[Today’s Iran war post launched before finished due to personal maintenance. Please return at 8:00 AM EDT for a final version]
Now that Trump is back from China and can keep the fake media afterglow going only so long, the Iran war and its rapidly escalating economic cost will again move to the forefront. As we will soon show, Twitterverse chatter as well as the assessment of greybeards with expertise (see the discussion with Larry Wilkerson below) is that Trump is still set to launch a big attack on Iran. The Twitter wags claim he is to make a decision within 24 hours:
BREAKING: Trump to decide within the next 24 hours on major military action against Iran, with Israel receiving the final answer in the same window, per Channel 12. A senior Israeli official said the resumption of the war is “near” and Israel is preparing for “several days to…
— The Hormuz Letter (@HormuzLetter) May 16, 2026
And a sign of movement of assets into possible combat position:
I just found a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (USS George Bush or USS Abraham Lincoln) on Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, 16/05/2026.
It is speeding towards the Sea of Oman, approaching the range of Iranian missiles.
Coordinates: 23.0000, 61.5878@FaytuksNetwork @GeoConfirmed pic.twitter.com/inXt5iwX3O
— MoloMonitor 🇮🇹 (@MoloWarMonitor) May 16, 2026
A possible indirect sign that new strikes against Iran are likely is a surge of propaganda trying to depict the nation as on its last legs:
It’s embarrassing for an @FDD “Senior Fellow” to cite such bottom-tier sources to manufacture a crisis.
I’m reporting from the heart of Tehran: there is no fuel black market or “long lines.” Yesterday, I filled up for 5,000 Tomans/L (~$0.027) in under 10 minutes—exactly as I… https://t.co/RG63hvf7z8— Reza Ramezannejad (@rrghadi01) May 16, 2026
We pointed out that Iran has revised its military doctrine to allow for pre-emptive strikes if an attack is imminent. Might Iran finally do that? Iran has also kept hinting that it has new super duper weapons it has yet to unleash. A spooky contact who has been generally accurate says one is a hypersonic missile with a 3000km range (note Iran’s current missile limit is 2000km, despite disinfo otherwise, apparently intended to scare Europe)
I have to confess to having gaslighted too many times by Trump to be as alarmed as seems warranted. How many times have we seen Hair Furore make threats that he will Do Something Big and then do something small and stupid, like Project Freedumb, or try to depict negotiations as back on (when not) to soothe Mr. Market’s rattled nerves?
The apparent timing is all wrong unless Trump gives the green light for a later launch date. Restarting conflict early in business week would maximize negative investor reactions.
However, the long Memorial Day weekend starts next week, and for most desk jockeys, the Friday before is de facto part of that holiday. The stock market is open all day that day but the bond markets grind to a halt in the early PM EDT. So is that Trump’s action window?
Nevertheless, the timing of these rumors appearing over the weekend is consistent with yet another market pump operation. Financial asset prices fell and oil rallied Friday when investors realized that China had made no commitment to do anything with respect to Iran. Investors need to get through their thick heads that China is fine with the new Iran scheme to regularize operations and collect tolls:
“Based on my discussions with Chinese diplomats, “open” to the Chinese means that traffic flows through the Strait. Oil, gas, and goods come in and out. Money exchanges hands. Trade prevails.
It does not mean that there cannot be a mechanism where regional states charge a fee for… https://t.co/1f0aeousDk— Policy Tensor (@policytensor) May 16, 2026
And investors will be chewing their knuckles as (see more below) bad real economy news accumulates. So expect Trump to try to pretend that China will push Iran to the negotiating table to keep Mr. Market anaesthetized.
