The Trump administration has also offered more war-happy talk about Iran, where things like, “All we have to do is get through the next few weeks, and we’ll move on to higher ground where there’s more sunlight.”
Dubai Airport reopened shortly thereafter. This is not the first time flights have been grounded in Dubai due to a drone attack. The fact that normally second-tier developments were promoted to top stories indicates a slight decline in news about combat casualties. For completeness, this is the main item as of 6 a.m. EDT.
Similarly, President Trump is currently stuck on the threat escalation ladder. Recall that we reported yesterday that the president called on China, South Korea, Japan, and other countries to assist the United States in breaking the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. We will discuss this variant on the Trump theme shortly, but this is currently the main item on the BBC Iran War Live Blog.
The threat was made in an interview with the Financial Times, in which President Trump said he may postpone a summit with President Xi Jinping scheduled for the end of the month. This is a confession of weakness.
I won’t discuss this entry in detail in the earlier BBC Live Blog Overview section. Because this won’t come as a surprise to anyone paying attention…but this probably excludes most of the BBC’s audience.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country was not seeking a ceasefire and that he “sees no reason to talk to Iran.” [the] Americans, because we were talking to them when they decided to attack us. ”
However, as we will discuss shortly, the behind-the-scenes damage to US and Israeli operations is serious and accelerating. I don’t want to sell hopium, but the damage could become too severe, and very soon, the belligerent’s ability to attack Iran at an acceptable risk would be seriously diminished. But the most likely path then is the Ukraine conflict we are currently seeing, with a “clearly losing” Ukraine, supported by its allies, still launching attacks and carrying out terrorist acts like the attack on Putin’s Valdai mansion. But America’s options for doing so are narrow and, as we will soon show, are being exhausted militarily in the Middle East.
And we have the very real problem of accelerating damage to the global economy, like a grenade with the pin pulled out. Too many people in the world of business reporting, politics and punditry are fixated on oil prices. Brent rose above $106 and settled a bit around $105. But in addition to the much-discussed effects of reduced supplies of Gulf oil, LNG, and urea (adding sulfuric acid as essential to production), we also look at helium. We also look at a provocative article that claims that the US is indeed extremely exposed to the effects of the Gulf Oil Shock, and that light crude oils like WTI will soon collapse due to persistent feedstock imbalances and associated shutdowns at refineries.
Let’s start with Team Trump’s bright pattern. From Bloomberg: Pentagon, Iran war could last up to six weeks, Trump aides say:
An aide to President Donald Trump said the Pentagon estimates the Iran war, now in its third week, will last four to six weeks.
Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House National Economic Council, offered a timeline, warning that President Trump has the final say on when the war ends. He was one of several senior administration officials on Sunday to call for patience from Americans as energy prices soar, saying the goal of eliminating Iran as a threat in the Middle East is worthwhile.
Hassett said on CBS’s Face the Nation that as of Saturday, the Pentagon “believes it will take four to six weeks to complete this mission, and we are ahead of schedule.” “We expect a large positive shock to the global economy as soon as this is over.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright suggested the war could continue for several more weeks as oil and gasoline prices soar as the United States and Israel seek to destroy Iran’s military power.
“I think this conflict will definitely end over the next few weeks, but it could end sooner than that. After that, supply will recover and prices will be pushed down,” Wright told ABC’s This Week.
Of course, this light-hearted story is in sharp contrast to President Trump’s frustration that no country will dance him out of the Strait of Hormuz chaos he has caused, at most with a wave of his hand. In an interview with the Financial Times, President Trump made the following remarks:
“We have this thing called NATO,” said President Trump, who has often criticized the alliance. “We’ve been very nice to them. We didn’t have to help them with the Ukraine thing. Ukraine is thousands of miles away from us. … But we helped them. Now let’s see if they will help us, because I’ve said for a long time that I’m there for them, but they’re not there for us. And I don’t know if they’ll be there.”
I’ll leave it to the reader to analyze how much misinformation President Trump was able to pack into that pattern, from the idea that the Ukraine conflict fell from the sky when Germany and France opposed Ukraine and Georgia’s eventual invitation to join NATO in 2008, to the idea that President Trump is now befriending the EU like an abusive spouse after repeatedly punching it in the face, including at the 2025 Munich Security Conference and the recent National Security Strategy Paper. And with Greenland.
