Iran

Welcome to the Precious Metals Bug Forums

Welcome to the PMBug forums - a watering hole for folks interested in gold, silver, precious metals, sound money, investing, market and economic news, central bank monetary policies, politics and more.

Why not register an account and join the discussions? When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no Google ads, market data/charts, access to trade/barter with the community and much more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

Someone_else said:
No, I missed that. Why, was she packing?
He must be a mean old man. "Always shouts out something obscene!"
Click to expand...
It's the Queen. Royalty has its privileges?

Same as when Big Mike put his arm around the Queen and the interwebs went apoplectic about him violating protocol.

You never touch the Queen!

 
What's interesting is that the Queen most likely knew of Andrew's prurient proclivities with children.

she publicly spanked him for keeping up appearances of impropriety, but the real truth of the matter was yet to come out.

Even though we knew there was smoke... aka unconfirmed 'rumors'....

It was only after her death did the hammer come down allowing her to avoid dealing with the embarrassment of the whole mess.

History being what it is... I wouldn't be surprised if she and Trump discussed that eventuality and out of respect for her it came out for all to see after her demise.
 
Cigarlover said:
So you're calling Kent liar now? Tulsi as well? Why bother with 16 intelligence agencies at a cost of over 100 billion a year then?
Click to expand...
He could never end those agencies.

Be too much resistance.

I like to keep in mind the fact that as long as I have been around in these types of online communities, as well as long before them, the intelligence community has almost always been seen as the so-called "deep state" who was the ones really runnin' things from behind the scenes.

That they had their hand up the ass of whoever was seen by the public as being "in charge".

Like a puppeteer.
.....but now they are to be believed on face value alone? After all, neither of us has actually seen the intelligence data itself.
 
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/kent-t...lt-charlie-kirk

Kent Tells Tucker: 'Imminent Threat' Was From Israel, Not Iran; Ordered To Halt Charlie Kirk Investigation
Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Thursday, Mar 19, 2026 - 12:25 PM

Joe Kent, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center who was President Trump’s principal counterterrorism advisor, appeared on Tucker Carlson's show to explain his side of the story after stepping down from the administration.

Kent announced his resignation Tuesday, citing his opposition to the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, and his belief that Iran posed "no imminent threat" to America - while asserting in his resignation letter that his wife died in "a war manufactured by Israel" in a 2019 suicide bombing in Manjbi, Syria.

In this first public interview since resigning, Kent elaborated on his reasons amid reports emerging Wednesday that the FBI is investigating him for allegedly leaking or improperly sharing classified information (a probe that sources say predates his resignation and is being handled by the FBI's Criminal Division, per several outlets).

Early on in the interview, Carlson referenced Secretary of State Marco Rubio's justification for the strikes - that Iran posed an imminent threat because Israel was preparing to attack Iranian targets, likely prompting Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces. Carlson reframed it bluntly:

Carlson: “So, the imminent threat that the secretary of state is describing is not from Iran. It’s from Israel.”

Kent: “Exactly. And I think this speaks to the broader issue: who is in charge of our policy in the Middle East?”

Kent elaborated that Israel was preparing to strike, which would trigger retaliation endangering U.S. personnel - creating the cited "imminent" risk. He stated:

Kent: “The Israelis drove the decision to take this action, which we knew would set off a series of events because the Iranians would retaliate.”

Kent insisted there was zero U.S. intelligence of Iran planning a direct attack, nearing a nuclear weapon, or posing an immediate homeland threat. He cited Iran's religious fatwa against nuclear weapons (since 2004) and said the assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei had moderated the program:

Kent: “There was no intelligence that said, hey… the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack… There was none of that intelligence.” On nukes: “No, they weren’t [on the verge of a bomb]. They weren’t in June either. The Iranians have had a fatwa - a religious ruling - against the development of a nuclear weapon since 2004… We had no intelligence that it was being disobeyed.”

JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 Former US Counterterrorism Chief Joe Kent tells Tucker Carlson the "imminent threat" was not from Iran, it was from Israel. pic.twitter.com/UwkNe3ZQFl
— Remarks (@remarks) March 18, 2026

Internal Dissent Suppressed

Kent described how dissenting views were sidelined in the lead-up to strikes. Key officials, including himself, were reportedly barred from direct briefings with Trump. He said he spoke personally with the president before resigning - a conversation he described as "very respectful" - but felt staying would mean silencing his warnings.

