August 18, 2026
The Pinchers
Timothy Birdnow
Our blockade is crushing the Irnaians.
It's only going to get worse over time. Iran relies on it's Persian Gulf ports. And we aren't just blockading those but also the Arabian Sea ports as well. Without those Iran can only hope to get central Asian or Russian stuff by way of the Caspian sea, and that is slow and cumbersome. To the east lies Pakistan and past them are the Himalayas. That makes Iran easy to blockade.
Trump is squeezing them like an orange.
FTA:
Nima said his grocery bills have tripled from prices that were already painfully high before the conflict with the United States began and some items have quadrupled. He said this is forcing him to "choose between the essentials and everything else,” even though his crypto trading gave him better foreign currency reserves than most Iranians.
The annual rate of general inflation in Iran is now over 80 percent and unemployment reached a four-year high of 9.1 percent in June. Iran’s currency, the rial, is down to an astounding 1.88 million against the U.S. dollar, which is an especially severe problem for the many Iranians who prefer to do business using dollars instead of Iran’s nearly-worthless currency.
Unemployment rates soared after the uprising in January because the regime blacked out the Internet for about three months, dealing a crushing blow to many Iranian businesses.
"Every tomorrow has been worse than the day before. If you can’t save, can’t buy what you want and don’t have a predictable future, then what’s the point of working any more?” Nima said in despair.
The Mullahs CAN survive this - loo at Castro and his Communist regime. But this is setting the stage for a revolution. I suspect Trump has been quietly filtering weapons into the area and training locals to lead a rebellion - much as Reagan did with the Contra rebels against the Sandanistas back in the eighties. That rebellion eventually worked and the Sandanistas called an election which they lost (sadly, the won in a subsequent election and just recently Daniel Ortega announced elections were "no longer needed" and has canceled them permanently, but that is another story). Trump is probably quietly doing this same thing. He is just biding his time, putting the pressure on while everything is prepared.
At least I hope so. Trump is no fool and I can't see him believing he'll get a deal with the Iranians. So he is no doubt working on plan B now.
At any rate he's starving the Iranians and it will only get worse over time. There will be no relief coming.
We must hope s anyway.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:26 PM
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Off topic but interesting items from inside Russia. Seems the Ukraines drone strikes are paying dividends. Russia has a major gas shortage with cars lined up for miles in attempts to fill up. High octane fuel is impossible to find.Russia has had to resort to buying gas from India and other countries in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Also reported is a natural gas shortage were areas of Russia have been without electricity for weeks on end and people have taken to the streets protesting. Also its looking as if Crimea may be going back into Ukraines hands. Putins bad day is getting far worse. This year China has opened a Southern rail rte that will bypass Russia into Europe and Russia is said to be losing about 5 billion income because of it. Ive only seen Forbes reporting on the gas shortage. I got my info from youtube.
Posted by: Mike at August 18, 2026 04:16 PM (6tWCP)
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Thanks Mike. I've not seen any of this but it is possible; our media just sucks when it comes to reporting any information.
I have doubts it's quite that bad but I can't say for sure it's not. Russia has always been closed-mouthed about such things (the people as well as the government).
Drone tech has sure changed warfare; you don't need a high population to win wars anymore, just the ability to produce drones and fight a smart war.
I have doubts it's quite that bad but I can't say for sure it's not. Russia has always been closed-mouthed about such things (the people as well as the government).
Drone tech has sure changed warfare; you don't need a high population to win wars anymore, just the ability to produce drones and fight a smart war.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at August 19, 2026 07:22 AM (oflqW)
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