A reminder:
Good phone call, Chancellor? Let’s walk through this slowly. (1) you wetserns need to learn how to address us, swap “must” for “can”. Demands don’t land here. (2) you seem to have forgotten we were already at the negotiating table, twice, until @POTUS & his genocidal Zionist… pic.twitter.com/jRUrKdhVxo
— IRAN EMBASSY in KENYA (@IRANinKENYA) May 16, 2026
A new set of stories, on the US pushing the UAE to seize some nearby islands seized by the Iran under the Shah, with those claims contested by the UAE, is another proof of US weakness. The key issue is the US is trying to get the UAE to saddle up for some military misadventurism.1 The caper is “take Kargh Island 2.0” but with the UAE tasked to this suicide mission, of taking Lavan Island, which is near Kargh Island. A map tells you how nutty this idea is. The objective is easily within reach of all sorts of Iran fire:
However, it has strategic value in that is it just to the west of the Strait of Hormuz (so pray tell how to get there?!?!) and is a backup to Kargh Island for oil exports.
More detail from the Telegraph, which broke the story in Trump’s officials tell UAE to seize crucial Iranian island (hat tip Kevin W). Mind you, this seems to be a single-sourced story, so handle with care :
Trump administration officials are encouraging the United Arab Emirates to get more heavily involved in the Iran war and seize one of Tehran’s Gulf islands…
Some in Donald Trump’s circle have suggested the UAE should take Lavan Island, which was reportedly bombed in secret military strikes by the Emiratis in early April, a former senior Trump security official told The Telegraph.
“Go take ’em!” the official said. “It would be UAE boots on the ground instead of US.”…
No joke, there is nothing more of substance about this scheme in the report, just a lot of backstory of the UAE hitching its wagon even more firmly to the US.
Overnight, there were big explosions at a major Israeli weapons-maker. The government implausibly tried to depict it as a controlled detonation (Larry Johnson debunks that long form at the top of a talk with Mario Nawfal). No one has taken credit but Iran struck that facility in March and thus seems likely to have done so again:
A massive explosion struck Beit Shemesh, Israel, at a facility operated by Tomer, the state-owned defense company that develops and manufactures rocket propulsion systems for several Israeli missiles and rockets, including the Arrow long-range missile defense interceptor. pic.twitter.com/71bDHdLOXt
— Egypt’s Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) May 16, 2026
Click through for more on the operations at the site. I doubt that there was any nuclear release; a big enough conventional explosion will also produce a mushroom cloud. But if Iran did hit close to a nuclear weapons cache, what does Israel do? Risk moving them, which could be detected?
Explosion in Israel has resulted in a BIG FIRE
The city of Beit Shemesh, located west of Jerusalem, is the site of the Israeli regime’s nuclear warheads and the location of the “Sdot Micha” airbase where some media activists say those warheads are hidden.
Israel’s “Kan” network… https://t.co/ay0ooA6ZXF pic.twitter.com/LZC9monOWC
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) May 16, 2026
This tweet presents key image:
A powerful explosion rocked the Israeli town of Bet Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. According to eyewitnesses, the glow was visible tens of kilometers away. Local media also claim that emergency services are being prevented from reaching the site.
According to the official… pic.twitter.com/A4rawZjLyp
— Jack Straw (@JackStr42679640) May 17, 2026
In a bridge of sorts between the kinetic and economic fronts, Larry Wilkerson had a deceptively informative talk with Stanislav Krapivnik, in that Stas likes to be very informal but that does not impede the overall bitrate transmission of information. It included several important discussions. One early on was on distress in the farm belt (starting at 12:00), in that farmers are simply not planting due to lack of fertilizer and high diesel costs. Second was off topic for this post but worth a listen as general intel, on the actions of the Cuban community in the US and some interesting inconsistencies in what Marco Rubio says about his background and what others have reported (starting at 42:50). Third is that Wilkerson (at 1:09:40) no indication this is based on specific intel, just his reading of events) that Trump will resume the war but it will be strictly an Air Force affair, with no ground troops and no use of “naval air”. If Wilkerson is correct, that means all the Special Forces moved to theater have become mere threat display and camouflage for the main event. It also means the US does not face the time constraint I had discussed, of the high temperatures in the Persian Gulf as of very soon making ground operations untenably difficult.
