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Some various thoughts about the whole thing with Iran. My apologies if much of this was already discussed before by others in previous Culture War threads.
Caveat: we won't know how this war turns out until a year or more in, so this is just a very low-confidence statement.
Militarily and politically, what is the US lacking? Willpower. If the US population decided tomorrow they wished to do anything up to and including conquer Iran, the US could do it. The issue is that the US government, as a result of the population not being sold on the war, is unwilling to escalate beyond a certain point or sustain casualties or discomfort for the US civilian population. If what Rubio said was right, and the US joined in since Israel was going to attack anyway, that may have been a huge blunder; the US joining in without an immediate Causus Belli really weakened the will of Americans, as well as allies, to actually prosecute the war. If Israel attacked then Iran retaliated and attacked US bases, the US would have an immediate Causus Belli and, while likely not an unlimited will for war, a strong will for war you have to respond if your troops/bases are attacked. The limiting factor of the US right now is willpower, and events don't seem to have strengthened it.
industrial capacity and the resource extraction base to support it, cohesion, purpose, human capital, will
The US could blanket Iran in nuclear weapons repeatedly for a period of years to destroy it and kill everyone in Iran if we really wanted to. Sure, this would likely lead to Armageddon and world's ending, but it's possible.
The US couldn't conventionally conquer Iran even if it really wanted to. It would take 10 years at least to build up the necessary industrial capacity and fighting military which could field a large enough army of people actually able to fight in Iran and conquer it, move it across the world, and supply it for the years it would take. The US just does not have the industrial capacity any longer to make enough weapons and ammunition and warships to do this.
In 1941, the US had immense industrial power and the civilian structure and human capital necessary to make that immense industrial power work. This pre-existing power could be retooled and the human capital retrained quickly in order to pump out tanks and bombs and warships. The population was young and vibrant and cohesive. The US spent that very powerful force it built up from WW2 throughout the Cold War on the last couple preposterously stupid wars in the Middle East. That military is gone. The America which built it is gone.
The US military is built for quick, overwhelming firepower engagements but it does not have lasting power against any sort of real adversary. It's weapons are expensive, hard to produce, and produced in small numbers. It's ability to field real fighting infantry on the ground which is what wins wars and conquers has been drastically reduced. The people who fill the US military now are worse in every way than the men who filled it before. Without major changes, the US couldn't even have done what the Ukrainian military has endured over the last 4 years and would have buckled within the first couple of years. Printing money and manipulating digits and pieces of paper can only do so much. It would take 20 years for the current US to replace a single carrier group sinking.
Is it theoretically possible some Great Man comes about in response to existential crisis which spends the years necessary to rebuild America's industrial and economic might, which begins immediate universal conscription and fires all the calcified flag officers and severely punishes the rampant corruption and raises an Army of 15 million men, and has the capacity to equip them who marshals the newfound might to build a thousand ships to motor over to the middle east and withstand the fire and heavy casualties as it accumulates to launch an invasion of Iran, launches an invasion, defeats the IRGC on the ground, roots out their tunnels and complexes, and subjugates the population leaving a large military force to regularly slaughter Iranians who disagree? Yeah, but this scenario even strains "theoretically." The US would need a serious and sincere totalizing and totalitarian assimilation project which would require severe crackdown on any identity which isn't "American" (whatever that would be) and forced ethnogeneses to create a people cohesive enough who agree about basics to even make this possible. Otherwise, it will just lead to regional and factional conflict in the US.
And Iran will have a nuclear weapon long before that and Russia and China will act to stop this, including direct confrontation.
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Watching all this go down is strange. For the past three decades or so, this whole conflict basically has been in the realm of kayfabe. Lots of saber-rattling, angry rhetoric, not giving an inch obviously, threats etc. But everyone involved had enough sense not to actually start shooting. However, the venom has been accumulating. And now it’s going down. It’s real. It’s on. Ideas have consequences indeed.
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So. Why can't the US just get bored of blowing stuff up, declare mission accomplished and then leave without resolving the SOH?
Is Iran going to impose a permanent toll on the SOH anyway? Are they actually able to do this long term? Why didn't they figure this out until this month? Presumably they should have done this all along?
Something doesn't quite add up.
Cause oil prices are and would remain high and the political consequences are severe.
