I’m sorry but Ron Paul has no ability to know and even say that Iran was not producing a nuclear weapon which is against all other intelligence and reports. Ron should stick to economics where he excels and leave foreign policy to others. Iran had US blood on its hands from our men and women in the armed forces. You reap what you sow and Iran got what it deserved. Hopefully the people of Iran can take back their country to be prosperous like it was in the 60s and 70s.
Enjoy your war with Russia. Iran is the last staging area needed to fill in the Rimland. America doesn't believe John Halford Mackinder existed and has had no impact on the world.
War with Russia is a geopolitically totally useless thing. The principal challenger to Global West is China (PR China). Because of the war with Russia, Russia is now providing the Chinese with everything that Chinese don't already have themselves, and at a price far below that on the world market. No wonder W Europe is losing industry.
I'm getting really tired of hearing about China being a threat. I'm so old I remember when it was filled with starving peasants. Remember when our goal was to keep China and Russia separated? You have no one to blame but yourself.
What dangerous nonsense. Iran under the murderous Mullah's IS the USA's problem, massively. 'Listen to the MAGA base', pure idiocy, LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS FFS! And Israel's problem with murderous Islam and the world's problem with expansionist creeping, cunning China is 10000% our problem. Ron Paul needs to visit an Iranian jail. If Britain & France had intervened in 1936 when Hitler marched into the Rhineland, there wouldn't have been a second world war. Trump is 100% right to grasp the nettle.
Maybe he should visit a jail in Bahrein too. Our loyal ally Bahrein has more political prisoners per capita than Iran. In fact, you can see videos of the people there cheering as the US base was struck by Iranian missiles. Should we intervene there also? Speaking of murderous Islam, how many women and children has the murderous Netanyahu killed in Gaza?
Maybe women and children wouldn't have been 'murdered' in Gaza if Gazans hadn't spent billions in aid from the west building a vast network of tunnels and stockpiling weapons in schools and hospitals and then brutally attacking Israeli women and children on October 7th. Quite a dumb idea to attack your neighbour and then cry crocodile tears when the neighbour hits back.
Maybe you missed the headlines in the Israeli press - Netanyahu funded Hamas in order to keep the Palestinians divided. Plus, there are several reports indicating that Israel allowed this attack to occur to justify clearing out Gaza for their Greater Israel project. Mossad knew where to find Hezabollah and Iranian leaders but didn't know an attack was being planned on their border? But regardless the children had no say in who was governing Gaza.
Mr. Atomico offers the greater idiot theory of this Gaza war, which at the same time blames Israel for "allowing the attack to occur" yet omits blaming the terrorists who carried out the attack, nor cares one bit about the hundreds of Israeli children killed by hamas and gazans on October 7th.
Idiot theory - Israel is our greatest ally! But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or Israeli troops have never directly fought alongside U.S. forces in combat during major American wars such as the Korean War (1950–1953), Vietnam War (1955–1975), the Gulf War (1991), the Iraq War (2003–2011), or the Afghanistan War (2001–2021). Trump was belittling Denmark but more soldiers per capita from that country died in Afghanistan than the US.
Sorry, Steve. But it was well covered in the Israeli press that Netanyahu funded Hamas in order to keep the Palestinians divided. Plus, the Hannibal Directive was applied in the Israeli response to the invasion. Also, there is no way in hell that Mossad didn't know that an invasion was coming. They knew where the Hezabollah and Iranian leaders were but not that an invasion was being planned on their border. Even Charlie Kirk questioned this narrative. The greatest idiot theory in my book is that the Dancing Israelis were practicing new disco moves when they were seen celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers.
