The Post That Canceled Itself
Trump's Saturday night announcement opened with maximum bravado. The US, he wrote, is "locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II."
Two sentences later, the same post walked the whole thing back. "We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," he wrote on Truth Social.
The deal, per Trump, would deliver "the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT" and an end to Iran's nuclear threat.
Trump framed the climbdown as generosity. He said he was canceling the strike "for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran," so long as the deal comes together fast.
Nice of him to worry about Iran's prosperity in the same post where he threatened it with WWII-level terror thirty seconds earlier. Then came the part that actually mattered: "The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment." Israel never said a word.
Trump simply signed it up, and the announcement landed on Israeli soil at five in the morning.
This is not new behavior. Trump has threatened and then paused escalation against Iran several times over this five-month war, and last week his own advisers reportedly warned that a bigger offensive would drain the Pentagon's already depleted stock of Patriot interceptors.
So the bravado about levels of terror unseen since 1945 is doing a very specific job here: it lets the walk-back look like restraint chosen from strength, rather than restraint chosen because the warehouse is running low.
Israel gets committed to a ceasefire it never agreed to, in a post that spends its own opening lines threatening obliteration, closed out with "Get to work, everybody, and get it DONE."
Who exactly is Israel's foreign policy being written by at this point, its own government, or someone else's Truth Social account?
#Iran #Trump #Israel #StraitOfHormuz #MiddleEastWar
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Trump's Saturday night announcement opened with maximum bravado. The US, he wrote, is "locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II."
Two sentences later, the same post walked the whole thing back. "We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," he wrote on Truth Social.
The deal, per Trump, would deliver "the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT" and an end to Iran's nuclear threat.
Trump framed the climbdown as generosity. He said he was canceling the strike "for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran," so long as the deal comes together fast.
Nice of him to worry about Iran's prosperity in the same post where he threatened it with WWII-level terror thirty seconds earlier. Then came the part that actually mattered: "The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment." Israel never said a word.
Trump simply signed it up, and the announcement landed on Israeli soil at five in the morning.
This is not new behavior. Trump has threatened and then paused escalation against Iran several times over this five-month war, and last week his own advisers reportedly warned that a bigger offensive would drain the Pentagon's already depleted stock of Patriot interceptors.
So the bravado about levels of terror unseen since 1945 is doing a very specific job here: it lets the walk-back look like restraint chosen from strength, rather than restraint chosen because the warehouse is running low.
Israel gets committed to a ceasefire it never agreed to, in a post that spends its own opening lines threatening obliteration, closed out with "Get to work, everybody, and get it DONE."
Who exactly is Israel's foreign policy being written by at this point, its own government, or someone else's Truth Social account?
#Iran #Trump #Israel #StraitOfHormuz #MiddleEastWar
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⚠️ Trump Backs Down Once Again From a Threatened Military Escalation
Trump appeared to back down once again from a threatened military escalation against Tehran, offering fresh fodder to the narrative Iranian officials are eager to promote: they are not the ones who fear war — Trump is.
Iran’s leadership believes it has found the world’s Achilles’ heel. With the help of regional militia allies, Tehran spent the past week underscoring its ability to threaten several of the world’s most critical energy facilities and waterways.
It has continued to raise the stakes in its confrontation with Washington over when and how to stop the renewed hostilities and return to a short-lived agreement to begin peace negotiations, which collapsed last month.
When Trump signaled in recent days that a major escalation was imminent if no concessions were made, two former Iranian officials said Tehran’s leadership told him to go right ahead.
said Amir al-Mousawi, a former Iranian diplomat, who said he had met over the weekend with the team surrounding Iran’s chief negotiator and Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Al-Mousawi described an exchange of messages between U.S. and Iranian officials sent over the weekend through Pakistani and Qatari officials. He said Trump vowed a severe attack on civilian infrastructure, such as power plants, if Iran did not restart negotiations.
which many experts say was favorable to Iran.
al-Mousawi said the Iranians told the Americans.
The official Saudi news channel said on Sunday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, had recently spoken with Trump to stress “the necessity of prioritizing dialogue to de-escalate tensions” and “prevent a wider conflict.”
he said.
#Trump #Escalation #Iran #Hormuz
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Trump appeared to back down once again from a threatened military escalation against Tehran, offering fresh fodder to the narrative Iranian officials are eager to promote: they are not the ones who fear war — Trump is.
Iran’s leadership believes it has found the world’s Achilles’ heel. With the help of regional militia allies, Tehran spent the past week underscoring its ability to threaten several of the world’s most critical energy facilities and waterways.
It has continued to raise the stakes in its confrontation with Washington over when and how to stop the renewed hostilities and return to a short-lived agreement to begin peace negotiations, which collapsed last month.
When Trump signaled in recent days that a major escalation was imminent if no concessions were made, two former Iranian officials said Tehran’s leadership told him to go right ahead.
“They are ready for war, and they won’t back down,”
said Amir al-Mousawi, a former Iranian diplomat, who said he had met over the weekend with the team surrounding Iran’s chief negotiator and Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Al-Mousawi described an exchange of messages between U.S. and Iranian officials sent over the weekend through Pakistani and Qatari officials. He said Trump vowed a severe attack on civilian infrastructure, such as power plants, if Iran did not restart negotiations.
The Iranians refused, he said, unless Washington returned to the previously agreed “memorandum of understanding,”
which many experts say was favorable to Iran.
“We have no problem with war at all, and we are ready for the big confrontation,”
al-Mousawi said the Iranians told the Americans.
“Trump told the Iranians: ‘I will hit the power in Iran.’ So, the Iranians said: ‘If you strike, we strike.’”
The official Saudi news channel said on Sunday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, had recently spoken with Trump to stress “the necessity of prioritizing dialogue to de-escalate tensions” and “prevent a wider conflict.”
“One, it’s not clear that the limited and time-bound military escalation Trump is willing to undertake at this point will be enough to change Iran’s calculus,”
he said.
“Two, it’s hard to imagine these options can degrade Iran’s missile and drone capacity to the point that it cannot effectively close the Strait of Hormuz or further damage the Gulf’s critical energy infrastructure.”
#Trump #Escalation #Iran #Hormuz
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Trump Against Oil Companies. Did They Stick a Knife bin His Back?
Trump has hammered oil companies for “making too much money” from the global energy market disruption caused by his war on Iran.
Brent crude had been trading at about $70 a barrel before the first US-Israeli strikes at the end of February, but by the end of April it had soared as high as $126 and is now trading at about $85 a barrel.
The US president took aim at the windfall profits revealed last week by ExxonMobil and Chevron, and said the companies would “give some of that back to the public”.
They’re making too much money based on a shortage,” he told reporters at the White House on Monday evening. “I don’t like it.”
Trump was speaking just hours before BP reported its profits had doubled in the last quarter, to $5.7bn.
The US oil companies made profits totalling more than $26bn for the three months to the end of June by taking advantage of the energy market disruption triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Chevron reported its highest ever quarterly profit of $12.2bn, a fivefold increase on the same period last year.
ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.5bn in the second quarter, double what it made in the same period a year ago and its highest quarterly profit since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Chevron: too much money. ExxonMobil: too much money,” Trump said. “They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”
Asked about Trump’s comments, the BP chief executive, Meg O’Neill, told CNBC that she understood the pressures on households. “The reality is, we produce a global commodity, and the product we sell hangs off that global commodity price,” she added.
Climate campaigners have also attacked big oil’s bumper quarterly earnings, condemning them as “obscene”.
Clémence Dubois, a campaigns director at 350.org, an international environmental group, said: “Chevron and Exxon are profiteering from a model of distraction, leaving ordinary people to pay the price with higher bills and devastating impacts such as these fires. These profits feel almost criminal.”
