"US Bombs Iran" Topic

The 12-day war with Iran: Too short?

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Axis of Opportunists: The cracks in the Sino-Russian Partnership

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Why Russia fell out with Iran
The multipolar order is inherently unstable

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Armand

Made me laugh: "The multipolar order is inherently unstable". And was the unipolar one stable? ;)

@ Dagwood

@PArzival

The spelling police say you spelt TANSTAAFL wrong

The original was indeed TANSTAFL— There Ain't No Such Thing As ‘Free Lunch'
It was a Depression phenomena where bars in New York City put out signs offering "Free Lunch!" But you had to buy an over-priced beer, and the lunch was a basic sandwich— bread and cheap meat; no condiments or anything else— So the costumer wound up paying enough for the beer to more than cover the value of the lunch and a high profit margin. Hence the cry, which got picked up by conservatives and libertarians. Along the way an A got added— There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch— because the signs had faded from the public consciousness even though the slogan and the political meaning remained.

In this instance, I hearkened back to the original.

To continue the islamist threats from Iran's gov't. A cleric put out a Fatwah/hit on the POTUS And Bibi. Again seems like decapitation from the top down to about anyone above the rank of SGT may be in order … Of course some in Congress will try to stop the POTUS again to work with the IDF in making Iran not much of a threat…

@ Tort

The polls are dependent on the previous week's news, and routinely over-sample Democrats (may have worked in 1990s, but today that doesn't reflect the spread of the country). Trump's support among Republican voters is currently 90%. Republicans who love what he's doing is at 63%. Right now all polls have him among all voters standing at around 50%— some above, some below, but generally in the margin of error. You have to go back to Ronald Reagan to find similar approval numbers (and that was when he'd just been shot). And of course all of that precedes what's happened today with the BBB.
As it is, I don't expect Democrats to EVER support Trump, if they didn't already. Sen. Fetterman of Pennsylvania is the one Democrat who seems to show an open mind and a high level of integrity. The rest are just on automatic to oppose ANYTHING that Trump does. If he cured cancer they'd complain that he put thousands of doctors out of work. :P

Just read an article suggesting that Xi's days as the head of China are numbered. Chinese television has already dropped his customary title in newscasts at least once in the last month— and state-run TV doesn't make that "mistake" without a shift in political power behind it. He was also in a meeting with the head of Belarus that was photographed in a minor chamber without the grand, sweeping decor usually used for Xi's official visits— another sign that he may be losing his grip. (Granted, Belarus, but an image of power is supremely important to Chinese politics.) And he just skipped the BRICS conference, which is really All China in actual economic might. Waiting in the wings is a supposedly more moderate guy. In any case, I still think China's world prestige has just hit a wall with the US bombing of Iran. (Plus the South China Post is talking down any possibility of war and talking up trade negotiations with the US— for which a major agreement just got signed.)

Lets' hope Xi will be put out to pasture/rice paddy sooner than later. However, there may be someone worse than Xi ending up in power with the Chicoms.

Parzival, TANSTAAFL was the Robert Heinlein version, which was where I first came across it (and the only place until recently here on TMP). There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Not exactly grammatically correct, but a bit more grammatically correct than the version without the other A.

"Free lunch" goes way back.
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Max traces to Olde West saloons. And it goes far back.

Yeah. Xi is on the outs, and Putin has all kinds of diseases right after Putin's War in Ukraine.
I know! Let's base our policy on wishful thinking!

Oh, and the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla just put a fatwah on Trump.
I'm confused. I thought he did that a few years ago when The Donald took out a top Guard general with a cruise missile in Syria?

"I'm confused. I thought he did that a few years ago when The Donald took out a top Guard general with a cruise missile in Syria?"

Shhhhh …. It's like "beetlejuice". You have to do it 3 times.

Geez there were people here not long ago who thought the Chinese could beat us in a war….

I'm not a policy maker. I'm just discussing what the current buzz is about China which I have found across multiple news sources. Hey, it could be wrong. But there's no doubt Xi has lost a lot of face recently.
But I haven't read anything to suggest that US intelligence, military, or the State department are making any current decisions based on this reporting, much less any sort of wishful thinking. I think the assumption has to be that China is very dangerous, and we need to be in a strong enough position to make whoever is in charge there think twice about any military confrontation.

For the record, I've never been convinced that China could win a war against the US. We've allowed ourselves to fall behind in numbers of things (submarines and fighting ships, mainly), but I believe the quality of what we do have is superior. (Bet the boomer launches freaked China out a bit.) But we need to be rebuilding and not giving any ground. Peace through strength— including economic strength.