Political Posts

[Viking]

Article discussing the Straight of Hormuz. I have been asking: “when will it open?” Implicit in that question is “when will it get back to normal?”

 

Perhaps we see the straight open. With a much lower number of tankers getting through (you pick the reason why). A better outcome than what exists today… but still pretty bad for the global economy.

 

Look at what the Houthis (with their limited resources) did to shipping in the Red Sea… lasting for an extended period.

—————
Iran does not need to close the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt it

 

The real threat lies not in blocking the waterway, but in quietly turning its approaches into a zone of uncertainty that global shipping cannot ignore.

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/3/20/iran-does-not-need-to-close-the-strait-of-hormuz-to-disrupt-it

Edited March 21 by Viking

[Mephistopheles]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

Article discussing the Straight of Hormuz. I have been asking: “when will it open?” Implicit in that question is “when will it get back to normal?”

 

Perhaps we see the straight open. With a much lower number of tankers getting through (you pick the reason why). A better outcome than what exists today… but still pretty bad for the global economy.

 

Look at what the Houthis (with their limited resources) did to shipping in the Red Sea… lasting for an extended period.

—————
Iran does not need to close the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt it

 

The real threat lies not in blocking the waterway, but in quietly turning its approaches into a zone of uncertainty that global shipping cannot ignore.

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/3/20/iran-does-not-need-to-close-the-strait-of-hormuz-to-disrupt-it

100%
 

I’m a bit concerned that this war will spiral…

 

Trump wants to win the midterms, Iran wants Trump to lose. 
 

Purely politically speaking, Trump needs to “declare victory and leave”, OR get the American public to support the war…what are the odds we have a terrorist attack or assassination attempt prior to the midterms?
 

Of course, the odds of terrorism have gone up anyway as this war is awakening the jihadists. 
 

Meanwhile, Iran has two things to gain from keeping the strait effectively closed: 1) revenge on US /Israel, but also 2) higher oil prices for much needed revenues.

 

They’re not rational actors, they don’t care how many of their civilians die. Check out the Iran-Iraq war where troves of teenage boys were sent to their deaths and Khomenei reluctantly accepted a cease fire after 8 years of bloodbath.

Not to mention, the IRGC is not operating as a single cohesive unit. You only need one bad faction to ruin it.

 

So, Trump if he wants any shot at the midterms, and Israel, if they want to keep Trump engaged, can either convince us Americans to support them, or become victorious. But the latter is hard to do given their irrational opponent.

 

So the war will go on, oil will stay high, and we will see terrorism (real or manufactured). Maybe we even see a nuclear bomb go off.

 

Or we are being sandbagged and we get the Shah back. 

 

 

Edited March 21 by Mephistopheles

[Xerxes]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

I find see this until now but there is a side theatre where especially the IDF bombs the Iranian marine assets (including ships that supposedly transport drones from Russia to Iran) in the Kaspian sea.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-890567

 

Also it was not clear to me is that the why the IDF bombed the Iranian South Pars gas field. It made news that Iranian retaliated against the liquefaction assets of the same field on the  Quatar side. The reason the IDF did this is because Iran needs this gas for their power grid , which runs mostly on NG. It is quite possible that the shortage of NG leads to power outages later in Iran. This would be highly destabilizing for their economy and the regime.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/iran-war-us-israel-trump-03-19-26?post-id=cmmxc50s700013b6r938d1l4h

 

FWIW, I think the Marines being sent over to the Gulf area are likely to be used to occupy Kharg and use it a leverage against the Iran regime.

Most likely the attack on South Pars was out of anger, maybe something got hit badly in Israel, in the more recent ballistic attack.  
 

They are under bombardment with complete media blackout.
 

Not every target that Israel hit is logical and thought through. They are humans too and can get angry too. 

[Xerxes]

26 minutes ago, Mephistopheles said:

100%
 

I’m a bit concerned that this war will spiral…

 

Trump wants to win the midterms, Iran wants Trump to lose. 
 

