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The national average price of diesel has reached $5.77/gal and is less than 5 cents from a new all time record, according to live GasBuddy data
U.S. policy should focus on avoiding the most disruptive contingencies, especially Iranian escalation, and settle for maintaining dual blockades indefinitely. If Iran is unwilling to concede, Washington can slowly erode the Iranian economy and military while ensuring that Tehran cannot rebuild the strong regional position it enjoyed before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. At this stage, maintaining the current U.S. position is the most effective way of fighting—and winning—this war.
The national average price of diesel has reached $5.77/gal and is less than 5 cents from a new all time record, according to live GasBuddy data
2:05pm
2:21pm
according to GasBuddy data, the live U.S. national average price of diesel has set a new record: $5.820/gal, surpassing the previous daily $5.819/gal all-time high that occurred June 17, 2022. (9/3/26 3:25pm ET)
temporizing for political reasons gives the enemy a chance to repair and reload...it isn't maximally efficient
after Rs lose the midterms and electoral majorities, resumption of hostilities will become more difficult
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-...ow-2026-09-02/
...again
Speaks to the deterioration of the republican form of government in the USA that something like this can happen at all
Trump treating federal funds as if they were unappropriated and a discretionary executive kitty is tyrant -- Charles I-type behavior
England had a civil war over something like this
https://democrats-appropriations.hou...nse-activitiesHouse Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) has learned that officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) are working to divert billions of dollars from the National Ins utes of Health (NIH) to supplement the Department’s budget. Without notifying Congress or the American people, DoD has signed an interagency agreement that could give the Department access to billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research. These funds were provided to support research to develop treatments or cures for infectious diseases such as influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola, and other dangerous pathogens.
“This secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH is outrageous. The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately,” said Ranking Member DeLauro. “These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense. It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump’s war of choice with Iran. But the Trump administration cannot make American patients, families, and scientists pay the price. Cir venting Congress to divert money intended to help Americans who are exposed to HIV, influenza, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases—and directing those funds to the Department of Defense—is beyond the pale. DoD already has programs, funded by Congress, to research and develop medical countermeasures to chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, and does not need NIH funding to do so. The administration must provide Congress with a full accounting of how this interagency agreement was developed and exactly how much taxpayer money it is trying to transfer to DoD.”
DoD is attempting to pull funds from the National Ins ute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH’s leading ins ute for infectious-disease research. Trump officials at NIH disclosed the existence of DoD’s efforts only after being pressed for information by House Appropriations Committee Democrats.
"we're winning, the US controls the strait"
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/2/chinas-xi-urges-new-middle-east-security-framework-during-rare-egypt-visitChinese President Xi Jinping has called on Middle East countries to oppose external influence and consider reshaping the region’s security order.
Xi’s remarks on Wednesday to his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, on his first visit to Cairo in a decade, come as Beijing seeks to expand its influence in the region amid the United States-Israel war with Iran.
https://www.newarab.com/news/china-w...-us-isnt-happyEgypt has emerged as unlikely battleground in the global AI race as China and the US vie for influence in the North African country.
News that Chinese tech giant Huawei had offered to take the lead on developing the country's AI datacentres surfaced just days before President Xi Jinping landed in Cairo for his first state visit in more than a decade.
The company has proposed exporting 1,408 of its most advanced Ascend 950-series chips to train AI models and 600 others for two clusters to run AI models after they're trained, Bloomberg reported on 26 August. It submitted a plan to build the datacentres inside 12 months, according to do ents seen by the business news outlet.
The offer marks the first challenge to American AI dominance in the Middle East and if it goes through would be first known incidence of Huawei chips being exported abroad.
The Green Lantern theory of war collided with stubborn realities in the recent past that our brave war leaders did not heed or learn from
https://www.amerikanets.com/p/they-saw-it-comingEven if US military and intelligence strategists had failed to anticipate the failures outlined above, they had an incredible advantage in projecting how the 2026 Iran War would unfold: a series of five limited military operations that demonstrated each of the failures in advance of the major conflict itself. These were Prosperity Guardian (December 2023), Poseidon Archer (January 2024), Days of Repentance (October 2024), Rough Rider (March 2025), and Rising Lion (June 2025).
