Conventional Wisdom: The Strait of Hormuz

In Monday's post, I noted that I wasn't going to cover the conventional wisdom on the Strait of Hormuz, because it was too big a subject, and the situation was fluid. But yesterday, I ran across a Substack essay that I think provides a pretty good snapshot of the thinking over the past weekend:

At midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 5 March 2026, seven of the twelve International Group Protection and Indemnity clubs that collectively insure roughly 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage executed identical cancellation notices for war-risk coverage across the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and Iranian territorial waters.

. . . In that instant, seven letters accomplished what the entire Iranian navy could not.

. . . By every traditional metric of military dominance, the campaign is succeeding.

Yet the Strait remains commercially paralysed.

. . . [T]he 31 autonomous IRGC provincial commands that replaced centralised authority after the decapitation strikes create a counterparty problem that insurers cannot price and diplomats cannot negotiate.

. . . Global seaborne trade does not run on naval protection. It runs on a layered stack of private financial guarantees. . . . This stack possesses a critical structural vulnerability: the retrocession and ILS market systematically excludes war risk. The war-risk market therefore operates under a hard capital ceiling of approximately $1 billion in annual premiums and a handful of treaty reinsurers whose aggregate capacity cannot absorb a single major total-loss event.

. . . The problem was not merely that the probability of loss was elevated. The problem was that the tail was unlimited. A single [large tanker] total loss could easily exceed $150 million for the hull, $100 million for the cargo, and virtually infinite liability for environmental pollution. Against a premium pool that writes $1 billion annually, a single major claim would consume the entire global war-risk market’s revenue.

. . . Each additional day of closure feeds new data into insurer models, raising the actuarial cost of reopening and extending the closure in a reflexive, self-reinforcing loop. The down-barrier to closure was crossed in hours. The up-barrier to reopening, measured in the time required for sustained safe conditions, actuarial recalibration, and reinsurance capital replenishment, operates on a timescale of months to years.

. . . The market is not pricing a war. It is not pricing a chokepoint closure. It is not pricing a nuclear crisis. It is pricing a legacy framework in which these events are temporary, resolvable, and mean-reverting. The mechanism analysis establishes they are structural, self-reinforcing, and regime-changing.

This analysis is thought-provoking, if not entirely coherent. What he seems to be saying is that if the Hormuz blockade persists for any reason -- he's most intrigued by the refusal of insurers to contemplate the risk of losing even a single tanker, which is complicated by the inability of all parties to negotiate reliably with 31 separate Revolutionary Guard district entities to guarantee safe passage -- there's the potential for a hyperinflationary doomsday spiral.

So far, it appears that facts on the ground, or on the water, are suggesting this analysis is unnecessarily hysterical (I think the level of jargon conceals its basic huysteria, too). First, shipping is moving through the strait, at however reduced a level. Second, ships are currently being attacked, but the damage isn't catastrophic:

Three vessels have been hit by unknown projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security agencies and sources said Wednesday, as one of the strikes led to a fire onboard a ship and forced most of its crew to evacuate it.

The Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree was targeted and damaged approximately 11 nautical miles north of Oman, two maritime security sources said.

. . . Earlier, the Japan-flagged container ship One Majesty had sustained minor damage from an unknown projectile 25 nautical miles northwest of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, two maritime security sources said.

Its crew members are safe and the vessel is sailing towards a safe anchorage, the sources added.

A third vessel, a bulk carrier, was also hit by an unknown projectile approximately 50 miles northwest of Dubai, maritime security firms said.

The projectile had damaged the hull of the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth, maritime risk management company Vanguard said, adding that the vessel's crew were safe.

In other words, the reality of Iran's retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz will be equivalent to its retaliation against Israel and the Gulf states, a diminishing level of missile and drone strikes, most of which are inaccurate or intercepted. On one hnad, too many players rely on the oil that comes through the strait, especially China. On the other, the market appears to be pricing in Trump's assurances. At about 1:15 in the video embe3dded at the top of this post, Mark Halperin says,

The president did a quick interview with a correspondent from CBS News, and what happened? Before that, everybody was all up in arms about the price of gas going up and the markets going down. And the president just said a few things to CBS News, and what happened after the president spoke? . . . The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 900 points before the president said what he said, which was basically this is going to be a quick war, everything's gone so well. After he spoke, [the Dow] went from 900 down to net up 240 points for the day.

The same applies to oil prices:

US West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil Futures with April 2026 Expiry, traded at $89.89 per barrel, down by 5.2%. This oil benchmark touched an intraday low of 84.45 and recorded an overall decline of 29.3% from $119.43 per barrel level that was touched on March 9th. Yesterday, US WTI plunged nearly 18%.

Brent Crude Oil Price: Brent crude has nosedived by nearly 26.2% and touched an intraday low of $88.10 per barrel. This is compared to $119.50 per barrel mark it hit on March 9. Yesterday, the price dropped nearly 9%.

The first link above is worried that the market "is pricing a legacy framework in which these events are temporary, resolvable, and mean-reverting." Indeed, that's what it seems to be doing, and it's trusting Trump on top of it. My guess is that it's probably right.

