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From the President:
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 20, 2026
Time to dust off the "Mission Accomplished" banner?
~A Thought for the Day from David Blair in our comments section:
It's time to move past your reticence to have initiated the war and get behind Trump. Your fear that it might end badly is noted.
"Get behind Trump"? That might be better directed at Vance, Gabbard, Kennedy and other cabinet members whose discomfort with the strange turn of events is palpable either through their sudden absence from public life or when they're testifying to Congress and trying to walk the fine line between not getting fired now and not getting impeached by the incoming Democrat majority in January. It is not reassuring when the Director of National Intelligence cannot answer a straight question about the casus belli - the hitherto "obliterated" Iranian nuclear programme. Mr Blair hectors those of us who think this war is a fiasco with demands that we let him know what we propose to do about Iran's nukes.
Sorry, but that's last month's question: its relevance ended with the launch of the war. It's now merely the Hitchcockian MacGuffin. Indeed, it was reduced to that status at the Geneva pseudo-negotiations to which the hyperpower dispatched two real-estate guys: the only technical expert in the room was the one the boring uptight asshole Brit civil servant decided to bring along to translate the boffin-speak into his ear. Then he discovered the Yanks had decided that was all unnecessary. So now we're back to shock'n'awe, which has worked so well this millennium, hasn't it? Thus, the recently de-obliterated nuclear programme could theoretically be bunker-busted again, and then re-bunker-busted in another six months, and on and on till the end of time. Whichever real-estate guys are sent to next year's Versailles Conference can pitch that to Ayatollah #473 and see how it goes down. Or, alternatively, the US could insert special forces into the country to "secure" the nukes. Might go like the bin Laden raid, or might be Helicopters in the Desert 2...
But either way, to repeat: it's last month's question. The issue now is how bad America's latest lost war will go.
As for me, I don't really do cheerleading, because I look rubbish wearing a Chinese-made "These Colors Don't Run!" T-shirt while the umpteenth generation of American men gets killed and crippled to no strategic purpose. Nevertheless, as a courtesy, I was about to direct my complainants to websites where they're gung-ho for this sort of thing - until I noticed that, even at those shingles which to one degree or another support the war, they'd rather yak about anything else. From Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire: "The Netflix Documentary EVERYONE Is Talking About."
So just to be clear: I don't "fear" that it "might" end badly. Because, since VJ Day, what American war doesn't? The only difference this time is the potential scale of disaster. As I noted:
Population of Syria in 2011: 22 million;
Population of Libya in 2011: 6.3 million;
Population of Iraq in 2003: 26.8 million;
Population of Afghanistan in 2001: 20-25 million;
Population of Vietnam in 1965: 37 million;
Population of North Korea in 1950: 11 million.
Oh, and, for those weary of that grim roll-call, let's throw in:
Population of the Japanese Empire in 1940: 73 million;
Population of the Greater German Reich in 1940: 79 million.
As opposed to:
Population of Iran right now: 93 million
- spread over an area the size of western Europe; or, if you prefer, three times the size of Ukraine, or the combined size of Afghanistan and Iraq. I would be interested to hear from any American under the age of 107 on what basis they think the United States is remotely capable of pulling this off - even if we knew, from one day to the next, what "this" is meant to be. In the absence of any coherent war aims, the likeliest outcomes are:
1) a failed state sending tens of millions of its citizens across Turkey to Europe; or
2) an Iran with its power and prestige vastly increased.
So no, I won't be joining the eerily sotto voce rah-rah right. And, incidentally, in our present political culture, who seriously "stands behind" anybody? Remember the Fall of Kabul? Well, no, you probably don't, but it was in the papers for a couple of days. Were any of the commanders cashiered for that? Or are they still in the Pentagon at this very minute? How about the decision to leave all that weaponry at Bagram? Which right now is being used by the Afghans against their nuclear neighbour Pakistan. Have the Bagram boys been transferred to this third fiasco in half-a-decade?