Purely politically speaking, Trump needs to “declare victory and leave”, OR get the American public to support the war…what are the odds we have a terrorist attack or assassination attempt prior to the midterms?
 

Of course, the odds of terrorism have gone up anyway as this war is awakening the jihadists. 
 

Meanwhile, Iran has two things to gain from keeping the strait effectively closed: 1) revenge on US /Israel, but also 2) higher oil prices for much needed revenues.

 

They’re not rational actors, they don’t care how many of their civilians die. Check out the Iran-Iraq war where troves of teenage boys were sent to their deaths and Khomenei reluctantly accepted a cease fire after 8 years of bloodbath.

Not to mention, the IRGC is not operating as a single cohesive unit. You only need one bad faction to ruin it.

 

So, Trump if he wants any shot at the midterms, and Israel, if they want to keep Trump engaged, can either convince us Americans to support them, or become victorious. But the latter is hard to do given their irrational opponent.

 

So the war will go on, oil will stay high, and we will see terrorism (real or manufactured). Maybe we even see a nuclear bomb go off.

 

Or we are being sandbagged and we get the Shah back. 

 

 

 
Iran-Iraq War is different. 
 

That was a land invasion with an aim of annexation, pushed by pretty much all major powers, when the new government was just less than a year old. I was born in the summer before the war broke out and was 8 years old when it ended in 1988.
 

Khamenei and his cohort all came from that era. The lesson they learned was that they can never trust foreign powers and have to be self sufficient. All of that cohort are mostly retired or dead.
 

The new cohort are veteran from the Syrian War era. I don’t know what that means and if that is good or bad. 
 

But I would not compare this war to that from the 1980s. No one likes their country being bombed but there is also a recognition that the regime had it coming.
 

Now if things dragged out and if there is a major ground component, if infrastructure keeps getting attacked, than it is no longer a war on the regime but on the whole country. 
 

Also, I would not call them irrational. We may not like them. But they got their escalation ladders and target set. They may not care about their civilian, not because they are irrational, but because a rational autocratic government doesn’t care about its population. 
 

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096?i=1000756293574

i think you will be interest in this Oddlot episode. 

 

[Mephistopheles]

22 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

 
Iran-Iraq War is different. 
 

That was a land invasion with an aim of annexation, pushed by pretty much all major powers, when the new government was just less than a year old. I was born in the summer before the war broke out and was 8 years old when it ended in 1988.
 

Khamenei and his cohort all came from that era. The lesson they learned was that they can never trust foreign powers and have to be self sufficient. All of that cohort are mostly retired or dead.
 

The new cohort are veteran from the Syrian War era. I don’t know what that means and if that is good or bad. 
 

But I would not compare this war to that from the 1980s. No one likes their country being bombed but there is also a recognition that the regime had it coming.
 

Now if things dragged out and if there is a major ground component, if infrastructure keeps getting attacked, than it is no longer a war on the regime but on the whole country. 
 

Also, I would not call them irrational. We may not like them. But they got their escalation ladders and target set. They may not care about their civilian, not because they are irrational, but because a rational autocratic government doesn’t care about its population. 
 

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096?i=1000756293574

i think you will be interest in this Oddlot episode. 

 

Thanks, I’ll check it out. The Iran/Iraq isn’t an analogy,  it’s just meant to show that these guys don’t back down no matter what. Civilian or military or govt casualties notwithstanding.

 

I don’t think they are rational fascists. Putin is a rational fascist. These guys are an Islamic death cult, they don’t care about their civilians, nor themselves. A rational actor would come to the bargaining table after 80% of their government gets wiped out. But they don’t, because of the benefits of martyrdom 

[Xerxes]

Cheers

 

As a further clarification:

 

Iran-Iraq War was driven by nationalism  and not religious.
 

Yes young Iranian men (boys) volunteered to go to the frontline to give their life and safeguard the homeland, revolutionary fervour may have been their jet fuel, but they fought and died for Iran and not Islam. 
 

