Iran has Trump by the الخصيتان (balls in Arabic 🙂)

Politics
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Frankly I think it is so funny. While the despicable regime in Iran (and I note also Saudi) continues to execute dissenters, one has to recognise how well they are pulling the chain of the equally odious US.

Trump as usual talks fantasy bolix, Hegseth likewise, and Rubio too. They are all over the place. Meanwhile the Israeli bastards, who got Trump into this mess in the first place, keep sneakily slaughtering innocents in Lebanon and the West Bank and destroying their homes.

Starmer frets (no doubt goaded by the wife) on antisemitism in the leafy suburbs of London, and demands everyone should play a role in curbing it. Personally, after the general silence of the Jewish communities there on Gaza, the West Bank and the Gazefication policy in southern Lebanon I have total inference to their supposed plight. When I see an armoured bulldozer in Golders Green I might get worried.

Meanwhile decent, compassionate Jews are silenced.

I continue to laud the courageous journalists and activists in

and

https://www.btselem.org/

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I agree one hundred per cent.

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The world’s oil stockpiles are due to hit critical levels by early July at the latest.

Trump possibly thinks he’s immune, except the US does not produce the right grade for its own refineries.

Trump will go down in history as the man who crashed the world economy so badly that the 1920’s looks like a minor cash flow problem.

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I despair of the lot of them and the old man in the Kremlin too. Several old men holding the rest of us to ransom over their differences and despicable acts that it’s no wonder things kick off in other quarters. Now I see the hordes are entering via Turkey and ordinary people being paid €8000 to use their cars to ferry these people further towards the west of the EU and no one seems to care or do anything about it, they even bring their own ladders to scale the border fences in Turkey and Greece! What was that famous saying from the 60’s - “Stop the world, I want to get off”

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Funny it is not as it affecting pretty much everyone on the planet.

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Trump has been hit in the face by the stupidity of his actions and we all suffer. Also it’s TACO time again. What the hell is the answer other than getting common sense back into the US government?

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mmm. Maybe you are in the league of Dyson, Bamford et al who can afford to regard, as they did Brexit, the mess we are now in as funny. I can well afford to maybe ride it out with a depletion on my opera budget, but many are already struggling and more will follow if it all drags into the winter. They do not and will not see it as funny.

I know it is highly unfashionable here to be pro Israel, but some things have to be said. Whilst I, along with others deplore the unnecessary killing of women and children in Gaza and Lebanon, one must ask why this is happening? Basically the answer is Iran. Iran hates Israel, but are too cowardly to face them directly, so they fund bands of terrorists to do their work for them. Terrorists are also cowards, and fight like cowards using their own as unwitting shields, therefore to counter these terrorists, Israel must do what it has to do with a consequence that the innocent suffer.

Why does it continue when in truth a terror group can hardly fight its way out of a paper bag? Because there is no shortage of money from a dumb oil rich nation: Iran. Get rid of Iran.

Then along comes a madman who thinks exactly this, and maybe not with the best tactical moves decides to get rid of them with scant disregard of the cost to the world. And here we are, in nonsense land. The world economy is shot to hell, and domestic violence is starting to hold many to ransom - domestic violence that emanates from guess where? Iran.

Caught up in it we are, unable to control destiny, so we must hope that the best of the two mad sides comes out on top. And quickly. Now you must decide which is the best side.

So, much as I abhor Trump as any man, I do want the US to annihilate Iran, then put the Palestinians back into Gaza and tell them to get on with it - and if they want to fight, then build up an economy and form an army to do it under the Geneva Convention. Yes, it has been difficult for them, made so by stupidity of a large empire without any forethought, and this is where assistance to build again should come from.

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You deplore Israel’s killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon but are happy for the US to kill similarly innocent civilians in Iran, makes no sense.

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Yup, no sense - nonsense, that’s 70 million people annihilated, even more than Gaza (so far). There’s a word for these ideas…

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Written without proof reading I am afraid :face_with_hand_over_mouth: - annihilate Iran’s regime and culture.

But yes, a moral question - can this be done without loss of innocent lives..?

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I’m too young or was not aware of what happened, but why did the official ruler the Shah of Persia/Iran leave his country originally. Was it a regime just as bad or one the ordinary people did not like. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to how these religious head jobs get to run a country and keep the population from overthrowing them.

