IRGC: "We don't care who we kill or who dies, nor the cost and time, as long as we can get what we want in the end."

Trump: (and/or any other level headed person): "We will do any and every thing to reduce loss of life, waste of treasure and the anguish of destruction to achieve peace. Even if we have to eat the entire shit sandwich to get there... And all of that knowing everyone is going to take a dump on anything we do, and anyway we do it."

Heads or tails. It's the same coin.

Those who want war and large scale destruction and death.

No worry, you'll likely get yer belly full.

Trump is increasingly letting his frustration and 'exasperation' go public. This seems to only confirm that indeed there are no talks taking place at this point. The US president continues to insist that the whole crisis was "caused" by the Iranians "for decades" but that it is the US now looking for a "solution" - but Iran won't play ball, after apparently 'begging' for talks...



We're only 5 months in...

"I asked the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, 'What would you rather have us do?'" Trump said. "He said, 'We would prefer a deal rather than an attack.'" And more: "Allies think there is a deal," Trump explained. "There is a deal on Hormuz, and it will be a deal on the nuclear."

Iran says No Negotiations Happening

Iranian officials said there are currently no negotiations with the United States and that Tehran is not planning to send or host any delegations "these days."

However, Iran has confirmed that it is deep into negotiations over managing the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, and that it desires to get more ships moving through the vital transit waterway.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...lks-monday-afternoon

Let's hear your solution, chellim.

You have the floor.

I'm not Marco Rubio... I really don't know where we go from here. It's obvious that Trump wants out of this... but I have no idea how.

I see. You just want to bitch and to ridicule the man who is doing all that he can.

As I've recently suggested, let's get Kamala on the case. How about that? What with Donald Trump making such a mess of things and all. Kackles would make sure the Iranians don't get a nuke.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910

I've only been "in the arena" on a local level, but I do know how to stand my ground.

The last thing we want is for the Democrats to take the mid-terms and impeach Trump, yet again.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
The last thing we want is for the Democrats to take the mid-terms and impeach Trump, yet again.

The last thing we want is for the Iranians to obtain the bomb, and several times, I have touched upon the balancing act President Trump must deal with. You're talking about unproductive harassment of a lame duck POTUS which would fail to succeed, and I'm talking about global destabilization and ruinous effect on the US economy.

The plain truth of the matter, chellim, is that when you get right down to it, you've no "ground" to stand, because all you're doing is defending your criticism, whereas President Trump is dealing with psychopaths who have no honor and seem to not care for anyone's life, including their own.

Again I refer you to Theodore Roosevelt and his disdain for those who criticize (at no peril to themselves) men taking bold action.

^ above, spot on.

What to Know About Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain and Possible US Efforts to Attack It
President Donald Trump said, ‘We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily.’

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...to-attack-it-6065907

I am not sure how we can trust the deal, should it be reached, when the dealmaker himself says that we cannot trust the iranian leaders.

I hope we achieve regime destruction first, then a trustworthy deal.

https://www.breitbart.com/midd...tm_campaign=20260814

Economists Say Iran Faces ‘Severe Collapse’ of Economy Under Blockade

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the United States can maintain its blockade of Iran “indefinitely,” while economists said the Iranian economy is rapidly approaching the point of “severe collapse” under the pressure.

“Indefinitely the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have, and we’ll continue to,” Hegseth told reporters Thursday.

The U.S. Navy said on Thursday that the carrier USS George Washington is on its way to the Middle East from Vietnam and is currently in the Strait of Malacca between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the USS George Washington will replace USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been deployed for over 240 days. The Lincoln has reportedly suffered personnel, supply, and mechanical problems from its long deployment, although Hegseth dismissed those reports as “completely misrepresented” on Thursday.

“We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas in those austere conditions with less port calls — it’s incredible,” he said.

Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday that America “has total control over the Strait of Hormuz” and “I think we will keep it.”

“Our naval blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it,” he wrote. “They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their ‘Leadership’ is uncertain at best. They have No Money – their country is ‘shot.’”

“All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse!” he added.

Radio Free Europe (RFE) interviewed some Iranians on Thursday who said that even life in the capital of Tehran is becoming unbearable, with sky-high consumer prices and chronic shortages of goods.

“As things disappear from the dining table, fruit goes first, then dairy products, then anything considered non-essential. Ultimately, everything we buy is only essentials, but even then, nothing is affordable,” said a woman in Tehran who spoke anonymously, fearing reprisals from the regime.

“Planning for tomorrow no longer feels possible. Saving money is like trying to hold water in a sieve: its value keeps slipping away,” she said.

