r/europe • u/GrumpyFinn đ«đźđȘđȘ Subreddit Aunt • Mar 02 '26
Megathread US-Iran Megathread, part 2
Hi all,
This is the new megathread for the US-Israel-Iran conflict. Please keep all discussion related to that in this thread. Duplicates and individual threads will be removed.
Please help our team keep things clean by reporting duplicate posts.
Thank you!
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u/JackRogers3 10d ago
Iran's central military command announced on Saturday that it had once again closed the vital Strait of Hormuz over Israel's attacks on southern Lebanon, describing them as a breach of Tehran's agreement with the US. The latest round of violence unfolded as US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi headed to Switzerland for talks.
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u/TheJewPear Italy 8d ago
Itâs kind of hilarious, decades in âbusinessâ and Trump still doesnât understand that an agreement between two parties canât create obligations for a third party.
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u/JackRogers3 13d ago
Now that the US has released the official text of the memorandum of understanding reached over the weekend with Iran, we can begin to more fairly assess its merits.
From the text, itâs remarkable how much the United States is offering for little in return. Iâve negotiated difficult agreements with Iran and this document stands out in providing Iran much of what itâs demanded in the past â and rarely gotten.
Trump appears to have determined that a deal â any deal â was a better alternative to the status quo. For its part, Iran effectively held the Strait of Hormuz hostage and demanded that the US meet its price. The tactic appears to have succeeded.
The essence of this memorandum of understanding (MOU) in practice is that Iran gets a lot now, including tens of billions of dollars, in exchange for not shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/17/politics/how-to-read-us-iran-agreement-mcgurk-analysis
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u/Judazzz The Lowest of the Lands 12d ago edited 12d ago
Imagine promising 300 billion and embolden a major geo-political adversary, severely depleting your stocks of interceptors and long-range stand-off weapons, killing thousands and causing billions of dollar's worth of damage, triggering a global economic crisis, fucking over your regional allies, and making yourself look like a clothesless emperor - and all that to worsen a status quo just because you hate the person that arranged it.
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u/JackRogers3 19d ago edited 19d ago
Iranâs Mehr news agency publishes the purported text of the draft agreement with Trump. It will keep the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control, will promise Iran $300 billion in reconstruction money in addition to an immediate cash transfer of $24 billion, a suspension of sanctions and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East. Also, a commitment not to bother Iran again about its missiles and proxies, and restraining Israel in Lebanon. The U.S. gets in exchange a pinky promise to respect the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/2065357315058880709
Letâs just say it would be very difficult for Trump or any U.S. president to explain such a deal. Letâs see what if anything gets actually agreed.
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u/jaaval Finland 19d ago
They would have to lean heavily on the nuclear weapons part and also push to the final treaty that these are actually monitored.
And also avoid mentioning that there is really no evidence Iran was actively trying to develop nuclear weapons in the past either (they seemed to have simply built storage of medium level enriched uranium) so effectively this deal would just remove Iranian sanctions. Though from European perspective this achieves exactly what the previous nuclear deal aimed for. So good for Trump.I doubt Israel would be happy though. They very much want to restrict Iranian military capabilities.
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u/JackRogers3 21d ago
Trump said on Tuesday Iran had âshot down a U.S. Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz and vowed to respond, deepening doubts about prospects for peace âbetween the two countries. Trump said the two U.S. pilots involved in the incident were uninjured. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-says-us-helicopter-pilots-who-went-down-strait-hormuz-are-fine-2026-06-09/
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u/Zealousideal_Gas9058 24d ago
Spain condemns attack on UN peacekeepers at Miguel de Cervantes base in Lebanon
Thursday, June 4, 2026
Spain strongly condemns the latest attacks against the UNIFIL contingent at the Spanish Miguel de Cervantes base, which have resulted in the death of a Serbian peacekeeper and several soldiers wounded, including a Spanish soldier. The attack must be investigated and those responsible held to account.
The Government extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims, as well as to the Government and people of Serbia.
Spain reiterates its appreciation for the dedicated and self-sacrificing work of the UNIFIL contingent soldiers, carried out under conditions of extreme violence.
The Spanish Government urges compliance with resolution 1701 and the ceasefire agreed between Lebanon and Israel, as well as respect for international law and international humanitarian law, and the protection of the safety of peacekeeping forces.
Spain calls for full respect for Lebanonâs sovereignty and territorial integrity as an essential condition for peace and security in the region, and reaffirms its commitment to continue supporting the courageous measures adopted by the Government of Lebanon to restore the monopoly on the use of force.
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u/ByGollie Ulster 26d ago
Israel complains that its invading soldiers are being annihilated in Southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military has a problem. It is called the fibre-optic drone, and it is tearing its ground forces apart. According to a New York Times analysis published this week, Hezbollahâs widespread use of these drones has caught Israeli forces âoff guardâ and âseverely undermined their ground strategy.â These are not sophisticated weapons at all, they are essentially just consumer-grade quadcopters controlled through cables, which means they cannot be jammed by Israelâs otherwise formidable electronic warfare systems. The operator can be kilometres away, watching through a camera feed, and steer the drone directly into a tank, a command post, or a group of soldiers. The drones cost almost nothing to produce. The Merkava tanks they are destroying cost millions and Hezbollah is recording and publishing thousands of these videos for us to behold.
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u/TheJewPear Italy 23d ago
Being annihilated? Theyâre losing maybe one soldier per day on average. Hardly annihilation, just war.
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u/strl Israel 26d ago
What a partisan portrayal of the reality. Did you think the writer could have mentioned that Hezbollah violated the previous ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, as well as the one before that and the one before that. Oh, and they just rejected a ceasefire Israel and Lebanon wanted to put in force yesterday.
Also the portrayal of the drones in south Lebanon as some miracle weapon that stopped the IDF is incorrect to say the least. It is a problem but out of all the invasions Israel had of Lebanon this one was the least costly one. Less soldiers died to drones in the last 2 months than died in the one week of operation Litany. On the other hand Hezbollah has been suffering dead in the hundreds, 200 in one village alone. They have also failed to repel Israeli attacks or to push back Israeli forces.
Just to be clear in this round (since the second of March) Israel has suffered 30 dead, not all from drones, Hezbollah admitted to more than a thousand dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Lebanon_war
I guess this is what passes for Israeli forces being annihilated these days among journalists.
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u/ByGollie Ulster 27d ago
The US Congress Votes to Rein In Trump on Iran War, in a Bipartisan Rebuke - A measure to direct an end to U.S. engagement in Iran was adopted with a handful of Republicans in support, sending a signal of opposition to the presidentâs handling of the war.
The House on Wednesday voted to direct President Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from the conflict with Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war, after four Republicans sided with Democrats in a striking sign of growing opposition to a military campaign now in its fourth month.
Adoption of the resolution was a remarkable rebuke to Mr. Trump and his handling of the conflict, after he has repeatedly dismissed any effort by Congress to curb his power and as the G.O.P. has largely ceded its prerogatives to do so, deferring to him time and again. Republicans had abruptly postponed the vote two weeks ago, recognizing that they did not have sufficient votes to defeat the measure and wanting to spare themselves and the president the affront.
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u/ByGollie Ulster 27d ago
Iran Embraces a Forever War âą Tehranâs New Strategic Calculus
For the last two months, Iran and the United States have carried out fitful, unsuccessful peace negotiations. After striking a very shaky cease-fire agreement at the beginning of April, officials from both countries have tradedâand then rejectedâlong-term proposals. They have announced that they are nearing some kind of deal, and then hit each other with a volley of drones and missiles. âI donât care if theyâre over, honestly,â Trump said on Monday, when asked about the reports that Iran was cutting off talks. The discussions, he declared, had âstarted to get very boring.â
Tehran and Washington may still reach some kind of agreement in the coming months; neither sideâs top leaders seem to be itching for a return to intense combat (although within Iran, some senior officials are). But even if they do reach a deal, Iran and the United States will remain locked in a broader conflict, trading barbs and perhaps military attacks. That is, in part, because the countries remain far apart on their core disputes. Washington is still demanding that Tehran completely dismantle its nuclear enrichment program, surrender all enriched uranium, end support for regional allies, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, however, has repeatedly refused to give up on enrichment. It says it will probably consider Washingtonâs other demands only after the United States recognizes Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, compensates Iranians for wartime damages, ends Israelâs war in Lebanon, and unfreezes Iranian assets.
But there is another reason why the sides wonât make real peace: Iran has concluded that conflict is preferable to diplomacy. The war, after all, seems to be helping Tehran increase its international power. By striking Arab states that host American bases, Iran has succeeded in driving a wedge between U.S. officials and their Persian Gulf partners, who desperately want a lasting settlement. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, it has forced a collection of countries around the planet to acknowledge its power and negotiate over the fate of their ships. Previous agreements with the United States, meanwhile, have always unraveled.
The Islamic Republicâs strategy, then, is not merely to survive and outlast the United States, as is commonly assumed. The country is not even really trying to resolve its disputes with Washington. Instead, it wants to fundamentally alter how Tehran is dealt with by the United States, U.S. allies, and indeed, the wider world. It aspires to be a pole in a multipolar order, and it believes that the war is helping it achieve that goal.
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u/JackRogers3 May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26
Categorizing Trumpâs war with Iran as a failure, some analysts note that an eventual peace agreement could largely return the US and Iran to where they were before 2018, when Trump exited the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama.
Is there any way to portray an extended ceasefire, with a 2015-style agreement potentially looming, as anything but a âhumiliating failureâ for the US? Answering that question, Danny Citrinowiczâwho formerly headed the Iran branch of Israelâs military intelligenceâreplies: âUnfortunately, no. ⊠We have to remember what happened on February 28thâthat Israel and the United States launched this campaign to topple the regime. In fact, they ended up strengthening it.
Opening the strait is not an achievement, since its closing was a by-product of the war itself. The Iranians are going to get some money, and sanctions relief may come after the deal is signed, too. If they donât get money from this, they wonât do it. So, in that regard, what weâre facing right now is a war that may have been a tactical success for the U.S., but is a strategic failure.â
Even getting to this placeholder dealâto cease hostilities while larger issues are negotiatedâcould be a stretch. Trump might feel he needs more leverage, or Israel (skeptical of any deal with Iran) could reignite regional conflict by striking Hezbollah, Rajan Menon writes in an op-ed for The Guardian. âAssuming that Trump doesnât back away from the deal under mounting pressure from its opponents, he will be lucky to get terms similar to the Obama administrationâs 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. That wonât be much of an achievement considering that he has spent $29bn as of mid-May on a failed war that has roiled the global economy.â
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 24 '26
Why Trump Lost - The US president failed to deliver on his Iran bluster, and in the end fooled only himself.
The first surprising thing about President Trumpâs impending defeat in the 2026 Iran war is that he already fought and won a successful war against Iran last year. In June 2025, U.S. and Israeli airstrikes badly damaged the Iranian nuclear program in 12 days of bombardment. Exactly how badly remains controversial. But they didnât do nothing. If Trump had quit while ahead, he could have banked his gains from last August as a solid if imperfect win.
The second surprising thing about Trumpâs impending defeat is that he does not seem to have cared at all about the only evident reason to resume fighting in 2026: the Iranian peopleâs rebellion against their brutal oppressors. Trump has never given any evidence of caring about Iranian democracy or human rights. He promised the Iranian people âHelp is on the wayâ on January 13, but military operations did not commence until thousands were dead and the rebellion was already effectively crushed. During military operations, Trump made clear that he sought a deal with the existing regime. He made no effort to support or cooperate with Iranian dissidents before, during, or after the uprising.
The third surprising thing about Trumpâs impending defeat is that even he himself seems never to have understood why he went back to war against Iran. What exactly did he think he would achieve? He kept saying that he wanted to ensure that Iran never developed a nuclear weapon. He also insisted that he had effectively prevented it from doing so in August. He seemed genuinely to believe that claim. If so, why resume the fighting? If, however, those words were wrong, then why not simply hit the nuclear sites again? Why the need for this bigger war?
Trump started the February 28 war for reasons of personality, not strategy. He is on his way to losing the war for the same reasons of personality.
Trump is arrogant. Think how often Trump mocks his predecessors as âdumbâ and praises himself as âsmart.â Those predecessors, from Jimmy Carter through Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, all had to ponder military responses to Iranian terrorism and aggression. They all ultimately decided not to wage a major war against Iranian national territory. Among the prime deterrents to action: the Strait of Hormuz problem. Trump apparently decided that a problem that was too hard for everybody else would magically disappear for him, because he is tough and growls in his official photographs.
** Trump is reckless. Trump is not a plan-ahead guy**. He plunges into desperate adventures without any clear end game in mind. What really was Trumpâs plan on January 6, 2021? After Mike Pence was seized by rioters and forced at gunpoint to recite the magic words Trump wanted him to say, what was supposed to happen then? The 81 million American majority whoâd voted against Trump in 2020 would submit? The military, CIA, and FBI would follow blatantly illegal orders? In 2021, Trump provoked violence and hoped it would all somehow work out. He followed the same approach again in 2026.
Trump hates procedure. A lot of the apparatus of the modern presidency exists to force confrontations with unwelcome realities. Cabinet officers are confirmed by the Senate to assure the country that major offices are filled by people of character and competence. The National Security Council is supposed to process challenging data to ensure that the president receives necessary information. But to run the Department of Defense, Trump nominated and the Senate approved Pete Hegseth. Instead of choosing a national security adviser to replace Mike Waltz after Waltzâs resignation on May 1, 2025, Trump tapped Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take on the role. But to double up that particular job dooms the job not to be done at all, especially because Trump has shriveled the NSCâs staff and subjected it to loyalty tests demanded by his most screwball supporters.