Prosperity Guardian showed that even a relatively resource-poor and weak military force could shut down a crucial maritime chokepoint with standoff munitions, and that an American naval force would be unable to stop it. Poseidon Archer and Rough Rider proved that a limited air campaign could fail to suppress the launches of those standoff munitions. Despite these three operations costing billions, they didn’t restore commercial confidence in shipping in the Red Sea, which was still down 60% from pre-2023 levels at the beginning of 2026.30 A post-mortem on the Red Sea Crisis published by West Point in June 2025 offered a blunt description of the failure of every option available to two successive presidential administrations:
The lesson for a prospective war with Iran was obvious. If the US couldn’t do it in Yemen, it wouldn’t be able to suppress Iranian drone and missile launches in the Persian Gulf or reopen the Strait of Hormuz.This was the menu of options that the Biden administration had in November 2023, and it was largely the same menu that the Trump administration had in March 2025. Over the past year and a half, the United States has either attempted or threatened nearly all of these options, with little success.31
The two major Israeli air operations against Iran in 2024 and 2025, “Days of Repentance” and “Rising Lion,” respectively, showed that even massive air attacks on Iran would fail to seriously degrade Iranian missile and drone launch capability. Video evidence of dozens of Iranian missiles striking targets in Israel proved that the Iranians were capable of penetrating the US/Israeli missile defense system at long range. Air Force findings from two decades earlier on the impossibility of destroying deeply buried targets held, as evidence slowly emerged that the Fordow site struck by the US in the closing days of the 12-Day War hadn’t been “obliterated,” as the Trump administration claimed, with the centrifuges there “largely intact,” according to the DIA.32
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/07/oil-...tedly-hit.htmlOil prices rise to 6-week high after Iran and U.S. trade blows, Saudi Aramco facilities reportedly hit
Oil prices rose to a six-week high on Monday as the U.S. and Iran traded strikes over the weekend, ratcheting up tensions in the Middle East.
Brent crude oil futures, the international oil benchmark, rose 1.5% to $97.73 per barrel on Monday and reached as high as $97.93 a barrel at one point, the highest since July 23. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. oil benchmark, climbed 1.8% to $93.10, also the highest since late July.
“Strike our assets and you get struck,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf wrote Monday in a post on X.
That post was in response to an earlier one by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who wrote that the U.S. “will destroy (and sink)” Iranian oil tankers if Iran fires on U.S. vessels.
Saudi Aramco oil facilities were hit in fresh attacks on Monday, according to a report by the Financial Times. Damage was still being assessed on the facility in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan, home to a 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery, and it’s not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, according to the FT.
...
^^^ US bases in the Persian Gulf got wrecked on day one and even more subsequently.
As predicted for decades and right up to the recommencement of hostilities in 2026, military action was not able to prevent Iran from exerting control over the strait, standoff weaponry was quickly wasted and could not be sustained in a high-intensity conflict, and rebasing US forces further impaired US operational tempo and effectiveness.
As a result, Iran still has a free hand to wreck GCC countries and the world economy.
Jizan produced 400,000 bpd before the attack
Saudi Arabia has accused Yemen’s Houthi rebels of launching attacks on civilian and economic sites in the kingdom, wounding at least 73 civilians, including women and children.
The accusation came on Tuesday as fighting intensified in Yemen, where the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government has launched a counteroffensive to retake territory from the Iran-backed Houthis.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/...-official-saysThe Saudi Ministry of Energy said in a separate statement that several “energy sector facilities and installations” in southern areas of the kingdom were hit early on Tuesday.
The attacks wounded a “number of citizens and residents” and sparked “fires at several locations”, forcing a “temporary halt in some operations”, the statement said.
Iran fired at least 20 missiles at two bases in Jordan.-Tasnim
Iran is full of bull and bluster certainly no less than the US government and CENTCOM
does look like things are heating up
Iran's IRGC Navy warns all crew of oil tankers in the vicinity of Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports that host Americans to evacuate.- Iranian State Media
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rait-of-hormuzIranian forces claimed to have seized an American underwater drone in the strait of Hormuz that the US military said had “malfunctioned” more than a day earlier.
US Navy Capt Tim Hawkins, a United States Central Command spokesperson, said in a statement the drone was surveilling regional waters when it malfunctioned “more than a day ago”.
Hawkins said the submersible was “defective” and an older model “that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment”.
Operations in area waters continue, he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed that its naval forces “captured one of the most modern, unmanned, and smart submarines of the US terrorist army at the entrance to the strait of Hormuz”, according to Iranian TV.
Last edited by Winehole23; 09-08-2026 at 05:28 PM.
https://www.anduril.com/dive-ldOpen software, mechanical, and electrical interfaces allow for seamless integration and rapid configuration of multiple payloads and sensors at a time - delivering relevant, impactful, and affordable capability in weeks, not months or years, for missions to include:
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1.) it is a war
2.) we haven't won it
looks strategic
https://www.newarab.com/news/houthis...-mandeb-strait
The Houthis have seized the strategic Yemeni port city of Mocha on the Red Sea coast, government sources said on Thursday, marking a major development in the renewed fighting as tens of thousands have been displaced across the country.
Three Yemeni government sources told Reuters that Houthi forces had entered Mocha and taken control of the coastal city, while local sources told The New Arab that large numbers of residents were fleeing towards the southern city of Aden.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-908136Turkiye Today reported: “Pakistan is likely to carry out airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen at Saudi Arabia’s request, according to Pakistani sources speaking to Turkiye Today. A source noted that the attacks may take place soon and will be made public shortly afterward.”
The report noted that “one of the military priorities for the Pakistani attacks would be to clear the Houthis from Saadah, along with other regions, according to one Pakistani source. However, a final decision on attacking Yemen’s Houthis has not been made.”.
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