You get a few things right Mr. atomico. It is true Israel allowed funds to pass to hamas, not to divide palestinians, but under the mistaken notion that so long as the funds were coming, hamas would only sabre rattle and not resort to violence. It has been widely reported that Israeli outposts, mostly staffed by young female soldiers near the gaza border, reported unual activity at the border with large groups of folk assembling and then leaving. This was done by hamas prior to the October 7th invasion, to gauge IDF response. This information was relayed up the chain but Israeli Intelligence, normally strong, made a huge intelligence failure by relying on sigint and informants within hamas that provided no evidence of an impending invasion. You don't give hamas enough credit as this invasion was kept quiet, not discussed on sigint channels, and they doubled their agents so folk the Mossad and Shin Bet thought were working for Israel, were not, and provided false intelligence that no invasion was being planned. The "Dancing Israeli" 9/11 bullshit is just another blood libel, similar to Jews using Christian blood in making their matzoh. You reveal your bias by repeating it.
A lot of comments in here seemed to be predicated on Iran bad therefore war good. Regrettable.
What is the USA getting out of this? What are we, the posters here, getting out of it if it leads to a clean sweep of congress by the democrats in November?
This isn’t one war, but two. There is a regional chessboard, on which Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf states all play. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis: All of that belongs primarily to this smaller game. Israel has always understood this board. So have the Saudis. So has everyone in the neighborhood.
But there is a second chessboard, vastly larger, on which the United States and China are the primary players. On this board, the central question of the next 30 years is being worked out: whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. Every significant American foreign policy decision, from the pivot to Asia to the tariff wars to the posture in the Pacific, is ultimately a move on this board.
America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia.
Iran, for most of its history as an adversary of the United States, existed only on the smaller board. It was a headache. It was a regional destabilizer. It funded terrorism, harassed shipping, threatened America’s allies, and kept the Middle East expensive and unpredictable. But it was not, in any direct sense, a threat to American primacy on the global stage. It was Israel’s problem, the Gulf states’ problem, and only tangentially Washington’s.
That changed when Iran made one of the most consequential strategic miscalculations of the century.
Squeezed by decades of American sanctions and increasingly isolated, Iran turned to China as its economic lifeline. The relationship deepened rapidly. Today, roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports go to China, processed through a network of Chinese refineries that operate beyond the reach of American sanctions enforcement. That oil revenue supplies around a quarter of Iran’s budget, a huge portion of which is spent on Iran’s military forces. The Iranian military is thus funded, in significant part, by Chinese purchases. Without Beijing, the regime cannot pay its security forces, cannot subsidize basic goods, and would soon face the kind of internal collapse that its own ideology has spent 40 years trying to prevent.
In other words, Iran has become—has made itself—utterly dependent on China.
China, for its part, was not being charitable. It was being strategic. Iranian oil, sold cheaply because Tehran has no other buyers, has helped Beijing build a strategic petroleum reserve exceeding a billion barrels, enough to sustain the Chinese economy for roughly a hundred days in the event of a naval blockade. China’s single greatest vulnerability is the American Navy’s ability to interdict its energy imports, especially at vulnerable choke points like the Malacca Straits. Iranian oil, flowing outside American oversight, was a direct hedge against that vulnerability. (So, by the way, was Venezuela’s, another U.S. operation that was ultimately about containing China.)
But the energy relationship was only part of the picture. China was also arming Iran with systems specifically designed to threaten commercial and American military assets. Reports emerged in late February of a near-finalized deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the Aegis defense systems deployed on American carrier strike groups. China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia, and Iran in the Straits of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building real-time operational familiarity between the three navies. Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system. And Iran was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s “string of pearls” base system in the Indian Ocean.
The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a linchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence program—every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building—positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.
American forces have used this operation to target Iranian military positions and assets that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Iranian face-off.
In the first 24 hours of the war, American strikes, as confirmed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), focused on Iranian naval vessels, submarines, ports, and anti-ship missile positions along the southern coast. The port of Bandar Abbas, headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was hit. So was Jask, which China had hoped would become a permanent naval foothold on the Indian Ocean. Isfahan and Tabriz, hubs of ballistic missile production and drone assembly, were struck. The goal, explicitly stated by American officials, was not merely to degrade existing stockpiles but to destroy the industrial base from which those weapons are produced, so that China cannot spend the next few years quietly rebuilding it.
