Nixon’s last words to Pahlavi? “Protect me.”

Next? A 1972 deal by the pair with the shah to cut him blank checks on arms sales.

Meanwhile, the run-up to the first Arab oil embargo — made worse domestically by Nixon first removing some domestic oil support then foreign import quotas — and its actual happening made Iran and the shah mega-rich. So, defense contractors and Pentagon brass hats swarm Tehran. Anderson notes “5 percent” was considered the standard lagniappe.

And, at the same time, SAVAK, the royal police and spy force, is getting tighter.

Next, getting back to the foreshadowing above? Anderson says that the revolution succeeded in part due to lots of incompetence by lots of people. He’s already mentioned the American embassy, the arms vultures, the CIA for its sloth.

I will insert here that Anderson doesn’t mention the shah’s lymphoma until more than two-thirds through the book. (I was wondering if he might get a mild ding for not mentioning it at all.) This is surely a deliberate framing issue; Anderson doesn’t want to present a shah with any excuses for his dithering and vacillation.

As with previous Anderson books, he gets below the top level of people to tell his story. On the American side, the two biggies are George Braswell, a Baptist missionary in the early 1970s and Michael Metrinko, a Peace Corps volunteer who eventually joined the State Department and was consul in Tabriz during the revolution, was twice briefly seized there in early 1979, moved by State to the embassy in Tehran after his final release, only to become one of the captives in the hostage crisis. Neither one has a Wikipedia page. (The unevenness of who merits Wikipedia entries is often worse than actual or alleged inaccuracies on the site, in my opinion.) Braswell has two books listed in the bibliography; Metrenko nothing. See this Politico excerpt from the book about him.

This observation by Metrenko in early 1979 sums up how the shah’s dictatorship had atrophied independent decision making: “The generals? I knew a lot of them, and most of them wouldn’t have been able to maneuver their way through a grocery store check-out line.”

Meanwhile, Anderson notes Carter shooting himself in the foot in late 1978. He demanded that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and CIA Director Stansfield Turner coordinate Iran brain-trusting better. Rather, since, as Anderson notes, the first whiff of failure was drifting over Iran, the trio, of different sentiments and takes on Iran, start engaging in bureaucratic CYA. As part of this, they start siloing from each other.

Also of note are the Iranians who attached themselves to Khomeini only to find that, before, by or after Nov. 6, 1979, that “the ayatollah, he’s not for changing.” The first and biggest of these was Ebrahim Yazdi.

The match, probably with literal matches, that lit the fire of revolution, was the Cinema Rex fire in August 1978, along with the shah’s horrible non response and Khomeini’s non-disavowal. Years later, a person confessed that he and associates, the rest killed in the fire, indeed started it as a red flag to hopefully create some sort of reaction to Khomeini by the shah that would backfire and be beneficial to the ayatollah. This person repeatedly refused to change his statements and was executed in the 1980s.

Alt-history thought: Anderson notes that in September 1978, Saddam Hussein told Khomeini to “tone it down.” He then offered to kill him and told the shah that. The shah, in his dithering, declined. 

Boy, that's a change of history, eh? It wouldn't be hard to make it look like a 78-year-old had a heart attack, eh? Food poisoning — if Khomeini didn't have a personal taster and Hussein could bribe a chef. That said, given Hussein, he might not have been that subtle. And, if not, he would have had to kill Khomenei's entourage. Morally, not a problem for him, Empirically? Might have been. Ditto on the political science side, if he kills Khomeini's whole entourage. Sadr and other Iraqi Shi'ite leaders might have caused trouble.

Still, the alt-history? If the shah does tumble, it's a mix of mild clerics and secularists who replace him. Would we avoid the Iran-Iraq war, or would Hussein see this as an even greater temptation to attack? There definitely wouldn't have been a hostage crisis.

And, in France, Yazdi was, if not a liar, at a minimum a prolific “spinner.” Many of Khomeini’s more off-base pronunciamentos simply weren’t translated for the Western press at his pressers, and Yazdi’s outreach to western officialdom was an oversell to put it politely. I'll address this in detail below. (This almost gets into a second alt-history, kind of like that above.)

Add in Khomeini’s clerical “frenemy” during the last years of the shah, Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, and the actual liberal and leftist types who were not the shah’s “Islamic Marxists,” and you had a run-up to the revolution that could have broken half a dozen different ways.