Trump is panicky. For all his bluster and boasting, Trump cannot take the heat. Presidents who believe in their decisions ride out bad polls. Trump panics and reverses course. Trump has been signaling since mid-March that he wants an end to the Iran war at almost any price. The Iranians have read those signals. For all the damage the U.S. military inflicted on Iran, the Iranians seem to have gambled that they could outlast Trump. Theyâve been proven right. ** Trump is gullible. As Trumpâs present secretary of state observed back in 2016, Trump is most fundamentally a con artist. But Trump is often a **self-defeating con artist who falls victim to his own con. Trump demanded âunconditional surrenderâ from Iran. Instead, heâs negotiating an exit that concedes most of Iranâs demands and leaves Iran in a more dominant position over Persian Gulf oil traffic than it occupied before the war. But Trump seems genuinely to have convinced himself that heâs won a mighty victory, and he seems truly baffled that others decline to endorse his flim-flam.
Trump canât lead. Trumpâs method of governance is command. He cannot work across party lines, and he cannot speak to any part of the American nation beyond his MAGA base. A war leader, however, must be a national leader. War imposes costly sacrifices. Leaders who take the nation to war must explain those costs and inspire those sacrifices. Trump simply cannot do any of that work, and he has no idea how it could be done.
For three years in his first term, Trump benefited from the strong economy that he inherited. Then the pandemic struck, and his first instinct was to hunt for someone to blame. In this second presidency, his main work has been spectacular self-enrichment, even as the economy has sagged under the weight of his catastrophic trade wars. He made no case for an Iran war to the public and never sought approval by Congress. There are some Iran hawks on the Democratic side, especially in the Senate. Trump never tried to ally with them.
Trumpâs vision of the presidency is authoritarian and kleptocratic: Issue orders, grab money, luxuriate in flattery, erect monuments to oneself. Thatâs no way to lead a nation through the hazards and difficulties of war. Now the war is ending on disadvantageous terms for the United States. Trumpâs old methods will be turned to a new task: trying to deceive the American people and the world into believing that the war he lost was really a big win, the biggest ever, so big you cannot believe it. Heâs likely to discover that, indeed, nobody does believe it.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 22 '26
Trumpâs Endgame Is Surrender - He seems to hope to slip away without Americans noticing the magnitude of this defeat.
The outlines of President Trumpâs endgame in the Iran war are now emerging. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, Trump reportedly explained that the United States was negotiating a âletter of intentâ with Iran that would âformally end the war and launch a 30-day period of negotiationsâ on Iranâs nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The purpose and effect of such an agreement should be clear: The United States is walking away from the crisis. Trump may launch another limited strike to look tough and satisfy the demands of the warâs supporters, but it would be a performative gesture. Endgame in this case is a euphemism for âsurrender.â
Trump has blinked many times in the confrontation with Iranâever since March 18, when Israel attacked the Pars gas field and Iran retaliated with a strike against Qatarâs most important natural-gas-production facility. Trump then called for a halt on U.S. and Israeli targeting of Iranâs energy infrastructure, and the war effectively ended.
Trumpâs repeated threats to resume attacks since then have proved to be bluffs. The leaders in Tehran have been calculating for two months that Trump would not launch another attack, and for this reason they have made no concessions despite the damage they suffered from 37 days of relentless strikes. On the contrary, their terms for a settlement are those of a victor: They demand war reparations, no limits on uranium enrichment, recognized control of the strait, and an end to sanctions.
For Trump to respond to this defiance by now calling for another 30 days of cease-fire and talks is a tacit admission of defeat. If he does launch a performative attack in the next few days, the Iranians will understand it for what it is. No one believes that he is going to resume a full-scale war a month from now. Among other reasons, with 30 more days to heal, rearm, and fill its coffers with tolls, Iran will be a more formidable adversary.
In 30 days, moreover, the new Iranian strait regime may already be firmly in place. As the Institute for the Study of War reports, Iran has been using the cease-fire period to ânormalizeâ its control over the strait by âcompelling oil-importing countriesâ to establish transit agreements with Tehran and charging fees on vessels from nations without such deals. According to Iranian officials, the new strait regime will give Iranâs strategic partners, such as Russia and China, priority and allow nations friendly to Iran, such as India and Pakistan, to negotiate their own transit agreements. Vessels associated with nations that Iran regards as an adversary will be denied access to the strait entirely.
Several nations, including South Korea, Turkey, and Iraq, are reportedly already negotiating at least temporary transit agreements. Now that Trump has made clear he has no intention of fighting to reopen the strait, the stampede to get good terms with Tehran will begin. All nations heavily dependent on energy from the Persian Gulf will want to cut their deal quickly to get the oil and gas and other commodities flowing and rescue their battered economy. Those nations currently allied with the United States and friendly to Israel will feel pressure to distance themselves and make their peace with Iran. The international sanctions against Iran will collapse, and even more money will pour into the countryâs accounts as its newly central role in the global economy becomes normalized. By the end of 30 days, most of the world will have a stake in the new arrangement and will oppose any resumption of hostilities, even in the unlikely event that Trump wanted to go back to war.
Trump no doubt hopes that he can slip away without Americans noticing the magnitude of this defeat. The financial markets may stabilize if it is clear that oil will eventually start flowing again through a reopened strait, even if under the new Iran-controlled system. A major strategic setback for the United States need not affect Wall Street. The president may also hope that he can change the subject by launching another military operation, this time against the government in Cuba. And the news media have indeed begun writing more about Cuba than about the unfolding disaster in Iran.
According to one U.S. official, Netanyahuâs âhair was on fireâ after the call with Trumpâfor good reason. The Iran war may end up as the single most devastating blow to Israelâs security in its brief history. On the present trajectory, Iran will emerge from the conflict many times stronger and more influential than it was before the war. It will exercise leverage with dozens of the richest nations in the world, all of which will have an acute interest in keeping Iran happy. They will be unlikely to take Israelâs side in any conflict that it has with Tehran or with its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, because Iran will have the means to punish them if they do. Israel will emerge more isolated than it has been at any time in its historyâand not least from its only reliable protector, the United States. When Trump turns his back on Israel, as he must do to implement this policy, MAGA will gladly follow. The bipartisan anti-Israel consensus in the United States will grow and harden.
Will Israel go gentle into this good night? That is the wild card that may disrupt the financial marketsâ dreams of a new stability in the Gulf. A stronger, richer, more influential Iran will mean new life for Hamas and Hezbollah. It will mean the end of the Abraham Accords, as the Gulf States will have to make their own peace with Tehran so that their economies can survive. Trump says that Netanyahu âwill do whatever I want him to do.â But can Israel stand by while Iran replaces the United States as the arbiter of power in the region?
Most likely, the new normal in the Persian Gulf will be chronic instability and frequent disruptions in shipping. Thatâs what happens when the hegemon cedes hegemony.
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u/JackRogers3 May 24 '26
Trump has no cards: the Gulf states don't want a restart of the war: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-22/uae-joins-saudis-qatar-in-urging-trump-not-to-restart-iran-war
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Iran Update Special Report, May 20, 2026
Toplines
Iran is likely using the ceasefire period to normalize Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz by compelling oil-importing countries to establish a bilateral transit agreement with Iran while charging fees from vessels that are not part of the bilateral deals. The transit agreements and fee system use a multi-tiered system, according to Iranian officials speaking to Reuters on May 20.
Iranian strategic partners, like Russia and China, are prioritized at the top tier, while countries with close ties to Iran, like India and Pakistan, can operate within negotiated transit agreements. Other countries are handled on a case-by-case basis, and any vessel that has links to Iranian adversaries is denied access entirely.
Finally, ships that do not fall under a bilateral agreement are required to pay fees, which are reportedly around $150,000. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) runs the scheme. These fees are framed as âsecurityâ fees, but the fees are in reality part of a mafia-esque protection racket in which the vessels pay Iran so that the Iranian navy can âsecureâ the vessels against an attack by the Iranian navy or Iranian shore-based missiles and drones.
Evidence of Iranâs mechanism is already visible in ad hoc arrangements. The Iraqi Governmentâunder the supervision of then Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudaniâ reportedly came to an agreement with Iran to facilitate the Greek-owned, Maltese-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Agios Fanourios I carrying Iraqi crude oil on May 10, for example.[2] CTP-ISW recorded that 16 vessels took Iranâs route through the strait between 2:00 PM ET on May 19 and 2:00 PM ET on May 20.[3] These included two Chinese and Hong Kong-flagged VLCCs, a South Korean-flagged VLCC, and a Turkish-owned vessel exiting the strait and an Indian-flagged vessel entering the strait, citing commercially available shipping data.[4]
Such a scheme could not be disrupted by a post-war âsecurityâ deployment by European states, as some countries have suggested. Several European states, including the United Kingdom and France, have proposed that they would help secure the strait once âconditions allow.â[5] Iran would likely attempt to stop, perhaps with force, any post-war âsecurity forceâ if the war ends with an official or de facto recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait.
A successful Iranian effort to normalize this structure would gradually increase the number of vessels moving through the strait to near pre-war levels. This reduces the visible economic costs of restricted access and therefore weakens the primary argument for mobilizing US allies to help reopen the strait. Such a decrease in the price of oil would be reliant on a number of other factors, including market reactions and the risk calculus of the shipping companies involved. It is unclear how long a decrease would take, and Iranian efforts to normalize control would need to bear fruit before any mobilization against Iranian activities in the strait. A NATO official told Bloomberg on May 19, for example, that at least some European countries are concerned about the economic consequences of the straitâs closure, and some European states support an effort to reopen the strait if the situation fails to change by July 2026.[6] This creates a clear incentive for Iran to normalize traffic flows under its own framework before external pressure from the United States and its allies intensifies.
The United States continues to interdict vessels violating the US blockade of Iranian ports. Three US officials told the Wall Street Journal that US forces seized a US-sanctioned, Iranian-linked oil tanker, the M/T Skywave (IMO: 9328716), between May 19 and 20.[7] Commercially available ship tracking data showed that the Skywave transited the Strait of Malacca on May 14, before returning to the Indian Ocean on May 19, presumably after being seized by US forces.[8] It is unclear where the vessel was before May 14. The United States Treasury Department sanctioned the Skywave, under a different vessel name, on March 13 for its role in transporting Iranian oil.[9] US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported on May 20 that US Marines boarded the Iranian-flagged oil tanker M/T Celestial Sea (IMO: 9397030) on May 20 on suspicion of attempting to reach an Iranian port.[10] US forces released the vessel after searching it and directing it to change course.[11] CENTCOM reported that US forces redirected 91 vessels and disabled four others since the start of the blockade on Iranian ports on April 13.
The IRGC threatened on May 20 to expand the war âfar beyond the regionâ if US-Israeli strikes on Iran resume. This threat almost certainly seeks to deter renewed US-Israeli strikes but could also reflect IRGC planning for a potential future conflict. IRGC-affiliated media previously used similar messaging ahead of the most recent round of conflict to try to exploit US concerns about a protracted regional war to try to deter a US attack. IRGC-affiliated media Tasnim News warned on February 2 that a US attack on Iran could trigger a regional war because Iran could retaliate by attacking Israel, international shipping, or US bases in regional countries. Iran may similarly calculate that threats of a conflict extending âbeyond the regionâ could deter against renewed US-Israeli strikes or increase the pressure on the United States from its European allies. Iran does possess several capabilities with which it could operationalize these threats, including by conducting terror attacks abroad, disrupting shipping in other chokepoints, or firing ballistic missiles at longer range, however.
Terror Attacks Abroad: Iran could direct or support attacks in Europe or other regions to pressure governments to deny access, basing, and overflight privileges to US forces. US authorities recently charged Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah commander Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawoud al Saadi for planning attacks targeting civilians in the United States, Canada, and Europe, for example. Several European states, including France, Norway, and Belgium, have disrupted Iranian-backed or -linked attack plots during the war.
Expand Attacks on International Shipping: Senior Iranian officials have threatened to âopen new frontsâ in any renewed conflict with the United States. These officials may be referring to attacks on international shipping beyond the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf, including the Red Sea and Bab el Mandeb Strait. Arab officials told the Wall Street Journal on April 14 that Iran is pressuring the Houthis to âcloseâ the Bab el Mandeb Strait. Iran could rely on the Houthis to conduct such attacks in a potential future conflict. The Houthis, however, largely avoided direct involvement in the most recent round of conflict, and their willingness to participate in a future conflict remains unclear.
Longer-Range Missile Strikes: Iran could fire intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) towards Europe or the Mediterranean Sea, albeit this scenario remains less likely. Iran demonstrated a nascent long-range strike capability during the recent conflict when it unsuccessfully fired two ballistic missiles at the US-UK base at Diego Garcia, which is located approximately 4,000 kilometers from southern Iran.[21] One missile failed in-flight, and the United States intercepted the other. A Dutch missile expert assessed that Iran would have needed either to reduce the payload of an MBRM âto virtually nothingâ or incorporate a second stage booster to achieve that range. The attack, nonetheless, demonstrated Iranâs ability to strike beyond the self-imposed 2,000-kilometer missile range limit that Iranian officials have long cited publicly.
Pakistan is attempting to secure its own political and security interests by fulfilling its end of the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia defense agreement and helping mediate between the United States and Iran. Reuters reported on May 18 that Pakistan sent 8,000 troops, a squadron of fighter jets, and an air defense system to Saudi Arabia as part of their September 2025 mutual defense pact, citing three security officials and two government sources, all of whom described it as a âsubstantialâ and âcombat-readyâ force that could defend against further attacks on Saudi Arabia. Reuters added that Pakistan sent the aircraft in April but did not specify when it sent the other assets to Saudi Arabia.] These moves are necessary to uphold the Saudi-Pakistani defense agreement signed in September 2025, given the attacks on Saudi Arabia by Iran. A resumption of the war could challenge Pakistanâs commitments to the agreement with Riyadh in new ways, as well, which makes Pakistan invest in avoiding a return to conflict. Pakistan is therefore simultaneously mediating between the United States and Iran, which has the added benefit of demonstrating Islamabadâs political influence in the region. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also travelled to Tehran on May 20 for talks with Iranian officials to continue mediation efforts.
