NO, MORE WARS!

The newest news is:

Kuwait shot down three U.S. F-15 fighter jets in a friendly fire incident. All six crew members survived the incident.

The known death toll among U.S. service members rose to four. All four deaths appear to have come from an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. facility in Kuwait.

The death in toll in Iran as the U.S. air assault entered its third day reached 555, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. The worst single incident appeared to be a strike on a girl’s elementary school in the southern Iran town of Minab; the death toll in this incident as the ruins are cleared ande bodies recovered is now 175 people - there will probably be many more, given the few survivors.

The wife of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died after her husband was killed in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Saturday, according to Iranian state television.

Iranian-backed militias across the Middle East carried out strikes against American forces and partners across the region. An Iranian-backed militia in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon have joined the fight between Sunday and Monday, underscoring the widening conflict. America’s Gulf partners hosting U.S. troops came under retaliatory attack from Iran over the weekend, and European countries have announced defensive measures to counter Iranian drones and missiles.

Ali Larijani - the senior regime insider who came into focus yesterday as the likely face of the continuity picture - is now out in public with a defiant message, accusing the United States and Israel of seeking to “plunder and disintegrate” Iran and warning separatists not to exploit the moment. In an interview on Iranian State Television, he also said that “groups seeking to divide Iran should know that we will not tolerate it.” Reuters reports that the temporary leadership council remains in place, that Iran’s command structure is still operating, and that U.S. officials themselves are skeptical of near-term regime change, in part because they are not seeing the kind of meaningful Revolutionary Guard defections that would usually signal a real break in regime cohesion.

Good advice: National security scholar Tom Nichols posted on social media: “People predicting disaster: The odds are in your favor, but you cannot be sure, and you should not hope to be right. People celebrating: Maybe wanna wait a bit. The odds, historically, are definitely not on your side. Anyone certain they know what happens next is making it up.”

By all accounts, the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and several of the top Iranian leadership can be credited as superb coordination of intelligence and operational capability. As Clausewitz noted in “On War,” “War is politics by other means.” The question is, did this action serve the political means of the nation, or the personal political needs of one criminal? One cannot judge a wartime action solely by the facts surrounding the event; the moral dimension is crucial, because this alone is what ultimately ranks the event as “good” or “bad” for the nation involved.

Here’s what a war run by fucking morons looks like:

Regarding the lie that Iran was preparing to pre-emptively strike the United States, which was given as a reason for the war happeningt when it did, Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, and Jennifer Hansler of CNN reported Sunday evening that briefers from the Pentagon told congressional staff Sunday that Iran had not been planning to attack U.S. forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked first. Trump administration officials said on Saturday that Iran was planning to strike the U.S. preemptively and thus posed an imminent threat. The briefers said there was no intelligence to support that claim.

Trump did not immediately return to Washington, D.C. to monitor the situation. Instead, he stayed in Florida at Motel-a-Lardass to attend a high-dollar fundraiser. “The Nero model,” Carl Worker, a former diplomat from New Zealand, posted on X. The New York Times reported last November that tickets for the dinner dance were $1 million apiece. The optics of Trump partying with his rich cronies while American soldiers died is at least partly what is behind the fact that today, “#SendBarron” trended on social media.

In a six-minute video posted on Lies Anti-Social, Trump said “thousands” of Iranian regime guards and police have called him and asked for immunity. (Were they big and powerful? With tears in their eyes? Are they in the room with us now?) Trump added that he would give them “full immunity” if they surrendered. Former CIA Director John Brennan thinks Trump has his head up his ass (an easy bet). “I don’t understand what he means by that because there’s going to be a lot of bloodletting inside of Iran. All of the slaughter, unfortunately, that took place at the hands of the regime, with the protests and demonstrators. There’s going to be some accountability and a day of reckoning inside of Iran.” This is not to mention that not all the Iranian leadership was taken out with their “brilliant attack.” The Iranian regime undoubtedly has a succession plan and are putting it into action as I write. (My bet is that Khamenei’s son, who isn’t dead, will succeed to leadership - at least as figurehead) The Iranian people just went through a major blood-letting by the regime, and are unlikely to step up now, when the Regime can credibly call them “American stooges” from all of Trump’s bullshit. Whatever the losses, it’s the regime that still has the guns. They don’t need A-bombs or ICBMs to stay in power.

