It might be time for the US to resume major combat operations in Iran, Donald Trump reckons.
Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM chief, was set to brief Trump Thursday on new military options aimed at breaking the stalemate that continues to snarl shipping traffic into and out of the Persian Gulf.
One plan calls for a “short and powerful” series of strikes against Iranian infrastructure, a trio of sources told Axios. Another idea entails securing “part” of the Strait of Hormuz in an operation that would “include ground forces.”
Although Trump still favors the blockade, he’s notoriously impatient. Production curbs are a foregone conclusion in Iran, but the Guards are taking steps to stave off damaging shut-ins. It could take weeks, or even months, to create the kind of emergency that’d force the Iranians to the table.
And, so, Trump’s back to pondering direct strikes on the country. As Axios helpfully noted, “Cooper gave Trump a similar briefing on February 26” just 48 hours ahead of the initial joint US-Israeli bombing campaign that killed Ali Khamenei. That briefing, a source said, “contributed to Trump’s decision to go to war.”
The prospect of renewed US aggression sent Brent sharply higher early Thursday. At $126, the benchmark nearly hit levels seen in and around the onset of Vladimir Putin’s misadventure in Ukraine.
Subsequently, prices traded down to $116.50, retracing the entirety of the move, and then some. That’s the June contract. It expires Thursday. The July futures rose near $115, the loftiest intraday since June of 2022.
Separately, CENTCOM’s considering the deployment of America’s hypersonic missile, the Dark Eagle, to the Mideast on the excuse Iran’s moved its ballistic-missile launchers too far inside the country for the currently-deployed Precision Strike Missile to hit. Technically, the Dark Eagle isn’t combat ready just yet, but… well, formalities.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice initiated forfeiture proceedings related to a pair of oil tankers commandeered by the US Navy earlier this month near Sri Lanka. That could, but doesn’t necessarily, suggest Trump intends to claim for America the ships’ cargoes.
The official who spoke to Bloomberg about the forfeiture process declined to “elaborat[e] on whether it signals an intent to seize the crude on board.”
That anyone, much less traders, continue to listen to the words that this man speaks, as if they hold any semblance of credibility, might be the most fascinating thing about this time in history.
I remember way back in the yore of Trump 1.0 the Washington Post used to track how many lies this man told. The volume of those lies was unprecedented for a man in his position. That was before we got the new and untethered version of Trump now running ammock in 2.0.
TACO, 2 weeks, 2-3 weeks, I’ll fix it on day 1, no one else can fix it but me, etc. These are things this man says regularly to get people off his back and to keep them believing in him. Historians are going to have a field day writing about how naive humans have been for the past decade.
It may be a bit cliche to quote Nietzsche but this one comes to mind on your last point: “Madness is something rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule” (in Beyond Good and Evil)
The mentality of large groups tends to revert to the lowest common denominator.
Who knew this would be like trying to herd cats? Oh. Everybody else…..
Dems? Now that is like herding cats these days, everybody going every which way. GOP? Sheep, nearly every one, but only one dog they heed.
Many of us spend a lot of time constructing war games to try and forecast what may happen next in the Gulf. As we did when Puttin was threatening Ukraine prior to their special operation and even ahead of the first Gulf war when most of us assumed that Putin and Sadaam would prove to be rational actors. Ooops.
Now it seems we are doing the same regarding both sides in the Iran excursion. Certainly stock investors are, no?
I think stock investors are making the same mistake that American governments typically make, which is to assume that other people think like Americans – or in this case, like American real estate developers. Can’t the regime see the optimal IRR here? Why won’t they make the NPV-maximizing deal?
US pump gas price has resumed heading up ($4.36 nat’l avg), and US crude oil and refined products exports have jumped to over 10MM bbl/day (I think, don’t quote me) as the fleet of Asian tankers has reached the Gulf (Coast) and is busy draining US inventories. I wonder when Trump will start threatening the US oil industry with an export ban? Will $5 pump gas do it? $6?
I fear the big move in the Dow today may embolden Trump: he may feel he has a bit of a “cushion” now.
Yes, exactly. As indicated in these pages more than once, Trump sees US stock indices as a realtime indicator of his performance. The man even said so himself in a recent interview, where he confessed that he expected the S&P to be far lower after his actions. And just like Homer Simpson he failed to understand the lesson.