changegonnacome

Fixed it for you above....... maybe your right as I say and this puts a line underneath the nuclear threat. Albeit between Jan 2016 and May 2018 with no centrifuges in Iran we already had that. There's an alternative story I can tell though - where Iran now doubles down on direct, no ifs, buts or maybes pursuit of a bomb perhaps aided by the axis of Russia/China or other muslim countries like Pakistan.....if/when that occurs the only military option if Trump sticks to the 'no Iranian nuclear' capability principle -is regime change and American troops on the ground (not convinced yet until I see full reports of total Fordo annihilation that this is not already where we are headed).

Lets not forget where we were before Trump ripped up the JCPOA in 2018 when we think about how we got here and as I say above when we truly find out the true cost of this intervention. Is this another example of Trump the arsonist and fireman - creating a problem and heroically fixing it later.

On the discrete question of whether stopping Iran getting the bomb or at least delaying it for many years. Yes it was the right call......but at what cost? We are yet to understand the true cost - it will only be revealed in the coming weeks/months this is the story of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

Oh what a web we weave - when we intervene in places 7,500 miles away from home. Donald has now entered Bibi's parallel universe - where Iran is desperately seeking and running towards a bomb and is weeks away from getting one such that they can destroy Israel/the region/the world and so MUST be stopped at all costs. That idea, that pretense, that public pronouncement once committed to (as Donald has done now) is a potential slippy slope of escalating commitments. Why? Because there are serious question whether you can truly put a nuclear program like Iran's fully to bed with bunker busters and aerial bombardment.....and so the question becomes what happens next when the Iranian's indicate or Israeli intelligence tells us that the program hasn't been sufficiently degraded to make the world truly 'safe'...US assets in the region (men/bases) are killed/destroyed.....well once you've committed to the conceit above....you need to continue....but how....further deepening commitments, ground troops, regime change....that's the pandoras box we've opened up here. Genuinely hope this mission was beyond successful and the Iranian nuclear capability has been buried deep in the ruble.....if it hasn't....the ways things can go from bad to worse from here are endless.

And so it begins.....I don't feel very liberated......I feel like my federal taxes just went up....especially when the orange man is gonna try to tell me in a few weeks when the big beautiful bill passes that he actually gave me a tax cut. Anyway email just dropped into my inbox....probably not a terrible indicator of when pre-liberation day inventory is gonna run down in warehouses....and folks can be fully liberated at the checkout counter of an extra 10%, 20%, 30% of what was in their wallet.

Trump Privately Approved Attack Plans For Iran But Has Withheld Final Order https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-israel-conflict-news?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_1 Guess we're going after them old WMD's again .......2003 wants it headlines back!

100% I think a professional and even amateur psychologist can see through all the braggadocio & puffery for what it is.......a 79yr old man with astoundingly low self-esteem......when Trump looks in the mirror in the morning he's see, in his mind eye for a microsecond, a loser and a bum.....the rest of his day....in actions, in words & with the people and gold things he surrounds himself with and the lies he makes up is a desperate attempt to prove to others and himself that he isn't.

Since the Liberation Day debacle and various climb downs since (which we're quite simply an embarrassment and Trump knows it)......Trump strikes me as a guy desperately seeking some validation of a policy belief he's held for 40yrs that once it made contact with reality effectively crumbled before his eyes.......its quite some pill to swallow for an 80yr old narcissist such as Trump who has literally for decades been lecturing others on his theory of trade and tariffs to see them fall flat on their face. The Modi-India-Pakistan nonsense that trade/tariffs/Trump stopped a nuclear war is a guy desperately trying to revalidate a thesis that broke. I guess a younger dog would learn new tricks...but this old dog isn't learning any new tricks....he's just going to make stuff up and pretend he was right all along. Its most definitely in the category of consistency and commitment bias as per Cialdini's 'Influence'. Once we make a commitment (especially publicly as Trump has basically forever), there is powerful pressure to behave consistent with that commitment. Trump has publicly and consistently advocated for tariffs for decades as the solution to almost everything. To admit they were ineffective or even detrimental would be a massive inconsistency with his long-held, oft publicly stated position. People but especially narcissists like Trump will go to great lengths to avoid this inconsistency & cognitive dissonance..........rationalizing or distorting reality to protect their fragile ego....exactly as Trump has done here with India-Pakistan and the other 'non-trade deals' he is touting as 'trade deals' when they are really MOU's with some tariff/import embargo reliefs not even close to a trade deal for anyone who actually understands what a trade deal looks like and how detailed it is.. That so many go along with his narcissistic ego protection reality distortion is the true derangement at work here.