By the way, I hope things turn out OK for Mark Halperin. He works for Megyn Kelly in his 2WAY podcasts, and he's becoming increasingly pro-Trump, as the video embedded above suggests. Meanwhile, Megyn "Me Again" Kelly is reverting to her never-Trump roots.

Flashback to big shot "conservative" Megyn Kelly celebrating "trans kids."@megynkelly is for sale to the highest bidder. She has ZERO integrity. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/pwgqUEtXy2

— Right Wing Cigar King (@AlanCigarKing) March 3, 2026

I sure hope Mark Halperin comes through this in good shape, he's worked extremely hard to restore his career.

Trying In Vain To Save The "Special Relationship"

Via the UK Express:

A verbally bruised and battered Sir Keir Starmer is reported to have tried to cool tensions with President Donald Trump who is furious over Britain's reaction to the Iran war by trying to discuss the upcoming US visit of King Charles. The US leader has been outspoken in his criticism of the PM after Downing Street initially refused to allow American bombers to use RAF bases for the attacks on Iran which began on February 28.

. . . The Sun reports the phone call was "not a rosy affair" but that Sir Keir tried to use the Royal Family as a way of placating his outspoken American counterpart.

According to The Sun, the exchange between the two men was "testy" but Sir Keir mentioned King Charles and Queen Camillia visiting the United States at the end of April as a way of lightening the mood.

It sounds as if Starmer, like a good many others, still thinks Trump is basically a four-year-old, and he can be distracted by offering a lollipop -- or maybe by threatening to take the lollipop away:

Downing Street today [March 9] failed to confirm the King's state visit to America will go ahead next month following calls for it to be cancelled amid the Iran crisis.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are expected to fly to Washington DC at the end of April for a three-day visit to coincide with America's 250th anniversary celebrations.

But there is said to have been a last-minute 'wobble' about signing off the plans in the wake of Donald Trump's recent repeated attacks on Sir Keir Starmer and Britain.

. . . Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey is among those demanding that Sir Keir advise the King that his proposed state visit be called off.

He said a 'huge diplomatic coup' should not be given to someone 'who repeatedly insults and damages our country'.

This came following Trump's weekend swipe at Starmer and the UK generally:

President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying he was joining the war in Iran after the U.S. has "already won."

"The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!"

It's significabt that Shlomo Zwickler in The Times of Israel says, "That boy who dared say ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes?’ – His Name is Donald Trump":

Apparently, it takes the unconventional persona of a Donald Trump to be able to state the obvious, the logical and the historical truth. That the intelligentsia is bellyaching about his mislabeled audacity is amazing nonsense and utter hypocrisy.

A key reality that Trump has been pointing out for the past several weeks is that Israel has replaced the UK as the US's key strategic partner.

It wasn’t long ago that Sir Keir Starmer was being hailed on the international stage for his skill as a “Trump whisperer”.

The prime minister was the envy of his international allies for his ability to, against the odds, develop a strong relationship with the famously volatile US president.

But the interviews that the US president has given in the last 48 hours to the Daily Telegraph and The Sun, in which he criticised Sir Keir’s refusal to allow attacks on Iran to be launched from RAF bases, and the UK’s decision not to join the raids, surely mark the end of the relationship.

The Times suggests that if King Charles and Queen Camilla can't get the job done -- that is, distracting Trump with a lollipop -- maybe the Prince and Princess of Wales can pull it off:

When President Trump sat down to his unprecedented second state banquet in St George’s Hall, Windsor, it was a made-for-TV moment that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

The US president leant towards the Princess of Wales and beamed at her, as if looking at a favourite child on their graduation day.

Kate, dressed in a custom couture Phillipa Lepley gown and a gold lace coat, Trump’s most-loved colour, beamed back.

She was, Trump said in his speech, “so radiant and so healthy and so beautiful”.

Trump said that the bond between the US and UK “inspired Sir Winston Churchill … to coin the phrase special relationship”.

The problem is that Trump is the most powerful man in the world. If the US armed forces chose to attack Britain, they'd likely have results not much different from Venezuela. He'd keep the Royals in place like Delcy Rodriguez becaise it suited his purpose, not because he was in awe of them or even liked them. But the reality is he doesn't need them, and he doesn't need the UK.

For years, warnings about the declining strength of the Royal Navy have been largely ignored. The crisis in the Middle East has placed the size and readiness of the RN in the spotlight, with various politicians and sections of the mainstream media describing Britain’s naval position as “weak”, “embarrassing” and “a disgrace”.

. . . The Navy is not just hollowed out, but is now actually incapable of performing many of the routine tasks it was managing until quite recently. This breakdown is not the result of losses in combat or even the pressure of high-tempo operations, but has been caused by long-term under-resourcing and mismanagement.

. . . It is also worth recognising that the current Middle East crisis, serious as it is, does not represent an existential threat to the UK. It may be of little comfort to service personnel or British citizens currently exposed to danger in the Eastern Mediterranean or the Middle East, but this conflict offers a warning to address weaknesses before it’s too late. This is infinitely preferable to discovering how vulnerable we have become during a confrontation with Russia that could endanger the whole nation far more directly.

