5 juli. Iran's new regime is very different. It is tempting to see the pre-Trump years as a blissful era of civility and decency. Drones.
Iran's new regime is very different.
When US President Donald Trump signed a ceasefire agreement with Iran during dinner at the Palace of Versailles last month.
The 1919 treaty reshaped Europe, but its demands for huge reparations left an angry and embittered Germany and helped to set the stage for another global conflagration just 20 years later.
Spegelsalen i Versailles den 18 januari 1871, när Vilhelm I utropas till tysk kejsare efter segern i fransk-tyska kriget.
Dumt nog hade Napoleon III förklarat krig och förlorat.
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/06/spegelsalen-i-versailles-den-18-januari.html
Might the Iran deal, different in so many ways, nevertheless come to be seen as similarly fateful? The US and Israel may have sent many of the country's former leaders to early graves, but have they been replaced by even more formidable foes?
Two key figures, the parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard, Ahmad Vahidi, are both in their 60s. Like the new supreme leader, both have close links to the all-powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
"A lot of countries were hoping that US military bases on their territory would provide them with security, not make them a target," "The Gulf states are now questioning the credibility of the US security umbrella and their own deterrence strategy."
BBC 5 July 2026
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg534ryp660o
America’s Battlefield Dominance Is Under Serious Threat.
The US Army buys 50,000 drones a year, set to increase in 2027 to 340,000. Sounds like a lot? Yeah, but Ukraine is producing and launching 4 million a year.
Meanwhile, an Iranian missile landing on a Gulf air base destroyed a $300 million E-3 Sentry early-warning aircraft.
America can afford it? Well, maybe, but it was one of a US fleet of just 16 such aircraft, now down to 15.
At the same time, Ukraine’s $300,000-a-pop kamikaze drone boats have displayed in the Black Sea an ability to destroy warships costing hundreds of millions of dollars — they have sunk 13 Russian vessels and damaged many more.
Max Hastings Bloomberg 5 July 2026
Max Hastings is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. His histories include "Inferno: The World At War, 1939–1945," "Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945–1975" and "Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962."
Returning to pre-Trumpian politics won’t save America.
The “grand opening” of the Obama Presidential Center
“To George and Laura, Bill and Hillary — we’re grateful for your friendship, counsel, and devotion to this country,” Obama the 44th American president wrote of his White House predecessors.
It was as if the past decade had never happened. What President Trump? What “stolen election”? What humiliating Biden presidency? What pandemic? What total collapse of the old world order?
It is tempting to see the pre-Trump years as a blissful era of civility and decency, when Americans still had confidence in institutions and liberal democracy was functioning as intended.
The fact, however, is that Trump was just as much a product of a broad disillusionment with the political class as he was a cause of its further unravelling.
Confidence in government and the media had already plummeted. He didn’t so much win the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton — who we might consider the High Priestess of The Club — lost it.
Jemima Kelly Financial Times 5 July 2026
https://www.ft.com/content/5e7ca535-90a8-4f6d-934b-0a0d9b36e62d?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Morgonen efter presidentvalet 2016 höll Hillary Clinton förlorartalet. (RE: Hon höll det inte som brukligt på valnatten; eftersom hon inte hade förberett något alternativ till segertalet.)
Kanske var loppet kört när hon tog det ödesdigra beslutet att använda en privat server för en del av kommunikationen som utrikesminister.
Möjligen slog hon in sista spiken i kistan när hon utmålade en del av Trumps väljare som en ”basket of deplorables”, en hög av bedrövliga väljare, bortom räddning i sin rasism och sexism och homofobi.
Karin Eriksson DN 5 oktober 2024
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/10/behover-kamala-harris-hjalp-av-just.html
Basket of deplorables
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables
Dagen innan
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/07/4-juliwhat-has-america-ever-done-for-us.html
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