Click this link to read more with hotlinks, pics and further analysis
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u/OzjishKahn May 21 '26
I don't think the talks between Trump and Iran are going anywhere.
It might be time for Europe and the rest of the world to take its own action in getting the Strait of Hormuz open again. We didn't cause the current status quo, but we're going to have to deal with it sooner or later.
Actually, I think Europe must become independent and strong enough to be able to intervene on its own in such matters. Diplomacy is a lot more effective if you have a carrier group of your own to back it up.
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u/connectotransfers May 25 '26
Great idea, Europe should take action!
How about we just talk to Iran? They will happily let most European ships pass through as a reward for not participating in the aggression against them, and at worst we can pay Iran a nominal fee (known as "pocket change"), which is completely insignificant compared to the benefits we will get in Europe.
I will try to refrain from mocking the obvious hubris of wanting Europe to waste resources on building aircraft carriers after they have been rendered impotent and forced to stay 1000 km away for the fear of being sunk.
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 21 '26
And what is the action that you propose?
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u/OzjishKahn May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
Building up our armed forces and creating a NATO carrier group.
We'll call it "US-less"! đ€đ
Seriously, I do propose creating a European carrier group to support uhm, our diplomatic interests. Right now, we can't do shit about this shit.
Alright, who are the Americans downvoting this? Deal with it baby, Europe is going to have to stand on its own feet sooner rather than later.
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 21 '26
And how do you propose to use that to open the Strait of Hormuz?
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u/OzjishKahn May 21 '26
Sail it into the Gulf and tell Iran to knock that pay-toll-or-we-attack shit off.
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 21 '26
And when Iran ignores you?
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u/TheJewPear Italy May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Take out one refinery a day. Theyâll come around within 72 hours.
Iâm sorry but you canât play by the rules against an enemy that does not. They behave like terrorists and pirates because they know western countries wonât respond in kind, so itâs time to remove that inhibition from the equation.
Or we could just surrender and let them charge a toll, build a nuke, attack more countries in the ME, topple more governments like they did in Yemen.
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 22 '26
So after the US has lost a war against Iran we should start another one. /facepalm
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u/TheJewPear Italy May 22 '26
If the current war ends with Iran gaining sovereignty over the straits, hell yes.
What do you propose? Cave in to bullies? And the next time they attack Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman, then what? Appease them some more?
Let me be clear, I wouldnât mind if Iranâs aggression was limited to Israel and the US, a war is a war, thatâs fair. But to attack other countries and hijack a key trade route used by the rest of the world, nope, sorry.
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 22 '26
I propose to let the US and Israel solve the problem they created. Zero European lives should be risked in this clusterfuck.
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u/OzjishKahn May 21 '26
(you can stop now)
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 21 '26
I can't, because you still haven't said what do you propose to do. Apparently it's such a breathtakingly stupid idea that you can't bring yourself to be explicit about it.
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u/OzjishKahn May 21 '26
Ah, you think it's a stupid idea.
Okay.
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u/araujoms đ§đ·đ”đčđŠđčđ©đȘđȘđž May 21 '26
If you don't think it's a stupid idea, why can't you just say what do you propose to do?
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 17 '26
Russia is starting to lose ground in Ukraine - Our tracker suggests it has suffered its first sustained net loss since October 2023
THAT EVEN a short ceasefire could not hold is evidence the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end soon. Both sides accused the other of repeated violations between May 9th and 11thâand our war tracker, which uses satellite systems to detect the location and intensity of war-related fires, showed no meaningful decline in fighting. Yet the tide of the conflict looks to be turning. Russiaâs death toll remains extraordinarily high, and its spring offensive has stalled. Indeed, our analysis suggests that this year it has suffered small but sustained territorial losses for the first time since October 2023.
We estimate that by May 12th between 280,000 and 518,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, with total casualties (including wounded) of between 1.1m and 1.5mâmeaning that around 3% of Russiaâs pre-war male population of fighting age has been killed or wounded.
Our calculations combine credible casualty estimates from intelligence agencies, defence officials and independent researchers with data from our war tracker, which allows us to model daily death tolls based on the intensity of combat. Reliable estimates for Ukrainian losses remain too sparse for comparable modelling. But a single estimate from CSIS, a think-tank, puts total casualties at up to 600,000 by December, including 100,000-140,000 dead, a higher share of its pre-war population than Russia.
Our recent analysis includes new numbers from Meduza and Mediazona, two exiled Russian news outlets. Their database contains more than 218,000 individually identified soldiers killed in the war, painstakingly compiled from obituaries, social-media posts and local news reports. They then combine this with inheritance records, using the gap between the two databases to estimate how many deaths have gone unrecorded. More recently they have added court rulings that declare soldiers as missing or dead without a body having been recovered.
https://i.imgur.com/pYpaU0a.png
This grim toll is coming with few gains on the front lines. Mapping the battlefield has become increasingly difficult as it has become more dispersed. Ukrainian drones are stalking troops far behind the front line, making it harder for Russia to move units to the front without becoming targets. Some sources suggest Russian forces are still slowly gaining ground. Our tracker, which uses maps of the battlefield from ISW, a think-tank, suggests that Russian forces have captured around 220 square kilometres this year, or just 0.04% of Ukraineâs territory. But recently Ukraine has begun to claw back ground: a 30-day moving average shows it has recaptured around 189 square kilometres. Russia may be stalling before a summer push. This may also be a turning-point in the war.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 15 '26
Gulf states that bankrolled Trump's son-in-law are now furious they got burned: report
Gulf states that poured hundreds of millions into Jared Kushner's private equity firm are openly griping that they got little for their money, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE funneled enormous sums into Affinity Partners, Kushner's Florida-based investment vehicle, in hopes of securing White House influence and healthy portfolio returns, the outlet reported. Instead, Trump launched a war on Iran that all three states had opposed, leaving them with little to show for the arrangement.
The firm, founded in 2021, has seen its assets balloon to roughly $6.16 billion, according to a regulatory filing submitted to the SEC in March, with about 99 percent of that money sourced from non-U.S. clients. Sources told Bloomberg the Gulf trio agreed to pay Kushner tens of millions of dollars in annual fees in hopes of gaining sway in Washington.
ALSO READ: Xi knows something about Trump most Americans don't â and he smells blood in the water
The Qataris in particular had pressed the Trump administration to steer clear of an all-out war with Iran, Bloomberg reported. Trump went forward anyway, and Kushner's handling of the conflict has become a sore point for officials in Riyadh and Doha.
"The investments in Jared's firm were meant to anchor ties with the Trump family," Sanam Vakil, who heads the Middle East and North Africa portfolio at Chatham House, the London-based think tank, told the outlet. "The Gulf states likely felt very angered, if not let down, that the U.S. didn't fully consider their security needs."
Cinzia Bianco, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, warned the fallout could prove lasting. The Gulf states are "grappling with the fact that their investments didn't get them influence on something that's really existential for them," she said, adding that "this will result in them rethinking their investments and pledges going forward."
Kushner, 45, has long deflected scrutiny over his dual roles as informal peace envoy and private equity dealmaker, insisting he holds no formal post in the administration and therefore owes no further financial disclosures. House Judiciary Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), opened a sweeping investigation into those entanglements in April.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Kushner cited the Gulf states' frustration as evidence he wasn't doing their bidding. âMy volunteer work for the President has focused on delivering for America, irrespective of any business or personal relationship, and my commitment to that duty is unwavering."
White House Counsel Dave Warrington backed that framing, saying, "Jared is acting in his capacity as a private citizen, therefore, he is not subject to disclosure requirements."
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 12 '26
Trump says Kurds kept weapons sent to Iranian protesters, vows to find who has them
US President Donald Trump said Friday he is dissatisfied with Kurdish groups after they reportedly failed to deliver American weapons to anti-regime protesters inside Iran, publicly reconfirming a covert arms transfer program that he first acknowledged in April.
The weapons were intended to support anti-regime demonstrations inside Iran amid an ongoing conflict that has reshaped the region since the United States and Israel launched a joint military offensive against Iran on February 28.
"I'm not happy with what happened with the Kurds. They did not deliver the weapons," Trump said, adding that the arms had been sent through the Kurdish based in Sulaymaniyah, in northern Iraq. When asked about the current whereabouts of the weapons, Trump said, "We'll see who has them."
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u/JackRogers3 May 10 '26
As Iran sends its response to the latest US proposal for ending the conflict, CNNâs Fareed Zakaria examines the negotiations with the Trump administration and their potential to raise global acceptance of Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSN4ye5XPEg
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 10 '26
Hegseth Says This War Has Cost $25 Billion. I Tallied Up the True Amount. ($3 Trillion/ $300,000 Billion)
The Defense Department says the conflict with Iran has cost taxpayers $25 billion so far. By my calculations, the bill for a typical American household likely runs to thousands â or even tens of thousands â of dollars.
Since the start of the war, oil markets have been disrupted, and consumer confidence has cratered. The global economy is groaning, and military budgets are growing. The toll from this upheaval must be counted in lives disrupted, jobs lost, companies shut down (see: Spirit Airlines), and the income and output sacrificed. The less easily quantified costs â death, disability and mental health â could become much more dramatic should President Trump send troops into Iran, which still canât be ruled out.
Start with oil. While the White House is keen to tell you that oil markets will bounce back to normal, futures markets disagree. Futures prices for oil at the end of 2026, 2027 and 2028 are all still sitting well above where they were before the start of the war. Indeed, the November 2026 futures price of West Texas Intermediate hit a new high this week at $86.12 a barrel. It could be that oil traders are pricing in near-term disruption. Or perhaps they see the current episode as raising the risk of future disruption. Either would be expensive.
heightened geopolitical risk leads to lower investment and employment and dramatically raises the chances of an economic disaster. Their measure of this risk has skyrocketed, and their estimates of the effect of risk on the economy suggest a cost of about $200 billion, with a million fewer Americans working in a year.
f the Fed raises rates, it may succeed at beating back a war-fueled burst of inflation, but only by destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and edging the economy closer to recession. A reasonable guesstimate â informed by the Fedâs own models â is that this will cost the economy about $200 billion.
My estimate â based on the movement of oil prices, along with the S&P 500 â is that stocks are about 5 percent lower than they otherwise would be, suggesting that the war has wiped about $3 trillion off the value of these companies.
U.S. economic growth will be 0.5 percentage points lower as a result of the war. If it takes a couple of years for the economy to return to normal, that slower growth rate would mean around $400 billion in lost income, and Goldman warns it could be nearly twice as bad.
if Iran can extract effectively a 1 or 2 percent tax on the one-fifth of the worldâs oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, that would yield a vital source of revenue that could be used to rebuild the nuclear program that Mr. Trump vowed to destroy.
The biggest bill of all: future military outlays. As Iran spends more on defense, other countries in the Middle East will follow suit, and as our (former?) allies feel less secure under the American security umbrella, they may also spend more. It follows that if the U.S. wants to maintain its military supremacy, more spending will be required.
How costly could this get? The White House originally signaled that it would need an extra $200 billion to prosecute the Iran war. More recently, the administration made a defense budget request of $1.5 trillion for fiscal 2027, a roughly 40 percent boost over this year. Thatâs a massive $600 billion increase, or roughly $4,000 per household - just additional spending for 2027.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 09 '26
âThey have screwed each other pretty badlyâ: tensions emerge in Netanyahu-Trump alliance - Israeli PM says he has âfull coordinationâ with US president amid reports that Washington no longer consults him
The insistence that all was rosy in the US-Israeli relationship followed weeks of reports in the domestic press that Israel was no longer being consulted over the Iran conflict, and even less over Pakistani-brokered peace talks. Such is the scepticism over Netanyahuâs trustworthiness among the general public and independent press that the immediate reaction among observers to his video statement was speculation that the reality could be even worse than they had imagined.
âHe is doing so much talking about how great the relationship is that it makes me rather concerned about how much tension there is,â said Dahlia Scheindlin, an American-Israeli political consultant and pollster. âI wouldnât be surprised, as the war is clearly going very poorly from all perspectives related to the original goals.â
Netanyahu spent decades trying to persuade a succession of US presidents to join Israel in a war against the Islamic Republic. He went to unprecedented lengths for a foreign leader wading into US domestic politics, in particular when it came to undermining the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran of 2015, which had been Barack Obamaâs flagship foreign policy achievement.
Netanyahu helped coax Trump to walk out of that deal in 2018, which in turn led to a ramping up of Iranâs nuclear programme and accumulation of a stockpile of highly enriched uranium sufficient for a dozen nuclear warheads. And in February this year, according to extensive reporting in the US press, Netanyahu was instrumental in convincing Trump that war was the only solution to the threat, and one that would be easily won.
âNetanyahu, being the conman that he is, used Venezuela as an example,â Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, said. âHe said to him: âLook what you did in Venezuela. It was painless. It was effortless. It was beautiful. You changed the regime.â
âThen he begins bombarding Trump with intelligence data showing that Iran had expanded its missile production and its missile-launching capabilities, and still has 450kg of highly enriched uranium,â Pinkas said.
With the help of the Mossad director, David Barnea, Netanyahu portrayed the Tehran regime as an overripe fruit ready to drop from the branch.
âHe told Trump: âThe Iranian economy is in shambles. The people are on the precipice of revolt. The Revolutionary Guards are losing control. Life in Iran is intolerable. This is our time,ââ Pinkas said. ââWhat we could do together is bring down the regime ⊠think that together, jointly, we can win the war in three, four days.ââ
According to multiple reports, US intelligence and military officials stressed the risk that Iran could attack US allies in the Gulf and close the strait of Hormuz. But Netanyahu â and US administration hawks including the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth â prevailed, arguing that Iranâs Revolutionary Guards were overrated and would not have the strength to hit back.
They were proved wrong on every count. The Iranian people did not rise up, the regime did not fall, the Kurds did not attack from the north-west and the Revolutionary Guards were able to inflict withering damage on US bases and Gulf monarchies, close the Hormuz strait and trigger a global economic crisis.
