Max Muster @CorpWelfareStat

@IbrahimJalalYE x.com/clashreport/st…

@Alsakaniali x.com/clashreport/st… U forgot one video of the Saudi backed troops

@queru_lant Klassiker: Deutsche auf der Seiten des Genozid🙈

Iran's latest ballistic missile attacks and the continued rejection of compromise solutions on the Strait of Hormuz might seem like indications that "hardline" thinking is dominating Iran's national security strategy. But my conversations with counterparts in Tehran suggest that something else is at play. Iranian decisionmaking is increasingly shaped by an intense pessimism about what diplomacy with the U.S. can achieve. Most senior figures, whether pragmatists or hardliners, simply do not believe a deal is possible. This pessimism has gotten worse since the MOU was signed. Part of this is about the repeated experience of U.S. escalation during the course of negotiations, but the pessimism is no longer confined to the question of "does Trump want a deal?" Increasingly the belief is that "Trump can't do a deal, even if he thinks he wants one." Policymakers in Tehran are looking at several things. At a technical level, the Trump administration was unable to execute even the most basic confidence building measures of the MOU. No assets were released and the oil waiver was never really operationalized. Iranian leaders are also looking to other contexts. Even in Venezuela, where the administration has complete political control and a full court press approach to economic reengagement, sanctions relief has floundered (eg. it took a whole month after the massive earthquake for FinCen to take proactive steps to try and provide banks comfort to support humanitarian transactions). At a political level, the Iranians have seen the overblown reaction to the MOU from the full range of politicians in Washington. Democrats eager to score political points attacked provisions in the MOU that would be fundamental to *any* viable agreement with Iran. The Iranians are also watching the growing rift between the Rubio and Vance camps and are concluding that the administration is inherently dysfunctional. During the Biden years, the issue was whether the president could defend his deal from political rivals in Congress. Now, the rivals are within the cabinet itself. At an individual level, there is also a growing sense that Trump is too erratic to stick by his own deals. Even Saudi Arabia, the country with perhaps the greatest influence in the White House after Israel, could not shield its own nuclear deal from Trump's excessive demands. This may be an unprecedented situation. The U.S. has started a war it does not know how to end. Meanwhile, the arguments for diplomacy in Tehran have been reduced to "this has a low chance of succeeding, but we have to still try." That's not a strong, positive case for diplomatic engagement and understandably the strategic thinking is tending towards the idea that U.S. dysfunction will continue to manifest in the form of economic pressure and kinetic action against Iran for a long time to come.

@glcarlstrom @LizHurra x.com/i/status/20636…

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

4 months ago

In other words, if the war resumes:

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So @Axios has an explosive report claiming that Trump had a tense call with Netanyahu today and told him: "You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Trump also accused Netanyahu of ingratitude since Trump had helped keep Netanyahu out of jail. At the heart of the matter was Trump’s frustration with Netanyahu not caving to his demands to cease bombing Lebanon, as Israel’s aggression risked jeopardizing Trump’s diplomacy with Iran. The story has understandably been met with considerable skepticism. After all, there is a long and well-documented pattern of American presidents privately expressing anger and frustration with Israeli prime ministers while publicly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them and continuing to support their policies. Take Joe Biden as an example. In late December 2023, Axios reported that Biden’s frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu had become so intense that he abruptly ended a phone call with the Israeli leader, reportedly concluding the exchange with the terse remark: “This conversation is over.” Yet in practice, Biden remained firmly aligned with Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. Two months later, NBC News reported that Biden had repeatedly referred to Netanyahu as an “asshole” in private conversations with aides and donors. But even as he vented his exasperation behind closed doors, Biden continued to arm Israel lavishly and shield it from mounting diplomatic and political pressure at the United Nations. The gap between private frustration and public policy could hardly have been more striking. There are, however, a few important counterexamples—particularly from Trump’s second term—that suggest the Axios story is not entirely implausible. (Indeed, the report would have been far more difficult to believe had Axios claimed that Trump told Netanyahu, “Everybody loves you.”) Read the full analysis on my Substack: tritaparsi.substack.com/p/why-trump-ma…

@netanyahu @POTUS humilated by the mad cunt part468 🤡

Israel’s attacks across Lebanon are shocking. As civilians suffer and agreements are bent by force, Europe is reduced to watching a conflict that directly affects it. What we need is a new democratic security architecture.

One of the biggest implications of this war is how badly Europe miscalculated. On Iran, they had real chance to help make diplomacy succeed. Instead, they aligned with and enabled Trump’s worst instincts. Now they face a cascading crisis: severe economic shock, a fraying NATO, weakened support for Ukraine, and the erosion of the very security architecture they built over decades. Such strategic malpractice by the European policy class.

Hümeyra Pamuk @humeyra_pamuk

6 months ago

NEW: President Trump tells @steveholland1 in a brief interview that he will express his "disgust" for NATO at tonight's speech and that he is "absolutely" considering withdrawing the United States from NATO

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نفرت از امپریالیسم آمریکا اولین پیش نیاز فضیلت است.

@Levant_24_ Topics: how to depprt syrians in Germany and support for israel

A diplomatic delegation led by Mr. Khorramshahr - 4 will hold extraordinary negotiations tonight.

