Predicting Trump; predicting the Iran War
It continually astounds me how many people make predictions about what will happen in Iran, when in many cases they don’t even seem to know what’s already happened. There’s an awful lot of garbage in and garbage out.
A tremendous amount of garbage, period.
If a person hates Trump already and thinks him a dangerous clown, of course that person will interpret everything that happens in the worst light. For the rest of us, there’s an acknowledgement that much has been accomplished already with a stunningly low casualty figure on our side, but the situation is inherently very tricky – and that Trump is well aware of that and is trying to navigate through the perils by using his considerable bobbing and weaving skills.
I keep saying I certainly don’t know what will happen. But hey, like so many, I think about it a lot. And I try to recognize patterns.
So here’s what I see:
World War II featured a great deal of bombings of civilian populations with huge death tolls. The culmination was Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which brought about the surrender of a heretofore implacable enemy. However – despite the rantings of Trump-haters on Twitter and the like – I don’t see Trump contemplating anything like that. He’d much rather make a deal of some sort. And besides, he doesn’t see the people of Iran as the enemy; au contraire. He threatened infrastructure, not the population – although the population would suffer from the bombing of power plants and the like.
Trump also has no intention of a long war, both temperamentally and because he reads the American people (correctly, I think) as no longer having any stomach for a long slog. However, I can’t say what his definition of “long” is, except that I doubt the war will last more than a couple more months. He will stop when he believes he’s gotten enough from it, although not everything. But he’ll remain willing to start the war again. Therefore I predict he will never promise Iran not to attack again if conditions warrant it, and especially he will not allow Iran to keep its enriched uranium (unless it’s buried so deep it’s unrecoverable, which I don’t believe).
The enriched uranium issue is paramount; it was the stated reason for the war, not regime change. I don’t know how it could be settled by negotiation, because the regime can’t be trusted. Perhaps we – or the Israelis – have some intelligence as to where it is and how much there is, and that would help in terms of either snatching it or negotiating a meaningful surrender.
Trump’s enemies – and they are legion – will sharply criticize and mock any solution to any of this. If there’s no regime change, they’ll say he failed. If there is regime change and it’s imperfect, they’ll say he failed. The bottom line is that they will never credit him, just as they haven’t credited him for what’s been accomplished. Nor will they acknowledge the extreme danger Iran has represented, and the perils of doing nothing.
Commenter “huxley” mentioned this commentary from General Keane:
–Fox News, “Gen Jack Keane: I don’t like this…”
Keane argues, persuasively IMO, that the Iranians are just playing for time as usual and hoping that after traffic flows in the Strait, Trump won’t have the stomach to keep pushing for the other demands:
* the enriched uranium
* guarantees that Iran won’t pursue nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,
* not continue to foment violence with proxiesIt will be harder, after a two-week ceasefire, to muster the energy to threaten the end of a civilization.
I’m not a general, but I disagree with those points. I don’t think Trump will give the first and second up. Those are his bottom lines. Those are why he went to war in the first place. If he can’t get some guarantee or substitute for a guarantee, it will be an obvious failure (as lack of regime change wouldn’t be, because even though he wanted it he made it clear that regime change was up to the Iranian people).
I also think that the Israelis might have some tricks up their sleeves regarding regime change.
But I don’t even know if the Iranians will keep their side of the present bargain – or even if the people “in charge” of Iran are the ones who made the bargain. Even as I write this, you can get conflicting reports on whether the Strait is open. For example, this is datelined just few minutes ago:
Iran is accusing Israel of violating the conditional ceasefire announced by President Trump by continuing its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iranian media outlets say Tehran is suspending tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and considering pulling out of the deal with Washington over Israel’s actions.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump is aware of reports saying the strait has been closed, but said the reports “are false.”
And this, also very recent:
Since the ceasefire was announced, conflicting accounts have emerged over whether Lebanon is included in the agreement. Pakistan and Iran said the pause in fighting would extend to Lebanon. Israel and the White House have denied this.