"A good deal of key decision-makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president," Kent said, adding "There wasn't a robust debate."

Joe Kent says Operation Midnight Hammer allowed Key-decision makers to have robust debate about the mission, but when it came to this new war, no debate was allowed, and President Trump was basically kept in an Information Silo with Israeli-fed Intelligence

He reiterates what… https://t.co/FegSMJGajB pic.twitter.com/6udeyrh1WH
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) March 19, 2026

The Charlie Kirk Assassination and Blocked Investigation

<b>In an emotionally charged segment, Kent discussed the September 2025 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, whom he knew personally. Kent recounted Kirk's last words to him in the West Wing in June:

Kent (recalling Kirk): “Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran.”

Kent said Kirk had opposed escalation and faced pressure from pro-Israel donors. He revealed the NCTC had leads on potential foreign involvement but was ordered to halt:

Kent: “The investigation that the National Counterterrorism Center was a part of, we were stopped from continuing to investigate… There was still a lot for us to look into… there were still linkages for us to investigate that we needed to run down.”

Tucker Carlson gets visibly upset as Joe Kent explains to him that the Counterterrorism Center had more leads to investigate foreign ties to Charlie Kirk's assassination, but were shut down from pursuing them. pic.twitter.com/0IU0jEC2cY
— Zach Costello (@ZachCostello_) March 19, 2026

The official narrative focused on lone gunman Ryan Robinson, but Kent insisted unresolved questions remained.
Other Notable Revelations</b>

Kent spent significant time discussing his own warnings from a January 2024 appearance on Carlson’s show, where he had predicted a U.S. war with Iran would become “very bloody very quickly,” rally the Iranian people around the regime, activate deadly proxy networks across the region (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis), overstretch American military and economic resources amid other global commitments, and ultimately hand strategic victories to China. He stated that those predictions had proven prescient, as Tehran’s proxies were already conducting attacks and that the conflict was draining U.S. attention and treasure at precisely the wrong moment.

A major theme was the strategic windfall for China. Kent warned that deep U.S. entanglement in Iran would play directly into Beijing’s hands:

Kent: “If we get deeply involved and deeply entangled with Iran, we are playing right into China’s hands, because China would like nothing more than for us to be committing our military industrial base to a war in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, and then to be committing our conventional military power, our blood, and our treasure back in the Middle East. That will make the Pacific, our actual border, extremely vulnerable to Chinese aggression, or China will simply just watch us bleed out economically as we bleed out on the battlefield on these couple different theaters.”

He described China as “sitting on the sidelines… silently nodding along with a slowly spreading grin,” benefiting from America’s distraction and resource depletion without firing a shot.

Kent also offered a detailed explanation of Iran’s nuclear calculus, describing Tehran’s strategy as “actually pretty pragmatic.” He pointed to the cautionary tale of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi:

Kent: “The Iranian strategy, it’s actually pretty pragmatic … because they saw what happened to Gaddafi in Libya when he said ‘I’ll give up my nukes.’”

Kent argued that the regime views nuclear weapons as an insurance policy against regime change, and that the current war - rather than deterring them - would likely empower hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while rallying the broader Iranian population behind the government. He noted that the assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei had been a moderating influence and that his successor could prove far more radical.

“The Iranian strategy, it’s actually pretty pragmatic ... because they saw what happened to Gaddafi in Libya when he said ‘I’ll give up my nukes.’”

Joe Kent said during an interview with Tucker Carlson following his resignation as director of the National Counterterrorism… pic.twitter.com/Rt0X3BwPiE
— TRT World (@trtworld) March 19, 2026

On the declassification of sensitive historical files, Kent addressed Trump’s orders to release documents related to the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations (as well as Epstein files). He said no “earth-shattering” revelations were expected, but that the bureaucracy was deliberately slow-walking the process:

Joe Kent (on the files): “The same government that told us a magic bullet killed JFK… bureaucracy slows declassification deliberately.”