Another source in Tehran said the price of eggs and potatoes is skyrocketing week by week, and bread costs twice as much as it did a year ago.

“Don’t even get me started on fruit — it’s extremely expensive. We simply can’t afford it. We run out of money before the end of the month,” the second source said.

London-based economic analyst Masoumeh Taherkhani told RFE that Iran’s economy “was already in serious trouble” before the war – as demonstrated by the January uprising that Iran could only suppress by murdering thousands of its own people – and is now “heading toward a period of severe stagflation, and possibly even hyperinflation.”

“Within less than a year, the economy could be approaching a severe collapse, which could mark a major turning point,” he predicted.

Forbes analysts said on Friday that the U.S. economy was likely to remain fairly stable through most scenarios for the outcome of the conflict – even if Iran ends up controlling the Strait of Hormuz and extorting “fees” from international shipping.

This estimate was based, in part, on the enthusiastic efforts of other Middle Eastern oil-producing nations to develop other routes around the Strait of Hormuz – a process that would likely accelerate if Iran attempts to impose high tolls on traffic.

cont...

I do believe we should also be embargoing any and all land transit into the country as well. I can't believe we haven't been doing this and, if we are, I've never heard of it.

Any delays mean the Chinese and the Russians are demonstrably trying to aid the Iranians with weapons platforms. If they can't get them in by sea, they'll surely smuggle them in via Turkmenistan or Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.

I think we just say to those countries, any transport truck that crosses the Iranian border gets droned. Sorry if it's a farmer and his food, but, you were warned. Just task drones and satellites at major border crossings and blow the shit out of any truck that crosses.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...pK5Q%2Ftsxn7B6aYk%3D

Iran Offers $30,000 Bounty to Kill US Soldiers

Iranian Army Commander-in-Chief Major General Amir Hatami said the regime would pay double if a woman killed or captured a US soldier.

Iran announced on Aug. 16 that it will offer a bounty of $30,000 to any individual who “kills or captures a U.S. soldier and hands them over to authorities,” according to Iranian state media.

Iranian Army Commander-in-Chief Major General Amir Hatami revealed the bounty on Sunday at a ceremony that was allegedly held to honor journalists.

Hatami suggested he’d double the reward if an Iranian woman killed or captured a U.S. soldier.

The government suggested that it would even purchase the weapon used in the murder and display it in a museum.

In a separate announcement on Sunday, Iran’s armed forces insisted the regime would “continue resistance” against the United States and Israel until it accomplished their “complete defeat.”

The latest updates out of Iran come one day before the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran was set to expire. However, Trump previously said in early July that the ceasefire was “over” based on Tehran’s ongoing attacks.

That interim deal, revealed on June 17, had included a 60-day negotiation period as officials worked to end the Iran war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and restrain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
But in the weeks that followed, Iran attacked commercial vessels attempting to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, prompting U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces to hit 80 Iranian targets.

On Aug. 10, Trump added that he wanted the regime to agree to pay for damages in the region.

“With respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

He previously urged the regime to pay reparations to the families of people it killed while in power, including the estimated 52,000 protesters whom the regime is believed to have killed earlier this year.

Uncertainty in the region has continued to slow operations in the Strait of Hormuz—a crucial waterway that was used to transport one-fifth of the world’s tradable oil before the conflict broke out on Feb. 28.
Most recently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) accused the Iranian regime of attacking a series of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company vessels attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz between Aug. 8 and Aug. 15.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) underscored that this attack constitutes a flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolution 2817, which affirmed the importance of freedom of navigation, and rejected the targeting of commercial vessels or the obstruction of international maritime routes,” an Aug. 15 statement from the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reads.

https://www.breitbart.com/midd...tm_campaign=20260817

Report: Iranians Facing 400 Percent Food Price Increases as U.S. Blockade Crushes Economy

Iranian citizens are telling foreign media outlets that survival is growing difficult as the price of food and other basic commodities soars by 400 percent under pressure from the U.S. blockade, even as the regime in Tehran insists the food situation is under control.

“I’m in survival mode,” a 33-year-old cryptocurrency trader from western Iran using the alias “Nima” told The National on Monday.

Nima said his grocery bills have tripled from prices that were already painfully high before the conflict with the United States began and some items have quadrupled. He said this is forcing him to “choose between the essentials and everything else,” even though his crypto trading gave him better foreign currency reserves than most Iranians.