It must be said: Israel is also at war with Iran, and has focused its strikes on Iranian targets that specifically threaten Israel, such as the ballistic missile launchers. But there are nevertheless two different wars underway in Iran, each taking place on very different strategic scales.
"Iran has been insisting for decades that they have no interest in producing a nuclear weapon and our own intelligence has confirmed that they are not doing so." What a crock of shit, why was their centrifuge complex hidden underground. Iran has been lying for decades about everything.
Thanks for sharing Ron Paul’s powerful words. His point about us losing our honor by negotiating in bad faith is the part that rang the most true. How despicable of this administration and of course of Israel
Israel did the same with Hamas negotiations and cease fire negotiations that were to be mediated in Qatar, Israel has claimed Iran is a threat due to their nuclear program and is close to developing a bomb since I was a youth
Maybe you can figure out how to skip the middle man for your next campaign contributions and just send them straight to Israel. I dont have faith in any of our politicians or our economic system at this point, but I am happy for you
I have to respect Ron Paul's principled stand. He has been right on a vast number of topics. But not this one.
Iran's eternal animus towards Israel and the United States is well known. The fact that the Jews have had so much influence over American foreign policy may be regarded as unfortunate, but it is a fact. I doubt that the Iranians' minds are subtle enough to recognize that it is not all of America. They have hated us and repeatedly rained death and destruction on us since 1979.
Rubio and Netanyahu are right. About what needed to be done: destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions, missile and drone capabilities, and perpetual desire to destabilize its neighbors. And when: now was the moment.
We in Ukraine feel it second-hand. Iran has supported a similarly-minded Russia, which has also been a perpetual threat to its neighbors. At the moment it is us, but over the course of history it has been every country that borders Russia. It is the way they are. There was no alternative ex.cept to defang both Iran and Russia. And, en route to doing so, Syria and Venezuela.
El Gato Malo has a long, thoughtful and balanced piece today. He shows respect for all sides, but reluctantly concludes that something needed to be done.
All the people that want war with Iran are the ones that won't face any bullets. That's for you and your kids to do.
It also bears minding that after 4 years of war in Ukraine, it is evident our military didn't learn anything about the drone threat. Iran is doing serious damage that is not being reported due to censorship. (Thanks Telegram!) Downing $50,000 drones with $4M Patriot missiles is not sustainable. (We also learned that the Patriot is a joke and can only hit drones.) I'm not even going to go into the hypersonic missiles evidenced already in this conflict. It's time people realize our military is a fraud and Trillion Dollar joke and can only take out third world dictators. The only problem is Iran is not a third world country.
For reference, Russia just upped its defense budget to $250B this year. Did I mention they have volumes of hypersonic missiles, nuclear powered cruise missiles and torpedoes?
Ron Paul, tired old fool. What part of "Death to America" does he not understand? Passed along the wacky mutation to Rand, who voted to confirm Gen. Charles C. Q. 2LGBTQIA+ to Joint Chiefs under Biden. That's all you need to know about their military IQ.
So true. A nice antidote for the op-ed a few days ago. Anybody who digs deeply into geopolitics sees it's as complicated as investment analysis. Longs/shorts/bulls/bears and A LOT of propaganda and spin. Whose propaganda are you (the universal you) channeling? Whose facts? It's a process just like good investment research. Answer that first, and then the opinions clarify themselves.
"Who would ever trust US diplomacy again if talks are used as a distraction for pre-planned attacks?"
This really needs to be dwelt upon a bit. We engage in feigned "negotiations." Our two top negotiators, real estate developers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kirchner, relay stringent US demands that will require the Iranians to meet, argue, deliberate, and counter-propose. When they do meet, we launch our attack. Then, we claim "brilliance" that we somehow picked the one moment when all these leaders will be together.
In 2024, our CIA claims (with absolutely no evidence to back it up) that Iran has terror cells bent on assassinating President Trump. The press is outraged that these barbarians would target a civilian rather than a military target. It offends our sensibilities. Then we claim to be geniuses for assassinating those who meet to deliberate our peace proposal. Who's the villain here?
