Jeff Leon

Tweet of the day. 🙏🫡👊

This is ridiculous. Balogun shouldn't have been sent off. But the idea that the White House is devoting more effort to strong-arming FIFA than it has to reducing housing and healthcare costs is revolting. And the fact that by intervening, Trump may end up tarnishing the team he is purporting to help (not to mention our nation and international sport) only illustrates his narcissism, arrogance, and imbecility. But here we are.

He’s winding down the war and looking for an off-ramp but will blow up all their power plants unless they open the Strait which we don’t need and will open itself anyway which is why he might send ground troops to the country he already blew off the map.

Okay good, let's say the WH planned for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz following the attack. 1. The U.S. sold off its helium reserve before waging a war that they knew would disrupt helium exports to allies, which make computer chips we rely on. Weird decision. 2. The U.S. let oil stockpiles fall to a multi-decade low before waging a war they knew would disrupt oil shipping. Why? 3. The U.S. didn't build any kind of coalition to assist tankers coming under attack in the region, and two weeks into the war they're only now asking allies to reinforce the US Navy. But they knew they'd need to do this for ... "years"? If this is what "a plan" looks like, god forbid we see what unplanned operations look like.

We have to come to terms with major deficiencies in air defense capacity and the stockpile of effectors. Yes, this has broken out into a big issue in the mainstream finally over the last couple of years, but it goes deeper than not enough missiles. This is a wounded Iran. Imagine what China would be like? And we have to fight an expeditionary fight, often on the run, in that theater. And the drone issue is only going to get far worse. This is an emergency, a strategic and tactical gap that is glaring, and could lose us a war. The issue is exacerbated by the timidness surrounding the messaging at the top due to strategic concerns. Our adversaries are well aware of it, so it's more about being embarrassed domestically that this problem exists, as many of these kinds of issues are. But we need a drastically different approach because we are now burning through the stockpile that was already depleted. China is watching this very closely and yes it will factor into their decision making at the highest levels, not just amongst war planners.

The United Arab Emirates is the most leveraged country on earth and almost nobody understands why. Eighty eight percent of its population are foreign nationals. Ten point four million people who hold passports that say India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Egypt, Britain, somewhere else. They are not citizens. They are residents. They chose to be there because the risk-adjusted return on their lives was positive. Better jobs. No income tax. Safety. The entire economic model of the UAE is a value proposition, and that value proposition has a denominator called security that just went to zero. Emirates, the world’s largest international airline, has suspended all flights indefinitely. Etihad suspended until Monday. Singapore Airlines cancelled its Dubai service through March 7. United Airlines through March 4. More than eighteen hundred flights were cancelled on Saturday alone, another fourteen hundred on Sunday. Dubai International Airport, which handled over a hundred and twenty seven million passengers last year, is dark. A CNN verified video from inside the terminal shows a passenger in a blood-spattered shirt being told to go home. The UAE Ministry of Education has moved all schools to distance learning through Wednesday. Sharjah Airport is shut. Abu Dhabi Airport took a direct hit that killed a Pakistani national and wounded seven. The UAE confirmed its air defenses intercepted one hundred and thirty seven ballistic missiles and two hundred and nine drones. Fourteen drones were not intercepted. Their debris fell on residential neighborhoods, hotel facades, port facilities, and according to multiple reports, a shopping center in Sharjah. Here is what matters. When France gets bombed, the French stay because it is France. When Ukraine gets bombed, Ukrainians stay because it is Ukraine. When the UAE gets bombed, the ten million people who make up eighty eight percent of its population have a decision to make. And that decision has a very short fuse. A country where nearly nine in ten residents can leave is not a nation in the traditional sense. It is a special economic zone with a flag. The moment the value proposition inverts, the population does not resist. It withdraws. This is not a war of attrition. It is a bank run on a country. The deposits are human. There is no deposit insurance. And the withdrawal window just opened. Schools are closed. Airports are closed. Flights are cancelled through next week. The residents of the world’s most ambitious urban experiment are sitting in underground parking garages because Dubai has no bomb shelters. Nobody models a bank run until it starts. open.substack.com/pub/shanak…

the current position of the US government is that NVIDIA should be allowed to sell chips directly to China but banned from using Claude, because the latter is a larger national security risk. that is the level of absolute insanity coming out of the White House & Pentagon nowadays

