Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead
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The Psychology of Military Incompetence
How the Iran War was lost
Paul Krugman | Mar 31, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-military-incompet
ence
Transcript
So the world’s greatest military power went to war against a fourth rate nation whose military budget would be rounding error in our defense spending. And it appears that we lost.
Hi, Paul Krugman with a late night, well, evening update, which I don’t usually do, but I wanted to get this in before who knows what happens in the news tomorrow.
It’s Tuesday. It’s the day that the stock market rallied enormously, that the futures price of oil dropped precipitously, all on the happy news that the United States, at least based on Trump’s Truth Social, appears to be surrendering. Trump put up a Truth Social post saying that, you know, we don’t need to open the Strait of Hormuz. If the Europeans think they need it, they should go ahead and do it. And it’s up to them. And this is pretty amazing.
Of course, the idea that it only matters to the Europeans, that it doesn’t matter to us, is all wrong. And that will be a subject of a Substack post shortly. But it is pretty much a confession. Although it’s framed as we won, now let somebody else do the cleanup, the reality is it’s effectively a confession that, well, we lost. We can’t do this.
How the hell did we manage to do this? I mean, the objective reality is that this was never going to be... Maybe it wasn’t even going to be doable. There were reasons why we didn’t go to war with Iran, particularly why we didn’t go to war in a way that basically became an existential threat for the regime so that they have no compunction about creating lots of damage because the alternative result is annihilation for them personally. But everybody who thought about it even for a couple of minutes, anyone who knew anything, particularly anyone who’d been paying attention to four years of war in Ukraine … we know something about what modern war looks like and about the inability of countries that have conventional superior forces to avoid major damage from drones and missiles. So this was completely, unbelievably stupid.
How did we get there? Well, there was a very good article by Tobin Harshaw in Bloomberg, and mostly I’m just riffing off what he wrote, but I think that it deserves wider circulation. He resurrected a book I had forgotten about, a 1976 book by Norman Dixon called The Psychology of Military Incompetence. It was very British oriented, but the lessons apply; Dixon looked at the great military disasters of British history.
You might think there were many reasons why really bad decisions were made, but he actually said there was a kind of consistent pattern. That what happened was that you had military leaders, or people making military decisions, who for the most part shared two things. First, they believed, they had this atavistic, anachronistic belief that warfare is all about muscles and not about minds. which hasn’t been true for a very long time. And second, he argued that they are just generally anti-intellectual, anti-education.
So in some sense, it’s all about muscles and don’t give me all of these smarty-pants intellectuals who are telling me about why I’m doing it wrong. It’s an uncannily accurate portrait of Pete Hegseth, down to even seemingly minor details. Muscular Christianity is among the defining symptoms of the bad British military leaders that Dixon analyzed. So this is what happened.
This is not about specific bad judgments. It’s not, in a way, about the specifics of the case. It is that we were led into war by people who exemplified in the classic way how really bad military decisions are made. And it all comes down to believing in brute force and toughness and muscles — muscles in the age of drone warfare! — and hate intellectuals, hate learning.
What really gets me is that in a war where the deciding factor is having some intellectual understanding of what you’re doing, a theocratic regime in Iran, which basically wants to bring back the Middle A
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Trump Would Love To Leave, but Iran Might Not Let Him.
Trump has made a prison for himself. He started the war to have what he imagined would be some great “victory”. He would pummel Iran, kill its leaders, put in place compliant new ones, get paid, reap political benefits, and maybe even have a victory parade to celebrate. It was simple, really. If he cannot have his victory, there is no point to all of this. And here is the rub: he can declare “victory” at any time; indeed, he declares victory multiple times every day with ever more outlandish claims. However, if he ends the campaign and the Strait of Hormuz is not open, the Iranian theocratic regime in power, and Iran’s nuclear weapons program is not “obliterated”, he understands that his claims will be a farce. Moreover, the first of these alone means that the world economy will be on the point of implosion with a real chance of a worldwide recession and high oil prices. This stagflation world will be a massive problem for him and the GOP in the run-up to the 2026 elections. So, while Trump can declare victory at any time, he cannot ensure Iran recognizes his triumph. And this is the dilemma he faces when he gives his address to the nation tonight at 9 pm ET “to provide an important update on Iran.”
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/midweek-update-4-trump-would-lo
ve
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Trump’s First Speech About the War With Iran Explained Absolutely Nothing
Let’s take stock of just how much Trump is distorting the truth about this war.
