Tea at Trianon: How Trump Duped Iran

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, July 6, 2026

How Trump Duped Iran

From Tierney's Real News:

By signing a deliberately vague Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Islamabad on June 17, 2026, I believe that the Trump administration set up Iran - while President Trump, Oman and Iraq worked together with Israel and the rest of the Gulf to neuter the IRGC.
While Iran believed the agreement would hand them de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz and their proxies - allowing them to establish tolls, inspections, and a new revenue stream run by the IRGC - the Trump administration had other plans.
Google Gemini* reluctantly admitted I was right about this and the MoU. Trump fooled Iran into signing it as is and then Trump worked with Oman to allow ships to pass on a different route through the Strait. Iran thought Oman would side with them - wrong!!! (Read more.)