The White House on Wednesday announced that Vice President JD Vance will be leading in-person peace talks in Pakistan this weekend. He will be joined by Middle East special envoy Steven Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Leavitt said.
I’ve also read that Rubio will be involved. But I don’t think much of most of the coverage these days. I know I’d prefer Rubio to Vance, but perhaps both will be there.
Trump is neither crazy nor stupid. But there are times when he wants to be seen as crazy. I believe that’s what his threat this past weekend was all about. The point is to make the enemy struggle to predict what he will do – which means that we will have the same struggle.
I think you mean “Iran” in the first paragraph.
I would really love to hear what in our country is better now than before Trump was reelected (other than some of your beloved “libs getting owned” blathering from Trump). Nothing is less expensive now than in Jan 2024. China and Russia are stronger financially and politically. We’re more isolated in the world (except Venezuela). We’re drifting towards global irrelevance. We have depleted our stockpile of armaments, and this administration just asked for 400 billion to restock. The GOP is headed to a massive clock cleaning in Nov.
Is there anything Trump has done that would be met with disapproval by Moscow or Beijing?
But hey, at least you allowed Trump, his idiot sons, and his gang of sycophants to enrich themselves to the tune of billions of dollars (and a free 747).
As someone said today, with victories like this in WW2, we’d all be speaking German today.
This cult of personality is well on the way to destroying our place in the world politically.
Pshaw!
@neo: I’m not a general, but I disagree with those points.
Neither Keane nor myself were arguing that Trump would give up on those points. It was a description of the likely Iranian thinking in the ceasefire.
huxley:
I certainly never thought you were arguing those points.
But Keane seemed to be saying – at least, according to the summary – that Trump “wouldn’t have the stomach” to push for those points, or to start up the war again after 2 weeks – or at the very least that the Iranians believe that’s the case. I disagree with those things, and I’m not even at all sure the Iranians believe them. But as I said, Trump is hard to predict.
As for the Iranians, I think I’ve said before I don’t think they can be trusted.
neo:
The entire summary was of the likely Iranian thinking.
Sure doesn’t look like China (Temu defense systems, and oil from Venezuela and Iran), nor Russia (gulf states hiring Ukraine to shoot down their allie’s (Iranian) drones) is stronger in the world. Yes and the border being closed is a positive. The tranny mafia is being set aside, mocked, and sued. And trillion dollar Democrat fraud schemes are being exposed. Just three obvious better things Jack bot.
But JackPineSavaged is mostly pining for the glory days of President Autopen, and the failed President Kackles. Nothing says genius like a word salad?
huxley:
And I disagree that that’s what they’re thinking.
I think they’re thinking other things – like, that Trump won’t be able to accomplish what he wants but not that he’ll give up. I think they believe, for example, that Congress won’t authorize more attacks if time runs out and he has to turn to Congress. I think they think the rest of the world – including Europe – will successfully thwart Trump. I think they think Russia or China will rescue them. Some or all of those things and more.
But I don’t think they think Trump will lack the stomach. He just might be thwarted by other things.
Jack, what a Moroon
Operation Roaring Lion continues apace.
Netanyahu rejects the ceasefire:
https://x.com/ShadowofEzra/status/2041932316352581782
Was Israel not part of the negotiations?
Was Israel not part of the negotiations?
Not according to the WSJ, no.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-2026-trump-deadline-latest-news/card/exclusive-israel-was-informed-late-about-cease-fire-deal-and-wasn-t-happy-s18QUNCt1s4fL60Rnn03
JackpineSavage
What a moron.
Neo:
In the context of a distant war, fixing a typo is an infinitely small thing, and Dwaz has also noted the problem, so my comment is probably redundant, but you take obvious care with your writing, so I hope you won’t be offended if I also request a correction to your first sentence:
“It continually astounds me how many people make predictions about what will happen in Iraq, when in many cases they don’t even seem to know what’s already happened.”
I assume that should read “Iran,” not “Iraq.” If not, then …
The reaction to Trump is typically immediate attack, whatever he is doing.