From what I understand, that's what they are trying to do, they are trying to get "US recognition" that the SOH is theirs to control. Once there is US recognition, that's pretty much it. Though that would certainly piss off a bunch of countries.
Iranians didn't want to fight. Now that it's existential for them, they're pulling out the cards of trying to control the strait de facto. Maybe some of them are also surprised at how effective it is and wonder maybe they should have done it earlier. But there is a difference I think being "the one that started it". For what its worth, I think a strong and persuasive narrative from the Iranian regime is that "yes things were tense, but we were at the negotiating table when the other side started blasting so we had no choice".
Well, unlike Panama, they don't control both sides of this narrow passage. And I suppose that's the point of the thousands of American boots on the ground that is gearing up into the region.
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Because doing so would trigger a war like this and get the entire leadership killed. Now that the war has happened and the entire leadership has been killed, there's no cost to doing it, that's already been paid.
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Conditions which the Iranians would agree to and stop firing weapons at all the people and countries attacking them or supporting attacks against them? I would guess something like:
US Abandons all US bases in the Persian Gulf (relocated some to Israel)
Removes all or most sanctions.
Unfreezes Iranian Assets which the Iranians can label "reparations" and Trump can claim is buying the dopes off with their own money.
Iran gets de facto control over Straight of Hormuz and they will collect tolls to use it (Oman will probably help) and will likely ban any traffic from US or Israeli affiliated ships.
Trump could just about face tomorrow, claim we've destroyed all their weapons and elementary schools, and that's what victory looks like, maybe the biggest victory ever, and just stop the war tomorrow. This will not stop the Iranians from attacking the Israelis and probably won't stop them from attacking any US assets still in the Persian Gulf, but the US could just leave.
No, every single thing will be strictly worse for the United States and Americans generally than it was on February 27th.
Nah, no one who cared about the Epstein files will forget about it because of Operation Epstein Fury for the Epstein class/Israel. It's these people who keep bringing it up and they still will and I would bet you will see messaging in the midterms about it.
Your suggestion is US surrender, and it won't happen until January 2027 at the earliest, when the Democratic Congress can force Trump to give up.
In the meantime, it is more likely that any one of the following occurs
The US takes the islands in the strait and some of the Iranian coastline, and forces the strait open. This could start as early was Friday evening EST
The US and Israel kill enough IRGC leaders that Second Lieutenant Amir Rezei, highest ranking surviving IRGC leader, is not so fanatic as to be willing to make a deal to survive
The Iranians, if they are indeed winning as much as you say, manage to put a nuke together and fire it.
The Paper Lion (Crown Prince) leads an army of diasporans in and takes the place. (OK, maybe this is only exactly as likely as an unforced Trump surrender. Neither one is happening)
If the US wants the war to end, and it should, those are the terms on which the Iranians will allow the war to end. All of the alternatives are worse.
As I've written before, the choice at this point is for the US are between defeat and catastrophic defeat or a vast escalation. The US doesn't have the will nor the political capital to accomplish a vast escalation at this point. The US doesn't have even 1/10th the soldiers which should be staged in order to take an island in the straight and it would take many months to attempt this, all the while they will be suffering casualties because the Iranians are not going to sit by and allow troops to be accumulated anywhere near the Persian Gulf. Opening the straight won't solve the crisis of the closed straight which was fully open on February 27th because if the US is able to open the Straight the Iranians will simply blow up all major oil infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. The existence of the straight to block it is far better than the alternative. It doesn't matter much if Hormuz is open if there is no oil being produced and refined to sail through it and this destruction will lock in global economic crisis which we will start to see a taste of in the next week.
The Trump administration is currently terrified of high casualties and rightly so because the moment the US suffers a large number of casualties will be the moment the political will to continue this idiotic farce completely evaporates. No, Americans are not going to respond to drone videos hunting down US soldiers and blowing them up with anger at the Iranians. This war is far too unpopular.
Killing IRGC leaders (and Iranian leadership generally) is a mistake because the younger the member the more likely they are to be radical, not to mention the IRGC is heavily decentralized. Killing one person or a dozen people will not stop all of the other IRGC groups from continuing the war. The reason why it's plainly stupid to kill the civilian leadership is because someone needs to be able to speak for the Iranians and have enough political capital to convince them to put their guns down and abide by any agreement. As leadership candidates dwindle, the remaining leadership will be harder and harder to kill so I seriously doubt the US/Israel will get to the point you're describing. But if IIRC, you also thought Hezbollah was destroyed so this is unsurprising.
