March 6, 2026

WORSE, AFTER 60-PLUS YEARS OF COMMUNISM, THE STUPIDITY IS WILLFUL:

Posted at 8:22 am by Stephen Green

HOW IT STARTED: For the 2nd year in a row, Iran is sailing its biggest warship around the world to show off its growing navy.

Iran’s biggest warship and one of its frigates are sailing across the Pacific in a first-of-its-kind journey likely meant to show off Tehran’s growing naval force to friends and foes alike.

The two ships appear to be the frigate IRIS Dena and the forward base ship IRINS Makran. They were spotted by the French and Australian navies in early January as they sailed through the South Pacific. The ships have been granted permission to dock in Rio de Janeiro, reportedly arriving on January 23.

—Business Insider, January 27th, 2023.

How It’s Going: U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegeseth stated that a US Navy submarine sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena (75) off the coast of Sri Lanka.

Submarine periscope footage released by the Department of War showed a Mk 48 torpedo striking beneath the stern of IRIS Dena, raising the vessel off the water. Sri Lanka’s Deputy Foreign Minister Arun Hemachandra said 80 Iranian sailors have died.

The Iranian vessel was returning from an international fleet review and MILAN exercise organized by the Indian Navy in the Bay of Bengal till February 25. The vessel sank 20 nautical miles south of Galle in Sri Lanka according to the Sri Lanka Navy.

As for the Makran:

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll

WORST REMAKE OF SOME LIKE IT HOT, EVER:

In accordance with the prophecy:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll

TRUMP’S ENDORSEMENT MIGHT BE THE ONLY SECURITY AGAINST GETTING BLOWN UP: Trump says he must be involved in picking Iran’s next leader.

President Trump told Axios in an interview Thursday that he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran’s next leader — just as he was in Venezuela.

Trump revealed this exclusively in an eight-minute phone call — his second conversation with us to explain his war planning.

Why it matters: Trump acknowledged that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei, is the most likely successor — while making clear he finds that outcome unacceptable.

For several days, the Iranian regime has postponed the announcement of the new supreme leader. But statements by Iranian politicians on Thursday suggested an announcement could be imminent.

What he’s saying: “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” Trump said.

He added that he refuses to accept a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei’s policies, which he said would force the U.S. back to war “in five years.”

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.

The big picture: Trump’s comments represent an extraordinary claim of American power over Iran’s political future, further muddying the objectives of the massive U.S. military campaign he launched on Saturday.

Muddying? I do not think that word means what you think it means, Axios.

Previously: Regime Change or Regime Compliance?

Posted at 7:36 am by Stephen Green

AMERICA IS REMINDING ITSELF, TOO: America and Israel Remind the World How Wars Are Fought to Victory.

The U.S. has joined the IDF in that enterprise, but Americans have not seen their military fight that kind of war in a long time. For some, it is a disorienting experience.

The United States Navy is the subject of withering criticism, for example. CENTCOM seemed rather proud of itself when it revealed that a U.S. attack sub used a heavyweight torpedo to break the hull of an Iranian frigate — a first for U.S. submariners, according to Pete Hegseth, since World War II. But this “cowardly attack,” according to a detractor, disregarded the fact that the Iranian warship was “uninvolved in the war.” In addition, according to the “historian” Craig Murray, the attack amounted to a crime of war. “Despite there being no threat of any kind, the US submarine sailed away with no attempt to pick up survivors, leaving them to drown,” he wrote.

“Literal Nazi behavior,” the British journalist Richard Medhurst said of the U.S. Navy for executing that attack “in international waters” well outside “the combat zone.” Contrary to those who have convinced themselves that the Iranian ship was no threat to U.S. forces, however, the IRIS Dena, one of Iran’s newest warships, “was armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes.”

Naturally, every platform that allows Iran to project power is a legitimate target in this war, and the advanced American attack sub didn’t surface because that would expose its position to the enemy. These are best practices in combat if the objective is to defeat an enemy force.

For some, the U.S.-Israeli air campaign is just as vexing as the war at sea. “They are just carpet bombing a place more dense and crowded than New York City,” Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King said of the attacks on Iranian regime targets in Tehran. We can at least comprehend King’s ignorance. He just doesn’t understand what he’s looking at.

King doesn’t seem to know that the vertical pillars of smoke erupting from these strikes are indicative of penetrating ordnance (the column shoots upward because it is funneled in that direction by the crater the munition had just made). Nor does he seem to know that virtually all of America’s gravity bombs are fitted with Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits that transform them from “dumb” bombs — the sort once used in “carpet bombing” raids designed to level a discrete area — into precision-guided weapons.
Indeed, the whole operation is “a war crime,” according to “human rights barrister” Geoffrey Robertson. “There can be no peace without justice, whatever happens to any future government,” he wrote, gesturing impotently in the direction of “international law.” The “warmongering powers” America and Israel “should have no say over a set of rules that should instead reflect the values of decent democracies,” he declared.

But the U.S. and Israel will have not just “a say” but unrivaled influence over the direction in which a post–Islamic Republic Iran progresses, because that is the spoil they will have won for themselves on the battlefield. Have we forgotten? That is how wars work.

What we’re witnessing is an informative exhibition of how complex military engagements are actually won — through the application of overwhelming and ruthless force.

We’re also demonstrating that “Human Rights” and “International Law” are just tools for ensuring that the United States doesn’t win. They have no relation to actual humanity, or to law, they’re just slogans aimed at intimidating the United States into an unsuccessful “limited” war. And to be fair, that approach has worked since Korea.

Chinese analysts, meanwhile, have been saying that it turns out the U.S. wasn’t so much in decline before as unwilling to use its power, and now that it’s willing the decline seems to be a figment.

Well, not an accidental one. It’s all midwit jabber from the NGO-Administrative Complex.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

FORTUNATELY, WE STILL HAVE THE B-3 BOMBER IN RESERVE IN CASE ALBANIA ATTACKS:

Classical reference in headline:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON:  Tanager’s Fleet (The Tanager Book 3).

Captain Jem Raznick and the weary crew of the Tanager crave a moment’s peace after grueling evacuation runs across star systems. But spymaster Jade Star’s urgent summons shatters that hope, yanking them back to the fog-shrouded swamps of Boudreaux. Posing as orchid hunters, they must infiltrate the murky underbelly of the port to find missing operative Dilar Restin, and the explosive secrets he’s uncovered, before it’s too late.

What begins as a covert rescue spirals into a deadly trap: buried family betrayals surface, pirate shadows close in, and unexpected allies emerge from the mist with their own hidden agendas. Only when the true stakes are revealed, the culmination of Jade’s decades-long master plan, does the crew realize the galaxy itself hangs in the balance, with one wrong move dooming them all.

In this gripping space opera finale, Jem races to untangle a web of galactic deceit, protect his makeshift family, and ignite a defiant legacy. Heroism isn’t born in solitude. It is forged in the fierce, unbreakable unity that defies the encroaching void.

Posted at 7:00 am by Sarah Hoyt

INCENTIVES:

Posted at 5:52 am by Glenn Reynolds