Comments on: The art of the “Epic Fury” deal: unconditional surrender

By: Cappy

Cappy — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:24:19 +0000

“Seems to be allied with the mullahs”?

By: Bill Serra

Bill Serra — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:30:50 +0000

I was stationed on board the USS Halsey (CG-23) on a Wespac cruise when the Iranians stormed our embassy in Tehran. We all thought we were going to war.
We ended up cruising picket in the Straits of Hormuz for two months, then they sent us home. Jimmy goddam Carter, huh?

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 22:32:47 +0000

Art

Germany didn’t have to join WW I. But it’s what they do–Prussia and the Hohenzollerns and Moltkes being the templates–and off they went.
After that, they were allowed to go their own way, compared to post WW II, when every inch was occupied by Allied troops for decades. They had no chance to do it again. And after WW i, the big shots who’d gotten them into it weren’t hanged or suicided.
The Hapsburgs and Honenzollerns got away with it the first time. They’re still duking and princing, make the society pages, marry money, don’t need a 9-5 to put bread on the table. The European Usual. WW II was “unconditional surrender” because whatever happened in the first interregnum –evitable or in–wasn’t going to happen again.
Whatdo we need from Iran? At the least, somebody who doesn’t make trouble, We can enforce that by dropping a bomb in the relevant heads. We’ve done it.
What would we like? A Norman Rockwell version of Islamic governance. How far do we get with that? Don’t know, but it’s our choice how much effort we want to put intot it. We can always back off to what we need.

By: Sennacherib

Sennacherib — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 22:26:29 +0000

Variation of ask for all and settle for some.

By: TJ Jackson

TJ Jackson — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 22:04:37 +0000

I am more worried about the behavior of the Democrats and our “allies.” The Demorats have sided with an evil regime and nurtured it during the Obama. Biden flooded it with billions, without the approval of congress nor the people. Worse our allies have done zero at best. The British refusal to insure merchant shipping (they control 90% of that market) is just another slimily British diplomatic trick that was designed to promote economic chaos.

We need to treat our friends well and our enemies as they deserve. By this I mean those both Demorat and GOPe that have tortured the meaning of Congressional notification. Further I have one question for you folks, who believes the world will be a better, safer place if Iran has nukes.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 21:11:28 +0000

I suspect religious instruction and practice in Iran would benefit from religious officialdom above a certain rank being taken off the government payroll. Have prayer rooms in public buildings, have mosques enveloped by universities and the like, have in public institutions teachers and chaplains drawn from clergy of a certain rank. Have in various localities endowments financed by local government bond issues whose income assists in maintaining the physical plant of local mosques. As for public policy, ideally it follows common preferences at different levels of political organization – standards of indecent exposure the subject of local ordinances; labor law, family law, inheritance law, school curricula, and public holidays the subject of regional legislation; banking law the subject of general legislation.
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The influence of Islamic precepts per se I’ll submit has not been the issue. It has been the incorporation of the most vicious revanchism into the animating force of the state which has been the issue. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state and society; they still have businesslike relations with the rest of the world.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 21:02:12 +0000

The Hashemite’s Arab Legion performed satisfactorily in 1948-49. Egypt and Syria in 1973 managed to avoid humiliating losses. Otherwise, the performance of Arab armies contra the IDF and the Haganah has been unedifying.

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 20:42:32 +0000

I have more hope, actually, for the secularization of Iran than I do for Gaza, if the regime falls. Israel is pounding IRGC and Basij sites across the country. If that grip were to be broken, the largely non-observant Muslim and non-Muslim population might be able to control the extremists. See Egypt, for instance, where the military rulers suppress the Brotherhood and Salafi to maintain power.

In Gaza, there appears to be little difference between Hamas supporters and the total population. The violence and hatred are deeply imbedded in the people.

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 20:38:01 +0000

Ben David, when we lived in Cairo we often drove past the 1973 victory monument. Pathetic.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 20:09:33 +0000

We who are old enough remember. But even more vividly, we remember when Nightline began, with its count of the days of “America Held Hostage.”

When I was working in Argentina, an Iranian employee of the company delivered and installed an important computer part. At a local cafe, an Argentine asked him about a theocratic government in Iran. He replied that if that was what the Iranian people wanted, so be it. (He did not strike me as a Mullah-lover.)

Several days after he left to return to Houston, the “students” took over the American embassy in Tehran. Strange coincidence.

The mullahs calculate that they can wait out Trump. A Democrat Party President will certainly not try to defeat the mullahs. Which means that if Trump’s actions don’t result in the destruction of the nuclear-aspiring theocracy, the mullahs will have won.

Ben David, Tiny Url shortens links. https://tinyurl.com/
For example, here is the shortened links from your post.

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