Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 2, 2026 05:42
VIEWED: 15626
PAGE 32 of 73
Iran’s stubborn rulers defied Saddam Hussein. They won’t yield to Trump
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/iran-stubborn-rulers-defied-saddam-124729159
.html
they say Rumsfeld played a central role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Ford named Rumsfeld to succeed Schlesinger as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense
he was Iranate Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East, Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein
Rumsfeld, talking WMD - 1976 (USSR) & 2002 (Iraq)
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Quote:Trumptards are all alike. They lose friends easily, gain enemies frequently, and struggle to succeed in America.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yup. Plans change.
Go fuck yourself.
Still doesn't change the fact that you lied yesterday and you were lied to by your Legacy Media Masters too.
Why don't you stay on topic, you little bitch?
If you're not going to admit when you're wrong, stop posting a bunch of bullshit everyday.
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
Friends No More: Trump Turns on Italy’s Meloni
By Marcus Walker
And Margherita Stancati
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/trump-turns-against-italys-giorgia-me
loni-broadening-clash-with-europe-ba37f1d4
ROME—As President Trump’s rift with Europe widens, he is casting even his political friends into the chasm.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spent the past year trying to act as a bridge, while Trump tussled with other European leaders over tariffs, Ukraine and Greenland.
Trump, who has called Meloni a “great leader,” says he is shocked by her refusal to send forces to open the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Iran war. "I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” he told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The abrupt breakdown of their political friendship shows how the middle ground is disappearing between a White House that is demanding loyalty from its allies, and a Europe where voters and governments increasingly view Tramp as a destabilizing force.
Meloni’s striving to hold the West together is laudable, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti told The Wall Street Journal. “But this fails to take reality into account,” he said. Trump’s open hostility to the European Union makes it “difficult to act as a bridge.” Ever fewer European leaders now openly support Trump. On Sunday, he lost one of his closest allies, Hungary’s longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who suffered a crushing election defeat despite U.S. efforts to support him.
Some European leaders, such as Spain’s left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, have actively repudiated Trump’s foreign policy. But in many cases it is Trump who has reacted with anger or ridicule toward European leaders who have tried to win his ear, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Now Meloni—a fellow right-winger whose views on immigration, gender and “woke ideology” are close to MAGA’s—finds herself dismissed by Trump as just another cowardly European leader whose country is being destroyed by immigration.
“Trump does not view European member states as equals: He sees the entire bloc as a problem to be managed, and as an obstacle to his own policies. And Meloni is part of this European bloc,” said Teresa Coratella, a senior analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
For more than a year, Meloni has maintained a balancing act between the U.S. and Europe, playing down differences with Trump and insisting that the trans-Atlantic alliance is alive and well.
In January, when Trump threatened to seize the Danish territory by force, she urged other European countries not to escalate or retaliate. Much of the region, however, is preparing for a divorce with the U.S.
The Iran war has tested her Atlantic triangulation to the limit. The U.S.-Israeli campaign, which Trump says was necessary to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, is viewed across most of Europe’s political spectrum as ill-advised and damaging.
Italy, which relies heavily on gas imports from Gulf Arab countries, could face some of the worst economic fallout if the closure of the Strait of Hormuz persists.
“I fear that if the situation continues like this—on the energy front and fuel oils—a severe recession will follow,” Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti warned. Still, Meloni’s criticism has remained muted.
Her perceived closeness to Trump contributed to the defeat in a March referendum of her prop
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Trump’s bungled Iran negotiations didn’t have to go this way
Wendy Sherman helped Obama reach a deal with Iran. She sees several areas where Trump is going wrong.
by Caitlin Dewey
Apr 16, 2026, 6:00 AM CDT
In her new interview with Vox’s Noel King, Sherman cautioned against being too “reductive” in discussing the outcomes of the war or the talks. (Iran has absolutely been weakened, she said.) But she outlined five areas where the Trump administration’s approach has, so far, failed.
Problem No. 1: They sent the B team to negotiate. Nearly 300 Americans descended on Islamabad for the most recent round of US-Iranian negotiations, including national security advisers, regional specialists, and Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation. But earlier rounds of negotiations were helmed by guys like Jared Kushner (Donald Trump’s son-in-law) and Steve Witkoff (Trump’s personal friend). Whatever their merits, neither man holds any particular expertise on Iran (or a real government position).
