NZ should drop reliance on Trumps imperial republic.

67 comments on “NZ should drop reliance on Trumps imperial republic. ”

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1. SPC 1

   23 June 2025 at 1:40 pm

   No kings.

   No RSB to anoint imperial capital and their Vichy class of servants to lord it over us in our land.

   Capital should not be held up on high, like an idol, it does not make the world go around.

   Reply
   • lprent 1.1

     23 June 2025 at 1:49 pm

     Problem is that he isn't acting as a king, they are invariably constrained by their competitor aristocrats.

     Trump's approach is imperial of a type that generally seems to arise out of republics without a monarchy. The Roman imperium, Cromwell in the Proetctorate, Napolean and Napolean III, etc.

     That appears to me to be the primary reason that republics have short half-lifes compared to monarchies and a parliamentary systems.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_date_of_transition_to_a_republican_system_of_government

     San Marino, the smallest European state is the oldest constitutional republic at purportedly 17 centuries old.

     Reply
     • SPC 1.1.1

       23 June 2025 at 4:37 pm

       You seem to be conflating republic with empire.

       The HRE of Europe. The Tsar of Russian empire did not operate as nation state throne realms.

       Nor the Caliphs and Sultans (Ottoman).

       What endures is the nation state – whether, republic or monarchy, is besides the point.

       Cromwell was a domestic tyrant – a one person dynasty. So was King John (see Magna Carta), so were both the usurper Henry 7th and 8th, but each in their own way.

       Monarchy and parliament is no better than a republican head of state and parliament.

       USA and Russian and Iranian and China all have a head of state not accountable to the people via parliament, each for different reasons.

       But note that Anthony Blair took the UK into action in Iraq and Australia and Canada with him.

       The risk is not a republican state, it is the executive power held by one person. Many republics give their head of state a limited role. Those that do not need strong constitutional safeguards.

       (SCOTUS betrayed the American republic – to the cause of their GOP sponsor)

       Of course the risk to the world from a republic’s failure is related to its capacity to be able to exercise imperial power.

       Reply
       • lprent 1.1.1.1

         23 June 2025 at 6:48 pm

         You seem to be conflating republic with empire.

         Nope. That is you simply not reading what I'm saying.

         Almost every republic in history has evolved degenerated into an empire format if they have 'room' (either area or technological) to expand. If they don't have that room, then they mostly wind up in some form of dictatorship or aristocratic kleptocracy.

         This is pretty obvious when you look at something like Rome transitioning from from the republic based on a senate, or the first French republic. They get attacked or attack someone else, the executive position (president, consul, or whatever name) gets too powerful and they keep grabbing control.

         The exceptions like San Marino are usually constrained with little room for power grabbing.

         Warlord empires form in a totally different political mechanism. Primarily based on conquest. The Tsardom of Russia is a pretty clear example. They usually expand by invasion (think the Swedish empire of Charles XII) or subversion (often the primary mechanism of the great Russian expansion).

         There are also empires that form from marriage families. The Austro-Hungarian empire or the Holy Roman empire. But that is pretty much conquest by cheaper means than invasion or subversion.

         Just as parliamentary constitutional monarchies (a relatively recent phenomenon) may develop a empire but typically based on trade (think Dutch, British). So far these seen to have relatively short duration mostly because their parliaments aren't enthusiastic about taxation to support large occupation forces.

         What they also have is relatively long periods of stable reactive politics in the home state compared to most other models. They adapt fast according to the environment

         Reply
         • SPC 1.1.1.1.1

           23 June 2025 at 7:27 pm

           Republics that become empires, grow and then collapse

           So do kingdoms.

           Kingdoms begin with autocracy, so they cannot relapse. They either become republics, or constitutional monarchy.

           Republics that do not begin in such a way, can then relapse.

           That is not a function of it being a republic.

           The idea that kingdoms keep each other in line – ignores wars between national kingdoms. And a shared interest in protecting their regime type (what motivated the republic of France to be militant – the love of the Tsar and throne creatures such as Metternich?).

           It can be argued power corrupts within a nation and also power imbalance between nations. As does ambition for power.

