“Death is but a door; time is but a window,” Mojtaba Khamenei declared on Tuesday.
Wait. Sorry. That was Vigo the Carpathian. But the younger Khamenei did make a statement today, and it was every bit as comedically theatrical as something that might emanate from a Ghostbusters villain.
“The hands of time do not turn backward,” Khamenei mused, proclaiming the self-evident. “The nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for American bases.”
Khamenei carried on and on (and on and on) in what, to non-observers anyway, felt like a farcically overwrought polemic that doubled as a Eid al-Adha devotional.
Hours earlier, the US launched what the Pentagon described as “self-defense” strikes against IRGC naval assets near Bandar Abbas, where the Guards were milling around missile launchers and preparing to lay sea mines, a CENTCOM spokesman alleged.
That aggravated the Guards. “Violations of the ceasefire will be met with a decisive reciprocal response,” they seethed, in a statement of their own. Later, they claimed to have downed an MQ-9 reaper. They also fired at an F-35.
In Lebanon, a dozen people were killed in Mashghara by the IDF, which ordered more evacuations amid a stepped-up bombing campaign. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s “increasing the blows on Hezbollah.” (I know. I know.)
Through it all, negotiations aimed at settling on mutually-agreeable language for Donald Trump’s MOU continued, primarily in Qatar. Marco Rubio (who, I should note, isn’t in Doha, but rather in New Delhi) said there’s “a lot of talking back and forth about specific language in the initial document.” “It’ll take a few days,” he added.
Over on TruthSocial, buried under a series of absurdist memes including an AI image of a shotgun-wielding Trump riding a rhino, the leader of the free world again demanded Iran “destroy” its “nuclear dust.”
In what, for Trump, counted as conciliatory language, he offered a few suggestions for how Tehran might go about satisfying that deal stipulation.
“Preferably,” he said, the enriched uranium will be destroyed on the spot “in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He said the process should take place in the presence of on-the-ground witnesses from America’s Atomic Energy Commission.
I don’t know if anyone’s told Trump, but the AEC was dissolved 50 years ago.
“I don’t know if anyone’s told Trump, but the AEC was dissolved 50 years ago.”…
Trump :” Well, somebody…..”
IEA chief Fatih Birol says markets could hit a ‘red zone’ by July or August, with strategic reserves unable to fully offset shortages.
Reports warn prolonged SoH closure could push oil to $200 a barrel and risk a global recession, with severe impacts on energy-dependent economies.
Don’t worry, Tumps’s got an MOU and a concept of a plan. All will be well.
I feel I have hearing about this critical moment for oil for the last 2 months. I don’t doubt that the ramifications of losing 1 billion plus barrels and counting haven’t fully been seen yet. But I’m also guessing everybody thought oil would be vastly higher if they had known the Strait would be closed for 2+ months also.
Somebody going to start taking out the people causing this problem, long before we get to $200.
“What was, will be. What is, will be no more.”
— Vigo the Carpathian (Ghostbusters II).
This is a bit game theory-ish, but is there a point Trump should just go all-in for regime change? At some moment, long before the mid-terms, if the Strait isn’t fully operational (or something close to it), the cost of gasoline is going to be set on a narrow path. Knowing in say early August (that’s a very rough guesstimate) that that moment has passed, is Trump better off re-starting the war with gusto and seeing what happens?
What to do. More coal? Already doing that. The horrors, like price controls, gas rationing, 55 mph national speed limit? Uhhh, did that once, not popular. Tell people to drive less? What? No. Tell people to toughen up, like Bobby Kennedy wrestling snakes? Yeah, strongly tell them.
Why? The increases at the pump are mere “peanuts”.
Is Operation Linebacker II (Christmas Bombings) 2.0 forthcoming? I’m seeing a lot of parralels building up.
Trump might have bumbled his way into yet another win — the anti-renewable President who attacked the industry, touted carbon, and started a revolution that the GOP has leaned against ever since Reagan tore out the White House solar panels. Nothing changes behavior like price/cost.
May his reward be a solar-powered eternal flame at his final resting place that never quite burns as brightly as the carbon-fueled ones of our (all) lesser leaders, preferably much sooner than later. Rest in preposterous.