To further complicate matters, the US attacked Iran twice during previous rounds of ceasefire negotiations that Kushner and Witkoff hosted. So they don’t exactly radiate credibility, Sherman said.
Problem No. 2: They pursued a strategy that benefited Russia. Whatever the outcome of these peace talks, no one makes out better than Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the war in Iran is costing the US something like $2 billion a day, it could generate as much as $151 billion in additional revenue this year for the Russian government.
Russia benefits both from rising oil prices and from the relaxation of long-standing US sanctions, which Trump partially lifted in March. That windfall has already eased a domestic economic crisis in Russia and allowed Putin to continue his Ukraine war.
But that’s not the only way that Russia — and other US adversaries, including China — benefit from the war in Iran. The US will also emerge from the conflict weaker than it began, Sherman said: “We have just spent billions of dollars. We have reduced our inventory of weapons that we may need for other theaters. We have undermined our alliances.”
Problem No. 3: They badly damaged the world economy. At this point, I probably don’t need to list the myriad and diverse ways that the war — and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz — has destabilized the global economy. Just this Tuesday, Britain’s finance minister slammed Trump for what she called a costly “mistake” and “folly.”
Whatever you make of that “folly” bit, however, the cost was predictable, Sherman said. In fact, it came up repeatedly during the 2015 nuclear negotiations.
“We constantly said to the United States Congress, ‘if we risk war, it could close the Strait of Hormuz; it could increase the gas prices; it could take down the international economy,’” she added.
Problem No. 4: They did not, in fact, have the Iranians’ “backs.” President Trump initially urged Iranians to rise up against the regime, promising that the US would support them. Now, regime change is no longer a focus of either the US military campaign or negotiations to end it. That’s a major blow to many pro-democracy activists in Iran and throughout the Iranian diaspora, as the writer and advocate Roya Rastegar wrote for Vox last month.
“Iranian citizens who do want freedom … have been completely forgotten in this process,” Sherman said. “The regime in place in Iran now is more hardline than the one before, if you can believe it.”
Problem No. 5: They actually made the nuclear problem worse. As my colleague Joshua Keating has written, Trump’s quest to stop Iran from getting a nuke could actually encourage the regime to seek out a bomb. Why? Because in the present world (dis)order, that actually looks like the best or only way to protect against US intervention.
Meanwhile, if Iran gets a bomb, other countries will want one too — including close US allies, Sherman said. So the world may ultimately become more likely to see a nuclear attack because of Trump’s war.
The bottom line? “
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Pope criticizes 'tyrants' who spend billions on wars after Trump spat
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg0z3n5e5jo
Trump specifically requested $200 billion to pay for his Iran war. Divide that price by 340,000,000 population equals $588 per American.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/white-house-offers-no-hint-i
ran-war-cost-it-seeks-military-funding-surge-2026-04-15
Where did that $200 billion price tag for the Iran War come from? Multiply 100 days by $2 billion per day.
Quote:Current Day (April 16, 2026): Day 48 of the War. That means 52 days more to go! Assuming $200 billion is the real limit on what Trump will spend on his war-making hobby.
While the war in Iran is costing the US something like $2 billion a day
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick. 
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Quote:Trump Says the Strait of Hormuz Is Open Again. About That …
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
I regret to inform you that the president of the United States may not be totally on the level this time. You’ll be shocked to hear this, but President Donald Trump doesn’t seem to know how to handle the Strait of Hormuz.
To enforce its control over the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian forces placed myriad mines throughout the waters, ready to blow at a moment’s notice and snarl any unlucky trespassers. While Trump has posted that Iran is working on removing said mines (something the regime has not confirmed), any such effort is likely to take a while: Iran told the U.S. just a week ago that it was unable to recover all the explosives it’d placed, and the U.S. Navy released an advisory Friday adding that the munitions situation is “not fully understood,” meaning that boats should “consider avoidance of that area” for now. BIMCO, the world’s largest shipping association, is also asking the companies it represents to continue avoiding the strait thanks to those mines. Not exactly a “complete” opening, then.
More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/04/strait-of-hormuz-trump-ira
n.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Before the war, Iran was exporting 1.1M barrels of oil per day at $47 a barrel.
Right now, they're exporting 1.5M barrels of oil at $120 a barrel
Excellent work, Donald
AMERICA HAS WON!