It is just barely possible that the hostage seizure could have been avoided. In mid-October 1979, Metrinko was home on leave, and was asked to meet with State officials. He said yes. He gets to the meeting, only to find its security classification has been made so high he can’t attend. Generic stupidity? Bureaucratic ineptness? Or was he getting the risotura treatment so high State officials didn’t have to hear him?

In all of this, Anderson spins well the contingency of history, with a particular contingent event here continuing to ripple today. 

The detail? WHY? Why did people like Yazdi think they could control or domesticate Khoumenei? Wikipedia notes, in its article on his years in exile, that Khomenei had called for an Islamic state as early as his first book, in the 1940s. It notes that he already then talked about the vilayet-e-faqih and Islamic theocracy. He followed that up with a book while in Iraqi exile, written in Najaf in 1970, with that as its subtitle, that further explicated this.

Per Anderson, no, the CIA wouldn't have known this. But, politically active Iranians who were more moderate clerics certainly should have, and arguably, so should have secularists.

They would have known that people like a prime teacher of Khomenei, Husayn Burujardi — mentioned in Anderson's book for his "Pepsi fatwa" — held broadly similar views. That said, he was more quietest, and banned Khomenei from political involvement — which ended with his death.

Interesting side note? Per the "red-black alliance" between clerics and Communists that the shah kept pushing? Per that book, Khomenei actually envisioned a Communist-like worldwide revolution of fundamentalist Islam, even if it was Islamism in one country at first. This is also, while calling out Israel for making Gaza an open-air prison, and for helping create Hamas, we should still keep eyes on Hamas and Hezbollah, and their Iranian backers.

Mohammad Kazem Shariatmaderi, profiled throughout the book as a more moderate, more quietist and less confrontational alternative, certainly recognized this, which is why he would never directly challenge him. But he also, for the same reason, would never openly endorse him until just before his return, which he called for.

Did the likes of Yazdi think no revolution could succeed without Khomenei, at least that, if it did topple the shah, it couldn't hold power on its own?

Alt history No. 2: Why didn't the shah imprison Khomenei, rather than exiling him?

For those who scoff at alt-history, it's one way to internalize Santayana's dictum and learn from past mistakes of history. 

==

For more background, see the following Wikipedia articles:

Twelver Shi'a

Ashura anniversary of Husayn's death at the Battle of Karbala) and the broader Mourning of Muharram. A broad parallel is various "Penitentes" movements in Catholicism. (I have seen an outdoor, public version of mourning that looked to include mild self-flagellation in Dallas, at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza, many years ago. It appears to be still held there.)

Arba'in (the 40th day after this, and to a lesser degree, 40-day observances in Islam in general and Shi'a in particular)

View all my reviews

Iran "fallout" from Trump's stupidity

The fallout is primarily metaphorical — for now.

That's because, per CNN, an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency and a leaker of its analysis (called a "low-level loser" by actual un-Christian, not submitting to her husband low-level loser Karoline Leavitt) Trump's "MOABs" did little more than bupkis. Oh, there's some damage, but nothing major or long-term. 

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” 

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

So, yeah. 

The details:

While US B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen of the bombs on two of the nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, the bombs did not fully eliminate the sites’ centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, according to the people familiar with the assessment. 

Instead, the impact to all three sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — was largely restricted to aboveground structures, which were severely damaged, the sources said. That includes the sites’ power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.

So, yeah. 

Presidents in general don't like to be seen as wrong, let alone told they're wrong, in public. Trump, a dementia-edged toddler, really has this. And, while many presidents might grudgingly accept wrongness in private, Trump will never even do that.

That's part of why classified House and Senate briefings got moved from Tuesday to Thursday. Trump wanted Pete Hegseth to find some DIA flunky who will massage the research better. Oh, he'll find somebody. Who?

Update: Iran's foreign minister has now partially undercut Ayatollah Khamenei, calling damage to the trio of nuclear sites "serious and excessive." It's unclear why Abbas Araghchi went public, but something within Iranian domestic politics is surely the lead reason.

That said, will anybody in either House or Senate call Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to the witness stand, if nothing else to make her squirm while past Tulsi Gabbard (loopholes and all) is confronted with present Tulsi Gabbard, a TACO? (With his staff and administration, it's Trumpistas or Trump team Always Chickens Out [on confronting him]. And it's true.) 

