U.S. And Israel bomb Iran?

[dualstow]

I don't have any comments here at this time. Just wanted to create a place for those who want to comment, so that it doesn't keep spilling into the Ukraine-Russia thread (including my own stray comments, too).

From that thread:

Yes he does indeed At least he hasn’t started any new forever wars.

Let’s revisit that in a couple of weeks.

Do you not think its another Venezuela II case, build up the fleet to readiness, then a concurrent decapitation of the IRG as and when that becomes a evident possibility rather than outright warfare.

I don't know what to think. Trump, the neocons, Israel, and the military are all very adventurous.

[Xan]

Hoo boy... I would like to say I hope he knows what he's doing, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Still, it could work out...

[dualstow]

Is it too soon to break out The Simpsons Ayatollah t-shirt clip?

[I Shrugged]

Hoo boy... I would like to say I hope he knows what he's doing, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Still, it could work out...

I don’t think it will. There’s so much I’d like to say but it’s pointless.

[I Shrugged]

What do Venezuela and Iran have in common? Something not shared with say Cuba or Afghanistan or North Korea.

[flyingpylon]

What do Venezuela and Iran have in common? Something not shared with say Cuba or Afghanistan or North Korea.

Sources of oil for China.

[I Shrugged]

What do Venezuela and Iran have in common? Something not shared with say Cuba or Afghanistan or North Korea.

Sources of oil for China.

Yes, and outside of the dollar system, too.

[Jack Jones]

What do Venezuela and Iran have in common? Something not shared with say Cuba or Afghanistan or North Korea.

Sources of oil for China.

Yes, and outside of the dollar system, too.

Can we add Libya to that list?

[I Shrugged]

What do Venezuela and Iran have in common? Something not shared with say Cuba or Afghanistan or North Korea.

Sources of oil for China.

Yes, and outside of the dollar system, too.

Can we add Libya to that list?

Probably so.

[I Shrugged]

I find it sickly, ironically humorous that the Iranian traffic/spy camera network was hijacked by the Israelis, and they used it to find and kill the Ayatollah.

[dualstow]

I find it sickly, ironically humorous that the Iranian traffic/spy camera network was hijacked by the Israelis, and they used it to find and kill the Ayatollah.

I had read that they turned the authoritarian regime against itself, but I didn’t know about this. that’s a good example.

For me, the greatest irony is that the head of Iran’s anti-Mossad / counterintelligence task force was himself a Mossad asset. This was revealed in an interview by Ahmadinejad (and it predates the advent of AI deepfakes).

[Xan]

Expansion on the theory that the overall goal is to set back China (including the Greenland situation):
https://nypost.com/2026/03/02/opinion/t ... rosshairs/

[Xan]

I don't get things like this emailed to me much, but this one was. Thoughts?

GULLIVER WAKES UP

Watching the UN emergency meeting yesterday—as well as various world leaders like Starmer stepping up to their podiums and microphones—reminded me of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

America has been cosplaying as the world’s polite giant for decades—politely allowing a swarm of pint-sized parasites to tie us down with dental floss while they lecture us on “responsibility” and “shared values.”

We don’t need NATO.

We don’t need the UN.

And the mask is slipping: the Lilliputians are starting to sweat.

In “A Voyage to Lilliput” (1726), shipwrecked Lemuel Gulliver wakes up pinned to the beach by an army of six-inch egomaniacs.

They’ve lashed him with thousands of threads, pegs, and stakes thinner than shoelaces.

Then they strut: issuing proclamations, demanding tribute, conscripting him into their ridiculous egg-cracking civil war, treating the colossus like a rented mule.

Gulliver—big-hearted fool—plays along at first. He doesn’t want to accidentally squash the little tyrants. He even drags their navy across the water like bath toys.

But the “bonds” are laughable. One good shrug and they’re confetti. Gulliver’s captivity was never physical; it was consensual masochism.

