Another Pause?

Once again, the stupid, evil war that Trump started on behalf of Israel is (apparently) on pause. The why is worrisome.

It may be for essentially the same reason that Trump pretended to agree to cease hostilities a few weeks ago via the so-called Memorandum of Agreement, which Trump failed to agree with. (The MOA stated explicitly that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz; Trump pretended to agree and then feigned outrage – and resumed the bombing – when the Iranians asserted their control over the Strait.) There is also the corner that Trump has boxed us into – that being the pending effects of draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to buffer the loss of 20-30 percent of the world’s oil supply. The tanks are running dry, so to speak – and when they do, the effects could be catastrophic, for us.

I italicize “us” to emphasize it won’t be Trump or his Wall Street fixer/shorter cronies who are affected, except perhaps politically (as if that meaningfully mattered). Trump may be remembered  as even worse than Nixon but recall that Nixon never lacked for anything, materially. Neither will Trump. Neither will his Wall Street fixer/shorter cronies. They have billions. Many of us are sweating the cost of groceries.

The War Tax is now (as of July 27) about 30 percent on every gallon of gas we buy relative to the pre-war cost of gasoline last July. It is equivalent to a near-doubling of the federal tax on gasoline we’d already been paying and at least that tax went to pay for things like roads. This tax is going to pay Exxon/Mobil. It is on top of the taxes we pay (that we are forced to pay; proper language is important) to finance things like this stupid, evil war. Imagine how many pot-holed American roads could be paved over with nice fresh asphalt for the money literally blown up on the bombs rained down on Iran. Does anyone remember the $5k rebate checks Trump and his hair-plugged grifter friend said were coming? Americans – all of us – could have gotten back (again, language matters) far more than just $5k if Trump had decided to DOGE the so-called “defense” apparatus. He did at least have the inadvertent decency to use proper language. The Department of Defense is now (correctly) the Department of War.

They really do tell us what they mean. We just have to listen.

Anyhow, the war seems to be on pause, yet the war is not won. The Iranians retain control of the Strait; shipping is not moving (the obvious lies of the administration to the contrary notwithstanding). The oil is not flowing. The SPR isn’t re-filling. And time is running out. This is a stalemate that cannot endure. Not without devastating repercussions. Trump has two choices. The first is to accept the war has been lost and (this time) actually agree that Iran now controls the Strait – just as Panama controls the Panama Canal – and get the oil flowing again. This option is of course intolerable to Trump and to Israel, which amounts to the same thing. Trump being Israel’s spray-tanned Golem.

This brings up the second choice, which is to go for broke and try to win this stupid war. Since it has not been won so far – via bombs and missiles – the next step is probably ground troops, a full-scale invasion. However that would require positioning the troops in or near Iran and how to do that given Iran can slaughter them as they assemble? in 1944, the Germans had no way to stop the troop build-up on the island of England. The Iranians are not in that position. They are in the position the Germans would have been in, back in ’44, had they been able to devastate any assembly point on the island of England. If they had been in that position, there would probably have not been a D-Day (and there would probably still be a Greater German Reich).

That leaves one tool in Trump’s bag of tricks. The one all sane people hope is not taken out of the bag. This hope assumes Trump is sane. That may well be a false hope.

In any event, we shall soon see – one way or the other.

. . .

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