And here's the critical wrinkle: America's unwon wars usually take place in countries of peripheral significance to the global economy. Me fifteen sodding years ago:
According to the World Bank, the western military/aid presence now accounts for 97% of Afghanistan's GDP.
So that didn't leave a lot over to destabilise your ability to fill up your cart at the local KwikkiKrap.
This time it's different. Iran is the Afghan war combined with the 2008 financial crisis. You recall that just yesterday Tehran hit some joint called Ras Laffan. From Qatar's Energy Minister:
He says Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity will reduce by 17% over the next five years, causing the country to lose $20bn in annual revenue...
Iran's attack on Ras Laffan was in response to an Israeli attack on Wednesday to its South Pars gas field, which is located just north in the Persian Gulf.
"Five years isn't a repair," Ciaran Roe, chief commercial officer at HySights, a clean fuels market intelligence provider based in Singapore, tells the BBC. "It's a full rebuild".
Twenty billion per annum for five years? In any country other than the United States of Brokistan (where it's merely half of the "supplemental funding" the Pentagon is demanding this week) one hundred bil would be a significant amount of money. For Iran, it's an awful lot of bucks for just one rinky-dink bang.
For fans of deadpan comedy, this paragraph in the above report is a gem:
Countries in Asia are the most reliant on Qatari LNG, especially Japan, South Korea, India and China. In Europe, Italy and Belgium are already big customers - but the continent as a whole is becoming increasingly reliant on Middle Eastern gas, having turned away from Russian imports in the wake of the Ukraine war.
You don't say! Gee, it's almost like all the arseholery eventually connects up! Forty per cent of UK homes depend on Qatari LNG - or did, until Doha shut down production. A few years ago, Kate Smyth suggested here that we were witnessing the "controlled demolition" of the entire western world. We've now moved on to the next stage: uncontrolled demolition. Look out below.
According to the Joint Maritime Information Center, 138 ships per day normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz; that's currently down to four. You do the math. An estimated third of all recent crossings through the strait are by ships connected to Tehran:
While Iran has effectively choked off oil exports by its Arab neighbors through the Strait of Hormuz, it has continued shipping its own crude largely uninterrupted.
Yeah, but it's a big problem for China, right? Er, well...
Discharges at Chinese ports have also risen, increasing from about 1.17 million bpd in February to more than 1.25 million so far in March. Figures from the International Energy Agency and maritime intelligence provider Lloyd's List similarly point to a surge in Iran's shipments.
Last week, Iran also loaded a two-million-barrel cargo from Jask — its only export terminal outside the Strait of Hormuz — marking the first such shipment since October 2024.
Ah, so Iran's selling more oil than before the war? Why, yes, and that makes the Government of the United States very happy:
US considers lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil
(UPDATE! It's happened.)
Wait a minute, I thought the US was lifting sanctions on Russian oil...
Well, no, it's both. That way we can enrich both our enemies so they can prolong both wars. You know it makes sense. The Treasury Secretary says so:
"In the coming days, we may un-sanction the Iranian oil that's on the water. It's about 140m barrels," Bessent said during an appearance on Fox Business Network's Mornings with Maria.
"That's about 10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out that would have all gone to China," he continued. "In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 to 14 days as we continue this campaign."
Anything else? Oh, lookee here - today's winning hand at Mad Libs:
U.S. Lifts Fertilizer Sanctions on Belarus as Iran War Causes Price Surge
Honourable runners-up:
Every Wednesday a public holiday: Sri Lanka announces measure to conserve fuel
Myanmar junta responds to fuel crisis with bizarre alternate-day driving order
Like I said, the Afghan war as run by Lehman Brothers: I know that's what I voted for. Yet, as Week Four begins, the Administration seems minded to continue its winning strategy of bigging up China, Russia and Iran.