Khomeini actually tried hard to make the case of religious war between Shia and the infidel Sunni of Iraq. He tried to rise up the Shia in the south of Iraq. It didn’t work. The Iraqi Shia (eventhough they were majority) fought and died for their country and not Khomeini.  

 

On Saddam side, he tried to play the Arab vs Persian card. He tried to rise up the Arab Iranians (there is a small minority concentrated in the south west of Iran) against their Persian “overlord”. It didn’t work either. The Arab Iranians fought and died for Iran. 
 

At the end, it was just a war between two very stupid people (Khomeini and Saddam) with oversized egos as often the case. The other 1 million people had to pay the price. 

 

Edited March 21 by Xerxes

[ourkid8]

4 hours ago, Marco Van Basten said:

Pariah Zionists?  You clearly mean pariah Jews!  After all,  the Hebrew Bible clearly tells the Jews that they should live in the land of Israel, Jews have lived in the land that is now Israel for three thousand years.  Arabs are the colonizers that wiped out the Samaritans, Nabateans, as well as largely driven out Armenians and Greeks in Lebanon, Copts & Armenians & Greeks in Egypt, Chaldeans, Yazidis, and Assyrians in Syria & Iraq.  Do you call Turks pariahs, given that they came over from Central Asia and drove out the Greeks and Armenians and massacred both in the 19th and 20th centuries?  What about Azeris who have just kicked out Armenians from the land the Armenians have lived on for three thousand years?  The list goes on.  

By the way, do you call Germans pariahs for believing that Germans should live in Germany given that they came over from the east, or the French, or English or Hungarians?  Is the honor of pariahs is just reserved for the Jews?  

Pariah Zionists ≠ pariah Jews — that's a classic strawman. Zionism is a political ideology, not Judaism, and plenty of Jews criticize AIPAC spending that targets critics in US primaries. My point was about American fatigue with foreign influence and blank-check aid, exactly like the DEI purge you just ignored. Listing every conquest in history is textbook whataboutism — it doesn't refute that everyday Americans are done subsidizing endless entanglement while domestic issues pile up. Bible verses and 3000-year presence are historical facts, but they don't obligate US taxpayers or silence policy debate. Try engaging the actual argument instead of changing the subject.  

[Sweet]

7 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

You contradict yourself in the final sentence of your post.  Why aspire to the Golden Rule if you will only live it when others do!  Cheers!

I don’t think so Parsad, because who acts first is important.  For example, killing in self defence is legally justified, because you were defending yourself from someone trying to kill you.  I think it’s comparable to this.  Anyway, best I stay away from this thread, it’s gotten too wild.

 

Edited March 21 by Sweet

[John Hjorth]

7 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

O/G, BTC, drug dealers  Wherever we can ... minimum USD exposure and long straddles on Orange Boy. 

 

May the gods protect his Twitter fingers! ..... and the next guy/gal not miss!! 

 

SD

 

HaHa! , OK got it.

[John Hjorth]

9 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Treat others the way you want to be treated is a primer. Treat them how they treat you afterwards is the way to go. 

 

This. +1! It works.

[John Hjorth]

The Lady of the House just came in from having been in the mail box after The Economist, that  I could hear got delivered around 4:00 AM.

 

It has never ever happened before that she was cracked up of laugther doing that!  - Here we go :

 

 

I suspect KAL has been involved in this! 

Edited March 21 by John Hjorth

[Spekulatius]

6 hours ago, Mephistopheles said:

They’re not rational actors, they don’t care how many of their civilians die.

It is a mistake to assume the other actor in a war is not rational . I think the regime acts rational in the terms of their self interest and their known ideological framework.

 

“Rationality” in politics  is not an absolute framework, it depends on what you know currently and what your goals are. What can be rational to one party can be irrational to another.

[UK]

10 hours ago, Parsad said:

I can somehow run this message board without feeling like I need to strangle all of you! 

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Treat others the way you want to be treated is a primer. Treat them how they treat you afterwards is the way to go. 

Thats a lesson that Trump never was taught or he didn’t absorb it and it shows.

[dealraker]

36 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

The Lady of the House just came in from having been in the mail box after The Economist, that  I could hear got delivered around 4:00 AM.