Kent suggested that full transparency would never occur without sustained pressure from the top.

Full interview here:

Joe Kent on why we actually went to war with Iran. pic.twitter.com/ghoSEW6fLy
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 19, 2026
 

SLAPPED DOWN: Trump Just Told Israel AND NATO NO! — Here's Why​

President Trump publicly rejected Israel’s strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field and criticized NATO for refusing to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, arguing both reflect a long-running “Great Game” strategy centered on energy choke points and instability. Susan Kokinda says these moves follow Trump’s December National Security Strategy, which prioritizes avoiding “forever wars,” preventing adversaries from dominating Middle East energy routes, and making choke-point leverage obsolete through American energy independence. She highlights administration comments that Israel “doesn’t hate the chaos” while the U.S. wants stability, and notes shifting U.S. political dynamics as figures in both parties question allies who won’t contribute. Kokinda points to new U.S.-Japan agreements—over $60B in U.S. natural gas investment, $40B for small modular nuclear reactors, and deep-sea critical minerals cooperation—as the model for a new, nation-to-nation strategic architecture.
 

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 The deadline Trump set for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is Friday. The 2,200 Marines of the 31st MEU arrive in CENTCOM on Friday.

The USS Tripoli and USS New Orleans dock the same day.

None of this is subtle. A deadline without consequences is a request.

A deadline with 2,200 Marines on amphibious assault ships arriving the same morning is a different kind of communication entirely.

Source: WSJ
 

Week 3: What’s Next In Iran? | Victor Davis Hanson​

By all traditional methodology and criteria, Iran is now inert: naval and air forces eviscerated, missile defenses offline, and an army rendered largely useless, as no one is fighting on the ground.

However, tactical success is not necessarily equivalent to strategic victory.
It is hard to think of a single battle lost in Iraq or Afghanistan, yet the United States lacked a plan for strategic resolution in either theater.

With this in mind, Iran’s current strategy is as follows: The mullahs can afford to lose their military because, ultimately, without U.S. troops on the ground, the regime will remain intact.

This, and many other factors, begs the question: Where does Trump go from here? asks Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”

“In other words, they're saying as long as we have oil, Kharg Island, and as long as we have these huge oil fields, when you get tired of pounding us into rubble, you're going go back to the United States. Israel's going go back and be quiet, and we're going get all of our oil revenues and we're going have them.

“And we are going to buy from Russia, North Korea and China missiles, drones, recreate our own drone industry, and we probably have enough fissile material that you didn't get, and nobody could get. It's hidden deep in the mountains, that we will make bombs. And this time we're going to use them because we understand what you will do next time.”
 
VDH gives a back story about Iran and area we haven't heard yet...

From Trump Ally to Critic, Joe Kent’s Changing Path | Victor Davis Hanson​

 
Rumor of a month long ceasefire including Israel. See if it's real news but silver popped pretty good.
 
Fatrat said:
Time for everyone to reload and figure out what tactics worked, I would not do it if I was Iran...
Click to expand...
My thoughts as well.
Since trump basically didn't have a plan other thanbombing the shit out of everything, this gives his people time to come up with a boots on the ground plan as well as get resources into place. It also gives Israel time to reload the interceptors and grab them from whoever in the world actually has any left and of course gives Iran time to unbury their missile storage facilities from the previous bombings and try and come up with a better plan to protect them. I posted somewhere on here that Martin said this would ramp back up in April. Kinda fits what he said. No idea how his computer comes up with this shit though.
 


𝗜𝗦𝗥𝗔𝗘𝗟 𝗜𝗦 𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗥𝗚𝗖 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗕𝗘𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗞𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗠 — 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦

Victor Davis Hanson just revealed something that stopped me in my tracks.

Israel is not just targeting Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders. They are specifically going after the officers who k!lled protesters — the people who ran checkpoints and shot Iranians in the streets during the January uprisings when the regime massacred thousands of its own citizens.

And they're calling them first.

VDH described one exchange: an Israeli contact reached an IRGC officer and told him he was a d∗ad man. The officer's response: 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘩, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨.

