Easter Monday. By now you, me and the cat next door have heard what POTUS No. 47 saw fit to post yesterday on his laughably named Truth Social.
For her part former Trumpian stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene – “Christian, Mother, Business Owner, and Former Congresswoman of Georgia’s 14th District |AMERICA FIRST AMERICA ONLY” – took to the platform of an equally if differently disaffected Elon Musk with this:
This – speaking to a US backlash against Israel led more by Christian conservativism than liberalism 1 – is worthy of a dedicated post but for now I’ll content myself with the aside that the Hormuz Strait is not closed. Rather, it is being monetised by the Iranians, in all probability in perpetuity. Says West Asia pundit Elijah J. Magnier today:
From Tehran’s point of view, the logic is simple. The war has inflicted immense damage on Iran, not only through direct strikes, but also through the loss of production, disruption of trade, destruction of facilities, and broader economic paralysis. The United Nations Development Programme has estimated up to $194 billion in lost regional economic output due to the war, while the IMF has described the conflict as a major shock to energy flows and economic stability. These are regional estimates and not a definitive toll for Iran alone, but they support the broader idea that the damage reaches hundreds of billions of dollars once direct destruction and long-term economic losses are taken into account.
He might have added that Iran, murderously sanctioned – I use the term literally – for 47 years, has more than its current war costs to recoup. But as I said, I mention this aspect of the criminal US-Israeli war as an aside. Back to MTG, who continued her tweet:
[The Israelis are] more than capable of defending themselves without the US having to fight their wars, kill innocent people and children, and pay for it. Trump threatening to bomb power plants and bridges hurts the Iranian people, the very people Trump claimed he was freeing. On Easter, of all days, we as Christians should be reminded that the son of God died and rose from the grave so that we can be forgiven once and for all of our sins. Jesus commanded us to love one another and forgive one another. Even our enemies. Our President is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians. Christians in the administration should be pursuing peace. Urging the President to make peace. Not escalating war that is hurting people. This NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most. This is not making America great again, this is evil.
God on his side? March 5, 2026. US pastors lay hands on Trump in the Oval Office
On that last, she is not alone in thinking so. In unison the world’s media, not excepting those normally sympathetic to Trump, have voiced disgust and bemused alarm at his tourette tweet. This, and prominent coverage of mutterings about America’s 25th amendment, take me back to March 21st when – in Why are America’s rulers allowing this?– I opined that:
It would be easy enough for the Beltway kingmakers to have Trump declared mentally unfit or JFK-ed but the consequences, his sorely betrayed MAGA notwithstanding, might still, in an America more polarised than at any point since the first one, ignite a second civil war.
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But this is not today’s main item either. Trump’s tweet …
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP
… speaks to a childish tantrum unusual – even on Planet Tangerine – in its unhinged absence of calibration. Had something quite specific enraged him beyond endurance? The question leads to today’s main item. Did that tweet have his handlers and spin doctors tearing their hair out when what they’d wanted for Holy Week was wall to wall coverage along these lines:
Maybe. Then again maybe not if this ‘success’ is in reality the opposite. What if the actual goal of a mission spun as a triumph of US derring do was a desperate gamble that didn’t pay off?
Here to address that question, in one of her daily postings on the war, is Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism today. After opening as I did, with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attack on her former ally, Yves writes:
…. [Trump’s deranged] tweet came after the disaster-attempted-to-be-rebranded as success of what has been depicted as the rescue of one of two operators of an F-15, a weapons officer. Trump initially depicted him as unharmed but it appears he was seriously injured. The disproportionate scale and equipment losses of the purported rescue effort, the inconsistencies in the official story, and the Pentagon’s effort to clamp down on information all point to a lot more having been afoot than just a search for a crew member of a plane that had wandered or been sent into hostile airspace.2
We’ll turn to some of the theories, but one that makes sense (as in fits known facts, which of course may not be actual facts) is that the F-15 was part of an operation to seize Iran’s enriched uranium, which was believed to be stored at Isfahan. Even though experts have all depicted this as a particularly hare-brained, high-risk, very low odds of success operation, we posted a tweet that said that Trump was really keen about the scheme and had green-lighted it.
Now if all of the above is true, it would explain (without justifying, mind you) Trump’s escalation to a new level of choler and destructive intent. The same way Ukraine’s leaders became fixated on the destruction of the Kerch Bridge as a way to demonstrate their potency and really sock it to Russia, so too seizing the enriched uranium could have become an almost talismanic fixation for Trump, in at least restoring the very badly damaged image of US potency and military prowess. Given that he believes that non-existent negotiations are or are about to start happening, he and the Zionists and hawks egging him on could have sold (and may themselves actually believe) that such a blow to Iran would force them to the negotiating table. Mind you, for Israel, none of these gimmicks have to work in reality to work for their purpose. They just need to keep Trump at the gaming table, betting despite diminishing odds of victory.
