March 31, 2026
King Donny can't figure out how to get out of his war. The Iranians can't and won't surrender. The Iranians won't leave the Straits of Hormuz alone. The NATO countries, several of which have been threatened by King Donny with the use of military force, have replied to his request for naval assistance with variants of "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" and are perfectly happy to watch the US, which they don't like under Trump, and Israel, which they generally don't like, stew in the fat of Donald's juices.
Faced with this, the more rah rah, let's engage in a Protestant Crusade against Islam crowed, and the more sober military minds who have read history, are causing Marines to be deployed. Chances are, they aren't equally enthusiastic about deploying them, as the results of that will be a full scale and even more illegal war than the one we're currently in.
The economy, meanwhile, is turning to a steaming pile of shit, like everything else Donald touches. The stock market is supposedly the only thing the legacy seeking King Donny pays attention to, which probably means that his oligarchic connections are being hurt and calling him up on his cell phone telling him to get out before the wreckage matches that of the East Wing. King Donny, meanwhile, probably doesn't want to be remembered as the idiot who got 20,000 ground troops or more killed. So, as of yesterday, he's thinking of surrendering by simply pulling out.
Overnight, the Iranians targeted Diego Garcia with missiles but not reached their targets for one reason or another, including their being intercepted. Diego Garcia was not previously thought to be within range of Iranian missiles, and it still might not be, given that they didn't hit. Or it may be, or it may be that Iran has improved the capabilities of their missiles over the last couple of weeks.
Iran is busy destroying Middle Eastern oil infrastructure. The economic impacts will last for years.
March 21, 2026, cont:
Iran and the US/Israel exchanged attack nuclear facilities today.
March 22, 2026
Trump announced that if Iran does not open the Straits of Hormuz within 48 hours the US will commit a war crime and start to destroy power plants.
This would be flat out an illegal at, it serves no military purpose whatsoever.
March 23, 2026
King Donny claimed this morning that the US and Iran were in productive talks, so he was suspending offensive operations for several day.
Iran called BS on the claim.
Nobody really knows what's going on, but my guess, and it would guess, is that King Donny is going to claim there was a secret deal to end the war and call it over. My additional guess is that somebody got to him. Maybe the military, maybe the top (lap) dogs in the GOP, or maybe another oligarch, but somebody.
cont:
cont:
Listening to the weekend shows makes it plaint how much trouble Trump is really in. None of the people you'd expect to be present on all three were present on the two I listened to. Scott Bessant was on Meet the Press sounding like a complete fool. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy drew the short stick for This Week and sounded like he regretted it.
Bessant was downright insulting to the host, even if he sounded like a buffoon doing it.
What's increasingly clear is that sometime yesterday somebody or something got to Trump. The war isn't going the way he believed it would, and now he want out. He's just looking for a cover story to get out. The problem he faces is that none of the cover stories for getting into it will square with that, so he's in a bind. The strategy being tested is the claim that he made a deal, even if the Iranians are denying that they're close to making a deal.
Believing that lie won't be too much to ask diehard Trump fans to do. They'll believe anything. But it is too much for independents and some not wholly convinced Republicans to do. The next part of the problem will be that petroleum prices will take months or even years to go down. That showed up on Meet the Press in which a Trump voter called Trump "a worthless piece of shit".
cont:
Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. You said, 'Let's do it.'
Trump.
Pete is now the designated fall guy. He better start looking for a new job.
March 24, 2026
In spite of King Donny's declaration that the United States was in talks with Iran, which Iran denies, as Donny is an outrageous liar, the war continued on yesterday, unabated.
Cont:
According to the NYT, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is pushing Trump to continue the war.
We seem to just be regional suckers to the Middle East.
March 25, 2026
In addition to the Marines already deployed to the Middle East, 1,000 troops of the 82nd Airborne are being deployed to the region, all for a war that King Donny claims was won several days ago.
Pakistan, which it self as been at war recently with Afghanistan, volunteered to host talks between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. has agreed to attend, Iran, has not.
Trump claimed yesterday that Iran gave the United States a very big oil related present, but he wasn't going to say what it is.
Um. . . .
March 27, 2026
King Donny extended his deadline in which for the US to commit an additional war crime by destroying electrical power sites. He claims negotiations are going well.
Some negotiations probably really are occurring, but it's not clear at all what they are. As they won't result in an end to an Iranian nuclear program, effectively what the US is doing is looking for a way out a la Paris Peace Accords.
On the other hand, Tehran increased its grip on the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, so the entire story of Iran negotiating may just be another Trump lie.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a real president, visited the Middle East yesterday as his country is helping several Middle Eastern countries counter Iranian drones.
March 28, 2026
The Houthis entered the war by firing ballistic missiles at Israel.
Donald Trump is now babbling on this topic nearly every day, and not making a lick of sense any time he does so. As if that's not enough, his cabinet lavishes praise on him in a way that will quite frankly be used against their reputations, and that of the country that they purport to serve, forever.
March 30, 2026
The illegitimate administration sent Iran the same list of 15 demands in the form of demands to be accepted to end the war. Iran told the U.S. to stuff it, and presented its own demands, also pointing out that it doesn't trust the US enough to enter negotiations.
