For reference, I paid 165.5p per litre last week in London for 98 octane petrol (our octane numbers don’t match US ones). That’s $6.26 per gallon.
War with...Iran?
- Thread starter Technarch
- Start date
I think it's just Trump's usual attempt at brinkmanship and a signal that he isn't* going to back down until he gets what he wants. Just like Greenland!
*Then again, TACO. Just like Greenland.
This really needs to be emphasized. Throw it in their faces at every opportunity. Maybe make it such a millstone around Leavitt's neck that Trump chucks her out with Noem. Lay it out in every interview and every mention of the news.
"Trump said he would not accept anything short of unconditional surrender, but his Press Secretary says otherwise!"
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/07/nx-s1-5739242/iran-war-oil-trump-israel-spain-economy-one-week
Lays out some of the spreading consequences and problems posed not just by regional countries that might directly suffer from bombardment, but also for diplomacy and Western allies as well as countries as far off as Sri Lanka and China. Then of course there's the global fossil fuels situation.
I would say to be a "world war" you'd need armed participants from all those places to be shooting at each other, but this is definitely not a nothingberder in terms of global consequences.
For those without a subscription, NPR is running a similar piece noting the contradictory reasons given: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/07/nx-s1-5734381/white-house-messaging-iran-us-israel-war
It's forgotten how, in the 90s, the Kurds in Northern Iraq carved out more and more of the region from Saddam, with the help of a US no-fly zone. Which is why I thought Bush Jr's 2003 war was stupid. It would have taken years, but it would have been far better for a local insurgency to topple Saddam. Instead some antsy neocons screwed it up.
Could the Kurds carve out something in Iran? I don't know. And the unknown is Turkey, who has had a visceral hatred for them running centuries.
It appears that unconditional surrender could be viewed as the covfefe of the Trump 2.0 Administration.
Forget Orwellian overtones—the Administration is dumbing down their communications into an indecipherable mess that fewer will take seriously.
75p of that is tax. (UK fuel duty + VAT), so 45% of that is tax. That's the main difference between UK and US fuel prices. The effect on consumers is mixed because Americans use more fuel for transport. I think UK might use more fuel for heating.
Un-fun fact: the term World War II was coined by TIME Magazine as a way to describe it as a sequel to what was previously called the Great War. That 194 conflict got retconned into being World War I as a result. FDR liked this term and adopted it for much the same reason.
Corollary: It is World War III when the media says it is. These days, that means it is when Rupert Murdoch or Larry/David Ellison says it is.
Intel report from multiple US intelligence agencies says Iran can't be toppled by large-scale war. Report came out right before the war started. Of course Trump just bought what Netanyahu was selling.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-report-says-war-unlikely-174210631.html
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-report-says-war-unlikely-174210631.html
I doubt that he did not invade Greenland had anything to do with him not being egged on., just that he was distracted by a new shiny object. Like seeing himself in a mirror.
True about the tax, but that doesn’t change that we pay it and we feel the cost. Out main car is an EV, but my fun car has a 6 little V12, so when we take a long trip in it the cost of fuel is now more noticeable than ever!
Rural Brits often use fuel oil for heating, because they are not connected to the gas grid.
He suffers from the "ooh piece of candy" syndrome.
I suspect Greenland could easily jump into the picture in the hour if it crosses his mind. For all we know he's forgotten about it.
About the only thing that I can see him for staying any sort of course would be him holding a grudge.
But T.A.C.O. otherwise.
It might not let him T.A.C.O. The Middle East is a quagmire for a reason. Trump could stop bombing right now and the Strait would still be closed, and the inevitable increase in terrorist attacks would still happen.
This is going to be fun though, gas prices for 95 octane (euro, so 91 octane US premium) is already at $9.85 today as i passed pumps on the road. With $150 pr barrel, we are going to see $13 or even $14 pr gallon this year. Fun, and i am not talking just about dinojuice, but foods and other things are equally also going to skyrocket. I do get 44mpg already, so not too horrible.
Time to buy a Moped maybe
Time to buy a Moped maybe
Those are explanations, but not justifications. Gas taxes should be higher to discourage fossil fuel use and fund cleaner energy producers. It might also solve the higher fuel usage as well when people start making better choices about their consumption. Get a bike, insulate your house, wear a sweater, buy a fuel efficient car.
It's just hard for me to feel bad for people who make bad budgeting decisions over and over and then complain about it. You can drive your giant truck to the mall or you can complain about gas prices, not both. Of course, I expect the complaining to continue, I just hope it's directed at the correct President.
While I understand your feelings, this is just a dumb take. There's plenty of people who didn't chose to drive a giant truck and will still be enormously affected, especially in a country like the US where public transportation is... Not good and everything is designed around the idea that everybody has a car.
Ultimately, the people who will feel this the most are as usual the poorest.
True, the USA is structured around cars and there is little choice as you how you live. But there is a difference between choosing to drive an economical car and choosing to drive a multi tonne behemoth.
You're mischaracterizing what the report says. It says the Iranian system (i.e. the Islamic Republic) is unlikely to be removed by a large scale war.
But can't? Nobody should be saying can't and large scale war in the same sentence unless it's can't bring about world peace or can't be done without killing a fuckload of noncombatants.
This is counterfactual. He didn't chicken out of attacking Venezuela and he didn't chicken out of attacking Iran.
