War with...Iran?

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Please, not again with the definitions of this man's sins, PLEASE?

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

I read the NYT Updates and pulled these two. As one could expect, China is clear on stopping this escalation and is not pleased:

China has called for an immediate end to the military escalation in the Middle East. China’s foreign ministry said on social media that Beijing was “highly concerned” by the strikes launched by the United States and Israel, adding that “Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity should be respected.”

(gift links)

And of course, in the shooting oneself in the foot dept:

The U.S. Agency for Global Media said it had “significantly expanded” Voice of America’s Persian-language service in recent months and was broadcasting Trump’s speech announcing today’s attack “to the brave people of Iran across every available platform, including satellite.” The agency’s head, Kari Lake, the right-wing firebrand who has overseen enormous cuts to U.S.-funded media abroad, posted on X: “Iran will be FREE.”

The U.S. government’s overall messaging to the Iranian people was muddled. There was no additional information on how Iranian soldiers and police officers were supposed to carry out Trump’s demand that they surrender. And it was unclear how deeply Voice of America and other U.S.-funded media would be able to cover the war in the wake of last year’s extensive cuts.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

And about those Houthis? How do they get along with China? I was reading earlier today that they are getting engaged to support Iran but can't find the reference in the news blizzard.

Here is one : https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveb...ume-attacks-on-israel-and-on-shipping-routes/

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

The Iranian revolution was in 1979. In a local newspaper from June 26 1981 was this article about a bomb assassination in Tehran ...

Blast kills Iran's No. 2 man

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) Mobs chanting "Death to America" surged through Tehran today protesting an explosion that the government said killed Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, considered Iran's second most powerful man, and 68 other revolutionary leaders. Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai and Parliament Speaker Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who along with Beheshti formed Iran's temporary ruling triumvirate, were called out of the Islamic Republican Party headquarters only minutes before Sunday night's bombing, an observer told The Associated Press in Beirut.
Tehran Radio blamed the bombing on "mercenaries connected to the U.S.A." Pars, the official new agency, accused "counter-revolutionaries," the fundamentalist government's label for the underground leftist groups that rallied to the defense of fugitive ex-President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr. The leftist groups, labeled "hypocrites" by the government, also came under fire from the demonstrators swirling through the streets of Tehran. "Hypocrites, Your Death Has Come," shouted the demonstrators, many of them members of Beheshti's fanatical Hezbollah, or Party of God, organization. The bombing, the boldest attack yet by anti-government forces, and the reprisal demonstrations (Continued on Back Page)

As much as time moves on, somethings do not change.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

A/P writes: Iranian strikes Amazon data centers -

The company’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, said late Monday that two data centers in the United Arab Emirates were “directly struck” and another facility in Bahrain was also damaged after a drone landed nearby.

“These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” AWS said in an update on its online dashboard.

They suggested moving your "services" to other locations:

The company advised customers using servers in the Middle East to migrate to other regions, and direct online traffic away from the UAE and Bahrain.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

The Guardian's Jennifer Rankin writes a damning roundup of the EU's various and tepid responses to the US/Israel illegal war on Iran. No unity, no message, no courage except for Spain's Sánchez:

In part, the problem is disunity over how to respond. Standing alone, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has refused “to be complicit in something that is bad for the world and that is also contrary to our values”. At the other pole, German chancellor Friedrich Merz said it was “not the time to lecture partners and allies” on international law.

She goes on looking at the statements given this week across the EU and from analysts who are a bit more honest about what is and is not going on in the Union. Rankin calls von der Leyen's speech this week "blunt" where she says

“Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order” and needs a “more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”

other action from France and the UK are mute. Only Sánchez appears to be speaking truth to the powers.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Looks like diplomacy via Truth Social isn't really diplomacy at all: (from politico.com)

The German government said it would not assist in that effort as long as the war rages on.
"As long as this war continues, there will be no involvement, not even in an option to keep the Strait of Hormuz open by military means," Kornelius said, adding that he was not aware of an official request by the U.S. government to Germany to take part in such a mission.

(My emphasis)

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Pankaj Mishra writes in the New York Review of Books about the long history and ties between Iran and India. Just about where the paywall kicks in, he bemoans the fact that this is no longer the case under Modi.

Perhaps this explains the desolation and shame I felt when I read about the American torpedoing of the IRIS Dena, an Iranian vessel that thought itself safe in international waters, as it was returning from an international naval exercise at the East Indian port of Visakhapatnam.

A few days before the unleashing of Operation Epic Fury, the men on board this ship had been feted on Indian streets. They had visited the Taj Mahal and taken selfies with curious spectators. Yet neither their “silent death,” in Pete Hegseth’s gloating description, death by a 3,700-pound American missile in the Indian Ocean, where the present Indian government claims to provide “net security,” nor the violation of international law that requires belligerents to help sailors wounded in battle merited an official protest at the US embassy in New Delhi. The Indian Navy’s statement failed even to mention the attack—an act of “fun,” as Trump described it to a Republican gathering this Monday, to much laughter—that sank the vessel. Nor did it express regret at the deaths of nearly a hundred unarmed sailors.

He goes on, trying to find any mention of the Dena in Indian press finding it too is cleansed of courage and the freedom needed to even mention the act.

Perhaps I was looking in the wrong places. Too much of mainstream journalism today has been debased and coarsened by its incessant lying or equivocating about Israel’s live-streamed abominations in Palestine. Unsurprisingly, reporters, broadcasters, and columnists display an impeccable sangfroid before not only the chemical incineration of Tehran but also the “double tap” execution of nearly two hundred Iranian schoolgirls.

His fury doesn't end there, he takes Modi to task as well.

The personal choices of a Hindu supremacist prime minister—Narendra Modi visited Israel just two days before its assault on Iran to express his bonhomie with Bibi, and to receive a medal as illustrious as the FIFA Peace Prize—are only partly to blame. The principled opposition to racism and imperialism that once made India the moral leader of Asia went missing well before Modi and his toadies emerged with their WhatsApp forwards to deride the ideals of Gandhi and Nehru. This rupture in historical memory is more startling, and seems more devastating, when you consider how much the “century of humiliation” motivates the Chinese leaders working on the gradient of national transformation at the farthest end of the Persian ecumene.

Good reading and well worth the $1 per issue paywall the NYRB requests.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Today politico.eu reports on "Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled." They have talked with officials from the various EU countries who are involved (or not) in the discussions.

“One would wish for more predictability, more clarity and more strategic foresight — not only in this case,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told POLITICO on Tuesday, adding: “Let’s wait and see.”

The slow-moving talks reflect Trump’s conflicting messaging more than three weeks into his war against Iran — where he has threatened allies for failing to back his campaign, then said they weren’t needed, all while providing scant detail on how they could support the U.S.

“The big picture is: the U.S. has asked us to take care of and defend our own countries, take care of supporting Ukraine … and now [the] Middle East and global supply chains,” said one senior European government official, calling it “absurdly incoherent to put it mildly.”

The report concludes with this:

And until the U.S. ceases hostilities in the region and explains what it needs — and why — its European partners are unlikely to do much more.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

If we avoided this >> Soriak said: << it would save my poor, arthritic, scroll wheel fingers some pain.

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

"The Oil Must Flow"

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Times Radio ist also absolutely excellent on YouTube. The Times (broadsheet), on the other hand, not so much. Guardian is also unequivocally a very good news source.

The Guardian also runs EU, UK, US, AUS, and INT editions of their web product.