That simply isn't true - there is no reason to enrich uranium to 60%.....the move from 60% to fissile material is trivial....and from there it is indeed rocket science..... which Iranians are very good at. There is no doubt that Iran was/is inching its way to a nuclear capability the question was whether this run at it was 'for real' this time or simply progress they we're willing to give up for sanctions relief under a new JCPOA. The more interesting philosophical question you should be asking is one around sovereignty and hypocrisy...can't Iran do what it pleases as a sovereign nation? the nature of an atomic bombs is fundamentally a deterrence security strategy...ever hear of MAD....if Iran got a bomb I can assure you it would be for defense, anything else would be MAD...and didn't Israel some 40yrs ago in secret and against the wishes of the United States, its immediate neighbours & international community (much like Iran today) develop their own atomic bomb (which they've never publicly admitted to this day). Put me in charge of a small country in a bad neighbourhood and I'd spend 2% of GDP religiously on a nuclear program (civil & military) until I had a bomb. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent. If I developed one I'd never give them up, for anything or anyone. If my neighbour/regional rival was developing one I would do everything in my power to stop them including exaggerating their progress, inflating their threat and if I had the option available to me I would absolutely influence and persuade to the best of my abilities the President of the United States to come in on my behalf to finish of my rivals nuclear program on behalf (negative global consequences be damned).

TDS?....or maybe they are just consistent with America First?

@cubsfan @Gregmal - you have remarkable faith in man who has a demonstrated track record of very poor decision making in his personal life, in his business life & in his political career.....this is a guy who just launched a mobile phone network & handset while sitting in the oval office.....need I say more??....having said all that I'm rooting for a positive outcome to whatever he chooses.......but lets not forget when a dirty bomb goes off in lower Manhattan......that Iran having the bomb in the Middle East is not our problem, in reality its an Israel/Gulf problem let them solve it? Isn't that MAGA, America First?.....well America First just became Israel first.

Exact logic used in so many wars………..short term and limited strategic operations….have a terrible habit of turning into long term and extensive military ones……the scope just expands and expands over time….you’ve seen this movie before @Gregmal, think your own TDS has you downplaying the downside risks here. I’m not saying for a second that there isn’t an outcome here where WE drop some bunker busters over the space of a few days go home and call it a win…..but don’t forget that Wiley coyote Bibi has the cat by the tail now and has played this beautifully already to get to where we are now…..I’ve great faith that he’ll manipulate Trump into deeper and deeper commitments via false flags and threat inflation (if further commitments beyond bunker busters is what he’s after).

Yep!

if Biden was in power still I'm almost certain Bibi would have launched an attempted nuclear busting attack on Iran and pulled the US into a proper war in the Middle East. Bibi had zero respect for feeble Biden and ran rings around him. Trump is balls enough to stand up to Bibi....and unpredictable enough that Bibi/Israel gov might wonder one day if Trump would do to Bibi what he's done to Zelensky.....i.e. cut Israel off financially and publicly. Trump is keeping the war hawks in Israel in check, I've no doubt about that...and Israel and the world is better off for it. Had strike this one of my Trump 'praise' list quicker than I thought

Trump is now down the Bibi "weeks away" nuclear rabbit....even though US intel says years......he sure looks like a guy about to get the US servicemen involved in bombing a foreign country....so much for the 'peaceful' President....the deep (military industrial complex) state got a hold of him.

