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Category: War

Treason: People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets

Treason: People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets

Paul Krugman writes: Over the weekend Donald Trump threatened dire vengeance on Iran unless its government opened the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, a deadline that would expire Monday evening in Washington. Specifically, he announced that the U.S. would begin bombing power plants — plants that supply electricity to Iran’s civilian population — unless the Strait was cleared. But at 7:05 AM Monday Trump called the whole thing off — for five days, he said, but many people are…

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Trader made nearly $1 million on Polymarket with remarkably accurate Iran bets

Trader made nearly $1 million on Polymarket with remarkably accurate Iran bets

CNN reports: A trader made nearly $1 million since 2024 from dozens of well-timed Polymarket bets that correctly predicted US and Israeli military actions against Iran, according to an analysis shared with CNN. The bettor won a staggering 93% of their five-figure wagers about Iran, even though the events they predicted were unannounced military operations. The trader had a pattern of prescient bets, including hours before Israeli strikes in October 2024 during its tit-for-tat conflict with Iran, hours before US…

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TACO: Has Trump chickened out again?

TACO: Has Trump chickened out again?

  Is Donald Trump backing down from a potential strike on Iran – or is this a strategic pivot? In this episode of the Fourcast, we unpack the latest twists in US-Iran tensions as Trump insists talks are “good and productive,” despite Tehran claiming a firm warning forced a retreat. With the Strait of Hormuz at the centre of the crisis and global markets reacting fast, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Meanwhile, Israel says its campaign is far from over,…

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Pete Hegseth is promoting a nihilist cult of death

Pete Hegseth is promoting a nihilist cult of death

Jan-Werner Müller writes: It appears that members of Trump’s cabinet get chosen not despite their endorsements of violence, but because of them. Pete Hegseth was primarily known as a dapper TV host willing to defend war crimes. Markwayne Mullin is apparently still proud of challenging a witness to a fistfight at a Senate hearing; he also refuses to apologize for “understanding” an assault on fellow senator Rand Paul. Never before has an administration so openly glorified outright killing as the…

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For Western oil companies, war in Iran means bigger profits, and risks

For Western oil companies, war in Iran means bigger profits, and risks

The New York Times reports: Western companies that pump and process oil and natural gas are among the biggest beneficiaries of the war with Iran, which has snarled production and shipping of fuels in the Persian Gulf. But even as many of them reap the rewards of much more expensive energy, executives are worried that what comes next could be bad for business. Should the war end — a possibility made real when President Trump said on Monday that the…

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Targeting of energy facilities turned Iran war into worst‑case scenario for Gulf states

Targeting of energy facilities turned Iran war into worst‑case scenario for Gulf states

A view of the liquefied natural gas production at the Ras Laffan facility in Qatar. Stringer/picture alliance via Getty Images By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University The U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran took a dangerous turn on March 18, 2026, with tit-for-tat strikes on critical energy infrastructure that amount to the most serious regional escalation since the conflict began. First, an Israeli drone strike targeted facilities at Iran’s Asaluyeh complex, damaging four plants that treat gas from the offshore South…

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U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is a disaster for the environment, analysis shows

U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is a disaster for the environment, analysis shows

The Guardian reports: The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate, according to an analysis that finds it is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined. As warplanes, drones and missiles kill thousands of people, level infrastructure and turn the Middle East into a gigantic environmental sacrifice zone, the first analysis of the climate cost has found the conflict led to 5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in its first 14 days. The analysis,…

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Trump is already eyeing regime change in Cuba

Trump is already eyeing regime change in Cuba

Vivian Salama and Sarah Fitzpatrick write: A Russian oil tanker is creeping west across the Atlantic, quite possibly toward a confrontation with the United States Navy. The Anatoly Kolodkin is carrying tens of thousands of tons of crude oil apparently meant for Cuba, which is battling a fuel shortage. But it may not reach its destination: The U.S. Navy is policing the Caribbean to choke off Havana’s oil supply. The Trump administration is squeezing Cuba to a breaking point—and is…

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I predicted the 2008 financial crisis. What is coming may be worse