It has been hilarious over the last day, where his opponents went from claiming he was genocidal to going back to the TACO nonsense.
I wonder if JackpineSavage has shopped in a grocery store or bought gas since January 2025. Or what world he’s living in.
I would make just one point to Jackpine. The news in SoCal today, as well as in national media, is the enormous amount of fraud that has been uncovered in the health care and social service systems. We have no idea how much money has been stolen from us over the years or decades. We have no idea how many people who desperately needed the services that those funds were intended to provide, went without. If not for Trump, aided initially by Musk and DOGE who then motivated the entire administration, the theft would continue unabated. That alone, puts the lie to your thesis.
I, in no way, thought that General Keane disparaged Trump’s decision. He made clear that he thought the Iranians might believe, or hope, that Trump would not have the stomach to renew the bombing campaign at the end of the cease fire; but that he did not believe that would be the case.
I thought General Keane’s alternate strategy made a lot of sense. Not simply because he proclaimed a strategy that I had also outlined, all be it to an audience of one. I sort of anticipated that when the deadline was reached, Trump would announce that he would not punish the Iranian people with the threatened bombing campaign, but that the USMC and elements of the 82nd had just secured Kharg Island and key islands that controlled the straits. I half suspected that the bluster over the bombing of infrastructure was more of a diversion, than an actual intent. Over and above that point of consensus, I simply believe that the General is a perceptive analyst of strategic ambiguity; and worth listening to.
On the enriched uranium, if it’s actually removed from Iran then there’s no reason to have to trust them with it. It’s not easy for them to replace it, and there’s things can be done to make that very hard for them to do themselves.
And if they won’t agree to both of those things, well we can lather rinse and repeat, so to speak, pour encourager les autres.
Neo’s round-up of news and her summary covered the same ground as most of the blog pundits I’ve binged on reading this morning – lots of repetition, but each author takes a slightly different look at one facet or another.
Streiff at Red State, as usual, cuts through a lot of the chatter.
We may never know what The Real Ceasefire Plan looked like in total.
What we can count on is that the Iranians will lie about it.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2026/04/08/is-a-ceasefire-possible-n2201082
This situation doesn’t even conform to the 72-hour-rule for getting the facts reasonably straight. It’s more like a kaleidoscope view of events, where the picture changes every minute (second?), even though the pieces of colored glass inside the tube stay the same.
Hegseth, at a press conference this morning, talked about US forces physically removing the uranium, and points out that the location is under constant surveillance from the sky. No “guarantees” from the Shi’ite fanatics are worth anything.
@Kate:Hegseth, at a press conference this morning, talked about US forces physically removing the uranium
If I was Trump, I would bring it in a sack to a press conference and dump it out all on the table–see here’s why we can trust Iran. Well, metaphorically, because I think they have enough you’d need at least a forklift.
Cornflour,
Thanks!!
Will fix.
A trip back in time to my early blogging days. So much talk about Iraq.
The official Iranian statement, courtesy of PowerLine.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2041663632342130898
Scott Johnson’s post basically lists the same points as streiff, plus Trump’s reiteration this morning of his hard-line on Ian’s nuclear bomb ambitions.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/04/after-last-night-69.php
Ace had more to say here.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/419246.php
“April 08, 2026
Communist Dingbats Yesterday Until 7pm: Trump Is a Madman! He Will Nuke the World!
Communist Dingbats at 7:01pm: TACO! Trump Is a Huge Pussy Too Afraid to Do What Is Needed and LET THE NUCLEAR BIRDS FLY!!!!”
I agree with Neo, Trump won’t stop. He’s facing a fractured government, he’s hoping one group will talk sense into the the other,(s).
When you deal with religious zealots you usually must kill them.
I gather they’ve sent help to Bauxite (or he’s been rotated out).
If Trump is able to remove the enriched uranium from the country and destroy Iran’s capability to make more, it’s a win and likely worthwhile.
But he needs to either get the enriched uranium, topple the regime, or both. And toppling the regime is better. As long as the regime exists and has oil or other revenue, they’re going to continue trying to get nukes.