           The concept of a superiority of the parliamentary constitutional monarchies, ignores the colonial settlement injustice to the native peoples and the fact the USA was modelled on the UK of 1776.

           And its pet colony is …. .

           Reply
           • mikesh 1.1.1.1.1.1

             23 June 2025 at 9:01 pm

             Kingdoms begin with autocracy, so they cannot relapse. They either become republics, or constitutional monarchy.

             There seems have been a tendency for "aristocratic kleptocracies" to exploit the plebians. Many kings acquire power and maintain it by sticking up for the latter: for example, Kleisthenes in Athens and Julius Caesar in Rome. the AKs resent their rule and sometimes overthrow them, setting up, or restoring, republics. This seems to have been what happened to the Tarquins, and of course Caesar was eventually assassinated. Another example would be the overthrow of Charles II by William of Orange, with the help of some of the protestant English aristocracy, although this seems have related to religious differences rather than economics.

             Reply
             • SPC …

               23 June 2025 at 10:09 pm

               The noble man, Kleisthenes, prepares the way for democracy (and then it kills Socrates for blasphemy and it was not lese majesty).

               The not so noble Julius Caesar killed many to build the empire of Rome further and this (aided earlier by partnership with a rich man and a man of standing) prepared the way for the seizure of power from the Senate (who acted to defend Rome from a king of the too easily impressed plebians/MAGA land).

               The insufferable Gaius "Julius Caesar" Octavius called himself imperator (the legions of another were undefeated) and son of the god who adopted him.

               James II … Charles was harmless to everyone but the sensibilities of the remaining puritans.

               I do not come to praise the Tarquins, was not Severius a better king, and license for a second son to act like a prince above the law dishonours Lucretia.

               Too much like the Bacchiadae drunkards at Corinth, or is that the Cornwall Gin/Greek Tarquins.

               Reply
             • SPC …

               23 June 2025 at 10:57 pm

               A man can be a good king (for all and not for some, and for the many and not the elite only), but this is only required of kingship if they are accountable to the people. If so, is it kingship?

               Reply
           • lprent 1.1.1.1.1.2

             24 June 2025 at 12:00 am

             Kingdoms begin with autocracy, so they cannot relapse. They either become republics, or constitutional monarchy.

             I'm not comparing kingdoms against republics.

             I am comparing republics against constitutional monarchies.

             I can't quite see what you're failing to see that. A monarchy is a rare rare beast these days.

             Outside of Brunei who else… Wikipedia

             Set the sort order to Type.

             • Brunei,
             • Eswatini,
             • Oman,
             • Saudi Arabia (I should have known that)
             • The Vatican.

             Damn – there are lot of images of King Charles in there.

             The idea that kingdoms keep each other in line – ignores wars between national kingdoms.

             You're not reading what I said again. Not to mention that was in a different comment I think. A quote would be of help

             What I said was probably 'aristocratic peers' or something like it.

             In the UK in the eras where it mattered that (usually) meant Dukes and Earls.

             If you ever look through the history various plots against reigning kings or queens in the UK and other countries then the concerns of monarchs were

             • revolts and plots by cousins – usually Dukes or Earls or equivalent
             • peasant revolts – usually religious based
             • tax revolts by cities or guilds
             • other monarchs (where usually the result was reasonably civilised)

             An extreme examples of

             • the first was the regicidal Wars of the Roses.
             • The second, the Peasant revolt of 1381.
             • The third, probably the best example was the Harelle in Rouen and Paris in 1382 but also in a more structured but quite dangeous way the Short Parliament of Charles I in England eventually it lost Charles hi head.

             The fourth you referred to so presumably you know what I am referring to., usually a jostling over territory between monarchs with someone else taking the danger.

             The first three were actually always dangerous to the monarch to one degree or another. The last required the monarch to take the field (something that they generally avoided), a really upset opposing monarch to both win and to have an intent of setting a bad example for monarchs everywhere by not being concerned about ransom possibilities.

             The concept of a superiority of the parliamentary constitutional monarchies, ignores the colonial settlement injustice to the native peoples and the fact the USA was modelled on the UK of 1776.

             I didn't say they were superior. You really do persist in not reading what I said and just make up shit to put into my mouth. Are you sure that don't have a touch of spin doctor in your ancestry?