It evidences just a total lack of understanding about this conflict or the Iranians to think the Iranians are winning and will also be the first to fire a nuclear weapon. It evidences just a total lack of understanding about this conflict. It is far more like Israel uses nuclear weapons first before the United States does and far more like Israel or the US uses nuclear weapons first before Iran does and not because the Iranians cannot field one.
It's hard to communicate just how stupid this war for Israel was and just how costly it is going to end up being for Americans generally. Declaring victory and pulling out of the Persian Gulf is where this is heading anyway absent vast escalation which risks totalizing conflict and war, it's far better to do that now than after when strategic defeat turns into catastrophic defeat.
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In short term, yes.
If the situation drags for longer, imported oil and LNG will be replaced by local coal. Coal resources are immense, coal mining and burning is proven 19th century technology, even the shithole parts of the world can handle it.
It already begins in Korea, the bellwether of the world.
The limit on coal-fired power plants will cease entirely, while that on nuclear power reactors will be loosened, as part of Seoul's response to the threat of an energy crisis due to conflict in the Middle East, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea said
Time to RETVRN to cozy 1970's East Germany.
edit: links
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It is actually stupider and more evil than just "weaksauce cowardliness". The democrats all want war with Iran because they're compromised by Israel and the military-industrial complex, and war with Iran serves both of those interests (or at least those interests seem to think that - who knows what will happen in the end). On the other hand, they know that their base absolutely despises the war with Iran and will refuse to vote for people who support it. That's why they're simply doing nothing and pretending that their hands are tied - because it allows them to get what they want (incredibly expensive bombs paid for by the US taxpayer blowing up schoolchildren who are in the way of Greater Israel) without having to damage their electoral support by actively supporting it.
I actually thought a little deeper about my "weaksauce cowardliness" verbiage and I feel maybe my anger is unjustified. Honestly, this is what the American people want. Americans like it that the executive can make unilateral military action. If the American people cared, they would have elected people that cares. At this point the power to "declare war" is just writing on a piece of document. In China, they say "Rules are dead, people are alive", maybe what we need is just an update of the rules instead of this charade of calling it "military operation" instead of a "war".
With regards to Dem's behaviors as you described, I suppose that can be considered good politiks or as you say "stupider and more evil". I don't believe "democrats all want war", I think they both don't want war and know how good it is that the Republicans are pushing on anyway. Even now, I'm not sure what to expect from the Democrats to do, it's not like they can shut down the government even harder. Then again, I'm not a legislative aide or some kind of Washington insider who knows the levers of power.
Anyway, this is what American people voted for, isn't this the best way for a people to learn?
They quite literally elected a man who said "no new wars" all the time
They elected a man who said “no new wars,” yes. But they also elected a man with an obvious trail and history of lies that is much greater (relatively) than the normal politician. So Trump's election is not evidence that the public wanted war. It is evidence that a large part of the public was willing to trust, excuse, or ignore dishonesty when it came packaged with promises they liked. So my quibble is with what the American people cared about. They cared about the lies, they didn't care about the credibility of the liar.
PS: Liars with good credibility are what we call innovators and pioneers.
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Do you disagree with the more general legislative branch framing to specifically call out the democrats as evil? I imagine the "compromised by Israel and the military-industrial complex" descriptor fits the political class in America in general, rather than just the Democrats. Hell, if we had to choose which side is more apt for the descriptor, I'd have chosen the Republicans. Furthermore, I thought the Republican base was supposed to be the ones who despise war with Iran more, as evidenced by the countless media campaigns and memes I've seen during the 2024 election season about Kamala wishing to start a war with Iran if elected, and the no-war president Donald Trump. So if any side is more duplicitous, I'd also say it's the Republicans. And let's not forget that they currently control the house, the senate, the supreme court and the presidency. Yet somehow the continuation of the Iran war is more evidence that the democrats are the dishonest evildoers.
No, I don't disagree with this - the entire legislative branch IS corrupt and compromised (except maybe a few small outliers). The reason I called out the democrats specifically is that they are ostensibly the opposition party and are meant to put a stop to wars like this.
The republicans have betrayed their base to an immense degree, and that base agrees - the MAGA coalition has just about disintegrated at this point. The magnitude of their betrayal is probably larger than that of the democrats, but I'm sure in the alternate reality where the DNC won they would be betraying their base just as hard.