Okay. I'll going along with the theory that they were practicing new disco moves and just happened to be in the right place to "document the event". "When asked about their activities in New Jersey on 9/11, Ellner-one of the dancers- stated: "The fact of the matter is, we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event.". Never watch Apple TV nor do I have any Apple products.
Sounds good. And the owner of the moving company fled to Israel? But regarding the FBI report - page 27 - She described the men (the Dancing Israelis)as being in a festive move and high-fiving. Normal behavior watching a skyscraper collapse?
But why is critiquing Israel or Netanyahu anti-semetic? I criticize Meloni when I talk to an Italian friend, that means I'm anti-italian? Jeffrey Sachs a Jew regularly criticizes Israel and called Netanyahu "deep, dark son of a bitch". Is he anti-semetic?
I’m sorry but Ron Paul has no ability to know and even say that Iran was not producing a nuclear weapon which is against all other intelligence and reports. Ron should stick to economics where he excels and leave foreign policy to others. Iran had US blood on its hands from our men and women in the armed forces. You reap what you sow and Iran got what it deserved. Hopefully the people of Iran can take back their country to be prosperous like it was in the 60s and 70s.
It's a good thing our government would never lie to us.
You can't have real transparency and forceful policy at the same time. Something sometimes has to give.
Enjoy your war with Russia. Iran is the last staging area needed to fill in the Rimland. America doesn't believe John Halford Mackinder existed and has had no impact on the world.
War with Russia is a geopolitically totally useless thing. The principal challenger to Global West is China (PR China). Because of the war with Russia, Russia is now providing the Chinese with everything that Chinese don't already have themselves, and at a price far below that on the world market. No wonder W Europe is losing industry.
I'm getting really tired of hearing about China being a threat. I'm so old I remember when it was filled with starving peasants. Remember when our goal was to keep China and Russia separated? You have no one to blame but yourself.
Well, currently, our new aim (since 2008) seems to be to keep China and Russia welded at the hip. Full Halford MacKinder.
The people took back their country in the 70's. Saddam Hussein learned how to be evil from the Shah. Both installed by the US.
The intelligence agencies have said so!
What dangerous nonsense. Iran under the murderous Mullah's IS the USA's problem, massively. 'Listen to the MAGA base', pure idiocy, LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS FFS! And Israel's problem with murderous Islam and the world's problem with expansionist creeping, cunning China is 10000% our problem. Ron Paul needs to visit an Iranian jail. If Britain & France had intervened in 1936 when Hitler marched into the Rhineland, there wouldn't have been a second world war. Trump is 100% right to grasp the nettle.
Actually, it was British and French meddling in the Middle East that created this mess to a large extent.
What schoolchild level rubbish. The problem is violent, mysonginistic, nihilist, 6th century religious evil.
Wow…your ad hominem attack is the tell.
Can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
You’re the one unable to address my point
because it's at such of low level of basic history it's not worth anyone's time trying to explain.
Maybe he should visit a jail in Bahrein too. Our loyal ally Bahrein has more political prisoners per capita than Iran. In fact, you can see videos of the people there cheering as the US base was struck by Iranian missiles. Should we intervene there also? Speaking of murderous Islam, how many women and children has the murderous Netanyahu killed in Gaza?
Maybe women and children wouldn't have been 'murdered' in Gaza if Gazans hadn't spent billions in aid from the west building a vast network of tunnels and stockpiling weapons in schools and hospitals and then brutally attacking Israeli women and children on October 7th. Quite a dumb idea to attack your neighbour and then cry crocodile tears when the neighbour hits back.
Maybe you missed the headlines in the Israeli press - Netanyahu funded Hamas in order to keep the Palestinians divided. Plus, there are several reports indicating that Israel allowed this attack to occur to justify clearing out Gaza for their Greater Israel project. Mossad knew where to find Hezabollah and Iranian leaders but didn't know an attack was being planned on their border? But regardless the children had no say in who was governing Gaza.