AI Overview
Based on reports from March 2026, Iran's oil exports and global prices surged following the onset of conflict, with reports indicating exports increased from roughly 1.1 million barrels per day at $47 to around 1.5M-1.8M barrels at prices approaching $120 a barrel. This spike follows escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Export Data: Reports indicate Iran's oil exports rose from around 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) before the conflict escalated to approximately 1.5 million to 1.84 million bpd by March and April 2026.
Price Increases: Oil prices surged past $100-$119 a barrel following the conflict, with some reports citing prices jumping from $47 to $120 a barrel, contributing to a "windfall" for certain oil-producing regions.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump Can't Even Surrender Right
That was the peace that was
Paul Krugman
Apr 18, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-cant-even-surrender-right
When you’re losing a war, but it’s not an existential defeat, your country, your government can continue pretty much as before. Aside from the humiliation, there’s a well-established technique, which is to declare victory and pull out. But it appears that Trump can’t even pull that off.
Hi, Paul Krugman with a Saturday update on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and all of that. It’s been clear for a while that the United States has basically lost this war. The goal was to achieve regime change, possibly to take Iran’s uranium. Neither of those is going to happen. The Iranian regime is harder line than it was before. Iran has ended up strengthened because it’s demonstrated its ability to shut off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. No way the United States, even under current management, is going to commit ground troops to attempt to really do in Iran’s nuclear program on a sustained basis.
So the indicated strategy was to essentially give up, but claim that something wonderful was accomplished, and that’s certainly something that Trump is good at doing. But he hasn’t been able to pull that off, I think because he himself is incapable of facing reality.
So the Iranians said that they are willing to allow free passage of shipping through the strait, by which it turns out they mean basically passage that stays close to the Iranian coast and pays a toll along the way. Well, what’s our alternative to that? What is it that we want to get?
The United States has started imposing a blockade on Iran, which hurts the Iranians. It does give them a reason to seek a deal, but only if they get something out of it. So if allowing ships to start carrying oil and LNG and fertilizer and helium out of the Gulf allows them to sell their own oil again and to import food, which apparently is an important issue for Iran, then that’s a deal that can be done. It will, in practice, be a strategic defeat for the United States, but something that the Trump administration could try to spin as a victory.
But in order to get that, you have to actually deliver on that deal. You can claim that you’re winning and that they’re surrendering, not us, but you have to actually deliver on the deal. What Trump tried to do was to say, great, they’re opening up the strait, but meanwhile, we’re going to continue our blockade. And also, they have promised that we can have the uranium, which they had not.
That doesn’t work. It’s just basic logic. Why would the Iranians agree to a deal if they don’t get a lifting of the US embargo, don’t get their ability to sell oil and their ability to import food back? If that’s what’s going to happen, then you might as well keep the strait blocked. So what was this supposed to be? What was the idea? What was the thinking?
Well, as best I can tell, and this is all speculation now, I don’t think that Trump has taken on board, maybe he’s emotionally incapable of taking on board the reality that he screwed up, that he took us to war and lost, that he, in his mind, still thinks that America has the upper hand and that the Iranians are cowering in fear over the might of the U.S. military, and that he doesn’t need to make any concessions.
Does he really believe that? Do we even know? Is really believing a thing that makes sense in his case? Probably not. But to some extent, he is at least incapable of accepting as a basic proposition, never mind in public, but at least in terms of actual policymaking, accepting as a proposition that, well, the U.S. just found the limits to its power, and they turn out to be closer to our goal than they are to the Iranians’ goal. So we basically have to cut our losses by making a deal that leaves the Iranians with some stuff that they didn’t have before.
He can’t seem to do that. But if he doesn’t do that, then the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed. In fact, it’s more closed than before because the I
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You're looking pretty haggard, Paul.
Looks like you're about to be reunited with Kevin Drum.
Maybe when you get the band back together you can both gaslight St. Peter into letting you in where you don't belong.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:6ix, you lost track of the fact that Trump asked for $200,000,000,000 from Congress to kill old Iranians and very young children. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y73gwk1qdo
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You're looking pretty haggard, Paul.
Looks like you're about to be reunited with Kevin Drum.
Maybe when you get the band back together you can both gaslight St. Peter into letting you in where you don't belong.
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
That has got to cost more than $1,000,000 per dead Iranian. Is Trump dropping gold bars on their head to kill them? $1,000,000 is a lot of money per corpse.
More relevant is the cost per irate American. There are around 340,000,000 Americans, so the cost is $588 each.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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