One: The next Nobel Peace Prize go to Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, for brokering the U.S.-Iranian ceasefire.
Naturally: The Nobel Committee HATES President Donald Trump. Even if he cured cancer, AIDS, SIDS, and male pattern baldness, there’s no way in hell the Nobel Committee will give Trump its seal of approval. //
Two: This ceasefire will be broken repeatedly. Get used to it.
Famously, World War I ended on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:00 a.m. in 1918.
Only it really didn’t: Even after the armistice, the fighting continued.
Ceasefires are seldom neat and tidy. Either deliberately or accidentally, they’re almost always violated by at least one side.
The Iran War will follow this pattern.
Iran’s #1 objective — by far — is to maintain control of its country. Part of the reason why its military performed so poorly is that it wasn’t really designed to battle America or Israel directly, but to keep its boot atop the Iranian people. //
Three: The “fee” on ships in the Strait of Hormuz is real and here to stay — because President Trump believes that it’ll benefit America.
Does Iran have the power to arbitrarily assign a seven-figure “fee” on ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz? Over the short-term, yes; over the long-term, no. It’s a violation of international law.
Unless the United States allows it. //
It’ll increase the operational cost on everyone else, making American goods cheaper by comparison, benefiting American companies.
Does it violate international law? Absolutely. Is international law enforceable? Probably not.
To keep our Gulf allies happy, we’ll need waivers (or profit-sharing) for Middle East nations that were hit with Iranian missiles. That’ll give ‘em the funds to rebuild, too. //
Four: The NATO alliance has been fatally wounded and is unlikely to survive.
It might limp on for several more years as a zombie org, but there are too many cracks in its foundation — because it’s now painfully obvious that U.S. and European interests no longer align.
For 100 years, we’ve protected Europe with American blood and treasure. We fought two World Wars on the continent, rebuilt it with the Marshall Plan, and then provided an 80-year security blanket to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union. //
Europe is wealthy enough to defend itself. Besides, NATO didn’t exactly bend over backward to help us against Iran.
The opposite is true: NATO nations went out of their way to endanger U.S. lives by denying us access to shared military bases and/or their airspace.
That was their decision. And decisions have consequences.
Chief among them: Americans no longer believe that NATO makes us safer, freer, or more prosperous.
Never Trumper David Frum wrote a blistering op-ed on April 8 for The Atlantic, where he confused Richard Nixon’s madman theory with Dwight Eisenhower’s brinkmanship diplomacy. //
The truth is, NATO hasn’t been relevant in over a generation. Even The Times forgot what it stood for! //
Five: Operation Epic Fury also marks the end of the Israeli-U.S. military alliance.
Too much antisemitism. Too much anti-Zionism in the national ether. This means that there are too many political headwinds for the U.S.-Israeli alliance to survive: It’s no longer politically viable.
And that was before the Iran War!
The Democratic Party was already stridently anti-Israel, blasting it as a genocidal, apartheid state. After Israel participated in President Trump’s “illegal war” against Iran, the Dems' hatred has reached a crescendo. //
In all of American history, we’ve never treated a wartime ally this poorly.
It’s not fair, but the world doesn’t run on fairness. It runs on cause-and-effect, and the unfortunate truth is, virtually every PR trendline is heading in an anti-Israel direction. This means that Israel better prepare for a post-U.S. reality, because its future won’t be tied to ours anymore.
The Republican Party isn’t an anti-Israel party yet. But if these trendlines continue, it’s inevitable. //
RubyCupcake
2 hours ago edited
If you want accurate prophecy about what's to come read the Bible - specifically Daniel, Zechariah, Ezekiel, Revelation rather than Nostradamus. The day the US breaks their alliance with Israel is the day it no longer exists. The only reason we've survived God's wrath this long is because of us supporting Israel and the large percentage of Christians living here. //
FeynBohrStein Oldman77
an hour ago
That's advice, not a prediction.
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future"—a sentiment often attributed to Yogi Berra or Niels Bohr
Trump has already said the Navy will escort ships through Hormuz “if necessary.” If the same reflagging requirement applies, every European and Asian tanker that wants a U.S. escort would need to fly the American flag.
Think about what that means for the SHIPS Act, the Jones Act, the U.S. flag fleet, and CMA CGM’s unfulfilled promise to triple its U.S.-flag vessels, Greenland. Hormuz becomes the forcing function for everything Trump’s maritime agenda could not achieve through legislation or diplomacy.