Even his EU poodle can’t or won’t do much. From Politico’s EU Morning Newsletter:
Focus on the Gulf: Foreign ministers’ top priority is how to make the strategically important Strait of Hormuz open to ships.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One last night that his administration had asked seven countries to help secure the waterway… Trump told the FT yesterday that it would be “very bad for the future of NATO” if allies did not heed his call to reopen the strait.
Wrong place, hands tied: A senior EU diplomat said earlier this month that the EU had increased Operation Aspides’ maritime security mission by two ships. [which had only three to begin with]provided by Paris. However, these ships are not located in critical areas where ship protection is most needed and face restrictive rules of engagement….
NINE VON MILL: But German Foreign Minister Johann Vardepoel on Sunday rejected the proposal ahead of the talks, saying Germany did not want to play an “active role” in the conflict and Aspides was “not effective.”
Politico also reported on former EU diplomat Josep Borrell’s sharp criticism of the EU’s silence on the US and Israel’s violations of international law, specifically starting an illegal war.
Despite President Trump’s signals that he may participate in a summit meeting with President Xi, he is maintaining the session in the state of uncertainty he always likes when it comes to “actions speak louder than words.” From another Financial Times account:
i have [Trump] Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng in Paris to finalize important details of the summit. Mr. Bessent is scheduled to hold further talks with Mr. He on Monday…
It is unclear whether President Trump suggested the postponement because he tends to avoid overseas travel during times of conflict, or whether he was hoping that by suggesting a postponement he would put pressure on the Chinese government to send warships.
“If the U.S. government thinks that delaying it will give the U.S. leverage to pressure China to take a more active role in mediation, I think the U.S. government will be disappointed.” [Sarah] Veran [partner at Macro Advisory Partners] Added.
Now, it’s a kinetic conflict. Iran continues to suffer. But unless the US does something incredibly stupid like attack Iran’s oil infrastructure or a critical desalination plant, it’s not strategically important, so don’t get too hung up on that. By attacking the same types of facilities, Iran will soon begin to turn the Gulf states into economic and virtual dead zones. Many experts, such as John Mearsheimer, point out that in war, a nation can incur extraordinary amounts of punishment and still win, as the examples of Russia and Vietnam during World War II demonstrated.
But from yesterday’s midday BBC live feed:
Iran’s main communications network collapses
According to independent monitoring service NetBlocks, connectivity on Iran’s main communications network has collapsed.
The AS12880 network had remained partially online until now.
The Iranian government continues to maintain a near-total internet blackout, with virtually no connectivity remaining for 16 days.
Now, let’s look at what the situation is for the belligerents (or child killers, as Iran likes to call them). Dialogue Work’s Nima had an unmissable conversation with Stanislav Kravivnik. Mr. Krapivnik laid out at considerable length how dire the current escalation plans would be, including attempting to breach the Strait of Hormuz and attacking ground forces on Kharg Island and elsewhere. He also addressed logistics, poor performance American kit like the F-35, and operational difficulties in trying to restart the draft. But what I found most impressive was that he confirmed and amplified the problem we raised: that the United States is running out of bases across the Middle East, and that it’s happening faster than most realize.
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1 Note that Churchill said “may,” not “will,” as the current government does.
2 From the Politico newsletter:
Borrell attack: The EU’s former top diplomat Josep Borrell has fired a salvo at the EU’s current leaders, including his former boss Ursula von der Leyen and his successor Karas. The former High Representative for Foreign Affairs told Playbook that Brussels had not done enough to uphold international law in the wake of Trump’s military attack on Iran, making Borrell the latest of Ms von der Leyen’s socialist allies in Spain to rebel against her.
“This war is illegal under international law,” Borrell said furiously. “We are suffering from the effects of energy prices, but President Trump is gloating that this is a good thing because the United States is an oil exporter.” The former chairman said von der Leyen “continues to overstep his duties” by increasing involvement in regional foreign policy, echoing criticism of the chairman from the capital region in recent days. “She is systematically biased in favor of the United States and Israel,” he said in a written statement.