I actually did have an article which made the claim that the democrats know that their base hates the war but they want to support it anyway, but as far as I can tell that article is now paywalled and I can't find it anymore. But yes, it is evidence that the democrats are dishonest evildoers - just not THE dishonest evildoers.
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It's more that they're worried that one of two things will happen:
-- The Special Military Operation will work, and they'll look like naysayers
-- Iran will do something so horrible that you don't want to look like you were defending them
I mean if the IRGC sets off a dirty bomb in Tel Aviv, that actually makes the war a worse idea than when it was started, but it makes anything that sounds like sympathy for Iran look bad.
I based my claim on an article which is now paywalled and hence unable to be used as a source which claimed these were the actual motivations in question. But that said...
I highly doubt this will happen.
Yea, just imagine how awful it would be if they did something terrible like blow up a school full of young girls or destroyed a major petroleum stockpile in a populated residential area, causing immense ecological damage and health consequences for people forced to breathe in black rain! Who could possibly defend monsters that would commit such atrocities?
Speak for yourself - Tel Aviv getting blown up is one of the few positives to emerge from this conflict in my view.
I mean me too but I do think it entered the head of the average Democratic senator that he didn't want to be on the wrong side of this, especially when people are holding up Venezuela as some kind of massive success story.
It's different when we do it. Hell, even just Iran causing mass military casualties will qualify. Say, by sinking an aircraft carrier, or destroying a landing craft full of marines on live video feed. Enough flag draped coffins will lead to calls for revenge and redoubling, "finish the job so my child didn't die in vain" as Pete Hegseth claims a parent told him but the parents that could be reached for comment deny.
Congresscritters are cowards with their fingers in the wind, not principled anti-war activists.
This war is too unpopular for a large casualty event to lead to doubling down and calls for revenge to work. It's far more likely that a large casualty event ends the political will to continue the war at all.
The warstate and other scumbags will definitely try to double down and call for revenge, but it's been a long time since foreign wars killing American solders were responded to by the average American with revenge. Instead they've been responded to with a question, "Why the hell are we still there?"
And I think the Trump Admin and the war state thinks this too which is why they've been so casualty averse so far. But the current thing isn't working, it's leading to catastrophe, and time is running out to avoid worldwide economic crisis, so they will probably take another step up the risk ladder.
I continue to be skeptical of the thesis that has no balls and will give up if harmed. The Ukraine war has made me permanently skeptical of the idea, which seemed like the perfect example of a population of a fake country with a corrupt government that nonetheless is willing to go to the mattresses.
Ukrainians think their war is existential
Americans do not think a war most of them cannot point to on a map on the other side of the world is existential
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Aren't futures made exactly for this purpose? Don't companies buy futures so they can price the tickets and not be bankrupt by the price of oil?
Was it? It was very risky, as proved by the Iran op. Even in a game with a negative expectation, you can sometimes win once or twice. It does not mean it was a good idea in the first place.
Are the oil futures guys making a killing in the market? I've not followed the stonks crowd for a while.
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Things will still be shaking out but this is a black swan event (or at least an event few if any prepared for). A quick chat with gemini says:
I asked for sources and the best one is "U.S. Airline Fuel Hedging: The End of an Era" which actually pointed out Southwest has abandoned the program in 2024, but their positions will mature until 2027.
I think the Venezuela op is clearly different from the Iranian op and is not different rolls of the same game. One is a surgical kidnapping, one has just been continual bombing. I think there is something to be said how Israel is on the side edging America on, and very willing to dish some on their own. Imagine if the Ayatollah was kidnapped instead of being made a martyr.
Yes, at some level, everything is the same game. But macro/micro for me is a range. And at some point in that range, Iran and Venezuela are two different games. Venezuela was a great idea, executed excellently, and I do think it will pay long term benefits to US if handled well (Teddy Roosevelt would be proud). Iran is a different game, it was not a good idea, it wasn't executed well, and it's still being played so it's hard to know what the long term results are (as a casual observer though, I believe it's getting worse by the day. But then again, one ethics class in college is the extent of my social studies in this direction).