But the writer here is maintaining another polite fiction, that this is all something new that might be reversed over the next decade or so. I asked the oracle, "Was Winston Churchill forced after 1943 to recognize that the Americans were in complete control?" It answered,

Yes, after 1943, Winston Churchill was effectively forced to acknowledge that the United States had become the dominant partner in the Allied alliance. While he had spent years "wooing, cajoling, and flattering" American leadership to secure their resources, the shift in power became undeniable during the major conferences of that year.

. . . By the Quebec Conference in August 1943, it was clear that the upcoming invasion of France would be predominantly American in terms of troops and material. Consequently, Churchill was forced to concede that the Supreme Commander of Operation Overlord should be an American -- a role he had previously hoped would go to a British officer.

. . . During the Tehran Conference (November–December 1943), President Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin often aligned against Churchill’s preferred "Mediterranean strategy". Churchill realized that the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both possessing significantly more troops, would now dictate the course of the war.

. . . By late 1943, Churchill's vision for a postwar "Supreme World Council" already explicitly recognized the necessity of U.S. leadership and the importance of maintaining a "special relationship" to ensure future security.

But all Trump is really doing is forcing the UK to recognize that the "special relationship" has been a dead letter for decades. The last UK Prime Minister who could woo, cajole, and flatter the US into maintaining it was Margaret Thatcher. But compare the UK in the 1980s and early 1990s to Israel now.

Conventional Wisdom

I referred to the conventional wisdom on the Iran war in yesterday's post. Later in the day, Iran announced that after several days' delay, Mojtaba Khamenei had been designated Supreme Leader, succeeding his father, something that had been generally expected. In yesterday's post, I quoted AI:

Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses.

. . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers.

We'll have to see how this shakes out, but the news of a new Supreme Leader isn't entirely good for the other side:

Mojtaba Khamenei has risen to the appointment of Iran Supreme Leader, as the country’s national television news service confirmed Monday, however it has since emerged the man following his father into the post has been wounded in an unspecified incident at a time and place unknown.

AP reports television news anchors referred to the mid-level Shiite cleric as “janbaz,” or wounded by the enemy, in the “Ramadan war,” which is how media in Iranian regime refers to the current conflict.

. . . The younger Khamenei has yet to be seen since the conflict began. Indeed he has barely been seen in his entire life.

Mojtaba Khamenei has never held government office, nor given public speeches or interviews, and only a limited number of photos and videos of him have ever been published.

It sounds like if he's stayed in the background all his life, and if he now has medical difficulties, he'll continue out of the public eye, especially given the Israeli promise to take him out. In any case, he appears to be the puppet of the Revolutionary Guards, who applied heavy pressure for his designation.

I quoted another piece of conventional wisdom below that one:

Academic experts, such as Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, warn that air campaigns historically fail to unseat regimes or change their fundamental political alignment, often leading instead to prolonged escalation.

But I asked the oracle, "Was aerial bombing a major factor in the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945?" It answered,

Yes, aerial bombing was a major factor in the defeat of both Germany and Japan, though its impact varied by theater and remains a subject of historical debate regarding its decisiveness compared to ground and naval forces.

. . . While German industrial production actually increased through 1944, the bombing eventually paralyzed the economy by targeting critical "bottlenecks" like oil refineries and transportation networks.

. . . The air campaign against Japan was more concentrated and, for many historians, more directly linked to the final surrender.

. . . Low-altitude firebombing, such as the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo, destroyed roughly 40% of Japan's urban areas and cut industrial output in half.

. . . The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that Japan would likely have surrendered by the end of 1945 even without the atomic bombs or a Soviet declaration of war.

On the other hand, the bombing of North Viet Nam was subject to intermittent pauses, which gave them opportunities to regroup and rebuild, severely limiting its effectiveness. But as long as we're talking about Robert Pape, he has a new piece in Foreign Affairs, Why Escalation Favors Iran:

[W]ithin hours, any hope that the precise decapitation strikes would limit the scope of the war was dashed. Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones not only at Israel but also across the Gulf. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Missiles slammed into interceptors over Doha and Abu Dhabi. At Al Udeid Air Base, in Qatar—the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command—personnel took shelter as interceptors streaked overhead.

. . . Iran’s strikes cannot be dismissed as acts of scattered retaliation, the flailing lashing out of a dying regime. Rather, they represent a strategy of horizontal escalation, a bid to transform the stakes of a conflict by widening its scope and extending its duration. Such a strategy allows a weaker combatant to alter the calculus of a more powerful foe.

But other analysts like Tom Nash, whom I cited Saturday, claim the indiscriminate retaliation against non-combatant states across the region had the effect of driving those states toward Israel and the US, especially as some players were looking for an excuse to justify just this move. Here's a remarkable op-ed in Al-Jazeera:

The Gulf states have spent years trying to broker peace between Iran and the West: Qatar brokered nuclear talks, Oman provided back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia maintained direct dialogue with Iran through 2024 and into 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The idea that the Gulf states have a responsibility, a moral one, to protect Iran from the consequences of its actions because of good neighbourliness is now grotesque in context. Iran did not return good neighbourliness. Iran returned ballistic missiles.