When he finally gets bored of the charade, he stands up, snaps the strings like birthday streamers, and strolls off.

The Lilliputians’ empire of the absurd collapses in seconds.

Sound familiar?

Gulliver = America: the lone superpower that could end any conventional war in weeks, whose economy could buy and sell continents, whose tech sets the global pace. We could walk away tomorrow and the world would still run on dollars, Hollywood, and iPhones.

The Lilliputians = Everyone else:

NATO freeloaders who spend 1.2% on defense while we hit 3.5% and play global cop;

UN diplomats in Turtle Bay who veto our moves, shield tyrants, and spend our money on “climate equity” junkets;

European allies who virtue-signal about multilateralism while begging for our bases and our blank checks.

They’ve tied us with “consultations” that paralyze action, “2% pledges” treated like polite suggestions, endless guilt trips about “alliance unity,” and bureaucratic quicksand designed to make unilateral moves politically radioactive.

We’ve submitted—post-WWII habit, Cold War inertia, out of fear of looking like the bully.

So we’ve hauled their fleets, rebuilt their economies, and let them ride shotgun on our wallet.

But the giant’s eyes are opening.

Why subsidize Europe’s welfare-state militaries? Why fund a UN that hosts anti-American circuses? Why let Brussels dictate our foreign policy?

The threads are fraying because we’re noticing they’re made of nothing but hot air and bad faith.

The Lilliputians feel the tremor. Panic ripples through NATO summits and Security Council chambers.

They’re frantically weaving new strings—climate treaties with penalties, “rules-based order” sermons, more “allied” demands masked as solidarity.

But Gulliver’s patience is gone.

One yawn, one stretch, and the illusion shatters.

Swift wrote satire to expose pretension and power’s absurdities.

Today it’s prophecy:

America’s voluntary self-shackling is over. Time to stand up, brush off the pygmies, and remind the world who actually carries the weight.

Gulliver has had enough.

[yankees60]

Not my view but probably matches that of others here? Somewhat aligns with the last post?

Vinny


https://larrykotlikoff.substack.com/p/f ... -the-balls

Finally, a President with the Balls to Handle Iran
President Trump's Actions Are Decades Overdue and, Yes, Carry Major Risks
Larry Kotlikoff
Mar 01, 2026
I’m a tough critic of President Trump. I’ve called him a traitor, and a fascist, and an economic moron. But when the facts change, you need to change your mind. President Trump took a huge risk, militarily and politically, in authorizing the attack on Iran, which is eliminating Iran’s capacity to endanger the US and our allies with nuclear weapons and missiles.

This is not the action of a traitor.

This is the action of a leader who realized that

47 years of Iran’s pledging “Death to America” was 47 years too long

47 years of Iran’s supporting terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis was 47 years too long

47 years of Iran’s sponsoring over 200 global terrorist attacks was 47 years too long

47 years of Iran’s arresting, torturing, and killing tens of thousands of peaceful protestors was 47 years too long

47 years of permitting Iran to develop a nuclear weapon to attack “The Great Satan” was 47 years too long

Iran is being left with one option and one option only — Join the Civilized World. If, instead, Iran installs yet another repressive, ideological, religious fanatic or committee of such fanatics, they will surely meet the same fate as the Supreme Leader just met — immense and extraordinarily powerful bombs delivered express mail to their offices.

The US finally has a leader who realizes we have not spent tens of trillions of dollars on our military over the past 47 years to hold military parades. We have a unique asset that can make us safer, if not safe, and rid the world of tyrants and terrorists. And now we have a President willing to use it.

Amen — and amen that we have a strong ally in Israel to aid in our mutual defense. As with any war, there will be and already have been horrific casualties including over one hundred Iranian school children, nine Israelis, and multiple US servicemen and servicewomen. But their deaths and injuries are not in vain. The world lost 50 million people because no one stood up to Hitler in time. Peace at any price is a prescription for war at the highest price. President Trump and our brave military deserve our full support.