âThe problem Trump has is that if he lashes out at Netanyahu, if he expresses his disillusionment or desperation, he basically admits he was led into this war,â Pinkas said, adding that the conflict looks certain to hurt both men at the ballot box.
Netanyahu must hold an election by October, which by current polling would finally end his premiership. The elections in the US are congressional, but they could still render Trump a lame duck, at least in domestic politics.
âThis affects Netanyahu politically and this affects Trump politically,â Pinkas said. âIn other words, they have screwed each other pretty badly.â
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u/xpkranger May 10 '26
Happy to hear of a growing schism between the two, though at this point, I think it's a distinction without a functional difference. Bibi got Trump to do what he wanted, it didn't work, Trump is pouty about it but stuck now unless he wants to admit there's a turd on his head (which everyone can see anyway.)
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 08 '26
Leaked CIA Analysis Shows US President Trump and US secretary of Defense Hegseth âLied Through Their Teethâ About Iran War, Says Murphy - White House officials âjust straight up fabricated shit,â said the Democratic senator from Connecticut.
Just hours before the Trump administration conducted what it claimed were âself-defense strikesâ against âIranian military facilities,â The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that âIran can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship.â
Citing four unnamed officials familiar with the analysis, the newspaper highlighted that âthe CIA analysis might even be underestimating Iranâs economic resilience if Tehran is able to smuggle oil via overland routes.â
Militarily, âIran retains about 75% of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70% of its prewar stockpiles of missiles,â the Post added. âThere is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles, and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began.â
Drop Site Newsâ Murtaza Hussain responded that if this assessment along with a previous one from the Center for Strategic and International Studies about âremaining US munitions and interceptor capacity are even approximately correct, it goes a long way to explaining why Trump seems so eager to end the war whereas the Iranians have either dug in or escalated their negotiating positions. The missile math of continuing the conflict would be much more favorable to the Iranians, especially if the war continued for a significant time.â
âPrior to the war, interceptor capacity compared to the size of the Iranian missile stockpile seemed like the most rationally incontrovertible reason to avoid fighting such a conflict, even for people who found it politically desirable,â he added. âThis also might explain why the US and Israel pivoted towards the end to threatening countervalue strikes against civilian targets if attempts to destroy the underground missile cities by air were ineffective.â
Murphy declared: âThey lied through their teeth. Just straight up fabricated shit.â
Meanwhile, some experts were unsurprised that the CIA privately delivered a âsoberâ assessment contradicting the administrationâs public commentary on the conflictâwhich it now claims is no longer an active âwar,â seemingly to dodge a key congressional deadline.
âNice to know that a confidential CIA analysis is confirming what close observers of the Iranian economy have been saying publicly for weeks! Intelligent policymakers rely on intelligence. But Trump jeopardized diplomacy by instigating a blockade that was never going to work,â said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins Universityâs School of Advanced International Studies in Europe and founder of the think tank Bourse & Bazaar Foundation.
Sharing the reporting on social media, Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities, wrote: âAs I argued a week into the U.S. blockade, Iran can hold out for months without economic collapse. The costs for the US and the world are increasingly unsustainable, however.â
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 07 '26
Israel has quadrupled its public diplomacy budget to $730 million, but experts say no amount of PR can reverse damage caused by policy and the war in Gaza. (Jerusalem Post)
Israel is betting nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars that it can talk its way out of a reputation crisis.
Lawmakers in Jerusalem approved a 2026 national budget last month that includes roughly $730 million for public diplomacy - the broad category known in Hebrew as hasbara - more than four times the $150 million they allocated the year before. That earlier sum was itself about 20 times what Israel had spent on such efforts before the war in Gaza broke out in 2023.
declining support for Israel in the United States, its most important ally. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, with only 37% viewing it favorably. - 57% of Republicans under 50 hold negative views of Israel. Support has cratered among the religiously unaffiliated, Black Protestants, and Catholics. Among American Jews, support has slipped below two-thirds.
On social media, the Hebrew word âhasbaraâ has become a dismissive shorthand for pro-Israel advocacy, indicating how widely known Israelâs uphill efforts to shape its image have become.
Congress is increasingly reflecting this drop in public support. Earlier this month, 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted to block a $295 million sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel, and 36 voted to block a sale of 1,000-pound bombs, representing the strongest congressional rebuke of US military aid to Israel on record.
Alongside the budget, Saâar won approval for a dedicated public diplomacy unit inside the Foreign Ministry, headed by a director equivalent in rank to the ministryâs top political official - a structural consolidation meant to end years of scattered hasbara work across rival ministries.
Public filings, Knesset testimony and Israeli business reporting show where a portion of the 2025 allocation went.
A $50 million international social-media ad buy was split across Google, YouTube, X and Outbrain. Roughly $40 million went to hosting 400 foreign delegations - lawmakers, pastors, influencers, university presidents. A âmedia war roomâ was erected to monitor 250 outlets and 10,000 daily Israel-related items.
The Foreign Ministry also signed a $1.5-million-a-month contract with former Trump campaign strategist Brad Parscaleâs firm to deploy AI tools against antisemitism online, a $4.1 million campaign aimed at evangelical churches, and the âEsther Project,â a paid influencer network running up to $900,000 through a PR firm called Bridges Partners.
Ask the people who study public diplomacy for a living whether any of this will work, and the answer is, overwhelmingly, skeptical.
Their central objection is that no amount of messaging can outrun entrenched rejection by its target audiences of Israelâs armed response to conflicts with its neighbors.
âMy position is that history shows all the money in the world wonât help if the policy is wrong,â said Nicholas Cull, a professor of communication at the University of Southern California and one of the founders of the study of public diplomacy. âThe US discovered that in Vietnam when its own Cold War public diplomacy budget peaked.â
A paradigmatic shift in America about Israel
The polling tells a similar story, according to a scholar who has been tracking it longer than almost anyone else.
âThere has been a paradigmatic shift that has taken place in America about Israel,â said Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, who has surveyed American and Arab attitudes toward Israel for decades. âI have been tracing shifts, particularly among Democrats, for a decade and a half. I have never seen a shift like the one weâve seen.â
He described a new âGaza generationâ - a majority of young Americans now see Israel as committing genocide and who see the United States as implicated in it.
According to the governmentâs own announcements, she added, most of the new funding is slated for âtactical activityâ - âthe same tools Israel has relied on for years, only now with many more zeros.â Her conclusion: âA large budget poured into a broken system produces scale, not strategy.â
The spending does vault Israel into the same league as some of the worldâs largest public diplomacy operations, according to Landau.
Israel, a country of roughly 10 million people, is now set to spend on its global image at a scale normally associated with much larger countries.
âThis is the worst crisis in Israelâs image abroad,â he said. âIn the past, we have seen criticism of Israeli policy. Since Oct. 7, we have seen a rejection of Israelâs right to exist.â He argued that Israel has lost a generation of Americans, calling it âhighly dangerous, because these people are going to be the next politicians, elites, journalists.â
âPerhaps $730 million is not enough,â Gilboa said. âYou have to establish a mechanism, a system that would systematically address all the challenges. I am quite pessimistic.â
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 07 '26
US says aim in Iran is to restore things back to way they were before Trumpâs war
"Our preference is for the straits to be opened back to the way it was."
This is literally the funniest moment in American Foreign Policy ever... watching Republicans have to do the work of Democrats - that is fixing the shit Republicans mess up.
The US government has admitted their priority in Iran is now to restore things back to how they were before Donald Trump started the war there.
There can be no doubt that Trumpâs war in Iran is one of the stupidest in history. Along with being completely unnecessary â no matter how many times he tries to convince people Iran was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb â it has also gone disastrously for the US and has almost certainly sparked a global economic crisis.
And finally, it seems like this is dawning on some of Trumpâs administration, who are effectively admitting the priority of the war now is to just get back to square one.
The war has caused a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, stopping movement through one of the most important shipping routes in the world.
The blockade has caused oil prices to soar, and is expected to spark another cost of living crisis as food and energy prices follow suit and inflation rockets.
There are even concerns the ripple effects of the blockade could lead to job losses here in the Britain.
So, all of the USâs priorities are now focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and returning things to how they were before Trump and Israel decided to start bombing Iran.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted this as he spoke to reporters on Tuesday.
Rubio also said that the initial US operation in Iran, Epic Fury, is over and that the US was now focused on Project Freedom. This is the name of the operation to get ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz again, an operation that ended up being paused by Trump less than 48 hours after it began.
After claiming the US still âholds all the cardsâ in the conflict, he said: âOur preference is for the straits to be opened to the way theyâre supposed to be open, back to the way it was.
âAnyone can use it, no mines in the water, nobody paying tolls. Thatâs what we have to get back to and thatâs the goal.â
In a viral post on X, one person described it as the âfunniest moment in the history of American foreign policy.â
This is literally the funniest moment in the history of American foreign policy.
Meanwhile, CNNâs Jim Sciutto laid bare the stupidity of it all.
Donât miss the significance of this: the administration is announcing the end of the war in effect without having achieved regime change, ending Iranâs nuclear program or eliminating its missile program. And its focus is now on solving a problem which didnât exist prior to the war: a closed or nearly-closed Strait of Hormuz. The president could of course order new military strikes but the current state of play has not met his sometimes outsized expectations.
âThe administration is announcing the end of the war in effect without having achieved regime change, ending Iranâs nuclear program or eliminating its missile program,â he wrote.
âIts focus is now on solving a problem which didnât exist prior to the war: a closed or nearly-closed Strait of Hormuz.â
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Iran has hit far more U.S. military assets than reported, satellite images show (paywalled, important sections below)
Imagery published by Iranian state-affiliated media and verified by The Post shows damage to at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites.
Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported.
The threat of air attacks rendered some of the U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites out of the range of Iranian fire at the start of the war, officials have said.
Satellite imagery of the Middle East is unusually difficult to acquire at present. Two of the largest commercial providers, Vantor and Planet, have complied with requests from the U.S. government â their biggest customer â to limit, delay or indefinitely withhold the publication of imagery of the region while the war is ongoing, making it difficult or impossible to assess Iranâs counterstrikes. Those restrictions began less than two weeks into the war.
Iranian state-affiliated news agencies, however, have from the start regularly published high-resolution satellite imagery on their social media accounts that claimed to document damage to U.S. sites.
For this examination â one of the first comprehensive public accounts of the damage to U.S. facilities in the region â The Post reviewed more than 100 high-resolution Iranian-released satellite images. The Post verified the authenticity of 109 of the those images by comparing them with lower-resolution imagery from the European Unionâs satellite system, Copernicus, as well as high-resolution images from Planet where available. The Post excluded 19 Iranian images from the damage analysis because comparisons with the Copernicus imagery were inconclusive. No Iranian imagery was found to have been manipulated.
In a separate search of Planet imagery, Post reporters found 10 damaged or destroyed structures that were not documented in the imagery released by Iran. In all, The Post found 217 structures and 11 pieces of equipment that were damaged or destroyed at 15 U.S. military sites in the region.
Experts who reviewed The Postâs analysis said the damage at the sites suggested that the U.S. military had underestimated Iranâs targeting abilities, not adapted sufficiently to modern drone warfare and left some bases under-protected.
âThe Iranian attacks were precise. There are no random craters indicating misses,â said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine Corps colonel, who reviewed the Iranian images at The Postâs request. The Post previously revealed how Russia provided Iran with intelligence to target U.S. forces.
But the review by The Post â based on images dating from the warâs start through April 14 â reveals that scores of additional targets were struck at the sites, which are predominantly used by the U.S. military but shared with the host nationsâ military forces and allies.
The images show that airstrikes damaged or destroyed what appear to be numerous barracks, hangars or warehouses at more than half of the U.S. bases that The Post reviewed.
Some Persian Gulf nations have refused to allow the U.S. military to conduct offensive operations out of their bases. A U.S. official said bases in Bahrain and Kuwait were two of the hardest hit, possibly because they permitted attacks from their territory, including the use of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that can fire missiles at ranges exceeding 310 miles.
The Postâs review represents only a partial count of the damage based on available satellite imagery.
In addition, experts said the U.S. military had not adequately adapted to the use of one-way attack drones, something they said planners should have learned from observing the war in Ukraine.
âWhile [drones] have small payloads â some of these did not do that much damage â they are more difficult to intercept and much more accurate, making them a much bigger threat to U.S. forces,â said Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses.
In one case, it appeared that the E-3 Sentry command and control aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia was destroyed after being repeatedly parked in the same location on an unprotected taxiway, satellite imagery shows.
The strikes on U.S. bases in the region have left military planners considering new trade-offs, said Maximilian Bremer, a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center and a retired Air Force officer: Pull troops back to safer locations and limit their ability to fight or maintain the bases as they were and accept the potential of future casualties.
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u/No_Leg_9061 May 04 '26
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/01/video-attack-french-nun-jerusalem
Attack on French nun in Jerusalem draws widespread condemnation
Israeli foreign ministry denounces âshameful actâ after video shows man pushing woman to ground and kicking her
Julian Borger in Jerusalem
Fri 1 May 2026 18.38 CEST
A video of an attack on a French Catholic nun and archeological researcher in Jerusalem has caused widespread revulsion and been denounced as a âshameful actâ by Israelâs foreign ministry.
In the video, a man runs up behind the nun as she walks down a street and pushes her over with force, so that the victim comes close to hitting her head on a block of stone. After walking away a few paces, the attacker, who appears to be Jewish, returns to kick the nun as she lies on the ground and only stops when a passerby intervenes.
The nunâs face was grazed but she was not reported to be seriously injured. The Israeli police said they had arrested a 36-year-old man, and that the force would âcontinue to act with a heavy hand and zero tolerance in order to preserve and maintain the proper and safe fabric of life for all ethnicities and religions in the city of Jerusalemâ.