. . . Targeting the territory of other sovereign Arab states in response to the policy decisions of the United States is neither necessary, since diplomatic and United Nations avenues are still available, nor proportional, since it imposes military consequences on states that are not a party to any conflict with Iran.

. . . The record of Iran’s compliance with IAEA regulations, including the enrichment of uranium to a purity level of 60 percent or more in 2023–2024, interference with inspections, the removal of monitoring cameras, and the overall violation of the non-proliferation regime, has undermined the credibility of the state significantly. A state that is itself a violator of the legal regime cannot claim the role of a law-abiding state seeking protection under the norms of the legal regime.

As I noted yesterday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian "issued a statement apologizing for attacks against neighboring countries and claiming that some attacks were carried out independently by regional commanders without directive due to loss of communication". However, the foreign ministry continues to insist that the attacks against non-combatant countries are legitimate acts of self-defense:

But this goes against the supposed advantages of Iran's "mosaic defense", another part of the conventional wisdom:

In anticipation of exactly the sort of missile attack that targets senior members of the Islamic Republic, plans had been put in place that creates a decentralized control of the military, according to military analysts.

If the leadership is killed, then cells of soldiers take direct control of the military materiel under their control and continue fighting without the need for orders coming down from a central command that no longer exists, Gulf News reported on March 2.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that Tehran can withstand sustained US-Israeli military pressure, able to defend the regime despite a successful “decapitation” hit. . . . He added that the bombings have "no impact" on Iran's ability to conduct war as its capacity to fight does not hinge on a single command centre, city, or leader. Decapitation doesn’t work if there is no one to decapitate.

But whether or not President Pezeshkian wants Iranian forces to stop attacking non-combatant Gulf states, the "mosaic strategy" puts the matter outside his control. This can hardly be to the country's overall advantage; it has no way to manage policy as conditions change; it's suicide or nothing.

But this question is increasingly moot: in another independent analysis of the war's progress, datareublican says,

As of Day 6, Adm. Brad Cooper (CENTCOM) confirmed Iranian missile attacks declined roughly 90 percent since strikes began [ISW, March 5, 2026]. Per joint intelligence assessment (IDF/CENTCOM briefing), approximately 75% of all launchers destroyed; 100–200 remain. The IRGC Aerospace Force — Iran’s primary instrument of long-range conventional power projection — has been catastrophically degraded in nine days. “Hundreds” of warheads destroyed (conventional missile warheads — Iran has no deployed nuclear warheads). Defense industrial base under systematic attack. This is not a setback. This is the functional end of Iran’s power projection capability.

There are other aspects of conventional wisdom that I won't cover here for the time being, such as the effect of closing the Strait of Hormuz on energy prices and the US economy. And I'm not yet claiming the conventional wisdom is wrong, just that there are reasons for skepticism that it's automatically right. But mainly, I just want to get it spelled out so we can check it later on.

Is Iran In A Constitutional Crisis?

One of the points Tom Nash made in the presentation I embedded in yesterday's post was that the Supreme Leader is essential to maintaining a cohesive regime. Israel took him out on February 28, and so far, he hasn't been replaced.

Iran is reportedly delaying naming a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader killed over the weekend in U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, for security concerns as Israel has asserted that it will target whoever is instated, while President Donald Trump has doubled down on wanting to influence the selection.

The New York Times reported, citing two unnamed Iranian officials, that while Khamenei’s second-eldest son, 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, has emerged as the strongest contender to take Tehran’s top job, no one has been named out of fear that they will be targeted.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on social media on Wednesday that any leader appointed by Iran to succeed Ali Khamenei would be “an unequivocal target for elimination,” adding that “it does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides.”

This story suggests that another reason Mojtaba Khamenei hasn't been designated is that he's somehow indisposed or unavailable:

Mojtaba Khamenei — the expected next supreme leader — was reportedly wounded in an Israeli air strike.

. . . It’s not clear if Mojtaba, 56, was with his father in the Ayatollah’s compound that was decimated by airstrikes, or if he was targeted in a separate attack on the regime.

The details and extent of his injuries are also not clear.

He has likely gone into hiding as both the US and Israel continue to rain missiles on the Islamic Republic.

The practical result is that the Iranian regime is no longer speaking with one voice:

ran’s Assembly of Experts is set to hold an emergency session on Thursday to formally announce Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the late Supreme Leader, as the next leader, despite opposition from some members who warn against “hereditary leadership,” Iran International has learned.

But this is the meeting that has apparently been delayed, perhaps indefinitely. The link continues,

Two sources from the offices of Assembly of Experts representatives told Iran International that at least eight members will not attend the emergency session on Thursday in protest at what they described as “heavy pressure” from the Revolutionary Guards to impose Mojtaba Khamenei.

. . . Sources told Iran International that a group of opponents contacted the Assembly’s chairman and members of its leadership board on Wednesday, warning that declaring Mojtaba Khamenei leader could raise public concerns about the leadership becoming hereditary and the Islamic Republic resembling a monarchy.