Importantly, Wilkerson said (and this is based on reports from contacts) the Saudis have protested to the US and told them to leave the bases. But he is not sure if they will follow up by sending armed personnel as a demonstration of seriousness (IMHO all they nee to do is tell the US they are cutting off power and water supplies as of a specified time). Wilkerson in an earlier talk which I did not post mentioned (with Larry Johnson and Nima) in passing said that even back in his days with Colin Powell, the Saudis were known for playing both sides, so he was not surprised at the Saudis pushing the US for more war while trying to reach an accommodation with Iran. This reminds me of the behavior of New York City developers, who will regularly back both candidates for offices important to them, and then in the home stretch, if one looks like a sure winner, give generously to their campaign.
Despite storied Saudi duplicity, if the Saudis take the Iran threat to wreck their energy infrastructure seriously, as they appeared to when they pulled Trump’s choke chain over Project Freedumb, they will act to get the US out for self preservation reasons. If the Kuwaits and Qataris follow suit, this raised the possibility that the US will hit Iran but the Iranian massive retaliation will be limited to Israel and the UAE and any other Gulf States too dumb not to make it convincingly clear that they had no role in these strikes and took actives steps to try to prevent them.
On the economic side, as we and others have been screaming from the rooftops, the energy crunch will become critical sooner than investors and most nominal experts have assumed:
Rabobank ran a model of oil inventories in Europe and found that inventories fall to almost nothing by September on current trajectory. Supply disruptions should kick in much sooner than that though. 🇪🇺🛢️ pic.twitter.com/gFAvaRj9kB
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) May 16, 2026
Soon-to-arrive motor oil shortages in the US will be severe:
“We’re facing the largest supply shortage of lubricating fluids in the modern history of America. Realistic, middle-of-the-road estimates are for our average available supply in this product category to drop by 40%.”
Internal AutoZone Memo pic.twitter.com/TuTDEZGxQo
— Costa Kapothanasis (@CostaKapo) May 16, 2026
This may partly explain Mr. Market’s continued levitation: more cash coming in via a rise in borrowings. But seasoned investors know leverage cuts both ways:
Investors have never used this much leverage:
US margin debt surged +$83 billion in April, to a record $1.3 trillion.
Over the last 12 months, margin debt has risen +$453 billion, or +53%.
As a result, margin debt is up to a record 5.2% of US GDP.
This is ~3 percentage points… pic.twitter.com/uE4w1WzA0d
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 16, 2026
And finally, some signs of Zionist karma coming home to roost:
🚨This short film exposes the true story of Israel’s creation, entirely through the words of its own founders
For decades, Israel’s lies have been carefully designed to demonize its victims. To ensure that no matter the crimes it commits, the children it slaughters, the world… pic.twitter.com/fxgU9xL9Vr
— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) May 15, 2026
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his wife PANIC when confronted about killing a generation of children in Palestine while their own kids are present.
“Please, with the children!” They plead.
Activist responds by asking if it’s “just your children” they care about… pic.twitter.com/VG3MLZVNGG
— Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) May 16, 2026
A young technician came to install a dishwasher today.
He asked me where I was from. I said: Palestine where Jesus was born.Then he asked quietly: “What do you think about what’s happening?”
I told him it was horrific.
What happened next stunned me.
He became visibly… pic.twitter.com/FlyYqyBvpT
— Samar D Jarrah (@SamarDJarrah) May 15, 2026
____
1 Mind you, there are some island that the US could take that would have trophy if not much practical value.
We highlighted early on that Chas Freeman had mentioned capturing them as one of the few not crazy things the US could do with the Special Forces the US was moving into theater. Freeman say this objective as achievable and not unduly risky and would make the UAE happy. I am not at all knowledgeable about these islands, but readers depicted them as a Snake Island level target. Recall that Russia took Snake Island, which was in a strategically useful spot in the Black Sea, but barren except for a couple of small barracks that IIRC dated to the Soviet era.
Ukraine succeeded in running the Russians off. But my dim recollection is that Russia has also prevented Ukraine from establishing a presence there.
The point is that some or perhaps all of these islands may be too wanting in buildings and other infrastructure to secure.
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