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Trump met the press yesterday, even hauling CIA chief John Ratcilffe out of his crypt to join Pete Hegseth, one assumes in a show of unity about the threat to destroy the global economy, as if that was a better alternative than conceding that Iran has bested the supposedly mighty US.
Note that Trump, who has a well-established pattern of setting deadlines and then blowing them off by TACOing or rescheduing them. or sometimes jumping the gun, has lashed himself particularly firmly to the mast this time:
8 P.M. is not that good. Could you change it to between 1 and 2 P.M., or if possible, 1 and 2 A.M.?
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I.E.Z. pic.twitter.com/deSXD8rpvD
— Iran Embassy in Zimbabwe (@IRANinZIMBABWE) April 6, 2026
This Janta Ka segment shows Trump threatening to
This Hindustan Times presentation includes some of the same Trump bluster plus the Iranian response
Trump’s strident insistence that the US has won (so why the need for more operations?) is yet another proof of detachment from reality, of inability to even present a coherent picture.
Trump is predictably doubling down on lying about the status of negotiations. NO1 gives a good recap:
Trump’s puffery includes his claim that the US could wreck Iran’s bridges. As Alexander Mercouris in particular has stressed (and leaked conversation from the German military about trying to wredk the Kerch Bridge confirms), bridges are very hard to destroy (damage that might take days or weeks to repair is another matter). The reason the US was able to severely damage Iran’s B1 bridge was that it was under construction.1
So why this desperate attempt at brinksmanship, where Trump and his team ought to know well that neither threats against Iran or blowing a lot of things up will break Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz? And as we feel compelled to point out, that is even before getting to the very real risk of Iran destroying Gulf state desalination plants and/or energy infrastructure. But Trump has said he loves the world circa 1890, so perhaps setting what passes for civilization back massively looks like a positive outcome to him.
But (perceived} necessity is the mother of invention, or here, desperation. We have pointed out, along with many others, that the US and its allies are running out of not just defensive but even offensive weapons, with April the timeframe when inventories of many critical and hard-to-replace systems become catastrophically low.
And it’s not as if the US poor performance relative to objectives isn’t blindingly obvious…if you have been paying attention:
Nothing says air superiority as well as committing your entire inventory of standoff munitions. https://t.co/BRnNAj4Ltp
— Policy Tensor (@policytensor) April 6, 2026
Mind you, as former #2 in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, Joe Kent, has repeatedly pointed out, Trump does have a way out, which is to tell Israel “no”. So again, this fiasco was a war of choice in every possible way.
But Israel remains joined at the hip, including in the latest saber-rattling. From Bloomberg’s landing page at 6:00 AM EDT:
A Twitter post re-reports Fars describing intense pressure by Israel on the Administration (click through for detail):
Claim from semi-official news agency Fars (close to Iranian right wing & IRGC):
– 5 different heads of state and 8 different heads of intelligence agencies have directly contacted Iranian officials in the past few days and tried to push for a ceasefire.
– The heads of these…
— Alireza Talakoubnejad (@websterkaroon) April 7, 2026
Claim from semi-official news agency Fars (close to Iranian right wing & IRGC):
– 5 different heads of state and 8 different heads of intelligence agencies have directly contacted Iranian officials in the past few days and tried to push for a ceasefire.
– The heads of these…
— Alireza Talakoubnejad (@websterkaroon) April 7, 2026
We also pointed out that Iran had revised its doctrine on January 6, as in before the war began, to allow for pre-emptive attacks in the case of imminent threats. Trump’s latest, with its specificity of timing and severity, qualifies. From a January post:
From Tasmin News on January 6, translated by Resistance.org:
Statement of the Secretariat of the Defense Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran, January 6, 2026.
[….]
The Islamic Republic of Iran, relying on national cohesion, comprehensive deterrence capability, and full defensive readiness, once again affirms that the country’s security, independence, and territorial integrity constitute an inviolable red line. Any infringement upon national interests, interference in internal affairs, or action against Iran’s stability will be met with a proportionate, targeted, and decisive response.
Within the framework of legitimate self-defense, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not limit itself to responding after an action has occurred and considers objective indications of threat as part of the security equation.
It is important to understand that is it not just Trump and his team that are in deep denial about the massive and intensifying defeat staring them down. Even domain experts are getting this wrong. Consider first this important New York Times op-ed by University of Chicago professor and escalation expert Robert Pape, The War Is Turning Iran Into a Major World Power:
In recent years, the conventional geopolitical wisdom has been that the world order was moving toward three centers of power: the United States, China and Russia. That view assumed that power derived primarily from economic scale and military capability.