Nobody is talking about the most important variable in the strike timeline. It is not the deadline. It is not Geneva. It is not the carriers. It is Narendra Modi. Tomorrow, February 25, the Prime Minister of India lands in Tel Aviv for a two-day state visit. He will meet Netanyahu. He will address the Knesset at 4:30 PM. He will visit Yad Vashem. He represents 1.4 billion people and the world's fifth-largest economy. The 48-hour deadline expires the same day Modi's plane touches Israeli soil. You do not launch a strike on Iran, triggering retaliatory ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli territory, while the leader of 1.4 billion people is standing inside the Knesset. The Secret Service equivalent for both nations would physically prevent it. The diplomatic fallout of endangering a visiting head of state during a military operation you initiated would collapse the very alliance Netanyahu is trying to build. He literally described the Modi visit as constructing a "hexagon of alliances" against radical axes, meaning Iran. You do not blow up the hexagon while assembling it. This means the earliest realistic strike window opens the evening of February 26, after Modi departs. Which is the same day Geneva talks resume. The timeline architecture is now visible in full. The 48-hour deadline expires February 25. Nothing happens because Modi is on the ground. February 26, Modi leaves. Geneva talks convene the same day. If Iran arrives with nothing, or arrives with a proposal that does not meet zero enrichment, the diplomatic failure is now documented, witnessed, and internationally legible. The off-ramp has been publicly offered and publicly refused. The legal and political predicate for military action is established in front of the global press corps. Then comes March 2. Purim. The Israeli holiday celebrating deliverance from a Persian plot to destroy the Jewish people. Multiple analysts, including the Sri Lanka Guardian, have flagged this date as a speculated strike window. The symbolism would be unmistakable and deliberate. That gives you a seven-day sequence. Deadline expires Tuesday. Modi provides diplomatic cover through Wednesday. Geneva provides the documented failure Wednesday evening. Thursday through Sunday are preparation and final authorization. Monday, March 2, is Purim. Now understand why India issued an advisory telling all Indian citizens to leave Iran immediately. Not "exercise caution." Not "defer non-essential travel." Leave. India knows when its Prime Minister is scheduled to depart Israeli airspace, and India knows what the window after that departure looks like. Modi is not visiting Israel despite the crisis. Modi is visiting Israel because of the crisis. Netanyahu is collecting alliance signatures before the document they are signing onto gets executed. When the strikes come, Netanyahu needs to be able to say that the leader of the world's largest democracy was standing in the Knesset forty-eight hours earlier endorsing Israeli security partnerships. That is not a diplomatic visit. That is a pre-strike legitimacy operation. The market is watching the deadline. The market should be watching the departure. The clock does not start when the deadline expires. The clock starts when Modi's plane leaves Israeli airspace. And India just told its citizens to get out of Iran before it does. open.substack.com/pub/shanak…

SCOOP: Days before the inauguration, the Trump family secretly signed away 49% of World Liberty Financial, their crypto company, in a deal with a U.A.E. royal, acc. to documents and people familiar. The $500M investment came months before the U.A.E. won access to U.S. AI chips🧵

I’m an immigration restrictionist. I believe that we have the right to remove any and all people who entered our country illegally. Also, ICE is out of fucking control. A bunch of pussies, drunk on power going around intentionally escalating violent interactions and intimidating US citizens. They create these tragic situations and after this gigantic show of force, they won’t deport a fraction of the illegals who entered under Biden. This is simply not worth it.

John Mellencamp makes a surprise performance at IU football's National Championship celebration in Memorial Stadium. Mellencamp even brought up a few players to help sing along. #iufb