Let's add to to Trump's idiocy in general on Iran this stupidity, in the last graf:

US officials believe Iran also maintains secret nuclear facilities that were not targeted in the strike and remain operational, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

So, you deliberately irritate Iran, which went to 60 percent enrichment in 2021 because of your rejecting the Obama deal, but held at 60 percent through Biden's administration, knowing you couldn't finish the job even if some DIA flunky claims it was done better than now reported? 

Oh, contra the wingnuts clutching pearls on the enrichment percentage? It means little per the site Iran Watch without BOTH

• Enrichment to bomb-grade 90 percent, which is tougher AND
• A delivery mechanism.

A U-235 gun weapon is pretty much limited to an actual bomb. It CAN be done at lower enrichment levels, but then it’s low yield for sure, and is nothing more than running something up the flag. That's why the US nuclear world, even though details of its mechanism are classified, doesn't sweat too much over it. Now, reveal details of the implosion lensing or the detonator for a plutonium implosion bomb and your ass is grass. (And, if you’re Iran and you know the details of lensing an implosion bomb, would you do that with U-235, or wait until you create sufficient Pt-239? I’m assuming you haven’t already.)

Beyond that, the link above deserves a longer look:

Iran’s nuclear program has reached the point at which Iran might be able to enrich enough uranium for five fission weapons within about one week and enough for eight weapons in less than two weeks. For that uranium to pose a nuclear weapon threat, however, it would have to be processed further into weapon components. Also, the other parts of a successful weapon would have to be ready to receive the uranium. Fabricating these other components could be done in parallel with uranium enrichment and could take place on a laboratory scale, which would make them difficult to detect.

The site goes on to talk implosion vs gun bombs with U-235 and other things. The thing of note is that, just as Iran has not enriched beyond 60 percent for four years now, it has not test-detonated anything. And, whether U-235 or Pt-239, it would want to do that with an implosion bomb. The US did at Trinity and so has every other nuclear weapons power.

Meanwhile, Iran's parliament is playing with fully suspending cooperation with the IAEA. NOTE: That is NOT "leaving" the organization. The government is playing both ends against the middle.

It's already been less than fully cooperative since 2021, when it boosted its enrichment. Again, Iran Watch:

Since February 2021, Iran has denied IAEA access to recorded data from centrifuge production plants and in June 2022 forced the IAEA to remove monitoring equipment altogether from such plants as well as from uranium enrichment and uranium concentrate (yellowcake) production facilities. Although a few cameras were re-installed at centrifuge production plants in May 2023, the Agency still cannot access the recordings. Iran has also refused to cooperate with the Agency’s investigation of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites. The overall effect has caused the IAEA to lose knowledge of essential elements of Iran’s program.

So, part of this is on Biden. Yes, Trump 1.0 screwed the pooch, but Team Biden didn't make more of an effort to unscrew it in the first 30 months, and then Oct. 7, 2023 happened.

At the same time, Iran hasn't fully rejected the IAEA. Nor has it withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And, we all know the Middle East nuclear power that never signed the NPT.

 And, Iran Watch's top research associate has past ties to the warmonger Institute for the Study of War.

And, executive director Valerie Lincy, I can easily tell, is a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ fellow traveler on Russia-Ukraine. Related? A piece about reining in Iranian drones. Don't let the name "Wisconsin Project" that heads Iran Watch fool you. It's an inside-the-Beltway org.

The point is that even these folks can't totally throw Iran under the bus because they're being honest with information. As part of that, they don't claim Iran is creating plutonium. Because it's not.

And now, Trump has announced a meeting with Iran next week, and Iran has said "we ain't heard nothing." 

Side note: Per Mondoweiss, there is no such thing as right-wing anti-Zionism, so don't get fooled by Tucker Carlson. Or Tulsi Gabbard of either past or present, since she's a Hindutva-fascist Islamophobe and has gotten into bed with Zionists. Or Thomas Massie. Carlson, or Pat Buchanan and others from the past? They're not dispensationalist millennialist Protestant Christians, so Israel doesn't really matter, and therefore neither does Palestine.

TACO enablers are caving themselves in on Iran

I'm talking primarily about Trevor Lawrence, aka Marjorie Taylor Greene (think about it, think about it, look at it, look at it) and Thomas Massie, aka Squirrel Hair Junior (after Rand Paul, and look at it, look at it).

Some never-Trumpers and even a few BlueAnon yesterday were talking about them being "courageous." 

