Regime Has No Exit Plan for Pointless War – The Tuesday AM Quickie 3/3/26
If you need to rest your eyes at some point today and can’t step away for a walk, I highly recommend having a stroll through Cornell’s bird cams. - Whitney
ON THE SHOW TODAY
3/3: Today’s guests are Annelle Sheline, research fellow for the Middle East at the Quincy Institute, and Séamus Malekafzali, independent journalist and writer known for in-depth reporting and analysis on the Middle East and the Global South, via The Nation, The Intercept, Jacobin, The Baffler, his newsletter and his podcast, Turbulence Podcast.
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Today you’ll read about Trump’s ongoing joint operation with Israel, the primary election in Texas, and the banner of dead far-right gun activist Charlie Kirk that now hangs on the Department of Education HQ.
THE BIG NEWS
Hundreds Dead in ‘Peace President’ Trump’s Pointless War; ‘There Will Likely be More’
The joint US-Israeli war in the Middle East “expanded dramatically” across multiple countries on Monday, including Cyprus, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, according to the AP, Council on Foreign Relations, and The Guardian. By Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. Eastern, at least 787 people were dead in Iran, 31 in Lebanon, and 11 in Israel, according to those nations. Six American soldiers were dead, according to the BBC, killed when Iran retaliated and bombed a Kuwait base. The State Department closed its embassies in that nation and in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and told Americans to immediately leave 14 Middle East countries as the war grinds on, the NYT reported.
A “big wave” of airstrikes is yet to come, Trump said. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard.” The drunken Secretary of Defense, Peter Brian Hegseth, got shirty with reporters who asked how long the war would last; Trump initially said he “always thought” it would be about four weeks. Then he said maybe five weeks and added that he’s prepared “to go far longer than that.” Neither would rule out sending in ground troops, NBC News reported. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground,” Trump said, using the term for sudden unexplained spasms that can f*ck up your golf putt, if you want to know what’s really on his mind.
Trump also said to expect more Americans to die, Politico reported. “As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”
The “rare bright spot” in all the abysmal news of death and chaos is that everyone who owns stock in Lockheed Martin and other publicly traded war profiteers is making a boatload of money, CNBC reported. Markets in general were down on Monday. But global defense stocks were up, up, up.