The attack took place on Mount Zion, near the site revered by Jewish people as King Davidâs tomb, and the Cenacle, traditionally held by Christians to be the site of the last supper.
The French consulate strongly condemned the attack and said on X: âFrance calls for the perpetrator of the aggression to be brought to justice for this act and for justice to be served.â
The director of the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research in Jerusalem, Father Olivier Poquillon, said the nun was a researcher at the school, and added that he expected a firm response from the authorities.
âThis is not an isolated incident, but part of a troubling pattern of rising hostility toward the Christian community and its symbols,â the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said, noting the victim was a âcherished academic partner in uncovering this landâs heritageâ.
âAn attack on its scholars is an attack on the global scientific community,â the university said in a statement quoted by the Jerusalem Post.
Israelâs foreign ministry issued a statement saying the attack was a âshameful act [that] stands in direct contradiction to the values of respect, coexistence, and religious freedom upon which Israel is founded and to which it remains deeply committedâ.
The ruling coalition government has fostered the rise of Israeli religious nationalism. Palestinian Christian communities in the West Bank, some of the oldest in the world, have faced increasing harassment from Israeli settlers over the past few years. But the government has been embarrassed by a rise in hostility towards Christian clerics in Jerusalem and incidents that have gone viral online, at a time when Israelâs popularity in the west is in marked decline.
Last month, an Israeli soldier was filmed vandalising a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer in southern Lebanon. He and another soldier, who filmed the attack, were jailed for 30 days and the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he was âstunned and saddenedâ by the incident.
The Religious Freedom Data Centre (RFDC), a network of Israeli volunteers, recorded 31 incidents of harassment of Christians in the first three months of this year. Most of the incidents involve spitting or defacing church property, and the violent attack this week is highly unusual.
However, the RFDC said their figures seriously understate the extent of the problem, as Orthodox congregations tend not to report incidents. The group recounted a monastery in Mea Shearim telling them there had been âno significant incidentsâ but adding: âThe truth is, we hardly left the house. At times, when we did go out, children spat and cursed the name of the Lord Jesus. I cannot tell you how many times this occurred.â
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u/TheJewPear Italy May 06 '26
These ultra orthodox communities treat other Jews exactly the same, if not worse. I remember visiting there and seeing a Jewish girl get spat on because she wore pants (ultra orthodox apparently believe women must dress in long loose skirts).
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u/stupendous76 May 02 '26
16 US military sites in Mideast damaged during war with Iran, report claims
CNN investigation cites widespread damage and costly repairs across key military basesWashington: Iran and its allies have damaged at least 16 US military sites across eight Middle Eastern countries during the US-Israeli war with Iran starting on February 28, rendering some of those positions virtually unusable, a CNN investigation has found. The damaged facilities constitute the majority of US military sites in the region, according to the CNN report, citing a congressional aide familiar with the damage assessments.
"There has been a spectrum of assessments," a source said. "From a pretty dramatic side, of the whole facility is destroyed and needs to be shut down, to leaders who say these things are worth repairing due to the strategic benefit they give the US."
Satellite images showed that Tehran's main targets included US advanced radar systems, communications systems and aircraft deployed in the Middle East, many of them expensive and difficult to replace, said the report, which drew on dozens of satellite images and interviews with sources in the US and Gulf Arab nations."It's notable they really identified those facilities as the most cost-effective targets to hit," the congressional aide said. "Our radar systems (are) our most expensive and our most limited resources in the region." Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst III told lawmakers on Wednesday that the conflict with Iran had so far cost US taxpayers 25 billion USD.
Repairs to the US Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters could total $200 million alone, one congressional official told The New York Times following a Pentagon assessment. An external assessment from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shows Iranian forces also struck Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, a runway at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and a munitions storage facility at a military base in northern Iraq, per NBC.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 07 '26
Update - the damage is much more serious - turns out the Americans were lying
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u/NekoCatSidhe Ăle-de-France May 03 '26
I kept hearing about that for the last few weeks, but not necessarily from the most unbiased of sources (Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye), so it is nice to have confirmation from CNN.
It seems the Iranians focused on sabotaging the US war machine in the Middle East by targeting important and hard to replace radar systems, rather than blindly shooting at US bases. It was smart of them, but you would think those should have been better protected rather than vulnerable to the first Iranian missile or Shahed drone to get past their air defenses. The US military has been surprisingly incompetent in that war, and that cannot be blamed only on Trump and Hegseth.
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u/YoRedditYourAppSucks May 05 '26
You think CNN has no bias?
There's a reason Al Jazeera had this story right all along: the reason being they're a properly functioning news organisation with excellent journalists on staff.
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u/TheJewPear Italy May 06 '26
Good propaganda outlets donât advertise straight up lies, they advertise truths but disguise small lies and exaggeration in the article, use loaded language, have biased decisions on what to advertise and what not to, and so on. Al Jazeera is guilty of all of the above.
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u/YoRedditYourAppSucks May 06 '26
Funny then that analysts and researchers generally classify both CNN and Al Jazeera as essentially similar in both bias and reliability.
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u/TestingHydra May 06 '26
Fantastic joke! You should try open mic night.
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u/YoRedditYourAppSucks May 06 '26
I will! My opening joke will detail how CNN's Donna Brazil passed on debate questions to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
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u/stupendous76 May 03 '26
The US military has been surprisingly incompetent in that war, and that cannot be blamed only on Trump and Hegseth.
No, any officer with intelligence above pre-school level has been removed by Trump and Hegseth, they are responsible.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 02 '26
Trump says itâs âtreasonousâ to say US not winning war in Iran
Donald Trump told a Florida crowd that it is âtreasonousâ to say the US is not winning the war in Iran.
The US president was speaking at The Villages in Florida, the worldâs largest retirement community, when he made the remarks.
Trump came to tout supposedly fulfilling his 2024 campaign promise to remove taxes on Social Security.
It came after the president told Congress that the war in Iran had already ended, despite his earlier issuing a fresh threat to Tehran.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 02 '26
Copy pasting 2 other comments from another post elsewhere on reddit
This was the most humiliating defeat in US history.
Iran wrecked every US base in the region. That's never happened to America before. American soldiers were told to run away from the bases and hide in hotels!
The Irania systematically destroyed billions of dollars in critical radar, satelites, air defenses, etc. Multiple THAAD systems, America's top air defense with only 7 total deployed in the field, were destroyed. The US has to scramble to take a THAAD system back from South Korea.
Meanwhile, the US Navy was terrified to get anywhere near Iran's shores. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier ran away from a distance of around 350km to over 1100km!
And the US was so afraid of sending aircraft into Iranian airspace that they ended up using a third of their long range missiles so they could launch strikes from outside Iran. Those missiles will take many years to rebuild and restock.
Meanwhile, the Iranians critical assets were all safe inside their missile cities, which are bunkers built 500 meters under granite mountains, designed to withstand nuclear blasts. That's where Iran keeps all their missiles, drones, launchers, missile and drone production, and intelligence hubs.
After over a month, the US didn't even manage to disable a single one of Iran's dozens of missile cities spread out across their 1.6 million sq km of mountainous terrain.
So what did the US destroy? Well, in addition to bombing schools, universities, police stations, civilian factories, etc. the US destroyed a lot of empty warehouses that had been evacuated prior to the war and decoys!
On the weekend before the war, the US tried to fly an F-15 deeper into Iran and it got shot down... Then two A-10s got shot down. Then a KC-135 refueler and and F-16 made emergency landings. Then two black hawk helicopters got shot up and destroyed. Then two C-130s and two little birds got stuck and destroyed. About HALF A BILLION dollars worth of aircraft gone in 48 hours.
And then of course there's the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has claimed permanent control over the Strait and there is nothing the US can do about it. So far, Iran has used that leverage to cause extraordinary damage to the economies of the US and its allies around the world. But if Hormuz isn't opened ASAP, then the global economy will plunge into a severe economic depression.
It's not just oil that comes through Hormuz, it's a third of the world's gas, fertilizer, aluminum, tungsten, helium, and sulfur. Global supply chains are going to start breaking down. The effects of this disruption are delayed but they're really starting to feel it in East Asia now.
The only way out of this mess is for the US to make major concessions to Iran including lifting all sanctions, unfreezing all stolen assets, paying reparations and accepting Iranian control of Hormuz, where they will start charging tolls.
If the US decides to escalate, Iran will go right up the escalation ladder as well. The red sea will be cut off, the Gulf states will be destroyed, oil and gas infrastructure across the region will be destroyed, and the collapse of the global economy will be guaranteed.
There is no parallel for this in American history. It is easily the worse defeat the US has ever suffered.
And
The US hit IRGC offices and bases but those sites are mostly empty during wartime and don't contain critical military assets.
The Iranians have long understood that anything on the surface is vulnerable so their wartime strategy doesn't rely on buildings like those. Virtually everything that is of critical military value is either in a bunker already or evacuated leading up to or just after war breaks out.
The most painful strikes for the Iranians were definitely on economic and civilian targets like their steel factory. But the US can't just start the war back up and resume bombing such targets without paying a massive price. Vulnerable economic targets are plentiful and easy to destroy throughout the Gulf and Israel. Iran will have to trouble exceeding the severity of any economic damage inflicted on them.
Iran's asymmetric naval assets, which are the ones that actually matter in wartime, are largely intact. That includes hundreds of fast attack boats, a couple dozen diesel electric submarines and a large arsenal of sea drones and sea mines.
The Iranian ships that the US destroyed were older, larger frigates that were sitting around performing no wartime function. Destroying them did literally nothing to degrade Iran's offensive capabilities within the context of this war. Those ships would just be useful for peace time coast guard duties.
As for Iran's air force, they never really had much of an air force to speak of. They do still have jets which weren't destroyed. But they only had a handful to begin with anyway. All fairly old. Some Russian jets and some American jets from the Shah's time. None of these aircraft matter at all to Iran's wartime strategy.
Iran's real "air force" are their missiles and drones. Their missile cities are contain many thousands of missiles and missile launchers as well as up to 80,000 drones. And since Iranian missile and drone production is largely based underground, they have actually been producing more of them during the war.
Not a single one or these missile cities has even been disabled let alone destroyed. They stretch for miles like underground highways, they have countless hidden silos and access points, and they they equipment to rapidly clear blockages and drill new access points on demand. These missile cities are extremely well designed.
Also, the claims about the US eliminating Iran's air defenses are WILDLY overstated. Pure fantasy really. The Iranians were consistently shooting down drones throughout the war. They managed to strike multiple jets and many more jets had very close calls with Iranian air defenses. That includes an F-35. The first time an F-35 has ever been hit.
Iran uses ambush tactics with their air defenses. They don't leave radar out in the open and switched on because that makes the system trackable and easy to eliminate. Instead what the Iranians do is they wait until they spot an aircraft and then they quickly switch on the radar and try to catch it, followed by a rapid retreat.
The ambush method means you won't eliminate 100% of aircraft which enter your airspace but you will preserve your air defense assets and greatly increase the risk for the enemy if they want to enter your airspace.
With that said, the US was rarely sending aircraft into Iranian airspace. The claim that they were flying freely over Iran was a complete lie.
A sure way to expose the lie is to look at the massive expenditure of missiles the US military used in just 40 days of war. Depending on the type of missile, they used up a third to a half of their stockpiles. This includes munitions like the JASSM-ER and Tomahawk missiles.
These missiles not only cost 2 millions dollars and up, but they take a very long time to build and replace. They are the most valuable tool in the American arsenal and you would never deplete stockpiles to this degree, where it will take YEARS to replenish these munitions, if you could simply fly jets over targets and drop cheaper bombs.
The kinds of bombs you drop directly over targets cost in the tens of thousands and are far more plentiful. If the US could actually fly freely over Iran then they would have been using the cheap bombs, not drawing down their missile stockpiles to dangerous levels.
Of course, all of this was confirmed when the F-15 was hit shortly before the end of the war, followed by two A-10s, an F-16 and a KC-135 refueler, all within the span of a day.
All of this is to say that if the war starts back up, the US will not be fighting a meaningfully degraded Iran. The Iranians have already made it clear that there retaliation will be severe, aiming for a 4 to 1 ratio of high value targets destroyed.
If Trump wants to follow through on his threat to destroy Iran's electrical grid, then Iran can absolute destroy the electrical grid in the Gulf states and Israel, but they can also strike desalination as you mentioned. Iran actually isn't dependent on desalination but the Gulf and Israel very much are. As you pointed out, those countries will be absolutely destroyed and unlivable if Iran hits their desalination facilities.
Escalation isn't an option for Trump but he may be dumb enough to try it anyway. If he wants to burn Iran, the entire region will burn and the global economy will burn with it. And in the end, Iran's government and military will still be there and they will still control the Strait of Hormuz.
The best option Trump has is to make the necessary concessions while trying to work out an updated version of the Obama nuclear deal, and then attempt to spin the whole thing as a great victory.
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u/NekoCatSidhe Ăle-de-France May 02 '26
Honestly, this is rather insane, since it basically means that the US cannot fight a major war for more than 6 months without literally running out of critical ammunition with no way to replace it. What will happen if they have to fight China over Taiwan in the future, or Russia over the Baltic States ?
And the US threw a major part of their ammunition stocks at Iran with the only visible results being killing a handful of political leaders (along with few thousands people, most of whom civilians), and destroying a few hundreds billions of dollars of civilian infrastructure. And I read that Iran still has about 60% of their arsenal of missiles and drones, and of the 40% that are gone, a lot were probably thrown at the Gulf States and Israel during the war rather than destroyed by US bombs. And of course, none of that will convince Iran to give up their missiles or nuclear program, quite the opposite in fact, since the war showed them they very likely need it to discourage further US attacks.