I predicted the 2008 financial crisis. What is coming may be worse

Richard Bookstaber writes: At the start of the 2008 financial crisis, I was at a hedge fund. By its end, I was at the U.S. Treasury. At both, I worked with people only a few years out of college. The drama of 2008 was all they knew about financial markets. “Remember what’s happening,” I told them. “You’ll never see anything like this again.” Now I’m not so sure. Maybe they’ll see worse. We have returned to a period of risk,…

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Iran’s willingness and ability to escalate this high-stakes war is its greatest weapon

Iran’s willingness and ability to escalate this high-stakes war is its greatest weapon

Patrick Wintour writes: Brinkmanship, the ability to take a country to the edge of war without plunging it into the abyss, was the cornerstone of cold war diplomacy. But in our different, more unstable times – in which the line between state and non-state actors has blurred, and weapons of war have diffused – the world this week finally tipped over the edge, and suddenly it is in freefall. The first six days of the Iran war cost the US…

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‘Punish Iran’: Saudi Arabia and UAE inch closer to supporting U.S.-Israeli war

‘Punish Iran’: Saudi Arabia and UAE inch closer to supporting U.S.-Israeli war

Middle East Eye reports: Earlier this month, Elbridge Colby, a senior official in the US Department of War, held a call with Saudi Arabian Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, who is also the brother and top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran’s attacks on US bases in the Gulf were heating up, and the US needed expanded access and overflight permissions. Saudi Arabia agreed to open King Fahd Air Base in Taif, in Western Saudi Arabia, to the…

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Trump reportedly sending Marines to attack Kharg Island – will it really happen?

Trump reportedly sending Marines to attack Kharg Island – will it really happen?

  Are US boots on the ground inevitable in a war with Iran? With reports that over 2,000 Marines are being deployed, questions are growing over Washington’s strategy and whether Donald Trump has a clear plan. Could the US attempt something as bold as seizing Kharg Island, Iran’s critical oil hub? On this episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Nate Swanson, former National Security Council Iran desk official, and investigative journalist Ronen Bergman to unpack the latest…

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Trump’s desire to ‘take’ Kharg Island dates back to 1988

Trump’s desire to ‘take’ Kharg Island dates back to 1988

In 1988, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee interviewed Donald Trump, about whom she wrote, “[His g]litz, greed, glamour and an ambition so colossal that it will probably not rest until he rules the world – which one day he just might.” So what do you do when you’re only 41 and you have made more money than you could ever spend? He is lionised in a city of lions. People try to touch him in the street, as if some of…

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Political ideology shapes views on acceptable civilian casualties in war

Political ideology shapes views on acceptable civilian casualties in war

PsyPost reports: Across different types of military conflicts, people who hold conservative political views are more willing to accept unintended civilian deaths than people with liberal views. This ideological divide remains consistent whether the war features real adversaries, strategic partners, or entirely fictional nations. The findings were recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Public opinion plays a major role in how governments wage war and handle international conflicts. Tolerance for civilian casualties can influence diplomacy, military strategy,…

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Iran war puts global energy markets on the brink of a worst-case scenario

Iran war puts global energy markets on the brink of a worst-case scenario

Wired reports: On Thursday, Israel launched a series of strikes on various oil and gas facilities in the region, most notably the South Pars gas field, the world’s biggest natural gas field, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Qatar. Iran retaliated with counterstrikes, including on the world’s largest oil export facility in Qatar. Oil prices temporarily shot up to nearly $120 a barrel. These strikes appear to have damaged infrastructure that’s crucial to the world’s fossil fuel supply. Qatar…

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Putin offers to stop sharing intel with Iran if U.S. cuts off Ukraine

Putin offers to stop sharing intel with Iran if U.S. cuts off Ukraine

Politico reports: Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to the U.S. under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence information with Iran, such as the precise coordinates of U.S. military assets in the Middle East, if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intel about Russia. Two people familiar with the U.S.-Russia negotiations said that such a proposal was made by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Trump administration envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during their meeting last week in Miami. The…

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