TODAY'S DATE WILL BE IMPORTANT IN HISTORIES YET TO BE WRITTEN
The most critical battle that sealed the fate of the Western Roman Empire was the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD, often described as “The beginning of the end.” The Emperor Valens was killed, and the core of the Roman army was annihilated by the Visigoths. The battle proved to the Germanic tribes that the Roman Army was no longer invincible, breaking the aura of Roman invincibility. The final end took a further century, but after Adrianople, the empire no longer had the resources to control its own destiny.
Iran has destroyed or damaged far more U.S. military targets across the Middle East than Maladministration II has publicly disclosed, according to a report. Detailed satellite analysis by The Washington Post found that at least 228 barracks, hangars, fuel depots, aircraft, and other radar or air defense systems have been targeted in Iranian airstrikes since the war began on Feb. 28. The Post also reported that, of the more than 400 troops injured in President Donald Trump’s war, at least 12 suffered injuries so severe they were classified by the military as “serious,” according to unnamed U.S. officials. A satellite view shows damage at the U.S. Fifth Fleet naval base, after Iranian strikes, in Manama, Bahrain, March 1, 2026. In total, the analysis found that 117 structures and 11 pieces of equipment were damaged or destroyed at 15 U.S. military sites across the Middle East. Fewer than half of the bases reviewed showed no damage.
Last night, less than 12 hours after announcing “Operation Freedom” to open the Straits of Hormuz, Trump announced that operation was “on hold” indefinitely.
Trump thinks he’s close to a “one-page” deal with Iran that would give him the off-ramp he so devoutly and desperately wants. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) “would declare an end to the war in the region and the start of a 30-day period of negotiations on a detailed agreement to open the strait, limit Iran’s nuclear program and lift U.S. sanctions.”
If this is true, it amounts to a staggering strategic defeat for the US. Trump will claim victory (because he always does), but the “deal” means (1) No regime change, (2) No full denuclearization, (3) A huge economic windfall for Iran, and (4) A gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was already open before Trump attacked Iran.
This is what Professor Timothy Snyder means when he writes about “superpower suicide.”
Phillips O’Brien’s take: “Once again, Trump acted tough but when faced with resistance, he blinked. It was typical of the general rule of thumb for US policy over the last 5 weeks. Though there are lots of proclamations, market swings, intense proclamations, even actions—in the end nothing ever changes. People are getting hoodwinked time and time again into thinking we are about to see something important happen. The reality is that Trump remains as stuck as he was at the beginning of April. He wants out, does not want to escalate, but cannot yet declare victory and leave. It’s like an orange version of Groundhog Day.”
Adam Kinzinger: “There is a moment in every negotiation - between nations, between rivals, between enemies - when credibility is the only currency that matters. Not military hardware. Not sanctions. Not treaties. Words backed by the demonstrated willingness to mean them. This week, the United States ran out of that currency. And the world noticed.
“Iran responded not with compliance but with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones aimed at the UAE. A South Korean cargo vessel caught fire in the Strait. The United Arab Emirates - a close American partner - reported strikes on its territory. Trump posted to Lies Anti-Social that the operation would be “paused for a short period of time” due to - and this is worth reading slowly - “the tremendous Military Success that we have had during the Campaign” and “Great Progress” toward a deal.
“This is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern, and by now it is a deeply familiar one. Credibility is what allows a superpower to deter conflict without firing a shot. It is the accumulated weight of decades of demonstrated follow-through - the understanding, internalized by adversaries and allies alike, that American threats and American promises both mean something.
“When that credibility is spent, the cost is not abstract. It is paid in military deployments that would otherwise be unnecessary. It is paid in diplomatic arrangements that collapse because no one trusts the guarantor. It is paid in allies who quietly begin hedging their bets, building independent capabilities, or - in the worst case - accommodating adversaries because they have concluded Washington cannot be relied upon. This is the part that should concern every American regardless of how they feel about this war, this administration, or this president. When a government sends its secretary of state, its secretary of defense, and its entire communications apparatus to sell a military operation to the world on a Tuesday morning, and that operation is abandoned by Tuesday evening because the adversary responded adversarially - as adversaries do - something has gone wrong at a fundamental level.
“When a president’s threats have become so routine and so unmoored from action that global oil markets function as a real-time betting market on whether he means it this time, something has gone wrong at a fundamental level.
“History will record this period. Future administrations will inherit it. And the countries watching all of this - in Beijing, in Moscow, in Tehran, in Pyongyang, in the capitals of nervous allies from Seoul to Warsaw to Tallinn - are already drawing their conclusions.
“The words of the United States of America used to mean something. That is the thing being lost. Reputational damage of this magnitude does not reset on Inauguration Day.”
I wish I didn’t believe a single word above. Sadly, I believe every one of them. What has been called the American Century - born, with me, in the year of the high tide of the Republic, 1944 - has been destroyed by the worst individual who could possibly have been allowed to install complete incompetence in the seat of power. The result is only surprising that today will mart that “beginning of the end,” rather than any other day in the history of the rule by this “most persistent ignoramus I ever met” in the words of his former chief of staff, and his collection of the most foolish, idiotic, mendacious, malign incompetents ever assembled to exercise state power.
Our work now will be to dig through the wreckage and reassemble what can be reassembled, to bring new ideas to reinforce old ideals, and recreate a better America. If we are successful, it will take the rest of this century to accomplish.
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Actually the first domino that started the cascade to this dismal outcome was when the TV writers went on strike in 1988 and the networks had all that dead time in programming to fill up so some bright light decided to produce “reality TV” shows to fill up the empty time slots. Another bright lad decided that it would be a good idea to take a failed Queens real estate developer and make him into some kind of financial guru in a scripted series. For some ungodly reason the show clicked and an unlikely star was born. Thanks to the perverse and pervasive power of television the modern day Antichrist was created, with the main character in place to begin the destruction of the American Empire, soon to be aided by the rise of another media monster, Rupert Murdoch of Fox Noise.
I feel deeply sad and so angry to have to spend my last decade or so resisting a true madman and his more mad minions and living with this unnecessary and deeply incompetent dismantling of trust. It is amazing to me how quickly this seemed to happen, though the finance and planning was going on for years " while we slept." It was a failure of my imagination-- as in, I could not imagine this ever happening here! Like the title of Mayer's book about the Germans, I thought "we were free"!