Mr. Atomico offers the greater idiot theory of this Gaza war, which at the same time blames Israel for "allowing the attack to occur" yet omits blaming the terrorists who carried out the attack, nor cares one bit about the hundreds of Israeli children killed by hamas and gazans on October 7th.
Idiot theory - Israel is our greatest ally! But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or Israeli troops have never directly fought alongside U.S. forces in combat during major American wars such as the Korean War (1950–1953), Vietnam War (1955–1975), the Gulf War (1991), the Iraq War (2003–2011), or the Afghanistan War (2001–2021). Trump was belittling Denmark but more soldiers per capita from that country died in Afghanistan than the US.
Sorry, Steve. But it was well covered in the Israeli press that Netanyahu funded Hamas in order to keep the Palestinians divided. Plus, the Hannibal Directive was applied in the Israeli response to the invasion. Also, there is no way in hell that Mossad didn't know that an invasion was coming. They knew where the Hezabollah and Iranian leaders were but not that an invasion was being planned on their border. Even Charlie Kirk questioned this narrative. The greatest idiot theory in my book is that the Dancing Israelis were practicing new disco moves when they were seen celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers.
You get a few things right Mr. atomico. It is true Israel allowed funds to pass to hamas, not to divide palestinians, but under the mistaken notion that so long as the funds were coming, hamas would only sabre rattle and not resort to violence. It has been widely reported that Israeli outposts, mostly staffed by young female soldiers near the gaza border, reported unual activity at the border with large groups of folk assembling and then leaving. This was done by hamas prior to the October 7th invasion, to gauge IDF response. This information was relayed up the chain but Israeli Intelligence, normally strong, made a huge intelligence failure by relying on sigint and informants within hamas that provided no evidence of an impending invasion. You don't give hamas enough credit as this invasion was kept quiet, not discussed on sigint channels, and they doubled their agents so folk the Mossad and Shin Bet thought were working for Israel, were not, and provided false intelligence that no invasion was being planned. The "Dancing Israeli" 9/11 bullshit is just another blood libel, similar to Jews using Christian blood in making their matzoh. You reveal your bias by repeating it.
Every death in Gaza is the fault of hamas.
A lot of comments in here seemed to be predicated on Iran bad therefore war good. Regrettable.
What is the USA getting out of this? What are we, the posters here, getting out of it if it leads to a clean sweep of congress by the democrats in November?
From Haviv Gur
This isn’t one war, but two. There is a regional chessboard, on which Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf states all play. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis: All of that belongs primarily to this smaller game. Israel has always understood this board. So have the Saudis. So has everyone in the neighborhood.
But there is a second chessboard, vastly larger, on which the United States and China are the primary players. On this board, the central question of the next 30 years is being worked out: whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. Every significant American foreign policy decision, from the pivot to Asia to the tariff wars to the posture in the Pacific, is ultimately a move on this board.
America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia.
Iran, for most of its history as an adversary of the United States, existed only on the smaller board. It was a headache. It was a regional destabilizer. It funded terrorism, harassed shipping, threatened America’s allies, and kept the Middle East expensive and unpredictable. But it was not, in any direct sense, a threat to American primacy on the global stage. It was Israel’s problem, the Gulf states’ problem, and only tangentially Washington’s.
That changed when Iran made one of the most consequential strategic miscalculations of the century.
Squeezed by decades of American sanctions and increasingly isolated, Iran turned to China as its economic lifeline. The relationship deepened rapidly. Today, roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports go to China, processed through a network of Chinese refineries that operate beyond the reach of American sanctions enforcement. That oil revenue supplies around a quarter of Iran’s budget, a huge portion of which is spent on Iran’s military forces. The Iranian military is thus funded, in significant part, by Chinese purchases. Without Beijing, the regime cannot pay its security forces, cannot subsidize basic goods, and would soon face the kind of internal collapse that its own ideology has spent 40 years trying to prevent.
In other words, Iran has become—has made itself—utterly dependent on China.
