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Notes -
To sort of echo Daste's recent post, it's remarkable the lack of threads for the ongoing conflict given its historic implications for Culture War, but I'll keep the ball rolling for another update/call to register your predictions:
It's very possible the next few days will be a turning point in history. I guess I will register the prediction of Trump TACO given any other alternative is too bad for the world to fathom. Yesterday Iran did enormous damage to the towns in Southern Israel hosting Israeli nuclear infrastructure (which actually does not fall under the oversight of the IEA in contrast with Iran's program to this point). The notion that Iran is incapable of following through with its avowed retaliation is bunk, given the recent strikes on Qatar gas facilities that will have long-term impacts on global supply of natural gas.
So what's going to happen tomorrow? All of the public signals point to Trump making the decision to totally destroy Iranian infrastructure in order to destroy the country. But Iran won't back down because it would be the end of the regime. So who's going to blink?
I mean I don’t think he’s going to TACO there. If he were, he would not be proudly shouting that he intends to do that. He’s perhaps TACO over tariffs in the past, but this is different because he’s being very clear about what he intends to do, and he’s positioning the thing so that the west looks absolutely weak if they don’t force the straits open. Add in that we’re mere months from midterms, and the public isn’t going to be patient if gas prices stay high, and inflation goes up by 10% in a month etc. It’s a situation where if he doesn’t get a big win quickly, the whole thing can blow up in his face. Backing down isn’t going to fix this.
Update: he did chicken out again. Mimimi, productive talks, mimimi, five days extension. Nobody has reported that Iran opened the Straights, the deadline is past, so his threat was clearly not serious. Which is a good thing for the world.
My estimate is that the productive talks have mostly been with gulf monarchies. "Wise king Donald, are you enjoying the plane we gifted you? Please have mercy on us and do not escalate in Iran, lest we lose our infrastructure and can not keep sending you gifts."
Reports now on CNN, Iran is denying that there are talks.
Which, who knows, we could even have a situation where talks are going on but communication within the Iranian government has broken down.
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