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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   25893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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If the war was being won, or even if Trump perceived the war was being won, then wouldn't he be making more extravagant demands too? At the start he was Truthing that only someone he chose or favoured could be president of Iran or else they'd keep up the assassination campaign (this was back in the regime change phase of the war, quite early on).

He's not doing that right now.

Instead of bullying Europe into releasing more diesel from their reserves or granting sanctions relief to Russia, he'd be trying to threaten or harass Iran more to capitalize on the victory. He'd be demanding money or oil from them under threat from bombing (since they don't have any air defences or ability to strike back, right?)

Trump is hardly likely to develop a magnanimous streak before a beaten opponent he routinely rails against and hates.

Surely if the US was winning or had won the war, they'd be moving back in and rebuilding the 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain, sitting ships right in the straits to show control and allow the 200+ ships waiting around there to navigate freely. There wouldn't be any tankers being attacked, apparently 16 were in the last 2 weeks:

https://x.com/NoamRaydan/status/2109043440633946336

I don’t actually think the war was over. I was linking to a comment that had said it was 100% over.

I know, I agree with you. In retrospect I should've made that more clear.

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