I don't think he is seen as a martyr. The problem with the bombing is more that bombing schoolgirls is not the best way to be liked by the locals. I think the Trump administration expected Iran to go the same way as Venezuela: after a few days of bombing, the regime dies because there is a revolt, a coup or something. It's quite obvious they had no plan beyond bombing them for three days. And I think Venezuela could have gone badly in the exact same way as Iran.
Imagine the kidnapping does not go well, and kidnappers are taken or killed. Then the US military tries to get them back and is out of luck; a lot of americans get killed. It seems to me Venezuela/Iran are the same kind of bad ops, because it's high risk - low reward. The power the US can get over Venezuela through a simple kidnapping will only last until some coup or next elections. Was it worth risking a long and painful war with Venezuela?
Edit: and also, thx for your the information about hedging.
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What worries me about is to what extent Russia can prop up Iranian anti-ship capabilities cheaply. It would be very much in Russia's interests to keep the strait closed as long as possible, it harms their enemies and helps Russia. Every air defense capability sent to the gulf is one not sent to Ukraine. Buying Russian oil and propping up Russia becomes the lesser evil compared to surrendering to Iran. They don't need to give the Mullahs the bomb or supply their whole war effort, just keep a trickle of drones and missiles coming in to prevent a total degradation of Iranian launch capabilities. Keep Hormuz' legs crossed, and the more both sides destroy more oil infrastructure the more the price premium Russian oil will demand for months or years afterward.
I think the two complications for Russia in helping Iran are as follows:
The Russian government's actions over the course of the last decade show that it values having friendly relations with Israel and the Arab Gulf States even while having hostile relations with the United States. I don't know to what extent this policy is motivated by geopolitics and to what extent it is motivated by shady financial interests of the Russian elite. In the case of Israel, the friendly relations are also probably motivated in part by the fact that just like America, Russia has many Jewish elites, and that Israel has many Jews from a Russian background.
Russia can ship things to Iran across the Caspian Sea without the ships being attacked. However, the US/Israel have very good surveillance and spying capacity, so they can probably accurately target that stuff as soon as gets into Iranian hands. This is similar to how things work in the Ukraine war, where the Russians don't bomb supplies while they are in NATO countries (with the possible exception of some alleged sabotage operations), but as soon as the supplies cross the border into Ukraine, Russia feels free to target them.
I absolutely agree, but again, Russia's hypothetical goal here isn't to get enough material into Iran to prop up Iran's conventional defenses, or to allow Iran to resist the whole US air force, or enough missiles to level Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Iran doesn't even need enough missiles to sink every ship coming through the Strait of Hormuz. They just need to continue firing enough that they can credibly threaten traffic, such that insurers and ship owners still won't risk it, which requires a fairly minimal quantity of munitions. Hell, even if they get down to the point where escort missions are practical, as long as there is still enough fire coming from shore that escorts are necessary, that will still massively throttle traffic compared to pre-war numbers, because it's impossible for destroyer escorts to escort the number of ships that transited on a typical day before the war.
The longer the oil shortage goes down, the greater the urge in the West to de-sanction Russian crude and accept Russia back into the community of nations in order to get access to that oil.
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One darkly humorous part of the whole China/Russia/Iran is how each of them very clearly wish they had different allies and aren't exactly shy about it. China always hedging between Russia/EU and Iran/Sunnis/Israelis, Iran originally preferring European companies over Chinese companies, and the above behavior from Russia. Rumors of Axis 2.0 are overstated.
This makes me want "Where's my Bush?" style sitcom where Putin, Xi, and whoever the Mullah currently is are roommates who all secretly hate each other and keep enaging in madcap schemes to get the other two to move out.
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Zero. Russian Naval Warfare have always been a joke. Shipping from Russia to Tehran is hard. And you need to actually train people. Which takes time. So they probably don't have much to give, will have hard time bringing it in and by the time iranians are ready to use it will be over one way or another.
It's not difficult to ship things to Tehran. Russians can and do regularly ship lots of things down the Volga River, across the Caspian Sea, and into Amiribad or Anzali. Recently, in the last few years Russia and Iran have drastically increased the facilities and volume of trade on the Caspian Sea.
And you don't need to train anyone. You can just have Russia soldiers manning the equipment, just like they did and have done in proxy wars for a long time using whatever schemes like "mercenaries" and whatever else to cover it up, e.g., the pilots flying Migs in Vietnam were regularly Russians and the people manning AD in Vietnam were regularly Russians and they were a big reason why B-52 were being shredded and why Operation Linebacker II was the last operation Linebacker.