So much for “regime change” - there will be new people in positions of power but the regime will not change. Tehran has moved quickly to activate the constitutional mechanism meant to prevent a vacuum at the very top. A constitutionally mandated three-person temporary leadership council has been formed to assume the Supreme Leader’s duties: President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi of the Guardian Council. Ali Larijani, has come into focus as a key player who can coordinate across the security apparatus, the clerical establishment, and the state’s institutional hierarchy. He is not a reformist and not an opposition figure. He’s an establishment operator—conservative in orientation, but widely characterized as a pragmatic insider with ties across rival power nodes. Reuters describes him as having “a reputation for pragmatism” and “strong ties” to both clerical and military circles. He survived the decapitation strike itself, and subsequently appears in reporting as a key figure in explaining or managing the continuity process. That combination—proximity, survival, and institutional positioning—is what makes him a plausible wartime coordinator and a potential kingmaker in the succession fight. If the regime is absorbing the shock rather than fracturing, it will likely do so through exactly this kind of two-part structure: a constitutional facade for legitimacy, and an empowered insider network to keep the coercive organs and decision loop functioning. Larijani sits right at that seam.

So, the one thing of any value to the United States politically - a change in regime, or even better a move to establish democracy, is not happening. This is another of Trump’s “all hat and no cattle” political moves.

Sen. Chris Murphy said Sunday that a democracy will not arise from the conflict in Iran, adding that “an even worse Iranian leadership” is going to come out of the fighting. “Now, the president has said that the goal is regime change, and the goal is to eliminate Iran’s missile program and their nuclear program. He is not going to succeed in either of those endeavors. His intelligence agencies have already told him that the most likely outcome is that hard-line members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps replace the current leadership. So, we’re not going to get a democracy. We’re going to get an even worse Iranian leadership. We already know that you can’t bomb their nuclear program out of existence. He told us last year that he had obliterated the program, and then apparently, over the course of the last year, they had gotten back to within a week” Murphy told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” This is by far a more knowledgeable assessment. Trump’s “great deal” is going where most of his”great deals” have gone - down the shitter.

Even Charlie Kirk could figure out what was what last summer: “This is insane. Regime change will result in a bloody civil war, killing hundreds of thousands and creating another massive Muslim refugee crisis. Topping a leader is NEVER as easy you think. It almost always results in further involvement, a civil war, and chaos.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that U.S. troops are racing to destroy Iran’s ballistic and nuclear missile facilities before they run out of interceptors to defend from Iranian retaliatory strikes. The exact size of the military’s ammunition base is classified, but analysts and former officials who spoke to The Journal said the stockpile has been diminished after repeated conflicts in the region. “One of the challenges is you can deplete these really quickly,” Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told The Journal. “We’re using them faster than we can replace them.” They’re also running low on sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and aircraft-launched weapons following the operation last year to take out Yemen-based Houthi militants, according to the report. “Eventually it boils down to numbers,” Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told The Journal. “How many interceptors will we have versus how many launchers will they be able to field and fire.”

The UAE is shooting down 92% of everything Iran throws at it. Yet the financial toll of sustaining that defense is enormous, raising the prospect that tactical ‘victory’ masks a costly strategic drain. For every dollar Iran spent on drones, the UAE spent between $20-$28 shooting them down. This is the core of Iran’s strategy and it’s not new. It’s the same math Russia has been running against Ukraine for three years.

What effect is this having on the US Economy? CNN reports US crude rose as much as 8%, to around $72 on Sunday evening and dropped to $71 later. Brent crude, the international benchmark, initially rocketed more than 12% higher to about $82 a barrel but fell below $78 later in the evening. Brent settled at just over $73 a barrel on Friday. The initial oil futures move, though steep compared to typical crude trades, was largely telegraphed and within analysts’ expected range for a rattled but not overly concerned market. Oil prices had already been rising in anticipation of an attack on Iran. Meanwhile, stock futures fell. Futures for the S&P 500, the Nasdaq and the Dow were all down about 1%. But futures for Exxon, Chevron and many other oil companies rose about 2% each.

Iran plays a pivotal role in the global oil market. It is a major producer of oil, controls a vital shipping lane for crude and exports to oil-hungry nations such as China. The country also boasts the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves, according to OPEC. If Iran can create as much chaos in the Gulf States as possible, with threats to the oil supply, international travel, and other economic issues, it could have an effect on the U.S. stock market, a vulnerability for Trump since he bases so many actions taken - and abandoned - by their effect on the NYSE. Speaking to Jonathan Lemire, Tom Friedkin said, “Drive the price of oil as high as you can, drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average down as far as you can, and hope that Trump, as in the past, will chicken out.”

And right on time, “Gasoline futures jumped as much as 9% Monday as the flow of tankers carrying crude and fuel through the Strait of Hormuz all but ceased,” according to Bloomberg. Gasoline and oil prices were expected to keep climbing, according to the American Automobile Association. “Americans have very staunch beliefs on how much they should pay for gasoline,” Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, told Bloomberg. “So it does become a political liability.”