             What I said is they are longer lived, more stable, and don't tend to drift into the emperor mode that the executive of a republic usually seems to wind up in.

             Reply
             • SPC …

               24 June 2025 at 12:27 pm

               What I said is they are longer lived, more stable, and don't tend to drift into the emperor mode that the executive of a republic usually seems to wind up in.

               And you do not think this can be seen as a claim that the constitutional republic was inferior to a constitutional monarchy? Really?

               And citing past republics (not constitutional) is then not relevant unless that is in comparison to autocratic monarchy.

               I am comparing republics against constitutional monarchies.

               And why not constitutional republics to autocratic monarchy, it is as inappropriate.

               The relevant issue today is, what nations can become empire.

               It is those with the UNSC veto, or with nuclear weapons.

               And of those, it is where the constitutional constraint on the executive does not exist. Or power is as agent of the UN Charter enforcement mechanism or some security cartel (NATO)(Cold War).

               The UK beholden to alliance with the USA went into Iraq, but not France.

               Neither of the two is capable of acting as empire alone.

               China and Russia are, and in conflict with the USA, so three hegemonies.

               Three connect their leadership to a religion. The Church of England Crown, Putin has restored the Russian Orthodox Church and the Trump bible (pro Zionist) and flag in place of constitutional limitation on POTUS is now obvious.

               China is dedicated to one party rule, commune'ism/confucious'ism.

               Russia and America/UK rival white race Christian identity nationalisms (western and eastern).

               And do not forget India (Modi Hindu nationalism) has nukes and wants control of the Indus water.

               And of course threatening a nuclear power hegemon (Israel), requires a nation to act as a regional rival, become an imperial power.

               Now back to the UN …and Peter Fraser.

               Reply
     • SPC 1.1.2

       23 June 2025 at 11:27 pm

       Trump is acting like a king, both internally and externally.

       A king above the international order. And this ones brand is oligarchy, related to the supremacy of capital.

       There are 4 other kings – they each have the UNSC veto (and nuclear weapons).

       Peter Fraser said it was so, back in 1945.

       We cannot oppose that kingship while subordinate to that supremacism of capital, nor without some dissent to this international kingship.

       Thus our traditional support for the UN Charter, collective security and the rule of law.

       Reply
2. Res Publica 2

   23 June 2025 at 2:27 pm

   I agree with the core sentiment: New Zealand should steer well clear of yet another American Middle East misadventure, especially one built on the delusions of a washed-up reality TV demagogue and an Israeli government that sees every regional problem as a nail for its military hammer.

   But let’s not lose the plot by blaming “the republic” as a system for this kind of imperial spiral.

   The fall of republics, Rome included, has never been about the flaws of republicanism itself. It’s always been about immediate political exigencies being prioritized over long-term reform.

   Every step that dragged the Roman Republic toward Caesar made perfect sense in the moment: land reform, military restructuring, emergency powers, informal power-sharing deals. No one set out to end the Republic. They just couldn’t afford to think past next week’s crisis.

   Ditto with Cromwell’s Commonwealth. Two civil wars in five years, a regicide, deep religious fragmentation, and a near-global war with the Dutch would put any system under pressure, monarchical or republican.

   Sound familiar?

   America isn’t collapsing because it’s a republic. It’s collapsing because for fifty years, every administration has kicked the structural reform can down the road: infrastructure, inequality, healthcare, campaign finance, judicial reform, climate, you name it. While papering over crises with executive overreach, surveillance powers, and military aggression.

   That’s not an indictment of the republican model. That’s an indictment of political cowardice and strategic myopia.

   And let’s be real: imperial overreach isn’t a uniquely American problem. Various monarchies, theocracies, autocracies, and yes democracies, have exported death and destabilization for centuries. The only difference is, they don’t pretend to be accountable to voters while they do it.

   The real story here isn’t that republics become empires. It’s that weak republics: those that abandon reform, ignore domestic rot, and let political exigency substitute for vision, make themselves vulnerable to charismatic strongmen and endless war.

   That’s not structural destiny. That’s historical negligence.

   So yes, Trump is a symptom. Netanyahu is a symptom. But let’s not pretend the disease is the republic. The disease is strategic failure sold as pragmatism, decade after decade, until there’s nothing left to defend but a flag and a stockpile of weapons.

   Because, in the end, Democracy doesn’t die to fascism.

   It dies in indifference.

   In apathy. In cynical shrugs. In the quiet normalization of things that would’ve once been unthinkable.

   Reply
   • lprent 2.1

     23 June 2025 at 2:43 pm

     The real story here isn’t that republics become empires. It’s that weak republics: those that abandon reform, ignore domestic rot, and let political exigency substitute for vision, make themselves vulnerable to charismatic strongmen and endless war.

     That’s not structural destiny. That’s historical negligence

     Sure, it may not be the intent.

     However it is historically absolutely consistent in every constitutional republic that is less than a microcosm.

     Now if you'd have wanted to make an argument, then pointing to large republic that is actually continuously older than the USA. Now slightly less than 250 years old depended when you want to measure it from 1776 or 1788 when they signed a constitution.

     Offhand, I'd think that the Roman republic was probably the longest continuous working republic – lasting 482 years from 509 BC to 27 BC (Augustus) growing from a city state to the super power of the Med.

     Whereas there are numerous monarchies, and even parliamentary monarchies that were at least as stable and long lived.

     It dies in indifference.

     In apathy. In cynical shrugs. In the quiet normalization of things that would’ve once been unthinkable.

     Agreed. Which is exactly why I make time for this site and other things I do to keep a loose and unrigid working democracy without a written constitution to ignore..

     Reply
     • Res Publica 2.1.1

       23 June 2025 at 2:57 pm

       Now if you'd have wanted to make an argument, then pointing to large republic that is actually continuously older than the USA. Now slightly less than 250 years old depended when you want to measure it from 1776 or 1788 when they signed a constitution.

       As a counterpoint, there’s a long list of democracies, monarchies, theocracies, and every hybrid in between that have collapsed under the weight of political exigency or crisis.

       Maybe the real anomaly isn’t that republics fall, but that they tend to fall slower than most, precisely because of their malleability.

       Monarchies, by contrast, often appear stronger on the surface: more unified, more enduring. But they can also be extremely brittle. When they go, they tend to go down hard and fast (see the French monarchy in 1789 and again in 1830).

       Or, if we’re going to continue our Roman analogy, the Seleucid kingdom after Pydna.

       Or just hard, like Russia in 1917.

       Reply
       • lprent 2.1.1.1

         23 June 2025 at 4:15 pm

         Sure, everything has instabilities. However what you neglect to do is to look at the periods of stability.

         It is also easy to cherry pick irrelevant examples.

         the Seleucid kingdom after Pydna.

         The Seleucids were dominated by a superior external military force, the Romans rather than falling apart internally. It also in no way was any kind of representative state even to Roman republic standards before Pydna. It was born as a absolute empire (it was based on Alexanders empire!) – effectively based on military dictatorship – ie warlord state and stayed that its demise.

         The well-known flaws of that kind of state, including the inevitable inheritance civil wars happened before Pydna.

         Or just hard, like Russia in 1917.

         The Russian empire formed in 1721 (and died in 1917). However it derived directly from the Tsardom of Muscovy, which started in 1547.

         It started as an absolute monarchy that acquired imperial trimmings. The Imperial Duma only arrived in 1906 after a failed war and a near rebellion and weas initially regarded as a advisory body only. Arguably it can be regarded as a cause of the 1917 revolution.

         But the Russian empire is a pretty good example of long-term longevity comparable to the Roman republic. It lasted about 450 years with a couple of significiant changes and a massive expansion.

         Pretty good run compared to the rigidity brittleness already apparent in the USA after less than 250 years.

         The last significiant successful constitutional amendment there (the 25th) was achieved in 1967. The 26th voting age dropped to 18 and 27th (started in 1789 and taking 202 years to ratify) were very late technical changes – why would anyone put voting age in a constitution?

         But if you look at the list, you really have to go back to 22nd (term limits on presidents) in 1947 to find something that is really significiant and beyond merely a technical fix.

         It just speaks to being a system that is bypassing a rigid arthritic constitution that is less than 250 years old.

         If you look at how we pass constitutional changes here, then Age of voting dropping to 18, Constitution Act, MMP, Treaty of Waitangi Act, Fiscal Responsibility Act, Bill of Rights Act, and about maybe another 10 acts of significant constitutional significance equivalent to US amendments (Abortion Act, Civil Union Act, etc etc) have all gone through since I was politically aware (ie 1974).

         That is constitutional flexibility. A much smaller state. But even Australia with its states and large population runs at a similar pace.

         Reply
     • Res Publica 2.1.2

       23 June 2025 at 2:59 pm

       Offhand, I'd think that the Roman republic was probably the longest continuous working republic – lasting 482 years from 509 BC to 27 BC (Augustus) growing from a city state to the super power of the Med.

       Of course, the timeline depends on who you ask, how you define “republic,” or working, and when you think it actually died.

       If you asked Augustus (or even Tiberius) they wouldn’t have said they destroyed the res publica. Quite the opposite. They claimed they were restoring it.

       Reply
       • lprent 2.1.2.1

         23 June 2025 at 4:25 pm

         Sure, and they listened intensely to the Senate. /sarc

         Well, Tiberius probably did somewhat. He wasn't running a multi-angle civil war. However as wikipedia glances over in summary

         From the outset, Tiberius had a difficult, resentful relationship with the Senate and suspected many plots against him. Nevertheless, he proved to be an effective and efficient administrator.

         Caligula was his successor and wikipedia is more charitable than either me or his contemparies however does capture the true imperial spirit..

         During his brief reign, Caligula worked to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor, as opposed to countervailing powers within the principate.

         and of course there is his demise and a pattern emerges that follows for most of the following century.

         In early 41, Caligula was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy by officers of the Praetorian Guard, senators, and courtiers. At least some of the conspirators might have planned this as an opportunity to restore the Roman Republic and aristocratic privileges. If so, their plan was thwarted by the Praetorians, who seem to have spontaneously chosen Caligula's uncle Claudius as the next emperor.

         Reply
3. Dennis Frank 3

   23 June 2025 at 2:35 pm

   Can't argue with any of that. In a multipolar world, bipolar folk are nostalgia freaks, so those trying to shoehorn everyone into pro-US or pro-China just seem pathetic. Our foreign policy ought to be principled independence. Someone has to be the adult in the global room, and among the global powers, that currently tends to be Europe so I expect our positioning will reflect theirs. This is all due to Palestinians resisting the two-state solution, right? Not all of them, I mean lack of consensus there.

   As regards the islamic nutter syndrome, as long as the Koran mandates killing of non-believers, anyone else will run scared. If islamists want to be taken seriously, they will have to stop living in the 7th or 8th century AD. They were the conduit for science from the classical era, so no reason they can't learn how to be civilised. I wonder if the elderly supremacist went to his mosque and said "Praise be to Allah, I have reached my use-by date. Tell my 72 virgins to prepare themselves as I already feel the rush of hormones I last felt long ago. Here I come!" Then the let-down when Trump declared him safe.

   Reply
   • lprent 3.1

     24 June 2025 at 10:12 am

     As regards the islamic nutter syndrome, as long as the Koran mandates killing of non-believers, anyone else will run scared.

     It doesn’t. Only an illiterate who hasn’t bothered to read it or to read about it would think that.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_in_the_Quran#Peace_and_conciliation

     What it does have is various sections about self-defense when being attacked. Which tends to be common in the text of most religions.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_in_the_Quran#Verses_on_conflict

     Should I class you as a mindless propaganda parrot.

     The christian bible on the other hand frequently advocates violence, especially (as you’d expect) in the Hebrew bible, but also in some phrases in the new testament.
     I remember those well (but not in detail). That was how I got expelled from Sunday School when I was 7ish. Apparently the old testament was not something that the sunday school teacher had ever looked at. Baptists..
     Here is a basic introduction.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_violence
     Of course when you want to look at forced conversions and killing of infidels, then I suggest that you have good look at the Crusaders being guide dby the teaching and papal urging of the Western Catholic Church. In particular look at their sacking on Byzantium.

     At various time in my life I have wandered through the writings of a number of religions, and been highly unmoved by any faith.

