@vtchakarova Warning us to do what? How exactly do you recommend we panic?
English
Denver Britto
3.6K posts
No, the real problem is that everybody will be panicking when’s too late.
I have been warning you for nine weeks now.
Qasem Al-Ali@AlaliQasem
The oil crisis is worse than anything in modern history. Nobody is panicking. That’s the problem. 🧵
English
@ryamano1 @glcarlstrom Good for them but they should've done it already. T
Hopefully this war should teach both GCC and Iran that another would be too painful
English
@DenverBritto @glcarlstrom They're very rich, they're going to invest in their defensive and offensive capabilities. In a world in which armies don't actually fight the number of drones, missiles and lasers (to defend against drones) is what matters, not number of soldiers. The GCC can defeat Iran that way
English
This is true: "What alarms Gulf Arab states most is that while Iranian missiles, drones and proxies have repeatedly attacked their region, negotiations are increasingly framed almost exclusively around Hormuz because of its global economic impact."
But also hard to see how you solve it in a deal. A cap on the range of Iranian missiles wouldn't help Gulf states that are ~200km away, and there's no universe in which Iran is going to negotiate away its drone arsenal (nor could such a provision be credibly verified and enforced).
I've asked people in several Gulf countries this month to describe a realistic US-Iran deal that addresses their concerns, and they all said there wasn't one reuters.com/business/energ…
English
@ghostsdontdie10 @ZaidJilani @NathanJRobinson Why would he say that when the first term wasn't disaster?
English
@ZaidJilani @NathanJRobinson Not saying he did, just that he talked a lot differently about Trump off the air. Imagine him on his Fox show describing Trump as someone with no upside whose first term was a disaster
English
not sure why anyone should listen to you ever again then!
Molly Ploofkins@Mollyploofkins
Tucker Carlson: “I’ll be tormented for a long time by the fact that I played a role in getting Donald Trump elected. And I want to say that I’m sorry for misleading people.”
English
@robertwrighter @AKDay89 Any addition to those two clowns is welcome. Who in this admin still thinks it's a good idea to keep sending them?
English
@AKDay89 I have yet to see evidence that Vance is a constructive force. But I'd welcome that.
English
Encouraging tweet until the last three words.
OSINTtechnical@Osinttechnical
Iranian negotiators have reportedly received the green light from the Supreme Leader to attend negotiations with the US in Pakistan -Axios Vance will depart DC for Islamabad late tonight or tomorrow, joined by Witkoff and Kushner.
English
@vtchakarova Square one was when both sides were bombing each other's infra, not quite there yet, inshallah.
English
@GrayConnolly "Possible" is the vaguest describer to use for a prediction (that doesn't even cost you since armchair analysts have no stake in this). Everything's possible if you commit enough force, but at what cost? A bolder prediction might suggest how much force is required, the risks, etc
English
There is a not small chance that the Iranian state is running off decentralised autopilot & the IRGC is running its own policy. None of that says do not re-start strikes but it does mean a regime collapse is possible.
GeoInsider@InsiderGeo
NEW: Trump convened an emergency Situation Room meeting this morning on Iran. Present: Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, Bessent, Wiles, Witkoff, Ratcliffe, Gen. Caine. That's nearly the entire national security cabinet on a Saturday. This level of mobilization doesn't happen for routine diplomacy. Washington sees the situation near the breaking point. Trump said in the Oval Office he'll "know by end of day" if there's a deal.
English
Plus China weakened considerably. And the U.S. is currently the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas. America First. Always.
🇺🇸 Ronald Carter@USronaldcarter
🚨 This was the most insane single day in American foreign policy in a generation and most people missed half of it.. > Iran agreed to suspend its entire nuclear program — indefinitely.. > Iran agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.. > zero dollars changed hands.. no frozen funds.. no pallets of cash.. > the US naval blockade on Iran stays up until the final deal is signed.. > Trump publicly ordered Israel to stop bombing Lebanon — used the word PROHIBITED in all caps.. > Netanyahu went on live TV and admitted he was acting on a US request.. > Defense Minister Katz got overruled within hours after saying Lebanon ops "have not yet been completed".. > a 10-day Israel-Lebanon ceasefire took effect overnight.. displaced Lebanese civilians started walking back to their villages.. > oil dropped 12% in minutes.. global equities surged.. > Iran's Foreign Minister declared the Strait of Hormuz "completely open" — first time since March 27.. all of this.. one Friday.. if you're not following me you're finding out about this 48 hours late from someone who read my post..
English
@squidsee @AliceFromQueens He's stupid on religion in general, which is sad as that's his main claim to fame (unlike Dawkins, Dennett & Hitchens who are/were a biologist, a philosopher and a literary critic respectively). x.com/i/status/15603…
David Decosimo@DavidDecosimo
“Where is heaven exactly, given that we have multiple telescopes up there beaming back information.” - Sam Harris
English
@AliceFromQueens Sam Harris has genuinely interesting things to say but when it comes to the issue of Islam, his IQ seems to drop by 50 points. Bizarre.