That assumption no longer holds. A fourth center of global power is quickly emerging — Iran — that does not rival those three nations economically or militarily. Instead, its newfound power derives from its control over the most important energy choke point in the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz….
Many analysts believe that Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz is only temporary….
That expectation is flawed. It assumes that to continue to control the strait, Iran must physically close it off…Traffic has dropped by over 90 percent since the war began, though, not because Iran has been sinking every vessel that entered the strait but because, given the credible threat of an attack, insurers withdrew or repriced war-risk coverage. Hitting a cargo ship every few days was more than enough to make the risk unacceptable.
Modern economies do not simply require oil. They also require oil delivered on time, at scale and with predictable risk. When that reliability breaks down, insurance markets tighten, freight rates spike, and governments begin to look at energy access as a complex strategic challenge rather than a simple market transaction.
The problem for the United States is one of asymmetry. Protecting each and every oil shipment that passes through the Strait of Hormuz against potential attacks — mines, drones, missile strikes — is a full-time operation…. Iran needs only to hit an oil tanker once in a while to cast doubt on the reliability of the world’s oil shipments…
If uncertainty persists, the Gulf arrangement will inevitably change, giving way to a different regional order — one in which the Gulf states increasingly accommodate the actor that can most directly influence the reliability of their exports. That actor is now Iran.
The global consequences will be most pronounced in Asia. Japan, South Korea and India depend heavily on Gulf energy. China, though more diversified, also depends on the region for a large share of its energy imports. Those dependencies are embedded in infrastructure — refineries, shipping routes and storage systems that cannot be quickly reconfigured.
If disruption to the energy supply persists, the effects will be widespread. Higher insurance and freight costs will raise prices. Trade balances will worsen. Currencies will weaken. Inflation will rise. Energy dependence will begin to shape policy. Governments will prioritize access to energy… Again, Iran will benefit.
China depends on Gulf energy to sustain growth. Russia benefits from higher and more volatile energy prices. Iran gains leverage from its position at the Hormuz choke point.
Each of these three nations has incentives that run counter to the economic stability of the United States and its allies. These three nations do not need to coordinate in a formal way. The structure of the system pushes them in the same direction. This is how a new order emerges — not through a formal alliance (at least not at first) but through converging incentives that reinforce one another over time.
Contrast that assessment with one by Professor John Mearsheimer in a recent Aljazeera interview by Steve Clemons:
The key section from a mildly cleaned-up machine transcript:
Steve Clemons: Another way to cover it is ask what this moment means to the global order, to American power, you know, to the superstates in the world. And I’d love to get your take on the temperature of the global order as you see it and what Iran means to that.
Professor John Mearsheimer: Well, I think a lot of people talk about how this is going to affect the global balance of power or the distribution among the most powerful states on the planet. And that would include of course China, Russia and the United States. And I don’t think that this war is going to have any effect on the distribution of power uh in the international system.
Mearsheimer then gives himself a bit of an out by contending:
And I think that under the Trump administration, what we have seen is that the United States has pursued a set of policies that undermine our ability to project all of that power that we have around the globe. Now, what exactly am I saying here? I think if you’re a great power like the United States and you’re interested in using all that power you have, it’s very important that you pay attention to international institutions which you by the way have created. You pay attention to international law, which you, by the way, have largely written. And you also go great lengths uh to foster good relations with your allies because institutions, international law and allies are important for projecting power. And what the Trump administration has done and it is doing very clearly in the case of the Iran war is that it’s undermining international law. It’s undermining international institutions both of which it needs and it’s doing great damage to its relations with allies in Europe in Asia and certainly in the Persian Gulf. So this war in Iran is disastrous for the United States.
It’s not going to undermine our basic power structure. We have lots of power, but what it’s going to undermine, and of course this is uh consistent with what President Trump has been doing since he first returned to the White House in January 2025, is undermine our ability to project power.
Aside from ignoring Professor Pape’s cogent assessment far-reaching implications of Iran being able to choke the Strait of Hormuz, and the great obstacles to the US effectively countering that, Mearsheimer also seems willfully blind to the loss of US power, such as having high-cost, not-terribly-fit for-purpose weapons systems, a shrunken manufacturing base, rampant rentierism further enriching billionaires at the expense of productive investment….the list goes on.
Mind you, this is not the first time the normally very well-grounded Mearsheimer has offered wildly America-positive views. Not only has he depicted confrontation with China as warranted, but he has sunnily depicted the US as the obvious winner.