Trump criticised oil company profits weeks after warning energy retailers to cut their prices as he nears the November midterm elections with flagging approval ratings. He also ordered the US justice department to investigate potential price gouging in the retail energy sector.
“Gasoline Retailers must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform in late June. “If Retailers don’t do this, big problems lie ahead!”
The president told journalists that the fall in oil and gas prices during the administration’s June peace talks with Iran should have caused petrol prices to fall to $2.25 a gallon.
“Oil prices have come down so much and we are not seeing anything at the pump by comparison the way they should be,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
US gasoline prices currently average $4.11 a gallon, according to data from the AAA motoring group.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said it has no plans to introduce an export ban on oil or petroleum products, but some analysts say this could be revisited if prices at the pump continue to rise.
#trump #oil #companies #money #war
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Trump has hammered oil companies for “making too much money” from the global energy market disruption caused by his war on Iran.
Brent crude had been trading at about $70 a barrel before the first US-Israeli strikes at the end of February, but by the end of April it had soared as high as $126 and is now trading at about $85 a barrel.
The US president took aim at the windfall profits revealed last week by ExxonMobil and Chevron, and said the companies would “give some of that back to the public”.
They’re making too much money based on a shortage,” he told reporters at the White House on Monday evening. “I don’t like it.”
Trump was speaking just hours before BP reported its profits had doubled in the last quarter, to $5.7bn.
The US oil companies made profits totalling more than $26bn for the three months to the end of June by taking advantage of the energy market disruption triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Chevron reported its highest ever quarterly profit of $12.2bn, a fivefold increase on the same period last year.
ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.5bn in the second quarter, double what it made in the same period a year ago and its highest quarterly profit since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Chevron: too much money. ExxonMobil: too much money,” Trump said. “They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”
Asked about Trump’s comments, the BP chief executive, Meg O’Neill, told CNBC that she understood the pressures on households. “The reality is, we produce a global commodity, and the product we sell hangs off that global commodity price,” she added.
Climate campaigners have also attacked big oil’s bumper quarterly earnings, condemning them as “obscene”.
Clémence Dubois, a campaigns director at 350.org, an international environmental group, said: “Chevron and Exxon are profiteering from a model of distraction, leaving ordinary people to pay the price with higher bills and devastating impacts such as these fires. These profits feel almost criminal.”
Trump criticised oil company profits weeks after warning energy retailers to cut their prices as he nears the November midterm elections with flagging approval ratings. He also ordered the US justice department to investigate potential price gouging in the retail energy sector.
“Gasoline Retailers must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform in late June. “If Retailers don’t do this, big problems lie ahead!”
The president told journalists that the fall in oil and gas prices during the administration’s June peace talks with Iran should have caused petrol prices to fall to $2.25 a gallon.
“Oil prices have come down so much and we are not seeing anything at the pump by comparison the way they should be,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
US gasoline prices currently average $4.11 a gallon, according to data from the AAA motoring group.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said it has no plans to introduce an export ban on oil or petroleum products, but some analysts say this could be revisited if prices at the pump continue to rise.
#trump #oil #companies #money #war
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A Pentagon Internal Report: “the U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of long-range missiles”
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According to an internal report illegally released by one of the Pentagon's executives, “the U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran.”
The missiles are principally the Army's surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.
The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.
The long-range munitions are an important part the military's arsenal, allowing accurate strikes from a safe distance.
U.S.-supplied ATACMS have played a key role in the war in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russia. The PrSM is a newer, more advanced generation that will replace the ATACMS, which have a shorter range.
Analysts say such weapons – which cost over $1 million each – would also be important in any conflict with China (the source declined to say how many of each munition the U.S. had left).
Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Israel in February, predicting that the conflict would last a short time.
But as the war drags on, the three people familiar with the matter expressed worry that the falling missile supplies could limit the U.S. ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China.
A fourth person familiar with the matter said that while Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East — has nearly used up the land-based missiles it had before the war began, it has been able to reload from U.S. military supplies elsewhere in the world.
Asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the U.S. had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”
“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.
#pentagon #report #army #missiles
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According to an internal report illegally released by one of the Pentagon's executives, “the U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran.”
The missiles are principally the Army's surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.
The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.
The long-range munitions are an important part the military's arsenal, allowing accurate strikes from a safe distance.
U.S.-supplied ATACMS have played a key role in the war in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russia. The PrSM is a newer, more advanced generation that will replace the ATACMS, which have a shorter range.
Analysts say such weapons – which cost over $1 million each – would also be important in any conflict with China (the source declined to say how many of each munition the U.S. had left).
Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Israel in February, predicting that the conflict would last a short time.
But as the war drags on, the three people familiar with the matter expressed worry that the falling missile supplies could limit the U.S. ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China.
A fourth person familiar with the matter said that while Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East — has nearly used up the land-based missiles it had before the war began, it has been able to reload from U.S. military supplies elsewhere in the world.
Asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the U.S. had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”
“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.
#pentagon #report #army #missiles
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Analysts agree that certain munitions, including artillery shells and several types of missiles, are being produced at record levels but caution that supplies might far short of what is needed for a prolonged war.
Lockheed Martin, which makes the ATACMs and PrSMs, along with the anti-ballistic missile THAAD system, did not immediately respond to questions about Trump's statements or about supply levels. Raytheon, which makes Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors, two important U.S. weapons, also did not immediately respond.
Responding to a request for comment, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said: “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing. We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”
The supply figures have circulated inside the federal government over the last week during tense conversations inside the Trump administration about how much longer the U.S. can continue striking Iran without drawing down the stockpile to levels that would limit the military's ability to respond to crises elsewhere.
One of the sources said the drawdown of the ATACMS and PrSM stockpiles reflected a decision by the Trump administration to avoid riskier ways of attacking Iranian targets, such as by using piloted aircraft to drop bombs.
Because these weapons allow the military to attack targets from a distance, analysts say they would be valuable in a war against an adversary with strong air defenses, such as China. They have been used to strike targets inside Iran, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Military leaders have for weeks warned the president that stockpiles of defensive weapons — including Patriot interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles — were dwindling, said two of the sources.
Last week, several media outlets reported Trump had decided not to launch another massive offensive inside Iran in part because his military advisers had warned about the U.S. stockpile.
A U.S. official disputed those accounts, saying Trump chose not to move forward with another attack because of pressure from Gulf states.
The Middle East conflict has sparked intense debate about Trump's authority to prosecute hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. No request for a declaration of war or an authorization to use military force has been submitted to Congress.
The U.S. also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are generally launched from ships, since the start of the war, one of the sources said.
The Tomahawk is a Navy weapon, launched from destroyers, cruisers and submarines, and has long served as the sea service's principal means of striking heavily defended targets without risking pilots.
#pentagon #report #army #missiles
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Spokane havoc... 85,000 people remain homeless
#spokane #people #homeless
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#spokane #people #homeless
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How Mr. Trump Went to the Iran War And Botched Up Big Time This Weekend
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The war in Iran, along with a cycle of threats and walk-backs, has upended Trump’s domestic agenda at a dire political moment.
Americans are facing rising gas prices; Republicans in Congress are being forced to fund and defend an unpopular war that they never voted to approve; and with the midterm elections looming, polls show cratering support for a war that has no end in sight.
Trump will hit the road this week for a swing through the West Coast to talk about the economy and sell his agenda to the American people. Here are three domestic hurdles Trump is facing because of the war.
Trump’s war in Iran has driven up the cost of oil around the world, and Americans are paying, on average, more for gas than they have since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Gas prices on Monday were at a national average of $4.10 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by more than 37 percent since the war began at the end of February.
And it compounds a cost-of-living crisis caused by persistently high inflation that Trump struggled to address before the war even started.