By Fred Kaplan | April 02, 2026 5:06 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/04/trump-iran-war-news-speech
-lies.html
The White House heralded it in advance as a “major address,” but President Donald Trump’s actual prime-time speech on Wednesday—what he called “an update on the tremendous progress our warriors have made in Iran”—was a big nothing.
News stories, citing inside sources, had reported that Trump was thinking about escalating the war—even sending in ground troops—or exiting it very quickly. Yet judging from the speech, he’s doing neither. Instead, he’s intent on keeping up the bombing, hitting Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks … to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong”—a malapropism of Gen. Curtis LeMay’s call in the 1960s to “bomb them”— meaning North Vietnam—“back to the Stone Age.”
It was the first speech Trump has delivered on his and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Iran, now in its second month—yet he still offered no serious explanation of why he started it, when it will end, or how anyone should define victory. Instead, he crammed the 20-minute address with many of the lies he’s told many times before and invented a few new ones.
Sometimes it’s worth cataloging the lies and distortions in one of his speeches to show just how incapable he is of telling—or perhaps recognizing—the truth. Because this speech was billed as so important, yet carried so little real news, it offers another opportunity.
So let us begin.
Claim: “In these past four weeks, our armed forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield, victories like few people have ever seen before.”
Fact: U.S. and Israeli bombs and missiles have destroyed many targets but racked up no “victories” (if that word has any meaning). Iranian leaders have been killed, but the regime—a theocratic state empowered by a repressive well-armed military—remains intact. A lot of their missiles have been hit, but Iran is still launching a fair number each day.
Claim: “I did many things during my two terms in office to stop the quest for nuclear weapons by Iran. … I killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani. … I terminated Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal … [which] gave them $1.7 billion in cash … [and] would have led to a colossal arsenal of massive nuclear weapons for Iran.”
Fact: Killing Soleimani was a big deal, but the terrorist commander had nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear
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Quote:
Jamie Dimon says US must 'finish this thing' with Iran to protect global economy
JPMorgan Chase CEO warns that winning the conflict is more important than short-term market moves
By Madison Colombo FOXBusiness
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is calling for a decisive end to the conflict with Iran, saying the U.S. must "finish this thing" to protect the global economy and remove the threat to the region.
Dimon appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday, saying American strength depends on decisive action in the Middle East and embracing the artificial intelligence revolution.
"It’s much more important that this be successfully completed than what the market does," Dimon said.
Threats to Middle East oil flows have added uncertainty to markets, as the United States, Israel and Iran continue to exchange strikes. On Tuesday, Iran struck an oil tanker off the coast of Dubai and continues to block shipments in the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Dimon said Americans should be hoping the United States wins the latest conflict and acts to "clean up the straits," minimizing future threats to the U.S. and its allies.
"These people have been doing something bad for 47 years. They've been killing people. They've been killing Americans," Dimon said.
"I think people are surprised to find out they had a ballistic missile and go 3,000 miles. These are bad people, and they needed to be stopped," he added.
Dimon advocated for the country to "finish this thing," warning that if the U.S. fails to act, the cycle of threats will continue.
Beyond the battlefield, Dimon noted that a vital part of U.S. security is embracing AI capability and fixing a lagging defense industrial base. He singled out the U.S.’s inability to double or triple its supply of rockets if needed, noting it is a major area of concern.
Dimon discussed his $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency initiative, which lends and invests money to companies researching areas tied to national security, including drones, space and rare earths.
He also spoke about the changes he sees on the horizon as the country adapts to the introduction of artificial intelligence. Dimon compared the AI shift’s importance to that of tractors and electricity.
"AI, in the long run, is [going to] be unbelievable. Just like fertilizer was and tractors and the internet and electricity, it’s [going to] cure cancers," he said.
"My guess is our grandkids will be working three and a half days a week. They’ll live to 100. They won’t have all our diseases. That’s good," Dimon added.
What a crock of shit.
Jamie Dimon is either a secret Zionist, or he's worried about the petrodollar and his bank's world-straddling dominance. More likely the latter.
Oh, and promoting his bank's latest get-rich-quick/ make-everyone-else poor schemes.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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NATO slides into Trump-induced coma
By Dave Lawler, Zachary Basu | April 3, 2026
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/nato-trump-iran-war
The big picture: The alliance was built on the premise that an attack on one member is an attack on all. President Trump has made that conditional: if you won't help me in my war, I might not show up for yours.
