Is Iran Flagging or Waiting to Pounce?

Once again, Donald Trump’s rants on Truth Social, Is debunked by the scale of the witch hunt he or his Crusader Secretary of War ordered up. U.S. government investigators have taken the extraordinary step of subjecting roughly 50 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests over leaks to journalists, including about how the Iran war has created a shortage of crucial munitions, according to officials briefed on the move. The investigators asked military officers and civilian employees on the Joint Staff if they disclosed classified information to members of the press, and about whether they provided information about diminished U.S. munitions stocks. The polygraph tests were conducted in August after a flurry of news reports detailed diminished stocks of crucial munitions, including of long-range missiles and Patriot interceptors. The show of force appeared aimed at not just ferreting out anyone who may have shared information, but intimidating others who might do so in the future, according to people with knowledge of the effort. Between 1,500 and 2,000 officers and officials work for the Joint Staff, which coordinates operations, policy and war plans with combatant commanders around the world. This leak investigation would have been launched in the wake of the last time Trump tried to deny the reports coming from all around (as well as the reports about a spat with Whiskey Pete at Camp David about it). But as I noted then, Trump had been warned. Trump told us he had been warned. This particular episode is interesting more for the competing narratives that explain the sensitivity about whether Trump can convince Iran the US has a secret stockpile. In WSJ, foreign policy expert Yaroslav Trofimev, repeats assessments that time is no longer on Iran’s side, because the US has finally succeeded in getting crude out Hormuz (though not yet matching pre-war levels, and Trofimev makes no mention of the cost of doing so). By squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, both the U.S. and Iran expected to outlast their foe, believing time would work in their favor. Now, it looks like the trend is moving against Tehran. The U.S. naval blockade has prevented Iran from shipping any oil from the Persian Gulf since July. At the same time, despite Iranian drone and missile attacks, Washington has been able to assist Gulf Arab states in moving significant amounts of their crude through the waterway, keeping global oil prices from surging above critical levels. “The Iranian blockade is more leaky than the U.S. blockade,” said Samir Madani, co-founder of the maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.com. “The Iranians just aren’t able to shut it all down.” The strategic question of whether time will eventually work in favor of Washington—or the Tehran regime—has yet to be settled. Iran retains ways of escalating what has now become a protracted conflict, raising costs for the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. military’s ability to maintain the naval blockade for many more months is also uncertain. But now it is clear that Tehran’s calculation six months ago, as it shut down the Strait of Hormuz and bottled up one-fifth of the world’s crude oil supply, proved erroneous. The move didn’t trigger a worldwide economic crisis or force President Trump to end the war on Iranian terms. That judgement assumes that Iran’s goal was to cause a global crisis that forced Trump’s hand. By contrast, two intelligence reporters describe, just a few stories away from the leak witch hunt story on the front page of the NYT, that Iran is actually pretty confident it understands the limits to US power. Iran has grown more confident in its ability to attack targets in the Middle East and appears determined to continue the conflict for months to frustrate the United States, according to U.S. intelligence reports in recent weeks. In many respects, the assessments reflect what has been observable on the ground as fighting erupted again after a period of relative calm. In the past week, Iran targeted ships in the Strait of Hormuz and American troops in the region, and U.S. forces struck inside Iran, killing military personnel and civilians. The new exchanges have been limited so far. But the intelligence reports, according to people who have read them, suggest that Iran’s hard-line government might be contemplating a significant escalation. Iran has emerged from months of the on-again, off-again war with a far better understanding of its military strengths and is more sure of its capabilities, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Neither story addresses the US missile shortages. Both acknowledge that Iran still has as a stash, and WSJ describes how the pause allowed Iran to stockpile more. There’s no consideration in either of the extent to which Iran is simply planning on bleeding the US dry, possibly in conjunction with Russia and China. There’s likewise no mention that Whiskey Pete has attempted to steal money for infectious disease research because he has blown through so much money. House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) has learned that officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) are working to divert billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to