(Lack of) US Iran Peace Agreement Part 5

[OnePeppyFatball]

Part 5

It's interesting how both the Russia/Ukraine and Iran wars are developing. Both Ukraine and Iran are on the back foot now. Putin is spending lots of money and doing a Trump - raiding other budgets to fund the military/war. Plus Russia is selling oil after US sanctions were lifted (temporarily).
I've recently been looking at the length of time it will take for oil prices and supply chain issues to 'return to normal'. There are many computations around two to three years, but the consensus seems to be that prices will never return to pre wars level.
What I would like to see is a financial spreadsheet with current details of who has gained and who has lost in both wars, so far.

Did you mean to say in your third paragraph- the deal that the US had offered has been accepted at the highest level?

@Twiglets1 ,

No!

I meant that Peveshkian offered a deal that had been oked internationally at the highest level.

Way of subject with the next bit - I never hear anyone talking about population. 8.3 billion now. In 2006, 20 years ago, it was 6.7. In 1996 it was 5.8. And a bit of looking up, in 1976 it was 4.1. So that is double now compared to 40 years ago.

Hey, I am not saying population control or nowt like that, I just think that politicians etc should maybe be starting to talk about it, and how some, or many, systems and expectations really need to change.

But instead, the politicians are still talking about, and still promising, still trying to fix, the issues of 40 years ago using the same model as then. We do not have a perfect answer. We just have lots of different experiments that are still running. I think there needs to be more talk about what systems are working a bit better.... blah blah

Anyway, here we are, another oil crisis, same as 40 years ago, and if anything, we are more dependent on it, esp diesel than we were then.

As a PP said a few days back

Trump seriously considering U.S. diesel export ban amid supply crunch (cnbc.com)

But just a few months back Trump was boasting about "hundreds of empty tankers" heading to the US to fill up. Come buy from us, he was yelling. As he was flogging US reserves that had been put in place... because of the 1970s crisis.

Thanks for clarifying.

Edited to add - of course I agree that the lack of trust on both sides is a major problem to getting a deal done.

It must happen eventually but it must be hard diplomatically to progress.

@Twiglets1 ,

I didn’t actually confirm very well!

I meant approved internally, not internationally.

I realised that, don't worry.

There is speculation in today's press that Burnham has been told that the US will be stopping diesel exports.

British officials held calls with counterparts in Germany, France, Italy and Ireland on Thursday morning to discuss the possibility of tapping stockpiles of the fuel.
While the UK only has 40 days worth of stock in reserve, some other countries have more than 200 days worth of supply.
Trump is preparing to make a final decision on banning American diesel exports to countries including the UK.
White House aides have presented Trump with options to reduce the cost of diesel in the United States, including curbs on international fuel exports. Administration officials have briefed allies, including the UK, about possible disruption to their supplies, which could send consumer prices soaring and potentially lead to supply shortages.

The Times

I'm blissfully unaware, I've been up my ladder with a drill and hammer today.

Like the kids say,

The US is already telling France and Germany to release diesel stocks or face US export ban, sources say https://reut.rs/3U3eCng

Iranian officials indicated Wednesday they have received an official US response to Tehran’s latest proposal to end the seven-month war, which US President Donald Trump had publicly rejected just days earlier.
The officials did not say what the response contained and whether it was a rejection.
Arab News.

Hmmm, this would indicate to me that Trump is smelling victory and wants to get a complete surrender, so he's rejected the offer from Iran.

On another note, if there are US sanctions against providing supplies to the Iranian vessels stranded in Asia, would that include food, water and medical supplies?

Can't get youtube as you know.... but a drill AND a hammer ? Why not just use a hammer drill ?

Boom Boom :-)

Where I am, just too hot. 34 with 95% humidity. DD and DP on holiday, they have been in a wee room with the aircon. MIL doing her usual, boiling a herbal soup. ( Notice I did not say DMIL). Just general listlessness. It's odd, cos we are used to the heat, sort of, but this is just going on and on.... same as the Iran war.

Further to posts above re systems. We do have an existinal thing going on. Let me try to whisper it. climate change. But yeah. That gets in the way of Trumps post war "Growth is King" model.

In fact, so keen is he on the post war model, that he started a new war to keep it going.

I thought this was interesting from Al Jazeera re diesel:

https://aje.news/qon8fe?update=5009290

Apologies, I realise I didn't elaborate on what the link is about in my previous post.

The title of the article is "G7 fuel release ‘not going to make a major difference".

I'm keeping a close eye on the diesel as we live rurally, in an area where agri and transport are big sectors, and plenty of people drive diesel cars even if they work outside of those sectors. We will all be impacted by rising costs of agri and transport, and I'm not sure what will happen if there's a genuine shortage.

