Never thought I'd see the day that POTUS would publicly ask the PRC for military support. And yet here we are.

Separate topic: for those of us hyper-focused on the price of a barrel of oil, you are missing the forest for the trees. It's true that oil has certainly been more expensive, on an inflation-adjusted basis, in our recent history. Gas prices in the US have not (yet) exceeded their all-time highs. The impact on things like airline ticket prices and people's daily commutes (to name a few things) will be obvious to all. The reason we are so sensitive to gas (oil) prices is partly because it's just about the only product in the world where you get multiple daily reminders of the price, simply by passing a gas station, which most of us do many times a day. So the psychological effect of rising gas prices is more acute than it is for other commodities. If the price of wheat rises, you'll eventually notice that bread is more expensive, but it's not driven into your mind multiple times a day.

What is not as obvious is the less visible, but very real, effect of a near-closure of the SOH on all sorts of other things that modern civilization depends on. LNG is one of them. Fertilizer as well -- fully 30% of the world's seaborne-traded fertilizer goes through the SoH. Without fertilizer, you can't grow crops. Without crops, you can't feed people. That's not politics. That's just reality.

So when people say things like "Oil is down today!" as a justification for the current madness we're witnessing, I really feel that they're only looking at one part of the picture.

And then you have the second- and third-level effects, such as:

• Huge boost to Russian oil earnings, which will help them continue to pulverize Ukraine. And if you can watch what's been happening to civilian lives in Ukraine since 2022 without being horrified and revolted, I don't know what to tell you.

• Massive credibility and economic hit to our allied Gulf nations. Those countries have helped enforce a level of stability in the Gulf for decades. While the Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, etc. have plenty of financial reserves to cushion the blows (ie the near total shutdown of commercial aviation, just to name one), the rulers of those nations have (mostly) held Islamic fundamentalism at bay, through a pretty clear bargain with their citizens: we'll keep you rich, and you help us keep the peace. But the current chaos, if prolonged long enough, could lead to significant unrest in those countries, which is the last thing an already-destabilized Middle East needs.

• This has already been raised, but in this current attempt to topple the Iranian regime, we've managed instead to replace an 86-year-old autocrat with his son (likely more hard-line than his father). We also killed his wife, at least one son, his mother, a sister, and likely more. So let's think about that for a moment. You're the new leader of Iran. Your #1 enemy just killed pretty much your entire extended family. How likely are you to behave more rationally than your father? Not bloody likely, I'd say.

I only see three ways this goes:

1) Iraq, but worse. A fruitless attempt to take and hold significant ground in Iran, sparking off a conflict with no end in sight and (realistically) no potential for an American victory.

2) Stalemate. We continue a relentless aerial campaign until we've done to urban Iran what Israel did to Gaza. That won't bring the Iranian regime down. It'll just turn one hundred percent of the population against us. Kill enough civilians, especially kids in schoolhouses, and even the most anti-government folks in Iran will hate us more than they hate Khamenei and his ilk. And then we'll have another 9/11, just maybe with drones instead of hijacked airliners.

3) POTUS declares "victory" and moves on to the next distraction. Hopefully not involving a nuclear-armed state.

To be clear: I detest the Iranian regime with all of my being. (It's personal, for me.) And I supported the June 2025 strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. I'd love to see this regime gone.

But this war is not going to topple the mullahs. Only the Iranian people themselves can do that. All we are doing is creating even more instability in a region that was already waiting to blow.