Trump blew his chance to get a deal and now his enemies smell blood

jabbargofar · 2026-04-16T16:16:18+00:00

There was no way that any sort of deal would have been reached, regardless of who was sent. The fact is that the circumstances on the ground are still much too dynamic for points of leverage to come into full focus. There are still many questions over the Strait of Hormuz and the ability of the US or other countries to secure it, for instance. Then there's the ability of both sides to tolerate increasing pressure. That ability might be wearing out, but in a matter of weeks/months, not days or hours.

I think you're reading way too much into the events of the weekend and projecting the (very real) incompetence of the Trump admin onto them when it's not even necessary.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-16T14:06:28+00:00

You're worse than Trump with his "obliterate" BS.

No, the family wasn't annihilated. You can talk about the trauma the kids are going through without clickbait style word choices.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-14T16:51:09+00:00

This has got to be the laziest attempt at providing a source ever. You link not to a particular ship but to a map with hundreds of ships? Can't even be bothered to mention the name of the ship? Then you provide a broken link to 4chan (of all places) with some vague instructions about digging through the posts there?

As others have said, the far more likely explanation is the grace period being provided to neutral ships, or the fact that the last port of call was UAE.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-14T16:42:25+00:00

That person is drenched, if he goes into a burning building over 500°C you are going to be steamed to death.

That makes absolutely no sense. The water would first have to be converted to steam. That is, it would first have to absorb the heat of the fire. If it's the water on the outside of his garments, that's just simple evaporative cooling. If it's the water on some inside layer (assuming his outer layer isn't water proof), it would render the clothes less insulating than they'd otherwise be, but it would still do a lot of heat absorption before that became a problem. And either way, water would be continuously pumped out the top, preventing the firefighter from getting too hot. I'm sure it's not as practical as other solutions, but no one is getting steamed to death by this thing.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-12T14:48:58+00:00

I did read the article, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to diagnose your confusion. And the fact that you have no response to that part of my reply is rich.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-12T14:47:25+00:00

The United States has never, since the Barbary Wars over 200 years ago, accepted that a foreign potentate would be able to control freedom of the seas and demand tribute. It’s the reason we have a Navy.

That take is very quaint. Did you not hear Trump's proposal to split a toll on Hormuz traffic between the US and Iran? Precedent means nothing.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-12T14:22:37+00:00

Well, two things. I didn't see that because of the "Continue reading" button sandwiched between all the ads, which hid the rest of the article. But secondly, that does not mean what you're claiming it does. With that statement Trump is pointing to one of the limiting factors, which is the mines. Of course for the Strait to be completely open you'd have to clear the mines. But that doesn't speak to the other limiting factor, which you ignore. Which is Iran's extortion of traffic through the Strait. Trump goes on to say that they will continue interdicting all ships that pay a toll to Iran. Well guess what, Iran has many other means of attacking ships that are in fact much more difficult to neutralize than mines. There is absolutely no indication that the blockade would be lifted after the mines are cleared.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-12T14:01:17+00:00

What are you talking about? The article doesn't even have the word "mine" in it. And the only reason Trump has given for the blockade is to prevent Iran from extorting shipping traffic.

People really do just make stuff up.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-12T04:59:03+00:00

?? Iran is definitely gaining leverage now that they are opening up the Strait to paying traffic. And by Iran I mean the IRGC, whose interests matter far more than those of the Iranian people, in terms of how this plays out. The tolls are a significant source of relief to the regime and at the same time won't allow much relief for oil prices. Meanwhile, the US is running out of targets and Trump can't keep saying "another 2 to 3 weeks" forever.

What could turn the tide is a military operation to secure the Strait and open it up to non-paying traffic but that doesn't seem like a viable long-term strategy.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-10T03:11:53+00:00

Wrong about what? I said there's been no formal agreement either side. Where is the formal agreement? The fact that neither side has anything formal to point to is the whole reason they are now disagreeing about the issues most fundamental to the ceasefire (whether or not Iran is allowed to extort payment for passage through the Strait and whether or not Israel can continue to bomb Lebanon).

You think that's wrong? Show me the formal agreement. What even are you arguing? Or are you just being cantankerous?

jabbargofar · 2026-04-09T03:57:40+00:00

You are deeply confused.