He did do something wrong. He k!lled protesters. And Israel knows exactly who he is, where he is, and what he did — because Iranians inside the country are feeding them the intelligence. Cell phones. Starlink. A population that h∗tes this regime so deeply that ordinary citizens are calling in GPS coordinates of checkpoints from their apartment windows.

This is what Israeli intelligence penetration of Iran actually looks like in practice. It's not just satellites and signals. It's millions of Iranians who want this regime gone and are willing to risk everything to make it happen.

VDH also reveals the division of labor in this war: 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹. 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴. Israel wants three to four more weeks to finish the job on command and control.

There's also a sobering note: Iran apparently had significantly more missiles than anyone estimated — possibly 3,000 to 4,000. They're still firing cluster bomb munitions, which are uniquely difficult to defend against because the bomblets scatter on detonation and overwhelm point defenses. That's why residential neighborhoods are still being hit.

But the bigger picture VDH is painting is this: the Iranian people are not bystanders in this war. They are active participants — feeding coordinates, making calls, pointing lasers. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲.

That IRGC officer was wrong about one thing. He did do something wrong. And someone who loved Iran enough to risk their life made sure Israel knew about it.
 


🚨 WATCH: BASIJ FORCES BEING HUNTED

An unknown group calling itself “Hunting Dog” is operating in Kermanshah, Iran. They claim to have already taken out 6 Basij and regime forces, and are just ramping up.

Videos of their operations are spreading rapidly — many describe them as coordinated and highly professional.

This follows a full week of U.S. & Israeli drone strikes against individual IRGC/Basij members in the streets of Iranian cities.

But this is a new phase inside Iran. At some critical mass, the unpaid, increasingly un-fed regime forces will be too few and too frightened, and the people will be able to overwhelm them.

Will they? Oh yes. Yes they will. #LionAndSunRevolution
 


🇺🇸🔥 PANIC IN LONDON: Iran Folds as Trump Cuts London’s Hidden Hand Over Global Oil — The MI6 Connection Exposed and the REAL WAR IS FINANCIAL

🔥🇺🇸 Trump’s ultimatum forced Iran to negotiate, but the real blow landed in London. Gulf states flee UK control, $4T flows to U.S. energy. Lloyd’s of London shuts down Hormuz — a financial war few saw coming.

🇺🇸🔥 PANIC: IRAN FOLDS AS TRUMP CUTS LONDON’S HIDDEN HAND OVER GLOBAL OIL

👉 FULL STORY HERE: https://amg-news.com/panic-in-londo...ection-exposed-and-the-real-war-is-financial/

🔥🇺🇸 VIDEO SOURCE:
@PrometheanActn


📢 Join our Telegram channel: https://t.me/AMGNEWS2022

🌐 Real stories. True journalism. Together, we make an impact: https://amg-news.com
 
Goldhedge said:


🚨 WATCH: BASIJ FORCES BEING HUNTED

An unknown group calling itself “Hunting Dog” is operating in Kermanshah, Iran. They claim to have already taken out 6 Basij and regime forces, and are just ramping up.

Videos of their operations are spreading rapidly — many describe them as coordinated and highly professional.

This follows a full week of U.S. & Israeli drone strikes against individual IRGC/Basij members in the streets of Iranian cities.

But this is a new phase inside Iran. At some critical mass, the unpaid, increasingly un-fed regime forces will be too few and too frightened, and the people will be able to overwhelm them.

Will they? Oh yes. Yes they will. #LionAndSunRevolution
Click to expand...

You never know, since of course truth is the first casualty of war, but "hunting dog" has a real "ghost of Kiev" feel to it.
 
  • President Donald Trump said the U.S. and Iran are “in negotiations right now,” adding that Tehran is “talking sense.”
  • The New York Times later reported that the U.S. has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war.
  • Trump suggested in the Oval Office that Tehran is eager to make a peace deal, even as the Islamic Republic has denied it is in direct talks with Washington.
  • Trump also repeated his claim that the U.S. has already won the war in Iran.
www.cnbc.com

U.S. sent Iran 15-point plan to end war, report says; Trump says 'in negotiations right now'

"Operation Epic Fury continues unabated" to achieve President Donald Trump's military objectives, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom