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It’s too bad the March Madness moniker is already taken, because there aren’t a lot of better ways to describe the latest mad-making weekend in geopolitics. In a social media post, Trump gave Iran a 48-hour ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz or he’d start bombing power plants. Iran issued counter-threats about hitting other power and desalination plants in the region. By Monday morning, Trump had backed off his original ultimatum, saying that the highly inexperienced and highly conflicted team of Kushner and Witkoff had some productive talks with Iranian leadership. Iran went so far, we’re told, as to agree not to have a nuclear weapon. The Iranian side insists that no such talks took place, and given Trump’s track record with honesty (including when it comes to this war), it’s hard to imagine he’s the one telling the truth (even when being measured against what’s left of one of the world’s most awful and perennially mendacious regimes). To summarize, an unstable leader leading an optional war made threats via social media and then rescinded them based on what appears to be imaginary talks and then lied about the whole thing, leaving our strategy unclear, our goals still a mystery, and a key energy route still closed. And the market responded to this mind-boggling instability (and what looks a lot like its own manipulation) by ... soaring. Yes, the same market we’ve long depended on to be an unemotional measure of corporate health and future earnings, dependent on stable leadership and the rule of law, seems to be going as insane as the rest of us. We’re talking crazy money, here. Before we follow the money, shouldn’t we consider who the money is following? It’s not like investors aren’t aware that the person whose words are dramatically moving the market is known for constant lying. But they’re still buying his BS. Trump has given new meaning to the phrase, bull market. Don’t get me wrong. My portfolio is as relieved as yours. But it sure seems like the market is in denial about what’s going on in American politics. Or maybe, like the rest of us, the market was happily distracted while tracking college basketball brackets over the weekend — at least there, we’re supposed to have madness.
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It’s Not the Size, It’s the Technique
One thing we’ve learned in Ukraine and the Gulf is that war is being transformed by cheap drones, big data, and AI. In this video, Fareed Zakaria examines Iran’s military response to US, Israeli airstrikes and says that it represents a new military architecture that is challenging the old model of military supremacy. “What used to require great industrial nations capacity can increasingly be assembled, adapted and scaled by much smaller states. The economics of war are being turned upside down.” In some ways, this trend levels the military playing field
+ Technology is completely changing war, often in unimagined ways. Consider Iran’s surveillance society. The regime installed cameras to track its own citizens. Those cameras were hacked to help provide accurate locations on targets, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran built a vast camera network to control dissent. Israel turned it into a targeting tool.
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Not Going Anywhere For a While
“Security lines stretched for hours on Monday at US airports where unpaid Transportation Safety Administration screening agents refused to report for duty.” So far, Trump has rejected proposed deals to fund parts of DHS to create an off-ramp for the nightmare delays taking place at many airports. The solution so far: Send ICE into airports. (Untrained ICE officers vs Irate Travelers. What could go wrong?)
+ “Two pilots were killed and dozens were injured Sunday night after an arriving plane collided with a fire truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.”
+ The Atlantic (Gift Article): Fatal crashes, overstressed controllers, and endless security lines reveal a system teetering on the brink of failure. (I’m guessing anyone reading this in an endless airport security line thinks we’ve passed the teetering stage.)
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Paper and Fire
“The body lay slumped on the jail floor, curled around a metal toilet. Investigators found no evidence of homicide, just a few scraps of rolled-up paper, singed and scattered on the floor like scorched confetti. For months, inmates had been falling ill at the Cook County jail in Chicago. Officials said they had heard rumors that extremely toxic drugs were infiltrating the facility, delivered on something so ordinary that it seemed impossible to stop ... The paper itself must be the culprit — and it was deadly.” NYT (Gift Article): No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing. And what’s happening in jails is likely coming to a street corner near you. “The unbridled rise of synthetic drugs is as profound for the illicit drug market as the television was for the radio, or the computer for the typewriter, scientists say, and it is confounding law enforcement officials the world over. ‘This is the modern drug epidemic: It’s like nothing that’s happened in the world before — anywhere.’”
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Extra, Extra
Things Are Going Bad, Stat: “I’m an E.R. doc, so I handle stress pretty well. But this was like being in a mass disaster nonstop for eight months.” ... “I don’t think it is well understood that we’re not going to see the outcomes of all of this until Trump is long gone.” NYT (Gift Article) talked to 43 current and former CDC employees. The prognosis is not good. Inside the Turmoil at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s C.D.C.
+ Robert Mueller: “Good, I’m Glad He’s Dead.” Disgustingly (but unsurprisingly), that’s how Trump responded to the death of Robert Mueller. From Garrett Graff: Remembering Robert Mueller. “Robert Mueller, the quintessential G-Man, a patriot and Purple Heart recipient who spent a half-century serving the country and pursuing the highest traditions of the Justice Department across six presidential administrations, repeatedly answering the nation’s call — from Vietnam to the halls of the J. Edgar Hoover building and the halls of Main Justice — until in his final chapter of public service he was betrayed by a former colleague and the Republican Party he’d spent a lifetime supporting, died Friday.”
+ Mail Pattern Boldness: “The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday sounded skeptical of state laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.” (Most of us are ready to mail in our ballots right now.)
+ Trouble in Paradise: “Over the weekend, heavy rains fell on soil already saturated by downpours from a winter storm a week ago, forcing thousands on the North Shore of Oahu to evacuate before more evacuations for parts of the island of Maui.” Hawaii assesses damage left by worst flooding in more than 20 years.
+ Havana Hunch: “Trump’s campaign to topple foreign adversaries encounters a battered but defiant regime.” No, we’re not talking about Iran. (Or Greenland.) Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker: Is Cuba Next?
+ Going Postal: “In dozens of thinly populated regions across the country, Amazon is building new delivery hubs to deliver packages in around two days. That might not seem especially rapid at a time when the e-commerce giant is introducing one-hour delivery in some areas, but residents of some far-flung Montana hamlets were used to waiting up to a week for their orders. The effort helps Amazon reduce its reliance on the U.S. Postal Service, a relationship that has become rocky following a dispute over contract terms.” WSJ (Gift Article):