Yeah, per Acyn, Massie may have called out his colleagues on the Sunday news talking heads. He may also have called out AIPAC. Did he mention by name warmonger Bagger Vance? Hypocrite Tulsi Gabbard? Dementia Don himself? No, no and no. 

MTG is at least said she would "fight anyone" on this, and included Trump by name.

Show me what you'll do on the floor of the House. Both of you.

Of course, Dem leadership is no better. House Mouse Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he hasn't looked at Ro Khanna's legislation yet. Even if it somehow got past the full House, one of the top senators from AIPAC, Chuck Schumer, is Senate minority leader. 

OR hell, where is Dear Leader, Kamala is a Zionist Cop or Dementia Joe? Slickster?

Meanwhile, Trump is back to lying, claiming about 5:30 US CDT that there was a ceasefire and Iran saying "we haven't heard a proposal." 

Per Klipp? "Speak loudly and carry a big schtick." Yep, that's Trump to a T. 

As for the Iranian attack on Qatar? AS IS USUALLY THE CASE, Trumptards, neocons and general warmongers, and Zionist schmucks, Iran provided advance notice. That's related to the general schmuckery on the part of Congressional Democraps leadership.

Beyond leadership, the usual AIPAC fellators on the Dem side, like Fetterman, are out in force, per Mondoweiss. 

Tulsi Gabbard: Opportunism vs hypocrisy (until June 21)

Late Saturday, The Dissident posted on Substack a piece calling Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard a hypocrite for supporting Israel's attack on Iran, when she called out ideas for that during Trump 1.0 (and would have during Biden's time had he mentioned such an idea).

With an extended comment, I said, in essence, it was opportunism, not hypocrisy. Here's why, in an edited version of that.

(Update, June 21: Per new Tweets by her, and a new piece linking them by The Dissident, she's now a hypocrite.) 

The reality is that Tulsi Gabbard has always been a Hindutva-fascist Islamophobe. I knew that a full decade ago. Everything about her and US foreign policy has to start there. 

And, she's been willing to get in bed with the Christian Religious Right on this. I mean, LONG ago, she spoke at one of John Hagee's events — way back in 2015! Just as the Christian Religious Right and Zionist Jews make strange bedfellows, but do so willingly, a Hindutva, the Hindu Religious Right, will jump in bed with the Christian Religious Right, and also Zionist Jews, as needed. (India has had a lot of migrant laborers go to Israel as it has kicked out more and more Palestinians, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has encouraged that. (Per that Hagee link, she was already taking AIPAC money as long ago as 2019.)

She's also NEVER been a "peace candidate," having vote for more nukes while in Congress, among other things. (Reason mag also called her out at that time.) 

I don't think it's as much her opposing the neocons in the past, and now buying in, as it is that Israel, not direct US weaponry let alone troops, is doing the heavy lifting right now (though we're giving Israel an assist). And since Biden signed off while Israel first wrecked Gaza, then Syria, there's far less chance Bibi drags the US into having to actually do something now, than was the case under Trump 1.0. And, that's where we're at today, as I see it. There's very little chance Trump gets the US directly involved.

Per her 2019-2020 tweets, we ARE out of Syria now, because of Israel. We're not out of Iraq, though — surprised Trump hasn't acted on that, but maybe he will at some point. Lebanon's been weakened, and because of that, so has Iran.

Now, by his lies on negotiations, he already has highly gotten us indirectly involved. But, especially after the first Israeli attack, Iran is going to focus on it, in part because it can't spread itself thin.

So, again, the 2025 situation isn't the same as 2019. If it doesn't involve a high US price, I think all along that she wouldn't have had a problem with regime change in Iran.

Again, though, the Hindutva is going to be the bottom line, and India and Modi are fairly down on Iran right now, from what I've seen from informed Indians on Shitter. That said, Bibi and Modi have talked since the Israeli attack. Modi wants early peace, but probably because he's afraid of spillover to the east with high India-Pakistan tension right now. 

In short, this is a mix of opportunism and following the boss' orders, as I see it. Not so much hypocrisy.

Is it also alarming, as The Dissident says early on? Yes, but many things can be alarming but not hypocritical, like Pete Hegseth's and Marco Rubio's backing Trump on Iran.

Now, if Trump sends a bunch more weapons to Ukraine and she doesn't push back, maybe call her a hypocrite, especially if that so increases the tension with Russia that other things could happen. But, that hasn't happened. (Yet.)

Two additional things.