Meanwhile, Iran is selectively letting ships through. Turkish, Indian, Chinese, and some Saudi tankers have been permitted to transit via Iranian territorial waters. About eighteen tankers, mostly Chinese, have done so according to Lloyd’s. Western-allied ships are blocked.
The “closure” is really a sorting mechanism. Iran decides who trades and who does not. Unless the U.S. Navy reopens it for everyone. On America’s terms.
That’s the decision the world has to make, let Iran pull up a tollbooth or stop blocking Trump’s maritime plans. //
While TV oil analysts focus on the global price of oil, the real experts in Houston are watching something different: the fracturing of the global energy market.
The real threat is not $200 oil. It’s a fracture of the system. It is cheap energy in export nations and ruinous energy costs in places far from reserves. It’s $2 oil in the Persain Gulf, $20 dollar oil in the Gulf of America and $2,000 oil in the UK. //
One global price only works if there is a surplus of tankers to arbitrage differentials. Before the Iran strikes, that surplus was razor-thin. Now, with supertankers stuck in the Gulf, it is gone. //
Meanwhile, California has been closing refineries and blocking pipelines, forcing gasoline imports from South Korea on ships with dayrates that are skyrocketing. Govenor Newsom, the leading canidate for President in 2028, is irrate. New England imports LNG and diesel by ship. If Hormuz stays closed, prices spike in those states. Deep blue states. Red state energy costs fall. Blue state costs rise. Europe capitulates on major policy disputes between now and the midterms. //
The strongest version of this thesis is not “Trump is playing 4D chess.” It is that the administration holds more options than anyone realizes, and the insurance mechanism, not the Navy, is the real lever of power.
"Now, these are not routine operations. They were high-risk, high-stakes missions conducted in the heart of enemy territory.
"This was not just barely into Iran. This was deep into Iran, involving coordinated strikes to suppress threats, deception tactics to protect our teams, and full synchronization across air, ground, and special operations.
"The Iranians are still asking themselves right now, how did the Americans do this?"
Of the first mission, Hegseth said:
"The first mission, the first of two, was an audacious daylight thunder run right up the middle.
"It was authorized in less than two hours from that pilot going down, when we knew where he was, and it was authorized in the middle of the night because anybody that’s worked for this man knows he’s up in the middle of the night." //
"I looked up at my screen when the final mission was complete inside our SCIF, our secure facility.
"And we have a running VTC, a running coordination cell, and the top of it read 45 hours and 56 minutes.
"For 45 hours and 56 minutes, we held that call open for coordination.
"From the moment our pilots went down, our mission was unblinking.
"The call never dropped.
"The meeting never stopped.
"The planning never ceased."
But before the sea-going phase of the exercise commenced on January 13, the South African government requested that the Iranians withdraw their active participation from the exercise and become observers instead, a request to which the Iranian acceded.
The South African move was prompted by the realization at this late stage, that diplomatically it did not look good to be aligned with an Iranian regime which by some estimates has now killed 12,000 of its own citizens in anti-government riots. The South Africans also realized that its highly favorable trade position under the African Growth and Opportunity Act was in jeopardy, with the Act is coming before the U.S. House of Representatives this week for its scheduled three-year renewal.
These dangers were already apparent back in September, when The Maritime Executive noted that South African Chief of Staff General Rudzani Maphwanya had visited Tehran to issue an invitation to the exercise, a visit not apparently approved beforehand by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. President Ramaphosa objected to the visit, but did not fire the General for his freelancing in the political arena. Political opponents of the President said at the time that his response was weak, exceedingly so as events have turned out.
Iran is drought-prone; indeed, it is the middle of the most severe drought in 57 years, but that isn’t what is causing the current crisis. It is the logical and foreseeable outcome of decades of environmental neglect and Soviet-style mismanagement that has turned a naturally arid climate into a national emergency.
Iran’s groundwater has been depleted, primarily in an effort to surge agriculture to deal with a booming population. Tehran is sinking at a rate of 25 cm per year as the aquifers collapse. This poses a threat to utilities, subways, and the structural integrity of buildings. It is hard to imagine that the settling hasn't caused leaks in water mains.