Of course, as readers know well, even if this was the plan and it had succeeded, it would have changed nothing fundamental. Iran’s power comes from its control over the Strait of Hormuz. What happens to unweaponized uranium has nothing to do with that, particularly since Iran also knows well that the US and its allies are running low not just on defensive but even offensive weapons. The US ex nukes can’t keep fighting at its current level of intensity for all that much longer.
Now to the theories of what might actually have happened with the “oh just a rescue, nothing more to see here” drama. The Pentagon is clearly hiding something.
As to what that might be, we’ll turn first to an assessment by reader Arkady Bogdanov:
This is the only explanation that makes sense in my mind- I will again grant that this is speculation. A Little Bird helicopter only has a range of about 250-275 miles, depending on how much weight it is carrying. Little Birds are the chosen transport method for Tier one SOF 2 units. They are highly maneuverable, lightweight, have high visibility for pilots, etc. These aircraft are used for raids- very quick in and out, but due to their short range, they have to be staged from relatively close to their target. 2 Little Birds can fit into the cargo hold of a C-130. The Little Birds were likely inside the cargo holds of the C-130’s when the C-130’s were shot down- and given a quick glance at the C-130 props, it seems clear that they hit the ground while rotating- this suggests a crash, not a demolition (plus you can see what look like shrapnel holes in the control surfaces that are remaining in photos). This would also explain why the helicopter debris is intermingled with the C-130 debris.
We know that Trump was talking about staging an operation using a constructed (or existing) airstrip to steal the uranium, and to my absolute amazement- it looks like they tried it. The C-130’s were not there for the F-15 crewman. This is even more apparent when we look at the reports showing that the rescue beacon activated by the F-15 backseater located him around 120 miles away from the airstrip that the C-130’s were found at. Now this does not mean that this was all not related. The C-130’s were not there for the F-15, but there is a pretty good chance the F-15 was there for the C-130’s.
The F-15 was probably tasked with clearing the ingress/egress route for the SOF mission brought in by the C-130’s. Likely this included AD suppression and possibly ground attack runs against forces defending the target assigned to the SOF guys.
So the F-15 likely was part of the mission, and was hit while the C-130’s were already inbound. Regional command may or may not have known the F-15 was downed, but would have noted the lost contact. Likely there was enough pressure to continue the mission even if there had been confirmation the F-15 was hit by AD.
Now the Blackhawks probably were the Combat Search And Rescue mission. They may have all been assigned to find the F-15 crewman, or they could have been split between recovering the F-15 crew and trying to assist the forces at the airstrip (again- command would see a loss of contact with the C-130’s, but would likely not know actual status or if there were survivors). The A-10 was likely providing close air support for the CSAR mission, as having close air support is doctrinal to CSAR. The drones were likely providing real time ISR and possibly close air support also.
In short- this must have been a real furball. It’s hard to make sense of, but the above is the only explanation that makes sense to me. Now many people are wondering were the SOF contingent is. The C-130’s would have had to have been carrying enough fuel for themselves (return trip) plus fuel supplies for the Little Birds, and the weapons stores (small arms, grenades, small diameter rockets, etc) when the C-130’s went down- fire and detonation would be most probable, and the aircraft crews and SOF troops were likely incinerated pretty much instantly. Likely not much left for remains given the likely volume of flammable fuel and explosives on board.
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Also worth a perusal is another Naked Capitalism piece, this one by Nick Corbishley, on Keir Starmer’s Schrödinger’s War. We Brits are entitled to ask: “is we or isn’t we implicated in this war crime against Iran?”
Not least because, when dust settles and the diversely denominated invoices pour in, Starmer’s ‘principled’ refusal to send warships to the Gulf may not – as a victorious Tehran decides who can and can’t transit the Hormuz, and at what price – outweigh in Persian reckonings his having allowed US bombers to leave RAF airbases on missions like the one which murdered some 170 schoolgirls in Minab.
Also worthy of attention is a Mitchell Plitnick piece – Trump has no good options to resolve the disaster he created in Iran – which appeared three days ago on the excellent Mondoweiss site. It can be argued of course that such a piece, which does exactly what it says on the tin, is superfluous to requirement. Anyone with a functioning cortex had drawn that conclusion when the markets reopened on Monday, three days after February 28.
All the same, it’s a short and lucid read. Happy Easter.
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- Think Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Think the unfortunate Charlie Kirk.
- SOF = “special operations forces”. Worth noting here is that while the escapades of elite units like Delta, US Navy Seals, SAS and Israeli equivalents make ideal – and doubtless idealised – action movies which double up as empire propaganda, they do not win wars, least of all wars of attrition the way this one so predictably turned out to be.