If Trump fails to either remove the enriched uranium or topple the regime, it’s going to be hard to spin this as a win.
It still looks to me as though Trump bet big that he would be able to other topple the regime or get them to completely surrender quickly. Since that didn’t happen, he’s been looking for an off ramp. It also looks to me as though Iran grabbed significant leverage by closing Hormuz.
We’ll have to see what the final deal looks like (and whether the stories about it from Trump and Iranians line up).
That troll is not pine scented
The brief price spike is reversable because of the policies that have been pursued since 2024
Robert snape (i know his name) had a similar hot take (he told us we have to invade, even though 20 years as the apologist for suicide bomberd he said the opposite6
Of course we have had to destroy what is left of 100 billion dollars we gave the regime
Fordow which was revealed by the ncri whistleblowers (not by the regime) is not easily accessible
Isfahan another facility has been put out of commission
@JackpineSavage
No, no you would not. Because someone coming like this generally is not actually interested in hearing evidence. But against my better judgement I will try to provide some anyways.
But offhand? The horrible abuse that was the Jan 6th witch hunt has been overturned. US military enlistments are up and so is force morale. The Overton window on vote integrity has moved. The economy has improved so much that the Iran War oil spike got gas to an average of what it was under Biden’s term during a time of peace. Crime is on the wane in places like Washington DC as admitted even by the highly partisan Leftist Democrat operatives in power there. Illegal crossings have dropped off a cliff, helping to spur price declines. And I could go on, and on, and on.
But I doubt you will heed what I wrote. Let alone anything more.
Where do you live and what prices are you comparing? Because where I live this is objectively false.
You have got to be joking.
The Russian economy is in a military deficit spending death spiral that is competing with the demographic death spiral. Made worse by the US doing what Biden never did and coordinating with the Ukrainians and other nations to plonk away at its Shadow Fleet tankers, thus gutting its main way of transferring fossil fuels outside of sanction limits. And it is suffering a crisis of confidence at the front in Ukraine and in its military.
The PRC has been revealed to be a joke that cannot defend its own allies and which has been advertising military equipment on false grounds. It is also facing the collapse of BRICS openly as India pivots closer to cooperation with the Quad and thus the wider Western Alliance and Brazil and South Africa are under pressure from the counter revolutions in neighboring countries and dissent at home.
India, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Hungary, Israel, Iraq, the UAE, Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador….. really this is comically stupid and objectively wrong. There is a world outside of Europe, and even in Europe and Canada the Gen Sec of NATO was forced to publicly admit Trump was Right.
Nations drifting towards global irrelevance do not publicly humiliate the supposedly best equipment of their conventional rivals and decapitate the heads of two of their regional enemies back to back.
True to a point but we did not deplete all stockpiles. Moreover, better those stockpiles be use to send seismic shockwaves through the world by devastating our enemies.
Maybe. I don’t know. Neither do you.
But if the GOP really was headed to a massive clock cleaning in November and all signs indicated that; would the Dems be acting like they are with multiple defections, desperate media attempts to pivot towards the center, and crisis calls among the loyalists about a reversal of the traditional Dem advantage in Voter Registrations?
The fact that you think there was any way asking this would not blow up in your face speaks to staggering ignorance showing you are manifestly unfit to have this conversation in the first place.
But offhand?
A: Decapitation of two major regional allies of Beijing and Moscow. If you think Xi or Putin enjoy losing the former Ayatollah or Maduro, you do not understand the matter.
B: The public humiliation of the best and brightest in Russian and Chinese gear in the process of A, leading to a crisis of confidence in their gear.
C: Tracking down and helping to crush the Shadow Fleet, greatly hurting the means of sanctions dodging.
D: Greater integration with India, the Philippines, Taiwan, and others to help compete with and beat the OPFOR in fields like Rare Earths and security agreements.
E: Loosening regulations on fossil fuels and rare earths at home so we do not have to go begging to the PRC or Russia and can sell to the people they are selling to.