. . . Another member argued that Mojtaba Khamenei “does not have an established, public clerical and jurisprudential standing,” and for that reason his selection as the state's Supreme Jurist (Vali-ye Faqih) would lack religious legitimacy, the sources added.

. . . Sources said the Guards argue that given the country’s “special conditions” and ongoing security situation, the new leader must be announced as quickly as possible and that any delay could worsen instability and deepen a decision-making vacuum at the top of the system.

The leadership rift deepened within the next few days:

Overnight last night [March 6], Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a statement apologizing for attacks against neighboring countries and claiming that some attacks were carried out independently by regional commanders without directive due to loss of communication.

President Pezeshkian further stating the Temporary Leadership Council in Iran had ordered a halt to attacks on other countries unless their territory is used to attack Iran.

Within hours the remaining elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) rebuked the statement by President Pezeshkian saying the IRGC would continue attacking any/all gulf states as needed. This was followed by the Iranian clergy saying their president was “weak, unprofessional and totally unacceptable.”

Obviously the political, military and religious elements within Iran are not on the same page.

So notwitwtanding the state of Mojtaba Khamenei's health, another issue appears to be that he's the candidate of the Revolutionary Guards, who nevertheless appear not to be in a position to name him formally as Supreme Leader. But even if he were to be named -- which so far seems under serious question -- he would be eliminated within a short time after his naming.

We can safely surmise that Iranian communications and codes have been thoroughly compromisesd, and any communications between any Supreme Leader and any other government functions would simply serve to pinpoint his location. From the links above, assuming Mojtaba is in good health, he nbevertheless can't commuicate for fear of prompting an Israeli bunkerbuster attack. The practical result is that, despite efforts to reconstitute a government, the Iranian command structure continues to be paralyzed.

This all flies in the face of conventional wisdom. I asked the oracle, "Have there been predictions that Iran's political alignment would remain cohesive despite US and Israeli attacks?" It answered,

Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses.

. . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers.

. . . Academic experts, such as Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, warn that air campaigns historically fail to unseat regimes or change their fundamental political alignment, often leading instead to prolonged escalation.

. . . According to a U.S. National Intelligence Council report, the regime is expected to follow established constitutional protocols to name a successor, with veteran politician Ali Larijani already taking a leading role in a functional interim government.

So there we are. All the right people are telling us that the Iranian regime will just keep on keepin' on. You know what? My money is still on Trump.

Unconditional Surrender

Yesterday, Trump iisued a demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender" in the current conflict. He later clarified it to mean "Unconditional surrender could be that [the Iranians] announce it. But it could also be when they can't fight any longer because they don't have anyone or anything to fight with."

How realistic is this goal? There's been very little overall analysis of the war's progress, either in legacy or alt media. The YouTube video embedded above has what I think is the most complete view both of the military action itself and the changing world environment that it's bringing about. Tom Nash of the Tom Nash report, as best I've been able to track down, is originally from Russia but on his YouTube channel comments primarily on Iran. He appears to be unapologetically pro-Israel.

The major points in his discussion:

• The war will likely last only a few more weeks
• Iran committed a major error by attacking the Gulf states indiscriminately once the war began
• This gave Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to appear more neutral, an excuse to come closer to Israel
• The prior US strategy to avoid direct confrontation with Iran has been proven wrong
• Inaction is no longer the safer option
• The war has alrady repositioned the global chess board, and regime change in Iran is irrelevant
• Partnership with Israel is a force multiplier in the region
• Partnership with Iran is a dead letter
• A direct US military alliance with Israel, including close tactical coordination, was previously unforeseeable
• Israel has completely replaced the UK as the main US strategic partner
• The elimination of Khamenei has undermined the "supreme leader" paradigm
• Iran is delaying his replacement from fear that anyone who is named will also be eliminated
• As a result, the regime is de facto already no longer viable
• Israel's value as a military, intelligence, and geopolitical partner has significantly increased at relatively low immediate cost.

I think the sudden rise in Israel's strategic standing, especially vis-a-vis the UK, has taken many US conservatives by surprise and is an explanation for the increased anti-Semitism in the US right. But I've been coming to the view that the UK was overrated as a world power throughout the 20th century, and 25 years into the 21st, it's a joke.

The Royal Navy has a long and colorful history, and it has saved Britain against its enemies more than once. Sadly, however, Britain’s navy continues to shrink. At the end of 2024, the force was down to roughly 32,000 personnel and 62 commissioned ships.

Except that by the 1916 Battle of Jutland, the upstart German High Seas Fleet fought it to a draw, prompting Admiral Beatty's famous quote, “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today”. The Grand Fleet remained in port for the rest of the war for fear another admiral could, as Winston Churchill put it, "lose the war in an afternoon". By 1941, with the loss of Force Z to the Japanese near Malaya, this was precisely what happened. The link continues,

By the time of the Falkland Islands War, it was clear the Royal Navy’s focus on becoming an anti-submarine force had left it without the capacity to engage in expeditionary warfare.

The number of major ships in the force declined again, by 74%, after the Falkland Islands campaign.

. . . What is clearly needed is a plus-up in UK defense spending to supply the Royal Navy with what it needs to be a credible force. But that is a conversation no recent government has been willing to have with the electorate.

