Axios reported yesterday that, "In recent days, the U.S. military sent several B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean in a deployment a U.S. official said was 'not disconnected' from Trump's two-month deadline."
For this reason, the reasons discussed in the article, and other reasons, it seems pretty clear to me that the primary purpose of the B-2 buildup in Diego Garcia and the orders to deploy the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the Middle East is to counter Iran, rather than the Houthis. And the main focus of any military operation against Iran would be Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Whether any military operation will proceed against Iran is another question, of course. Trump's letter to Ayatollah Khomeini purportedly gives the country two months to complete a nuclear deal, but how much wiggle room will there be? Does the Trump administration plan to attack Iranian sites no matter what, and are they setting the bar unrealistically high for Iran so that they can have an excuse to bomb the country? Will they be able to achieve some agreement that allows Iranian leaders to save face? Or will their terms be too humiliating for Iranian politicians to accept? Given the personalities and political pressures involved on both sides, I think it's a bit more likely than not that the situation will not be resolved peacefully.
The market for "US-Iran nuclear deal in 2025?" is currently at 28%. This means that the market thinks it's likely that either the two-month deadline Trump gave to Iran for completing a nuclear deal is not a real deadline (perhaps starting negotiations would be acceptable), Trump's threat of military action is a bluff, or the US will attack Iran. I do think it's possible that the threat of military action could be ended if Iran starts some form of negotiations that are acceptable to the Trump administration, and Iran could drag those out ad infinitum if given the chance. However, I don't think the threat of attack is a bluff. If the market for "Will Iran close the Strait of Hormuz in 2025" is any indication, it seems likely that the market would think there's roughly a 25%-40% chance that the US will launch a serious attack on Iran. And then I'd guess that the market would think there's an approximately 30%-45% chance (maybe up to 70%, as the Polymarket question goes through the end of 2025) that the US will back off the upcoming deadline, probably as long as some kind of talks are in progress. It's just not clear to me how we can get from the current situation to talks under conditions that are acceptable to both governments and allow Iranian politicians to save face.
It would be close to impossible to complete a nuclear agreement in the two months the Trump administration is giving Iran. So it's not completely clear to me what the Trump administration really has in mind and what's going to happen. But I give it a 60% chance (and posted that near the end of my twitter thread two days ago) that we will see the US attack Iran before the end of April.
I’m a believer in “Nothing Ever Happens”. A war with Iran this early into the new administration would be quite the shift, and I doubt Trump would want any of the negative press that comes with it.
The institutional ‘Christians’ who still vocally and politically support Donald Trump tend to see him as literally Godsent. Many, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her reporter boyfriend Brian Glenn, also perceive Trump’s presidency as divinely-intended punishment against liberals. (By institutional Christianity, I mean those ‘Christians’ most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth.)
If God really is as vengefully angry, even seemingly blood-thirsty, as institutional Christianity generally portrays Him to be, is anyone — including supposed ardent followers or conservative Bible believers — truly safe or really ‘saved’? One could reasonably theorize that He’d be especially peeved by those self-professed Christians He’d (likely rightfully) deem as fake or frauds. After all, Jesus, a.k.a. God incarnate, was about non-violence, genuine compassion, love and non-wealth. His teachings and practices epitomize so much of the primary component of socialism — do not hoard gratuitous wealth in the midst of great poverty.
Yet, they are not practiced by a significant number of ‘Christians’, likely including many who really seem to worship Donald Trump, a callous man who stands for very little or nothing Jesus taught and represents. … The Biblical Jesus would not have rolled his eyes and sighed: ‘Oh well, I’m against everything the politician stands for, but what can you do when you dislike even more what his political competition stands for?’
Meantime, some of the best humanitarians I, as a big fan of Christ’s unmistakable miracles and fundamental message, have met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who, quite ironically, would make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings than too many institutional ‘Christians’. Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout believers/preachers of fundamental Biblical theology.
… I watched a televised documentary a few years ago about Michel de Nostredame and his seemingly often prophetic quatrains. Amongst them were disturbing prophesies apparently making references to the first [Napoleon], second [Hitler] and third anti-Christs, the latter having yet to come and do his immense damage. One of the Nostradamus scholars interviewed for the documentary said the writings suggest the third anti-Christ will originate from what’s now the United States, though he’ll be of European ancestry.
Many people find Trump to be the very unstable, vengefully angry and self-centered/-serving type willing to take the world for a most brutal spin, perhaps even for the sake of him making it into the historical-‘greatness’ books. If anything, he’s evidence of a great evil being unleashed onto a largely powerless world.