As longtime readers know, I regard the west's real battlefield as the home front. In response, I have been assured that Uncle Sam can walk and chew gum simultaneously. I am unpersuaded. On the walking front, Israel's excellent human intelligence is pinpointing every dime-store evildoer in Tehran and blasting him to his virgins. On the gum-chewing front, the US government has taken the precaution of giving every Ahmed bin Evildoer Jr a Green Card.
For example, consider the case of the recently deceased Ali Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and a chap with the blood of over 30,00 innocents on his hands, and that's just from January. His daughter teaches at Emory University in Atlanta:
Ali Larijani's daughter returns to Iran for her father's funeral and goes on state media to praise her daddy.
Oh, and she's been living in the U.S. and working at Emory University. https://t.co/TCpxfmpzM7 pic.twitter.com/HMG1XrzbDy
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) March 19, 2026
Dr Larijani is Assistant Professor in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute in the Emory School of Medicine. Has the district court judge of Dead Moose Junction weighed in yet on the President's authority to drone the families of lawful US immigrants? Has Blue Cross-Blue Shield agreed to cover your treatment by doctors who tell you to stick out your tongue and say "Death to America"?
Whatever. Lindsey Graham says the ayatollahs are within days of nuking all the cities where their kids and grandkids live and work. That's pretty hardcore.
To return to our question re the Fall of Kabul, will the US immigration official who decided Dr Larijani was indispensable to the health of the republic pay any price for it? To ask the question is to answer it: on the very day Israel blew Dr Larijani's pater into the religion of pieces, rock-ribbed Republicans joined with their Democrat colleagues to introduce "bipartisan" legislation exempting physicians such as Dr Larijani from new Trump rules requiring $100,000 fees from immigration applicants.
Unlike its forebears in 1941, your government can't walk or chew gum. Yet somehow the corrupt and dysfunctional military bureaucracy that gave us Iraq and Afghanistan is supposed to be an exception to this iron-clad law?
Oh, well. My old friends at The Spectator already have their kinky boots on the ground:
The West should double down on the Iran war
It's amazing that even Michael Gove has failed to notice that "the West" has failed to single down on the Iran war. It's America, Israel and ...no one. Bush's much-mocked "Coalition of the Willing" is sitting this one out. For example, the biggest news in Denmark this morning is that, following the Maduro dictatornapping, the kingdom's troops on Greenland spent January on training exercises to blow up and disable the island's runways in the event that Washington decided to invade.
But now, a mere six weeks later, those pitiful Eurofaggots are whining about having to pivot from potholing the landing strips to liberating the Strait of Hormuz:
Without the U.S.A., NATO IS A PAPER TIGER! They didn't want to join the fight to stop a Nuclear Powered Iran. Now that fight is Militarily WON, with very little danger for them, they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don't want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices. So easy for them to do, with so little risk. COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Hmm. Like "the West" and half the US cabinet, I find it hard to "get behind Trump", in part because he's gotten behind Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin. The good news, we are told, is that the base is right behind him, because, as is sure to be confirmed on Wednesday morning in November, MAGA voters' priority has always been easing fertiliser sanctions on Belarus.
Trump is fighting on two fronts: an air war over Persia, and an economic war across the rest of the planet. His priority re the latter is to calm the markets by holding the price of oil to $100 or less. He's just about keeping it in the ballpark, despite Brent Crude touching 120 before slipping back to 108 this morning. But it comes at a higher and higher cost, and pushes anything that can even be passed off as ersatz victory in Iran further and further out of reach.
I would like America to win this war, just because it would be the first time in my life, so it would make a pleasant change. But so far, in terms of condescending to and thus underestimating the enemy, it's going like all the others.
Mark's international bestseller America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. If you haven't read the book during its first seventeen years, well, you're missing a treat. It's still in print in hardback and paperback. (Buy it at a 77% discount by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 47% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR)
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Mark Steyn is an international bestselling author, a Top 41 recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist. Among his books is "The Undocumented Mark Steyn: Don't Say You Weren't Warned". (Buy it at a 49% discount by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 67% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR)