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[ADiTAR]

I gotta say, it's so convenient that any enemy of Israel turns out to be a terrorist, and of course that justifies ethnic cleansing, genocide or, if fact, terrorist acts

I know it's hard because some the terrorists squirted into your eyes, but try to read what Hezbollah did to Lebanon regardless of Israel.

 

[adamsapple]

If this turns to the new normal... There aren't enough self own gifs in the world to respond to such a thing.

Reading that they're charging as high as $2 million per safe voyage of ships/oil tankers.

Holy shit Iran is going to make a shit load of money off of what were free passages before.

 

[Sonik]

I know it's hard because some the terrorists squirted into your eyes, but try to read what Hezbollah did to Lebanon regardless of Israel.

They must have done something terrible, like demolishing entire villages, carpet bombing entire neighborhoods in Lebanon, or ethnically cleansing Southern Lebanon, right?

 

[Gp1]

We found what did it.

 

[Unfortunatecookie]

Spend over a year tearing down our relations with our allies, threatening their countries, insulting and trying to bully them, then flail around when they don't answer your request for help over a poorly planned out operation against Iran.

Trump has pretty much become Augustus Gloop when he fell into the chocolate river.

Couldn't have said it any better.

 

[poodaddy]

More ships are taking the toll route between Iran's islands.

That's disproven in the very first comment on that page.

 

[Ecotic]

That's disproven in the very first comment on that page.

Well it's not saying back to normal, just more than lately.

 

[poodaddy]

Well it's not saying back to normal, just more than lately.

It was a post lying blatantly about how many ships were traversing it at the time. Three ships were traversing at the time. I just figured we should go on facts here, too many people get caught up in the memes and gotchas rather than looking at the facts. There's propaganda everywhere folks, best to be cognizant of that, helps to keep things more level headed.

 

[IlGialloMondadori]

Spend over a year tearing down our relations with our allies, threatening their countries, insulting and trying to bully them, then flail around when they don't answer your request for help over a poorly planned out operation against Iran.

Trump has pretty much become Augustus Gloop when he fell into the chocolate river.

It has the stink of Stephen Miller all over it.

 

[Ecotic]

It was a post lying blatantly about how many ships were traversing it at the time. Three ships were traversing at the time. I just figured we should go on facts here, too many people get caught up in the memes and gotchas rather than looking at the facts. There's propaganda everywhere folks, best to be cognizant of that, helps to keep things more level headed.

There has indeed been a meaningful uptick in recent days. Bloomberg even thought it noteworthy enough for an article this morning.

If you rewatch the video, you can see more than three ships making the crossing, they just turned their transponders off until they got to the other side.

 

[Clear]

The US has not helped Europe in 80 years, and in fact has fucked it over multiple times since, from Suez to creating disarray in the Middle East on a regular basis. Now they are fucking over Asia too. If they could stop 'helping' and just leave this part of the world, go full Donroe and stay in the Americas it would be so great. But they just cannot be helped it seems.

Well, why should the US "help" Europe exactly ?

The European superstate that the technocrats in Brussels have been trying to build for the last decades is an economic competitor to US interests.

The US didn't start two world wars. So them benefitting from the collapse of the European empires in its aftermath seems not an unreasonable reward for them helping to liberate the continent from ACTUAL FASCISM to me.

At that point in time we had a strictly bilateral world, the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States were squaring off.

Since the collapse of the USSR we're back to a multi-polar geopolitics, where logically its every bloc for itself, and the idea that Europe "deserves" anything is illogical.

 

[adamsapple]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-31/hegseth-says-strikes-causing-iran-desertions-as-us-pursues-deal?srnd=homepage-americas

Hegseth Says Pentagon's Job Now Is to Pressure Iran Into Talks

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said diplomatic talks to end the conflict with Iran are "gaining strength" and the US military's job is to maintain military pressure and compel Tehran to make a deal.

Hegseth stressed the primary focus now is to negotiate an end to the war with Tehran. He said talks led by White House envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were making progress.

"They are very real, they are ongoing, they're active and I think gaining strength, and we appreciate that," he said.

Citing US intelligence but without giving any details, Hegseth also said continuous airstrikes were eroding morale in Iran's security forces.

"Our strikes are damaging the morale of the Iranian military, leading to widespread desertions, key personnel shortages and causing frustrations amongst senior leaders," Hegseth said. From the outside, Iran's military — both its regular forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — has remained unified and resilient in the face of the US and Israeli attacks. There's little sign of desertions, particularly among senior commanders.

