Imagine you're a ruler of a Gulf Kingdom. You've got all the money in the world, or at least access to as much as anyone could ever use. Your might belong to a strict religion, but you can drink and monger to your heart's content. Morality is for your subjects, not you. You just want to be able to enjoy what the Universe has somehow quite unfairly given you.

You think you can buy security by sucking up to a leader who is easier to corrupt than even you are. You buy into his story that he can and will protect you from all harm, so that you can continue to enjoy your dissolute life as a monarch answerable to no one. In return, you give him development rights and/or invest in his family businesses. You think it's a good deal.

He starts a war, along with another leader you don't really like, but with whom you'd prefer peace (so that you can enjoy your Caligula-like life). You quickly learn a few things:

1) Your partner in crime cannot really protect you or the assets that pay for your lifestyle

2) Your partner gave much better and much more preventative weaponry to the guy you don't like but with whom you want to live in peace.

You feel you've been had (which you have).

You begin to fight back in both the short term and long term. In the short term, you halt overflight clearance of your kingdom and prohibit your "ally" from launching attacks using the bases you've granted domestically. In the long term, you hedge your bets and make overtures to other major world powers like China and Russia.

You have also seen---and now it becomes even clearer---how your US ally cannot be trusted. You see how he alienated European nations who have been strong and consistent allies for nearly 80 years. If your "ally" can diss them after an 80 year relationship with the US, the current leader can obviously abandon you if he feels like doing so, depending on his ever changing mood.

You begin to question what you need to do to protect yourself and your own interests. You realize that, in addition to hedging bets with other major nations, you'd best go nuclear. You certainly have the money to buy the intellect and capability of developing your own nukes. You also remember the concept of "mutually assured destruction", so you realize that once you go nuclear, you no longer have to pretend you like the "outlier" country in your neighborhood. You see all your Gulf neighbors see the same thing and feel the same way. You all go nuclear and all now have the power of mutually assured destruction. Tensions increase.

This will be the fallout from Trump's war of choice and the poor manner in which he carried it out. It is not unreasonable to think the Middle East is going to change dramatically over the next few years, with new alliances arising and old hatreds re-surfacing. NOBODY in the Middle East is going to be more secure now because of Trump's war.

On 5/7/2026 at 5:24 PM, BLMFem said:

He whole point of the United Nations, the reason it was set up, is to saDang, how this war has turned into a complete and utter global humiliation for the US. Marco's begging the UN for help while Trump is heading to Beijing, hat in hand.

And all this in less than 1.5 years.

What was America's greatest superpower, it's soft power, completely gone in 16 months. What's taken 70 years to build is pi***d away in the blink of an eye by a moron, elected by morons.

Sad.

The whole point of The United Nations, the reason it was set up, was to prevent war - to be an alternative forum to the battlefield. I certainly agree that as an institution it has many flaws ( not enough marble and escalators which don't work ) but can the idiot Rubio not hoist on board that the US, having deliberately started a war, really has no grounds for complaining that the International Community ( the UN ) is not rallying round!

On 5/6/2026 at 8:39 PM, BLMFem said:

Trump is heading to China, hat in hand, begging for help. Let's see what Xi will ask for, because it's clear he has Donald over a barrel.

'Could China push Iran into a peace deal? Only if it gets something in return'

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/06/china/china-iran-talks-us-war-hnk-intl

Thats not a bad thing.
Lets be clear, theres no negotiating with Iran because they are literal idiots.

9 minutes ago, JAG said:

The whole point of The United Nations, the reason it was set up, was to prevent war - to be an alternative forum to the battlefield. I certainly agree that as an institution it has many flaws ( not enough marble and escalators which don't work ) but can the idiot Rubio not hoist on board that the US, having deliberately started a war, really has no grounds for complaining that the International Community ( the UN ) is not rallying round!

Might have started that way but its become a giant welfare system.
It was never intended to do these things.
Disaster Assistance
Famine Reliefe
Child Assistance
Environmental Protection

Food Assistance

Development Assistance
Industrial Development
Reproductive Health

and on and on. The sooner the US stops playing with these people, the better off we'll be. Bunch of leaches.

3 hours ago, Slowhand225 said:

Thats not a bad thing.
Lets be clear, theres no negotiating with Iran because they are literal idiots.

Yes, they are the idiots!

4 hours ago, Slowhand225 said:

Lets be clear, theres no negotiating with Iran because they are literal idiots.

Lets be clear, there's no point negotiating with Iran because the US so called negotiators are literally idiots led by an even bigger idiot!

Edited May 9May 9 by scottiejohn

Call me a cynic, but negotiating with a country that previously wiped out your entire negotiating team just might put a bit of a damper on your enthusiasm for further talks....

So Trump walks out of the JCPOA Agreement in 2018 and then proposes a very similar deal 8 years later. In the interim, he wages economic and physical war on Iran causing civilian deaths and economic chaos throughout the rest of the world.

And that's supposed to be progress?

Edited May 9May 9 by RayC

8 minutes ago, RayC said:

So Trump walks out of the JCPOA Agreement in 2018 and then proposes a very similar deal 8 years later. In the interim, he wages economic and physical war on Iran causing civilian deaths and economic chaos throughout the rest of the world.

And that's supposed to be progress?

Only if you're a member of a cult.

So the Iranian missiles and drones along the strait had nothing to do with it. OK Pete, sure thing.

20 minutes ago, cjinchiangrai said:

So the Iranian missiles and drones along the strait had nothing to do with it. OK Pete, sure thing.

Are you doubting the words of a White House Official? 🤣

Edited May 9May 9 by scottiejohn

8 hours ago, Slowhand225 said:

Thats not a bad thing.
Lets be clear, theres no negotiating with Iran because they are literal idiots.

idiots maybe, but with a full deck of cards

2 hours ago, RayC said:

So Trump walks out of the JCPOA Agreement in 2018 and then proposes a very similar deal 8 years later. In the interim, he wages economic and physical war on Iran causing civilian deaths and economic chaos throughout the rest of the world.

And that's supposed to be progress?

by MAGA standards, yes

On 5/6/2026 at 7:32 PM, davb said:

Trump believes in peace and Iran signaled it might be ready to comply with his demands, so why not wait a "short" amount of time. Trump is also heading for China soon, so maybe it's best to first make clear to them what kind of behavior he expects from that country, and then he can come home and finish things up with Iran.

you used the wrong word, by Iran standards might doesn't exist, do you know why??? because they have the "cards"