One is more on "following the boss' orders." Trump fires a lot of people. (Even though Elmo had to leave within 130 days lest he be considered a full-time government employee, still, essentially, Trump fired him.) Few in Trump's circle quit on their own. In addition, Gabbard has burned many former bridges.

Related? At least for public consumption, Trump 2.0 HAD re-entered the Obama-era nuclear protocol.

The real problem, as The Dissident himself knows, is that Trump 2.0 has become far more of a weathervane than his first administration, saying one thing one day, then another the next. He's also more of a weathervane hypocrite, saying one thing publicly and another privately.

Second is that Gabbard is DNI, not National Security Advisor. Her office is relatively peripheral to all of this, except for the matter of whether it thinks Israel actually can pull off Iranian regime change or not — and whether that will be better or worse.

HERE, if she's not giving Trump good advice, then she is a hypocrite. But, nobody inside DNI is leaking about this right now.

OR, if Trump is right beyond his half-lie about saying that the US is not currently involved, but that it could get involved, and Gabbard says nothing, she's a hypocrite. (That said, Trump is full-wrong in his normal cluelessness that the Israeli attacks will speed up Iran making a decision. They think he lied, and Steve Witkoff is by now regarded around the Middle East as a liar, ball-less or both.)

Don't get me wrong — today, just as nearly a decade ago, it's both fun and necessary to bag on Tulsi Gabbard. But, the reason why on that needs to be correctly understood.

Beyond that, contra The Dissident, Gabbard sent a veiled shot across Trump's bow on June 10, per Politco. And, I watched the video; it arguably could refer to Russia-Ukraine and our backstopping the attack on the airplane portion of Russia's nuclear forces, but almost certainly is primarily about Iran and Israel.

Biden OKs new Israel attack on Iran; MSM, others complicit

Per the second half of the header, I want to expand on a restack note I did about Ken Klippenstein's piece last Saturday about the first half of the header.

First, the meat, which gets at both halves of the header:

Two Top Secret documents outlining Israel’s preparations for a large-scale attack on Iran – which would be Israel’s largest, and here’s what’s most interesting: the mainstream media is silent. Colleagues at some of the biggest media outlets, from The New York Times to NBC, tell me that their outlets are aware of the documents. But it’s been days and no one in the sanctioned elite press is reporting on them (Axios only just reported their existence but declined to publish the documents themselves). As with the J.D. Vance Dossier, which the entire media knew about but refused to publish, it appears the media has once again lost its nerve – and its sense of what’s news.

The mainstream media has generally decided that it won’t publish classified material, in effect deputizing themselves as enforcers of the national security state’s secrecy regime. They did this last year with highly classified Ukraine documents they refused to publish (which my editor published at Newsweek).

To put it bluntly, major media are petrified of running afoul of the national security state. And not without reason. My decision to publish the Vance Dossier got me thrown off X (Twitter) and links to the story were blocked on the platform along with Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and even Google Docs. Let’s see if that happens again here.

There you go.

First, the second half.

Although Ken didn't use the word "cowed," I did in my note. I think that's a fair inference of his implication, as he DID use the word "petrified."

(And, so far, neither he nor I appear to be thrown off Twitter.)

Rather, as noted in the second half of the header, "complicit" is the word.

This is different than the Vance dossier. This is Israel, and the mainstream media run that up the flagpole and salute that, period and end of story.

It may be in part fears about the national security state/deep state, but I think that's secondary, and even the secondary falls into two parts.

The bigger of those two parts is fear of loss of access. The "elite press," as Ken calls them, is also the "inside the Beltway" media, as Ken knows. Or "access journalism," as Ken also knows.

Within that, the stenos of the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ Fighting 101st Keyboarders (thanks, Atrios), definitely don't want to lose access to insider intelligence sources. It's like a domestic version of being embedded.

Now, the leaks themselves.

As Ken knows, DC is a one-industry town, and the coin of the realm / grease that oils the machines, after money itself, is leaks.

From the White House and executive branch, leaks are almost always deliberate with political purpose.

(Genocide Joe now says he is "deeply concerned" about this, and his Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ spox John Kirby says the Waffle House doesn't know whether it was a hack or a leak. Sure you don't. That said, the Beeb says it explicitly mentioned Israel's nukes. But, that's a head fake to think that makes it a hack, not a leak. Could it be forged? Different question, but still highly doubtful.)

So, what IS that purpose?