 

[Wildebeest]

Well, why should the US "help" Europe exactly ?

The European superstate that the technocrats in Brussels have been trying to build for the last decades is an economic competitor to US interests.

The US didn't start two world wars. So them benefitting from the collapse of the European empires in its aftermath seems not an unreasonable reward for them helping to liberate the continent from ACTUAL FASCISM to me.

At that point in time we had a strictly bilateral world, the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States were squaring off.

Since the collapse of the USSR we're back to a multi-polar geopolitics, where logically its every bloc for itself, and the idea that Europe "deserves" anything is illogical.

You are talking about continentalism which is a different idea to multi-polar geopolitics. It is perfectly possible for NA and Europe to be aligned on a lot of issues and have relatively free trade even though they are not on the same continent. Like we see Canada seeming to decide, in the multi polar schema, that it would rather be more integrated with the EU than the USA, even though they share the same continent. Canada can't tow themselves across the Atlantic, as much as they might want to, but in a multi polar world it doesn't matter. And they don't even have to choose one pole to trade with, they can trade with EU, US, China, India, even Russia if they are feeling like scumbags.

 

[Toons]

I gotta say, it's so convenient that any enemy of Israel turns out to be a terrorist, and of course that justifies ethnic cleansing, genocide or, if fact, terrorist acts

Im pretty sympathetic to Israel's plight following rhe October 7th attack and find a lot of the progressive angle of things to be flippant regarding discussing of it at best, outright antisemitic at worst.

But I can't help but feel the leadership there(not the citizens) are doing everything imaginable to sap all good will from the discourse that they have when they act in this manner. Im all for a nation defending itself but theres always a line.

 

[Toons]

Trump is obviously stuck. He can't open the Strait of Hormuz, he can't land a favorable deal, and he's unwilling to martingale with ground troops. His own party may even revolt if he goes with ground troops (enough of them anyway), further tying his hands.

Every day his options get worse. The landing sites get more fortified, oil goes higher, the American people's patience grows thinner, and global pressure to end this increases. I personally wouldn't even know what advice to give him, he's trapped with no good options.

He has an option, like many a desperate man does in a situation of little time, a narrow path, two bodies thrusting against each other's, and pressure mounting with potentially explosive snd costly results:

Pull out.

Spoiler

cmon that was a good one

 

[FullMetalx117]

I gotta say, it's so convenient that any enemy of Israel turns out to be a terrorist, and of course that justifies ethnic cleansing, genocide or, if fact, terrorist acts

It's an interesting discussion. Hezbollah, muslim brotherhood, hamas, etc. are groups we consider terrorists. And with their disregard of human of life, I think they are terrorists. But I found interesting these groups are inherently against absolute monarchies, hereditary structure which I think many people today would agree with. It makes sense why UAE, Saudi, Jordan, etc. would consider these groups terrorists and want to prevent anything like an arab spring from happening - because they want to protect their monarchies. With all that said, it seems arab spring seems to have back fired in countries it did happen in and Iran did end up going hereditary in ayathollah. Shia islam does advoctate for a little bit of royalism too.

It is interesting, stepping back, western democracies have found themselves aligning with gulf monarchies.

 

[Tams]

We found what did it.

 

[freefornow]

Gas went from $2.30 to $3.80 in my area since this war started and it keeps going up.

For comparison, unleaded in Australia ATM has risen to (avg) US$7.28 per gallon (AU$2.60 per litre). Feb 2026 prices were US$4.20 per gallon (AU$1.50 per litre). Diesel is worse $US 9.10 per gallon (AU$3.25 per litre). (rough conversion of 4 litres per gallon and currency conversion of AU$0.70 to US$1)

Feel that these prices will be the new normal for a long long time.

 

[LordCBH]

For comparison, unleaded in Australia ATM has risen to (avg) US$7.28 per gallon (AU$2.60 per litre). Feb 2026 prices were US$4.20 per gallon (AU$1.50 per litre). Diesel is worse $US 9.10 per gallon (AU$3.25 per litre). (rough conversion of 4 litres per gallon and currency conversion of AU$0.70 to US$1)

Feel that these prices will be the new normal for a long long time.

These companies will be loathe to bring them down and will absolutely drag their feet for years once consumers are used to the high prices.