Trump has asserted that oil prices per barrel have been far lower than expected because of the conflict, and that gas prices will “drop like a rock” when the war ends.
On Monday, Trump tried to pass the blame on to oil companies, boasting in a social media post that they had grown much more profitable as a result of his policies.
In a social media post, and in an Oval Office appearance, he cited Chevron and Exxon for record profits, and suggested they should ease prices for the public.
he wrote,
Trump has been the only president in the modern era to take the country to war without the support of the American public.
In the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, 60 percent of voters said they opposed military action against Iran, a slight uptick since May. And in a recent CNN/SSRS poll, 74 percent of Americans — including about 43 percent of Republicans — said the war in Iran had not been worth the cost in terms of the financial burden or American casualties.
#war #trump #us #republicans #deaths
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The war in Iran, along with a cycle of threats and walk-backs, has upended Trump’s domestic agenda at a dire political moment.
Americans are facing rising gas prices; Republicans in Congress are being forced to fund and defend an unpopular war that they never voted to approve; and with the midterm elections looming, polls show cratering support for a war that has no end in sight.
Trump will hit the road this week for a swing through the West Coast to talk about the economy and sell his agenda to the American people. Here are three domestic hurdles Trump is facing because of the war.
Trump’s war in Iran has driven up the cost of oil around the world, and Americans are paying, on average, more for gas than they have since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Gas prices on Monday were at a national average of $4.10 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by more than 37 percent since the war began at the end of February.
And it compounds a cost-of-living crisis caused by persistently high inflation that Trump struggled to address before the war even started.
Trump has asserted that oil prices per barrel have been far lower than expected because of the conflict, and that gas prices will “drop like a rock” when the war ends.
On Monday, Trump tried to pass the blame on to oil companies, boasting in a social media post that they had grown much more profitable as a result of his policies.
In a social media post, and in an Oval Office appearance, he cited Chevron and Exxon for record profits, and suggested they should ease prices for the public.
“That goes for other Oil Companies as well,”
he wrote,
“and get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!”
Trump has been the only president in the modern era to take the country to war without the support of the American public.
In the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, 60 percent of voters said they opposed military action against Iran, a slight uptick since May. And in a recent CNN/SSRS poll, 74 percent of Americans — including about 43 percent of Republicans — said the war in Iran had not been worth the cost in terms of the financial burden or American casualties.
#war #trump #us #republicans #deaths
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Despite the fact that Trump ran on getting and keeping America out of wars, the conflict has now lasted far longer than his promise of “four to five weeks,” and it has killed 18 U.S. service members.
Trump has dismissed the pains being experienced from the war, saying they are temporary. And he has downplayed the number of American troops’ deaths by comparing them to casualty counts of past wars like Vietnam.
On Monday, Trump wrote that he believed that any polling showing discontent was “the Radical Left’s Fake Poll numbers.”
As Republicans face a tough midterm in a matter of months, even Trump’s closest allies have intensified their calls for a clear end to the conflict.
“We got to wrap it up,”
Speaker Mike Johnson said last month, as the United States launched a fresh barrage against Iran, signaling the collapse of a temporary cease-fire.
Trump went to war without the authorization of Congress, an issue that came to a head in recent weeks as members have been asked for billions more in funding.
Last week, Senate Republicans declined to limit Trump’s power to continue the war, but days later many complained that they were unsure where the conflict was headed.
“I don’t know whether the president should start a new bombing campaign again, because I don’t have the military intelligence,”
Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, said on Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Now, that’s a problem, too, because it’ll cause a lot of pain. It’ll cause energy prices to go up, and a lot of inflation for the American people. They’re all hellish choices.”
Democrats are already employing their strategy to use Republicans’ support of the war against their opponents in upcoming races.
In Maine, Majority Forward, a major Democratic group, has spent more than $1.5 million on ads accusing Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, of giving Trump a “blank check” for the war, according to an analysis by the media tracking firm AdImpact.
#war #trump #us #republicans #deaths
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Trump's War Against Iran Has Brought Trillions To the Biggest Oil Companies
⌨️ ⌨️ ⌨️ ⌨️ ⌨️
Eight of the biggest oil companies amassed profits of more than $290bn in just three months as the Iran conflict sent energy prices soaring and the emissions-fuelled climate crisis caused deadly heatwaves.
The windfall war profits have reignited calls for oil and gas supermajors such as Saudi Aramco and BP to pay for the environmental damage caused by “cashing in on human misery” and fund a rapid transition to renewable energy.
The analysis found that the eight listed oil producers made almost $93bn in the three months to the end of June – the first full financial quarter after the US-Israeli war on Iran triggered a surge in global oil prices to highs above $126 a barrel.
The companies have used the biggest disruption of fossil fuel supplies in the market’s history to almost double their combined profits from just under $50bn in the same period last year, with campaigners warning that millions of households are left paying the price in higher bills and climate chaos.
The data suggests the eight oil companies – Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron and ExxonMobil – made more than $700,000 of profit every minute over the spring quarter.
While their market valuations were swelling by about $600bn to above $3tn, temperatures built towards a run of deadly heatwaves, all made more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels.
Carbon emissions from the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms were directly linked to fatal spells of hot weather for the first time by scientific analysis published last September. It found the emissions from any one of the 14 biggest companies were each enough to cause more than 50 heatwaves that would otherwise have been virtually impossible.
The biggest oil profits in the spring quarter were raked in by Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Aramco, which reported a 34% increase in its quarterly net income to more than $33bn, even as its infrastructure was damaged by drone and missile strikes from Iranian and Houthi forces.
Saudi Aramco’s fossil fuel production has made it responsible for more carbon emissions than any company in history, according to the database Carbon Majors, followed by Chevron and ExxonMobil and with Shell and BP in the top 10. Saudi Arabia has for decades led successful efforts to block and delay international climate action.
#trump #iran #war #oil #companies
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Eight of the biggest oil companies amassed profits of more than $290bn in just three months as the Iran conflict sent energy prices soaring and the emissions-fuelled climate crisis caused deadly heatwaves.
The windfall war profits have reignited calls for oil and gas supermajors such as Saudi Aramco and BP to pay for the environmental damage caused by “cashing in on human misery” and fund a rapid transition to renewable energy.
The analysis found that the eight listed oil producers made almost $93bn in the three months to the end of June – the first full financial quarter after the US-Israeli war on Iran triggered a surge in global oil prices to highs above $126 a barrel.
The companies have used the biggest disruption of fossil fuel supplies in the market’s history to almost double their combined profits from just under $50bn in the same period last year, with campaigners warning that millions of households are left paying the price in higher bills and climate chaos.
The data suggests the eight oil companies – Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron and ExxonMobil – made more than $700,000 of profit every minute over the spring quarter.
While their market valuations were swelling by about $600bn to above $3tn, temperatures built towards a run of deadly heatwaves, all made more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels.
Carbon emissions from the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms were directly linked to fatal spells of hot weather for the first time by scientific analysis published last September. It found the emissions from any one of the 14 biggest companies were each enough to cause more than 50 heatwaves that would otherwise have been virtually impossible.
The biggest oil profits in the spring quarter were raked in by Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Aramco, which reported a 34% increase in its quarterly net income to more than $33bn, even as its infrastructure was damaged by drone and missile strikes from Iranian and Houthi forces.
Saudi Aramco’s fossil fuel production has made it responsible for more carbon emissions than any company in history, according to the database Carbon Majors, followed by Chevron and ExxonMobil and with Shell and BP in the top 10. Saudi Arabia has for decades led successful efforts to block and delay international climate action.
