Marcus Thomas 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🌹

Trump on Iran: "I may have a plan or I may not"

Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi's reaction as Trump says "Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Habour?" Undoubtedly the worst American diplomatic gaffe in post-war US-Japan history.

Starmtroopers are trying to spin British dither and delay as a strategic masterstroke. Think about it for a second and you’ll see how nonsensical that is: 1. Trump was going to bomb the Ayatollah whether we let him use our bases or not. 2. We were going to see our assets attacked even if we forbade the Americans use of our bases. (We know that because that’s what happened.) 3. Letting the Americans take off from Diego Garcia would have been a zero cost choice relative to what we are seeing now. And it would have delivered significant benefits, keeping us in the room and in a position of influence. 4. Ensuring we had naval assets in the region as we had continuously from 1980-2025 would have put us in a better position, rather than playing catch up this week - and handing Macron the status of Protector of Cyprus. So what has our position achieved? 1. We did not stop the war, no matter how desirable that would have been. 2. We failed to convince the Islamic Republic that we were not involved, as they ordered their proxies to hit us anyway. 3. We pissed off the Americans by quadrupling their bombing raid flight time. 4. We are getting less of a hearing from the White House and DoW. 5. We left our people and assets exposed and undefended by our own navy.

With every passing day, the decision of Starmer and his cabinet a) not to join the Iranian war b) to delay access to bases looks wiser and wiser. Trump’s press conference last night shows he has no real idea what the objectives are and its duration is arbitrary. And if it does endure the economic consequences may prove ruinous, something he would have had to own if he had backed the effort.