NATO's mutual defensive framework doesn't actually apply in the case of Iran, a war taking place far from the alliance's territory.
But it could be the death knell for the most powerful and consequential alliance of the past eight decades.
Driving the news: Trump and his team have fumed at several NATO allies for denying the U.S. logistical help or access to their airspace or military bases to carry out attacks against Iran.
He's called them "cowards" for refusing to join the war to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would now "have to reexamine the value of NATO." Trump said he might withdraw altogether.
The flip side: For their part, allies have noted that Trump launched the war without their input or any international legal framework — and created the Hormuz crisis he's now demanding they resolve.
Flashback: This all comes months after Trump threatened to seize Greenland, a territory of ally Denmark, and impose tariffs on any other allies who stood in his way.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Trump will probably not withdraw from NATO right now because he does not want to. He really would like to leave the alliance. No, he will not withdraw from NATO now because doing so would not serve Putin’s interests. It is far better for Russia to have an unreliable, destructive NATO being controlled by the USA at the top than to be faced by a European-led defensive alliance planning to protect the continent from Russian aggression.
Originally posted by second:
NATO slides into Trump-induced coma
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/will-trump-withdraw-from-nato
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Has Iran captured US F-15E pilots, and has it shot down 2-seat fighter jet along with a rescue chopper? Full timeline of F-15 shot down Iran claims and rescue mission updates
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/has-iran-ca
ptured-us-f-15e-pilots-and-has-it-shot-down-2-seat-fighter-jet-along-with-a-rescue-chopper-full-timeline-of-f-15-shot-down-iran-claims-and-rescue-mission-updates/articleshow/130000797.cms
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Donald Trump Isn't Sounding Like Himself
And that's terrifying
By Paul Krugman | Apr 04, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/donald-trump-isnt-sounding-like-him
self
Donald Trump isn’t sounding like himself, and that’s terrifying. Hi, Paul Krugman here with a brief update on Saturday afternoon.
Not my usual thing. No economics, no analytics, just I felt I needed to say something. On Wednesday, Trump gave a speech, which was... pretty depressing. He was low energy, listless, and seemed to be disconnected from reality, insisting that everything is going great in this war and everything is going great across the board. And in terms of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, well, it’s somebody else’s problem. And the Strait may naturally open by itself, which didn’t sound like leadership.
In some ways, it sounded like Trump, always living in a fantasy world in which things are going his way. But if you thought about the outcome for the world, it seemed to be pointing towards the U.S. never admitting it openly, but implicitly basically giving up and leaving a stronger Iran, but with the Strait of Hormuz opening up — maybe with tolls collected by the regime in Iran, and just a diminished, weakened U.S., but better than some of the alternatives.
Today, Trump put up a Truth Social post, which said that if Iran doesn’t open up the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, “all hell will reign down on them.” That was how he put it. All hell will rain down. Misspelled rain, but OK. And then finished it up with glory be to God. GOD in caps.
Wow. So first of all, this is a completely different picture suddenly. Aside from the Strait of Hormuz not being our problem to we will commit massive war crimes, presumably. That’s the only thing that makes sense here, unless they open it up, which is pretty bad.
And also... I don’t think Trump has ever said “glory be to God.” That doesn’t sound like him. That sounds almost as if Pete Hegseth wrote this post, which maybe in some sense he did. The misspellings and all do look like Trump in his own hand, but it feels like this is the influence of our religious fanatic Secretary of War, or as people in the Pentagon apparently call him, the Secretary of War Crimes.
This is really bad. It’s hard to see what happens in 48 hours. It’s clear that Trump, for all his pretense of, “I’m always winning,” is aware of how completely he screwed things up, that he’s aware that he has basically led America into an epic strategic defeat. I don’t think he cares about that from the point of view of America, but he is realizing what this has done to him — that he will probably quite rapidly lose his grip on U.S., politics, and certainly to the extent that he cares about his legacy, it’s not going to be his wonderful ballroom. It’s going to be that he’s the man who single-handedly led America to one of its greatest defeats ever. But now what?
It would be one thing if he just kind of slunk away into the night, which is what we would have hoped would happen, but instead it sounds like he’s unable to accept it and that he is going to try and do something truly awful in an attempt to somehow redeem himself and the situation.
