Vichy 2.0 – politicalbetting.com
Vichy 2.0 – politicalbetting.com
Those of who want the best for Iran and her people one of the worst outcomes would be a new leader chosen by the Americans, it would be a Vichy government for a new government which is why I think Trump’s intervention is bad.
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I despise Trump, but he's not quite Hitler.
More of a Kermit 2.0 ?
I think we will be looking at a large Democrat majority in the House, and it is even possible that the American people might vote for enough Democrat Senators to allow impeachment. What odds are being offered on Trump being forced from office?
It is certainly what this fiasco deserves.
(Geddit?)
But a foreign country imposing a leader on the people is a bad idea.
If I wanted to be incendiary I would have used Vidkun Quisling.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/06/bbc-public-consultation-supporters-guidance
https://x.com/CoveredGeekly/status/2029559193603121521
A government in hock to Donald Trump is not as bas as a government subservient to the Iranians' furious god. Both are arbitrary and spiteful and vengeant, but at least the former will die one day.
Iran could do a lot worse than a constitutional monarchy with Reza Pahlavi who would have a very strong interest in stability, unity and excluding extremists. Probably too much to hope for.
"One latte from Pret a Manger costs more than £4 alone"
Yep - a latte from Pret a Manger is your price comparison! Gotta love Polly Filla
Let’s say they manage to win Maine, North Carolina and Ohio (probably the most likely three) - that gets them to 50-50 (so a Vance tiebreak). That is assuming they hold on to Georgia and Michigan (not guaranteed).
For a majority you’re looking at them picking up at least one of the next plausible three - Alaska, Texas, Florida. All of those are to varying degrees challenging. Alaska might be the best bet (as Peltola has won a statewide race before). I wouldn’t bet on Florida shifting given how significantly it has swung to the GOP in recent years, and Texas must still be a long shot.
Even if they win all three of those, that’s then 53-47, and some way from the two thirds needed to convict. To get closer they’d need to win seats like Iowa and Montana, far from fertile ground, and then states like Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska - which just look far too insurmountable to me.
James Robinson was director of communications for Watson from 2015 to 2018, after which he founded a PR agency. He is also married to GB News presenter and former Labour MP Gloria de Piero.
https://order-order.com/2026/03/06/police-search-house-of-ex-tom-watson-aide-in-china-spy-investigation/
And even then, some of the Democrat Senators might baulk at removing a democratically elected President from office, unless doing so had overwhelming public support (at which point Republican Senators would probably break ranks with Trump and convict anyway).
Point being, Trump would have to become as unpopular as Liz Truss for such an eventuality to be remotely plausible. He is some way off that and I see little prospect of him plunging to such depths. What could be do that he hasn't done already?
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2029948080267649344
Burgum: "With the Venezuela partnership we have an opportunity to move the geopolitical center from the Middle East to the Western Hemisphere. Without President Trump's bold, courageous, decisive leadership, we wouldn't even be talking about these incredible strategic alternatives."
It can't be with the original cast, because Wash and Shepherd Book died in "Serenity"
[pedant mode off]
I’m not saying we’re anywhere near there yet, but as with any cult or belief system like MAGA, if something snaps, the support could collapse overnight.
Another example of an intervention backfiring in a big way, and an argument for non-intervention unless there's a very strong case otherwise. It's much easier to break an egg than to repair one.
See, for example, these recollections:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/oct/04/leonard-rossiter-rising-damp-fall-and-rise-of-reginald-perrin
@DPJHodges
"Unconditional surrender". "MIGA!". Say it again. Trump is literally going mad. These aren't just words. He's deploying vast military assets in support of a war with no clear objective, strategy or post-conflict plan.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/2029953037351989417
https://bsky.app/profile/dassakaye.bsky.social/post/3mgfohy2akc2m
I’m never tremendously optimistic when it comes to matters Trumpian, but this is by some measure his riskiest move yet, and whilst it would be naive to assume he cannot continue to defy political gravity, all it takes is for a few people to see the emperor has no clothes and the whole thing could go south for him pretty quickly.
If people are spending £25 to £50 a month on streaming services, it's because they want to. It's not mandatory for viewing any broadcast.