Yet, early on Nov.6, Trump publicly stated: “Many people have told me that God spared my life [from two assassination attempts] for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.” … Then again, Adolf Hitler also escaped assassination attempts made against him, most notably that foiled effort called the July Plot or Operation Valkyrie.
I believe that the New York Times, as a notable example, helped create the Iraq War — a ‘war’ that was essentially one-sided in firepower — through then-VP Dick Cheney’s anonymous and knowingly-false claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
After the severe damage was done, the Times claimed honest-ignorance innocence on the grounds that it was its blogger’s overzealousness that was really at fault. The same Times that otherwise insists upon securing the non-publishable yet accurate identity of its writers’ anonymous information sources.
Quite memorable was popular Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s appearance on Charlie Rose’s show (May 29, 2003), where he ranted about the war’s justification and supposed success:
“… And what we needed to do was to go over to that part of the world and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically, uhm, and, uh, uhm, take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it because part of that bubble said ‘we’ve got you’ this bubble is actually going to level the balance of power between us and you because we don’t care about life, we’re ready to sacrifice and all you care about is your stock options and your hummers.
"… And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad, uhm, and basically saying which part of this sentence don’t you understand. You don’t think we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy we’re going to just let it go, well suck on this. Ok. That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia. It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq, because we could. And that’s the real truth.”
Potential translation: 'Just to be on the safe side, let’s error in favor of militarily assaulting, invading and devastating Iraq [and maybe looting their untapped fossil fuel resources].'
What astonishes me is how such pro-War news-media professionals can afterwards sleep at night or look their little children/grandchildren in the face everyday. But, from another perspective, the Times may have jumped on the atrocity-prone Iraq-invasion bandwagon due to their close proximity to the massive 9/11 blow the city took only a few years prior. And there was plenty of that particularly bitter bandwagon going around in Western circles back then.
Some people may feel that a self-compromised mainstream news-media is better than no mainstream news-media; I do not.
With Iran, American and British corporate interests know there still is a lot of oil to be appropriated from that demonized nation. … The 1979 Iranian Revolution's expulsion of major Western nations was largely due to U.S and British fossil fuel companies exploiting Iran's plentiful reserves.
Such an expulsion would've been a big-profit-losing lesson learned by the foreign-nation oil corporation heads, which they, by way of accessing domestic political thus military muscle, would not willingly allow to happen to them again. [Maybe the 2003-11 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and then its oil fields, is an example of this insatiable-greed mentality.]
There has been a predictable American-UK proclivity for sanctioning Iran and/or its officials and allies ever since the Revolution. It would be understandable if those corporate fossil-fuel interests would like Iran’s government to fall thus enabling Big Oil to access Iran’s rich oil fields. It may be that if the relevant oil-company heads were/are in fact against Iran's post-Revolution government(s), then likely so are their related Western governments and, via general news-media support, national collective citizenry.
One has to wonder whether the 10/7 Hamas ‘surprise’ attack against Israel was truly unexpected.
With similarities to the Cheney-Bush U.S. administration immediately after 9/11, this attack conveniently enabled the Israeli Netanyahu government to justify extreme emergency war measures, then force through his/its ‘democratic reforms’ and do who-knows-what-more to Palestine — including cleansing, food-starving and mass slaughtering its long-time Palestinian residents.
Albeit, the 10/7 Hamas attack may have been deadlier than the hypothetical Israeli insiders had anticipated. Even so, such evil men like Netanyahu (which is not his real name) may still consider those Israeli lives lost as a 'good investment' (i.e. the future annexation of Palestinian land and natural resources).
And who's going to be able to stop the Israel Defence Forces and immorally opportunistic prime minister Netanyahu, especially with their state-of-the-art American-taxpayer-supplied weaponry?
It seems a bit convenient for Israeli power interests — notably, western world governments and especially our mainstream news-media (especially the extreme-Right outlets, like Canada's The National Post metro-daily newspaper) basically all fell into line and have since towed it.
Also, not widely publicized is that there are considerable fossil fuel reserves beneath long-held Palestinian land that are a plausible motivator for war.
Plus, Netanyahu's military-officer brother was killed during an attack against Palestinian and German hostage-takers in 1976. He may want more blood for that. Most people are not aware of that historical fact and likely motivator, with the mainstream news-media apparently deeming that bit of quite-relevant info un-fit to print.
Excellent post, thank you!
Axios reported yesterday that, "In recent days, the U.S. military sent several B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean in a deployment a U.S. official said was 'not disconnected' from Trump's two-month deadline."