China, for its part, was not being charitable. It was being strategic. Iranian oil, sold cheaply because Tehran has no other buyers, has helped Beijing build a strategic petroleum reserve exceeding a billion barrels, enough to sustain the Chinese economy for roughly a hundred days in the event of a naval blockade. China’s single greatest vulnerability is the American Navy’s ability to interdict its energy imports, especially at vulnerable choke points like the Malacca Straits. Iranian oil, flowing outside American oversight, was a direct hedge against that vulnerability. (So, by the way, was Venezuela’s, another U.S. operation that was ultimately about containing China.)
But the energy relationship was only part of the picture. China was also arming Iran with systems specifically designed to threaten commercial and American military assets. Reports emerged in late February of a near-finalized deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the Aegis defense systems deployed on American carrier strike groups. China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia, and Iran in the Straits of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building real-time operational familiarity between the three navies. Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system. And Iran was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s “string of pearls” base system in the Indian Ocean.
The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a linchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence program—every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building—positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.
American forces have used this operation to target Iranian military positions and assets that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Iranian face-off.
In the first 24 hours of the war, American strikes, as confirmed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), focused on Iranian naval vessels, submarines, ports, and anti-ship missile positions along the southern coast. The port of Bandar Abbas, headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was hit. So was Jask, which China had hoped would become a permanent naval foothold on the Indian Ocean. Isfahan and Tabriz, hubs of ballistic missile production and drone assembly, were struck. The goal, explicitly stated by American officials, was not merely to degrade existing stockpiles but to destroy the industrial base from which those weapons are produced, so that China cannot spend the next few years quietly rebuilding it.
It must be said: Israel is also at war with Iran, and has focused its strikes on Iranian targets that specifically threaten Israel, such as the ballistic missile launchers. But there are nevertheless two different wars underway in Iran, each taking place on very different strategic scales.
Haviv Gur's entire essay in The Free Press was excellent.
"Iran has been insisting for decades that they have no interest in producing a nuclear weapon and our own intelligence has confirmed that they are not doing so." What a crock of shit, why was their centrifuge complex hidden underground. Iran has been lying for decades about everything.
Additionally, there is not one civilian reason to enrich to 60%.
Thanks for sharing Ron Paul’s powerful words. His point about us losing our honor by negotiating in bad faith is the part that rang the most true. How despicable of this administration and of course of Israel
Why? Was Israel negotiating with Iran as well?
Israel did the same with Hamas negotiations and cease fire negotiations that were to be mediated in Qatar, Israel has claimed Iran is a threat due to their nuclear program and is close to developing a bomb since I was a youth
https://substack.com/@capitalliberty/note/p-189873550?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=5e7ocl
I see you didn't watch Coleman Hughes d̶e̶b̶a̶t̶e̶ eviscerate Dave Smith, who also seems to take a lot of meaning from this memo.
Every time I see an asinine comment such as the one just made by CL, it restores my faith in MAGA and President Trump.
Maybe you can figure out how to skip the middle man for your next campaign contributions and just send them straight to Israel. I dont have faith in any of our politicians or our economic system at this point, but I am happy for you
It's refreshing to read a voice of reason. So much warmongering on my feed lately. What happened to the climate change emergency btw?
I have to respect Ron Paul's principled stand. He has been right on a vast number of topics. But not this one.
Iran's eternal animus towards Israel and the United States is well known. The fact that the Jews have had so much influence over American foreign policy may be regarded as unfortunate, but it is a fact. I doubt that the Iranians' minds are subtle enough to recognize that it is not all of America. They have hated us and repeatedly rained death and destruction on us since 1979.
Rubio and Netanyahu are right. About what needed to be done: destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions, missile and drone capabilities, and perpetual desire to destabilize its neighbors. And when: now was the moment.
We in Ukraine feel it second-hand. Iran has supported a similarly-minded Russia, which has also been a perpetual threat to its neighbors. At the moment it is us, but over the course of history it has been every country that borders Russia. It is the way they are. There was no alternative ex.cept to defang both Iran and Russia. And, en route to doing so, Syria and Venezuela.