     Some of the Hindu texts of current widely extant religions would be high on my violence index – like the story of Arjuna. Almost up with the old testament. However there are many ways in Hinduism and it doesn’t expect that everyone will embrace Ahimsa like Ghandi, at least not in their current incarnation.

     However the Koran is about as pacific as the teachings of Buddha.

     Reply
     • Dennis Frank 3.1.1

       24 June 2025 at 11:37 am

       Should I class you as a mindless propaganda parrot.

       Well you could, inasmuch as I was going on an actual quote from the Koran that I saw somewhere some years ago. Since I don't have it handy, could be a case of unreliable memory, huh? So I asked Google.

       At a recent interfaith gathering, a few guests privately expressed sincere concerns about the often quoted Quranic passage that refers to the killing of unbelievers — a passage I am frequently asked about.

       While none of those asking about this passage had had the opportunity to read the entire Quran with understanding, in taking a few lines out of context they sadly came away with an erroneous interpretation

       https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/death-to-unbelievers-qurans-most-misread-words/

       So I take your point, and that of the author quoted. What bothers me still though is that the author does not specify the actual text that seems – to some readers to incite the killing of unbelievers. As though too many folk will take it literally…

       Reply
       • lprent 3.1.1.1

         27 June 2025 at 7:52 am

         You can usually tell propaganda. The best tell is that they don’t leave sufficient links to find what they were talking about.

         Virtually everything religious I have ever read has phrases that can be taken out of context and massaged into something that sounds really off. The texts are old, were often transcribed from a oral tradition, and in most cases are just hearsay accounts. The Christian Bible being classic for the latter from the acts of Moses to the deeds of Jesus – most recounted by someone that clearly wasn’t there.

         Apart from anything else, typically most religious texts haves been translated multiple times in a changing context. Just take Christian bible which takes stories written down in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, but frequently having come from oral traditions that borrowed stories from from all kinds of cultures from centuries or millennium earlier. Redone into modified and adapted approved Greek or Latin texts, then translated in languages like Amharic or Elizabethan English (virtually unintelligible to English readers today), then politically screwed by translators and those that commissioned the revised versions.

         The history of the King James version of the Bible in wikipedia is a pretty good summary of the process.

         Reply
         • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.1.1

           27 June 2025 at 8:31 am

           Yeah, I share your view of all that. Propaganda nowadays is competing spin, usually banal but sometimes you get nuances, like this from a CNN analyst:

           He implied that a statement by Iran not to seek nuclear weapons would undercut his own claim that their program was obliterated.

           https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/26/politics/trump-iran-nuclear-program-damage

           Nowadays I'm much in favour of the view that people form impressions from influences, competing spin forms a cultural/political vortex like a weather pattern, sucks in those susceptible. The notion of the universal mind didn't come from the Doors, despite Jim doing a song about it, it came from the early 20th century via some kind of transcendent religious fella (de Chardin), but the twist now on that comes from seeing that any influential group generates its own.

           Operational holism tells us that any thinker operating in deep context will try to use the whole as arena in their mind, and perform on that basis, yet it is also tempting to address a binary crowd for strategic reasons, often…

           Reply
4. Ad 4

   23 June 2025 at 2:38 pm

   I wish I had stronger principles, but at 91 $3.50 a litre they'll go out the window.

   If as the Iranian Parliament voted the Strait of Hormuz closes, we're in a Six Day War parallel.

   Our refinery supply alternative is in Australia, and that regrettably is one White House call away.

   We’ll do well to retain an independent foreign policy out of this.

   Reply
   • lprent 4.1

     23 June 2025 at 2:55 pm

     The 6-day war was a minor hiccup.

     Back in 1979, I resolved not to ever become dependent on fuel prices for anything important. History repeats…

     New Zealand in the first half of 1978 sourced 39% of its oil from Iran.[2] The Iranian Revolution and the subsequent 1979 oil shock led to a sudden reduction in oil available on the market. Consequently, international oil prices increased by a factor of 15 in nominal terms or a factor of 7 in real terms between 1972 and 1980. Despite active price controls in New Zealand, local prices also rose rapidly from $0.10 in 1972 to $0.62 in 1980.[3] These price increases decreased demand; a 24.8% price increase in May before the introduction of the carless days scheme reduced petrol demand by 11%.[4] As a result of the oil shock and the difficulty in obtaining oil elsewhere in a tight market, in March 1979, the country was receiving approximately 10-15% less oil than it normally would.

