Author: photog

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 16JUN2026 – An Alternative Iranian Plan

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I would love to hear the details of these plans, but so far everything I see is in the “Trust me its Good” phase. Trump is a skilled negotiator, unfortunately, the Islamic tradition holds that negotiating with those not in Islam (Dar Al Harb, the House or Abode of War, any nation NOT under Islamic rule in most interpretations of Islamic tradition) is forbidden except for brief periods and in those negotiations deception is not just acceptable but the rule. This is a culture far more dangerous than say the Japanese of the WWII era with their bushido code. That group took mass firebombing and direct destruction of 2 cities, and without the direct intervention of their Emperor (and luck having a coup fail) we would have had to fight on.

The terms need to be dictated, not negotiated, and enforced with a ruthlessness we seem no longer able to muster. At a minimum, these must include:
1) All enriched nuclear material must be handed over to the US within 30 days. Any nuclear material found in country after that period is grounds for declaring the treaty null and void potential peremptory destruction of the site.
2) There must be constant presence of US/Israeli (not IAEA the feckless boobs they are) inspection teams and they must be able to perform surprise inspections with 3 hours or less notice. Violation of this clause yields the same actions as in 1)
3) All missiles and drones of range greater the 50 Miles shall be destroyed and construction of them forbidden. The presence of the remaining limited range weapons within 100 miles of the Straits of Hormuz is forbidden. Violation of this clause results in the immediate destruction of the offending item by whatever means seems necessary and immediate termination of the treaty.
4) All tanks, IFV, Ships , and Military aircraft (fixed wing or Rotary) shall be impounded in such a fashion that they can be inspected by US National technical means. The removal of vehicles from said impounds without notification shall be cause for the destruction of the removed vehicles as well as ALL other impounded vehicles at the discretion of US/Israeli forces. Violation of this clause will indicate termination of the treaty.
5) The presence of Hospitals and places of worship shall be marked and provided to the Us/Israeli forces. The presence of any weaponry or military items in violation of the traditional codes of war for perfidy shall make attacks on such perfidious sites free of any taint of the violation of the rules of war and be a reason for termination of this treaty
6)The US/Israel may overfly Iran freely for military or national reconnaissance purposes without intervention by the Iranian government. Any resistance to this may (up to and including illuminating said vehicles with search or fire control radars) be met with destruction of said resistance by whatever means deemed appropriate. This constitutes a reason for the termination of the treaty
7) The government of Iran shall officially sign an instrument of surrender explicitly specifying these conditions within 14 days of agreeing to this treaty

Honestly, as draconian as the terms I specify are, I do not believe they would be sufficient, even if we were willing to follow through. The only safe path I see is an ugly one: reduce Iran’s technological level to the early 19th century and then let Israel target them as needed to keep them there. I really hate that, but a Germany/Japan like occupation is just not in the cards. We have neither the stomach, the experience, nor the troop levels to provide that kind of oversight. Our treaties with Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War have taught us that not responding aggressively to violations is problematic against this particular culture. We need to make sure the nuclear threat to us and our Allies (and it is NOT just Israel, the missiles used to attack Diego Garcia can also reach Paris, Berlin and London) is gone, and let the locals deal with Iran as they see fit.

The Cost of Ideology

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I know a woman who is extremely progressive in her beliefs and because of this orientation she is surrounded by people who agree with her on every single point of the narrative.  So naturally, she and her friends are squarely behind the Zionism = Genocide talking point.  But she has a very old friend who was also on the Left who is also Jewish.  And she was relating to this friend a story about a high school student graduating in America who was a Palestinian refugee and who spoke movingly about her experiences in living in and then leaving Israel and the Palestinian areas.  What she told me was that her friend became extremely angry by any attempt to portray Palestinians as victims and Israelis as aggressors.  She asked me if this attitude makes sense and whether she could somehow bring her friend around to her way of thinking.

I was adamant that her friend would never change her point of view about who were the aggressors and who were the victims in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I said that to this woman the Israelis were more than countrymen, they were tantamount to family.  And then I went further and said I thought it was very likely that her opposing opinions might mean that this woman might not even consider her a friend any longer.

I told her that I have lost friends and had angry confrontations even with family over deep differences in belief and ideology.  I am of the opinion that family still represents the most important relation and must override even differences in ideology but the way forward involves agreeing to disagree and avoiding the subjects that will trigger anger.  So, I hazarded the opinion that if indeed this woman was now unfriendly toward her, it would probably require an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the difference and an agreement by both to avoid this irreconcilable difference of opinion in the future to preserve the friendship.  Of course, I’m not sure how good my advice was but it was my honest opinion.

So, what’s interesting about this story?  I think the radical nature of the new progressives is causing considerable strain on the Left.  Just as the trans-ideology caused rifts with feminists and even lesbians so the Gaza orthodoxy is causing a very considerable portion of American Jews to revolt against this plank of the Left’s platform.  And even beyond this there is someone like Democrat Senator Fetterman who refuses to reject the Israelis even in the face of incredible abuse by his own party.  So, if the radical fringe of the Democrats continues to control places like New York City and Los Angeles I think they will continue to alienate significant portions of the Democrat coalition.  And that is all to the good.  It gives the rest of the country a clear idea of exactly what the Left will do if they take over.