F: Devastating Iran’s military and weapons capabilities, especially hurting the Russian war effort in Ukraine due to those Shaheeds being either destroyed or diverted for domestic use.
Shall I go on? Or do you get the point?
Hunter Biden, James Biden, and the Big Guy could not be reached for comment.
But in lieu of that I will make my own. It’s a free country and you have a natural, god given right to be an Idiot. But you lost any actual justification for that or to call others idiots when you seriously tried to claim that Moscow and Beijing would have nothing wrong with Trump’s push against the Shadow Fleet and for US energy independence.
Hey, I’m an history nerd with actual consultation credits on a number of WWII related projects, and the grandchild of a WWII vet. And I can safely say that Almost all of the victories we won in WW2 were vastly less impressive and one sided than this.
So let me get this straight: this mysterious someone and by extension you for being daft enough to approvingly citing this are claiming that the equivalent of:
A: Pulling a Reverse Gran Sasso Raid to either (pick one or the other depending on how you believe is a closer parallel)
A: Capture Mussolini and much of his inner circle while killing many of his loyalists and a cabal of German troops guarding him,
Or
B: Capture Marshal Phibun the pro-Japanese dictator of Thailand, destroying a large chunk of Japanese and Thai equivalent and killing many Japanese spec ops and “advisors”
… while launching an air and naval operation that blew up Hitler and much of of his inner circle, then blew up at least a third of the people tasked with electing the new Fuhrer, and then all but destroyed the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine, and much of the repressive apparatus of censorship in occupied Europe such as the Gestapo HQ, and utterly destroying the means of nuclear production in Occupied Europe….
Is a solid indicator that the Axis are on the way to global victory and Hitler’s ghost will be able to rise up from his bomb-desiccated corpse to laugh as America is forced to speak German?
Do I understand this argument correctly, Jack?
Because if so it is a provably stupid, false argument. And anybody – and I mean ANYBODY – who has studied things like the Ploesti Raids that cost far more for far less gain would know better.
Oh there’s a cult well in its way to destroying the US, the West, and our place in the world. But it’s not Trump’s.
A rather frank commentary on events
(Warning language)
https://x.com/grey4626/status/2041902195273040363
So the cease fire appears more and more to be a mirage. Resume bombing.
My own view is that Trump loves negotiating and thinks he’s better at it than anyone – with some reason.
He just couldn’t resist a negotiating table where he has the two most effective militaries in the world on his side, and a foe incapable of defending themselves on the other.
This could be epic.
Mike Plaiss: Thanks for the link.
Turtler,
Said it before; these people are proof against facts and logic. No matter how much of either are presented, they go on prattling irrelevancies and lies as if you, or anyone else, has said nothing.
Have your heard the yelling at “protests”. Miles off from the issue at hand, not even related to anything real, just noise to keep the other side frustrated.
Another thing said before, by me; The Seditious Six screamed it’s illegal to follow illegal orders. I said they would eventually, if not shortly, start screaming something the US was doing was “illegal”. A war crime. And, annnnd, Aubrey was right, I susepct the hope is that some malleable chump–maybe an ordnanceman will keep a safety pin in the fuse–will do as “instructed.”
I’d like to know hoe much they’ve been paid and in what currency (promotion, money, publicity, political dirty tricks in the next election) and how it measures against what they think they might lose, and what, in the event, they really lose. Ahead or behind,
@Richard Aubrey
Indeed, and you were right about that. Still, only way to be sure about which ones fit into that category and which ones can be swayed is by trying. But like Neo and a few others I often find it useful to take even a few of the delusional, irrational headcases and take them to the woodshed for the benefit of anyone watching. Help arm others.
And you’re not wrong there. You are a great sage indeed. The Pythia of Delphi has nothing on your foresight, and to that I salute you.
It is amazing how many on the left argue that the Iran War isn’t a win or even a work in progress, but a complete failure.
I would like the Green Beanies to train and arm Iranian irregulars. Their actual original mission set. If the Iranian regime is not toppled we will still have to deal with them, possibly under less then optimal circumstances.
Has been funny to see the whiplash of Deranged Dems as they claim Trump is doing genocide, then that he’s a wimpy TACO.
But I bet on TAWAD – Trump Always Wants A Deal.
Pressure, including “rich & colorful” language, actually low class insults & uncouth bragging, plus asking for the moon as the first deal offer, then accepting something most folk would agree is pretty reasonable.
Regime change might be pushed more strongly by Israel, but will likely be mostly Persian Boots On The Ground. If it happens.
Prince Reza has tweeted asking his supporters to be patient, try to be safe & stay off the streets, no protests yet — waiting for the signal.
I believe there will be some signal & a definite outpouring of Persians in the street. Not at all sure it will be enough; it will likely be met by Iraqi Shia militia, from neighbor Arab Iraq, quite willing to massacre hundreds, thousands? of unarmed protesters. Kinda civil war. I’m hoping this doesn’t happen.
The biggest issues are whether the Straits are open (Keane “straits” plural) to shipping, and what happens to the uranium. Iran & Israel arguably violating the ceasefire, if not too damaging, will likely not restart more active fighting.
There is an app going around that allows bluetooth – bluetooth spreading news, without internet. There are more Starlink kits smuggled in. There are some unknown number of Persian Army & even some IRGC desertions, switching sides. If millions of Persians go on the streets, there is hope (by me) that a Preference Cascade among those with guns leads more to desert, and few to fire on other protesters.
I don’t know. But I’m sure this ceasefire is not close to the final act.
Is Trump is establishing American energy hegemony over the world and if so how big a win is that?
@Tom Grey: But I bet on TAWAD – Trump Always Wants A Deal.
I recall the sales maxim from David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross”:
________________________
ABC — Always Be Closing.
________________________
Mamet had an ear like Tom Wolfe’s for the Right Line.
And yeah, Trump is Always Be Closing.
@ Turtler vs JackPineAlsoRan – a knock out win for our resident Savage, as we would expect. I agree that it’s important to counter the Opposition’s talking points in the hopes that an undecided (or new) reader here will be convinced, and it also helps those of us without your depth of experience to have your arguments in mind during our own exchanges.
When you have recovered, take a shot at this one, if it’s not behind a paywall.
https://www.racket.news/p/interview-former-counterterrorism
Unfortunately, Matt’s video gear malfunctioned and Tracey did all the talking.
The transcript has the usual amusing AI errors, so be alert for those.
IMO, Kent actually comes off as more balanced than Tracey, but they both agree on the real villains persecuting the poor besieged Iranians: It’s the Jooooos!
Point-by-point, much of what both of them said falls into the same kind of misrepresentation of Trump’s words as the “there are good people on both sides” canards. Their main point is that Trump is (a) surrounded by agents of Israel (not just believers in the right of the Jewish state to exist without being constantly bombarded by Muslim enemies); (b) Trump has taken Jewish money for his campaigns and has to pay it back by kowtowing to Netanyahu (by implication, no facts or stats – calling DataRepublican!); (c) there was no need to come down on the Iranian regime, they were negotiating (and negotiating, and negotiating, and negotiating, and ….); and so forth.
I was particularly incensed by their chummy discussion about Trump violating all his pacifist pledges by putting actual boots on the ground in a macho display of allegiance to the Israeli agenda — without mentioning that they were Special Ops forces rescuing a downed pilot/WSO.
I started envisioning your probable replies, but am not up to your high standards.
The tone of the discussion between Kent and Tracey seemed familiar to me, and I finally placed it in a tab I had kept open because of that post’s interesting thesis that Trump is an exemplar of Hegel’s “world-historical individual,” and ultimately not in a complimentary way.
It is at News of the United States aka NOTUS, which I discovered via a reference, by Jeff Childers at Coffee & Covid, to a different post from that outlet.