The annual rate of general inflation in Iran is now over 80 percent and unemployment reached a four-year high of 9.1 percent in June. Iran’s currency, the rial, is down to an astounding 1.88 million against the U.S. dollar, which is an especially severe problem for the many Iranians who prefer to do business using dollars instead of Iran’s nearly-worthless currency.

Unemployment rates soared after the uprising in January because the regime blacked out the Internet for about three months, dealing a crushing blow to many Iranian businesses.

“Every tomorrow has been worse than the day before. If you can’t save, can’t buy what you want and don’t have a predictable future, then what’s the point of working any more?” Nima said in despair.

Other Iranians who lacked Nima’s access to foreign currency were in even worse shape, as they can almost feel the regime scrip in their pockets losing its value with every passing day. Blue-collar Iranians told The National they had to work two or three jobs to make ends meet and there are not enough jobs to go around.

Perhaps understandably, given the horrifying bloodbath the regime unleashed against protesters in January, few Iranians harbored realistic hopes of improving their country. Most of them simply dreamed of leaving.

“This isn’t life, to worry every day if you can feed your family,” one of them said.

“You take one look at the condition of job postings you can find online or in person, and you will understand why some young people feel like it’s not even worth it going out for work. But the expenses don’t go away,” a 26-year-old Tehran resident named “Saeed” told Al Jazeera News on Sunday.

“A lot of employers don’t offer insurance and are asking for 12 hours of work per day, sometimes six days a week. They also come up with all sorts of excuses to deduct pay whenever they can, knowing you have limited options,” Saeed added. He said he holds a master’s degree in Persian literature, but is currently looking for menial labor just to put food on the table.

Iranian agriculture minister Gholamreza Nouri-Ghezeljeh insisted on Monday that Iran’s food security remains “intact” despite the U.S. blockade.

Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted Gholamreza telling a press conference that “85 percent of Iran’s food production is supplied domestically, while measures have been taken to secure the remaining imports.”

Gholamreza claimed enormous increases in agricultural output this year — 19 percent in poultry and eggs, 18 percent from greenhouses, and 62 percent in seedlings — that were difficult to square with the accounts of Iranian civilians, or with the painful drought Iran experienced last year. He also claimed Iran has received three million metric tons of imported food, despite the blockade.

Al Jazeera quoted some less confident remarks from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian last week, as the head of Iran’s secular government considers imposing fuel quotas and price hikes that could decimate what remains of the Iranian commercial sector.

“We could sell oil, and now we can’t. They have also struck and destroyed some of our factories, so we can’t levy taxes in the same way either. We must also pay them so they can stay up and running and the wheels of the economy can spin,” Pezeshkian said.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the London-based opposition group, said on Monday that “economic mismanagement, hyperinflation, and public outrage” are converging, forcing regime officials to make “unprecedented admissions of failure.”

Vice President Mohammad-Reaz Aref, for example, said on Sunday that inflation has become “painful,” and the government must prepare for “worst case-scenarios.” Other officials have warned that fuel production is running far behind consumption, and if the government tries to address the deficit with quotas or price hikes, the results could be catastrophic.

Executive Vice President Mohammad Ja’far warned on Sunday that much of Iran’s economy is slipping into a “shadow market,” and “we do not know whose pockets it goes into.” The chief of Iran’s Food and Drug Organization, Mehdi Pirsalehi, said on the same day that many essential medicines have doubled in price.

NCRI noted that the regime appears to be returning to its January playbook to tamp down public unrest by throttling Internet traffic, a measure that is once again disrupting business transactions and employment in the rickety Iranian economy. The regime’s latest brainstorm is a new security law that could punish “unauthorized contact, interviews, or transmission of footage to foreign media outlets” with lengthy prison sentences.

“These draconian measures reflect an establishment trapped in a terminal spiral, attempting to mask structural failure with state coercion,” NCRI said. “With basic food costs doubling, acute fuel deficits looming, medical supply lines collapsing, and localized protests continuing… the clerical leadership’s reliance on censorship and IRGC enforcement reveals profound vulnerability.”

^^^^^
Surely employers give employees time off to attend prayers several times a day.

Or maybe not…

quote:

Iranian Army Commander-in-Chief Major Iranian Army Commander-in-Chief Major General Amir Hatami revealed the bounty on Sunday at a ceremony that was allegedly held to honor journalists.

I hope a 2000 bomb lands on his head real soon...

^^^ Agreed. Whoever dares to talk smack against us needs to get got.

"Well, I ain't them. And don't you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tried to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back."

-Malcolm Reynolds
Captain, Serenity