"At a press conference on Monday evening, President Trump said his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was one of a handful of top advisers who convinced him to launch major combat operations in Iran. The disclosure raises additional questions about the role of Kushner, who is being paid tens of millions of dollars annually by Middle Eastern governments that were reportedly lobbying Trump to attack Iran."
~ Judd Legum
"Everything I was taught, everything I came to believe has more or less been turned upside down. Politicalization of intelligence, the notion that there is no national interest today. It's now been conflated and completely subordinated to Donald Trump's personal whims, fancies, his financial interests, the amount of self-dealing. He's deployed his son-in-law and his best friend."
~ Aaron David Miller
#Trump #Iran #war #JaredKushner
/2
https://www.contrariannews.org/p/why-donald-trump-went-to-war
'Everything I was taught, everything I came to believe, has more or less been turned upside down'
"Trump started a war just because he thought he could — without asking Congress for authorization or building any public consent.
It’s one of the most irresponsible decisions made by a U.S. president in modern history."
~ Dan Pfeiffer
https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/no-democrat-should-give-trump-a-blank
"Trump’s war against Iran is uniquely unpopular among US military actions of the past century."
~ Charles Walldorf
"So far, polls have found that most Americans oppose the Iran attacks. Support ranges from 27 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll to 50 percent in a Fox News poll. The wide variation suggests that public opinion is still taking shape as more Americans learn details of the attacks and the aftermath."
~ Lily Boyce and Ruth Igielnik
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/us/politics/polls-wars-us-support.html
"Public opinion will quickly whiplash Trump. The first $100 tank of gas will be a shock. The second may be a financial crisis for many Americans. And the third will have Americans demanding that Trump stop the war now—something easier said than done, and something that Trump failed to consider when he gave the order to start the war."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/trump-steps-into-a-minefield-with
"Oil commodities have fallen and the stock market has risen, as Wall Street believes that Trump’s Iran 'excursion' is short lived. But the problem is, Trump's word means nothing."
~ Emily Singer
"Oil went up dramatically over the weekend. I believe it briefly got up to over $110 a barrel and then it fell yesterday when Trump made these statements that the war is pretty much over we’re gonna be wrapping it up, and in anticipation of G7 nations releasing oil reserves. Now today it’s continuing that and it’s fallen significantly below $80, so investors think that Trump is going full taco here…."
~ Josh Marshall
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/the-backchannel/unpacking-trumps-rhetorical-flip-flops-on-iran
"The conflict has sent the price of gasoline surging, and it reached $3.48 a gallon on Monday, nearly a 17 percent increase since the war began on Feb. 28. World leaders are preparing for far-reaching repercussions, and in private some Republicans lawmakers are growing resigned to the harsh political realities that confront the party in power when prices rise sharply."
~ Tyler Pager
#Trump #Iran #war #oil #gas
/10
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/us/politics/trump-iran-gas-prices-gop-agenda.html
“Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor — it was, quite honestly, a disaster — is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states,” Trump boasted minutes into his nearly-two-hour address, framing his party’s message heading into the midterms.=
Two weeks later, his war with Iran threatens to undermine that pitch."
~ Hannah Knowles
#Trump #Iran #war #oil #gas
/11
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/10/iran-war-gas-prices-gop-anxiety/
"These Muslim forces believe 'jihad,' or armed struggle, is the highest form of religious devotion, one that offers a guaranteed path to salvation and atonement, which the IRGC reinforces through steady indoctrination. The IRGC will likely use Hegseth’s rhetoric and video game posts as recruitment tools:"
~ Sabrina Haake
#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #Islam #HolyWar #jihad #ChristianNationalism
/12
https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/hegseths-immaturity-will-be-useful
"Look how the Great Satan is slaughtering our children &laughing about it.
Hegseth’s videos will be useful to Iran as the IRGC exploits nationalistic and religious sentiments among terrorists. Iran will use Hegseth’s hubris against us, and the danger will not be limited to war zones. As we learned on 9-11, jihadist groups are the main perpetrators of suicide attacks worldwide, & Hegseth is goading them into action."
#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #Islam #HolyWar #jihad #ChristianNationalism
/13
"Megyn Kelly on Graham: 'This guy is a homicidal maniac with a bloodlust that is insatiable. He should not be allowed 20 feet of the President’s orbit.'"
~ Ron Filipkowski
#Trump #LindseyGraham #Iran #war #Islam #HolyWar #jihad #ChristianNationalism
/14
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/today-in-politics-bulletin-325-31026
"In an 1100-word piece weighing the energy shock Trump’s illegal war on Iran has caused in terms of White House worries (and so implicitly, politics), Politico grants anonymity to someone describing what is happening to the oil market as 'little gyrations.' …
There are far more products that are being choked off in Hormuz: fertilizer (and food products coming into the Gulf), aluminum, helium, sulphur."
~ Marcy Wheeler
"Various kinds of petroleum products, like jet fuel and diesel, are being affected more quickly than others, and both of those create immediate downstream problems in the transportation industry. Then there are the other impacts of Iran lobbing cheap drones at its Arab neighbors, on flights connecting through airports still being targeted, on tourism, on data centers."
"Plus, for a variety of reasons, the US is less exposed to this crisis than much of the rest of the world, so measuring it in terms of the impact on November’s midterms in the US won’t really measure its full effect.
The longer this crisis goes on, the longer it’ll take to recover from it."
William Lindsey 
su_liam