I’ve left in a lot of the historical perspective the author is operating from, since not every reader is familiar with the past, and he does okay with that so far as I can tell. YMMV as usual.
https://www.notus.org/perspectives/trump-as-alexander-the-great-a-theory-that-explains-iran-and-everything-else
I will end the excerpt on that positive note.
First, let’s give credit where deserved: Judis does outline the situation in 2016 reasonably well, and lists the actions Trump took in his first administration in fairly neutral terms.
However, he has “primed the pump” with his opening remarks quoting Hegel, and in listing actions so far in this term, he misrepresents some of them in the same way that the Leftists do (compare to Kent and Tracey at the Racket post).
The main thing that struck me is that most of what the author cites as negative actions by Trump are ones that are viewed as positive by the people who voted him into office twice.
At the end of the post, Judis takes the gloves, and the mask, off: he is a partisan making the same talking points as the rest of the Democrat / Leftist / TDS pundits in order to demonstrate that Trump is the epitome of the Hegelian Monster.
All valid points. But in the next section, Neophiles will be able to spot the flaws in his premises (psychotherapy-at-a-distance included) and the examples he uses as his “evidence.”
Well, we have had a divided and angry (half of it anyway) electorate since 2016.
Some of those alliances needed rupturing.
I’m not seeing any emboldened adversaries at the moment, unless you want to interpret the Middle Eastern countries piling on against Iran as “emboldened former adversaries.”
If he means China and Russia, I guess we will have to wait and see.
In which era did we NOT operate in a “difficult and perilous world?”
IMO, Obama and Biden did a pretty good job of remaking the world as they inherited it into a more difficult and perilous place, which is why Trump had to undo so much of what they did.
I guess all world history and philosophy is interpreted from one’s own Point of View.
John Dos Passos wrote an article just after the end of WW2:
–John Dos Passos, “Americans Are Losing the Victory in Europe: Destitute Nations Feel That the US has Failed Them” (Life Magazine, Jan 1946)
I saved the pdf way back when. I can’t find it online now. The gist was that Europe was in pretty bad shape after the war. Which was true.
But it didn’t mean that America had lost that victory.
Dos Passos was still a leftist in those days. He had libertarian instincts and later turned to the right in the sixties. I recall William F. Buckley reminiscing about Dos Passos visiting the National Review office.
Moral: One can always find defeat in victory.
huxley on April 8, 2026 at 10:52 pm said:
John Dos Passos wrote an article just after the end of WW2:
–John Dos Passos, “Americans Are Losing the Victory in Europe: Destitute Nations Feel That the US has Failed Them” (Life Magazine, Jan 1946)
I saved the pdf way back when. I can’t find it online now.
_________________________________________
I was curious, so looked up the article at Archive.org. In case anybody else wants to read it, here’s how to get there.
citation:
Life. Jan 7, 1946, vol. 20, no.1. p.23-24 (p.25-26 on the pdf).
link:
https://tinyurl.com/bdda9wpp
Cornflour:
Wow!
That cover of Winston Churchill painting at his easel is priceless. There were giants in those days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill_as_a_painter
Would appear that DJT is the elephant (in the story) and all those blind, theorizing, intellectual bozos are wandering around him, touching, feeling, rubbing, probing, analyzing, wondering—BLINDLY, PATHETICALLY—trying with all their puny, perverted might to figure out what he is exactly, while doing their best to impugn what they MUST fail to understand…and end up only impugning themselves.
Alexander, eh?
Hegel?
Schicklgruber? (NEIN! WORSE THAN DER FEURHER!!)
Sure…why not…?
(As they say, “Whatever gets you through the night…”)
Deluded Kier Starmer flies to the Middle East, and tries to shoehorn himself into the process, talks to the press and says that he’s there to “help,” to take part in the cease fire negotiations.
Man, this turkey is a real piece of work, as he keeps talking about how “we” did this or that, when Mr. “not our war” didn’t do a damn thing.
Well done turtler, well done.
Turtler
The use of laying out the facts depends on the venue.