One, per the "complicit," is to test just how complicit the MSM is. Now we have an update on that.

Two and related, is to prep the stenos for when the attack might actually happen and know what to ask.

Three? A pseudo-shot across Bibi's bow. As Ken notes, we spy on Israel. This lets them know what we know. But, per the oath for trial witnesses about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it surely does NOT tell ALL that we know. And, it may not have only truth in there, as far as the "nothing but," either.

As a pseudo-shot, in other words, this is another of those red lines that Genocide Joe continues to lay down on Israel for US public consumption that he has no intention of enforcing. This also is in the context of the presidential election, with early voting underway in many states. It's another way, via Genocide Joe, for Kamala is a Zionist Cop to look tough as well, even as she continues moving her own Overton Window right. Darth Cheney and the kiddies and sellout adults at Voters of Tomorrow who have Lincoln Project connections surely approve.

Three, part 2? Let's not forget, as many people know, and as Ken put in a previous post, but didn't link to in this one, that Merikkka just put a THAAD battery in Israel — with a US crew to run it to boot. That basically says "Do what you want to, Bibi, I got your back." That said, both that THAAD and the Iron Dome must suck if a Hezbollah drone was able to target Bibi's house.

Four? Ken calls out the Beltway stenos again in a new piece. Here's a key takeaway:

“Covert UAV operations” were observed on October 15, the NGA says, indicating that Israel’s RA-01 stealth drone was initiating a flight or returning from one, likely over Iran. Israel is flying stealth (covert) drones over Iran? That’s a story in itself. This would be a capability similar to the U.S. RQ-170/180 drones, which are super secret and barely ever mentioned in the U.S. media. But they are known to operate out of Chabelley airfield in Djibouti. Are they overflying Israel to take a look and thwart its “concealment” methods?

Complicit indeed is the MSM for not reporting this.

Ken also notes how part of US spying ON Israel is informed BY Israeli intelligence.

With that all in mind? And, the explicit mention of "nuclear"? We're now at the point of discussing what type of leak this is, as in, "political" or "principled"? (That said, principled leaks still have political angles.)

These docs showing up on an Iranian Telegram channel could be seen as supporting the "principled" angle, if the leaker is deeply serious about making sure all the Middle East players know. And, the "nuclear" is probably part of what pisses Biden off. The US now knows that Israel, and the rest of the world, knows that, behind closed doors at least, we openly discuss that Israel has nukes.

And, with all this? Any idea that a Harris administration could restart some sort of 2015 non-proliferation deal with Iran is toast.

Israel doubles down again on warmongering

Israel's assassination of Ismail Haniyeh is having plenty of fallout in most circles that are not either US wingnuts or Kamala is a Zionist Cop #BlueAnon. Part of the fallout is Iraq's government again calling for the US to leave Iraq, and again being ignored, as both the left and right hands of the US imperium duopoly have done for years.  

Jeremy Scahill has much more for the Charles Kuffner #BlueAnon lackeys of the world. Ken Klippenstein chips in with a new note.

Also on Substack, Murtaza Hussain talks about the possibility of an Israel-Iran war.

Vaguely related? Michael Moore has no problem with being a genocide whisperer in general, along with no problem turd-polishing Dementia Joe's decision to stand down. Moore's long, clearly been a tribalist for the the left hand of the duopoly, but he's now reached a greater degree of fabulism than he ever showed in any of his movies, and to reverse the old cliche? That's a high bar to hurdle.

World progressives news: Renewing the Iran deal, fighting NATO warmongering

James Dorsey has a great piece on all the moving parts involved with a possible renewal of the Iran nuclear deal. Beyond the US, Western allies, Russia and China, it also includes the Gulf Arab states and their anti-Iran animosity, Syria's ties to Iran Turkey and its past and present triangulation off Iran and more. Re Russia, and Chinese tacit support for it, the Ukraine war looms in the background. Dorsey goes from there to talk about the possibility of an even broader regional security pact, including nuclear issues, looping in India and Pakistan. It's a great read.

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Knock me over with a feather. After a summer of stonewalling over the issue, as I blogged, including about the degree she risked becoming a dupe of Xi Jinping Thought, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has actually released a report on China, and a condemnatory one. As I Tweeted, let's see Margaret Flowers, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Rainer Shea and others among the running dog lackeys of Chinese imperialism deal with this one. (Waiting to see Counterpunch called a capitalist tool.)