supplement the Department’s budget. Without notifying Congress or the American people, DoD has signed an interagency agreement that could give the Department access to billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research. These funds were provided to support research to develop treatments or cures for infectious diseases such as influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola, and other dangerous pathogens. “This secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH is outrageous. The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately,” said Ranking Member DeLauro. “These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense. It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump’s war of choice with Iran. But the Trump administration cannot make American patients, families, and scientists pay the price. Circumventing Congress to divert money intended to help Americans who are exposed to HIV, influenza, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases—and directing those funds to the Department of Defense—is beyond the pale. I don’t know what will happen, nor whether Iran is just playing to get through the election or longer than that. What I do know is that in Trump’s latest attempt to lie, he seems intent on claiming there’s a secret stash of missiles that sustained reporting says the US doesn’t have. Seth Meyers has made a significant part of his career playing Donald Trump clips that debunk other Donald Trump clips, but Marcy Wheeler is calling attention to Donald Trump Truth Social statements that debunk other statements IN THE SAME TRUTH SOCIAL POST. I was chatting with a friend yesterday who is still convinced that Biden wasn’t mentally competent by the end of his term (he didn’t vote for Trump!). Biden’s mental competence has been overtaken by malignant events, but I would love for Trump’s mental capacity to get the same level of attention now. I’m growing more nervous why Whiskey Pete still has his job. Lincoln’s quote about McClellan may apply – when encouraged to replace him, Lincoln asked “but, with who?” “Anybody!” “But I must replace him with somebody.” Trump is usually fine blowing something or someone up, and then looking around for a replacement, but if he fires Pete and doesn’t replace him, who can Trump blame for failure? Is there anyone on the planet lined up to replace Hegseth as Trump’s scapegoat for Iran and fellow prisoner in the dock for illegal murders (boat strikes)? Several reasons, but three stand out to me this morning. 1) If Trump were to fire him, it means admitting that Trump made a mistake in choosing who to let run the BEST AND MOST WONDERFUL MILITARY the likes of which the world has never seen. This isn’t like replacing Kristy Noem or Pam Bondi. Trump expects women to not live up to what is needed. 2) Hegseth seems to have learned more quickly than any other cabinet officer how to speak Trump’s language of domination and strength. It’s not just that Hegseth says what Trump wants to hear, but he says it the way Trump likes to hear it. Others may tell Trump differently, but Trump has a hard time believing that Hegseth could be wrong — he sounds just like he’s out of Central Casting. He sounds so tough, generals are scared of him! 3) Hegseth’s war on DEI is right up Trump’s alley. Military and intelligence folks may wince (or worse) with all the generals, admirals, and underlings that Hegseth is sidelining, forcibly retiring, or simply firing, but every time Hegseth tells Trump he’s cleaning up the mess he found at Biden’s weak woke whinging Pentagon, Trump just smiles. “That’s my boy!” By keeping Hegseth, Trump avoids admitting mistakes, enjoys the manly sound of his chief military minion, and really enjoys owning the libs and avenging himself on Joe Biden. The shade of Roy Cohn. I think there may be at least a fourth reason — assuming Trump was goaded by outside forces into this not-a-war on Iran, outside forces may be fluffing Trump about Hegseth’s value. They may not be the same forces, but they could be if that outside force was committed to destroying US military might for a generation. Last year’s bombing of Iran may have provided enough intelligence about Trump and Hegseth disclosing their psychological vulnerabilities in a way that allowed focused influence. And Natalie Harp acting as a gatekeeper certainly makes it even easier reach Trump. I’ll add a fifth. Because Pete is stripping the military of its professionalism such that when Trump demands it support him rather than the country they will. Between the murderboats and the invasions of Blue Cities he has already found a way to select out for ethics. Good fourth and fifth reasons to add to the list – and let’s face it, this could be a long list. Probably several reasons why he still has a job with one being the Christianists want him there. Trump needs the Christianists support now more than ever. I’m starting to wonder if Trump wants Hegseth to be his successor. And that makes me wonder who Iran hates more, Trump or Hegseth. Then after seeing this comment from Tim O’Brien, I wonder if Trump thinks Hegseth has the traits that his own father, Fred Trump, had: “This idea that Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohn was profoundly wrong. Donald Trump’s mentor was Fred from day one. His father showed him how to exploit the government system, the legal system and business. His whole worldview is built around the idea that you exploit systems for personal gain, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that because the world’s populated by sharks and you just have to be the biggest shark.