If the administration decides to end this stupid war just so they can cash out some profitable bets... I don't even know what I would think. The whole thing is so stupid it makes my head hurt.
> The whole thing is so stupid it makes my head hurt
Look on the bright side, at least the malicious actors aren't able to competently implement their goals.
they're doing a fine job of screwing the world for their own gain, and/or working as sock puppets of foreign governments.
at no point was there ever a true belief, except for the "idjit" demographic, that trump would ever do anything meaningful in a governance sense.
I think we're using different scales to measure competency.
I mean, Christ, we have good spray tans, I know we do.
Everything since has just been an inability to admit he was in over his head, plus trying to get out of trouble for all the crimes he did. He (and Clinton) just underestimated how susceptible the US was to a demagogue. If you look at his face after the win was announced on election night, and after the first meeting with Obama for the transition, I think it shows plainly on his face.
The US/North America is petroleum-product-independent-ish. We produce approximately as much hydrocarbons as we use. We also could produce a lot more but tar sands, shale oil, etc. are more expensive to produce and not very profitable at $60/bbl but it's there ready for the taking. When you're talking about how we aren't it's about how certain refineries are tuned for which type of oil and how we import unrefined and export the refined products, etc... but we're not RUNNING OUT of oil or energy.
Many places in the rest of the world aren't like that and will suffer much greater losses while the US is relatively strong. Of course we're all linked, but a power hungry dictator might only really care who's on top in a relative sense even if everybody is dragged down.
this isn't new, the techo-feudalism has been pretty clear since Thiel got his man (JD Vance) into the VP slot.
the Israelis also figure he's probably not gonna last through the mid-terms, so they want the US to do their dirty work while they still have leverage over him via Epstein files. Russia wants the US to get into a similar long-slog war, and is desperate for high oil prices.
The problem is all of these things are politically untenable. This is the only reason why I think this war could continue long term because Trump simply cannot back down.
I think the recession from this could actually get so bad that there's now a nonzero (but still small) chance Trump gets removed from office, either by impeachment or by being 25A'ed.
It is hard to adequately state what a geopolitical disaster this was and it is I think quite easily the biggest mistake by an administration in the entire history of the US. I'm not exaggerating.
I wonder how the coup in Cuba will turn out. That has to happen before the midterms, and he's unlikely to wait for Iran to resolve.
The US simply doesn't have the military capability to invade Iran. It's surrounded by mountains so there's no land staging area like we had for Iraq in 1991. Am ambphibious landing would have to be on the scale of D-Day. Personnel-wise, the military is a lot smaller than it was in 1991 too.
This is why I laugh when people panic "they're going to invade" when 5000 Marines and 2-3 amphibious landing ships are moved to the Gulf. Those are so incredibly irrelevant and wholly insufficient for any kind of ground invasion that the worse they can do is be the Bay of Pigs 2.0.
The Iranian national project has been to resist American imperialism for the past almost 50 years. The military is distributed. Lots of it is under mountains or otherwise reinforced from air bombardment and missiles. Drones are incredibly cheap to produce and there's no viable path to stop the production and launch of ballistic missiles and drones.
That's how bad a decision this is. There is no viable military path to "victory" (whatever that means here). There is no way to invade, no way to hold the country militarily and no way to manufacture regime change.
Other countries in the region are way more vulnerable to loss of infrastructure (eg desalination plants). Iran has desalination plants too but it also gets a lot of drinking water from snowmelt. Many Americans are surprised by that. Iran has ski resorts. That's how mountainous it is.
Israel has been begging the US to topple Iran for 40+ years and every president has refused. Because it's completely unviable. Until this one.
There are really three wars being fought here and the objectives are different in every case. Israel wants to turn Iran into Somalia, which is to say a fail-state. The US wanted regime change. Iran simply wants to survive. And it will.
So this is why you see Israel escalate to drag the US into a war it doesn't really want. And if Israel succeeds and somehow the regime does topple it will create a massive refugee crisis that will likely topple the governments of most of Iran's neighbours. Israel is completely fine with that. The US isn't.
Every country in the Gulf had essentially been converted into a US client state other than Iran. We went so far as to put a former al-Qaeda lieutennant in charge of Syria. A likely consequence of this move is US influence in the region is going to massively decrease because the myth of the American security guarantee has been broken.
While the war is still poular with Trump's base we'll see how long that lasts when gas hits $8/gallon and food inflation hits 20%.
Head hurts to think how this will play out.
So like in Game of Thrones, we hope a Jamie Lannister shows up...
Not only is Iran justifiably angry at its attackers, they have no reason to trust a ceasefire would be respected, and, furthermore, despite damage taken, stand to gain quite a lot if the war progresses as it has. Currently Iran is exporting more oil than ever before[0]. If the war continues as is they stand to emerge a much, much more dominant power on the world stage. Essentially being to BRICS what the GCC countries have been to the US (although much better defended).
Even the threats against their energy infrastructure can't really be backed up effectively. Iran has intentionally built its energy infrastructure to be highly distributed. Meanwhile Israel's infrastructure is highly centralized, with a small number of power plants providing massive proportions of the nations infrastructure. All this meaning that Iran can retaliate much more effectively the they can be harmed.
0. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/irans-control-of-hormu...
> I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1162782323629...
the "interesting case" is how he somehow managed to convince the average american that he has anything in common with them, even as he insulted everything they stand for, constantly. there is the real psychological case study.
Unless you have dealt with a narcissist in real life you don't really get to comprehend the reality of them and their methods. On the other hand, once you know, most of them are so transparent.
If there is insider trading it's most likely low-level staffers or friends of officials who speak too freely.
If a high ranking official wanted to make a lot of money on these moves in an untraceable way, there are numerous financial market opportunities. The amount they could make on betting markets is peanuts and too easily tracked.
Her scandal was not being subtle enough with the theft of government funds for Trump's taste, and he found a way to get rid of her that he could claim he had no part in.
she should be tried for corruption and manslaughter.
Have you noticed any meaningful scandals back then?
https://www.9news.com.au/world/donald-trump-iran-updates-oil...
Discussion on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1s1x5jq/minutes_b...
Since when do profoundly stupid people use this site?
They would absolutely (have their secretary) commit legal inside trader for a few hundred thousand on every occasion they could.
They are burning your country to the ground while enriching themselves.
Profoundly stupid people are the target demographics.
At least I'm having my hopes up for this.
I'm sure he exaggerates his wealth, but we know he's at least a billionaire.
https://www.pay.gov/public/search/global?formSearchCategory=...
Note that in addition to specific programs that accept donations, this list includes "Gifts to the U.S. Government" with no strings attached and "Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt".
Bit players with knowledge that have been perennially underpaid by the us govt. however, mortgage-saving money. I don’t blame them. Do you?
“I’m aware of a big decision and I can make 23k off of it, probably.” Do it up, congress has been living off insider trading for a century, let the little guy get theirs.
Until gambling commercials are banned in the same way cigarette commercials were banned, we’re all just yelling at the wind.
placing bets on polymarket is a cheap way to influence the whole market