Seth Abramson

Counterpoint: absolutely not

Kristi Noem going out praising herself for her courageous public service when all she did was steal our money and lie to America and brutalize the vulnerable and screw her boyfriend is pretty much the exit from DHS I expected of her

It is very important she eventually go to prison

I feel like the one thing most everyone can agree on is that nothing Trump and Hegseth say can be trusted, from casualty figures to claims that Iran is begging for a negotiation, from the prospective timeline of the war to whether either man gives a shit about the Iranian people

The way the US and UK are acting—not invoking Article 5, refusing to discuss what happened, providing flight paths that seem slightly improbable, shifting stories slightly—suggests to me something's off and that, whatever's going on, *these three* Iranian denials may be accurate.

The final allegation Iran denies are multiple drone strikes on Azerbaijan. But they were against an Azeri enclave; Turkey is being very weird and fidgety about them; and Azerbaijan has lately been at war with Armenia.

So... pretty dubious Iran is trying to draw it into a war?

I'm not being coy; Hegseth and the IDF offer three pieces of evidence Iran (not they) is trying to widen the war: a missile and two drones. Hegseth is all but admitting the first was a misfire. He won't speak of Cyprus—and *no one* can explain it beyond it being a Lebanon launch.

Hegseth says a missile fired from Iran flew over Iraq, then Syria, never entered Turkish airspace and was downed in the Eastern Mediterranean...

...headed for Turkey.

Would love to see maps of the trajectory.

Maybe there's a reason he says there's "no sense" this triggers A5.

Fair point!

CYPRUS UPDATE II:

* US won't comment on attack on closest ally
* UK caught off-guard by how drone acted, and will not say why
* Only UK explanation is guess: maybe a pro-Iran militia in Lebanon/Iraq (locals who know where secret US spy planes are kept on a UK base in Cyprus? No)

CYPRUS UPDATE:

* "Shahed-type" drone, not "Shahed"
* Confirmed fired from Lebanon, not Iran
* Hit secret US storage space Hezbollah almost certainly wouldn't know about, but allies would
* Hit location where chance of casualties was near zero
* "Looped" around to hit benign area

There's no reason for Iran to attack NATO nation Turkey—but a drone did. Iran denies sending it.

There's no reason for Iran to attack a UK base in Cyprus—but a drone did. Iran denies sending it.

Now Azerbaijan has been attacked. Iran denies involvement.

I think this is Israel.

If you were hoping for a DHS secretary even *one iota* better than Noem, stop hoping.

Mullin will be easily confirmed, and he's nothing more than a vacuous thug *gleeful* to be the mailed fist of the president against citizens and non-citizens alike.

There was a post I was going to post days ago—and didn't—that I now wish I had:

"The two most *brutally stupid* United States Senators are Markwayne Mullin and Tommy Tuberville."

The first of these two colossal imbeciles is now going to be the next DHS secretary, starting 3/31.

Keep in mind, 90%+ of those saying "Israel wouldn't do this" or "America wouldn't do this" are the same people who've *never* accepted the hundreds of *proven* atrocities both nations have committed—while accepting 100% of Iran's (equally proven) atrocities.

That's not objectivity, it's radicalism.

I am more than happy to indulge alternative theories of the case: e.g., Azerbaijan (via Turkey) and Kazakhstan (via Russia) supply around 70% of Israel's crude oil, and Cyprus a small amount of refined. But that would not explain these being denied one-offs *not* fired from Iran.

All this is easy to research, including the US retrieving an intact Shahed in recent years and making drones based on Iran's design. They're among the armaments the US has provided to Israel, which can now easily launch from the Iran-proxy position—Lebanon—these drones came from.

But candidly, it's not for those of us saying the facts of this war don't support the theory of Iranian strikes on Turkey, the UK and Azerbaijan to prove our case. It's on those who insist that Iran *is* behind these strikes to explain their *extraordinary* claim that Iran *wants* NATO to attack it.

In literature, we call this the "unmarked case": that is, if we fail to comment on a situation and note what makes it distinct, we let *whatever the existing presumptions are* govern. Right now the presumption is that Iran is at war with the world. But I rather suspect Israel is.

Some may ask, "Why develop a theory on this?" The answer: because we must. And urgently. Unsolved mysteries in a hot war *require* a "theory of the case" to determine what to do next. If we let default (improbable) suppositions reign, NATO could enter this war on false pretenses.

All this comes in the context of the US/IDF trying to get other nations to join their efforts—and seeing that the only thing moving the needle on that is having such nations' own assets be put under threat.

Meanwhile, Iran gains nil from these strikes. They're devastating to it.

One of the few things we know for sure about this war is that the Americans and Israelis don't have boots on the ground—they can't launch drone strikes from Iranian soil. But the IDF was *suspiciously quick* to push deep into Lebanon—and the weird drone strikes come from *there*.

But don't accept my explanations—use elementary-school logic. If Iran had fired these drones with intention, it'd be counter to that intention to subsequently deny doing it. It'd be *proud* to say it did it.

And there'd be evidence the drones were fired *from Iran*. There isn't.

This supposition is a *conservative* one. Netanyahu's an indicted war criminal who also faces public corruption felonies in Israel—using one-off drone strikes not intended to kill to draw other nations into the war against Iran would be about the most *mild* thing he's ever done.

Trump has a big property in Azerbaijan, in Baku. You will notice that the attack on Azerbaijan *wasn't* on his property—which you might think Iran would have been interested in—but simply on the country itself. Why? Because that's *enough* to light an additional fire under Trump.

When you understand that what is *motivating* Donald Trump to be involved in this war is protecting his property—his golf courses in the UAE, his coming golf course in Saudi Arabia, his planned Trump Gaza Hotel— suddenly a fake attack on Azerbaijan makes a lot more sense as well.

And look at how the UK reacted. That strike was against British property in Cyprus and should have been treated as an act of war. Same with the attack on Turkey. In fact, Article 5 should have been invoked. But what happened? Nothing. Because no one believes the strikes are real.

Hegseth has admitted that America has *no interest* in "fighting fair." And what it did to that warship near India was an obvious war crime; even the Nazis rescued drowning sailors. So one would have to be naive to say the US-IDF alliance "wouldn't" issue strategic drone strikes.

Keep in mind we already know the US-IDF alliance is committing war crimes, lying about casualties, lying about imminent threats, lying about timelines. And keep in mind the UK confirms the Cyprus strike came from Lebanon—not Iran. Hezbollah has even *less* reason to anger the UK.

The Iranian defense strategy isn't opaque—it's transparent. It's firing at Israel and nations that host *American* bases. What's wholly inconsistent with that is the idea that it would attempt to bring the full force of NATO against it by firing on Turkey and a UK base in Cyprus.

I say this for a reason. Right after the illegal invasion, US media reported that America and Israel had reverse-engineered the Shahed drone and had essentially identical copies of it. Evidence suggests these suspicious strikes are coming from Lebanon—where the IDF is positioned.