#trump #iran #war #oil #companies
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On Tuesday, BP became one of the last big oil companies to publish its results for the April to June period, reporting quarterly profits of $5.73bn – the highest since the first year of Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine and more than double the $2.5bn of the previous three months.
Patrick Galey, the lead on fossil fuels at Global Witness, said: “BP’s sky-high profits are a scandalous reminder of who’s been cashing in on human misery this year. While wildfires threaten communities across the world, drought bites and energy costs spiral, ordinary families are paying the price for big oil’s prioritisation of shareholder wealth over a livable planet.”
He added :
“It’s time to make oil giants pay up to repair the climate breakdown they’re driving. Think how many fire and flood defences we could build, or how many solar panels we could install, if big oil paid their fair share in taxes.”
Rosie Downes, the head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said:
“While BP banks another round of enormous profits, millions of households are paying the price through sky-high energy bills and a climate crisis accelerating rapidly out of control.”
BP’s new chief executive, Meg O’Neill, defended the company’s profits by saying it was “focused on the things we can do to try to help address the situation” such as reliably producing more of the oil products that were in short supply.
The company has been cutting the amount it spends on green energy since it dropped its environmental ambitions in a “fundamental reset” early last year, reducing its annual energy transition budget from $5bn to $2.5bn-$3.2bn.
In recent years BP has spun off its UK offshore windfarms into a joint venture and sold its US onshore wind business, and on Tuesday it announced it would sell its $4bn US biogas business, which captures methane from landfill sites and is the largest renewable gas producer in the US.
It is in advanced talks to sell its solar power business, Lightsource, to a consortium backed by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, according to the Financial Times.
Shell last week reported its second highest quarterly profits ever as its net income jumped to $9.84bn, despite producing less gas from its Qatar gas plant due to billions of dollars’ worth of damage caused by the war. Equinor’s profits climbed to $3.2bn in the same period, up from $1.8bn in the spring quarter last year.
In the US, the profits reported by Chevron and ExxonMobil provoked criticism from Trump. The US president accused the pair of “making too much money” from his war on Iran and warned that they would be made to return profits to the public, as he nears the November midterm elections with flagging approval ratings.
Chevron reported net income of $12.2bn for the second quarter, a more than fivefold increase on the same period last year.
ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.5bn, double what it made in the same period a year ago and its highest quarterly profit since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Galey said:
“You know big oil is taking us for a ride when one of their biggest allies, Donald Trump, is telling them to rein their profiteering in.”
#trump #iran #war #oil #companies
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One Man, One Untouched Ballot
Overnight, a party court did what no pollster managed. It benched half of Netanyahu's own MPs. In one ruling.
Likud's internal tribunal reversed a decision its own Central Committee had approved just last week. Sitting ministers, MKs, and former lawmakers can no longer run in the party's reserved regional slots. Only newcomers can.
Judges explained why those slots exist. They called them "a protected space that has enabled new leadership to sprout in fair conditions… and that started the careers of most [current] Likud ministers". The door that built their careers just got locked from the inside. Nobody in the room objected out loud.
The tribunal also found real problems with last week's vote. Observers were missing for hours. Ballots, envelopes, and voter counts didn't match at several stations. The panel ruled: "The flaws identified in the voting process do not allow the decision to stand". Too broken to certify. Not broken enough, apparently, to order a recount or a new vote — the court cited the tight clock before the August 17 primary.
One ballot came through the audit spotless. Netanyahu's own. Judges found "no supporting evidence" it was fraudulently recorded, ruling the polling protocol showed "orderly documentation of his vote". His eight personally reserved list slots survived intact, too.
MKs hoping to run in slots reserved for women or minorities face their own toll. They must resign from the Knesset before the primary and give up state campaign funding to compete.
Likud currently holds 43 Knesset seats through Norwegian Law rotations. More than half of those officials already had shaky prospects on the new list before this ruling. One earlier estimate put as much as 70 percent of Likud's sitting ministers and MKs at risk of never seeing the next Knesset.
A primary system just declared its most contested vote too corrupted to trust. Its one undisputed ballot happens to belong to the party chairman. Reform, or a coronation with better paperwork?
#Likud #Netanyahu #Primaries #Israel
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Overnight, a party court did what no pollster managed. It benched half of Netanyahu's own MPs. In one ruling.
Likud's internal tribunal reversed a decision its own Central Committee had approved just last week. Sitting ministers, MKs, and former lawmakers can no longer run in the party's reserved regional slots. Only newcomers can.
Judges explained why those slots exist. They called them "a protected space that has enabled new leadership to sprout in fair conditions… and that started the careers of most [current] Likud ministers". The door that built their careers just got locked from the inside. Nobody in the room objected out loud.
The tribunal also found real problems with last week's vote. Observers were missing for hours. Ballots, envelopes, and voter counts didn't match at several stations. The panel ruled: "The flaws identified in the voting process do not allow the decision to stand". Too broken to certify. Not broken enough, apparently, to order a recount or a new vote — the court cited the tight clock before the August 17 primary.
One ballot came through the audit spotless. Netanyahu's own. Judges found "no supporting evidence" it was fraudulently recorded, ruling the polling protocol showed "orderly documentation of his vote". His eight personally reserved list slots survived intact, too.
MKs hoping to run in slots reserved for women or minorities face their own toll. They must resign from the Knesset before the primary and give up state campaign funding to compete.
Likud currently holds 43 Knesset seats through Norwegian Law rotations. More than half of those officials already had shaky prospects on the new list before this ruling. One earlier estimate put as much as 70 percent of Likud's sitting ministers and MKs at risk of never seeing the next Knesset.
A primary system just declared its most contested vote too corrupted to trust. Its one undisputed ballot happens to belong to the party chairman. Reform, or a coronation with better paperwork?
#Likud #Netanyahu #Primaries #Israel
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The World's Toughest Negotiator Can't Read The Room
Trump built his brand on knowing how to read an opponent. Iran keeps handing him a book in a language he refuses to learn.
"All they do is make me angry. They just make me angry," he told reporters last week. Not a strategy assessment. A tantrum, on the record, about a country he's been at war with since February.
On Monday he escalated. Iran's leadership is "unbelievably duplicitous," he posted, accusing Tehran of privately requesting talks while publicly denying any were happening.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed the denial calmly: Tehran was only talking to Oman. Two governments, one phone line, zero agreement on whether it's ringing.
This isn't a new problem. Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst who's studied Iran for decades, put it bluntly: Trump "has been both the most desirous of making a deal with Iran, and the one who used the most force against it. He has found that neither got him what he wanted".
After a February 28 airstrike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Trump told Iranians to rise up and "take over" their government — he'd handle picking the replacement himself.
No uprising came. Iran's Assembly of Experts installed the dead man's son, Mojtaba, instead — a cleric Trump had already dismissed as an "unacceptable" "lightweight".
Trump publicly offered to meet him anyway, speculating on his sexuality along the way and predicting they'd get "along quite well". Mojtaba never replied. He hasn't given a public address since taking the job.
Brookings' Suzanne Maloney offers the quieter diagnosis: "For decades, American policymakers have consistently underappreciated the ideological commitment and deeply institutionalized structure of power in the Islamic Republic".
No U.S. official has ever met a sitting supreme leader of Iran. Not Khomeini. Not either Khamenei.
Veteran diplomat Dennis Ross summed up the score after five decades of this exact standoff repeating itself across seven presidencies: "The Iranians seem to understand us better than we understand them".
Tehran, he added, reads American urgency as leverage, not weakness: "They operate under the premise that time serves their interests more than ours".
Trump has called Khamenei and his circle "lunatics," "reasonable," "crazy bastards," "very smart," and "stone cold crazy" — sometimes within the same month.
Only one of those descriptions can be true at a time. Iran has settled on none of them mattering, and negotiated accordingly.