At the Pentagon briefing this morning - where no evidence was provided (after being promised) that the assault on Iran was “defensive”, SECDRUNK Kegstand stated “There will be no stupid rules of engagement.” This set off alarm bells. “‘No stupid rules of engagement’ means no Geneva Conventions or other international humanitarian laws, which the U.S. signed and supported for more than a century. Hegseth and Trump are pro-war crimes,” observed former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs. “I don’t know how many times it needs to be said, but rules of engagement are for the safety of our troops as much as they’re for protecting civilian lives. Fucking idiot children running the joint,” pointed out academic Lee Papa who goes by “Rude Pundit.” “This is why so many generals think he’s a complete tool,” explained journalist Will Harris.

All this “winning” leads to the inevitable conclusion that once he realizes he’s fucked up again, Dilbert Dumbfuck will seek to wash his hands of this fakakte, as he has done with Venezuela. His air campaign has not only not brought about regime change, it won’t no matter now long he carries on - air power has a record of Zip For All in attempting to promote regime change by bombing. Not only will he not have regime change, the result is already that more extreme, more committed individuals have already assumed power and that the population is cowed. Everything Trump touches, dies.

Let’s remember that Iran isn’t the only war crime, just the latest: As reported this morning by the NYT: Faced with a proposed review of military targeting used in the U.S. campaign against suspected drug-smuggling boats on the high seas (death toll now 160+), Platte B. Moring III (why do far right idiots all have funny names?), the new Trump-appointed Pentagon inspector general, told staff in a Feb. 11 meeting that was concerned about the political implications of the review that he wanted to consult with Defense Department leadership first. Since then, Moring hasn’t rejected or approved the proposal, leaving the investigation in limbo.

Let’s also remember that this war is an act of distraction on Trump’s part, to take our focus away from his domestic crimes. “Operation Epic Distraction.” Maintaining the focus on his domestic assault on the republic is where we have the greatest chance of defeating him. With that in mind, here’s what’s going on in the swamp of Trumpfuckistan:

Trump and his administration lost an appeal that would have delayed a Supreme Court ruling striking down the authority to impose emergency tariffs. In a ruling issued this morning, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Maladministration II bid to delay the effective date of the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling by 90 days. The court granted the appellees’ motion for “immediate issuance of the mandates” imposed by the Supreme Court. In doing so, it also denied a “cross-motion to stay the issuance of the mandates.” “The mandates shall issue forthwith.”

Federal judges in one of the Trumpiest states in the country have suddenly become a firewall against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. District court judges in West Virginia describe rampant lawlessness by masked ICE agents, defiance of court orders and a wanton infliction of fear and intimidation by the federal government after Maladministration II deployed a targeted immigration enforcement operation in the state last month. “Operation Country Roads,” a partnership with federal and local law enforcement that netted an estimated 650 arrests in January, primarily focused on targeting immigrants driving along the state’s roadways. It has resulted in a flood of lawsuits by people - most without criminal records and with longstanding ties to the U.S. - seeking release from ICE custody. Though federal judges in other states have raised alarms, four judges in deep-red West Virginia who have been inundated by Country Roads cases are using their rulings to grab Americans by the shoulders and warn against a descent into authoritarianism. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin wrote in a Feb. 19 opinion: “Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening. Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government - masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind - are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process. The systematic character of this practice and its deliberate elimination of every structural feature that distinguishes constitutional authority from raw force place it beyond the reach of ordinary legal description. It is an assault on the constitutional order.” The four judges are now promising “legal consequences” if the administration and its allies in state government keep detaining people in ways they have deemed unconstitutional. Those consequences could range from civil fines to contempt. In an opinion released on Friday, Goodwin wrote in an opinion he labeled a “final notice”: “The Government is wrong. Judges in this district have said that over and over and over, if officials could repeat practices already determined to be unconstitutional and require each affected person to begin anew … judicial power would be reduced to commentary. The Constitution does not contemplate violations in installments.”

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

The ritual sacrifice/murder of the Washington Post is a stark reminder of the importance of independent journalism. No billionaires. No oligarchs. No corporate media. No dark money PACS. None of us can do it alone. You are not the crazy ones. These are truly the times that try men’s and women’s souls. This is the fight of our lifetimes, and the challenge of our generation. I realize times are getting harder, which is why some readers understandably didn’t renew their subscriptions. There are several free subscribers who read TAFM daily according to the site stats. If you folks happen to be in a position to help make up the gap, please consider joining the other paid subscribers here at That’s Another Fine Mess to keep things going. Across Substack, authors like me are losing to the Big Names who come here to say the same things they said in corporate media. We need your help! It’s only 21 cents a day. I am deeply thankful to those who have done so.

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