March, 13: Schrödinger's war
Two states at once. Just don't watch.
What came before:
A KC-135 Stratotanker went down over western Iraq last night. Crew of six. CENTCOM’s statement: the incident occurred “in friendly airspace” and was “not the result of hostile or friendly fire”.
Friendly airspace. Over a country where Iraqi Resistance groups have been launching drones and missiles at US positions for the past two weeks.
Iraq is friendly. The drones are friendly. The missiles are friendly. Everyone's having a great time. Not hostile at all.
The Iraqi Resistance claimed the shootdown within hours. A 358 surface-to-air missile, if their description is accurate - the same system that’s been picking off Reapers since day one.
A second KC-135 declared emergency, squawked 7700, and limped into Ben Gurion with a chunk of its tail missing. Photos confirm the damage. The Pentagon says both incidents are “not combat-related”.
Not combat-related. During combat. In a war zone. While being shot at.
The downed plane brings the acknowledged US death toll to at least 14. I say “at least” because Landstuhl is still running medevac flights - CBS reported another one from Saudi Arabia carrying 19 wounded, including two hit by a drone that exploded next to their vehicle.
“Not combat-related” is doing a lot of heavy lifting this week. The Ford caught fire in its laundry. Not combat-related. The KC-135s collided or malfunctioned or whatever the story is by tonight. Not combat-related. The medevac flights. The blood drives. Dover hiring body handlers. All, presumably, not combat-related.
At this rate, the war itself will be classified as not combat-related.
Everything exists in two states at once until someone observes it.
And observation is banned.
The war is won AND ongoing. Trump told G7 leaders on a virtual call that Iran is “on the verge of capitulation” and “about to surrender”. Wave 44 launched the same afternoon.
The Strait of Hormuz is open AND closed - depends entirely on whose flag you fly.
Mojtaba Khamenei is wounded, disfigured, and on the run according to Hegseth, AND his entire senior leadership is marching through Tehran under active bombing.
Because that’s what happened on Friday. Quds Day. Millions in the streets of every major Iranian city. Pezeshkian walking among the crowds, getting kissed, taking selfies. Araghchi mobbed by supporters. Larijani marching through Tehran chanting.
Iran’s Judiciary Chief gave a media interview as a strike landed nearby - he clenched his fist harder and kept talking.
A woman was killed by a missile fragment near the march. The cameras kept rolling. The crowd unfurled the flag she’d been carrying and chanted louder.
Hegseth, the same afternoon: “We know the new so-called not-so-supreme leader is wounded. He put out a written statement, but there was no voice, no video. He’s on the run and lacks legitimacy”.
The country that bombed a café providing income for children with autism and Down syndrome is lecturing about legitimacy.
CafeDowntism. That was the name. Reduced to rubble.
Araghchi rejected Witkoff’s request to negotiate on Trump’s behalf. Flat refusal. The US envoy then called Egypt’s Foreign Minister and asked Cairo to mediate instead.
The country that attacked during negotiations, twice, is now asking a third party to help it negotiate again.
Tehran’s position hasn’t moved an inch: reparations, base closures, guarantees against future aggression. The Parliament Speaker already laid it out before - no more cycles (day 11). They mean it.
Trump’s framing at the G7 tells a different story entirely. “About to surrender.” “Already won.” Same man, same day, told Fox News that tanker crews should “go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts”.
Show some guts. To civilian merchant sailors. In a waterway where 18 vessels have been struck. Where the US Navy itself has refused escort requests because the risk of Iranian attack is “too high”.
The most powerful navy in human history can’t safely escort a tanker through a 33-kilometre waterway, but the tanker crews should show some guts.
The coalition read the room.
Italy is pulling its troops out of Iraq.
France has its first dead soldier - Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion, killed by a drone strike on a French-Peshmerga base near Erbil. Six more French soldiers wounded. Macron confirmed it on camera, called it “unacceptable”. The Iraqi Resistance had already declared all French interests in Iraq and the region legitimate targets, citing the Charles de Gaulle carrier’s involvement.
One dead Frenchman changes the calculus in Paris overnight. Because now Macron has to either escalate or withdraw. He chose door number three: negotiate separately.
France and Italy are now in direct talks with Iran for safe passage through Hormuz. According to the FT, one option that’s under discussion is the complete evacuation of all French and Italian military personnel from the region. NATO allies, negotiating independently with the enemy, bypassing Washington. The coalition isn’t cracking. It’s filing for divorce.
Meanwhile, CENTCOM is evacuating troops from Al Udeid - its own headquarters in Qatar - to “other facilities and hotels in the region”. Hotels. The command centre of Operation Entirely Fucked is relocating to the nearest Marriott.
Not combat-related, I’m sure. Complimentary breakfast.
Hegseth has approved CENTCOM’s request for an amphibious ready group. USS Tripoli. 5,000 Marines. Several warships.
The allies are leaving. The Marines are arriving. The war that was supposed to last four days just ordered boots on the ground.
The NY Post put a number on what Hezbollah’s Operation Severe Storm actually achieved: roughly half of the rockets got through. The Iron Sieve got totally overwhelmed.
The IDF responded by destroying the bridge over the Litani River and Netanyahu threatened the new Supreme Leader’s life on camera: “If I were an insurance agent, I wouldn’t issue life policies to Mojtaba Khamenei”.
Insurance agents. In the middle of a war that’s made the entire Gulf uninsurable.
Hours later, the Prime Minister’s Office posted a statement that belongs in a novel: “Rumors circulating on social media about PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s status are UNCONFIRMED. Efforts are underway to establish contact.”
Establish contact. With your own Prime Minister.
Schrödinger’s Prime Minister. Schrödinger’s Supreme Leader. Boxes that don’t want to be opened.
Meanwhile, footage emerged of the first LUCAS drone in combat - the American Shahed clone. LUCAS: “Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System”. The US spent years sanctioning Iran’s drone pipeline, demonising the Shahed programme, calling it a threat to civilisation. Then built one. And deployed it in Iraq against the same insurgents whose drones are hitting US bases. The circle of life, but with explosions.
Michigan. A 41-year-old Lebanese-American named Ayman Mohamad Ghazali drove a truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, opened fire. Security shot him dead. No other casualties. Hours before, he’d shared photos of family members killed in Israeli strikes - including his children and his brothers.
This is what happens when a war 10,000 kilometres away becomes personal in a synagogue parking lot. The FBI had already distributed a bulletin warning about Iranian drone attacks on the US West Coast. The administration denied it. Fort Campbell still hasn’t accounted for four missing military drones.
The domestic dimension that No1 talked about just arrived (link).
Bessent was pulled from a live interview to meet Trump. When he came back, he was present in the way people are present after a shock - technically functional, visibly elsewhere. The words were there. Just not quite right. The voice of a man who'd just been handed a figure and told to go back on camera like it didn't exist.
Russia got a phone call this week. Or made one. Or both. Putin’s special envoy Dmitriev told cameras: “this is just the beginning of the largest energy crisis ever”. The US Treasury, the same day, granted a 30-day licence allowing countries to buy and receive stranded Russian crude oil.
Read that slowly.
The US spent three years bullying Europe into sanctioning Russian oil. Germany deindustrialised. Energy bills doubled. Entire sectors relocated. And now, because Hormuz is closed and Brent settled above $100 for the first time since August 2022, Washington flipped the switch. Russian oil back on the menu. Thirty days. Because America can’t have high oil prices while prosecuting a war that caused the high oil prices.
The script writes itself. US to Europe: sanction Russia, it’s a moral imperative. Europe: done, at enormous cost. US to Europe: actually never mind, we need the barrels. Europe: ...
Schrödinger’s sanctions. Russian oil is both evil and necessary, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re standing on.
The energy map is catching fire faster than the tankers.
Iraq shut all oil port operations after two tankers were hit at a loading terminal carrying SOMO crude.
Oman evacuated ships from Mina Al Fahal, its main oil export terminal.
Saudi Arabia cut production by 2 million barrels a day - down to roughly 8 million - because when you can’t export, storage fills up. Or because they’re sending a message. Or both.
Goldman extended its Hormuz closure estimate to 21 days. The Pentagon says reducing the Iran threat in Hormuz “could take a month or more”. Half of all available LNG tankers globally are trapped inside the Persian Gulf.
Brent above $100. And the administration’s response? The Jones Act got suspended to allow foreign-flagged vessels between US ports. An analyst noted what that really means: “if they’re suspending the Jones Act, export restrictions are next”.
The SPR is being drained by 172 million barrels, dropping reserves 41% to the lowest since the 1980s.
The CME Group CEO warned the administration directly that intervening in oil derivatives markets would cause a “biblical disaster”. Although with Paula White dispatching angels from the White House, who knows - maybe he meant it literally.
And Iran? Still exporting. Up to 2.5 million barrels a day now, exclusively to China. The country being “destroyed” is selling more oil than before the war started.
Schrödinger’s victory. Just don’t watch.
And then there’s Dubai. The DIFC - the Dubai International Financial Centre - was hit by a drone on Friday morning. Smoke billowing from skyscrapers in the financial district.
Jumeirah Beach too. Dubai Media Office: “debris from a successful interception caused a minor incident on the façade of a building”.
A minor incident on the façade. In the financial district. Of the country that adopted Israel’s censorship playbook.
This follows the targeting doctrine I covered on day 12 (link). US and Israeli-linked financial infrastructure declared legitimate targets. The named companies. The one-kilometre evacuation zone. Now the strikes have arrived at exactly the addresses they warned about.
Dubai real estate has erased a full year of gains in under two weeks. The “safe money” narrative for Gulf property died the same way the “safe haven” narrative for Gulf commerce died the same way the “US security umbrella” narrative died: one drone at a time.
The private credit gating cascade I covered in my economic deep-dive accelerated this week (link). Morgan Stanley became the latest to cap redemptions. Deutsche Bank flagged $30 billion in exposure. JPMorgan started marking down loan portfolios.
But it’s the commentary that’s changed. Gundlach called private credit funds of funds “CDO-squared in early 2007”. BofA’s Hartnett warned markets are “starting to look like 2008”. Regional banks down 11% since the gating started. Junk bond outflows the largest since April.
No1 was comparing this to 2008 last week. Now two of the most-watched voices in credit markets are doing it in the same breath.
The Fed meets Tuesday. US Q4 GDP was revised down to 0.7%. Core PCE at 3.1%. Money market funds hit a record $7.818 trillion - the biggest flight to cash in history. Goldman’s head of one-delta trading: “no visible off-ramps”.
For the war and the markets both, it seems.
Silver in Shanghai closed at $92.84. COMEX spot: $80.54. The premium persists. Gold touched $5,128 - falling not because the crisis eased, but because traders needed cash. The same margin-call mechanics as every other day this war has run. Sell what’s liquid. The physical drain doesn’t care.
Schrödinger’s war. Won and ongoing. Over and escalating. Hormuz open and closed. Allies leaving, Marines arriving. Not combat-related operations with 14 dead. Leaders dead and alive.
:facepalm:
Still devolving...
Outstanding work. This is my fav update to read every day on the war. Keep up the great work!
Smarter psychopaths would have realized by now that the juvenile hyperbole and bluster is counterproductive.
And whatever happened to the propaganda art of bending the truth? It is astonishing how blatantly obvious the US lies are.