Jake Werner

Ladies and gentleman: Trump's new nominee to be DHS Secretary.

Inside the Trump administration’s scramble to support its own war One State Department official said too few people were read in on war plans.

U.S. Central Command is now saying internally that this war against Iran is likely to last through September, according to information obtained by @politico.com.

This would easily cost over $100 billion, and that number could go much higher.

www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

PEPFAR, the program to stop hundreds of thousands of children and adults from dying of HIV/AIDS, was $6.5 billion a year.

They are not Russia proxies, unless you’re using that word in a way I don’t understand.

We should not be “taking out” any country, because war is a terrible crime, only to be considered under extreme circumstances after all other possibilities have been exhausted.

US War on Iran Challenges China and 'Axis of Chaos' Partners Washington’s one-two punch capturing Venezuela’s leader and then killing Iran’s in coordination with Israel has put Beijing on the back foot, according to former US officials who have helped craft Chi...

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

7. What’s next? With this depth and duration of self-delusion, it’s all too easy to imagine a far more confrontational China policy after Trump based on supposedly proven Chinese weakness and US power, made urgent because Trump is not (for now) treating China like a bitter enemy.

6. Foreign policy leaders in both parties, having already shrugged off bedrock ideological justifications, are now in the process of giving up other restraints as well because Trump showed you can get away with it. Much will depend on whether the consequences catch up with him.

back much.

5. Celebration in DC foreign policy world that China is now revealed to be pathetically weak because it can’t defend its imaginary proxies. Some concern that Trump is not using violence in quite the right way, but no mention of the rules-based international order;

are isolated, its more important relationships are elsewhere;

3. A US president comes to power committed to destroying the rules-based international order. As is his wont, he targets the weakest victims first.

4. China, little invested in weak partners, doesn’t push …

sometimes coordinate—US foreign policy leaders seize on that to prove the existence of the Axis—but mostly it’s because the US is isolating them from other options. China, less isolated than the others, maintains relationships in the “Axis” but, precisely because other members…

Let’s review.

1. DC foreign policy world, projecting insecurities outward, invents the “Axis of Chaos [or whatever]” comprised of the official enemies. They must be strangled because they aim to destroy the rules-based international order;

2. Countries in the nonexistent Axis…

China did NOT move "quickly to condemn the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran" Technically, Beijing only condemned the attack and killing of Khamenei and the attack on the girls' school. And it basically condemned Iran for attacking other Gulf countries.

A valuable summary of China’s official response to the US–Israel attack on Iran. Notably softer than on Venezuela.

Maybe most significant is China’s sharp criticism of Iran attacking the GCC countries. Their security, more than Iran’s, is China’s priority.
www.pekingnology.com/p/china-did-...

It has been an explicit policy goal of the Trump admin both to increase the number of US war crimes and to expand impunity for war crimes. Here’s reporting on how they’re doing that.

Neoliberal peace was built on a fantasy of unrestricted foreign capital. It was self-serving and unrealistic—every country that developed did so by manipulating access to its market.

Instead of seeking a way to align development with mutual gain, US opinion now shouts betrayal and demands conflict.

The "rally-around-the-flag" effect is not some law of physics that works automatically. It largely seems to happen because 1) the opposition party stops criticizing the president or the military operation, 2) partially as a consequence, the mass media is flooded with pro-government messages. /1

Shorter Rubio: Israel was going to commit the crime of aggression, so we had to join in the crime. You know, defensively.

They’re boasting to conceal (including from themselves) their own deep insecurity.

But it’s also a process of breaking former inhibitions on the exercise of state violence through identification with Trump.

The Democratic foreign policy establishment is quietly self-radicalizing.

persuading themselves that China is weak and the way to maintain US supremacy is through naked coercion.

That’s very ominous for where this goes when the false bravado takes them into realms that actually do damage Chinese interests.
/3

China’s interests are woven through the global economy, and for that reason the countries isolated and ruined by US aggression are not high priorities.

But on the basis of projection and childish pawns-on-the-chessboard thinking, US leaders in both parties are
2/

This is now common from ostensibly serious foreign policy thinkers—here, Biden’s China ambassador.

But it’s a complete fantasy. They’re trash-talking a rival that is just not playing the same game.

China cares more about Saudi or UAE than Iran, Brasil or Perú than Venezuela.
1/

See the write-up here:
military.people.com.cn/n1/2023/1025...

This clip is misleadingly being passed around. It’s genuine, but it’s from 2023, not 2026.

And it’s not a response to the US starting a new war—China is much more cautious in highly emotive moments. This was a response to the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military.

This guy just saying any tough quotes he can remember. “Remember the Alamo.” You have to try to match the quote to reality so it doesn’t sound stupid man

and strengthen “our” reactionaries in the name of battering theirs.

Only an egalitarian and internationalist politics can bring either peace or justice. The foreign policy world of Biden and congressional leadership is simply incompatible with such a project.

Reactionaries use violence to dominate others but they also revel in it.

Liberal imperialists don’t take the same pleasure in violence but they do embrace war, as we’re seeing today. War is a structural necessity to maintain global hierarchy.

In the end, they collaborate with…

And pleasure!

"We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim."

The U.S. Senate must be clear: no war with Iran.

OCASIO-CORTEZ STATEMENT ON TRUMP'S COMBAT OPERATIONS IN IRAN "The American people are once again dragged into a war they did not want by a president who does not care about the long-term consequences of his actions. This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary. And it will be catastrophic. "Just this week, Iran and the United States were negotiating key measures that could have staved off war. The President walked away from these discussions and chose war instead.President Trump flippantly acknowledged the possibility of American casualties, stating "that often happens in war.' "Mr. President: this was not an inevitability. This is a deliberate choice of aggression when diplomacy and security were within reach. Stop lying to the American people. "Violence begets violence. We learned this lesson in Iraq. We learned this lesson in Afghanistan. And we are about to learn it again in Iran. Bombs have yet to create enduring democracies in the region and this will be no different. "In moments of war, our Constitution is unambiguous: Congress authorizes war. The President does not. I will do my part to uphold our Constitution by voting YES on Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie's War Powers Resolution. Every member of Congress must join us in rejecting this aimless war.

My statement on President Trump’s combat operations in Iran⬇️

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.