Trump's function as truthteller, perhaps reinforced by the passing of Queen Elizabeth, has exposed that the UK has long been little more than a polite fiction. On the other hand, the basic community of interest between the US and Israel has gone largely unrecognized, a point David Gelernter was making a generation ago:

Americanism, or the religious idea called “America,” seems like a secular idea. It can and has been professed by devout atheists. Its creed, a central element of Americanism, is completely secular in tone–of course there’s no canonical version, but most people would agree that it calls for liberty, equality, and democracy for all mankind–or something on those lines.

I’ll argue that despite all this, Americanism is profoundly Christian in its inspiration and worldview.

It is in fact profoundly Puritan.

It is in fact profoundly Biblical.

It in fact emerged not just from the Bible, but especially from the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

It’s no accident that a seventeenth century American Puritan should have written, regarding his fellow-Puritans: “We are the children of Abraham; and therefore we are under Abraham’s covenant.”

. . . The American religion has two parts–not only the Creed, but a doctrine about America’s duty and her special standing and responsibilities in the world–a doctrine I’ll call American Zionism.

. . . American Zionism is based on another widely recognized aspect of Americanism. In earlier centuries, the analogy between America and Ancient Israel, or the European settlements in colonial America and Ancient Israel, was heard constantly. It was derived from the corresponding analogy between England or Britain and Ancient Israel. There’s nothing new in this observation.

. . . In short, I’ll argue that the analogy between America and ancient Israel was no mere figure of speech. It implied a doctrine that made assertions and imposed duties. That doctrine was Zionism. Zionism, suitably adjusted, is a fundamental part of Americanism, which is another reason why the idea of Americanism as a merely secular or civil religion doesn’t hold up.

These remarks predate MAGA, but MAGA is very similar, and Trump has declared that he's the authoritative interpreter of MAGA.

President Trump cast Tucker Carlson out of his Make America Great Again movement following the conservative talking head’s loud criticism of the US and Israeli assault on Iran.

“Tucker has lost his way,” the commander-in-chief told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Thursday. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”

Come to think of it, "unconditional surrender" is a uniquely American idea. Lincoln adopted the phrase, initally used by Grant, to apply to the Confederacy. Roosevelt announced the terms in 1943 following the Casablanca Conforence; Truman repeated them in regard to Japan at Potsdam. With Trump using it yet again, it strikes me as a major reassertion of confidence. But now there's no Winston Churchill to reinforce it, as he did at Casablanca.

Edward Feser's Moral Universe

I asked Chrome AI Mode, which I've been finding is a generally even-handed and informative tool with the proviso that you carefully avoid using any triggering key words, "What might a Catholic priest say to a penitent who comes to the confessional and says, 'Bleass me, Father, for I have sinned -- President Truman committed a war crime when he used nuclear weapons on Japan.'" It answered,

A priest would likely respond with pastoral care, focusing on whether you are seeking absolution for a personal burden or engaging in a theological discussion.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church and various Popes (notably St. John Paul II and Pope Francis) have condemned the use of atomic weapons as a "crime against God and man," a priest might guide the conversation in the following ways:

. . . He may gently clarify that "sin" in the confessional usually refers to your own actions. He might ask if your distress over this event reflects a burden on your conscience or a struggle with your faith.

What I find when I read recent pieces by Edward Feser, for instance, on his blog, is this sort of non sequitur. As a Catholic convert, now for almost 15 years, I'm discovering that the day-to-day parish Catholicism I find at mass and in the confessional focuses on developing habits of virtue like examination of conscience, prayer, and humility. It has very little to do with whether presidents, either contemporary or historical, have waged just wars.

In fact, the potential list of which wars the US has fought might be characterized as "unjust" is enormous. I asked the oracle, "Can you privide a list of wars, declared or undeclared, that the US has waged that could be characterized as 'unjust'?" It replied,

Whether a war is "unjust" is a matter of significant historical and ethical debate, often analyzed through Just War Theory, which evaluates conflicts based on criteria like just cause, last resort, and proportionality. While the U.S. has formally declared war only five times in its history, it has engaged in numerous undeclared military actions that scholars, international bodies, and the public have characterized as unjust.

The following conflicts are frequently cited in historical and scholarly critiques:

Mexican-American War (1846–1848)
Spanish-American War (1898)
Vietnam War (1955–1975)
Invasion of Iraq (2003)
Interventions in Libya and Syria (2011–Present
Drone Strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen

To which we might now add, certsainly with Prof Feser's agreement, the removal of President Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran. And the list above is sketchy indeed: we could add President Theodore Roosevelt militarily abetting Panama's secession from Colombia in 1903, Commodore Matthew Perry's "gunboat diplomacy" opening Japan to foreign trade in 1853-54, the 1915–1934 occupation of Haiti by the US Marines, or Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida in 1818.

Academic careers have been, and certainly still are, made by arguing all these cases and more, of which Prof Feser's is only one recent example. The biggest problem I see is that whichever of these instances might be adjudged an "unjust war", or indeed all of them, it matters not one whit to me, even at mass, even in the confessional. As we saw just above, if I were to try to confess to President Truman's sins, a priest would more than likely gently steer me back on track.