There is a widow in our area who was helped by a number of us, including physical labor, helping her move, so forth. I was probably the last one to keep up the weird heating system she had until she could move.
She hates Trump with an incandescent hate such that somebody pranked her into publishing a list of Trump’s failures…which were actually Biden’s but retitled just for fun.
I don’t hate Trump enough so she cut me off FB.
Ditto another woman with whom I’d worked in a field project in a dicey area in college going on sixty years ago. Helped in a position of physical danger. Just got back in touch with an on-line reunion of sorts. She asked if I were MAGA. No, I said, but conservative. Cut me off FB.
These people are insane. So the point is to put efforts toward the undecided and those maybe coming up–out of school or something.
Maybe it’s just me but it seems undignified to let some nutcase get me going, paragraph after paragraph of facts and logic, whileknowing they’re going to snort and call me a liar and go on their way laughing.
It may be useful to point out that everybody knows better–maybe a happening with limited interpretations available such as Alex Pretti, a nurse who goes to protests with a pistol not a first aid kit. Say what you like, buddy, but get this….everybody knows you’re lying and now you know everybody knows you know you’re lying,d If not useful, satisfying.
However, I will give myself an A with gold star for the Seditious Six prediction.
Looks like Iran is testing Trump’s resolve by limiting number of ships passing the Strait and charging tolls….all due, according to them, from Israel’s actions in Lebanon. The administration keeps saying things are different behind the scenes. I hope so, but……
Iran is
Maybe this is the problem. Maybe there isn’t AN Iran anymore. It seems more likely there’s a dozen or a hundred factions in Iran each doing their own thing now. And one of them has to be big enough to coerce the others into sticking to anything agreed to. That one might actually require outside help to get into that position. If we expect to choose which one, we’d be supplying the help. Things could get a lot weirder.
I feel confident only in predicting that nothing we read about it online is going to make it clear.
@Niketas Choniates: I feel confident only in predicting that nothing we read about it online is going to make it clear.
I take it that would include your musings as well?
Well LL and the other risible loons can breathe easier; their KI pills may arrive in time after all. Saved no doubt by the TACO effect ( sarc x 11).
@huxley:I take it that would include your musings as well?
Yes, it would. I don’t have sekrit information. At times I think it’s better to be uninformed than misinformed. Sometimes I can see when a narrative doesn’t fit the other public facts, and because I have had various day jobs over the years I can see when media (legacy or new) is deceiving us about what’s going in those fields, but in most cases that’s the limit of what I can do. And since on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog, no one has any reason to treat what I write as though it’s gold, even if I really am right.
I predict Trump will win in Iran, which means the whole World, including but not limited to Israeli, Europe, Japan and the Persian People. The winning for China and Russia will be longer-term – not their current regimes.
Everytime I have predicted Trump would lose – 2016 R Nomination and 2224 R Nomination – I was wrong. Betting against Trump is a sucker bet.
A small world anecdote:
Niketas Choniates on April 9, 2026 at 1:26 pm:
” At times I think it’s better to be uninformed than misinformed.”
Yesterday I was trying to find a quote* from Thomas Jefferson when I came across one where he said something very similar to you. I believe it was in relation to creating the Univ. of VA.
I just now found what I was looking for then: “But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
https://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/2260
I recalled it having something to do with his wallet or money, and pocket, but I did not recall the word pocket as being needed as part of the search string. Then I remembered it was also in relation to his views on religion, and that search path was successful.
@ R2L – no arguments with Jefferson as far as he goes, but the current problem is that we are dealing with People Who Have a Mission to make your accept their 20 gods or they will kill you.
And on the other side (oddly allied with the first side) are the People Who Have a Mandate (so they believe) to force you to agree with them that there is no god.
Or they will kill you.
This looks like the place to memorialize another perceptive maxim, from another of the Founders (although I haven’t taken the time yet to verify it).
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/04/08/yesterday-was-probably-the-most-insane-anti-trump-leftists-have-acted-since-2016-yesterday-n2674085#comment-6860834462
anon-azr7 2 days ago
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Thomas Paine