So who's actually losing patience here — the country that's been called mentally ill five different ways, or the president who keeps changing his diagnosis?
#Iran #Trump #diplomacy #war
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Trump built his brand on knowing how to read an opponent. Iran keeps handing him a book in a language he refuses to learn.
"All they do is make me angry. They just make me angry," he told reporters last week. Not a strategy assessment. A tantrum, on the record, about a country he's been at war with since February.
On Monday he escalated. Iran's leadership is "unbelievably duplicitous," he posted, accusing Tehran of privately requesting talks while publicly denying any were happening.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed the denial calmly: Tehran was only talking to Oman. Two governments, one phone line, zero agreement on whether it's ringing.
This isn't a new problem. Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst who's studied Iran for decades, put it bluntly: Trump "has been both the most desirous of making a deal with Iran, and the one who used the most force against it. He has found that neither got him what he wanted".
After a February 28 airstrike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Trump told Iranians to rise up and "take over" their government — he'd handle picking the replacement himself.
No uprising came. Iran's Assembly of Experts installed the dead man's son, Mojtaba, instead — a cleric Trump had already dismissed as an "unacceptable" "lightweight".
Trump publicly offered to meet him anyway, speculating on his sexuality along the way and predicting they'd get "along quite well". Mojtaba never replied. He hasn't given a public address since taking the job.
Brookings' Suzanne Maloney offers the quieter diagnosis: "For decades, American policymakers have consistently underappreciated the ideological commitment and deeply institutionalized structure of power in the Islamic Republic".
No U.S. official has ever met a sitting supreme leader of Iran. Not Khomeini. Not either Khamenei.
Veteran diplomat Dennis Ross summed up the score after five decades of this exact standoff repeating itself across seven presidencies: "The Iranians seem to understand us better than we understand them".
Tehran, he added, reads American urgency as leverage, not weakness: "They operate under the premise that time serves their interests more than ours".
Trump has called Khamenei and his circle "lunatics," "reasonable," "crazy bastards," "very smart," and "stone cold crazy" — sometimes within the same month.
Only one of those descriptions can be true at a time. Iran has settled on none of them mattering, and negotiated accordingly.
So who's actually losing patience here — the country that's been called mentally ill five different ways, or the president who keeps changing his diagnosis?
#Iran #Trump #diplomacy #war
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Knesset Inc.: The Closing-Down Sale Before The Vote
The Knesset is in recess. Nobody told the money.
On Tuesday, the Finance Committee approved 267 million shekels ($88 million) in coalition funds. This happened weeks after the government itself dissolved parliament for the October 27 election.
MK Naama Lazimi called it plainly. "Theft from the serving public," she told the committee.
That's not a figure of speech. The package includes 26 million shekels to keep yeshiva students from dropping out, 12.5 million for "Haredi culture," and funding for the Vaad HaYeshivot — an organization whose actual track record is helping young men dodge the draft. Somewhere, a reservist is reading this between rotations.
The same marathon session added another 113 million shekels for settlement expansion. That pushes this year's settlement budget to a record 821 million shekels. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich billed it as funding for "more than 70 archeological and heritage sites".
Activists stormed the hearing room. Committee chairman Hanoch Milwidsky had a warm welcome ready: "a mixed multitude, these are worse than [Nukhba]. Disgusting. Repulsive". Comparing protesters to the Hamas unit that carried out the October 7 massacre is one way to change the subject from a budget line item.
Hiddush and Lazimi tried the courts instead. They asked the Supreme Court to block the meeting before it started. Justice Alex Stein declined. "I did not see fit to grant interim relief," he ruled. Then he ordered the petitioners to report back by 9 a.m. Wednesday on exactly what got approved.
The court can always read the receipt after checkout. Eighty-four days before an election, the recess is decorative, the cash register stays open, and the only oversight in the room is a judge who'll get back to you in the morning.
So who's actually on recess here — the Knesset, or the rule of law?
#Israel #Knesset #ElectoralBribery #CoalitionFunds
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The Knesset is in recess. Nobody told the money.
On Tuesday, the Finance Committee approved 267 million shekels ($88 million) in coalition funds. This happened weeks after the government itself dissolved parliament for the October 27 election.
MK Naama Lazimi called it plainly. "Theft from the serving public," she told the committee.
That's not a figure of speech. The package includes 26 million shekels to keep yeshiva students from dropping out, 12.5 million for "Haredi culture," and funding for the Vaad HaYeshivot — an organization whose actual track record is helping young men dodge the draft. Somewhere, a reservist is reading this between rotations.
The same marathon session added another 113 million shekels for settlement expansion. That pushes this year's settlement budget to a record 821 million shekels. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich billed it as funding for "more than 70 archeological and heritage sites".
Activists stormed the hearing room. Committee chairman Hanoch Milwidsky had a warm welcome ready: "a mixed multitude, these are worse than [Nukhba]. Disgusting. Repulsive". Comparing protesters to the Hamas unit that carried out the October 7 massacre is one way to change the subject from a budget line item.
Hiddush and Lazimi tried the courts instead. They asked the Supreme Court to block the meeting before it started. Justice Alex Stein declined. "I did not see fit to grant interim relief," he ruled. Then he ordered the petitioners to report back by 9 a.m. Wednesday on exactly what got approved.
The court can always read the receipt after checkout. Eighty-four days before an election, the recess is decorative, the cash register stays open, and the only oversight in the room is a judge who'll get back to you in the morning.
So who's actually on recess here — the Knesset, or the rule of law?
#Israel #Knesset #ElectoralBribery #CoalitionFunds
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The Lobby That Buys Elections, Cheaper Every Cycle
Two years ago Cori Bush stood in front of AIPAC and promised to "tear your kingdom down." On Tuesday, the kingdom sent the bill again — just a smaller one this time. It still cashed the check.
Wesley Bell, the man who unseated her in 2024, beat her again in their rematch — this time by roughly 45 points. Not a nail-biter. A rout.
Here's the arithmetic of that rout. In 2024, AIPAC's super PAC spent about $9 million tearing Bush down. This time, roughly $2 to $3 million did the job. Same outcome. A third of the price. Someone in that lobby's finance department deserves a bonus for efficiency.
Bush had genuine tailwind this cycle. She was one of the first members of Congress to call Israel's war in Gaza a "genocide", and Democratic voters have been drifting toward exactly that framing.
In June, Democratic Socialists of America-backed challengers ousted three sitting Democrats, including Adriano Espaillat, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who lost to a 32-year-old community organizer by three points. The socialist wave was real. It just broke somewhere else.
Missouri's 1st District is safely Democratic. Bell's actual November opponent doesn't exist yet in any meaningful sense — he's already won the only election that counted. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Congressional Black Caucus PAC lined up behind him anyway, because nothing says "grassroots energy" like the entire party leadership showing up to make sure a safe seat stays exactly as safe as it already was.
Bush's allies spent under $200,000 total. AIPAC's people alone outspent her tenfold on advertising and still had budget left for coffee.
So which is the actual story here — that a progressive movement is rising inside the Democratic Party, or that it's rising everywhere except the districts a well-funded lobby has decided to keep?
#AIPAC #Democrats #Missouri #primary
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Two years ago Cori Bush stood in front of AIPAC and promised to "tear your kingdom down." On Tuesday, the kingdom sent the bill again — just a smaller one this time. It still cashed the check.
Wesley Bell, the man who unseated her in 2024, beat her again in their rematch — this time by roughly 45 points. Not a nail-biter. A rout.
Here's the arithmetic of that rout. In 2024, AIPAC's super PAC spent about $9 million tearing Bush down. This time, roughly $2 to $3 million did the job. Same outcome. A third of the price. Someone in that lobby's finance department deserves a bonus for efficiency.