To be clear, this is not a Tehran problem; this is an Iran problem. The drought affects the whole country, and 30 of Iran’s 31 provinces are experiencing land subsidence due to unchecked groundwater extraction. //
roggeo
9 hours ago
The Caspian Sea is only about 70 miles from Tehran, and while brackish, it has only about 1/3 the salt of seawater. The Mullahs should have spent their money on desalination plants rather than nuclear weapons, and if I can come to that conclusion in 30 seconds, I bet the Iranian people can as well.
20th Century Ltd roggeo
8 hours ago edited
And guess who the local experts are in water desalination? Yes, the inventor of the reverse osmosis (RO) process - those dastardly Jews in Israel.
Imagine how much it grinds the Mullah's gears to think about that fact. //
Buzzkill59
9 hours ago edited
If I remember correctly,several years ago Israel offered Iran and other countries in the area plans for desalination plants free of charge in the interest of regional peace but Iran and several other Muslim nations refused because they didn’t trust Israel! Now they’re thirsty… //
American by Nature Nashvillian
6 hours ago
Iran's situation reminds me of ancient Ephesus at the time of Saint Paul. Ephesus was a bustling sea port, an important hub of Mediterranean commerce.
One day his preaching caused a riot. Paul was expelled to Rome where he was eventually executed.
The Meander River which meandered through the countryside and through Ephesus to the sea, began depositing mega tons of silt until Ephesus was miles inland and no longer a port city.
Ephesus died.
Iran is dying.
Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh
·
🚨 JUST IN: President Trump wants total peace to break out in the Middle East. He has now called on EVERY country in the region to join the Abraham Accords.
7:33 AM · Aug 7, 2025
So far, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan have endorsed the Abraham Accords. In the next phase of the diplomatic push, President Trump wants the leading Arab Gulf state, Saudi Arabia, to enter the framework agreement. “It’s my fervent hope, wish and even my dream that Saudi Arabia will soon be joining the Abraham Accords.” It will be a special day in the Middle East,” the president said during his visit to Saudi Arabia in mid-May. //
Babak Taghvaee - The Crisis Watch @BabakTaghvaee1
·
#Breaking: The #IRGC intelligence org. of #Iran's Islamic regime has arrested nearly all top #Iranian nuclear scientists who weren’t assassinated by #Mossad. They’re accused of being Israeli spies—simply because Mossad didn’t kill them. Roozbeh Moradi was one of them who was Show more
9:19 AM · Aug 7, 2025
“For decades, Israel has been observing activities inside Iran,” said Dr Efrat Sopher, an Iranian-Israeli analyst who chairs the Ezri Centre for Iran and Gulf States Research at the University of Haifa UK.
“Mossad has played a pivotal role in the success in thwarting the Iranian threat, where its successful operations vis-à-vis Iran and its proxies will be chronicled in the history books.”
Around 03:13 UTC on 21 June (22:13 local time) a flight of US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft departed Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Operating in two flights of four aircraft, the Stratotankers headed northeast toward Missouri. Those aircraft quickly climbed to the top of Flightradar24’s most tracked flights list—not because thousands of people find aerial refueling aircraft over the central US fascinating, but for the inference of their purpose.
Townhall.com
@townhallcom
·
Follow
President Trump, before leaving the WH for NATO, reacts to the ceasefire being broken last night.
"These guys gotta calm down. It's ridiculous."
7:17 AM · Jun 24, 2025 //
Just an old soldier...
an hour ago
I understand that Trump wants peace. But the enemy gets a vote. If they say no peace, then you should give them what they want. Good and hard, until they beg for peace.
Real GOP 690 Just an old soldier...
35 minutes ago edited
Agree.
"People want peace."
No, they don't. MAGA wants "peace", because the neocons once gave them a sad, and Democrats want "peace" because they have basically been p*ssies since Vietnam, and they oppose anything Trump does.
The problem is that Israel doesn't really want peace with Iran under its current leadership, and Iran certainly doesn't want peace with Israel under any circumstances. Israel wants regime change, and all Iran wants is time. This forced, premature and desperate "ceasefire", engineered by Trump because MAGA was starting to push back, will not hold, because neither Israel nor Iran really gives a shit if Trump's base gets squeamish every time a bomb drops.
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced in a Monday evening post on Truth Social that Israel and Iran have agreed in principle to a cease-fire that would halt what he branded “the 12 Day War.”
