... Indications are that the as-yet unpublished and (curiously) unleaked MoU will settle comparatively little. It will, in essence, be an undertaking to talk about some future, more durable agreement.

If recent history is anything to go by, the obstacles to that will remain formidable. MoU or not, an unstable region has been rendered even more dangerous by the unforced war of choice launched by Israel and America. The world will be coping with its repercussions for months, if not years.

Not the least of those is the economic impact. It is vast, extending far beyond the physical destruction and the price of petrol to a global loss of output and lower economic growth that threatened an international recession and financial crash. National treasuries, companies and households everywhere have come under pressure, and the poorest have suffered most.

That squeeze should now recede, as oil, natural gas, raw materials, pharmaceuticals and other supplies resume their traffic. The Strait of Hormuz should soon reopen to shipping, with or without some form of Iranian supervision or tolling—and that alone is worth celebrating, as witnessed in the reaction of financial markets, and even if it will take some time for commerce to return to normal.

The most serious obstacle to a more lasting peace remains Benjamin Netanyahu. In his zero-sum world view, a weaker Iran is necessarily a safer Israel, and that is why he encouraged—or persuaded—the Trump administration to launch Operation Epic Fury, just as he did in getting Operation Midnight Hammer underway a year ago.

To the now obvious irritation of the US president, Mr Netanyahu is continuing his invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, designed to neutralise Hezbollah, as well as apparently permitting more illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, even as Mr Trump wants out.
....
The problem now is that Mr Trump has endowed Iran with a far more useful option than any nuclear device: the effective weaponisation of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a weapon of mass economic destruction of unique power. It was given satisfactory proof of use during the conflict, when not even US armed forces and a naval counter-blockade could prevent an enfeebled Tehran from taking the world economy hostage.

Whatever piece of paper the Americans and Iranians eventually sign, the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards will always have that potential for blackmail easily at their command. And that is why America has lost this war.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/edi...95971.html

Will be funny as the boomerangs start hitting the libtards in the face regarding Iran.

Yet another opinion piece being passed off as news.

Gitanole, sir, that's the third time you've done that. From now on, please post actual news pieces and not opinion pieces that you're trying to pass off as news pieces. In other words, please denote what you're posting. Thanks.

How is the region more dangerous when Iran's military has been destroyed?

How successfully can Iran defend Kharg Island now?

If you’d like to know how Donald Trump’s closing speech at the G7 went, it’s probably best to start at the part where he asked Scott Bessent whether the stock market was smarter than his Treasury secretary... It was clear at that point, just a couple of minutes in, that nobody—including his own team, or perhaps especially his own team—had any idea what Trump was talking about.

This was probably the most alarming (Donald) Trump appearance to date. He was breathless and incoherent, ill-seeming and off-piste. He spent 32 minutes justifying his deal with Iran to the world before mentioning a single discussion that had taken place among the G7 countries at the summit, and the justifications spoke for themselves.
....
Iran’s leadership, Trump explained, had suffered because “their first set of leaders is all gone. Their second set of leaders, all gone. Their third set of leaders is a little bit gone.” That’s not technically “regime change” but it sort of is, he added, if you think about it.

The asides got more and more bizarre. “Bibi Netanyahu is a good man, by the way—he gets a little excited,” gave way to, “Afghanistan is kissing our ass.”

He thanked Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for “being very neutral” during the Iran war, then immediately added that people probably wouldn’t like seeing him thank them.

He interrupted himself to swat a fly.
....
On whether it was true that the deal with Iran includes money for the country to rebuild, he started with, “We don’t give them money… What happens is with time, if they behave–” and then seemed to lose his trail of thought and went back to, “Regime change? The first group is dead. One morning they were having breakfast… They thought we’d never bomb during breakfast.”
....

It was hardly Churchill at Yalta.

The recurring villain of his piece was the media, who supposedly are all in a grand conspiracy to ignore or devalue his personal victories.
....


When it came to questions, one reporter mentioned that the wording of the deal doesn’t actually seem to say much about not developing a nuclear weapon, despite Trump’s claims that it will ensure the country never has one, “permanently”.

Trump responded that so long as America doesn’t have a “weak, pathetic president,” then Iran definitely won’t have nuclear bombs, because when they start developing them, he’ll just flatten their cities again.

“So you’ll bomb if they don’t comply, but there’s nothing specific in the deal, is that correct?” the reporter followed up.

“Doesn’t have to be,” Trump responded. Because why would a deal that stops Iran from developing a nuclear weapon in terms much more stringent and powerful than “Barack Hussein Obama” ever allowed make explicit mention of nuclear weapons?

Below the bombast and the egotism, the impression that the president seemed to give was: “I don’t know and I’m tired. Words don’t have to mean things, because bombs exist. Anyway, it all leads back to me, and once I’m out of picture, do you really think I give a crap?”

Besides the other, worrying things this might imply about the 80-year-old’s ailing health, this speech also made extremely clear that Donald Trump himself doesn’t think he actually got a good deal.
....
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...97835.html

(06-16-2026 08:57 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  ... Indications are that the as-yet unpublished and (curiously) unleaked MoU will settle comparatively little. It will, in essence, be an undertaking to talk about some future, more durable agreement.

If recent history is anything to go by, the obstacles to that will remain formidable. MoU or not, an unstable region has been rendered even more dangerous by the unforced war of choice launched by Israel and America. The world will be coping with its repercussions for months, if not years.

Not the least of those is the economic impact. It is vast, extending far beyond the physical destruction and the price of petrol to a global loss of output and lower economic growth that threatened an international recession and financial crash. National treasuries, companies and households everywhere have come under pressure, and the poorest have suffered most.

That squeeze should now recede, as oil, natural gas, raw materials, pharmaceuticals and other supplies resume their traffic. The Strait of Hormuz should soon reopen to shipping, with or without some form of Iranian supervision or tolling—and that alone is worth celebrating, as witnessed in the reaction of financial markets, and even if it will take some time for commerce to return to normal.

The most serious obstacle to a more lasting peace remains Benjamin Netanyahu. In his zero-sum world view, a weaker Iran is necessarily a safer Israel, and that is why he encouraged—or persuaded—the Trump administration to launch Operation Epic Fury, just as he did in getting Operation Midnight Hammer underway a year ago.

To the now obvious irritation of the US president, Mr Netanyahu is continuing his invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, designed to neutralise Hezbollah, as well as apparently permitting more illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, even as Mr Trump wants out.
....
The problem now is that Mr Trump has endowed Iran with a far more useful option than any nuclear device: the effective weaponisation of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a weapon of mass economic destruction of unique power. It was given satisfactory proof of use during the conflict, when not even US armed forces and a naval counter-blockade could prevent an enfeebled Tehran from taking the world economy hostage.

Whatever piece of paper the Americans and Iranians eventually sign, the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards will always have that potential for blackmail easily at their command. And that is why America has lost this war.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/edi...95971.html

Operation Epic Fury did not weaponize the Strait of Hormuz. Iran could have weaponized the straight anytime they wanted to… they just never needed to with every other U.S. president capitulating to them…