Bush had genuine tailwind this cycle. She was one of the first members of Congress to call Israel's war in Gaza a "genocide", and Democratic voters have been drifting toward exactly that framing.
In June, Democratic Socialists of America-backed challengers ousted three sitting Democrats, including Adriano Espaillat, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who lost to a 32-year-old community organizer by three points. The socialist wave was real. It just broke somewhere else.
Missouri's 1st District is safely Democratic. Bell's actual November opponent doesn't exist yet in any meaningful sense — he's already won the only election that counted. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Congressional Black Caucus PAC lined up behind him anyway, because nothing says "grassroots energy" like the entire party leadership showing up to make sure a safe seat stays exactly as safe as it already was.
Bush's allies spent under $200,000 total. AIPAC's people alone outspent her tenfold on advertising and still had budget left for coffee.
So which is the actual story here — that a progressive movement is rising inside the Democratic Party, or that it's rising everywhere except the districts a well-funded lobby has decided to keep?
#AIPAC #Democrats #Missouri #primary
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Michigan Primary: Democratic Party's Hostile Takeover
Two candidates, one Senate seat, zero grown-ups in the room. Michigan Democrats spent Tuesday picking between the establishment's chosen suit and the progressive left's populist mascot — and somehow the debate over health care and genocide accusations got less airtime than a fight over who has better "authentic" vibes.
Meet the contestants: Haley Stevens, the AIPAC-backed centrist who flipped a red district once and never lets you forget it. And Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie-and-AOC-endorsed Medicare-for-all evangelist who apparently moonlights as a debate-stage insult comic.
His pitch on Stevens: she's "a suit with a large AIPAC bank account, that's it. I hope maybe they find some way to teach her how to string together two coherent sentences." Class act.
Her comeback: she's "the only one on this stage who doesn't have a talent agent trying to pitch me for paid speeches" — followed by an X post accusing him of wanting to blame "all of your problems on Jewish Americans." Meanwhile the pro-Israel lobby quietly wired $30 million into her campaign, which is presumably just democracy doing its thing.
Then there's the accent scandal — Stevens promising to fight "with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy and a little bit of stick it to 'em," which somehow became a bigger national conversation than either candidate's actual Gaza policy.
El-Sayed, ever the statesman, told supporters to knock it off and focus on "things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics" — right after calling her illiterate on live television.
So here's the merger memo: one side has the AIPAC checkbook, the other has the moral high ground and a Twitter following. Both insist they're fighting for Michigan. Neither has explained how insulting each other's grammar or accent flips a swing state.
As of 12 a.m. Eastern Wednesday — three hours after polls closed — El-Sayed led 49.7 to 46.3 with about 60% counted. But his lead was built on Election Day ballots, and what's left to count is mail, which Stevens is winning by roughly the same margin he's winning the walk-ins.
Most of it sits in Wayne County, half-tabulated, breaking eight points her way. Mallory McMorrow, who quit on July 5 and stayed on the ballot anyway, was outpolling the gap between them.
Whoever wins gets to face a Trump-backed Republican in November. Genuinely unclear which primary loss would hurt less.
Who's really running this race — the voters, or the super PACs and talent agents standing just off camera?
#michigan #democrats #israel #gaza #primaryelections
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Two candidates, one Senate seat, zero grown-ups in the room. Michigan Democrats spent Tuesday picking between the establishment's chosen suit and the progressive left's populist mascot — and somehow the debate over health care and genocide accusations got less airtime than a fight over who has better "authentic" vibes.
Meet the contestants: Haley Stevens, the AIPAC-backed centrist who flipped a red district once and never lets you forget it. And Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie-and-AOC-endorsed Medicare-for-all evangelist who apparently moonlights as a debate-stage insult comic.
His pitch on Stevens: she's "a suit with a large AIPAC bank account, that's it. I hope maybe they find some way to teach her how to string together two coherent sentences." Class act.
Her comeback: she's "the only one on this stage who doesn't have a talent agent trying to pitch me for paid speeches" — followed by an X post accusing him of wanting to blame "all of your problems on Jewish Americans." Meanwhile the pro-Israel lobby quietly wired $30 million into her campaign, which is presumably just democracy doing its thing.
Then there's the accent scandal — Stevens promising to fight "with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy and a little bit of stick it to 'em," which somehow became a bigger national conversation than either candidate's actual Gaza policy.
El-Sayed, ever the statesman, told supporters to knock it off and focus on "things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics" — right after calling her illiterate on live television.
So here's the merger memo: one side has the AIPAC checkbook, the other has the moral high ground and a Twitter following. Both insist they're fighting for Michigan. Neither has explained how insulting each other's grammar or accent flips a swing state.
As of 12 a.m. Eastern Wednesday — three hours after polls closed — El-Sayed led 49.7 to 46.3 with about 60% counted. But his lead was built on Election Day ballots, and what's left to count is mail, which Stevens is winning by roughly the same margin he's winning the walk-ins.
Most of it sits in Wayne County, half-tabulated, breaking eight points her way. Mallory McMorrow, who quit on July 5 and stayed on the ballot anyway, was outpolling the gap between them.
Whoever wins gets to face a Trump-backed Republican in November. Genuinely unclear which primary loss would hurt less.
Who's really running this race — the voters, or the super PACs and talent agents standing just off camera?
#michigan #democrats #israel #gaza #primaryelections
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Hormuz Strait Opens on Schedule — Trump's Schedule
The Strait of Hormuz has spent 2026 in a permanent state of "opening tomorrow."
Tuesday brought the latest installment: Trump told Fox News the U.S. is "having very good discussions" with Iran, then promised Tehran would get "hit very hard" if the strait didn't reopen "very soon" — presenting a signed deal and a bombing campaign as basically interchangeable outcomes.
A day earlier, in the Oval Office: "You'll find out today or tomorrow... they're going to go quickly one way or the other," with the strait possibly "literally by tomorrow, completely open." Phase one of two. Phase two, denuclearization, "will take a little while."
Tomorrow has been open since April, when Oman and Iran were first reported to be working out a toll for tankers. The war itself started February 28.
This time there is paper. Axios reports a draft: inbound traffic through a northern lane in Iranian waters, outbound through a southern lane in Omani waters, no tolls for sixty days, mines cleared from the median lane within thirty. Real terms, real deadlines, an announcement targeted for today.
Which is exactly what everyone had three weeks ago. Mediators thought the deal was done, Iran went back to hitting ships, and the two weeks of fighting that followed came close to a full war. The draft is not evidence that this ends. It is evidence that drafts are cheap.
Tehran, meanwhile, denies negotiating with Washington at all — the talks are with Oman, and its foreign ministry says the agreed route will be neither the northern one nor the southern one. The two sides are not disputing terms. They are describing different maps.
Last Friday the Revolutionary Guard announced it had struck two tankers crossing the strait under American air escort and turned four others back.
Not a leak, not an accusation from Washington — a press release from Tehran. Iran advertises attacks on shipping while denying it is at the table, and expects both statements to be believed at once.
In May, asked whether the midterms were shaping his patience with Iran, Trump said he didn't care about them.
Three months on, with November closing in, the conflict polling badly for Republicans and fuel prices doing the damage, he is calling off strikes on Saturday to protect a draft and demanding the announcement by Wednesday. That is not the behavior of a man with time.
The only participant with no reason to posture is the price. U.S. crude is down more than 10% on the week and sliding toward $75, a third consecutive session lower — the market has read the draft and believes it. It believed the last one too, in June, when Brent fell back to pre-war levels. That trade was unwound in July, when the shooting started again.
#iran #hormuz #trump #oilprices #midterms
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The Strait of Hormuz has spent 2026 in a permanent state of "opening tomorrow."