 

It has never ever happened before that she was cracked up of laugther doing that!  - Here we go :

 

 

I suspect KAL has been involved in this! 

He's going to get bolder and more extreme John, count on it.  Covers will be coming, most probably not to his liking.  But we all know he creates his own covers, hangs them on the walls and whatnot.

 

The Trump family continues to gain massive wealth.  My guess is that a very large percentage of the US would rather the Trump family gain wealth over themselves gaining.  Trump has given us others to look down on, others to blame and base our grievances upon, and we perceive that as endlessly satifying.  Yes, each day we are grateful that we  can get back what was supposed to be ours all along, we reward he and his family every way that we can.

 

Let the news cycle roll, Trump owns it - and has for decades.  All attention is good attention.

 

Life....it's great....

 

...but only if you can stand it!

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21 by dealraker

[John Hjorth]

2 minutes ago, dealraker said:

He's going to get bolder and more extreme John, count on it.  Covers will be coming, most probably not to his liking.  But we all know he creates his own covers, hangs them on the walls and whatnot.

 

The Trump family continues to gain massive wealth.  My guess is that a very large percentage of the US would rather the Trump family gain wealth over themselves gaining.  Trump has given us others to look down on, others to blame and base our grievances upon, and we perceive that as endlessly satifying.  Yes, each day we are grateful that we  can get back what was supposed to be ours all along, we reward he and his family every way that we can.

 

Let the news cycle roll, Trump owns it - and has for decades.

 

Life....it's great....

 

...but only if you can stand it!

 

Thank you, Charlie [ @dealraker ],

 

I'm worried. We're now 14 months into POTUS' second term, absolutely incredible and crazy what he - 79 years old - has been able to initiate and to pull off by now, [48 - 14  =] 34 months still to go ...

[John Hjorth]

In a Danish news media today I saw this mentioned :

 

Regeringen.no [March 20^th 2026] : Joint statement on the Strait of Hormuz

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Regeringen.no is the webpage of the Norwegian administration.

 

Now twenty countries pledge to assist, while how to assist is not clearly defined.

 

Honestly, I'm personally a bit surprised by this.

 

It looks like POTUS is getting it his way, after throwing himself on the floor with his tantrum like a hysterical todler. LoLz! - Absolutely cracy to think about!

[Mephistopheles]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

It is a mistake to assume the other actor in a war is not rational . I think the regime acts rational in the terms of their self interest and their known ideological framework.

 

“Rationality” in politics  is not an absolute framework, it depends on what you know currently and what your goals are. What can be rational to one party can be irrational to another.

They (the Islamic government and IRGC) aren’t rational in that they’re a death cult. If we assassinated every other senior member of the Russian government and military, they’d come to the negotiating table. 
 

Here, they’ll keep getting killed, because they value death more than we value life. Sure, that’s rational in their world view, but pragmatically it’s not. 

[Spekulatius]

13 minutes ago, Mephistopheles said:

They (the Islamic government and IRGC) aren’t rational in that they’re a death cult. If we assassinated every other senior member of the Russian government and military, they’d come to the negotiating table. 
 

Here, they’ll keep getting killed, because they value death more than we value life. Sure, that’s rational in their world view, but pragmatically it’s not. 

If Iran were able to assassinate leaders of the US government, would we come to the negotiating table?

Edited March 21 by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

3 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

If Iran were able to assassinate leaders of the US government, would we come to the negotiating table?

 

The answer to that question is embedded in Pearl Harbor and 9/11, I think.

Edited March 21 by John Hjorth

[73 Reds]

12 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Using it in tandem with "pariah" makes the context offensive...not neutral or positive.  I don't understand how such smart people on here cannot understand that context is everything.  Cheers!

Who said he was smart?  He comes on here and spews lies and hate.  He is as ignorant as he is insulting to the conscience.  

[73 Reds]

12 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

The problem is that every action will create a counter action (actio =reactio in physics). What this counter reaction will be like remains to be seen.