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Good question. Any number of reasons are in the history books I think from ‘unable to rule the country due to ill health’ all the way down to ‘taking the country’s wealth for his own causing poverty amongst the workers’

I think the latter was the case, but either way, it just happened that religious mouths were at the right place at the right time, took advantage of the situation grabbed power and changed nothing.:slightly_smiling_face:

To answer your question though, some religions are not as liberal (or advanced?) as ours where the populace is brought up to fear the leaders - many of whom rule with intolerance backed by well looked-after henchmen in Iran’s case, the IRG.

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They got rid of the evil ruler and elected a president. He was then deposed by the US because they wouldn’t give the oil to them. Sounds familiar?

Haha, only joking (sort of), according to Wikipedia -

“Revolutionary factions disagreed on the shape of the new Iran. Those who thought the Shah would be replaced by a democratic government soon found Khomeini disagreed. In early March 1979, he announced, “do not use this term, ‘democratic.’ That is the Western style.”[200] In succession the National Democratic Front was banned in August 1979, the provisional government was disempowered in November, the Muslim People’s Republican Party banned in January 1980, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and its supporters came under attack between 1979 and 1981, a purge of universities was begun in March 1980, and leftist President Abolhassan Banisadr was impeached in June 1981.[201]

The consolidation lasted until 1982–3,[202][203] as Iran coped with the damage to its economy, military, and apparatus of government, and protests and uprisings by secularists, leftists, and more traditional Muslims—formerly ally revolutionaries but now rivals—were effectively suppressed.”

But the US does seem to hate Iran because of the hostage crisis, and the unsuccessful American attempt to free them.

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This hatred of the US in many radical ME Staes does amuse me.

I was in Iraq during the Iraq/Iran war, both who hated the US, but in order to get plenty of officers onto the front line, Saddam Hussein (Iraq) came up with an incentive to give officers a Chevrolet motor car to anyone who did multiples of two tours on the front line. In no time at all, Baghdad was awash with cream coloured Chevrolets :joy:

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You were doing so well right up to here. I don’t think anyone’s silence should then be seen as carte blanche to physically attack them.

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In 1964 or 5 I was a deckhand on the Shell tanker, the Vertagus and after much mystery about our destination before we actually turned left into Hormuz, we ended up in Kuwait, or rather on the end of a mile long pier carrying the pipeline and a walkway.

We were excited at the prospect of shore leave, at last we would see Iraq, that we had heard so much about. We swarmed with our walking boots on along the pier 'til we got to the end and looked for the bus or coach station to continue the trip. Nothing, just miles and miles of empty sand, as far as the eye could see…and a wooden shack. Above the shack was a sign in English ‘Duty Free Shop’. And that was it. At least I got ‘home’ with a very nice Kodak camera at a very cheap price. I still have it, but, as to knowledge of the area…I know nuzzing. :slightly_frowning_face:

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In the early 1908.s I worked in Saudi right up to the border with Kuwait on survey ships. We used to go out to the little islands in the gulf in bad weather to shelter we used to snorkel on the reefs ( probably not really allow but great fun. Not much entertainment just local TV with endless reruns of Dallas. I never went to Iraq but turned down a job to map the shat al Arab waterway, a very wise move as friends who went endured terrible conditions and never got paid.

During the Iraq Iran war we went from Bahrain to do a survey for a new oil jetty, supposedly out of the war zone, but in it a month or two later. We went on the beach in Iran and bought a sack of pistachios. The vessel was impounded back in Bahrain for a week as we had cleared for high seas ( not supposed to go to Iran).

I also worked in Abu Dhabi when the creek was full of Dhows and the Red lion pub was one of the places to go.

Maybe I was lucky but I never had any problems in any of the Gulf country’s met a few locals and had a good and financially rewarding time.

In the UK we had a few Iranian friends who were all fleeing the new regime. I feel sorry for all of those who have to suffer these type of regimes.

Regards

Nick

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Does that mean I’ll have to buy a bicycle to get my wife to the Intermarché?

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Iran is very very far from being dumb. It has an immensely sophisticated, urban, literate, culture which is several thousand years long. Unlike eg the Gulf Arabs with whom they have very little in common anyway.

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That’s a really weird observation in several respects!

What’s ‘ours’?

If by that you mean Christianity - then you only need to look at the two sets of fundamentalists (rich and not so rich) that are behind Trump to see that much of it is neither liberal, nor ‘advanced’.

In fact for most of them, ‘liberal’ is a term of abuse!

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