I'm wondering what the negative consequences of releasing some reserves might be. It was reported earlier in the week that the G7 were reluctant to do so. Presumably they want to hold reserves back for the winter and against the risk of prolonged/escalated conflict and I'm sure replenishing them now would be difficult, expensive or maybe even impossible.

Diesel and aviation fuel are both middle distillates, so demand and pricing for one can impact the other as refineries react to market forces.

Note: only the first two paragraphs relate to the brief AJ article i linked. The rest is "I've fallen down a rabbit hole" ramblings of my own thoughts and findings when looking at the current situation with diesel.

Trump sends 9,000 troops to Middle East after threatening to it Iran 'very hard'

Around 9,000 US troops are being deployed to the Middle East aboard a group of ship after Donald Trump warned that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

The group of ships now en route to the Middle East together carry over 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines.

It includes the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which recently deployed with the cruiser USS Chosin, and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which includes the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage amphibious landing ships.

It could mean that three carriers are in the region as early as the end of October, according to a US official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

President Trump also said early indications suggest that Iran is linked to the co-pilot who stabbed his captain and tried to crash an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday.

He warned that if the link is established to Iran, the US would retaliate.
“Oh they’ll be hit, very hard, don’t worry," he said. “You just ask them. They know what happened. They’ll be hit very hard.”

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-us-war-live-trump-strikes-oil-diesel-b3060718.html#post-2418916

Much like when marrying your mistress creates a vacancy, the last US troops leaving Iraq ...

That’s a good thing isn’t it, US troops leaving Iraq.

What are you trying to say here?

@Twiglets1 ,

They are not leaving Iraq in a good place, though. They are leaving it as a fractured, splintered country with bits of it effectively loyal to Iran.

It’s an admission of defeat and creates another space for militant groups to grow.

Re militant groups. So they are following the US model ? They have loads of militant groups as well.

Not a whataboutism. Just a note that what seems really strange to people in some countries, can be seen as normal in others.

I'm interested in what @trumpredcard meant by their comment about a mistress creating a vacancy in regard to the last US troops leaving Iraq.

They couldn't stay there forever.

@Twiglets1 ,

‘They couldn't stay there forever.’

Well, I think the original plan was that Iraq would become an ally in the Middle East and a place where the U.S would maintain a military presence.

It eventually became too unsafe, a bit like Afghanistan.

The ‘war on terror’ was a major disaster in the end. I believe it is estimated to have cost $2 trillion and left both Iraq and Afghanistan no better than they were before, Afghanistan probably worse.

That should have been a lesson both for Israel and the U.S about wars with ill defined objectives and no desire to really remain and nation build.

I'm not really interested in discussing Iraq any further on a thread about the US/Iran peace agreement. Your points are valid but a bigger discussion about Iraq (from my perspective) would be more appropriate to a separate thread.

Was just interested in what another poster meant by a comment they made, that's all.

I partly disagree with your comment though that the Iran war had ill defined objectives. I think the US & Israel had one very clear objective which they have been consistent about - the goal to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

As Trump famously did to Ivana Trump, marrying his affair partner Marla Maples 🙃😉.

On a positive note it was heartening and lovely to see Iraqis celebrating.

We in the West will never truly know the horrors inflicted on the Iraqis first by the propping up of Saddam Hussein, fabricated allegations of weapons of mass destruction leading to the "War on terror". Mismanagement of administration during occupation leading to the rise of ISIS, who murdered many more people in the region and the poor children, they are still being born with birth defects [trigger warning] https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/iraq-children-birth-defects-military/

@RedTagAlan $2 Trillion is a conservative estimate, similar to my own accounting when I buy things on sale "I didn't spend £50, I saved £40" 😉

The opportunity cost (healthcare, infrastructure, inflation) for ordinary Americans by the GWOT has been extensive.

[Edited to add that a lot of the debt came from the financial crash, covid et al]

Thankfully a lot of them now know this, hence the Iran war being the most unpopular in history. Hopefully they'll punish Trump in the midterms.

Table from this article:
https://carnegie.org/article/costs-war/

Yup. And I think we can throw cultural genocide into that pot before giving it a good stir. As in, " I will liberate that country, and I will mould it to be a replica of my own......".

To a lot of people, that might be fair enough. But let's add a bit.".... no matter if the people there want it or not. Because I know what is best for those people"

That is when some people stick their hands up, and in a Monty Python voice, say : "Oi. That's cultural genocide".

And as you mentioned, lessons from history. Here is one, I think.

The 70th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet (tibet3.com)

Yup. It's far from black and white. Especially with Iran. A theocracy. I have never heard Trump even mention that bit. Where will the religion fit in with whatever he had in mind for Iran.