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/27/iran-us-nuclear-talks-trump-letter
For this reason, the reasons discussed in the article, and other reasons, it seems pretty clear to me that the primary purpose of the B-2 buildup in Diego Garcia and the orders to deploy the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the Middle East is to counter Iran, rather than the Houthis. And the main focus of any military operation against Iran would be Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Whether any military operation will proceed against Iran is another question, of course. Trump's letter to Ayatollah Khomeini purportedly gives the country two months to complete a nuclear deal, but how much wiggle room will there be? Does the Trump administration plan to attack Iranian sites no matter what, and are they setting the bar unrealistically high for Iran so that they can have an excuse to bomb the country? Will they be able to achieve some agreement that allows Iranian leaders to save face? Or will their terms be too humiliating for Iranian politicians to accept? Given the personalities and political pressures involved on both sides, I think it's a bit more likely than not that the situation will not be resolved peacefully.
The market for "US-Iran nuclear deal in 2025?" is currently at 28%. This means that the market thinks it's likely that either the two-month deadline Trump gave to Iran for completing a nuclear deal is not a real deadline (perhaps starting negotiations would be acceptable), Trump's threat of military action is a bluff, or the US will attack Iran. I do think it's possible that the threat of military action could be ended if Iran starts some form of negotiations that are acceptable to the Trump administration, and Iran could drag those out ad infinitum if given the chance. However, I don't think the threat of attack is a bluff. If the market for "Will Iran close the Strait of Hormuz in 2025" is any indication, it seems likely that the market would think there's roughly a 25%-40% chance that the US will launch a serious attack on Iran. And then I'd guess that the market would think there's an approximately 30%-45% chance (maybe up to 70%, as the Polymarket question goes through the end of 2025) that the US will back off the upcoming deadline, probably as long as some kind of talks are in progress. It's just not clear to me how we can get from the current situation to talks under conditions that are acceptable to both governments and allow Iranian politicians to save face.
It would be close to impossible to complete a nuclear agreement in the two months the Trump administration is giving Iran. So it's not completely clear to me what the Trump administration really has in mind and what's going to happen. But I give it a 60% chance (and posted that near the end of my twitter thread two days ago) that we will see the US attack Iran before the end of April.
I’m a believer in “Nothing Ever Happens”. A war with Iran this early into the new administration would be quite the shift, and I doubt Trump would want any of the negative press that comes with it.
Just wrote an in depth analysis on the recent US military buildup in Diego Garcia. Check it out! 👇🏻
https://open.substack.com/pub/opedd/p/muscle-memory-is-trump-about-to-light?r=jw7u4&utm_medium=ios
The institutional ‘Christians’ who still vocally and politically support Donald Trump tend to see him as literally Godsent. Many, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her reporter boyfriend Brian Glenn, also perceive Trump’s presidency as divinely-intended punishment against liberals. (By institutional Christianity, I mean those ‘Christians’ most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth.)
If God really is as vengefully angry, even seemingly blood-thirsty, as institutional Christianity generally portrays Him to be, is anyone — including supposed ardent followers or conservative Bible believers — truly safe or really ‘saved’? One could reasonably theorize that He’d be especially peeved by those self-professed Christians He’d (likely rightfully) deem as fake or frauds. After all, Jesus, a.k.a. God incarnate, was about non-violence, genuine compassion, love and non-wealth. His teachings and practices epitomize so much of the primary component of socialism — do not hoard gratuitous wealth in the midst of great poverty.
Yet, they are not practiced by a significant number of ‘Christians’, likely including many who really seem to worship Donald Trump, a callous man who stands for very little or nothing Jesus taught and represents. … The Biblical Jesus would not have rolled his eyes and sighed: ‘Oh well, I’m against everything the politician stands for, but what can you do when you dislike even more what his political competition stands for?’
Meantime, some of the best humanitarians I, as a big fan of Christ’s unmistakable miracles and fundamental message, have met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who, quite ironically, would make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings than too many institutional ‘Christians’. Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout believers/preachers of fundamental Biblical theology.
… I watched a televised documentary a few years ago about Michel de Nostredame and his seemingly often prophetic quatrains. Amongst them were disturbing prophesies apparently making references to the first [Napoleon], second [Hitler] and third anti-Christs, the latter having yet to come and do his immense damage. One of the Nostradamus scholars interviewed for the documentary said the writings suggest the third anti-Christ will originate from what’s now the United States, though he’ll be of European ancestry.