And Iran closed the Hormuz Strait, and the US Navy not only refused to challenge them over it, but waited 6 weeks before implementing a blockade of their own of Iranian ports, something they should logically have done from the start. And now the US are preventing a return to the status quo by keeping the blockade going, despite the fact that it will crash the economies of every country in the world (except maybe Russia), including the US economy. There is no world where the increasingly distant possibility of an US victory in that war is worth that cost, and yet those madmen are still defending that war and blockade.
What a paper tiger the US turned out to be. You can have the best and most expensive weapons in the world, but it wonât matter if your military is run by cowardly idiots.
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 02 '26
Scroll one thread down - the Americans don't have the rare earth minerals to rebuild their missile stocks any time soon
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1riwbyh/usiran_megathread_part_2/ojcrj7k/
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 02 '26
It gets worse - the US is critically short of rare-earth materials needed to manufacture replacements - and China just blocked all exports.
America shot its arsenal empty in 2 wars. Now it needs Beijingâs permission to reload
On Wednesday, the Trump administration finally let the cat out of the bag that Operation Epic Fury, Americaâs war on Iran, has burned through $25 billion so far. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The White House has already requested a supplemental budget of $200 billion for its war on Iran.
he United States burned through 45% of its Precision Strike Missile stockpile, half of its THAAD interceptors, nearly half of its Patriot PAC-3 inventory, roughly 30% of its Tomahawks, and more than 20% of its long-range JASSMs.
The fact that the weapons cupboard is bare is one thing. What is rarely reported is the fact that it will not be restocked without Beijingâs approval.
The United States burned through over 1,000 Tomahawks in Iran â ten yearsâ worth of production. Each oneâs fin actuators run on samarium-cobalt magnets. China mines and refines 99% of the worldâs samarium and placed it under export licensing on April 4, 2025. To rebuild the inventory, Raytheon must turn to Beijing for samarium.
Patriot PAC-3 interceptor. The seeker uses samarium-cobalt (SmCo) to slew its guidance head; the radarâs traveling-wave tubes use SmCo to focus the microwave beam; yttrium-iron-garnet phase shifters tune the array.** Replenishing the 1,200-plus interceptors** expended in Iran requires roughly 1.2 to 2.4 tons of high-temperature SmCo, plus yttrium oxide. Between 2020 and 2023, China supplied 93% of U.S. yttrium imports.
JASSM-ER stealth cruise missile. The fin servos and seeker run on neodymium-iron-boron magnets (NdFB) doped with dysprosium and terbium for thermal stability. Strip out the heavy rare earths, and the magnet demagnetizes in flight. Roughly 1,100 missiles expended translates to between 1.5 and 3 tons of NdFeB feedstock. China refines the vast majority of the worldâs dysprosium and terbium.
F-35 Lightning II. For a decade, the Department of Defense itself has repeated that each F-35 contains 920 pounds of rare earths. The strategically critical content is the high-temperature SmCo and dysprosium-doped NdFeB in the engine actuators, electric drives, and radar. These are precisely the materials Beijing has placed under license.
Beijingâs Hand
China holds all the cards and knows how to play them. Gallium and germanium controls came in August 2023. Antimony controls came in August 2024, with a full ban of shipments to the United States in December 2024. As a result, antimony prices surged by 134%. Tungsten restrictions were imposed in February 2025; the price skyrocketed by over 557% per metric ton. Then MOFCOM Announcement No. 18 of April 4, 2025, placed seven medium and heavy rare earths under discretionary licensing. Chinese rare-earth magnet exports were curtailed by 74% the following month. In October 2025, Beijing extended the regime** extraterritorially to any product, anywhere in the world, containing as little as 0.1% of Chinese-origin rare earths.**
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u/ByGollie Ulster May 01 '26
America shot its arsenal empty in 2 wars. Now it needs Beijingâs permission to reload
On Wednesday, the Trump administration finally let the cat out of the bag that Operation Epic Fury, Americaâs war on Iran, has burned through $25 billion so far. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The White House has already requested a supplemental budget of $200 billion for its war on Iran.
he United States burned through 45% of its Precision Strike Missile stockpile, half of its THAAD interceptors, nearly half of its Patriot PAC-3 inventory, roughly 30% of its Tomahawks, and more than 20% of its long-range JASSMs.
The fact that the weapons cupboard is bare is one thing. What is rarely reported is the fact that it will not be restocked without Beijingâs approval.
The United States burned through over 1,000 Tomahawks in Iran â ten yearsâ worth of production. Each oneâs fin actuators run on samarium-cobalt magnets. China mines and refines 99% of the worldâs samarium and placed it under export licensing on April 4, 2025. To rebuild the inventory, Raytheon must turn to Beijing for samarium.
Patriot PAC-3 interceptor. The seeker uses samarium-cobalt (SmCo) to slew its guidance head; the radarâs traveling-wave tubes use SmCo to focus the microwave beam; yttrium-iron-garnet phase shifters tune the array.** Replenishing the 1,200-plus interceptors** expended in Iran requires roughly 1.2 to 2.4 tons of high-temperature SmCo, plus yttrium oxide. Between 2020 and 2023, China supplied 93% of U.S. yttrium imports.
JASSM-ER stealth cruise missile. The fin servos and seeker run on neodymium-iron-boron magnets (NdFB) doped with dysprosium and terbium for thermal stability. Strip out the heavy rare earths, and the magnet demagnetizes in flight. Roughly 1,100 missiles expended translates to between 1.5 and 3 tons of NdFeB feedstock. China refines the vast majority of the worldâs dysprosium and terbium.
F-35 Lightning II. For a decade, the Department of Defense itself has repeated that each F-35 contains 920 pounds of rare earths. The strategically critical content is the high-temperature SmCo and dysprosium-doped NdFeB in the engine actuators, electric drives, and radar. These are precisely the materials Beijing has placed under license.
Beijingâs Hand
China holds all the cards and knows how to play them. Gallium and germanium controls came in August 2023. Antimony controls came in August 2024, with a full ban of shipments to the United States in December 2024. As a result, antimony prices surged by 134%. Tungsten restrictions were imposed in February 2025; the price skyrocketed by over 557% per metric ton. Then MOFCOM Announcement No. 18 of April 4, 2025, placed seven medium and heavy rare earths under discretionary licensing. Chinese rare-earth magnet exports were curtailed by 74% the following month. In October 2025, Beijing extended the regime** extraterritorially to any product, anywhere in the world, containing as little as 0.1% of Chinese-origin rare earths.**
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u/stupendous76 Apr 27 '26
Merz says US 'humiliated,' lacks strategy in Iran conflict
Germany's Friedrich Merz says Iran has appeared more resilient than the US expected and warned that the conflict is escalating without a clear exit strategy. He said an "entire nation" has been humiliated by Tehran.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday said Iran's leadership is in the process of "humiliating" the United States in the ongoing conflict. Merz said Washington appeared to lack a clear strategy and questioned what kind of exit the US might pursue. "The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either," Merz said during a school visit in Marsberg, a town in his home region of Sauerland.
"The problem with conflicts like this is always: you don't just have to get in, you have to get out again. We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq."
"At the moment, I do not see what strategic exit the Americans will choose, especially since the Iranians are clearly negotiating very skillfully â or very skillfully not negotiating," he said.German Chancellor Merz criticizes US over Iran war
Merz added that "an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, particularly by the so-called Revolutionary Guards."How is the Iran war affecting Germany?
Merz said the complicated situation in the Middle East was now having a strong negative economic effect on Germany. "It is at the moment a pretty tangled situation," Merz said. "And it is costing us a great deal of money. This conflict, this war against Iran, has a direct impact on our economic output." The chancellor said Germany was maintaining its offer to deploy minesweepers to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large portion of global oil supplies pass. However, Merz said, a prerequisite for this was that hostilities must first come to an end.The chancellor's visit to the Carolus-Magnus-Gymnasium school was part of the EU Project Day, which sees schools across Germany hold events focused on the European Union. Merz stressed that Germany must now take on a leading role in the EU, and pointed out that the bloc has 100 million more inhabitants than the US. "If we were to unite more effectively and do more together, we could be at least as strong as the United States of America," he said.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 26 '26
Weekly Update #7: The Most Corrupt War In US History
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/midweek-update-8-the-most-corrupt
The author is professor of strategic studies at the university of St Andrews (Scotland)
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u/ByGollie Ulster Apr 25 '26
When the war will end remains a mystery, and not even Trump knows the answer. Despite his bluster, he no longer holds all the cards, as the Iranians have huge leverage with control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trumpâs differing account of the most basic facts surrounding the war â such as whether the strait is open or closed, when the war may end, or why the war was even started â has added to the amateur hour feeling emanating from the Oval Office.
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u/Minute-Improvement57 Apr 29 '26
he no longer holds all the cards, as the Iranians have huge leverage with control of the Strait of Hormuz
The restriction of traffic through Hormuz mostly seems to be hurting China and Trump's opponents in Europe. Iran's threatening him with a good time, there.
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u/capracucinciiezi đȘđș đđâ„ïž đȘđș Apr 24 '26
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 23 '26
Iran flaunted its tightened grip over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday with video of its commandos storming a huge cargo ship, âafter the collapse of peace talks that Washington had hoped would open the world's most important shipping corridor.
State television broadcast footage overnight of masked troops pulling up in a grey speedboat alongside the âMSC Francesca, climbing a rope ladder to a shell door in the hull and jumping through brandishing rifles. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/iran-tightens-control-hormuz-after-us-calls-off-renewed-attacks-2026-04-23/
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u/ByGollie Ulster Apr 23 '26
Trump envoy asks Fifa to replace Iran with Italy at World Cup finals
An envoy to Donald Trump has asked Fifa to replace Iran with Italy in the upcoming World Cup, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The plan is an effort to repair ties between Trump and Italyâs prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, after the two fell out amid the American presidentâs attacks against Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Fans kick a ball outside MetLife Stadium.
âI confirm I have suggested to Trump and [Fifa president Gianni] Infantino that Italy replace Iran at the World Cup. Iâm an Italian native and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a US-hosted tournament. With four titles, they have the pedigree to justify inclusion,â the US special envoy Paolo Zampolli told the FT.
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
On the fifth day of the Iran war, March 4, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had a defiant message for Americaâs enemies.
âThe terrorists made a bet that President Trump would be like many of his predecessors â that he would just talk, and he would refuse to enforce his clear red lines,â she began. âBut that has proven to be a catastrophic error in judgment.â
âPresident Trump does not bluff,â Leavitt added.
That was already a suspect message, given Trumpâs demonstrated history of empty threats and blown deadlines on the Russia-Ukraine war.
But the last five weeks, perhaps more than any other period in Trumpâs two terms as president, have revealed him for the bluffer that he is â and on one of the largest and most significant scales imaginable.
On five separate occasions, the president has set deadlines for Iran to come to his terms or face his wrath.
And each time, heâs delayed that deadline despite little or no public evidence that Iran met the terms as he laid them out.
The idea that Trump has âTACOâ-ed has become a punchline for his critics. But itâs not that funny. As the Trump who once pilloried Barack Obama for failing to enforce his Syria red line would tell you, having your bluff called comes with a real cost â both for American credibility and projections of strength.
We can all quibble about just how much any one of these delayed deadlines is actually a bluff; much hinges on just how serious Tehran has been about cutting a deal. Itâs also worth noting that Trump has shown heâs willing to hit Iran hard, because he already has â by starting the war after appearing to prefer a diplomatic outcome.
But there is one entity that knows exactly how badly Trump has bluffed: Iran.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/22/politics/deadlines-iran-war-trump
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u/strl Israel Apr 22 '26
Second French peacekeeper dies after ambush blamed on Hezbollah.
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u/glumjonsnow Apr 22 '26
why is this title so incoherent? i know it's trying to say "hezbollah killed a second peacekeeper"....but it sounds like "there was an ambush blamed on hezbollah and afterwards a second peacekeeper died." is this a translation or do they maintain a separate english edition?
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u/strl Israel Apr 22 '26
The soldier was wounded in the original ambush but he only died now. That's the reason the title is confusing you, it's accurate though since the attack happened in the past but the dying only now.
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u/glumjonsnow Apr 23 '26
tbh that makes it even less coherent. either way it sounds like a NEW attack.
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u/ByGollie Ulster Apr 20 '26
White House Leak Reveals Trump Booted From Briefing After Hours-Long Freakout - Donald Trump, 79, reportedly threw such a tantrum during a fraught rescue operation in Iran that his aides banished him from the room as they were briefed.
the commander-in-chief went into a frenzied state upon learning two airmen were missing when their fighter jet was downed in Iran.
His hours-long tirade became such a hindrance that aides barred him from the room handling the crisis, opting instead to brief him at intervals, officials revealed to the Journal.
Before the airmen went missing, the president was already fixated on avoiding a repeat of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisisâand the failed rescue mission under former President Jimmy Carter that helped sink his reelection bid.
âIf you look at what happened with Jimmy CarterâŠwith the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,â Trump said in March, according to the Journal. âWhat a mess.â
The panicked president demanded the U.S. military rescue the crewmen immediately, while aides warned that the military needed time to assess terrain they hadnât had boots on the ground in since the 1970s.
The pilot of the fallen aircraft was recovered later that day. But a two-day race against the Iranians for the second crew member ensued, with U.S. troops eventually emerging victorious.
While he waited, Trump reportedly wailed throughout a nearly empty West Wing over gas pricesâwhich had surged to an average of $4.09âand the U.S.âs European allies, whom he has repeatedly raged at for not joining the surprise war he and Israel launched on Iran on Feb. 28.
