WILL THE THING FINALLY BE PRESSED?

The useful idiots at Common Dreams are doing what useful idiots do.  "Iran Condemns Fresh US Bombing Campaign as ‘Serious Threat to International Peace’."  Pure projection, but isn't it the way of the abuser to accuse everybody else of being abusive?

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned the United States’ latest round of airstrikes as a “flagrant violation” of international law that threatens to permanently derail efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the war, which US President Donald Trump launched earlier this year in coordination with the Israeli government.

This past weekend, said Iran’s Foreign Ministry, the US carried out “brutal attacks” and “acts of aggression” that pose “a serious threat to international peace and security, rendering futile all efforts made over the past several months to reduce tensions and restore stability in the West Asia region.”

For 47 years the mullahs and their revolutionary guard storm troopers have been fomenting instability and raising tensions.

Perhaps, perhaps, the patience of Our President with the faculty meeting process nonsense is finally at an end.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said Sunday that Iran is “controlled by a bunch of crazy people” after escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.

“President Trump’s a peacemaker, Jake, and he wants a deal with Iran. He wants to make sure that they never have a nuclear weapon, that they join the world as a contributor and a normalized country,” Whitaker told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

“But right now it’s, you know, as Marco Rubio has also stated, you know, this country is controlled by a bunch of crazy people,” he added.

By now, it's third- or fourth-level people from the clumsy coalition that has been mismanaging Iran for nearly half a century, and it well might be that there are people who are seriously communicating their desire for some sort of relief to Qatari or Pakistani diplomats or, clandestinely, to their Mossad handlers.  They, however, lack the clout to obtain cooperation from the revolutionary guard elements who can still fire a drone or launch a speedboat.

As of this afternoon, kinetic operations (bombing, for those of you in Rio Linda) are ongoing, and Our President is engaging in what might best be understood as trolling.  "President Trump announced Monday that the U.S. is reinstating the blockade of Iranian ports and, in an unexpected move, would take over management of the Strait of Hormuz on a 'fee for service' basis."  Perhaps in doing so, he's putting whoever is negotiating for the rump mullah regime in a position where they either have to concede that the power with superior force can collect tolls, or they have to invoke International Norms and claim that the Strait of Hormuz is international waters.

There might be, notes Red State's Streiff, other international maneuvering going on.

I see the demand for fees to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as an indirect ploy to turn the management of the Strait over to NATO and the Gulf States. If we are crapping ourselves over the impact of sending a few dozen Patriot missiles to Ukraine, we certainly aren't in the position to take on the task of policing the Strait. This mission is tailor-made for a NATO flotilla rich in minesweepers and anti-aircraft frigates. It is also a mission that the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia could undertake to solidify their role as a counterweight to Iran in the future and build their military competence. This would also get rid of the issue of fees.

Perhaps. National Command Authority had best see it through this time.

In my personal view, the campaign against Iran has been a dog's breakfast of signals by the American side, all of which have served to internally strengthen an Iranian regime that was on the ropes and barely clinging to life in January. If President Trump is serious about carrying through on this plan to own the Strait of Hormuz, I think it will be a strategic victory that will resonate for a generation. If it is another tactic to get more useless negotiations with totally unreliable partners, don't be shocked when our Gulf allies start abandoning us and falling in line behind Iran.

The economic sanctions on Iranian oil, and the blockade, are back on, and just like that any transactions involving Iranian oil are contraband.

Iranian oil has become too toxic even for the CCP. Japan is welcoming tankers inbound from the U.S. constantly, and Iranian ships have literally nowhere to go. That's why Iran felt desperate enough to begin the doom loop of attacking ships in the Strait again. They realized very quickly that Donald Trump had gotten the better of them in the M.O.U., and they had to change the equation. What they failed to calculate was how done President Trump was with their game.

Let the anaconda's coils tighten.