In fact, the typical response, even by the putatively devout, to the problem of the US fighting unjust wars is performative. As the oracle suggested later in the answer I quoted above in a passage I omitted, a priest might urge a penitent to pray for peace as a positive response to the problem, but this isn't the sort of thing most objectors to unjust war actually do. Philip and Daniel Berrigan, for instance, were brothers and Catholic priests who poured a mixture of blood and red paint on Selective Service records or burned them with homemade napalm to protest the Viet Nam War.

This accomplished absolutely nothing to end the war and probably didn't even make the Berrigans feel better. Nor, it seems to me, do various declarations of "unjust war" or "stolen land" have any effect on anyone. I asked the oracle if Edward Feser has ever declared the Mexican War to be unjust, and it replied, "There is no record of Edward Feser declaring the 19th-century Mexican-American War (1846–1848) to be unjust." As far as I can see, he'd better not, since he lives and works in California, which became part of the US as a result of that unjust war of territorial expansion.

In fact, if he truly wished to live in the spirit of his convictions, his choices of residence in the US would be pretty limited -- to avoid territory that hadn't been "stolen" via wars of expansion and such, he might be limited perhaps to the easternmost reaches of the original 13 colonies, though even then, he moight be forced back across the Atlantic to seek out some obscure place that had never been invaded by anyone.

But his judgment isn't necesarily always accurate. Most recently, he's been forced into backtracking over his predictions, before they took place, that the actions in Venezuela and Iran would be unjust:

First, the Venezuela case was very limited, without widespread bombing or the attempt to destroy the entire state apparatus with nothing to put in its place. It was in fact a far more limited venture than the liberationist rhetoric used to sell it actually implied. So, it isn't…

— Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) March 2, 2026

In fact, I would say that at this point, certainly in reference to his most recent denunciations of Trump's policies, his problems have involved running off at the mouth. But from a logical standpoint, I've begun to think his arguments have two basic errors: one, which I've already discussed, is hypostatization, treating an abstract, amorphous concept with many divergent individual expressions, "just war doctrine", as a single, concrete entity that can always and everywhere demonstrate that any particular war is just or unjust.

More recently, I've begun to think he also has a philosphical problem with category error, "An example is a person learning that the game of cricket involves team spirit, and after being given a demonstration of each player's role, asking which player performs the 'team spirit'."

I asked the oracle, "Did General Sherman say, 'War is hell?'" It answered,

Yes, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is credited with the phrase "War is hell," most notably during an address to Michigan Military Academy graduates on June 19, 1879, where he declared, "I tell you, war is Hell!". He often used this sentiment to describe the brutality of war, having previously written that "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it".

It seems to me that Prof Feser, a professor of philosophy no less, is looking at war, and, picking out specific wars or threats of war, he's looking at each and asking, "Where is the justice in this war?" It's no different from looking at the players in a team sport and asking which covers the team spirit, or in the more famous example, looking at the invididual deparments of a university and asking where the university is. In Feser's case, he's looking at war and asking where the justice is. Category error, non sequitur.

Questions About The United Nations

Trying to bring myself up to date on the history of modern Israel yesterday, I ran into the British Mandate for Palestine:

In Palestine, the Mandate required Britain to put into effect the Balfour Declaration's "national home for the Jewish people" alongside the Palestinian Arabs, who composed the vast majority of the local population. . . . The British controlled Palestine for almost three decades, overseeing a succession of protests, riots and revolts between the Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities. . . . The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was passed on 29 November 1947; this envisaged the creation of separate Jewish and Arab states operating under economic union, and with Jerusalem transferred to UN trusteeship. . . . After the failure of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the 1947–1949 Palestine war ended with Mandatory Palestine divided among Israel, the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and the Egyptian All-Palestine Protectorate in the Gaza Strip.

It suddently dawned on me how much of the world's attention has been consumed with the outcome of British fecklessness in the Mandate. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What percentage of UN business is connected with the Arab-Israeli conflict?" It answered,

The United Nations (UN) does not publish a single percentage for all "business" connected to the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, data from specific UN bodies and financial reports indicate a substantial and often disproportionate focus on the region across several metrics:

General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions: Between 2015 and 2024, approximately 68% of all condemnatory resolutions (173 out of 253) passed by the UNGA targeted Israel. In 2024 alone, the UNGA adopted 17 resolutions singling out Israel compared to 6 for the rest of the world combined.

Human Rights Council (UNHRC): Since its inception in 2006, more than 50% of the UNHRC's country-specific resolutions have been against Israel. It is the only nation with a standing agenda item (Item 7) dedicated to it at every session.

Security Council Vetoes: The United States has used its veto power 83 times in total, with 50.6% of those vetoes (42 instances) used to block resolutions critical of Israel.