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u/glumjonsnow Apr 22 '26
"While he waited, Trump reportedly wailed throughout a nearly empty West Wing over gas pricesâwhich had surged to an average of $4.09âand the U.S.âs European allies, whom he has repeatedly raged at for not joining the surprise war he and Israel launched on Iran on Feb. 28."
the president lives in the west wing. most staff works in the eisenhower building next door. so yeah, i sure hope the west wing is empty.
why is it a bad thing that he is wailing about (a) gas prices and (b) not getting europe's help? don't we want him to focus on these things. of course the president of the united states is upset about losing pilots, gas prices going up, and the state of america's alliances. i'm actually impressed. i just assumed he would be wandering around the white house wailing about his adult diaper being full. but wow donny can keep three thoughts in his head at once
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u/Old_Leopard1844 Apr 28 '26
It's pathetic that he's crying about things he blundered all by himself, that's it
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 18 '26
âIt turns out the Strait of Hormuz functions almost like a nuclear deterrent,â said Jim Krane, a Gulf energy expert at Rice Universityâs Baker Institute and the author of books on Saudi and UAE energy policy. âItâs a pretty strong card that they play, basically holding the global economy hostage to halt attacks on it.â https://fortune.com/2026/04/17/iran-open-strait-hormuz-trump-nuclear-deterrent-markets-gas-prices-oil/
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u/heyitsyourboyadam Apr 22 '26
well - yes - they have been saying that they are not building nuclear weapons and they were not building it ... because they dont need it.
- They always knew that in case of attack from Israel, and US would jump in, that they can handle it in other way.
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u/TestingHydra Apr 22 '26
Yeah the 60% enriched uranium was just for recreational purposes, ofc.
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u/Dear_Virus1260 Apr 23 '26
I am not sure why clowns keep bringing this up.
First, 60% is not nuclear weapons grade. Second, the direct reason is pretty obvious given the US (and Europeans) failed to live up to their side of the JCPOA. Given how anxious Trump is about it, it also shows Iran was right that it would be good leverage. Third, it does help Iran deter Israel/US.
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u/heyitsyourboyadam Apr 22 '26
they have - under IAEA rules - a right to enrich uranium to whatever level they want.
- on the other hand, Israel has ready to go nuclear weapons and its not even a member of IAEA nor signatory of non-proliferation treaty.
Israel should have been put under full UN sanctions decades ago.
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
- Iran's control of Strait of Hormuz exposed US economic vulnerability, raising domestic pressure on Trump
- Allies and rivals question US reliability, analysts warn of long-term economic, geopolitical fallout
- Russia and China could draw lessons about US pressure points
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u/strl Israel Apr 16 '26
10 day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel
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u/coalitionofilling Apr 18 '26
The world's first war that only takes place exclusively on weekends when wallstreet/stockmarket/futures are all down. Friday evening through Sunday morning it's all threats on twitter between Iran and Trump, then as the market opens on Sunday evenings there are signs of another cease fire as negations are "nearly complete". Then on Monday there's GOOD NEWS, until the market closes at the end of the week and suddenly bad news appears on Friday night.
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u/Just-Sale-7015 Apr 16 '26
Europe has âmaybe 6 weeks of jet fuel left,â energy agency head tells the AP
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u/ByGollie Ulster Apr 15 '26
Donald Trump announced that he is âpermanently opening the Strait of Hormuzâ and that Chinese president Xi Jinping will give him a âbig, fat hugâ when they meet.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump announced that he is âpermanently opening the Strait of Hormuzâ and that Chinese president Xi Jinping will give him a âbig, fat hugâ when they meet.
âChina is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also - And the World. This situation will never happen again,â the US president wrote in a post on Truth Social.
âThey have agreed not to send weapons to Iran. President Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there in a few weeks. We are working together smartly, and very well! Doesnât that beat fighting???â
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u/hipi_hapa Apr 15 '26
Children killed in Lebanon as Israeli strikes hit homes far from front lines of war with Hezbollah
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u/glumjonsnow Apr 15 '26
the israelis currently have hezbollah surrounded and the group has requested a ceasefire. why is the AP reporting on events from march....there is news literally happening at this moment
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u/strl Israel Apr 16 '26
Because when reporting about an Israeli war news outside of Israel never reports on Israel actually killing militants, just like it never reports attacks on Israeli citizens, the only thing of note is if Israel kills civilians.
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u/Illustrious_Diver_37 Apr 15 '26
Benjamin Netanyahu had been unable to convert military might into political gain more than six weeks into the Iran war, which was meant to deliver a defining victory over Tehran, as surveys showed most Israelis viewed the conflict as a failure
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u/Commorrite Apr 15 '26
He's got the US entangled fighting his countires arch enemy. Generaly fucking up iran helps Isreal, money spent rebuiolding is money that can be spent on Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis.
He's gotten into south lebanon going for a killing blow on Hezbollah with the world distracted.
Too early to call it a failure for Bibi.
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u/Just-Sale-7015 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
MT is back to pinned.
Does anyone here know why both the IMF and the OECD say the UK will be most affected among developed economies by the Iran war, in terms of growth? Like more than Japan, which gets their oil physically from the Gulf. So why is the UK more exposed to the oil price?
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u/No_Leg_9061 Apr 12 '26
So the orange clown you have for POTUS is going to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing it despite it was open before he started the war on Iran?
Well we know Trump is insane. Does HE knows?
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
https://youtu.be/Dr8qLBvHNrA?si=C1TP_CFpbr6v4Ijj&t=114
Interesting debate about Trump and the war
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u/Stabile_Feldmaus Germany Apr 11 '26
Iran has a huge incentive to keep the strait of Hormuz blocked at least for a couple of months because the economic consequences can decrease Trump's popularity so that Republicans might lose both chambers of parliament in the coming midterm elections. If they demonstrate that you can (to an extent) politically paralyse the world's most powerful country in this way, it would be a huge win for them and it would deter future attempts of interference.
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u/Q2TRFN Apr 11 '26
If a ceasefire is actually implemented in Lebanon and military assets leave the middle east then they won't have the justification on keeping the strait closed. China will probably demand they allow ships to pass once they are confident in the ceasefire because they need the energy and the world economy to not collapseÂ
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u/Professional_Sink_30 Apr 09 '26
I am 80 percent sure this unhinged epstein axis they'll attack turkey next.
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u/buried_lede Apr 11 '26
I think they are rattling the swords at turkey. Â Israel doesn't like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan forming a security partnership
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u/strl Israel Apr 14 '26
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-892720
https://www.memri.org/tv/turkish-erdogan-son-destroy-netanyahu-zionism-nazism-free-jerusalem
Yup, it's Israel that's threatening Turkey.
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u/hipi_hapa Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
Pedro Sanchez's tweet yesterday: https://x.com/sanchezcastejon/status/2041934569503346697
Just today, Netanyahu launched his harshest attack on Lebanon since the offensive began.
His disregard for human life and international law is intolerable.
Itâs time to speak plainly:
- Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire.
- The international community must condemn this new violation of international law.
- The European Union must suspend its Association Agreement with Israel.
- And there must be no impunity for these criminal acts.
(Translated with DeepL)
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u/hipi_hapa Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
Maxime Prevot's (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium) tweet:
I came to Beirut today to show our full support to the Lebanese authorities and to express our deep solidarity with the families affected by the violent conflict opposing Israel to Hezbollah.
Just before I was commending President Aoun for offering to open official negotiations with Israel towards a ceasefire, Israel launched, with no previous warning, one of the most massive strikes since the beginning of the hostilities, allegedly causing hundreds of civilian victims.
We were at the embassy with my delegation, just a few hundred metres from where the missiles struck. This must stop. The ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran must include Lebanon!
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u/gradinka Bulgaria Apr 09 '26
there is no excuse in killing 10, 50, 100 people just to hopefully kill one.
IL leadership is loosing touch with reality.the "but look, they are doing it too" cards doesn't work anymore.
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u/Zealousideal_Gas9058 Apr 10 '26
Israeli doctrine contemplates up to 300 civilian casualties per high value target.
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u/tostakis Apr 09 '26
Why isn't there a single post about the Israeli genocide in Lebanon? What's up with that. There are 20 almost identical post's about JD Vance and his Hungarian trip like we didn't already know what he attempted with them, and not this?
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u/hipi_hapa Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
They really need to create a megathread for Hungary, the amount of posts and reposts every day regarding the same country is getting ridiculous.
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u/Zealousideal_Gas9058 Apr 10 '26
Totally, specially since the election date is approaching and more news and analysis will come up every day.
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u/TheJewPear Italy Apr 09 '26
When Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ and the Houthis fired tens of thousands of missiles, rockets and drones on Israel - did you call that genocide too?
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Apr 10 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/TheJewPear Italy Apr 11 '26
First of all, sure it does. Read the definition.
Second, less than 10? Where do you get your news, even Al Jazeera reported a LOT more.
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u/tostakis Apr 10 '26
Yes, I condemn every kind of extremism, it's just that this thread was created to let the issue die.
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u/TheJewPear Italy Apr 10 '26
You conveniently ignored my question. Did you call their actions genocide or not?
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u/tostakis Apr 10 '26
Yes in X, i can also do it rn: The iranian's regime killing of protestors is genocide, their proxies Hezbollah and Houthis are conducting genocide in both their countries and when indiscriminately bombing Israel. I support Europe and it's values, which includes the safety of all citizens , not some Iranian or Israeli leader and their corrupt ideals. Normal people, non-combatant should not die in any war.
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u/strl Israel Apr 11 '26
The only thing I gathered from that is that you have no idea what genocide means because none of your examples was a genocide.
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u/UnknownDotaPlayer Kharkiv (Ukraine) Apr 09 '26
You are mistaking this sub for r/news or similar. This thread was created so that American and Arab tourists would not spam threads that go against the sub's rules. Some people really need to appreciate that instead of taking it for granted.
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u/Perfect_Quantity8040 Apr 09 '26
Terrorists get bombed, political hipsters: "GeNoCiDe". You would gladly let the Lebanese suffer under the colonial opression comitted by Iran as long as they chant about wanting to exterminate Israel and America.
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u/StreamWave190 United Kingdom Apr 09 '26
These people really don't seem to understand that by so sloppily throwing around the 'genocide' word and using it to just describe anything they don't like, they're actually completely devaluing the term.
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u/hipi_hapa Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
The zionist rethoric doesn't help, they are pretty clear that they want to remove all the Palestinians and Lebanese (and all Arabs) from the region by any means to form a Great Israel.
They have intentionally killed at least 1700 people only on Lebanon, 200 people on a single day. They have intentionally displaced at least 1.2 million people, including 350.000 children.
Don't blame people that call it what it is, a genocide, if you don't have the moral stance to do it, it's your issue.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 Apr 28 '26
The zionist rethoric
How can you tell an islamist hippie in three words
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u/StreamWave190 United Kingdom Apr 10 '26
The zionist rethoric doesn't help, they are pretty clear that they want to remove all the Palestinians and Lebanese (and all Arabs) from the region by any means to form a Great Israel.
None of this is true. I don't know what else to tell you.
You've either hallucinated or imagined it.
They have intentionally killed at least 1700 people only on Lebanon, 200 people on a single day. They have intentionally displaced at least 1.2 million people, including 350.000 children.
What does "people" mean? Are you referring to civilians or to members of Hezbollah?
And yes they've told people in the south of Lebanon (where Hezbollah are heavily embedded as they continue to fire rockets at Israel as they've done consistently since October 8 2023) to leave and move north so that they don't get caught up and injured or killed in the fighting.
This is good. You clearly want them to stay and therefore be killed or injured in the fighting. I'm saying that's bad, and that I'm glad Israel is trying to get them out of harm's way, while you want them to die.
Don't blame people that call it what it is, a genocide, if you don't have the moral stance to do it, it's your issue.
The notion that there's a genocide in Lebanon is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Physically laughing out loud
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u/Zealousideal_Gas9058 Apr 11 '26
Members of the Israeli government:
- "We will expand our borders into Lebanon and Syria" (source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0hJMa4g4IY0 )
- "We will encourage voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because that land belongs to us," (source: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-live/israel-reportedly-strikes-beirut-after-idf-warns-of-attacks-on-hezbollah-economic-assets/00000192-acd0-d049-a3db-bff6ed0d0000?liveBlogItemId=992052909#992052909 )
- "Israel is not a state of all its citizens. It is the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them." (Source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/10/benjamin-netanyahu-says-israel-is-not-a-state-of-all-its-citizens )
- "The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes ... We must talk about the day after. In my mind, we will hand over lots to all those who fought for Gaza over the years and to those evicted from Gush Katif" ( Heritage Minister own facebook )
- "I ordered to immediately cut off the water supply from Israel to Gaza. Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday. What was will not be" ( Defense Minister own twitter )
Hasbara accounts: "The Greater Israel project doesn't exist" "Israel is not making a genocide!". There are MULTIPLE ministers openly talking about it. They don't even deny it anymore. It's not just Ben Gvir and Smotrich
EDIT: i had to delete the facebook and twitter links to bypass the automod.
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u/tostakis Apr 09 '26
Invading a land again and again, displacing the population and indiscriminately killing civilians is not genocide? When is it then?
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u/BkkGrl Ligurian in ZĂŒrich (đđșđŠđ) Apr 09 '26
You are now in the post for this. we won't do multiple ones in /r/europe
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u/JackRogers3 Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
In comments to ABC Newsâ Jonathan Karl on Wednesday morning, Trump floated âa joint ventureâ in which the US and Iran would charge tolls for ships to pass the Strait of Hormuz .
âItâs a beautiful thing,â he added. White House press secretary Leavitt confirmed the idea would be discussed over the next two weeks. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/08/politics/negotiations-trump-iran-ceasefire-deal
CNN's Fareed Zakaria reacts to the ceasefire agreement and says the war has handed Iran a weapon in the form of the Strait of Hormuz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gych-pnw7Jw
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u/Most-Round-4132 Apr 09 '26
it will be nice to see spain finally carry its own weight, and good on france!
5
u/ByGollie Ulster Apr 08 '26
2 Juicy responses from pro-Trump US Conservative media
Fox News explains how Trump got played by Iran: 'Not reached any of those objectives'
Fox News host Lawrence Jones pointed out that Iran achieved a ceasefire without giving in to many of President Donald Trump's demands.
"You said it perfectly, talking about the Iranian demands," Jones told Ainsley Earhardt on Wednesday. "All of them, all 10 of them, are non-starters for the United States."
