Cenk

Great recovery plan inspired by the Bitfinex model. Awesome move by @tether to capitalize on @circle’s inability to freeze funds on time.

>IRGC affiliated Fars News denies talks (direct or indirect) with Trump. >Israel launched fresh strikes after Trump announcement >No confirmation from Qatar or Turkiye's FM offices about their efforts in mediation Be cautious with the TACO trade. Stay safe.

Some valid points from @ghoshworld, but his FP piece still falls into the same trap common in Washington foreign policy commentary. While arguing that Türkiye should not be treated as the “new Iran,” the article still frames Ankara’s strategic autonomy through a U.S.-centric lens, repeatedly describing Türkiye as a “headache” or a “difficult ally.” The toxic implication is that the natural baseline for regional strategy is alignment with U.S. and Israeli preferences, and that any deviation from that line constitutes a nuisance. This framing fails a basic reality check. Regional actors such as Türkiye have deeper geographic and economic exposure, stronger historical ties, and far greater security stakes in Middle Eastern conflicts than external powers. When Ankara diverges from Washington, whether on Iraq in 2003, the empowerment of Kurdish elements in Syria, or the risks of reckless Balkanisation attempts in neighboring states, it is responding to immediate regional consequences rather than engaging in ideological obstructionism. Ironically, while Bobby warns against threat inflation and self-fulfilling narratives, both very real risks, he still subtly reproduces the same Washington–Israel-centric hierarchy of strategic authority and ultimately concludes that “the goal should be to manage and constrain Turkish ambitions.” That conclusion reinforces the same arrogant strategic mindset. Yet it is the U.S. and Israel that have quantitatively introduced far greater systemic instability and uncertainty into the region. Which raises a simple question. Whose ambitions actually need managing?

The assumption that a nuclear strike would shock an adversary into capitulation is misguided at best. Japan was already military defeated, faced imminent invasion & Soviets entered the war. If US dropped anything upto the ~15 kt range, Iranian regime would escalate the war even further.

@CharleeDaCat @pashadelics Once a nuke is dropped, 'tactical' or otherwise, all bets are off, everywhere, forever.

Short of tactical nukes, Iran won’t break, and Iran has no incentive to do anything but close the Hormuz and continue bombing the Gulf and Israel until Trump’s presidency is destroyed — perhaps the only form of credible deterrence Iran has without its own nukes. There is no TACO.

If you are feeling anxious about the Iran War & the impending global economic crisis, check out @elonmusk's profile, dude is putting on a Kaufmanesque performance where 28th Feb never happened. Faith in parallel universes restored.

Interesting data on cross-episode 12m total return asset performance across all six oil shock episodes. Energy stocks perform best in the first 3-6 months & Airlines reliable shorts at 1-6 months. Gold's performance comes when the inflation narrative becomes more entrenched. 5/6 wins.

5/ Bottom line: Trump administration went into this w/o a catalysing event and at 56% disapproval. The cringe memes & pop-culture infused @WhiteHouse @DeptofWar war propaganda won't magically manufacture US will to fight.

4/ The caveat that matters. A direct strike on the US soil can temporarily override this - as 9/11 showed. But post-Iraq data shows those spikes decay fast (73% support > 32% within two years)

Two structural reasons why American public support for a sustained US-Iran war would be weak and short-lived: 🧵

@JSchanzer Go touch grass & think about what you did wrong in life to become a single issue netizen.

Can anyone else hear the ominous music playing?

The irony that is lost on this junior pen-for-hire @ByBradleyMartin is both Israel and Iran are revisionist middle powers that aim to disrupt the regional status quo with unilateral security doctrines, ideological state identities, intelligence and proxy-centric domination tactics. Turkiye on the other hand is a status quo middle power that pushes for regional stability both as a founding principle & due to its service-based economy & energy-dependent profile. Turks often joke that being energy-poor is actually a gift as it makes corruption & political toxicity transient (time will tell).

The comparison is patently false and utterly misleading. While Turkey -currently-opposes Israel’s policies, its stance is fundamentally different from Iran’s. Unlike Iran, Turkey neither wants to destroy Israel nor views it as an illegitimate state.

Best option to force Trump to actualise a face-saving Iran off-ramp is to push S&P below 200 SMA & let CTA/TTA strats & then retail to do the rest. Liquidate your Trump & WLFI tokens for double whammy.

@arthur0x Asia’s energy self-sufficiency rates obviously is the key divergence. Can potential rhyme EU post Ukraine invasion. Self-sufficiency rates & oil reserves in consumption days: Japan - 13% - 256 days Korea - 19% - 205 days India - 55% - 70 days

Market is quite complacent when Strait of Hormuz and most of middle east airports been closed for 5 days straight no? Asia market reacted strongly to the downside today but feel like US market is fairly calm dealing with it. Also great to see BTC trading uncorrelated to this event and it seems to trade on its own path now.

@EvgenyGaevoy Nic is the perfect embodiment of the French phrase ‘plus royaliste que le roi’ - more royalist than the king. His desperate desire to fit in actually traps him in an uncanny valley in which he repulses both neocons & liberals.

give it another 6 months and Ryan and Nic will be best buddies

Looking forward to the singularity where machines serve as a backstop for global stability by executing aggressor leaders that push VIX above 30.

@robin_j_brooks @BrookingsInst urgently need to educate their fellows on tokenised gold (XAUT, PAXG) & gold perpetual futures trade 24/7 on decentralised exchanges. Calling it a prediction lol.

One of my core predictions for tonight's market open was that gold prices would jump higher, because geopolitical uncertainty has been one of the main drivers of the debasement trade. That's playing out tonight. Gold is moving higher as markets open... robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/investment-t…

Great take - would also add: iv) leaders from both countries often rely on a constant sense of external threat to mobilize public support or maintain status quo; Bennett is positioning for a post-Netanyahu universe & using the same playbook. v) Turks are rage baited quite easily and jump at any opportunity to express nationalist sentiment & generate free virality for anyone that wants to optimise awareness & clicks.

the main use case of X for a large part of the world is manufacturing geopolitical propaganda to drive division for clicks particularly designed to be consumed by people who are not actually from this part of the world i) this was a single guy, a former minister; not in any official capacity. and he is very clearly positioning politically to start a populist rhetoric in his own country to win a future election ii) he didn't say Turkiye was a target, he said Turkiye could become a concern and must be taken seriously (which is obviously true, if you try to screw them over, since the Turks are actually competent). all nations are concerned with who they share borders with by necessity. iii) Turkiye is part of NATO. Namely, the 2nd largest military in the entire alliance after the USA. NATO also includes basically all of Europe and America. There is a less than 0% chance that Israel (or really any developed nation) would even dare attack this is all just bait