Papa Geoff

🇦🇪🇺🇸🇮🇷 The Persian Gulf is on fire right now. In the last few hours alone: - US struck Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, and Minab - Iran fired back at US vessels off the UAE coast - Fujairah was hit 48 hours ago and Iran is still denying it - A US strike on an Iranian tanker in the Strait of Hormuz triggered missile fire at three American destroyers Then there's the subplot nobody is talking about enough. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait both pulled US airbase access as the fighting escalated. Six hours later, they quietly restored it. Gulf states don't want to be in this war. But they can't afford to be on the wrong side of it. That six-hour reversal shows exactly how exposed they feel. The Strait of Hormuz moves roughly 20% of global oil supply. Ships are now shooting at each other in those same waters. Source: NBC News

Getting a haircut tomorrow

🇺🇸 Asked about 10 missing scientists with access to classified material: Trump: I hope it’s random. We’re going to know in the next week and a half. Q: It is possible a foreign adversary is here scooping people up. Trump: Well, Biden had open borders.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Washington spent 6 weeks hitting Iran… then showed up in Islamabad asking for surrender and walked away with nothing. Look at the scale. 900+ strikes, leadership hit, navy wrecked, air defenses gone, 2000+ dead… and Iran still sat there for 21 hours and said no. Trump had already set the tone. “No deal except unconditional surrender.” And once that’s the demand, the outcome becomes predictable. Because no country agrees to that after taking hits like that, and no government survives looking like it surrendered. Now add the reality. 21 hours of talks vs decades of mistrust… that gap was never closing in one room. The 2015 deal took years, and that was without a war. This time it was everything at once, nukes, Hormuz, frozen money, reparations, ceasefire… all pushed in a single round. Iran says they were close, then came maximal demands and shifting terms, while Pakistan expected days of talks and got a one-session collapse. So here’s where it lands. After 6 weeks of strikes, Iran’s position didn’t move. Because you can destroy assets, but that doesn’t mean you get the outcome you want, and they’ve seen Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan… and how those stories end. So more pressure won’t suddenly change this. It only moves step by step, small confidence-building measures first, limited sanctions relief, partial access to funds, temporary nuclear limits, gradual reopening of trade and routes… each side giving a little without looking like it gave in. Not a clean win, just something both sides can live with. Because surrender was never realistic. And right now, that’s the gap no one has been able to close. Source: Sources: TIME, Al Jazeera, NPR, CNN, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Wikipedia, Middle East Policy Council

steepling my fingers while looking at this