Best Of

The new official line.

Mike Johnson: "We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability ... I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information ... the president felt he had to strike first to prevent mass casualties"
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2033919110749253641


Which again doesn't really square with this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/17/uk-security-adviser-attended-us-iran-talks-and-judged-deal-was-within-reach
...Powell’s presence at the talks, and his close knowledge of how they were progressing, was confirmed by three sources. One source said he was in the building at Oman’s ambassadorial residence in Cologny acting as an adviser, reflecting widespread concern about the US expertise on the talks represented by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy on several issues.

Kushner and Witkoff had invited Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to the Geneva talks, to provide technical expertise, though Kushner would later claim that he and Witkoff had “a pretty deep understanding of the issues that matter in this”. Nuclear experts would later say that Witkoff’s pronouncements on the Iran nuclear programme were riddled with basic errors.

Powell has long experience as a mediator, and one source said Powell brought an expert from the UK Cabinet Office with him. One western diplomat said: “Jonathan thought there was a deal to be done, but Iran were not quite there yet, especially on the issue of UN inspections of its nuclear sites.”

A former official who was briefed on the Geneva talks by some of the participants said: “Witkoff and Kushner did not bring a US technical team with them. They used Grossi as their technical expert, but that is not his job. So Jonathan Powell took his own team.

“The UK team were surprised by what the Iranians put on the table,” the former official added. “It was not a complete deal, but it was progress and was unlikely to be the Iranians’ final offer. The British team expected the next round of negotiations to go ahead on the basis of the progress in Geneva.”

That next round of talks was due to take place in Vienna on Monday 2 March, but never happened. The US and Israel had launched their all-out attack two days earlier...

What Powell thought is moot, since Starmer chose not to get involved in operations. If you don't get involved, your judgment is irrelevant.

All that matters is if America and Israel were satisfied with the Iranian offer. They clearly weren't.

I think Israel bounced the US into the war. They saw a chance to take out the Iranian top ranks, even though talks were happening. Can I coin a phrase "perfidious Zion"?

Quite clever of them if so.

What Powell considers progress, likely was not considered sufficient progress by Netanyahu.

The new official line.

Mike Johnson: "We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability ... I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information ... the president felt he had to strike first to prevent mass casualties"
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2033919110749253641


Which again doesn't really square with this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/17/uk-security-adviser-attended-us-iran-talks-and-judged-deal-was-within-reach
...Powell’s presence at the talks, and his close knowledge of how they were progressing, was confirmed by three sources. One source said he was in the building at Oman’s ambassadorial residence in Cologny acting as an adviser, reflecting widespread concern about the US expertise on the talks represented by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy on several issues.

Kushner and Witkoff had invited Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to the Geneva talks, to provide technical expertise, though Kushner would later claim that he and Witkoff had “a pretty deep understanding of the issues that matter in this”. Nuclear experts would later say that Witkoff’s pronouncements on the Iran nuclear programme were riddled with basic errors.

Powell has long experience as a mediator, and one source said Powell brought an expert from the UK Cabinet Office with him. One western diplomat said: “Jonathan thought there was a deal to be done, but Iran were not quite there yet, especially on the issue of UN inspections of its nuclear sites.”

A former official who was briefed on the Geneva talks by some of the participants said: “Witkoff and Kushner did not bring a US technical team with them. They used Grossi as their technical expert, but that is not his job. So Jonathan Powell took his own team.

“The UK team were surprised by what the Iranians put on the table,” the former official added. “It was not a complete deal, but it was progress and was unlikely to be the Iranians’ final offer. The British team expected the next round of negotiations to go ahead on the basis of the progress in Geneva.”

That next round of talks was due to take place in Vienna on Monday 2 March, but never happened. The US and Israel had launched their all-out attack two days earlier...

What Powell thought is moot, since Starmer chose not to get involved in operations. If you don't get involved, your judgment is irrelevant.