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Citizens on the street in the Czech Republic protested last weekend about the current government's strongly pro-NATO stance vis-a-vis that Russia-Ukraine war.

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Who wants to see two Canadian pieces of shit, Steve Pinker and Jordan Peterson, exchange fecal transplants in the name of life extension in Toronto? Seriously, I can see why the guy who runs the place avoids words like biohacking, as he's even more full of shit than the normal biohacker?

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Sweden, expecting Turkish approval to join NATO so it can mong war against Russia, is obviously expecting a natural gas cutoff or diminishment. Therefore, it's already offering a bailout (don't call it that, it's a "liquidity guarantee") to energy companies. But wait. "Plucky" little Finland is doing the same.

So, are the Taliban really undisputed masters of Afghanistan now?

At Counterpunch, that certainly seems to be the opinion of Patrick Cockburn. He semi-sneered at the idea that ISIS-K and the Taliban were separate entities, even though the animosity between parent ISIS and the Taliban has been well known for years. For real insight about the Greater Middle East, you should start with James Dorsey. Dorsey wrote precisely about this same issue on the same date.

To some degree, Cockburn and Dorsey have different focuses. Patrick, like his brother, the late Alexander Cockburn, is in part trying to flog the U.S. bipartisan foreign policy establishment, and when the backside of the establishment is presented any tool becomes a whip, while Dorsey is focused on the Greater Middle East on its own terms. That said, for all the reflexive anti-Americanism both Cockburns show at times, why can't THEY on occasion do just that? Robert Fisk did. As part of that different focus, Dorsey also looks beyond just ISIS-K to other challenges the Taliban may face from alternative militant groups.

In all that, though, there's some degree of straight disagreement about how much the Taliban have to fear, Dorsey indicates it's more a real thing than Cockburn does. (And, although Dorsey doesn't go into it, this may be another reason why the Taliban put preconditions on surrendering bin Laden. They didn't really want to, because it might threaten their control over Afghanistan; preconditions gave them an out.)

Beyond all that, though, Cockburn can't be troubled, after his beating U.S. foreign policy with a cudgel, to understand Afghanistan much better or much further than the U.S. foreign policy establishment he hates.

In a new piece, Dorsey notes Iran has already cooled to the Taliban somewhat do to its freeze-out of ethnic Hazaris, who are also religiously Shi'ite and who comprise 20 percent of Afghanistan's population. Again, you won't likely find stuff like this in the more simplistic pages of Counterpunch.

Nor will you find nuance on great power or superpower issues at Counterpunch. But you will from Dorsey.

Dorsey writes about all the above in light of Iran's hope to move beyond observer status to full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this weekend. Membership is by consensus vote, but any group that can include both China and Russia, and even more, both Pakistan and India, can surely make room for Iran.

As Dorsey notes, it probably won't help Iran's isolation much, nor cut sanctions much. After all, this IS a country that, after the election of Biden and some small loosening of relations, asked for all sanctions to be removed before talking about whether it would accept going back to the Obama nuclear control deal while at the same time, this summer, running the most rigged presidential election in its history — an election so rigged that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's Guardian Council booted former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad off the ballot, as well as Ali Larijani.

Dorsey adds that this may not be Iran's goal. Rather, if it gets full membership, since full membership is by consensus, it can then block Gulf Arab states from joining.

He also notes that the application process for the SCO is two years, and that if China, Russia, Pakistan, or the "-stans" of former Tsarist/Soviet Central Asia  have concerns about Iran in general or vis-a-vis Afghanistan in particular, they have two years to deal with that.

If Iran IS accepted, that would make Afghanistan totally surrounded by SCO states, another reason to reject Cockburn's thinking that it will "run wild."

Dorsey, who's on a roll recently, offers another reason to challenge Cockburn. At some point, Uyghur mujahideen, or hell, to riff on Reagan and kick Max Blumenthal in the nads, "freedom fighters," are going to flee to Afghanistan. What's the Taliban-led government going to do when Beijing knocks at the door, Dorsey wonders. 

This isn't idle speculation. Leaders in the former Afghan government claim Uyghurs gave major help to the Taliban.

It's not idle speculation for another reason. Contra Alex Cockburn, the Taliban has regularly resisted turning over outsiders that have given it assistance.

That said, the rhetorical question cuts both ways. Having seen both the U.S. and the Soviet Union get mired there, what will Beijing do if the Taliban says no?