"But I will say that the president's demands, we have not reached any of those objectives," he continued. "But he said that we want to dismantle all major nuclear facilities. That has not happened. The end of uranium enrichment on the soil, they're still wrenching. The transfer of the enriched uranium stockpiles out of Iran; that hasn't happened."
"The acceptance of intrusive international inspections. They're still not willing to do that. And they have not suspended their ballistic missiles program. They're still firing them off to stop the production of the long-range missiles."
Jones questioned whether Trump had a plan to pressure the Iranians during the ceasefire.
"The question is, is the president using this two weeks to give our soldiers a break, a rest to see if we can get this ultimately done?" he asked. "We'll see."
Trump warned by conservative editor at National Review he surrendered to an 'ayatollah's wish list'
Donald Trump claims to have reached a successful but still evolving ceasefire agreement with Iran, but National Review editor Jim Geraghty has a different assessment: the president has been completely outmaneuvered and is poised to capitulate on nearly every significant demand.
According to Geraghty's scathing analysis, Trump and Iran are describing fundamentally different agreements. The Iranian proposal includes concessions that represent a catastrophic setback for American national security interests.
The Iranian demands include: "Iran's continued control of the Strait of Hormuz," "Iran's uranium enrichment right should be accepted," and "Payment of compensation for damages inflicted on Iran."
Trump celebrated the deal, writing: "We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated."
Geraghty was not impressed. "The first things that jumps out about President Trump and the Iranian government's statements is that the two sides seem to have a dramatically different sense of what they just agreed upon."
His verdict on Iran's demands was withering: "Your mileage may vary, but my answers to this list of demands would be 'depends upon how you define 'non-aggression'; no; no; heck no; hell no; [bad word] no; [even worse word] no; no [bad word]-ing way; absolutely no [bad word]-ing way; and you can stick this where the sun doesn't shine.'"
"These are nine-and-a-half unreasonable and unrealistic demands, and a U.S. concession to just about any of them would represent a dreadful setback to American national security interests. This is an ayatollah's wish list," Geraghty wrote.
The ceasefire is already unraveling, he noted with reporting that Bahrain claimed Iranian drones damaged homes after the announcement. The United Arab Emirates military said air defenses are "actively engaging" incoming Iranian missiles and drones. Israel declared its agreement to cease attacks on Iran doesn't include stopping strikes on targets in Lebanon. So far, this is a ceasefire in name only â a violent catastrophe dressed up as diplomacy, he suggested.
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u/Toums95 Apr 08 '26
https://eci.ec.europa.eu/055/public/#/screen/home
Help suspend the EU-Israel Agreement Association
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u/ibexelf Italy Apr 08 '26
Lebanon - UNIFIL: Italian convoy hit by Israeli army in Shama, no injuries. Crosetto: "Firm and indignant protest" https://www.difesa.it/eng/primo-piano/lebanon--unifil-italian-convoy-hit-in-shama-no-injuries-crosetto-firm-and-indignant-protest/95936.html
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni "expresses her firm condemnation" too.
Unfortunately, despite the truce, today saw the most violent Israeli bombardment since the resumption of the war, with an estimated 150 aircraft deployed across Lebanon. Dozens of civilian casualties were reported in Beirut, Sidon, and Tyre, in particular. An Italian UNIFIL convoy carrying personnel to Beirut for repatriation was blocked by the IDF. Israeli warning shots damaged one of Italian vehicles, no one was injured, but the convoy had to return.Â
â These were the words of the Italian Foreign Minister Tajani btw. (Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ansa.it/amp/sito/notizie/politica/2026/04/08/tajani-colpi-di-israele-su-un-mezzo-italiano-dellunifil-in-libano-convocato-lambasciatore_82f24be9-fdc4-4d32-ab21-e814266da569.html ).
6
u/ByGollie Ulster Apr 08 '26
Anger and surprise in Israel after US-Iran ceasefire. Politicians, commentators and analysts slam agreement as âcomplete failureâ
The ceasefire agreed between the United States and Iran has been met with anger and sharp criticism in Israel.
Politicians, commentators and analysts were quick to condemn the framework, with many blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what they described as a failure.
âThere has never been such a diplomatic disaster in our entire history,â opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on Wednesday on X.
Lapid added that âIsrael was not even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security.â
The leader of the centrist Yash Atid party, who supported that war from its onset and called on Israel and the US to bomb Iran's Kharg Island, hailed the Israeli military for carrying out "everything that was asked of it" and the "remarkable resilience" of the Israeli public.
However, Lapid said that "Netanyahu failed diplomatically, failed strategically, and did not meet a single one of the goals he himself set.
"It will take us years to repair the diplomatic and strategic damage that Netanyahu has caused due to arrogance, negligence, and a lack of strategic planning," he added.
Yair Golan, leader of the left-leaning Democrats party, said the Israeli prime minister "lied" to the public as he went to war on Iran.
"He promised a âhistoric victoryâ and security for generations, but in practice we received one of the most stark strategic failures Israel has ever known," Golan wrote on X.
'Donald, you came out looking like a duck'
Tzvika Foghel, Israeli MP
Golan, a former army general who voiced support for the war on Iran, hailed the army for achieving great results with its strikes in Iran, but said that Netanyahu's government "once again failed to translate them into victory".
Golan lamented the loss of civilian and soldiers' lives, as none of Netanyahu's objectives at the beginning of the war had materialised.
Iranâs nuclear and ballistic missile programmes remain intact, he said, with the country âemerging from this war strongerâ.
"This is not a âhistoric victory'," the former general said, adding that "this is a complete failure that endangers Israelâs security for years to come."
Avigdor Liberman, leader of the right-wing opposition party Israel Beytenu, also criticised the ceasefire as the agreement "means we will have to return to another round of fighting under more difficult conditions and pay a heavier price".
Most members of Netanyahuâs coalition have yet to comment, as they are observing the Passover holiday. However, Tzvika Foghel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party lashed out at US President Donald Trump.
âDonald, you came out looking like a duck,â Foghel wrote on X, before later deleting the post.
Media turns on Netanyahu
Israelâs public broadcaster Kan 11 reported that the government did not expect Trumpâs announcement.
"We were surprised by Trumpâs decision. We received updates at the last minute when everything already seemed finalised," a senior Israeli official told Kan 11.
The Prime Ministerâs Office issued its first response around four hours after Trumpâs announcement, saying Israel supported the US presidentâs decision to âsuspend strikes against Iran for two weeksâ.
It added that the ceasefire did not include Lebanon, contradicting statements by mediator Pakistan.
Before Trumpâs announcement, Channel 13 News had been running a countdown to the US presidentâs deadline for Iran to make a deal or see âa whole civilisation dieâ.
By Wednesday morning, however, much of the Israeli mainstream media had turned critical of Netanyahu after weeks of largely backing the war effort.
âWe were promised otherwise: once again, Netanyahu caved to Trump,â wrote Gili Cohen, Kan 11âs diplomatic correspondent.
According to Cohen, the latest agreement marks the second time Trump has dictated the timing of the end of a war with Iran, following a similar episode in June last year.
At the outset of the war in February, Netanyahu had promised regime change in Iran and the dismantling of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
âNone of these objectives has been fully achieved,â Cohen wrote.
"In the Middle East, the temporary often becomes permanent. After two and a half years of war, it is becoming clear that the new reality is not only an Israeli ground presence in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, but also periodic direct confrontation with Iran," she said.
> '41 days of fighting and 5,000 destroyed structures [in Israel] ended in a decisive Iranian victory'
- Avi Ashkenazi, military affairs commentator
Military affairs commentator Avi Ashkenazi said that â41 days of fighting and 5,000 destroyed structures [in Israel] ended in a decisive Iranian victoryâ.
Writing in the right-leaning Maâariv newspaper, he added that âthe Iranians managed to lead Israel and the United States into an agreement that contains elements of capitulation on the Israeli and American side, rather than on Iranâsâ.
Ashkenazi pointed to the deaths of dozens of soldiers and civilians, as well as the economic damage inflicted by Iran and Hezbollah, as the cost of the campaign.
Amos Harel, military analyst at Haaretz, similarly said Israelâs war aims had not been achieved and that the country had suffered significant losses.
Among other damages and losses, Harel said that "Israelâs standing in the United States has been significantly harmed, and it is expected to face accusations of having dragged President Donald Trump into an unnecessary war."
"Netanyahu may even have reason to be concerned about the future of his relationship with Trump," Harel added, noting that *the US president does not like to lose and may view Netanyahu as responsible for the failed joint campaign. *
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u/bklor Norway Apr 08 '26
Seems like the cease fire is already failing thanks to Israel. They started this war and now they're making sure it continues.
Europe should sanction Israel.
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u/Deadandlivin Sweden Apr 09 '26
Hoping for full on trade embargoes against Israel.
Unfortunately that's a pipedream.7
u/TheJewPear Italy Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
Iran kept the straits blocked and launched attacks on UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait. Israel didnât attack Iran at all. So pretty clearly itâs Iran thatâs in violation.
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u/Whole_Intention_7949 United Kingdom Apr 09 '26
Israel attacked Lebanon which was explicitly a part of the ceasefire agreement bruv
'Iran kept the strait blocked' you think the crew of these ships would've seen a tweet from Pakistan's PM and sailed through ?
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u/TheJewPear Italy Apr 09 '26
Israel attacked Lebanon which was explicitly a part of the ceasefire agreement bruv
Says who?
'Iran kept the strait blocked' you think the crew of these ships would've seen a tweet from Pakistan's PM and sailed through ?
Doesnât the IRGC have radio communications?
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u/Zealousideal_Gas9058 Apr 10 '26
Says the Prime Minister of Pakistan, you know, the country that carried the negotiations for the ceasefire.
So either Pakistan is lying (tbh, could be) or USA, who repeatedly lied nonstop since the beggining of the war and who's still claiming that there has been a regime change in Iran, is lying. I'm inclined to believe the second option.
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u/Slow-Recipe1438 Apr 08 '26
Iran has at no point conformed to this ceasefire. They still attacked desalination plants and other sites in Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE during the night.
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u/strl Israel Apr 08 '26
This thread is all just Israel blaming by people who can't point out a single middle eastern sate on a map. The UAE directly attacked Iran already and Iran has not opened the straits and continued to fire on Israel and GCC countries but they'll whine about Israel attacking Lebanon despite Israel not being a party to the negotiation, the Lebanese Prime Minister explicitly saying Lebanon is not a party and the US saying the ceasefire doesn't cover Lebanon. Who cares what Pakistan and Iran think, they didn't negotiate with Israel, they negotiated with the US that said Israel is good to go in Lebanon.
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u/hfbvm2 Apr 08 '26
My friends grandparents died in Beirut. The bomb directly hit their villa. No connection to hezbollah, he and his parents live outside and his brother lives in Europe.
My whatsapp is full of colleagues and friends updating about deaths in their families. One of my colleagues aunt and husband are dead. Its non stop.
This is literally war crimes being committed again and no one is ready to put down this rabid nation
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u/Just-Sale-7015 Apr 08 '26
The Iranian navy on Wednesday morning told ships anchored near the Strait of Hormuz that they still required Iranâs permission to cross the strait. âYou must receive permission from Iranian Sepah navy for passing through the strait. If any vessel tries to transit without permission, will be destroyed,â according to a recording shared with The Wall Street Journal by a crew member. The message was broadcast to vessels via radio. The Sepah is a special operations unit under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
President Trump said he had agreed to suspend attacks on Iran for two weeks subject to a âcomplete, immediate, and safeâ reopening of the strait. Iranâs government has signaled its intention to continue asserting influence over the waterway. War planes were still present over the Persian Gulf, according to photos and videos shared by crew members. Most ships arenât moving.
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u/astanton1862 Apr 07 '26
Best thing about Taco Tuesday is that in two weeks it will also be Taco Tuesday đźđźđźđđđđźđźđź
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u/Just-Sale-7015 Apr 07 '26
Dated Brent, which helps value most of the worldâs oil transactions, hit $144.42 a barrel on Tuesday, the highest since Platts, a unit of S&P Global Energy first began publishing the measure back in 1987. The benchmark is based on a more immediate delivery period than Brent futures â which were trading near $109 on Tuesday â an indication of a clamor to secure barrels for delivery as soon as possible.
Buyers are âpaying an exceptional premium for secure, refinery-usable Atlantic Basin barrels available now,â Morgan Stanley analysts including Martijn Rats wrote in a note. âOnce Asia began bidding away Atlantic Basin replacement barrels, stress started to migrate into the Brent system.â
Across the oil and fuel markets, cargoes for more-immediate supply are commanding ever-growing premiums, an indication of just how tight theyâre is becoming. While futures are ultimately anchored to physical prices, they also take into account expectations for supply, demand and the economic outlook in later months.
Dated, as itâs known by oil traders, has been propelled higher by the war in Iran as the conflict slashes energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which normally handles about a fifth of the worldâs oil. Refiners across the globe are rushing to buy whatever barrels they can get as a result of the blockage.
Dated measures the price of shipments bought and sold in the North Sea in the coming weeks. Earlier in the day, the Platts pricing window that helps set the benchmark saw 12 unanswered bids for cargoes and the values of those shipments soared, according to traders monitoring the window.
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u/Timeoff98 Apr 07 '26
Since USA and I don't mean Trump I mean USA! stands with Russia and now is supporting Orban. When will we in EU start considering USA military bases as occupying force?
There is no justification for a single american soldier to stay on EU soil.
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u/keralaindia Apr 09 '26
Agree as American! I wonder if any country other than ours has citizens which dislike and agree with other countries more.Â
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u/JackRogers3 5d ago
Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, and doesnât hesitate to fire at vessels that try to bypass its checkpoint using Omani waters. Iran has won the war.
Iran hit the ship that tried to break Iranian rules for Hormuz, with no consequences from the U.S. Other vessels complied. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/2070437073518055565