My most important message here is civility. Please note.
An Iranian lady gets a bit uncivil here at the UN, justified I think. You'd need a hard heart not to be moved by this speech...
https://substack.com/@roybentzvi/note/c-216529470?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=8swye
El Gato Malo has a long, thoughtful and balanced piece today. He shows respect for all sides, but reluctantly concludes that something needed to be done.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-iranian-ink-blot
Thank you for sharing this post. Was excellent.
Glad you liked it. This piece I find today corroborates el gato. Print and video:
https://globalbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/eies_liquidatingtherussianpetrostate_independentbrief.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCcs7tXOz4
All the people that want war with Iran are the ones that won't face any bullets. That's for you and your kids to do.
It also bears minding that after 4 years of war in Ukraine, it is evident our military didn't learn anything about the drone threat. Iran is doing serious damage that is not being reported due to censorship. (Thanks Telegram!) Downing $50,000 drones with $4M Patriot missiles is not sustainable. (We also learned that the Patriot is a joke and can only hit drones.) I'm not even going to go into the hypersonic missiles evidenced already in this conflict. It's time people realize our military is a fraud and Trillion Dollar joke and can only take out third world dictators. The only problem is Iran is not a third world country.
For reference, Russia just upped its defense budget to $250B this year. Did I mention they have volumes of hypersonic missiles, nuclear powered cruise missiles and torpedoes?
Yawn. Telegram has never been biased except for the places you visit.
Ron Paul, tired old fool. What part of "Death to America" does he not understand? Passed along the wacky mutation to Rand, who voted to confirm Gen. Charles C. Q. 2LGBTQIA+ to Joint Chiefs under Biden. That's all you need to know about their military IQ.
Rand needs to take better care of his dad.
So true. A nice antidote for the op-ed a few days ago. Anybody who digs deeply into geopolitics sees it's as complicated as investment analysis. Longs/shorts/bulls/bears and A LOT of propaganda and spin. Whose propaganda are you (the universal you) channeling? Whose facts? It's a process just like good investment research. Answer that first, and then the opinions clarify themselves.
It would have been so easy for Iran to "say the words" -- if they meant it. Paying a huge price for refusing to do so. FAFO.
"Who would ever trust US diplomacy again if talks are used as a distraction for pre-planned attacks?"
This really needs to be dwelt upon a bit. We engage in feigned "negotiations." Our two top negotiators, real estate developers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kirchner, relay stringent US demands that will require the Iranians to meet, argue, deliberate, and counter-propose. When they do meet, we launch our attack. Then, we claim "brilliance" that we somehow picked the one moment when all these leaders will be together.
In 2024, our CIA claims (with absolutely no evidence to back it up) that Iran has terror cells bent on assassinating President Trump. The press is outraged that these barbarians would target a civilian rather than a military target. It offends our sensibilities. Then we claim to be geniuses for assassinating those who meet to deliberate our peace proposal. Who's the villain here?
Who in government follows the Constitution, Dr. Paul? Even members of SCOTUS trample on it for their self- serving interests.
It's okay. Jesus sets things straight upon his return.
Okay. I'll going along with the theory that they were practicing new disco moves and just happened to be in the right place to "document the event". "When asked about their activities in New Jersey on 9/11, Ellner-one of the dancers- stated: "The fact of the matter is, we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event.". Never watch Apple TV nor do I have any Apple products.
Sounds good. And the owner of the moving company fled to Israel? But regarding the FBI report - page 27 - She described the men (the Dancing Israelis)as being in a festive move and high-fiving. Normal behavior watching a skyscraper collapse?
But why is critiquing Israel or Netanyahu anti-semetic? I criticize Meloni when I talk to an Italian friend, that means I'm anti-italian? Jeffrey Sachs a Jew regularly criticizes Israel and called Netanyahu "deep, dark son of a bitch". Is he anti-semetic?