Now thats a product I would pay for - suspect there's a bunch of kids at NYU that are friends with Barron who's trading track record this year would put Citadel to shame! The Trump crime family.....and crypto......are a match made in heaven.

History will be the judge of that.....given he normalized 4% fiscal deficits in his first term.....and is now in the process of normalizing 7% fiscal deficits at the start of his second.....I'd say he'll go down with Joe Biden as the President that drove the US off the fiscal cliff. Then there's Jan 6th & stuff.

Something unique about this customer cohort alright….i guess if you were in advertising you might put them in the ‘highly suggestible’ cohort and target products and services at them accordingly. “The 47 Plan” for $47.45 /mo….shameless grifter.

Good chance in the current climate you’ll end up dead….like for reals dead.

Deja Vu - i thought they signed a "trade deal" a few weeks......Donald needed another PR event I guess....feeling that tariff heat out there.....as I guess he knows that the price increases from April tariffs are going to start feeding through into Walmart etc. in the coming weeks. Fun times.

Not gonna argue for anyone milking anything....lowly congressmen or senators.....but lets just say the President of the United State should be held to the highest of standards.....legal ones and the fuzzier 'norms'.....lets just agree that the Donald has broken every moral norm you can think of and its simply disgusting.....last count I've got centered around this recent Presidency -Trump cologne -stablecoin -meme coin - cell phones - cell phone plans, - tradeable NFT's - Truth social - $DJT stock trading on NYSE - Exchange traded fund holding btc & eth (ETF launch) - Trump Watch - Trump sneakers Then the development deals - Golf developments in Qatar (April 2025) Vietnam: A $1.5 billion partnership was approved (April 2025) Trump Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (May 2025) Second tower in Riyadh (2025) Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai: Announced in May 2025 with Dar Global. Trump-branded resort in Oman: A $500 million resort with Dar Global and Omran (a government-owned Omani group) is being developed I've probably missed a few.....it would make you puke.....

Trump now getting into the mobile cell service and phone handset business Seriously my Trump defenders on here - wtf? Trump Mobile launches $47 service and a gold phone https://www.theverge.com/news/687418/trump-mobile-network-t1-trademark-application Trump Mobile T1 Phone looks both bad and impossible https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/687492/trump-mobile-phone-t1 I'll say one thing - Eric and Don are extremely busy young boys these days plundering the Presidency. I hope Donald is proud of them and tells them they are doing a "great job" everyday.

China of course......they are basically the number one purchaser of Iranian oil.....and they've got a dog in this fight (even though it seems like they dont). There's probably only one person who wants the US to get pulled into a conflict with Iran more than Bibi does and thats China & Xi. If Xi could get the US stretched out further with simultaneous conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.....he would be crazy not to go for Taiwan at that point.

Well let’s remember that Trump ripped up the JCPOA as a terrible deal negotiated by bozos. The red line for Iran in that deal was that it would not concede on not having civilian nuclear energy program. Obama got a lot of flack for that when the JCPOA was signed and subsequently trashed by Trump. Feels to me like Trump was trying for a better deal and found out himself that he was running up against the same red line….kinda of embarrassing and maybe even beyond Trump’s PR skills to paper over the fact that any new deal was going to be a rehash of Obama’s deal he blew up. Since the JCPOA got ripped up their posture has been highly aggressive regarding enrichment and it is not Bibi propaganda to say that….the atomic energy agency confirmed as much a few days ago - https://www.newsweek.com/iran-fails-meet-nuclear-obligations-first-time-20-years-2084393 You put them together….Trump unable to extract anything more than was in the JCPOA which would be a political embarrassment (TACO Iran deal anyone?!?)…Bibi willingness to act aggressively unilaterally….international recognition of aggressive Iranian enrichment….the stars kind of aligned I think for Bibi to do what’s he wanted to do for 20yrs…and here we are.