US/Israel conduct airstrikes on Iran again

Indeed, it could be argued that this decline was already well underway with the rise of the rise of the Global South, but the American public (in their infinite wisdom) twice electing a reality TV show 'personality' and failed businessman has rapidly accelerated this.

That's the sad and harsh reality of it, Rogber. After Donnie said Israel wont use a nuke, i thought to myself even if they did what would the EU do bar issuing a statement expressing the utmost concern and the important of international law. Kier might also warn that Israel is at risk of breaking international law.

The laundry fire aboard the USS Gerald Ford really is a very curious incident.
The USN is broadly acknowledged to have the best damage control systems, training and capabilities in the world.
Indeed one of the reasons behind the cancellation of the Constellation class frigates, is that despite the huge weight growth over the original FREMM design, that the USN weren't confident in it's being as resilient as US designs without further modification.

So,the laundry fire that burned for 30hrs, injured 2 and forced 600 out of their bunks?
Really must have been an incredible combination of circumstances.
The ignition, fuel and inability to control it for 30hrs?
Just what are USN uniforms made of?
Surely flame retardant material...
So what was burning?

Now couple that with OSINT chatter that the carriers were pulled further back from shore.
The confirmed news that the USS Nimitz is being returned to service for another year, despite being paid off and on its way to the mothball fleet?

It implies a very different set of circumstances that amount to at the very least,the fire caused enough damage to force the USN to postpone decommissioning of the Nimitz to keep an 11 carrier navy viable.

They also apparently killed the head of the Basji unit. I wonder- assuming it is true- is this down to signal intelligence or a human source. Perhaps a combination of the two? Iran can only decentralise the leadership so much. I also wonder might these attacks be setting the stage for an internal coup or for more moderate voices to gain ascendency?

Israwel seem to be following the Nixon approach to the Iranian power structure (excerpt from the Oliver stone movie, referencing special prosector Archibald Cox)

NIXON Cox! Fire him.

HAIG But he works for the Attorney General. Only Richardson can fire him

NIXON Then tell Richardson to fire him.

HAIG Richardson won't do that. He'll resign.

NIXON The hell he will! Fire him too. If you have to go all the way down to the janitor at the Justice Department, fire the sonufabitch

The requirements for FR uniforms, bedding and ancillaries such as curtains on board USN ships are specific and rigourous.
Yes, fire in a contained space can reach seriously high temperatures.
But?
On a warship, that is compartmentalized and when intact, capable of shutting compartments off on a watertight and smoke tight basis as part of damage control?
The oxygen is easily removed and the fire starved in conjunction with fire fighting and damage control teams.
That the fire burned 30hrs, points to there being some failure of compartmentalization that allowed the fire continued access to air/oxygen.
Did the damage control teams fail to compartmentalise properly and close off air ingress?
Or was the compartment unable to be sealed due to some other damage?

The laundry would be one of the points identified in the damage control planning as somewhere where an ignition could well spark a fire and as such, it is one of the areas that are most often trained out in fire control on large ships.

On a ship that is designed to allow even the hangar deck to be divided and compartmented by folding walls to ensure fuel fires and similar are quickly controlled via starvation and foam.
The fact a fire burned for 30hrs points to a failure far more serious that non flame retardant towels.

There are rumours swirling that the Ford's air group will be disembarked.
Perhaps to Crete, speaks to quite a high degree of damage.
The Nimitz wasn't returned to service on a whim, it's own air group has already been transferred the USA Reagan so the question that arises?
Is what air group will the Nimitz now operate?
Logic points to it being the USA Ford's which means a laundry fire has taken the USN's newest & biggest ship out of service

One person with some self respect

Breaking news. Senior US Intelligence official Joe Kent has resigned due to "serious misgivings" about the war. Says that Iran posed no imminent threat to the US and blamed the war on the powerful Israeli lobby in the US. Kent was a political appointee of Trump or Gabbard, so he can't say its the "deep state".

Israel claims to have killed Iran's security chief Ali Larijani. While a longtime regime insider and hardliner, but as a negotiator of the JCPOA (which Trump scrapped in his first term) was in recent years viewed as more pragmatic insofar as the regime has pragmatists.

Well that's been the suggestion all along, but it hasn't happened yet. I was surprised Larijani appeared in public last week as I would have thought he was the one guy they'd try to protect at all costs. The President hasn't been touched yet, whether there is any significance to that I don't know.

Trump treats allies with disdain, but still expects their support. Its narcissistic behaviour. A diplomatic equivalent of Theo and Todd from Coronation Street.

He’s definitely a MAGA guy too. The blame game is very much underway. Here the Brits have a go:

Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, attended the final talks between the US and Iran and judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear programme was significant enough to prevent a rush to war, the Guardian can reveal.

Powell thought progress had been made in Geneva and that the deal proposed by Iran was “surprising”, according to sources.

Two days after the talks ended, and after a date had been agreed for a further round of technical talks in Vienna, the US and Israel launched the attack on Iran.

Kushner and Witkoff come in for a fair bit of slagging:

Kushner and Witkoff had invited Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to the Geneva talks, to provide technical expertise, though Kushner would later claim that he and Witkoff had “a pretty deep understanding of the issues that matter in this”. Nuclear experts would later say that Witkoff’s pronouncements on the Iran nuclear programme were riddled with basic errors.

There’ll be a lot more of this before the jig is up. Ouch!

One diplomat with knowledge of the talks said: “We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.”

Stephen Flynn (SNP) on the BBC this morning