What were they smoking?
...It turns out that the United States and Israel [gift link] went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views.
But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.
Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.
He has not been seen publicly since then and his current whereabouts and condition are unknown....
... Israel envisioned the war unfolding in several phases, starting with air assaults by the United States and Israel plus the killing of Iran’s supreme leaders and the mobilization of Kurds to fight Iranian forces, according to two Israeli defense officials familiar with the operational planning.
Then, the Israeli plan foresaw a combination of influence campaigns carried out by Israel and the Kurdish invasion creating political instability in Iran and a sense that the regime was losing control. In a third stage, the regime, under intense political pressure and the weight of damage to key infrastructure like electricity, would collapse, allowing for what the Israelis referred to as an “alternative government” to be established.
Other than the air campaign and the killing of the supreme leader, little of the plan played out as the Israelis had hoped, and much of it appears in retrospect to have profoundly misjudged Iran’s resilience and the capacity of the United States and Israel to exert their will...
In his Rest of the World Report, Rudy Martinez writes:The Iran War "strategy" looks even crazier: The @nytimes reports that the US plan was to put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in as leader -- yes, the same Ahmadinejad who was both extremist and a bit crazy. I interviewed Ahmadinejad when he was Iran's president and can't imagine the why the…
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) May 19, 2026
...Trump planned a major military strike on Iran for Tuesday and called it off Monday evening without having previously disclosed it was planned. The Gulf allies who intervened say they are close to a deal. The Pakistani mediator says both sides keep changing the goalposts. Brent crude is at $111.00. The next two to three days will determine whether this was a turning point or another delay.And this happened on Tuesday:
I think Trump wants to get out of Iran but he doesn't know how to just declare victory and leave.BREAKING: It took eight tries, but the Senate has finally voted to advance a resolution to limit Donald Trump’s war on Iran. The measure passed 50-47 after Senator Bill Cassidy flipped and joined Democrats just days after losing his primary.
— Jerry Whitney (@theharpoonman.bsky.social) May 19, 2026 at 10:53 PM
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...I still argue as I have for a while that the Ukrainian attacks will be more important in shaping the course of the war. Russian civilian crime attacks do not seem to be cracking Ukrainian resistance, indeed they might be strengthening it. However, Ukrainian attacks on Russian strategic industries continue to reduce Russian fuel exports—which is doubly important now as the US has made sure oil prices are abnormally high.I thought this remark from Carney is also worthwhile to note, that Ukraine will win and that Canada will be on the right side of history.
I am sure there are those in Ukraine who feel so angry with the Russians deliberately killing civilians that they would believe it justified if Ukraine struck back similarly. And at this point, if the Ukrainians did, they might receive little condemnation. However, the Ukrainians are still refusing to make criminal attacks in favor of effective strategic ones.
This contrast helps explain why the war has developed as it has and why Ukraine is starting to take the initiative.
Fighting smart is usually better than fighting brutally.
PM Carney: "There's lots of cooperation [with the US]. But we will also be cooperating with other partners and diversifying our defence cooperation as a member of NATO and in critical areas such as Ukraine ... Ukraine is going to triumph and we're going to be on the right side of history for that."
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) May 19, 2026 at 11:16 AM
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Rumours of War
Here are some more updates on the disputes Trump is having here and there and everywhere
About that "Board of Defense"
With Greenland
About that "special envoy"
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With Cuba
This story may or may not be true, and it may or may not matter.
🇨🇺🇺🇸 Axios: Cuba has acquired 300+ military drones from Russia and Iran and has discussed using them to attack Guantanamo Bay, US naval vessels, and Key West. CIA Director Ratcliffe flew to Havana to personally warn Cuba against hostilities.
— Savchenko Volodymyr (@savchenkoua.bsky.social) May 17, 2026 at 9:07 AM
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HMMMMMMMM
— bryptid (cryptid evolving) (@bradicality.bsky.social) May 17, 2026 at 9:16 PM
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Genuinely fascinated by latest phenomenon of Marc Caputo being the outlet for INTELLIGENCE leaks, as with his Cuba drone story. Note it is effectively single-sourced--to a senior US official sharing classified intel. www.axios.com/2026/05/17/u...
— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) May 18, 2026 at 6:38 AM
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Since there is news about a possible drone threat from Cuba, with Havana allegedly acquiring 300 military drones from Russia and Iran, re-upping my post from a Russian Telegram blogger from 4 months ago outlining such a scenario. t.me/rybar/77101
— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett.bsky.social) May 17, 2026 at 10:19 AM
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With South America
Bolivia isn't working out so well
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With Everyone Else This is the least surprising thing I read about Trump's visit to China:
BC is rightly concerned about Carney making deals with Alberta, without prior consultation with BC.
It seems to me this is how a separatist movement gets born - when a group of people feel ignored, unappreciated, unrewarded. British Columbia makes an extraordinary contribution to Canada, but it seems to be too easy for central and eastern Canada to take them for granted.