So, I ran into a case where the radical Left is tearing up old friendships.  Possibly this will give some people pause.  But either way it’s an indication of just how toxic this new radicalism really is.

Forty-Seven Years of Insanity and Counting

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Well, Trump says the Iranian war is over.  Hmmm.  How does that work?  Does Iran stop attacking its neighbors and does that mean Israel and Hezbollah are ready to stop trading missiles too?  I saw gasoline below $4/gallon today.  Is that because of these headlines today or is that just the latest price bouncing off of lower demand?

Of course, I’d love for this to be the end of this war.  It would give the Republicans a big boost in November and would almost certainly deny Democrats the Senate.  But it just doesn’t seem likely to me that Tehran will just back off and play nice.  It’s just not in their DNA.  But of course, I’ll give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt and wait and see if he’s pulled off a coup with this announcement.

I’ve always wondered just how dysfunctional the Iranian nation is.  Back in the 1980s they fought a war with Iraq in which a million young Iranians died during “human wave” attacks against a mechanized Iraqi army.  The stupidity of something like this can’t be overstated.  But now the next generation of Iranians seem to be completely directionless.  They despise the mullahs and hate their religious extremism and mismanagement of the economy but they have been brutalized by the Basij Resistance Force to such an extent that they’ve withdrawn back into their homes and have failed to organize any resistance of their own.

Think about this country, since 1979 their whole people have been led by lunatics whose whole plan is to restore a theocratic government that fell apart almost a thousand years ago because it has never had a reliable way of choosing new leaders and because its tenets are not conducive to a thriving society.  But at the same time, the strongest faction in the country is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.  The actual power in Iran is in their hands and they are in control of both the armed forces and the Basij Resistance Force that they use to control the general population and crush dissent.  And they’ve become so strongly ensconced that really the only way to pry power from them would be to send in an enormous army and defeat them on the ground.  And everyone knows we’re not going to do that.

So, what we have is a perpetual stalemate.  Iran spends its oil money on building bunkers in their mountains and filling them with missiles and drones.  And they use these weapons to supply Hezbollah and Hamas with the means to kill Israelis.  I guess the day could finally come where Iranians just get so fed up with their miserable lives that they rise up and murder the Basij agents with their bare hands.  Or the Israelis just get so good at technological warfare that they manage to infiltrate all of Iran’s bunkers and blow them all up at the same time and follow it up with exploding cell phones that kill the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in one fell swoop.

But until one or the other of these two fantasies come true Iran will exist to nauseate the world of normal people that just want a sanity to prevail.

Waiting for Equilibrium

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All of the parts of our culture have become a mishmash of old and new components that really don’t align and add to the sense that our whole world is completely out of balance and headed for a crackup.  Well, all that is true but I get the impression that this is just how the world feels to everyone as they get older.  In fact, it was probably even more extreme a hundred years ago when people from really old cultures came in contact with American progressivism in the 1920s.  And the tension between the old comfortable conventions and the chaotic modernism of the on-line existence is what will force the exact shape of what comes afterward.  After all, there are things going on now that cannot possibly go on in their current shape.  They are just too maladapted to last for more than a few years.  And these excesses will spawn reactions that will modify and even optimize some of the new customs and patterns that the next generations will adopt.

So, no matter what the world looks like in the coming generation, I won’t like it because it’s not my world.  But it will fit the people living in it.  And I will have had whatever input I could provide by my limited feedback to my contacts in the younger generation and by providing an echo of what the world was like in my time.

Aside from whatever small influence I will have on the new culture what I will contribute to is the historical record of my time.  The sum total of all the historical records of the second half of the twentieth century will be an enormous treasure trove for those who look back on that time period.  It will be recognized that that era spawned the single most impactful technological event of the last thousand years, the digital revolution.  And because of this enormous change the customs and practices of this generation will be studied to see what effect this innovation had on the older culture that pre-dated it.  Because these changes are unprecedented.  And I believe the negative effects of this revolution will be dire.

And at some point, corrective actions will need to be initiated to mitigate the harmful consequences on humanity.  Some technological and commercial products may have to be banned in order to minimize the dysfunctional outcomes that these practices create in the same way that we prohibit the use of certain very dangerous drugs that create addiction in humans.  And conversely, new products and services may be mandated to provide humans with patterns and behaviors that are known to improve individual and group mental health and benefit society as a whole.

Well, that’s a lot of supposing.  But I think it’s a safe bet that we are currently living in the time when the most imbalanced on-line culture exists.  I think as the maximum disruption of pre-digital culture is reached the imbalance of the digital culture will begin to recede as equilibrium around the new structures occurs.  The only question is will it crash our civilization before that equilibrium is reached.