“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED!” Trump wrote.
“Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World. During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL.”. //
“We have to talk to Iran and, of course, Israel about what the future holds … to build a long-term settlement.”
Trump announced the apparent breakthrough hours after Iran lobbed rockets at an American military facility in Qatar in symbolic retribution for Saturday’s US bomb-and-missile attack on three Iranian nuclear sites.
The president said Tehran provided a heads-up in advance of its response and most of the rockets were shot down before reaching their target, the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Satellite images appeared to show scores of trucks lined up at Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility just days before the US carried out its large-scale airstrikes — as speculation swirled that Tehran may have been able to move its uranium stockpiles before the attacks.
The images, released by US defense contractor Maxar Technologies, captured more than a dozen cargo-style trucks lined up outside the Fordow nuclear enrichment site’s tunnel entrance on Thursday and Friday.
The vehicles, which came and went over a 24-hour stretch, appeared to move unidentified contents roughly half a mile away, the Free Press reported, citing US officials.
Case uncovered: How Iranian intelligence duped a yeshiva student into spying on Israel
Elimelech Stern, a Hasidic man from Beit Shemesh, bought a phone to trade crypto; a message from 'Anna' drew him into espionage for a hostile power; living a double life, he feared being used for assassinations and begged for help—outside the law
What we said to the Iranians is we do not want war with Iran, we actually want peace. But we want peace in the context of them not having a nuclear weapons program. And that's exactly what the president accomplished last night. I really think there are two big questions for the Iranians here. Are they going to attack American troops, or are they going to continue with their nuclear weapons program? And if they leave American troops out of it, and they decide to give up their nuclear weapons program, once and for all, then I think the president has been very clear. We can have a good relationship with the Iranians. We can have a peaceful situation in that region of the world. //
we negotiated aggressively with the Iranians to try to find a peaceful settlement to this conflict. It was only when the president decided that the Iranians were not negotiating in good faith, that he took this action. He didn't take it lightly, but I actually think if provides an opportunity to reset this relationship, reset these negotiations, and get us in a place where Iran can decide not to be a threat to its neighbors, not to be a threat to the United States, and if they're willing to do that, the United States is all ears.
In the early hours of the war, it was reported that dozens of top Iranian military leaders were taken out in a single strike, and how that strike came to be is just as incredible as the result. According to a new report, the subterfuge used to get all those IRGC generals into a single bunker is like something right out of a spy novel.
Amit Segal told the Call Me Back podcast on Monday: “What Israel did was create a fake phone call for 20 members of the air force senior staff an calling them to a specific bunker in Tehran.”
This meant there was no one to give the order to fire the initial salvo of 1,000 ballistic missiles as Iran had previously threatened to do, he added.
) The added bonus for the Israelis was that Iranian military leadership was essentially crippled from the moment of Israel’s first strike against the world’s top sponsor of terrorism.
As The Chronicle reported, Mossad had used “falsified communications through Iranian channels” to call the meeting — which successfully lured “the entire senior leadership of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, including Commander General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, his deputies, and key technical personnel, into a fortified bunker outside Tehran.”
Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, infiltrated Iranian backchannels and then placed 20 different fake phone calls to IRGC leaders. Those calls instructed them to all meet a reinforced bunker in Tehran, an order none of them questioned. It's safe to speculate that Mossad agents were on the ground to confirm their arrival, and shortly after, the entire place was blown sky-high. //
How did that happen? The answer lies in how antiquated and authoritarian Iran's military structure was and remains. When you serve at the behest of an Islamic dictator who tortures and kills people who step out of line, you aren't exactly in a position to question an order. When the calls came in to head to the bunker, wondering if things seemed a little suspicious wasn't an option. So all the generals blindly listened.
But weren't there just other leaders ready to step up and carry out the Mullahs' decrees? Not really. Unlike the U.S. military structure, where junior officers are trained and placed in a defined, highly redundant chain of command, Iran's top brass were insular loyalists. With them out of the way, chaos ensued.
Dieter Schultz NtxTwenty6
9 minutes ago
There is little reason to accept the increased risk of a non stealth (non bomber), turbo prop aircraft like a C-130.
As someone has pointed out here, as long as we have undisputed, and unchallenged, control of the Iranian skies it doesn't matter whether we use a B-2 stealth aircraft or a C-130.
