"What If Trump Nukes Iran?

Should the U.S. join Israel, the likeliest scenario is still for it to use its bunker-busting bombs to go after Iran's nuclear program " however, there are now conflicting reports as to whether the Trump administration is actually considering using a tactical nuke.

It was originally reported that the scenario of using nukes was not presented to Trump at all, but the White House has since pushed back on that report and stated that no option has been ruled out."

#62

The sovereign nation of Iran is a major Russian military supplier, much of which money ends up in the hands of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

Among other reasons...

"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in January: The Iran-Russia treaty showed "the desire of Moscow and Tehran for closer cooperation on security and defense."

Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum: "Putin understands that this is Trump's Middle East. Israel is the United States' top Middle East ally and Putin is trying to walk a fine line with the United States over Ukraine."

#57

Chaff?

"Both Iran and Russia shared an ally in former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and intervened on his behalf in the Syrian war until his eventual defeat late last year.

Iran has supplied Russia with Shahed kamikaze drones to be used on Ukrainian targets, and last year, there were reports that Russia received hundreds of Fath-360 ballistic missiles from Iran, which are known to be accurate at short range.

"Of course, Russia should be friends with Iran because, in politics and in life, everything is very simple," hawkish Russian TV personality Sergey Mardan commented after the latest Middle East crisis escalated.

"If you have an enemy and your enemy has partners and allies, his partners and allies are automatically your enemies.

"There are no illusions about this, and there can't be any. Since Israel is a key ally of the United States; ... of course, we are interested in the weakening of Israel and helping its adversaries."

"Putin pointed to statistics showing that gross domestic product is still growing " by 1.5 percent in the first four months of the year.

However, analysts have pointed out that that is due entirely to ever-higher volumes of output from the defense sector to fight the war in Ukraine. Civil sectors of the economy have slowed sharply, as the government has ended various subsidy programs over the past year, notably for residential mortgages.

The government is being squeezed harder than at any time since the invasion by the fact that global prices for crude oil, exports of which generate a third of its revenue, have slumped to their lowest in over three years as Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies opened a battle to win back global market share from higher-cost producers in the United States and elsewhere."

more Russian economy news at the link

Anyone else notice that Vlad held off siccing Iran on Israel until his stooge Donald was in power again?

"Even before Ernst Rhm was murdered, the Nazis had begun cracking down on homosexuality, banning organizations, burning books, and arresting the first of some 100,000.

Around 15,000 gay people were sent to concentration camps, where some were experimented upon in bizarre efforts to find a "cure" for sexual orientation, a foreshadowing of American psychological and later fundamentalist efforts to try the same thing."

from the above link