Or, might we be in for a longer war. Iran's strategy seems to be to inflict economic damage and chaos. Iran doesn't have to win, they just have to not lose. Short of a full scale invasion of a country with 93 million I think the regime survives. 20% chance of a military coup. (just an opinion)
Some people think Trump will back down because he in mindful of gas prices and the Stock market. I don't see and exit ramp for Trump. Does he make a deal with the regime and claim victory while leaving the regime in power? That's a whopper of a lie even for Trump.
And what would Israel do if Trump backs down?
the son of the supreme leader was chosen by somebody????? who knows who???? this weekend.....that right there could be the start of the end
When in the 5 years of Trump as president have you seen him back down. No, lines in the sand, crossings here.
Not saying this is going to last years. All he needs to do is get the straight open and ships moving and oil will crash.
Blink isn't really a relevant word. It's a war, not a staring contest.
If you can explain what Trump's objective is, you can make a meaningful guess whether he'll try to end the war without achieving it, or have a serious chance at success.
I haven't seen any explanation or justification, so I can't guess.
The oil market seems to have realized that what most traders thought would just be a bit of bombing followed by some face saving is turning into a real war.
Excellent comments. Great thread, joj!
This is an extraordinarily time in all of our lives, especially so for people like us that constantly follow and actually trade these markets.
If you can read Donald Trump's mind right now, you can make a ton of money.
The markets are trading news about the war and Donald Trump as he loves it, as the most powerful man in the world is in the drivers seat calling all the market disrupting and chaos causing shots.
Patrick said it best. Donald Trump hasn't communicated exactly what this is about and what his plan really is so its hard for the rest of the world to GUESS what might be coming next.
It's seems unlikely that Iran is going to unconditionally surrender and absurdly let Donald Trump pick their new leader(which shows how delusional he is).
He also demanded that Hamas do the same thing. Throw down their weapons and give up and predicted they would because Hamas knows he means business and what he can do to them. The point is, none of us can predict Donald Trump, except that he will do things to make Donald Trump look good.
The first week of any war is often the easiest to sell to war supporters.
Then, as the horrible realities and damage get greater and greater, the support for it goes down and objections grow. We are already in that stage now.
Patrick is right that many people thought this might be over quickly. Probably because of assuming it might be like the June 2025 war that, according to Israel and Donald Trump was going to ensure long term peace and security as promised by the fork tongue charlatans that started this war:
June 22, 2025:
Netanyahu praises Trump's 'bold decision' to strike Iranian nuclear sites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL4rmsJHX08
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tjc, I'm sorry if these politics offend you because you're MAGA but its exactly what is controlling our markets right now.
The FUTURES markets as we all know are not trading the amount of crude in storage or other factors at this point in time on Sunday, March 8, 2026. Nor is the stock market trading today. It's projecting the future in X, Y and Z realms that go out weeks and maybe months. Dialing in risk(war) premium. And right now, the length of the war matters more than anything else and only the mind of Donald Trump will determine that.
Studying past behavior is very relevant to projecting market prices and also to trying to predict what Donald Trump might do next.
This is one possibility that I speculated on earlier which I feel is more likely than not but nobody really knows what Trump might do:
Market opens tonight, 3-8-2026/crude
By metmike - March 8, 2026, 6:45 p.m.
If the price of gas keeps going higher, then what?
Then what: The support for his unjustified, unprovoked, against International law, against humanity war will go lower and lower as it hits the pocketbooks of Americans that realize that THEY are being punished by the pathological thinking of Donald Trump!!!!
As I speculated last week, it will be pivot time for Donald Trump. He will make up something to justify the end of the war and claim the most incredible success of the US military in history and make this the 9th war that he ended.
"When in the 5 years of Trump as president have you seen him back down"
Thanks, cutworm:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Always_Chickens_Out
Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO) is a term that gained prominence in May 2025 after many threats and reversals during the trade war U.S. president Donald Trump initiated with his administration's "Liberation Day" tariffs
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His MAGA supporters like to refer to this as "The art of the deal" and Trump being the world's best negotiator.
I have described it with a more reality based view.
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By metmike - Sept. 14, 2025, 6:10 p.m.
Re: Re: Re: More delusional tariffs!
By metmike - Sept. 14, 2025, 7:52 p.m.
Trump backed down from NATO standing up to him on Greenland. Trump "saved face" by falsely claiming that he got what he wanted through negotiations. "We have a concept of a deal."
I fear that he thinks he can get the same result as in Venezuela. It doesn't appear so.