Nope, no WW3 today
I was wrong. I was too enthusiast in a reality-mimics-tv kind of way. The way that things were progressing the last week! Oh my! So fast! The blows!
But yep, I was wrong in my assumption that Trump would push the big red button.
As we’re now way past market close (noon in Iran), there likely won’t be any American strike this weekend - if they’re wanting to do this over a weekend as previously mentioned.
I don’t think the possibility is gone. I think it’s still highly probable.
The talks/tweets/chats/… I’m seeing looks to me like a club of losers trying to drum up courage (or in this case: justification) to gang up on some other weak target that they’re eyeing.
Things seem to have calmed down a bit. Seems the market was right in not moving much.
One interesting play I read is the reason for Trump’s 2 weeks delay: it’s to let Israel be punished severly enough by Iran to bring it to listen to America. And not vice versa where Israel dictates American policy.
Israel (and the US in extensis) can’t sustain this war. It’s economy depending on a few airports and ports. Its clean water depending on like 5 desalination plants. Mostly surrounded by enemies that would like to beat the bully when it’s down (although it surprises me I don’t see much activity surrounding Hezbollah?).
Iran on the contrary took a forceful initial beating, and keeps getting pounded, but it’s a much bigger country where the risks are much wider spread.
My view shifts now more towards a protacted war where the US supplies Israel and supports it financially (long gold to offset the deficits!), but always fails to commit to join the war on behalf of Israel (TACO anyone)?
However, from what I see Trump is that he really really doesn’t like to be called TACO. So he might be looking for some face-saving measure without inviting Irans wrath. I believe it was Simplicius that mentioned that possibility: an agreement between Iran & the US that allows the US to attack some inconsequential target in order to declare “victory” and then business as usual.
That might be a good off-ramp. But I don’t assign it a high probability for now.
More likely still in my opinion is that the US enters the war directly under some “nuclear bomb” pretense. Or they are ‘invited’ to join by some kind of provocation (false flag anyone?).
Time will tell.