Many people find Trump to be the very unstable, vengefully angry and self-centered/-serving type willing to take the world for a most brutal spin, perhaps even for the sake of him making it into the historical-‘greatness’ books. If anything, he’s evidence of a great evil being unleashed onto a largely powerless world.
Yet, early on Nov.6, Trump publicly stated: “Many people have told me that God spared my life [from two assassination attempts] for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.” … Then again, Adolf Hitler also escaped assassination attempts made against him, most notably that foiled effort called the July Plot or Operation Valkyrie.
When the boys group chat got leaked
I believe that the New York Times, as a notable example, helped create the Iraq War — a ‘war’ that was essentially one-sided in firepower — through then-VP Dick Cheney’s anonymous and knowingly-false claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
After the severe damage was done, the Times claimed honest-ignorance innocence on the grounds that it was its blogger’s overzealousness that was really at fault. The same Times that otherwise insists upon securing the non-publishable yet accurate identity of its writers’ anonymous information sources.
Quite memorable was popular Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s appearance on Charlie Rose’s show (May 29, 2003), where he ranted about the war’s justification and supposed success:
“… And what we needed to do was to go over to that part of the world and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically, uhm, and, uh, uhm, take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it because part of that bubble said ‘we’ve got you’ this bubble is actually going to level the balance of power between us and you because we don’t care about life, we’re ready to sacrifice and all you care about is your stock options and your hummers.
"… And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad, uhm, and basically saying which part of this sentence don’t you understand. You don’t think we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy we’re going to just let it go, well suck on this. Ok. That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia. It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq, because we could. And that’s the real truth.”
Potential translation: 'Just to be on the safe side, let’s error in favor of militarily assaulting, invading and devastating Iraq [and maybe looting their untapped fossil fuel resources].'
What astonishes me is how such pro-War news-media professionals can afterwards sleep at night or look their little children/grandchildren in the face everyday. But, from another perspective, the Times may have jumped on the atrocity-prone Iraq-invasion bandwagon due to their close proximity to the massive 9/11 blow the city took only a few years prior. And there was plenty of that particularly bitter bandwagon going around in Western circles back then.
Some people may feel that a self-compromised mainstream news-media is better than no mainstream news-media; I do not.
With Iran, American and British corporate interests know there still is a lot of oil to be appropriated from that demonized nation. … The 1979 Iranian Revolution's expulsion of major Western nations was largely due to U.S and British fossil fuel companies exploiting Iran's plentiful reserves.
Such an expulsion would've been a big-profit-losing lesson learned by the foreign-nation oil corporation heads, which they, by way of accessing domestic political thus military muscle, would not willingly allow to happen to them again. [Maybe the 2003-11 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and then its oil fields, is an example of this insatiable-greed mentality.]
There has been a predictable American-UK proclivity for sanctioning Iran and/or its officials and allies ever since the Revolution. It would be understandable if those corporate fossil-fuel interests would like Iran’s government to fall thus enabling Big Oil to access Iran’s rich oil fields. It may be that if the relevant oil-company heads were/are in fact against Iran's post-Revolution government(s), then likely so are their related Western governments and, via general news-media support, national collective citizenry.
One has to wonder whether the 10/7 Hamas ‘surprise’ attack against Israel was truly unexpected.
With similarities to the Cheney-Bush U.S. administration immediately after 9/11, this attack conveniently enabled the Israeli Netanyahu government to justify extreme emergency war measures, then force through his/its ‘democratic reforms’ and do who-knows-what-more to Palestine — including cleansing, food-starving and mass slaughtering its long-time Palestinian residents.
Albeit, the 10/7 Hamas attack may have been deadlier than the hypothetical Israeli insiders had anticipated. Even so, such evil men like Netanyahu (which is not his real name) may still consider those Israeli lives lost as a 'good investment' (i.e. the future annexation of Palestinian land and natural resources).
And who's going to be able to stop the Israel Defence Forces and immorally opportunistic prime minister Netanyahu, especially with their state-of-the-art American-taxpayer-supplied weaponry?
It seems a bit convenient for Israeli power interests — notably, western world governments and especially our mainstream news-media (especially the extreme-Right outlets, like Canada's The National Post metro-daily newspaper) basically all fell into line and have since towed it.
Also, not widely publicized is that there are considerable fossil fuel reserves beneath long-held Palestinian land that are a plausible motivator for war.
Plus, Netanyahu's military-officer brother was killed during an attack against Palestinian and German hostage-takers in 1976. He may want more blood for that. Most people are not aware of that historical fact and likely motivator, with the mainstream news-media apparently deeming that bit of quite-relevant info un-fit to print.