Considering all the other issues facing the UN, while acknowledging that many of these, like global warming, are bogus, it's amazing that over half of the UN's official business seems to be focused on this single issue in a relatively small area of the world. But that led me to another question -- the one my old co-worker Phil used to ask in meetings, "What problem are we trying to solve?" as it specifically applies to the UN. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What problem was the UN Charter trying to solve?" It answered,

The UN Charter, signed on June 26, 1945, was primarily designed to solve the problem of perpetual global warfare. Created in the immediate aftermath of World War II, its authors sought to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" by establishing a new international order based on collective security.

Specifically, the Charter was intended to address several critical failures of the previous international system:

Failure of the League of Nations: The Charter sought to succeed where the League of Nations failed by creating a more robust structure that included the world's major powers and provided a mechanism for enforcing international peace.

Unrestrained Aggression: It aimed to restrain state aggression by prohibiting the "threat or use of force" against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, except in cases of self-defense or Security Council authorization.

And so forth. All I can think is that this worked so well from the start that four years later, we had NATO. So I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What problem was NATO trying to solve?" It answered,

NATO was established to solve several critical post-World War II problems, primarily focusing on security, economic recovery, and political stability in the North Atlantic area.

Soviet Expansionism: The primary motivation was to block the expansion of the Soviet Union into Western Europe. Allied leaders feared that without a unified defense, individual European nations might be vulnerable to communist subversion or direct military incursions.

. . . Economic Stagnation: Economic recovery required a secure environment. NATO provided the "security umbrella" that allowed European nations to focus resources on rebuilding their industries and infrastructure rather than on massive individual defense spending.

Political Fragmentation: The alliance promoted democratic values and established a permanent structure for political consultation. This was intended to build trust among former adversaries and create a cohesive Western front.

But I thought the UN was going to do most of this. Why were we still worried about Soviet expansionism if the UN was going to "save us from the scourge of war" in the first place? One part of the answer was that the UN had almost immediately become preoccupied with maintaining the objectives of the British Mandate for Palestine, which the British themselves were never able to bring about. But this brought up another question. I asked Chrome AI, "Why were the British, who were quickly losing their empire and their status as a world power, given such prominence in maintaining the postwar order?" It answered,

The British were given a prominent role in the postwar order despite their declining status because they remained a central, indispensable member of the Allied "Big Three" that had won the war and shaped its immediate aftermath.

. . . Britain was a primary author of the rules and institutions that define the modern world:

The United Nations: Along with the U.S., USSR, and China, Britain was one of the "Big Four" that designed the UN at the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference. This role naturally led to their permanent seat and veto power on the UN Security Council.

The Atlantic Charter: In 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt co-wrote the Atlantic Charter, establishing the common principles (like self-determination and collective security) that would govern the postwar world.

In otber words, Winston Churchill, blah blah blah. But Winston Churchill blah blah blah was out of the running by July 1945, when he left the Potsdam Conference after the Conservatives lost an election. But come to think of it, maybe you could still justify making the UK a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but why France? Chrome AI Mode explained this as follows:

The original permanent members of the UN Security Council—the USA, USSR, UK, France, and China (P5)—were selected based on their status as the principal Allied victors of World War II and their perceived importance in ensuring post-war international peace and security. They were designated by the 1945 UN Charter architects, having led the fight against the Axis powers.

Except that France was simply not a "principal victor" of World War II. It was a principal Nazi collaborator. It did not "lead the fight" against the Axis powers. The answer goes on,

During the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference, the US, UK, USSR, and China (the "Big Four") drafted the Charter. France was added as the fifth member shortly after, largely due to strong support from Britain and the need for a major European power besides the USSR, despite initial hesitation from the US.

So both Britain and France were added to the UN Security Council primarily as a counterbalance to the USSR, but the idea that either could credibly serve in that role without the US was never more than a polite fiction, just like the Boulevard du Général Leclerc in Paris. But then I thought about Trump's recent remark that Keir Starmer is "no Winston Churchill. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What would happen if Trump slipped some powerful drug into Keir Starmer's tea, and he suddenly began to channel Winston Churchill? would this change anything about Britain at all?" It answered,

That is a wild, cinematic premise. If Keir Starmer—known for his cautious, lawyerly, and "managerial" style—suddenly began channeling the rhetorical fire and unapologetic nationalism of Winston Churchill, the impact would be seismic, though perhaps not in the ways one might expect.

. . . If Trump (the catalyst) expected a subservient ally, he might be disappointed. Churchill was famously difficult and fiercely protective of British interests. A "Churchillian" Starmer might become more assertive with the U.S., demanding greater British influence on the world stage rather than following Washington's lead.

. . . In the short term, it would certainly end the "boring" label that has followed Starmer. It might inspire a temporary surge in national morale, but modern Britain is far more pluralistic and cynical than the 1940s. A leader channeling a ghost might find that charisma cannot fix structural issues like housing shortages or productivity gaps as easily as it could rally a nation against an existential threat.

But this goes to the question Jacob Rees-Mogg asks in the video embedded at the top of this post: where has the Royal Navy gone? It isn't even the Royal Navy Margaret Thatcher could summon in the Falklands War, where it maintained the unsteady tradition bordering on disaster it had established in both world wars. So far, I'm refraining from asking the oracle, "How much of modern history is based on polite fiction about the UK?" But I think Trump has already been asking this and other related questions.