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/opinion/not-so-supreme-mr-roberts.html “Not So Supreme, Mr. Roberts” – 9/5/26, Maureen Dowd Meh. I think both Dowd and O’Brien are wrong — Trump learned from Fred how to scam, Cohn mentored him on how to ensure he’d get away with it. And Trump might think Hegseth is a possible successor, but only if the Trump org is protected in that succession. IMO, the bigger question is just how much does Trump really know if his access to the truth is throttled by his staff and by his cognitive impairments? Does he have the capacity to really think about succession apart from covering his own ass? Rayne thinks MoDo is wrong? I’m shocked. < grin > I am delighted that Rosa DeLauro has focused on this attempted diversion of funds budgeted for the NIH to the DoD. Let the DoD justify their need for funding. They can get in line, as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps they can generate a list of steps to take, such as cutting back on testosterone level assessments or even ride their contractors more closely to prevent billions of dollars of cost overruns. Maybe even have a bake sale. I read the article Marcy pointed to. It’s an amazing example of what people will do when they think they are gods who will never face pushback or retribution. They can stop ordering steaks and lobsters, and demand that Kegseth pay out of his own pocket for his own makeup studio. I do wish that DeLauro had come out with a concise sound bite, like “This transfer is illegal and unconstitutional. Secretary Hegseth and Director Bhattacharya have violated their oaths of office. Where are my Republican colleagues who claim to be constitutional conservatives?” Press releases of whole paragraphs are not going to make it in our current media environment. Oh, come on. DeLauro packed that paragraph with the substance necessary to fully make the case–not to the general public, because they won’t be hearing about this, largely thanks to dereliction of duty by journalists, but to her peers in congress, especially those who know they will be holding the bag when the catastrophic consequences come due. That “concise sound bite” you came up with sounds like it was generated by AI. DeLauro’s statement has human flaws, but also human strengths that outweigh them. She’s been at this a long time. Maybe what you call “our current media environment” is the real problem, not Rep. DeLauro. I have found media outlets differentially permeable to critique. You should try it. More seriously than in my first comment – I talk [redacted] for a couple of hours with a friend in Kyiv [redacted by moderator]. Yesterday, we talked about America’s inability to grasp how determined ANY people can be when their homeland and families are under attack. That shows up in Trump/Rubio/Hegseth’s inability to understand why Ukraine doesn’t just give up, and it shows up in their inability to understand why Iran doesn’t just give up. If there was ever a day when America could wear down the Iranian regime using air attacks, that was decades ago. If there was ever a day when Trump 2.0 could wear down the Iranian regime, that day passed when America decapitated much of Iran’s current leadership in the opening shots of the 2026 “war”/”excursion”/what TF are we actually doing? We proved in the Second World War that even theoretically “precision” bombing united the German people under Hitler, and I think that’s also true for the Japanese people under Hirohito (although being an emperor-god changes the calculus). We bombed North Korea until Curtis LeMay said they couldn’t identify targets to bomb. We bombed North Vietnam until we declared victory and sailed out of the harbor. The inability to demoralize an enemy using only air attacks has been demonstrated over and over and over again. Ukraine isn’t going to bow down to Putin, and Iran isn’t going to bow down to Trump. That’s my final answer. [Moderator’s note: Please don’t give details about your friend in Kyiv except that they’re in Kyiv. We have a broad readership here and not all of it is friendly. I’m sorry I didn’t catch this sooner. /~Rayne] Rayne – you’re right, and that’s why you’re the moderator. Thank you. The bombing campaign in World War II didn’t work, until it did. By early 1945 bombing had significantly impaired both German industry and the ability of the Luftwaffe to defend the homeland. As for German morale, by that point it was in the toilet, and had in fact begun to crater by early 1944. The only reason it didn’t crater sooner was because the Allies switched air resources to ruining transportation infrastructure in preparation for D-Day to cut off the German ability to bring reinforcements up to the landing zones. (which the bomber guys hated). While it’s true the concept of strategic bombing was for a long time a failure, by keeping at it, the Allies eventually succeeded with it. Bombing North Korea was about as useful as bombing North Vietnam, in that there wasn’t enough in terms of industrial resources to make it worth the cost. I believe the phrase used in the Korean war was “all we’re doing by continuing to bomb is making the rubble bounce.” Whether “strategic bombing” by itself could ever win a war is a separate question, but in Iraq bombing certainly made it harder for Hussein to muster reinforcements to generate enough mass to stop the US advance. Strategic bombing is a long, slow process, and morale deterioration likewise; they go together, two sides of the same coin. One of the reasons Japan surrendered was the elite’s perception that they were losing the population’s loyalty. If a government official gives inaccurate information on a classified subject to a reporter can that be prosecuted as a leak? Or should it be considered business as usual under Trump? Do you mean that the official gave out classified information they incorrectly believed to be accurate, or they gave out information on a classified subject that they knew was inaccurate when they gave it out? Either way. Trump claims someone should be prosecuted for releasing classified information about missile stockpiles while insisting that the leaked info is false. In this case the leaker presumably supplied information that they believe to be accurate. If it is not true as Trump says, did the anonymous official do a crime? Trump claims someone should be prosecuted for releasing classified information?!? 1] Via Heather Cox Richardson: https://bsky.app/profile/bcfinucane.bsky.social/post/3muqakekgxc2c 8:40 PM · Sep 4, 2026 [GIFT LINK here] for: In Major Leak Hunt, Pentagon Gives Polygraph Tests to Joint Staff Members About 50 people were tested, an unparalleled inquiry that comes in the wake of news reports about the war with Iran and the U.S. military’s diminished stocks of munitions. [Swan, Entous, Haberman, Schmitt Sept. 4, 2026] 2] Via Cheryl Rofer: https://bsky.app/profile/joshuasweitz.bsky.social/post/3mupkbnqdbc2w 2:01 PM · Sep 4, 2026 [GIFT LINK here] for: Pentagon Agreement With N.I.H. on Biodefense Draws Alarm From Democrats Under a new partnership, the Defense Department would play a larger role in biodefense and pandemic preparedness. Democrats warned it could allow a Pentagon cash grab. [Catie Edmondson, Carolyn Y. Johnson Sept. 4, 2026] Thanks for that, harpie. Scrolling down the Heather Cox Richardson thread led me to this Daily Beast piece on ‘No Tab Pete’: https://www.thedailybeast.com/army-heroes-humiliating-nickname-for-pete-hegseth-is-leaked/ Not being an army guy, I appreciated Charlotte Clymer’s elucidation of the phrase: https://bsky.app/profile/charlotteclymer.bsky.social/post/3muqetjjimk2g Haven’t polygraphs been dismissed as unreliable? Or is it the threat that yields results? They are widely regarded as: at best, unreliable; at worst, pseudoscientific nonsense. See the wikipedia article on them for details of which countries do and don’t accept their use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph It’s no surprise that Trump & Co love them. I’m sure they love the threat part of it. You can bet that if they had a mind probe, they would turn it up to the maximum and burn people’s brains out. Polygraphs may be bunk and not admissible for anything much, but when applied by a professional can have some serious psychological effects on the subject. Realizing the pseudoscience and understanding what it is that the polygrapher is trying to can help reduce the effects – maybe. Regardless, they can be quite unpleasant. [Welcome back to emptywheel. YET ANOTHER REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Pattersonw” which is not your established username. Your name has been edited to match the username to which you changed in May 2025. Please make a note of it and check your browser’s cache and autofill. **WARNING: After four requests without compliance, you will be banned from commenting.** I am letting this comment through because the username error may have been a typo, but don’t continue to expect me to bat clean up. /~Rayne] The question of reliability is irrelevant to Trump & Co. All that matters to them is that they can use them to accuse. See the Three Great Premises, where The Gut rules over the mind (h/t Charlie Pierce). Facts are what enough people believe, and truth is how fervently they believe them. The accuracy of “lie detector” is irrelevant when you have that mindset. And it’s known that some people can’t provide anything useful when polygraphed, as in they give the same results for “Is your name [real name]” and “are you now or have you ever been a member”. Friend was in that group, and they were even to the east coast to talk with a psychologist. Didn’t change the results. So, not useful, not reliable, and shouldn’t be used to determine criminality. Hegseth’s “deal” with Bob Kennedy’s NIH is papering over the theft of congressionally appropriated funds. It wouldn’t survive a normal Congress. It shouldn’t survive after November 2026. It’s evidence Trump’s “no big deal” war is a big deal he can no longer pay for, but which he refuses to ask Congress for more money to wage. He must think he wouldn’t get it. It’s also another way for Bob Kennedy to destroy American health science. Who would believe a guy with his drug-addled, predatory psychopathology would want to do that? One of his favorite sayings, “levels never seen before”. Zero? The United States continues to fight a war for no purpose. The Iranian regime continues to fight a war for survival. The USG measures success by the price of oil. In other words, success is measured by a restoration of the status quo ante. A curious measure of success in a war of choice. According to Tanker Trackers, in recent days average oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz has been 7.54 million barrels per day and through Oman another 2.49 million barrels per day. What’s Going on With Shipping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-99nnD3Cd4 The Saudi’s are moving some 4-5 billion barrels per day through the East-West pipeline constricted by terminal capacity at Yanbu. So that’s some roughly14 MMbbl compared to pre-war averages of 17.69 MMbbl. So, on balance, there is a good deal of oil flowing. But if Iran mines the Omani side of the Strait, finds ways to circumvent the US defensive umbrella, and/or strikes critical infrastructure on the East – West pipeline some 11-12 MMbbl per day disappears at a time when the war has resulted in vast depletion of oil stockpiles afloat and onshore. Can Iran do this? I don’t know but the technology exists to make it possible and the Chinese or possibly Russians could supply them if they don’t already possess it. There are no doubt a lot of diplomatic considerations that are governing what is transpiring right now. But if Trump is determined to put the Iranian regime on the killing floor history suggests this is not going to go well. I read an article yesterday – I believe it was at The War Zone – that Iran has an unusual technology, namely a system to deploy naval mines using artillery rockets. This would enable them to mine the strait while minimizing exposure of their forces. Apparently, the latest American attack was prompted by intelligence indicating that Iran was about to deploy this system. Iran has a good supply of artillery rockets. Although there may be a good deal of oil flowing out of the Gulf, it’s not clear where it’s going. As Paul Krugman has pointed out (e.g., https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-isnt-the-price-of-oil-even-higher), world refinery capacity has markedly decreased, partially because Ukraine has damaged a lot of Russian refineries. This has the result that although the price of crude oil has been dropping (today, it’s $92.55/barrel), the “3-2-1 crack spread” (for every 3 barrels of crude oil, U.S. refineries typically produce 2 barrels of gasoline and 1 barrel of diesel) has increased (today, $55.32). In more understandable terms, that results in a retail gasoline national average price of $4.15/gallon ($174.30/bbl) and retail diesel fuel national average of $5.85/gal ($245.70/bbl). Price data: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/prices.php Charlotte Clymer has the info on Hegseth’s nickname within the Pentagon: No Tab Pete. https: //charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/pete-hegseths-ruthless-pentagon-nickname “Tabless” Pete describes a young lieutenant, who would have been a prime candidate for being fragged in Vietnam: an untrained, unqualified braggart, whose chief accomplishments are sucking up to the brass and putting his troops in danger for no reward worth the price. That’s not a sobriquet that earns respect. Nobody follows a guy like that. The question is when, not if, China has to start buying oil again at pre-war levels. China’s been deploying its renewables and its oil reserves to weather the shortage from the war (I maintain as a practice run for invading Taiwan), the US and most other nations have also been deploying strategic reserves/stockpiles as well. What traffic is getting through isn’t enough to satiate normal demand, much less restore reserves/stockpiles. The conflicting and hypocritical posting by Trump just underscores a behavior in conservative culture, that power/faith/righteousness allows conservatives to be hypocrites because their power/faith/righteousness is beyond reproach. The difference that’s frightening is that Trump is deploying this “flex” on international diplomacy and international trade, rather than the domestic culture wars. We’ll see what happens but it will probably blow up badly at some point. My only question is whether Iran will try an October surprise or simply try to keep the pressure up as much as it can sustain. Yes. The conservative culture behavior you talk about is exactly what Charlie Pierce labeled “thinking from The Gut,” which leads inevitably to the Three Great Premises that illustrate the mentality of Idiot America: 1. Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units. 2. Anything can be true is someone says it loudly enough. 3. Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it. Note, please, that this does not work internationally. The Europeans see this mentality, scratch their heads, and say “OK, we better run our annual sub-hunting exercises without the Americans.” Similarly, the Chinese leadership does not operate in Idiot America, though they are quite happy to take advantage of our culture’s saturation with it. They have their ways of trying to measure our stockpile of missiles, and I am reasonably sure that it does not include watching Truth Social posts for anything resembling truth as measured by actual missiles, not how loudly Trump & Co say something is true. My guess is that like 1980, Iran knows that the pressure cooker of the US campaign season works in their favor with the incumbent US administration. I prefer to reference Tom Cotton advising the mullahs. Reagan sending the mullahs a cake was before I was born. It was a bible, not a cake, and now I feel really old. I have to question the expertise that qualifies the WSJ’s Trofimev as an “expert.” His overall assessment that Iran is losing a was of attrition seems founded, in part, on the premise that oil prices have not reached “critical levels.” Excuse me, Mr. Oil Expert. For the first time ever, my Honda CRV took fifty dollars to fill up. For me, that equals “critical.” Whether oil prices are critical would seem to constitute a subjective assessment. Your expertise (as represented in the excerpt above) does not seem to allow for consideration of other factors in making this judgment, such as actual wage growth and income inequality. You might not feel it. But it feels critical to many of us. That WSJ analysis sounds likes whistling through the graveyard. There’s a missing word at the end of this sentence: The word is yet. There was no worldwide economic crisis because China intervened in the oil markets by massively cutting their imports. No one knows if they can keep that up long-term, although it seems likely they can, as long as they want to. I haven’t seen anyone connect up all the dots between the Russia-Ukraine war, the US-Iran war, Trump’s insane policies (pro-tariff, pro-corruption) and the AI data center build out bubble. The wars are simultaneously destroying a substantial amount of infrastructure that will be replaced slowly with great difficulty (or not at all), short-term supply disruptions AND introducing a technology (inexpensive drone warfare) that is rebalancing the scales of international power politics. Trump’s policies are corroding the post WWII economic order for no apparent reason other than short-term greed and burning stupidity. Energy supply disruptions, coupled with rising transportation costs, are increasing the cost structure and slowing the speed of data center build out plans. Data centers are being channeled towards their most obnoxious form, power provided by on-site fossil fuel power plants. The AI boom, the only thing keeping the global economy afloat, is going to burst earlier than people expect, making it likely that the so-called “smart money” is not going to have time to off-load their debt on the rest of us. That’s going to be really threatening to the nerd reich, the people bankrolling the global far right power grab. When you layer all that on top of climate-changed induced stressors, the chances of a global pandemic of violence exceeding WWII are increasing. The only winning strategy against this is building effective non-violent resistance and resilience. It’s time for humanity to realize that we’re all in this together, but we’re not all on the same side. Armed aggression, internal political repression, the far right, and everyone else who wants to use violence (including, but not limited to, oppressive surveillance, violent political resistance, and interpersonal violence) to achieve goals are on one side and the rest of us are on the other. Other than all that, I’m reasonably optimistic about the future. AI is keeping the stock markets booming, but a lot of people don’t want it in any form. (I told my money person no crypto and no AI, year before last and last year.) I’m surprised neither one has collapsed yet. We should not forget the possibility of Iran-sponsored terroristic attacks. When nation-states or non-state actors are unevenly matched, the weaker may resort to unconventional warfare, where possible. We’ve already seen attempts to hack into water supplies. And it’s possible that Iran is being aided by Russia, China, or ?. Temporarily releasing sanctions under the MOU was folly. Giving Iran money without controls was asking for trouble. Trump, Hegseth and others seem to think that Iranian leaders have the same motives as they do. That may be a huge mistake. Trump has a history of abusing NDAs to hide information unfavorable to his playbook and ultimately obstruct investigations into his questionable activities. He has made aggressive attempts to bind political and even government officials to that that same stipulated silence. The recent attack against NY Times reporters to abuse the law to seek his disloyal insider leaks, and the most recent attempt to subject high level military staff to polygraph loyalty tests are extensions serving the same purpose: keeping his big lies safe from prying eyes, behind the scenes and safe from exposure. In this case Trump is desperate to keep his rotating cover stories from factual accountability, and it seems that even warfare is simply a matter of public relations spin in the face of global scrutiny. It might also be of some interest to note that the recent media uptick in reviving Roy Cohn’s ghost in evaluating Trump’s strategies has merit. Even his standard playbook for Iranian status follows the three tier rules of procedure. 1. Attack, attack, attack. 2. Deny everything and admit nothing 3 Not matter what the outcome many be, claim victory or success. That scaffolding appears to hold true to form.