If we had a functioning democracy, this would be 25th Amendment time. This guy should not have any authority at all. Finger on the button, although I don’t think we’re talking about nukes, but he shouldn’t have any authority on matters of state violence when this is the kind of mood he’s in. Just in general, although religiosity is often expected of American leaders, saying glory be to God before you unleash violence, that is not what used to be the American way.
Anyway, I’m scared. I wonder very much what the next few days will bring because this is looking like basically a president who is losing it and, unfortunately, losing it in a way that can really make the world a much worse place very fast.
I guess enjoy the rest of your weekend.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pag
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Quote:Trump to Iran: "Open the Fuckin' Strait" or face bombing Tuesday
Originally posted by second:
Donald Trump Isn't Sounding Like Himself
And that's terrifying
This guy should not have any authority at all. Finger on the button, although I don’t think we’re talking about nukes, but he shouldn’t have any authority on matters of state violence when this is the kind of mood he’s in.
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/05/trump-iran-strait-hormuz-bombing-thre
at
President Trump threatened to bomb Iran's power plants and bridges starting Tuesday if the regime doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz.
Why it matters: Trump's 10-day deadline to Iran is expected to expire Monday. He previously threatened to bomb the country’s energy, water and oil infrastructure if no deal was reached to open the strait.
• Tehran has accused Trump of planning to commit war crimes and threatened to retaliate with similar attacks against infrastructure in Israel and in other Gulf states.
• Over the last ten days, the U.S. and Iran have held indirect negotiations through Pakistan. Egypt and Turkey to try to reach a ceasefire deal in return for opening the strait of Hormuz. No significant progress has been achieved so far.
What he's saying: "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Sunday morning.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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US forced to destroy two of its own aircraft after rescuing F-15 pilot from Iran
Two transport aircraft tasked with evacuating the special forces unit were unable to take off from a remote base in Iran. These aircraft were destroyed to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, sources said. The special forces therefore departed on three additional aircraft that were sent for them.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/04/05/8028831/
A decision to use an abandoned Iranian airstrip south of Isfahan as a forward operating location went wrong when two C-130 Hercules transporters, probably modified search and rescue variants, got stuck in the ground.
They were destroyed by the US to prevent them from falling into the Iranians’ hands, US sources indicated, and more transporters had to be brought forward to complete the extraction of the wounded second crew member. Each of the modified Hercules has a list price of nearly $115m.
An HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter involved in the rescue was also damaged by gunfire on Friday – so it is easy to conclude that the cost in lost and damaged airframes exceeds $250m, largely for the rescue of the second crew member.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/05/propaganda-f-15-crew-res
cue-downing-reminder-iran-fight-back-donald-trump
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump jumped into an enormous steaming pile of dogshit, and there's no way out.
Honestly, I can't imagine what propelled Trump into such a self destructive war. Is there something in the Epstein files that Mossad is holding over him? Is he delusional? So ill- informed that the people advising him might credibly be accused of treason?
Everyone that I pay attention to in the alt media has been saying for MONTHS that Iran would be a huge challenge to take militarily. IRAN has been saying for months that if they were attacked they would close the straits, and hit out at all of America's proxies in the ME including Israel.
The 12-day war, when Israel begged a halt, was just an image of things to come. Did the CIA's/ spec ops' success in Venezuela cause neocons and zionists to miscalculate wildly?
Now for the consequences of possible failure:
The USA driven out of the ME.
Israel cannot continue as a viable nation.
Energy production infrastructure across the ME is destroyed.
If desalination plants are destroyed, petro- monarchies crumble.
There are petroleum, fertilizer, and helium shortages across the globe.
In addition to higher prices, there will be actual scarcity of food, fuel, and high tech products, which will impact Taiwan, Japan, and S Korea; the EU; and south Asia and Africa the most. Governments will change or fall.
China will turn to pipeline supplies from Russia.
Chinese economy slows as its markets shrink.
Petro- monarchies realize that the USA can't protect them. One leg of the petrodollar deal is broken.
The dollar finance cycle is broken... from ME oil sales (in dollars) to US Treasuries and investments in high tech.
USD banks (JPMC) starved of funds.
Hedge funds collapse.
USA government unable to fund its debt. Interest rates and inflation rise even as the productive economy shrinks.
Iran is in charge of the Straits and whatever oil that is still flowing out of the ME.
Oil is traded mostly in yuan.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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