All that matters is if America and Israel were satisfied with the Iranian offer. They clearly weren't.

The UK Military and Foreign Service agree with me - the situation is now changed, ignore how it started, the National Interest is now on UK stepping up to the mark.

"Britain's national interests, those of our very important Gulf allies like Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar also is at stake, as is our reputation," he explained.

https://news.sky.com/story/iran-war-latest-trump-tehran-israel-strikes-us-drone-live-sky-news-13509565?postid=11299643#liveblog-body

Starmer is destroying the UKs reputation with his fence sitting non action and his bickering with Trump, whilst ships burn in the strait of Hormuz and the British Economy burns with them.

What do they want us to do? I gather we don't have much in the way of armaments to send. If we must get involved anywhere, surely it should be supporting Ukraine more? First come, first served, at least. We don't need two fronts.

I don’t know whether anyone else has noticed, but I have been watching President Trump’s statements carefully and I am not 100% sure he is the full shilling.

'The full shilling', now there is a phrase. A great friend, the last I knew who used it entirely kindly and without affect died a few years ago at the age of 96.

I am put in mind of the late great Bernard Levin, whose expression with the same meaning was 'not quite sixteen annas to the rupee'.

Queen - "I'm Going Slightly Mad" (1991 Innuendo album)

I'm one card short of a full deck
I'm not quite the shilling
One wave short of a shipwreck
I'm not at my usual top billing

https://x.com/guyaz/status/2033967028231454733

#Breaking: A senior Israeli diplomatic official tells me: "The assessment in Israel and the U.S. that the fall of the Iranian regime is a real possibility is strengthening."

It is absolutely certain that the Iranian regime will fall.

The only question is the timespan.

I would like it to be sooner rather than later, because (a) people are getting hosed around the world by high oil prices*, and (b) it would be nice to see one of Russia's supporters fall.

However, given that the US and Israeli strategy has been to bomb the cities where the opponents of the regime live, I'm not convinced the fall is imminent.

* Including, most importantly, my customers in Arizona and Nevada

I didn't realise they'd gone so far as to bomb Arizona and Nevada. All deserts look the same I suppose.

While Kemi major weakness is always going two footed into every challenge without any thought, I think it worth remembering most people have massively short memories and people move on e.g. if Starmer had been in charge during COVID, we might just now be coming out of lockdown.....most of his calls were totally wrong, we would have had just as much COVID fraud / money pissed up the wall (remember their dossier of all these companies should be given contracts and it was basically all chancers and fraudsters) and some right bonkers suggestions, but nobody really remembers or cares. Or look at the platform he stood on to become Labour leader and early couple of years, none of that is what he stood on at the GE, again nobody really cares.

Kemi's problem isn't going away, too rash, too quick to do the attack dog mode, too online, and not very smart. Plus super weak team around her.

Starmer played Covid well politically as LOTO. Recognised that the public didn't really want to hear from Labour on it, so didn't try to muscle in that much. Broadly supportive of the government, pitched himself just to the prudent side of where they were. It was a win v flat position in betting parlance.

That is some serious rewriting of history. By the time we got past the inital phase, he was classic of well you should go further and faster about every decision. Lockdown sooner, locker, harder, longer. Even post vaccination, he was very keen on zero covid BS. His calls for test every time you leave the house for any reason was particually nuts call, especially as we already had a problem with people overusing home testing kits multiple times a day. More money should be thrown at everything. And as soon as government messed anything up, well I wouldn't have done that.

You're exaggerating. He tended to place the Opposition to the cautious side of where the government were but not to a ludicrously extreme degree. This made sound political sense for two reasons. First it was where the majority of the public were. They were more scared of the virus than they were outraged by restrictions. Second, if death and illness numbers rose due to the government being too slow, too lax etc it would allow a vindicated 'told you so'. Otoh if they didn't, everybody happy anyway. Win v flat, like I say.