Tuesday brought the latest installment: Trump told Fox News the U.S. is "having very good discussions" with Iran, then promised Tehran would get "hit very hard" if the strait didn't reopen "very soon" — presenting a signed deal and a bombing campaign as basically interchangeable outcomes.
A day earlier, in the Oval Office: "You'll find out today or tomorrow... they're going to go quickly one way or the other," with the strait possibly "literally by tomorrow, completely open." Phase one of two. Phase two, denuclearization, "will take a little while."
Tomorrow has been open since April, when Oman and Iran were first reported to be working out a toll for tankers. The war itself started February 28.
This time there is paper. Axios reports a draft: inbound traffic through a northern lane in Iranian waters, outbound through a southern lane in Omani waters, no tolls for sixty days, mines cleared from the median lane within thirty. Real terms, real deadlines, an announcement targeted for today.
Which is exactly what everyone had three weeks ago. Mediators thought the deal was done, Iran went back to hitting ships, and the two weeks of fighting that followed came close to a full war. The draft is not evidence that this ends. It is evidence that drafts are cheap.
Tehran, meanwhile, denies negotiating with Washington at all — the talks are with Oman, and its foreign ministry says the agreed route will be neither the northern one nor the southern one. The two sides are not disputing terms. They are describing different maps.
Last Friday the Revolutionary Guard announced it had struck two tankers crossing the strait under American air escort and turned four others back.
Not a leak, not an accusation from Washington — a press release from Tehran. Iran advertises attacks on shipping while denying it is at the table, and expects both statements to be believed at once.
In May, asked whether the midterms were shaping his patience with Iran, Trump said he didn't care about them.
Three months on, with November closing in, the conflict polling badly for Republicans and fuel prices doing the damage, he is calling off strikes on Saturday to protect a draft and demanding the announcement by Wednesday. That is not the behavior of a man with time.
The only participant with no reason to posture is the price. U.S. crude is down more than 10% on the week and sliding toward $75, a third consecutive session lower — the market has read the draft and believes it. It believed the last one too, in June, when Brent fell back to pre-war levels. That trade was unwound in July, when the shooting started again.
#iran #hormuz #trump #oilprices #midterms
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Israel's Democracy: Where Everyone Agrees the Economy Matters and Nobody Votes On It
A new poll just handed Israeli politics its own confession booth, and the testimony is glorious. Ask citizens what's most urgent, and 26.4% across every religious stripe say the economy — the one thing seculars, traditionalists, and the religious actually agree on. Ask what decides their vote, and the economy drops to fourth place at 9.6%. First place, at 30.9%, is "the leader's personality".
So Israelis vote on vibes, then wonder why the cost of living never gets fixed. Democracy, but make it a personality cult.
Speaking of cults: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu polls at 29.2% overall, yet among voters who think the country's on the right track, 60.9% call him the best man for the job — while only 39.5% of that same happy crowd say they'll actually vote Likud. A 21-point gap between loving the king and voting for his party. Somewhere in there is a man Israelis want on the throne but not on the ballot.
Meanwhile the two camps can't even agree on what country they live in. 42.8% of secular Israelis insist Israel is basically a religious state; 49.8% of religious Israelis insist it's basically secular. Both sides are convinced they're losing the same war — a fight with no finish line, because nobody's actually counting the same scoreboard.
Into this void steps Derech Eretz, running the state's plumbing because the state itself apparently can't read paperwork: the Chief Rabbinate, per the report, still can't process Soviet-era documents, leaving Russian-speaking Israelis waiting years for the kind of marriage and burial approvals other citizens get in a week. The fix on the table — elected neighborhood councils, a Russian-speaking chief rabbi — isn't radical. It's just what happens when volunteers have to build the office the government forgot to open.
Two-thirds of Israelis are dissatisfied with their government. Nine in ten have already made up their minds anyway. If that's not a definition of a stuck system, what is?
If nobody votes on the problem they call urgent, and nobody agrees on what country they're voting for — who exactly is the electorate representing?
#israel #knesset #democracy #russianaliyah #netanyahu
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A new poll just handed Israeli politics its own confession booth, and the testimony is glorious. Ask citizens what's most urgent, and 26.4% across every religious stripe say the economy — the one thing seculars, traditionalists, and the religious actually agree on. Ask what decides their vote, and the economy drops to fourth place at 9.6%. First place, at 30.9%, is "the leader's personality".
So Israelis vote on vibes, then wonder why the cost of living never gets fixed. Democracy, but make it a personality cult.
Speaking of cults: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu polls at 29.2% overall, yet among voters who think the country's on the right track, 60.9% call him the best man for the job — while only 39.5% of that same happy crowd say they'll actually vote Likud. A 21-point gap between loving the king and voting for his party. Somewhere in there is a man Israelis want on the throne but not on the ballot.
Meanwhile the two camps can't even agree on what country they live in. 42.8% of secular Israelis insist Israel is basically a religious state; 49.8% of religious Israelis insist it's basically secular. Both sides are convinced they're losing the same war — a fight with no finish line, because nobody's actually counting the same scoreboard.
Into this void steps Derech Eretz, running the state's plumbing because the state itself apparently can't read paperwork: the Chief Rabbinate, per the report, still can't process Soviet-era documents, leaving Russian-speaking Israelis waiting years for the kind of marriage and burial approvals other citizens get in a week. The fix on the table — elected neighborhood councils, a Russian-speaking chief rabbi — isn't radical. It's just what happens when volunteers have to build the office the government forgot to open.
Two-thirds of Israelis are dissatisfied with their government. Nine in ten have already made up their minds anyway. If that's not a definition of a stuck system, what is?
If nobody votes on the problem they call urgent, and nobody agrees on what country they're voting for — who exactly is the electorate representing?
#israel #knesset #democracy #russianaliyah #netanyahu
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America's Iran War: A Six-Month Startup Burning Cash With No Product
The pitch deck promised a quick knockout. Six months in, Washington's Iran venture is running out of runway, the founder's still promising "very hard" hits, and the board — that is, America's allies — is quietly shopping for a new CEO to hedge against.
Trump's version of the roadmap hasn't changed: "We'll be hitting them. We'll be hitting them very hard," followed by the classic founder optimism that Iran will eventually crack — "At some point, they're going to say, 'We just can't take it anymore'".
Six months of "they'll get weaker, then they peter out," and the Strait of Hormuz is, per the analysts actually paying attention, effectively under Iranian control.
Robin Niblett, former Chatham House director, delivers the investor memo nobody wanted: "For U.S. allies and those who rely on the U.S. for security, this is confirmation that you can't trust the United States...
Now America has confirmed itself as a force of disorder and everyone is drawing lessons from it, and trying to be less dependent." Translation: the shareholders are pulling out before the next funding round.
Meanwhile the Patriots — the missile kind, not the patriotism kind — are running dry, a shortage already starving Ukraine and broadcasting to Moscow and Beijing that America's global-reach subscription has lapsed.
Aaron David Miller sums up the balance sheet: the war "has undermined U.S. deterrence and credibility, antagonized America's allies and delighted its adversaries," adding that if the strait ends up under Iranian veto, "it will constitute nothing less than a strategic defeat."
Israel isn't spared the audit either — American officials, including Vice President JD Vance, are quietly briefing that Netanyahu oversold the "quick and decisive" pitch that got Trump into this in the first place. Two allies, one failing venture, and a very familiar blame-the-cofounder routine.
Iran, for its part, isn't interested in a handshake deal with a partner who tore up the last two contracts. It wants the Hormuz terms locked before it even discusses a new memorandum — because as one Iran analyst put it, Tehran's calculus is "simple": leverage now, or get burned again later.