Listening to the weekend shows and other soundings out there, it's increasingly clear that Republicans feel uneasy about the situation developing with King Donny. A common theme now is, "well, we should have done this years ago, um, and are now, um, and well, we have to see it through".
None of those things are anywhere near true and they know it.
We are getting increasingly close to the commitment of ground troops. Even some of the stalwarts that apologize for Trump's dementia on a nearly daily basis re now saying that requires Congressional approval. Well, Trump isn't going to ask for approval. He's just going to do it, if he does, and he probably is going to.
This is an election season, and those in Congress in the GOP should be made to answer for this illegal delegation of force to a demented octogenarian.
cont:
Reports hold that Russia shared satellite images of Prince Sultan US base in Saudi Arabia with Iran right before their attack that injured our troops. Ukrainian intelligence has confirmed it.
And Trump. . . well he's letting a ship of Russian oil offload in Cuba, which is otherwise being embargoed (blockaded?) by the U.S.
Odd, eh?
March 31, 2026
Iran hit a fully laden Kuwait oil tanker in port in Dubai.
Trump yesterday indicated that he might just abandon the Persian Gulf with the Straits of Hormuz closed.
Republicans desperate to excuse a war that's not going to end soon, and which right now looks as if it'll either require a decades long American ground presence in an illegal war, or an inglorious American retreat, either of which feature a major recession, if not depression, in the near term, are parading a series of bs excuses for what demented Don did.
The reality of it is quite simple. Bibi wanted to take Iran out while the US could be duped into going along with it. Only Bibi and Vlad seem to have any pull over King Donny, although for different unknown reasons. Anyhow, this is a war for Israel, that's what it's for.
The current line is that we've been fighting Iran for 47 years. No, we haven't been. Iran has been a bad actor for 47 years, but we haven't been fighting them for nearly five decades. Moreover, most of Iran's anger with us, as illegitimate and wrong as it is, is vicarious anger over US support for Israel.
I'm not saying that US support for Israel is wholly wrong, but it has frankly been often beyond what it likely should have been, and that's been the case since Israel became a country. It has a right to exist, but it doesn't have a right to unqualified US support, and support that has not involved American Allies that are in the region, to the the extent which it has. Anyhow, Iran's hatred of the US is largely due to US support of Israel, which is 100% what this war is about. Netanyahu saw a chance to take out, he thought, a decades long enemy, and took it. Unfortunately for him, he forgot about what an unreliable ally the US really is and that Trump's thoughts tend to be farts in windstorms.
The other major claim is that Iran was going to turn into a nuclear power and we needed to stop it. If that's the case, that was clearly going to involve a ground invasion. You can't bomb nuclear material into non existence. Trump may stupidly have thought he could cause the Iranian regime to fall in this fashion, which if so was flat out dumb, but he's not a very advanced thinker and his experience is in real estate, not realpolitik. He didn't cause an Iranian uprising and he didn't even get the Kurds to move on the government.
So here we are.
Concluding this war successfully will require a Vietnam War level of military participation and two decades to complete. At some point Congress will have to get involved. As Americans have no stomach for such an enterprise, what's much more likely to happen is a largescale conventional invasion of the country after a series of aerial war crimes, followed by substantial US troop deaths, followed by an inglorious withdrawal and retreat.
In other words, we're likely to lose the war.
Not before it expands into the US however.
We have every reason to believe that Iran has sleeper cells in the US. What hasn't happened that much yet, however, are proxy attacks here. That's coming, and it'll come in more than one form. We aren't ready for it, and we're not going to get ready for it. Further, both China and Russia will assist Iran on this where they can get away with it.
Along with that, we're going to see inflation and a recession within the next few months at a level we have no experienced since the 1970s. We'll be lucky, quite frankly, if we don't experience a depression.
So, welcome to King Donald's Forever War.
cont:
The maximum level of outright stupidity that is constantly demonstrated by this illegitimate administration is really on display today with Pete Hegseth. For example:
The president was clear this morning in his Truth that there are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well. Last time I checked there was supposed to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that.
This is an illegal war on the part of the US, dumbass, and you don't get to declare war for other countries.
As far as President Trump and boots on the ground, I don't understand why the base wouldn't have faith in his ability to execute on this. Look at his track record.
Seriously? Where to begin. Cutting spending. . . nope, didn't happen. Avoid wars. . . nope, didn't happen. Make America Great Again. . . more like sending it into the dumpster.
What he's shown himself to be really good at is not getting the Epstein files released, although even there, there are enough cracks to raise the question if he was one of the rich men raping teenagers. It's not proven, but there's enough there to wonder.
cont:
I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the US, we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,'
'You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us.'
And so, the TACO signals he's retreating.
Iran, apparently, will be the victor. People died for nothing whatsoever. Those serving in the military were made suckers.
As we all were. Everything is more expensive, people are dead.
Cont:
A really sober analysis by Adam Kingzinger
One Chokepoint, $120 Oil, and a Broken Alliance System: What Comes Next in Iran
A breakdown of the economic, diplomatic, and military dimensions of a crisis with no clean exit.
To put it bluntly, we are really up shit creek without a paddle. At no point since the end of the Cold War have we been in this dire of situation, and it's all due to one demented billionaire.
This is going to end very badly.
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