The developments of the past 24h may prove a turning point in this war: Israel and the US's escalation by striking the Qatari-Iranian Pars field, the strikes against Asaluyeh, Iran's massive retaliation against oil and gas installations in Saudi, Qatar and beyond, which shot up oil prices, the near downing of a F35 by Iran and Secretary Bessent's revelations that the US may unsanction Iranian oil on the waters to bring down oil prices. As I said already on the fourth day, the US has lost control of this war. It had a Plan A, but no Plan B. Plan A came crashing down after it became clear that the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei neither brought the implosion of the theocracy nor their surrender. As a result, the US is increasingly letting the Israelis drive the bus, by virtue of them having a plan, even though their plan does not serve US interests (the Israelis want to prolong the war to degrade Iran's entire industrial base, regardless of what happens to energy markets, Trump's presidency, and security in the region as a whole.) The Israeli strike against the Pars field, coordinated with the US, is particularly important because it violated a promise Trump made to Qatar back in September 2025 - Israel would no longer be allowed to strike Qatar. But that gas field is shared by both Iran and Qatar, hence it was an attack on Qatar as well as on Iran. With US coordination. This - and the impact on energy markets - may explain why Trump took to social media to blame Israel for the attack and publicly forbade them from striking further energy fields. But Bessent's comments about unsanctioning Iranian oil on the waters are the most important. Though it's primarily done to push down oil prices, it appears that we may have nevertheless entered sanctions relief territory out of necessity. I wrote several days ago that Tehran is very unlikely to end the war even if the US pulls out and declares victory. Iran has leverage for the first time in years and will seek to trade it in. It has publicly demanded a closing of US bases, reparations, and sanctions relief in order to stop shooting at Israel and open the Straits. The first may happen over time anyway, the second is highly unlikely, but the third - sanctions relief - may become more plausible as the cost of the war rises, and escalation strategies become increasingly suicidal for Trump. As I have explained, a return to the pre-war status quo is unacceptable to Tehran because it will not only be in a degraded state, but also in a continuously weakening state because its pathways to sanctions relief have been blown up. If Iran weakens further, it will only invite further American and Israeli aggression, Tehran believes, because it was the false perception of Iranian weakness that created the "window of opportunity" to attack Iran in the first place. Sanctions relief is, as a result, a necessity to ensure that the war doesn't restart. But here is where Iran may miscalculate. Trump may not yet have reached the point at which the cost of continuing the war is so high that he opts to offer sanctions exemptions to select countries to get Iran's agreement to open the straits and end the war. He will likely only reach that point once it's clear that his base is starting to turn against the war in a serious manner. At that point, Trump will face a time crunch. He will need a narrative in which he declares himself a victor - with his base believing it. Absent the ability to convince his base that he has won, the benefit of ending the war may not outweigh the cost of continuing it. And as soon as his base starts turning against the war, his ability to convince them of his victory starts to wane. Mindful of the fact that negotiating this end may take an estimated 7-10 days at best, which is different from the 24 hours or so it took to negotiate the unconditional ceasefire in June, Tehran may overplay its hand and only agree to enter these negotiations at a point at which the length of the negotiations may exceed the time Trump has left to convincingly declare victory and provide himself a face saving exit. Getting the timing of this right will be very difficult for both the US and Iran. Israel will do all it can to sabotage any such off-ramp, including by killing Iranian's negotiatiors. But it will become increasingly clear - if it hasn't already - to Trump that all his escalatory options only deepen the lose-lose situation he has put himself in. That's why Trump should never have listened to Netanyahu in the first place.

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC. May God bless America.

One of the most damaging consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement was the collapse of the political camp in Iran that supported engagement with the West. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, was never an enthusiastic supporter of the deal. In contrast, President Hassan Rouhani consistently advocated for it and ultimately managed—despite resistance from hardline factions, to persuade Khamenei to allow the agreement to move forward. Even at the time, opponents of the deal within Iran warned that the United States would eventually abandon the agreement and betray Iran. The success of the nuclear negotiations became Rouhani’s most important political achievement. Riding on that success, he won reelection in 2017, defeating Ebrahim Raisi and benefiting from widespread public hopes in Iran for gradual change in the country’s relationship with the world and for economic improvement. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the agreement severely undermined the political standing of Iran’s moderate and pragmatic camp. It validated the arguments of hardliners who had long claimed that the United States could not be trusted, weakening those in Iran who advocated engagement with the West. Today, as Iran faces heightened security pressures and the possibility of war, the environment in which leadership emerges is very different. Rather than leaders shaped by diplomacy and engagement with the international community, the political system is increasingly likely to elevate figures rooted in the security establishment and confrontation with the West. Had the nuclear agreement remained in place, the pool of viable leadership candidates in Iran might have looked very different. #iran

Phil Gordon @PhilGordonDC

7 months ago

Any who defended the Iran nuclear deal over the past decade will recall being told they were too squeamish about using force against Iran and that the credible threat of force alone would produce a better deal. It is now clear neither of those things were true.

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Similarities between Israel's bombing of Gaza and Tehran are growing stronger. In both cases, it appears Israel is using AI without any human oversight. For instance, Israel has bombed a park in Tehran called "Police park." It has nothing to do with the police. But it appears AI identified it as a target since Israel is bombing all government related buildings. No one in Israel brothered to check and find out that it is just a park.

@j_zs222 @shashj @DefenceHQ @TheEconomist Why are you so mad? This report likely passed through mil., int., and FO desks, but it’s based on BAF radar data — the initial count is done by a soldier. And sorry the FT is my daily; just ask if you need a gift link. ALSO, this isn’t a travel warning, it’s a situation report🤡

@glcarlstrom Let’s see what the most reliable news outlet in the UK (it’s not The Economist) says about Iran’s missile capabilities.