An indirect indicator of denialism was a prominent story yesterday, on JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon discussing private credit riak his annual letter to shareholders , as reported many places, such as the Financial Times in Jamie Dimon warns private credit losses will be larger than feared:
JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon has warned that losses for lenders to highly indebted companies will be higher than many expect because of weakening lending standards, as concerns grow around the health of the $1.8tn private credit industry…
“I do believe that when we have a credit cycle, which will happen one day, losses on all leveraged lending in general will be higher than expected, relative to the environment,” Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders, referring to lending to companies with a high level of debt relative to their earnings.
“This is because credit standards have been modestly weakening pretty much across the board,” Dimon, who has led JPMorgan since 2006, wrote in his letter, which is widely read on Wall Street.
In other words, at least per this re-reporting, Dimon sees the private credit tsuris as a function of the boom-bust nature of lending.
Mind you, top bankers are not in the business of scaring the Confidence Fairy. Even so, what was striking was not Dimon mentioning in a very mild way that conditions in private-credit land were not so hot, but as far as I could tell, no mention whatsoever of real economy damage and/or higher interest rates (most private credit borrowings are floating rate) being a risk factor.
More incomprehension of the stakes in the pink paper via its current lead item, Middle East war live: Markets on edge as Trump’s deadline for Iran deal looms. Key points in the summary:
• Oil was volatile ahead of Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face a major attack on its infrastructure.
• Brent crude fell 1.5 per cent to $108 a barrel, having earlier risen above $111, as traders weighed the prospect of last-ditch de-escalation.
• European stocks and US futures rose…
The US president has repeatedly pushed back the deadline for Iran to reopen the waterway.
Not surprisingly, Iran is not blinking:
ZERO TOLERANCE. Any harm to Iran’s power infrastructure will bring about the termination of oil and gas exports by the southern Persian Gulf states to the world…
— مهدی خانعلیزاده (@Khanalizadeh_IR) April 7, 2026
Not everyone is as chill as Mr. Market:
🚨 QATAR FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON: WE ARE CLOSE TO THE POINT WHERE THE SITUATION IN THE REGION COULD SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL
— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) April 7, 2026
And the Trump stenographer-in-chief, Barak Ravid, is hinting at yet another TACO:
BREAKING: President Trump might delay his Tuesday 8 PM ET deadline on Iran “if he sees a deal is coming together,” per Axios.
This would mark the 5th time President Trump has delayed his ultimatum.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) April 7, 2026
More grim news on the real economy front, from EBALTV in Gas prices hit $4 nationwide, experts warn $6 by this summer:
Gas prices officially surpassed $4 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA, driven by the war in Iran and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I’m not liking it, man,” one Florida driver said. Another driver added, “This is too expensive. They’re so crazy. I don’t know what they do in the White House over there.”
An energy industry expert warned that if the war continues and oil supplies remain disrupted, $6-per-gallon gas could be a reality this summer.
“It’s entirely likely that by mid-summer, if nothing’s changed, we will see gasoline prices in the five to $6, even $7 range in California,” said Ed Hirs, a University of Houston energy fellow.
And outside the US:2
To return to the kinetic war, an overview from N01:
Iran struck Saudi Arabia’s Jubail Industrial City – the Middle East’s largest industrial hub and 4th largest petrochemical complex globally (SABIC). Large fires confirmed by multiple sources and satellite imagery. Kuwait lost two desalination plants supplying 90% of its drinking water. UAE’s Habshan (80% of domestic gas) remains offline since April 3. Bahrain’s BAPCO and GPIC also hit. Confidence: HIGH (15+ sources)
Iran fired ballistic missiles at central Israel this morning (April 7), triggering 254 simultaneous alerts covering 7.3 million people. Impacts confirmed in Bnei Brak, Tel Aviv, and Ramat HaSharon. Cluster munitions from earlier strikes killed 4 in Haifa, struck cars and buildings across central Israel. Confidence: HIGH(ILRedAlert + multiple OSINT)
More on the consequences of the attack on the Jubail Industrial zone:
And (this is major, do click through):
It’s going to be an interesting day for sure when the typical American suddenly realizes that when Al Jubail is burned down, the supply chain of lubricants will collapse. And when the lubricants collapse, then trucks don’t run and forklifts don’t fork. And when forklifts don’t…
— HealthRanger (@HealthRanger) April 7, 2026
Two can play at the “threatening critical arteries” game as Iran puts a bead on an essential causeway connecting Bahrain to the mainland:
From Aljazeera’s live feed, stamped at roughly 6:00 AM EDT:
Multiple overnight explosions have struck Tehran as US and Israeli air strikes intensify across Iran. Heavy bombardment was reported near Mehrabad airport, with attacks also hitting cities including Shiraz and Isfahan. There are reports of casualties, with residential areas and civilian infrastructure increasingly affected.