 

I think it’s naive to think we can just leave tomorrow and call it a day.

I didn't say that we will or should leave today.  

[UK]

1 hour ago, John Hjorth said:

In a Danish news media today I saw this mentioned :

 

Regeringen.no [March 20^th 2026] : Joint statement on the Strait of Hormuz

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Regeringen.no is the webpage of the Norwegian administration.

 

Now twenty countries pledge to assist, while how to assist is not clearly defined.

 

Honestly, I'm personally a bit surprised by this.

 

It looks like POTUS is getting it his way, after throwing himself on the floor with his tantrum like a hysterical todler. LoLz! - Absolutely cracy to think about!

I think it is because it is much more in the interest of Europe and other parts of the world to have Hormuz open comparing to US and few other places.

[Marco Van Basten]

6 hours ago, ourkid8 said:

 

Pariah Zionists ≠ pariah Jews — that's a classic strawman. Zionism is a political ideology, not Judaism, and plenty of Jews criticize AIPAC spending that targets critics in US primaries. My point was about American fatigue with foreign influence and blank-check aid, exactly like the DEI purge you just ignored. Listing every conquest in history is textbook whataboutism — it doesn't refute that everyday Americans are done subsidizing endless entanglement while domestic issues pile up. Bible verses and 3000-year presence are historical facts, but they don't obligate US taxpayers or silence policy debate. Try engaging the actual argument instead of changing the subject.  

It is not.  The central premise of Judaism is that Jews should live in Israel.  I don't recall your vitriol against "pariah Ukrainians" when people were calling for helping Ukraine against the Russian invasion.  You don't call out "pariah Islamists" from Qatar who have been influencing US universities for decades.  The fact that the only people who you call pariahs are the Jews is the proof of who you are.  Just be honest and don't try to pull wool over people's eyes.  I agree with you regarding foreign aid and policy debate.  However, again, US has been doing these endless engagements in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, the gulf wars etc.  Did you call out the "pariah Muslims" for agitating that the US get involved in helping Muslims in the Yugoslavia civil war?  Did you call out the "pariah Croats" for agitating that the US help them against the Serbs?  Did you call the "pariah Albanians" for agitating that the US help them against the Serbs in Kosovo in the civil war that Albanians triggered?  No, it seems that the only pariahs in your book are the Jews.  So be honest in your hatred.  

You don't like subsidizing foreigners?  Neither do I, but I never recalled you complaining about $75bn US foreign aid budget, and billions of dollars that annually go to Egypt and other Arabs.  I am against all foreign aid, regardless of where it goes, but your issue again is only with Israel, even though that aid is going away in a few years as it should.  

Edited March 21 by Marco Van Basten

[Xerxes]

1 hour ago, Mephistopheles said:

They (the Islamic government and IRGC) aren’t rational in that they’re a death cult. If we assassinated every other senior member of the Russian government and military, they’d come to the negotiating table. 
 

Here, they’ll keep getting killed, because they value death more than we value life. Sure, that’s rational in their world view, but pragmatically it’s not. 

I think the example that you have in mind and maybe are inferring are situations like Libya, Syria and Iraq. 
 

Those were different in that it was a “tribe” that was in power.

 

In Iraq the Saddam’ tribe, which was I think based in Tikrit. Remove the patriarch, the rest comes down. in fact the entire Saddam republican guard were recruited from Tikrit.
 

In Libya, the same. In Syria, it was the Alwite minority.  
 

In Iran and Egypt, things are different because they are highly institutionalized.  I think higher up in this thread to an answer to John I describe how most different ethnicities within Iran have a powerful presence in the organs of state. There are no tribes. It is a regime that was forged in the fires of early 1980s where it saw a devastating land war, assassinations, counter revolution, so it has resiliency built into it. But like all things it will eventually ran out of gas. 
 

I understand the easy answer is to throw in religion and say they want martyrdom.  But the easy answer is not always the right answer. 
 

As for as Russia, the entire Kremlin complex has a strong view toward Ukraine. Take out Putin, the war escalates in my view.