The only things reliable about him is he always telegraphs what he wants to do, he's always in it for personal financial gain1 and he can always be flattered and/or bribed.
1 if you don't see the personal gain angle, keep looking: it's there
Iran has twice the population of Ukraine.
Would you characterize the Russian invasion as large-scale?
Russians actually deployed hundreds of thousands of ground troops, tanks, etc.
Do you foresee the US putting hundreds of thousands of American soldiers on the ground? Because I heard one analyst say that the regime probably has support of 15-20% of the population. That means 80-85% are against the regime but how many of those people are willing and able to fight the IRGC and the armed supporters?
I didn't say otherwise, and this thread is not about how high petroleum taxes should be. The increased cost of the raw stock (crude oil) is going to be passed through. There might or might not be additional increases up the value chain if the war results in an actual shortage.
It sounds like the whole of Israel is supporting destroying pretty much all of Iran, which has 10 times the population of Israel so Israel isn't sending any soldiers there, it wants Americans to do the dirty work.
Yair Lapid is supposedly a centrist and he wants to destroy the old production capacity of Iran. Never mind what it would do to the global oil market and the economy, just as long as Israel destroys another country.
As with Gaza, it's not just the Israeli right-wing which supports Netanyahu's genocide in Gaza and now attempted destruction of Iran -- 90 million people.
It's all of Israel, the country has become drunk with power, mostly provided by American money and weapons.
Times of Israel poll allegedly show 97% support by the right-wing, 93% support by centrists and 76% support by the left for Operation Roaring Lion.
Yair Lapid is supposedly a centrist and he wants to destroy the old production capacity of Iran. Never mind what it would do to the global oil market and the economy, just as long as Israel destroys another country.
As with Gaza, it's not just the Israeli right-wing which supports Netanyahu's genocide in Gaza and now attempted destruction of Iran -- 90 million people.
It's all of Israel, the country has become drunk with power, mostly provided by American money and weapons.
Times of Israel poll allegedly show 97% support by the right-wing, 93% support by centrists and 76% support by the left for Operation Roaring Lion.
How is that in any way responsive to the post you’re replying to. Iran and Ukraine are not remotely the same and Russia and the US are not remotely the same. One of the clearest indications of that is the there are US and Israeli planes running sorties over the heart of Iran after one week - something Russia couldn’t achieve in 4 years.
Ukraine is an utterly useless comparison point for what’s going on in Iran.
From a trusted source that he just put out:
It like they are hoping a terrorist attack happens herex.
What better reason to cancel elections?
edit: In fact you wouldn't even need to cancel them, just issue "credible threat" warnings of bombings at polling places on Election Day. In targeted swing districts.
Nah. It's just more proof that Trump is living in his formative years, the early 1950s, when the memory of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender was still fresh (de-facto so did Japan, but not formally -- there were no negotiations).
AFAIK there have only been 2 cases of unconditional surrender since, out of 100s of wars worldwide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_surrender
Over at my local gas station here it's the equivalent of €1.93 per liter for 95-Octane (European standard, which 99% of cars here use), or US$8.48 per US Gallon (after a pice hike on March 1).
Well, they reportedly fired most of the FBI's counterintelligence team days before launching the war on Iran.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/patel-fbi-national-security-division-firings-iran
The vast majority (75%+) of people who own the large pickup trucks in the US use the bed or tow once a year or less. Most of the time it's a commuting vehicle for a single person. Plenty of smaller, cheaper, more efficient vehicles are still sold in the US.
And they're not great cargo vehicles either. I can fit longer IKEA flat packs in my compact Citroën MPV, than in the longest bed available in any F-150, even if the tailgate is down, and my Citroën is 192cm (6.3 ft) shorter. While still fitting 3 people in the Citroën.
There's also a difference between "can't" and "can't be done by the Trump admin". Especially since it seems pretty clear there's no "day after" plan.
Iran is extremely complex in terms of ethnicities (Farsis are only ~60%) and religions (Muslims are about 61%).
You're not wrong, but the US does have a long history of dumb car decisions. We've been through a few cycles of some even causing gas prices to skyrocket, and Americans being smacked in the wallet because they drive cars that suck gas. Some portion of the population then go and buy economical cars but when gas prices decline, it's right back to the gas guzzlers. Rinse and repeat.
This is a serious distortion of the specific poll, to the point of being outright lies.
The poll didn't ask where on the political spectrum the responders were, either.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveb...26-of-arabs-majority-support-toppling-regime/
"Destroying" a country as large and populous as Iran isn't something anyone wants, clearly irrelevant, and something no poll asked.
And Lapid only talked about the destruction of missile and attack UAV production, not the economy in general.
There have been certainly advisories published, by DHS and other agencies:
https://www.cfr.org/articles/iran-a...-u-s-strikes-could-mean-for-homeland-security
While walking the dog today I listened to a Cautionary Tales podcast which discussed the four bombing of apartment buildings in Russia that was blamed on the Chechens, even though there was a lot of evidence that the FSB did it as a false flag. Putin launch the Second Chechen War Putin as a ‘response” and that cemented his hold on power.
Trump isn’t half as smart as Putin, but it did put the fear into me that it could be something he or a minion might try, or possibly let a jihadi do. I’m probably being too paranoid.
We underestimate the evil of this administration at our peril.