So: is this a war Washington doesn't know how to win, or one it never actually knew how to end — and does anyone in the building still remember which?
#iran #hormuz #uspolicy #trump #israel
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The pitch deck promised a quick knockout. Six months in, Washington's Iran venture is running out of runway, the founder's still promising "very hard" hits, and the board — that is, America's allies — is quietly shopping for a new CEO to hedge against.
Trump's version of the roadmap hasn't changed: "We'll be hitting them. We'll be hitting them very hard," followed by the classic founder optimism that Iran will eventually crack — "At some point, they're going to say, 'We just can't take it anymore'".
Six months of "they'll get weaker, then they peter out," and the Strait of Hormuz is, per the analysts actually paying attention, effectively under Iranian control.
Robin Niblett, former Chatham House director, delivers the investor memo nobody wanted: "For U.S. allies and those who rely on the U.S. for security, this is confirmation that you can't trust the United States...
Now America has confirmed itself as a force of disorder and everyone is drawing lessons from it, and trying to be less dependent." Translation: the shareholders are pulling out before the next funding round.
Meanwhile the Patriots — the missile kind, not the patriotism kind — are running dry, a shortage already starving Ukraine and broadcasting to Moscow and Beijing that America's global-reach subscription has lapsed.
Aaron David Miller sums up the balance sheet: the war "has undermined U.S. deterrence and credibility, antagonized America's allies and delighted its adversaries," adding that if the strait ends up under Iranian veto, "it will constitute nothing less than a strategic defeat."
Israel isn't spared the audit either — American officials, including Vice President JD Vance, are quietly briefing that Netanyahu oversold the "quick and decisive" pitch that got Trump into this in the first place. Two allies, one failing venture, and a very familiar blame-the-cofounder routine.
Iran, for its part, isn't interested in a handshake deal with a partner who tore up the last two contracts. It wants the Hormuz terms locked before it even discusses a new memorandum — because as one Iran analyst put it, Tehran's calculus is "simple": leverage now, or get burned again later.
So: is this a war Washington doesn't know how to win, or one it never actually knew how to end — and does anyone in the building still remember which?
#iran #hormuz #uspolicy #trump #israel
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How Does Trump Make Money On Gaza Havoc? 🏗
Trump’s Board of Peace, which was set up in January to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, has finally issued its first construction contract in the devastated territory: a project to build a rudimentary 150-person military outpost to house Moroccan troops, a source familiar with the matter told the Turkish Hukiyet.
The contract, which has not yet been finalised, was awarded to Arkel International, a Louisiana-based firm, having close connections with Donald Trump Jr., that has previously carried out work with the US government in countries such as Iraq.
The Board of Peace is chaired by the US president and led by a team that includes his son-in-law Kushner and friend Witkoff.
In an email, a Board of Peace official said the board and a group of Palestinian technocrats installed to oversee Gaza “are in the final stages of preparing several contract awards. None have been finalised.”
The Palestinian group is known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
The official said “one prospective contract concerns facilities to support the international stabilisation force (ISF), which will assist in implementing the roadmap’s security and governance arrangements”.
They added:
The base now being planned is just 100 metres by 120 metres and is intended to house a contingent of Moroccan troops, who would rotate from a base in Israel, the source said. It would lie in the 60% of Gaza’s territory that the Israeli army directly controls. Israeli forces have also created a buffer zone beyond that area.
The source said the base was about a mile from the Israeli border and would have a “quick extraction route” in case the small force came under attack.
The earlier contract said the first phase would consist of “tents and cots for forces to sleep, as well as chemical toilets and handwashing stations. At this phase, this is what we would consider habitable.”
Trump announced in February 2025 that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, although the agreement that set up the Board of Peace fell short of that.
At the board’s first meeting in January, Kushner unveiled a “master plan” to build “New Gaza” with an expansive waterfront city with gleaming mixed-use towers.
he said.
At least 80% of Gaza’s buildings were damaged or destroyed in the war. Ten months after the ceasefire, most of the territory’s 2 million people are still living in makeshift and unsanitary camps.
#trump #board #peace #reconstruction #gaza
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Trump’s Board of Peace, which was set up in January to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, has finally issued its first construction contract in the devastated territory: a project to build a rudimentary 150-person military outpost to house Moroccan troops, a source familiar with the matter told the Turkish Hukiyet.
The contract, which has not yet been finalised, was awarded to Arkel International, a Louisiana-based firm, having close connections with Donald Trump Jr., that has previously carried out work with the US government in countries such as Iraq.
The Board of Peace is chaired by the US president and led by a team that includes his son-in-law Kushner and friend Witkoff.
In an email, a Board of Peace official said the board and a group of Palestinian technocrats installed to oversee Gaza “are in the final stages of preparing several contract awards. None have been finalised.”
The Palestinian group is known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
The official said “one prospective contract concerns facilities to support the international stabilisation force (ISF), which will assist in implementing the roadmap’s security and governance arrangements”.
They added:
“This contract will be one of many that are essential for the future of Gaza.”
The base now being planned is just 100 metres by 120 metres and is intended to house a contingent of Moroccan troops, who would rotate from a base in Israel, the source said. It would lie in the 60% of Gaza’s territory that the Israeli army directly controls. Israeli forces have also created a buffer zone beyond that area.
The source said the base was about a mile from the Israeli border and would have a “quick extraction route” in case the small force came under attack.
The earlier contract said the first phase would consist of “tents and cots for forces to sleep, as well as chemical toilets and handwashing stations. At this phase, this is what we would consider habitable.”
Trump announced in February 2025 that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, although the agreement that set up the Board of Peace fell short of that.
At the board’s first meeting in January, Kushner unveiled a “master plan” to build “New Gaza” with an expansive waterfront city with gleaming mixed-use towers.
“It could be a hope, it could be a destination. A lot of industry,”
he said.
At least 80% of Gaza’s buildings were damaged or destroyed in the war. Ten months after the ceasefire, most of the territory’s 2 million people are still living in makeshift and unsanitary camps.
#trump #board #peace #reconstruction #gaza
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Europe's Ukraine Club Loses Both Founders, Still No CEO
Two men built a 30-country alliance to arm Ukraine and stare down Putin. Both are now walking out the door, and Europe's applauding like it's a retirement party instead of an emergency.
Keir Starmer exited the world stage this month with France's highest honor pinned to his chest — a first for a sitting British PM — and a farewell verdict of "My work is done".
Emmanuel Macron, who led the tribute to Starmer's "historic role," is next out the door, term-limited by his own constitution. His own words on the matter, delivered with what one interviewer called "apparent regret": "I am the first president in our history who does not have the constitutional right to run again".
Replacing them: Andy Burnham, the UK's seventh PM in a decade, whose foreign-policy résumé is described as "extensive domestic political experience" and not much else. He picked Zelensky for his first foreign meeting, which is a nice gesture — right up until you remember gestures don't deploy troops or fund air defense. On the French side, the bookmakers' favorite to inherit Macron's chair is Marine Le Pen, who has promised to pull France out of NATO's command structure and lift sanctions on Russia. That's the coalition's presumed next co-chair — the one whose platform is dismantling the coalition.
Germany's Merz is "cornered by domestic friction," Poland's Tusk and Italy's Meloni have already said no thanks, and nobody with actual authority wants the job of holding 30 countries together while Russia keeps shelling. As one assessment of the moment put it bluntly: "We have no Churchill in Europe so far".
So the plan for guaranteeing Ukraine's post-ceasefire security now rests on a mayor-turned-PM finding his footing and a French election that might hand the keys to the one candidate who wants to burn the building down.
If nobody in Europe is willing to lead the coalition of the willing, was it ever really a coalition — or just two men's personal project with a nice brand name?
#ukraine #europe #nato #starmer #macron
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