English
Sam Harris took a look at Bret Weinstein and thought: that guy has it going on; need to get me some of *that.*
Making Sense Podcast@MakingSenseHQ
Sam Harris on Zohran Mamdani: "He can seem like someone who just cares about people struggling in New York. But double-click on his political allegiances and you get a picture of someone captured by a sinister theocratic agenda."
English
I have been re-reading Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ for the first time in c. 30 years. The first time I hated him: good on male friendship; interesting on Manichaeism, but otherwise a conceited monster with no real care for anyone other than ‘mummy’. On re-reading, I hate him more.
English
@Indian_Bronson @StephenM I agree with your broader point, but not sure about comparing imperial vs modern Singapore. The latter's rise was not due to rejection of the former, but because they built on the Brit legacy. The opinion there is that other former colonies are poorer because they squandered it.
English
@StephenM Not really.
Here is Singapore - a third world place run by the Brits up to the 1960s - as it is today, then as now filled with Chinese, Indians, and Malays.
Here is Antopol, Belarus, the shtetl from which you hail, in the 1900s when your ancestors left, and Antopol today:
English
A useful way to think about migration is to consider what kind of societies the migrants have built in their home countries and to what extent you would like those conditions replicated here.
English
@GrainneogDoc Why take it so negatively? He might mean it as a compliment.
English
I have no idea what problem he could possibly have with Ireland
Yuan Yi Zhu@yuanyi_z
There were no Indians in Dublin Castle, but there were Irish governors in every Indian province at some stage.
English
@Scaramucci @RestPoliticsUS Not sure there's any design here...
English
As predicted in @RestPoliticsUS the attack on the Pope was designed to hurt Vance and it devastated him.
Financial Times@FT
Opinion: After a series of setbacks, the vice-president is no longer Trump’s obvious successor. ft.trib.al/mspS83l
English
@DouthatNYT Contemporary Popes were either fully opposed, or at best ambivalent to all of these, including the First Gulf War.
English
Also useful to think about wars USA has fought in the last century. How many were just? WWII + Korea certainly. Gulf War I. WWI was unjust overall but our entry was probably just. Vietnam became unjust but I don't think it was necessarily so. Afghanistan was just at the start.
English
An essay on the papal relationship to populism, the just-war debate over Iran, and Trump's relationship to God:
nytimes.com/2026/04/14/opi…
English
@GrayConnolly Pope JPII never "supported the mission". On 1st Jan 2002 he affirmed the right of countries to take action (no mention of Afghanistan) against terrorist groups but with deep and clear reservations. Those who want a church that doesn't favour peace will have to look elsewhere.
English
JP2 supported the original Afghanistan mission in 2001-2002 but not the Iraq war in 2003 … Catholicism has never been a pacifist religion & cannot be made one in retrospect
Ross Douthat@DouthatNYT
In sum I think Leo is correct to judge the Iran War harshly but his argument is weaker when it sounds generally pacifist rather than tailored to this case. The papal preference for generalities is itself understandable (he's not a FP analyst) but the concrete is important!
English
@AaronBastani Their biggest enemy has always been themselves (unrest/revolution/breakup)
English
This is true. And it’s because no empire has been blessed by geography as much as America.
Which also explains why they keep screwing up. They are insulated from most of the consequences by two enormous oceans.
Arash Azizi آرش عزیزی@arash_tehran
Btw America is not collapsing. It controls 25 percent of the world GDP and, at its worst case scenario, it will still be one of the top three major powers for at least another 100 years
English
@mushkeljee @foster_type That pact has really proven its worth and more given all the heavy diplomatoc lifting the Pakistanis have done to avoid having that pact activated.
English
@foster_type Yes and no. I don’t buy that anyone will stick to these especially after the Saudi/Pakistan pact proved worthless.
English
The replacement of US Global Hegemony with a series of overlapping bilateral defense pacts in the world's biggest powder kegs is great news for Return of History enjoyers.
Baba Banaras™@RealBababanaras
BREAKING : India & UAE are very close to a mutual defence pact. (Sources)
English
@GrayConnolly Whichever Pope was occupying the See at the time literally did denounce those events. Pope Leo is simply doing what JP2 and others did before him. time.com/archive/667189…
What are you even complaining about? This would be like complaining why JP2 didn't denounce the Vietnam war.
English
If you were a Pope & wanted to denounce bad US policies-the last 30 years of US forays into the former Yugoslavia or Middle East came at the expense of ancient Christian communities. A Qasim Soleimani did more to secure Christian lives than a David Petraeus (and/or his mistress)
English
As I read Orban talk about replacing Orban and Orban, working under Magyar who will appoint a replacement to Magyar, I'm starting to think that 99% of Hungarians are called Orban or Magyar.
x.com/_OrbanAnita/st…
Anita Orban@_OrbanAnita
Yesterday, Hungary has chosen a new direction. With 98% of the votes counted, we have secured 138 seats in the 199-member parliament, representing more than 3.1 million votes. We also expect to win two additional individual constituencies once ballots from voters casting their votes away from their place of residence are fully counted. The Hungarian people have granted the Tisza Party a constitutional majority with a clear mandate: to restore the rule of law and return Hungary to its rightful place in Europe, among democratic nations. To everyone who helped us achieve this victory: thank you. From this moment on, we will work to earn your trust every single day.
English