It may be more esthetically pleasing to use a B-2 but using a C-130 has one thing that using the B-2 can never have... the deniability that the US conducted the mission.
The implication isn't exactly subtle. Iran is now claiming it has a nuclear weapon to launch at Israel or U.S. positions in the Middle East. What that actually amounts to is a pretty big question, and there are two ways to look at this.
Firstly, I think you have to take this seriously. When a nation led by Islamist lunatics says they are going to launch a nuke, that's not something you can just write off as rhetoric. No doubt, Israeli and American forces are on high alert, and all possible countermeasures are ready to be used.
This does seem to put to bed the idea claimed by isolationists that the entire case against Iran is manufactured and that they had no intention of developing a nuclear weapon. As the vice president, who is the furthest thing from a warhawk, explained on Tuesday, the intelligence they've seen is clear, and even if it weren't, there is no other reasonable explanation for the levels of enrichment Iran has sought and achieved. //
What we do know is that given this latest threat, there's no way this war can end with a negotiated settlement that allows Iran to keep its nuclear program. That has to be completely off the table at this point, and all indications from President Donald Trump are that it is. The job must be finished, and Iran's nuclear threat taken off the board for good. //
Ashram, the Black Knight
3 hours ago edited
Gee, didn't Iran claim that their interests in nuclear research didn't include the development of a weapon because it was against their religion?
Now they are basically admitting that was a lie.
How surprising.
The poll, which was prepared by GrayHouse for the Senate Republican Committee, showed MAGA far from being fractured, with a staggering 80 percent of Trump voters voicing their support for the U.S. providing Israel with offensive weapons in its efforts to destroy Iran's military and nuclear capabilities.
That's not all. Poll results show that 83 percent of Trump voters support the strikes on Iran's nuclear program, with 72 percent supporting the U.S. taking "direct military action" to prevent Tehran from developing its nuclear capabilities. //
Perhaps the most telling bit of information to emerge from this new poll is how MAGA feels about relying on diplomatic efforts to resolve the escalating conflict. In short, they're against it, with 73 percent stating they don't trust Tehran to keep their end of any diplomatic deal. This is the number that shatters the narrative that one side of MAGA supports diplomacy while the other side is in favor of military action. MAGA, it seems, is united in its determination that ensure that Iran does not develop and use nukes, and they're behind the president taking all necessary action to stop them. The schism that some X users love to talk about simply doesn't exist.
Bret Baier @BretBaier
·
Israeli Prime Minister @netanyahu on intel of Iranian attempts to assassinate President @realDonaldTrump-- "he's enemy number one.." and on when he let President Trump know of the plans for launching the strikes #FoxNews #SpecialReport #Israel
12:17 PM · Jun 15, 2025. //
Netanyahu said his country was facing an "imminent threat" of nuclear destruction and was left with no choice but to act aggressively in the "12th hour."
"We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat," he said.
"One, the threat of Iran rushing to weaponize their enriched uranium to make atomic bombs with a specific and declared intent to destroy us. Second, a rush to increase their ballistic missile arsenal to the capacity that they would have 3,600 weapons a year…. Within three years, 10,000 ballistic missiles, each one weighing a ton, coming in at mach 6, right into our cities, as you saw today… and then in 26 years, 20,000 [missiles]. No country can sustain that, and certainly not a country the size of Israel, so we had to act."
Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 @MarinaMedvin
·
Axios is reporting that Netanyahu and Trump pulled off a great deception as part of Israel’s preparation to strike Iran. If true, this would go down in history books.
7:35 AM · Jun 13, 2025. //
That seemed to be confirmed when the president put out the following post, which mirrored a longer post that slammed Iran for not taking the deal he put on the table.
Note: This is not the troll I'm talking about in the headline. That's coming next.
TRUMP: Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see. There are several people in leadership that will not be coming back. //
Dallas
13 hours ago
Israel put the "dead" in deadline. Kudos //
TXavatar
13 hours ago
Reminds me of Bruce Willis’ great line in The 5th Element-
“Anybody else want to negotiate?”
AG
@AGHamilton29
Reminder that on April 12th, Trump publicly gave the Islamic Republic 60 days to seriously come to the table on dismantling their nuclear program or face military consequences.
Today was day 61….