Israel has issued warnings for civilians to avoid railways, raising fears that transport networks may be targeted next. Iranian officials warn of “devastating” retaliation if attacks continue.
The development below is not good. Iran has left even Ben Gurion more or less alone despite it being used by both the military and civilians. I assume that is because they want civilians to leave, not just out of general principles, but also because enough departing will wreck the economy.
🇮🇷 New footage shows the current situation at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran.pic.twitter.com/Q7K10EItdP https://t.co/9eKMSC3AL2
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 7, 2026
It appears that Iran has not taken the airport attack sitting down:
Done for today. See you tomorrow!
_____
1 A new Aljazeera report inaccurately depicts the B1 bridge as finished (“newly completed”) and lists other bridges the US could target:
Now as another of Trump’s deadlines over the Strait of Hormuz approaches, international observers are sounding the alarm over the implications if the US president were to indeed order the bombing of Iran’s bridges.
The story provide pictures of and details about each bridge, such as the size, estimated cost, date of completion.
The one that might be a viable target is the Persian Gulf Bridge on Qeshm island. It’s only in the early stages of construction, per Aljazeera:
Location: Hormuzgan province
Dimensions: 3.4km (2.1 miles) long
Status: unfinished (15 to 18 percent physical progress)
Background: The Persian Gulf Bridge was a “dream project” for more than 50 years, and ground was broken in 2011. While the bridge remains unfinished due to funding hurdles, its massive underwater foundations and caissons are in place. Once completed, it will connect Qeshm Island – the largest of Iran’s islands in the Gulf, believed to be home to an underground missile arsenal – to Bandar Abbas, Iran’s biggest mainland port.
2 Here in Thailand, we have managed to go from a disastrous projected 50 days of total oil supplies, including jet fuel, to a merely scary 90 days.
Since no one, in particular the Trump team, seems to know what it is doing beyond emulating the Underpants Gnomes, here with:
1. Make threats
2. ?????
3. Victory
To help elucidate what Trump has in mind, as well as provide a topical diversion, an attempt at divination confirms the view many have likely already reached about Trump digging in with his threat of devastating escalation.
_____
Forgive me for including this item, but it will hopefully serve as a diversion of sorts. Below is a simple chart of the Trump’s 8:00 PM EDT deadline. Note that I do not practice horary astrology but many professional investors do, some justifying it to follow Keynes’ beauty contest view, that they need to know how other investors might make use of it. A top writer who has done major profiles of top Wall Street figures (which has entailed interviewing not just them but many in their circle) has said that Wall Street runs on sex and psychics. So before getting annoyed, consider that some, perhaps even many money men will be looking at this chart.
I have a friend who regularly uses horary astrology and liked talking up his findings, and I would sometimes pull up a chart to try to follow along, so I have picked up a few basics. You will see this is from a free service; if I were serious about this sort of thing I would have gotten a proper program.
What even a rank amateur might notice:
1. Nearly all the planets are on the right side of the chart, which here represents the opposed party, Iran. This confirms that they hold all the cards.
2. The Trump side indicator is Libra, ruled by Venus. Venus is on the Iran side of the chart, another sign of Iran’s advantage. Trump’s timing choice makes Iran Aries, ruled by Mars, when Mars is on Iran’s side of the chart. So Iran is not correspondingly weakened.
3. Jupiter, the big benefic, is in the 9th house, which means those far away are lucky. That could be Iran or Israel in this context.
4. The end of the matter for Trump is the 4th house. Pluto in the fourth is the sign of death, secret power struggles, radical transformation…and oil. This also puts Pluto in Iran’s 10th house, which indicates a crisis or other confrontation that will completely and fundamentally changes the status of that party. Pluto is inexorable.
And if you have a Twitter account, please consider following this one:
Hello everyone.
We’re the independent team behind Iranian LEGO Animations.
You might know us from L.O.S.E.R.
WE ARE EXPLOSIVE MEDIA.
Stay with us.
Let’s build something for the world.#IranLego
— Explosive Media (@ExplosiveMediaa) April 6, 2026