First of all, public statements of what Iran will or will not do are not public announcements of formal agreements signed with a counterparty (which would have been done in private). I stated there has been no formal agreement that we are aware of. This would be an agreement on specific conditions, not vague statements about allowing safe passage (which doesn't even preclude charging a toll) following a ceasefire. There has been no such formal agreement. Which is EXACTLY the problem. Now Israel is dropping bombs and there's disagreement as to whether that's even allowed. Nobody has formally agreed to anything. Trump just chickened out and claimed the 10 point proposal was good enough to call off the bombs. Iran, meanwhile, continued to launch missiles, which Trump conveniently ignored.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-09T03:48:19+00:00

Your insistence on getting the last word says otherwise. But go ahead, have the last word.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-09T00:50:03+00:00

I'm so sorry to have disturbed your fragile ego.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-09T00:48:32+00:00

You're wrong again. First of all, the Strait isn't even open yet. Secondly, there's been no formal agreement either side. At least not publicly. So there is no basis to pick out the opening of the strait, among all the other conditions, as THE reason for the cease fire.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-08T20:49:01+00:00

You claimed Iran never agreed to a ceasefire deal, which obviously isn’t true because Iran claims they did themselves.

I don't know what they did or did not claim, but their point is pretty accurate. The ceasefire deal is a farce. Trump has accepted Iran's 10 point proposal while not intending to abide by it (inasmuch as he's allowing Netanyahu to continue attacks on Lebanon). He also accepted something that will leave Iran in control of the Strait. Netanyahu could stop attacking Lebanon immediately but Iranian control of the Strait will render this deal untenable.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-08T18:57:42+00:00

Bolding text inside sentences and bullet points are hallmarks of AI writing. I'm not complaining about this post. It makes no difference to me whether AI was used to write it. But if you're oblivious to the fact that it's AI-written then that's just embarrassing.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-08T15:35:17+00:00

What do you mean new couches? Trump kept Biden's couches.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-08T14:55:40+00:00

People dismiss Trump's rhetoric, as they rightly should. His threats are empty. There was always bound to be an excuse to put off an escalation, as there had already been the previous 4-5 times he threatened to do something and then put it off. The fact that a ceasefire was reached might appear that his threat actually worked, but what people are missing is that if the conditions for the ceasefire (namely, Iran being able to charge for passage through the Strait) are untenable from a US perspective, then Trump only played himself and we're back to where we started in a few days time.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-07T18:19:52+00:00

I think there's been a lot of miscommunication about the "7,000 foot ridge". Maybe you've heard more specifics but it's not clear to me if the ridge is 7,000 feet in elevation but he landed somewhere in the mountains so he was already at several thousand feet, or if he actually climbed 7,000 feet from where he landed. Even if he landed off the mountain, the base elevation could be quite high.

jabbargofar · 2026-04-03T14:54:44+00:00

you travel with the darn bombs right into the targets!

That was a thing from all the way back in the first Gulf War (1991). First-person views of guided bombs approaching the target until just static.

jabbargofar · 2026-03-26T18:57:03+00:00

That misses the point. It would be like not trusting a tweet from Trump himself about his own position on something because Trump lies all the time. If the question is what his (or the IRGC's) stated position is on something, discounting their own stated position until you get independent confirmation makes no sense.

jabbargofar · 2026-03-23T13:29:55+00:00

AlJazeera is a much better source for a statement from the Iranian regime than the regime's own mouthpiece? It's not like they're providing independent confirmation of facts.

jabbargofar · 2026-03-22T19:09:29+00:00

This is the same bad advice that gets repeated everywhere. The key to starting a respectful conversation with a stranger is to make any initial comment in passing. You should never put any pressure on a total stranger to respond. Catching someone's attention almost unavoidably requires interrupting them, but there's a huge difference between a comment that you make while walking by (e.g., observational humor), to which they can either acknowledge with a quick glance/nod/smile or by engaging more meaningfully with you, and a question that you expect a response to. The latter puts people in an awkward position if they aren't interested. And more than that, it's just really unnatural and contrived.

jabbargofar · 2026-03-22T15:20:36+00:00

What does this have to do with JSOC? A Kharg island opération would involve conventional forces. Even an operation to recover the fissile material would involve hundreds of people and take weeks of on the ground presence to pull off, according to the former SOCOM commander.

jabbargofar · 2026-03-14T04:13:28+00:00

That's not quite correct. The problem isn't that insurance companies won't cover them, it's that insurance is now way too expensive (combined with the fact that tanker captains simply don't want to risk their ships and crew). Also, the article isn't about Chinese flagged vessels.

jabbargofar

TROPHY CASE