The truth is that for £5.99 that Netflix basic sub is a lot better value for many people than the BBC's entire output. People have voted with their wallet.
https://x.com/ippatel/status/2029736800001155463
The only conceivable scenario in which it is possible is one in which war drags on, there's a major MAGA split on the continuance of the war, the Libertarians stand candidates in all the Republican-held Senate contests and split the vote sufficiently to let Democrats come through the middle.
And, even then, I'm sure some of the Republican Senators would have sufficiently strong isolationist bona fides to avoid defeat. All this presupposing that TACO Trump doesn't end the war when it becomes sufficiently unpopular.
I have no difficulty in assigning that a zero probability.
So in the politically worst-case scenario Trump simply ends the war, declares victory, and distracts everyone with half a dozen new crazy things.
I'd say there's a better than evens chance that Iran will barely be mentioned in news bulletins by Easter. The circus will have moved on.
Also most people in the region are Muslims. It's their identity; who they are. But I don't think most were that fanatical before.
Everyone in the region is now united in seeing Iran as the enemy, and willing on the US and Israel to defeat them militarily. There’s little doubt the GCC states would have responded militarily to the threat.
Everyone wants the Straight of Hormuz open ASAP, including China. I suspect that by early next week there’s mechanisms in place to enable this to happen. It’s simply too important to global trade to be closed, which is why the Iran navy was one of the first targets of the operation.
The cynic in me looks at this piece and sees the emphasis on oil supply:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9g1l5jx90o
We are in what Fallout called "the Resource Wars" (we have been for a while I suspect) where it isn't any longer about ideology or faith but simply energy or rather raw materials.
I suspect Delcy Rodriguez sold out Maduro to the Americans and facilitated his seizure by US Special Forces. She was basically given a free hand in the running of Venezuela (as with many revolutionaries, her loyalty wasn't to red but to green) in exchange for ensuring American control of Venezulean oil and its supply to the US.
This sounds like a "new" foreign policy but it isn't. Replacing the uncorruptible ideologue with the corruptible pragmatist has happened before and it will happen again. Revolutions can be bought and sold just like socks or shoes if you have the money.
As for Iran, it's more of a challenge. Clerics aren't as susceptible to the blandishments of money as revolutionaries so there needs to be a different approach but ultimately I suspect a leader for Iran will be bought and paid for and he will take over as head of a new Government who will be more pragmatic and friendly to Washington.
I imagine the plan for Cuba will be a hybrid approach - kidnap or kill the main leadership and find someone further down the tree who will be bought and paid for but it will happen "in the name of the Revolution".
It's not a million miles away from how Moscow ran the Warsaw Pact from 1945 to 1989 - moderate leaders like Nagy and Dubcek went too far and were "replaced" by more compliant leaders and when Gorbachev took over, the hardline neo-Stalinists were themselves on borrowed time.
BTW, V S Naipaul - maybe the most consequential English language writer of late C20th? - was writing about this years ago in "Among the Believers" (1981) and "Beyond Belief" (1998).
Been a long time coming. Fateful consequences.
The other important context is that Trump is doing this for access to oil, while most of the world is decarbonising. Trump can have all the oil. No-one else will want it soon!
The question is whether everyone in the region are up for a protracted war, or will they be ruing the US/Israeli action and keen for it to be over? They might be willing on the US and Israel to defeat Iran militarily, but only if they can do it quickly.
He doesn't even enter my head when I think about Iran and how to treat the regime.
Revolutions also die from the centre, outwards. The USSR was the first communist country after 1917 and one of the first to abandon communism, via the Eastern Bloc, even as it lives on in peripheral countries like Cuba, and North Korea (tho it is surely doomed)
Iran, I hope, will follow the same pattern. There are promising hints that Islam is weakening in countries like Egypt
Thoughts and prayers for the Colonels in the shires.
And pressed on if he is insisting there needs to be a democratic state, Trump told CNN, “No, I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat the other countries in the Middle East — they’re all our partners.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/06/politics/trump-interview-iran-cuba-dana-bash
As I said before, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Peace in 24 hours.
Suspect though after 2028 a Democratic President with a Democratic congress will blow up the filibuster, day 1, find a way to get the 11m undocumented on the electoral roll, admit Puerto Rico and DC as states and put a liberal majority on the Supreme Court via court packing or forced retirements. By 2030 the US government will probably be quite a bit to the left of the UK government and will remain that way for a long time.
