As the administration's trap is closing on the Iranian government (at least the fourth level of it, which is all that has not been eliminated by the IAF and U.S. forces) Irishmen are blockading major roads and streets in Ireland. Only the Guinness tankers are being let through.
Ostensibly, the dispute is over the rising cost of fuel, which will bankrupt farmers and truckers. However, if you’ve been paying attention, the rebellion goes deeper, to the high taxes, third-world immigration, and the highhandedness of the government.
Under the guise of the idiotic net-zero policies, the Irish government has been using the tax revenues which will destroy agriculture and transport to destroy their own people. Fuel costs could go down by 50% if the high taxes on them were eliminated, but then how to provide housing and other generous benefits to the immigrants who are destroying what had been a high-trust, low-crime Irish culture?
But the “madman,” of course, is our president, who, unlike his predecessors, was unwilling to allow the fanatical rulers of Iran to continue nuclear weapons development and directly and through proxies threaten the entire world.
Peter Hague wins the meme of the week for me:
Decades from now international relations students will be studying a form of the “mad man” theory of deterrence where you deliver threats while standing next to a man dressed as the Easter Bunny, to convince adversaries you’re utterly off your rocker and capable of anything.
If Iran’s leaders thought Trump was bluffing, they'd certainly have reason to change their view as he made clear days after his Easter statement on the White House balcony:
@realDonaldTrump The Fake News Media has lost total credibility, not that they had any to begin with. Because of their massive Trump Derangement Syndrome (Sometimes referred to as TDS!), they love saying that Iran is "winning" when, in fact, everyone knows that they are LOSING, and LOSING BIG! Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti Aircraft apparatus is nonexistent, Radar is dead, their Missile and Drone Factories have been largely obliterated along with the Missiles and Drones themselves and, most importantly, their longtime "Leaders" are no longer with us, praise be to Allah! The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may "bunk" into one of their sea mines which, by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea. We're now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others. Incredibly, they don't have the Courage or Will to do this work themselves. Very interestingly, however, empty Oil carrying ships from many Nations are all heading to the United States of America to LOAD UP with Oil. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
As for the proxies Iran counted on to provide their ring of fire -- they, too, have been unavailing.
If you haven’t noticed, the Houthis have parted ways with Iran. Saudi Arabia has successfully bought them. Their contribution in 5 weeks of war on Iran was less than 5 missiles on Israel.
Hamas is crushed, can only issue statements thereafter.
The Iraqi militias cost their politicians a lot of popular support and credit. Now the anti Iran faction in government is emerging on top.
Only in Lebanon Hezbollah remains stronger than the Iran regime is in Iran. This is why Tehran is insisting on adding Lebanon to the ceasefire to keep its its property.
In fact, just as Iran demanded that the ceasefire must include Lebanon, in 24 hours, Israel completed 200 devastating strikes on Hezb’allah in Lebanon.
This weekend, Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff are meeting with a 70-man team from Iran. There’s the General Committee, chaired by Qalibaf, president of the Shura council, a political committee, chaired by Araghchi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, a Military Committee chaired by Ahmadinejad, an economic committee chaired by Hemmati, president of the central bank, and a legal and human rights committee. What’s not represented? The army and the terrorist Revolutionary Guard.
There are growing reports of internal divisions in Iran, between the psychotic fanatical and the sociopathic fanatical forces. Indeed, some have suggested the team consists of so many -- 70 -- people because they all fear mere participation in these talks will end in their assassinations and want to be out of the country so as not to be targeted.
Going into the meeting, Iran was clearly counting on its control over passage on the Strait of Hormuz to save it.
Wisely, Greg Gutfeld didn’t think that would work:
Iran is like a desperate “hostage taker.”
You hear ‘they’re in control, they have the Straits of Hormuz.’ That’s their hostage.
They’re holed up in a bank demanding three large pizzas, a helicopter, and a personal phone call from Sydney Sweeney! It’s all a face-saving exercise.
That’s what this theater is right now.
As the talks began, the president announced operation “Opening and Clearing the Strait of Hormuz,” which certainly knocked the wind out of the Iranian delegation’s puffery.
David Wurmser explained why that bluff will be unavailing:
All along the only “victory“ that Iran has had was both closing the straits of Hormuz and asserting the fact of sovereignty over it by being the one who has to agree to allow a ship to pass through.
It was also Iran’s path economic survival. With about 140 ships on average passing through the streets a day and two million dollars being charged per ship by Iran, that translates into over $100 billion a year. That is how much the Iranian economy has lost in this war. This was their compensation for it.
All of a sudden, the United States without coordination with Iran opens a passage during the Straits. This stripped Iran first of a economic necessity, because it is difficult to imagine them economically surviving a loss permanently of 100 to 150,000,000,000 to their GDP, and annulled its sovereignty over the Straits, and of its only claim to have gained a “victory“ over what had been the status quo ante in Feb 2026.
Namely its Ace card has just been stripped from its hands in all respects.
So they really only have one of two choices. The first is to accept it and admit now that they have not achieved anything in the war that they can point to and to accept the fact that they will lose over 100 billion in revenue per year from this,
Or second, they will have to violate the cease-fire to shut the straits, in which case they bear the onus of the collapse of the cease-fire.
Basically President Trump has trapped them.
There was a lot of chatter that reopening the strait was difficult because Iran didn’t know where all the mines were located, and no one had any minesweepers available. Almost as soon as the chatter was repeated by bien pensants everywhere, it became clear that it was an apparent effort to stall compliance with our demand. Trump announced we’d begun clearing out the mines, and U.S. warships crossed the Strait without notification to Iran, permission to do so, or payment of tolls.
Almost simultaneously with the passage of our ships, we learned that sanctioned Iranian cargo ships Behnavazz and Betha had picked up loads of sodium perchlorate in China and were heading home, the suggestion being that the country still has some solid-fuel missile factories somewhere that were not destroyed. Whether or not that assumption is correct, I doubt they’ll make landfall in Iran because the USS Bush, USS Ford, and USS Boxer are due to converge in the Middle East just as the ceasefire ends.