Not that I think the Iranians would do that; agreeing to use Russian weapons means Russian conditions and Iran already watched Syria be destroyed because it relied on Russia and Russia allowed it to bleed until it was rotten from the inside out.
If you are willing to walk on the seabed probably. But the moment you raise your head above the water there will be a friendly tomahawk or something similar waiting for you. Iran has zero opsec.
No, not really. The US is not going to attack a Russian ship on the Caspian Sea.
The main way the US/Israel would do something clandestine would be using Azerbaijan, but everything said about the fragile nature of the Iranian government is actually true about the Azerbaijan government and it would be easy for Iran to obliterate their oil facilities which would topple that government, something which Russia likely wouldn't oppose, and something the Iranians have already threatened if the Azeris allow their territory to be used again.
And even if that wasn't true, it wouldn't meaningfully stop trade to Iran.
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This is me! I've been making that joke every time I talk politics with someone I meet out on the trail or the park. (I let them bring it up first, I'm not that autistic.)
It's a real winner; the libs get to laugh at how stupid cons are and the cons get to laugh at the absurdist nature of reality. Brings us all together!
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This cuts both says. What would we all say if Biden unilaterally raised the price of oil to $100 in some (dubious?) climate crusade.
Maybe it's for a worthy cause, but then we're just negotiating on the price.
Pretty much. I've always been very convinced by number 5 in this NPR article on "Six Policies Economists Love (And Politicians Hate)"
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Trump: warrior for climate justice
There is a half decent case that Rockefeller and Standard Oil were responsible for a huge drop in whale oil consumption, which was good (not perfect) for whales.
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Unless China uses a few percent more coal.
Definitely good for Russia, but I don't think cash is that big a bottleneck for Russia, so only mildly bad news for Ukraine.
Yes. Iranian oil is a double-edged sword; exporting it helps Iran, but also keeps oil prices and supply worries within reason. Also if Iran's oil is cut off, they can retailiae by throwing whatever is remaining at Gulf oil.
For Trump to have this improve GOP chances, he needs to win outright -- new regime in Iran, doesn't matter how much they such as long as they'll play ball with the US and "Death to America" is off the playlist. I give this maybe a 5% chance; there just doesn't seem to be anyone in Iran capable of creating such a regime.
Has it? Many of the earlier polls excluded special operations troops.
Or possibly all of them.
The big win would be regime change. No mullahs, no IRGC, no "Death to America". Doesn't matter to the US if it's a military dictatorship, a democracy (LOL) or a restoration of the monarchy (double LOL), as long as they play ball.
Lacking that, the existing regime playing ball. Stop attacking Hormuz, stop supplying the Houthis (Hezbollah and Hamas matter to Israel but not the US), hand over the enriched uranium and allow US inspections.
A minor aside, I often wonder to what extent we should idiomatically translate "Death to X" as "Fuck X" instead. In the same way that an American saying "Fuck Iran" should be translated to a Persian as "Death to Iran" and not "I would like to have intercourse with Iran."
I'm not going to buy the theory that we've been mistranslating a harmless idiom until someone shows me a stadium of Iranians chanting "death to [rival team]" during a friendly sporting event. If it is indeed a harmless expression, there should be plenty of examples of Iranians using it in other contexts, but I've never heard it directed at anything other than the US and Israel.
Have you ever interacted with a Persian?
From Grok:
Either way, I don't think it's about translating it as harmless, just making the Iranians seem less poetic and serious. It's a problem with Persian translations in general, hence the Twitter memes about how every middlebrow Iranian bureaucrat had a PhD thesis on Quranic Hegelian dialectics in assymetric deterrence compared to Trump's boomer caps lock and Hegseths group chat edginess. If we translated more idiomatically, we'd see them as losers, the way most Persians do.
Wow, so it turns out I was just confidently 100% completely wrong about this. Mea maxima culpa. Updating heavily on my Iran assumptions.
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In the case of #2, are the sanctions fully removed or is it just the restrictions/effective embargo on their energy and oil that’s been removed? American foreign policy is so schizophrenic and the administration changes its policy directives so much I’ve quit bothering to even follow it.
source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko
just oil.
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Betting against Trump being lucky as fuck so far has bad track record. The guy can fuck up the surest thing ever and can win any doom situation.
"Ah well. Nevertheless."
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