Messages that reveal air-to-air refuelling flight plans and the possible locations of British fighter jets have been broadcast by the the RAF over an insecure aviation messaging system that anyone can read.
Other messages appear to instruct pilots to remove secret documents being carried on a refuelling craft. In another case, a message apparently tells an aircraft where to park before landing in Cyprus on the same day as the Iranian drone strike.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/06/raf-flight-plans-published-online-security-blunder/
Plenty of nuts hate Israel.
Religious nuts
Far right nuts
Leftie nuts
Fruit and nuts
Donald Trump can stop it any time he wants and (the benefit of undefined war aims) claim a glorious victory. That was Epic Fury. Hope you enjoyed the show as much as we enjoyed staging it. We have obliterated (he likes that word although struggles to pronounce it) the evil old regime and its fearsome weaponry. They are a threat no more. We are America. This is what we do. Next.
That's what I see happening and fairly soon. Certainly weeks not months. The (unpredictable and probably malign) consequences of this will pan out for years but I don't think US military action in Iran will go on for that much longer.
@Rory_Johnston
As someone who routinely mocks permabullish clickbait oil forecasts, I want to be exceptionally clear:
Crude WILL go to $200/bbl, en route higher, unless traffic through the Strait resumes.
Not clickbait, but rather brutal physics and necessary economic incentives.
https://x.com/Rory_Johnston/status/2029941755395621357
It was quite fun.
He's also the one who has used the term "unconditional surrender" today. I don't recall that term being used in Iraq or Libya for example. When it was used in WW2, it was arguably counter productive as it made the Nazis realise they had no option but to fight on to the end.
I'm not wholly sure what it means now - does he expect the theocracy to come cap in hand to beg Washington to stop because he must know that's never going to happen? Would he expect a new post-theocratic Government to surrender or simply seek terms?
With the continued closure of Hormuz, which I suspect the Americans will re-open soon, the Iranians can watch the West and particularly Europe deal with oil prices rising and all that flows (or rather doesn't flow from that).
With production slowing in Kuwait, I suspect the Gulf States will be pressuring Washington to get Hormuz fully re-opened as soon as possible.
A lot of that change is welcome. The filibuster has arguably prevented the legislature exerting itself vs the executive as it was intended. The Supreme Court now acts as the most powerful legislative body in the nation and requires more checks and balances on its power. And statehood addresses and corrects democratic deficits.
Britain is to get a new ‘anti-Muslim hostility tsar’ under plans to be outlined by the government on Monday, which will also include a new definition of Islamophobia
I can think of a candidate for the role.
Right now, the Senate is 53-47.
Only 33 seats are up for election this year, of which 13 are Democrat, and 20 Republican.
If you assume that States with a partisan lean of 6 points (i.e. a 12 point gap in the vote last time around) were to the fall to the Democrats (which would be an incredible result for them), then you would see them gain the following:
Alaska: not a bad shout, Mary Pelouta is popular and only just missed out in the House race in 2024, and the Republicans are likely to do worse than then.
Florida: that's a real toughy; it's been becoming Redder and Redder over time. But I put in there for completeness.
Iowa: it's possible. Obama won it. And it'll be open because Joni Ernst is retiring. But I'd want decent odds.
Maine: Ms Collins luck will run out this year.
North Carolina: probably a Democrat gain.
Ohio: like with Iowa, it's possible. Sherrod Brown is a very strong Democratic candidate who lost by just 3.5% in 2024, while Trump ran away with the State.
Texas: well, the Democrats did the smart thing and chose an electable candidate. And the Republicans look likely to pick Paxton. Nate Silver thinks this makes Texas 50/50.
And that's it... After that, you start looking at States with big Republican leans. And while it's possible one ofthem could end up falling in one way or another (perhaps Louisiana, if the Republicans Primary Bill Cassidy, and then the Dems decide to sit the race out and he wins as an Independent?), it's not likely.
So... on an incredible night for the Dems, you could see them picking up 7.
But, really, only 2 are high likelihood (Maine and North Carolina), then there are 2 or 3 that are 50/50 at best (Alaska, maybe Ohio and Texas). And then it's really distant shots.
+7 gets the Dems to 54 Senators. And yes, you might get Lisa Murkowski voting for Trump's removal, but that's probably about it.