I remember when I was visiting Toronto and I realized that when I talked about "the coast" people always thought I meant the Atlantic provinces. That I was talking about BC never occurred to them at all, I guess because everything after Lake Superior is just "out west".
Anyway, Carney is set to meet with Eby on Wednesday, so we'll see what happens, keeping the following comments in mind:
Nathan Cullen: "For those that have somehow this equation that a single project is a determination of whether our country is functioning or not, that's insane. And you can't negotiate with someone who puts a gun to your head and expect good outcomes."
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) May 19, 2026 at 6:17 PM
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Here's a good one - the Mayor of Montreal gave a Habs jersey to Macron
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Its sad news for Saskatchewan that the Snowbirds will be grounded at the end of this year:
One of the great things about going to Riders games was that the jets from Moose Jaw would do a flyover of the stadium.Canada’s Snowbirds jets grounded until 2030s as replacement aircraft identified – CTV News https://www.newsbeep.com/547572/ Canada’s Snowbirds jets grounded until 2030s as replacement aircraft identified CTV NewsHere is where you can see the final…
— newsbeep.bsky.social (@newsbeep.bsky.social) May 19, 2026 at 5:05 PM
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Here's an airshow the Snowbirds did in 2016:
And here is their 2026 schedule.
Finally, just three weeks until the World Cup starts, and Toronto Star Europe reporter Allan Woods is reporting on its "ugly face" now:
Iran wants guarantees of beefed-up protection [gift link] behind enemy lines and no political questions from prying journalists.Maybe it will turn out to be a good thing that people in Toronto can drink in the bars until 4 am from June 11 to July 19, while the World Cup is on.
Senegal wants visas for a handful of officials from its national sporting federation who have been denied entry to the U.S.
Ghana wants fans of its national squad, the Black Stars, to promise they’ll return home, keeping the country in Donald Trump’s good graces. And a vast number of Canadians want nothing at all to do with their southern neighbours — not their travel hot spots, not their bourbon and wine, and certainly not their World Cup matches, even if they will feature the best soccer players on the planet.
Welcome to the ugly face of the beautiful game’s marquee event — World Cup 2026 — set to open in Canada, Mexico and the United States on June 11.
It’s a far cry from what the co-hosts, under the banner of United 2026 and the slogan of “Unity. Certainty. Opportunity,” promised when their bid was picked by FIFA, soccer’s governing body, in 2018.
The anticipated kumbaya ambience has turned into something of a dark cloud.
“I think it’s going to be a fairly sad World Cup,” said Ronan Evain, the French head of Football Supporters Europe....
5 comments:
If Alberta leaves, sitting here in Ontario sounds like a good idea, what is BC going to do ? What are its options? Those are tough issues. J. W.
Alberta isn't going anywhere. Objectively it's insane, and while that wouldn't necessarily stop Albertans the polls are clear that the separatists don't have the numbers despite all the propaganda.
I'm trusting Carney less and less. So right now he's trying to totally gut Canadian rules on pesticides, so the corporations can poison us as much as they want. I'm against that, I think a lot of Canadians would be against that, and apparently Carney knows a lot of Canadians would be against that, because the kicker is he slipped these major changes into a couple of financial bills, apparently hoping nobody would notice.
And again, the measures involve, among other things, something that's becoming a signature move of Carney: The ability for the executive to waive the rules. Up to now this kind of move has been defended with the idea that it's about important, crucial projects that can get derailed if they are delayed or stopped by "red tape". I have some problems with that, but it's a rationale and I can see the force of it. You can say it's not about Carney having undemocratic instincts, it's just that he thinks this particular stuff is really important and the processes are inadequate to the emergency moment.
But pesticides? Pesticides are not some urgent project that needs to be done right now or the sky will fall. The issue is whether business as usual will be dangerous to the health of Canadians and the Canadian environment that Canadians depend on. And Carney's answer is, "Yes, if I arbitrarily decide that despite what the research says." If that's his answer for pesticides, is there going to be ANY issue where his answer would be to have democracy and decent processes? Is there going to be ANY issue where he backs the people of Canada over corporate profits?
Carney's been pretty much what I expected. He's a Goldman Sachs alumnus who was appointed bank governor by two Tories, Harper and Cameron. It's not realistic to expect a break from the neoliberal imperatives of upward wealth transfer, privatization and deregulation.
But the alternative was Poilievre who was offering MAGA and a close alliance with, if not total capitulation to, Trump. And although I've voted NDP in the past, I still have no idea what Singh stood for.
I think we've put off the inevitable for now. Neoliberalism creates oligarchs and will give us the total corruption of MAGA in the end.
I am not negative on Carney. While I am likely more progressive in my own instincts, I support everything he is trying to do for the country, and particularly to protect us from Trump.
Over the next few years, until Trump is gone, I expect there will be a number of important things that Canada will have to put aside or at least defer.
For now, our focus needs to be on protecting the country - with the hope that, by the 2030s, our Snowbirds can fly again.
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