     Even these days I have a RS 1500 hybrid that does close to 4 litres per 100km, and can happily get from Auckland to Wellington provided I don't use sport mode too often.

     Next house we buy, one of the main requirements apart from having 2 offices and a bedroom is that it is easy to shift completely to solar + battery. That is because I like the idea of being off the shaky grid and being able to be self-fueled.

     One should always learn from history

     This wouldn’t be a good time to own a Ford Ranger (or a Holden back in the day)

     Reply
     • Ad 4.1.1

       23 June 2025 at 3:04 pm

       New Zealand is much less energy resilient now than in the 1970s. It's great that a few aren't. Our economy and most state structures are perilously weak now.

       If the oil crisis grows as is likely, there has to be a growing question about our constitutional relationship to Australia.

       Reply
   • Bearded Git 4.2

     23 June 2025 at 4:07 pm

     $3.50 a litre is cheap when the climate change effects of burning fossil fuel are taken into account.

     Well done with your (unintended) climate change actions King Donald.

     https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#Brent-Crude

     Reply
     • Ad 4.2.1

       23 June 2025 at 4:47 pm

       Almost as big for NZ is fertilizer for dairy farmers and cement for construction.

       Our supplies may or may not be secure, but the market price will spike given the petroleum products into their making.

       Reply
5. Psycho Milt 5

   23 June 2025 at 3:51 pm

   "Neither New Zealand nor Australia should have any part in this stupid war mongering."

   Has there been any suggestion we might be asked to play some kind of part in something? There seems to be a widespread assumption that Trump just started a major war, but we've been hearing for years (including from him! Fucking blowhard) that supporting democracies militarily against dictatorships will start WWIII, so I'm skeptical that there's any larger conflict waiting to happen here.

   Israel has no means of imposing regime change on Iraq and the US certainly won't be trying to invade the place. That's a hiding-to-nothing that someone as self-interested as Trump wouldn't touch with a bargepole, let alone the effect on his 'America First, no more wars' voter base.

   Now that Israel's wrecked its proxies, Iran's regime has few options – if it fired a few missiles at US bases there'd be a bit of tit-for-tat and done. If it were to close the straits of Hormuz, any of its leaders still breathing a fortnight later would have reason to be surprised about that. I mean, they're religious loons, but they do have a level of self-interest.

   What's your scenario for us being asked to commit to something?

   Reply
   • Nic the NZer 5.1

     23 June 2025 at 4:22 pm

     Think you were supposed to update your talking points for Iran this time.

     Reply
   • Ad 5.2

     23 June 2025 at 4:49 pm

     It would be a foolish person that trusted PM Luxon to have the same fortitude as PM Clark to resist the White House or Canberra call to arms.

     Reply
     • Psycho Milt 5.2.1

       23 June 2025 at 5:34 pm

       Not a good time to have a PM whose principles depend on who spoke to him last, for sure!

       Reply
       • lprent 5.2.1.1

         23 June 2025 at 11:11 pm

         Yeah, and a defence minister who has a innate ability to go off half-cocked if she can get a story out of it.

         Reply
   • Ad 5.3

     23 June 2025 at 5:12 pm

     The scenario follows every war the US has been involved in since Korea: the Beehive gets a phonecall from the White House or Canberra.

     We answer yes.

     Except for Helen Clark. Who waited for UN SC resolutions every time and even then often stood her ground.

     The call is coming.

     Reply
     • Psycho Milt 5.3.1

       23 June 2025 at 5:32 pm

       I can easily imagine a call coming in along the lines of "We want you to help protect shipping in the Hormuz Strait." We'd have no choice but to say yes to that, same as with the Red Sea shipping. A country as dependent on shipping as us can't just say "Shipping? Schmipping. Count us out." But a call to say "We want you to help us invade Iran?" Can't see that one happening

       Reply
       • lprent 5.3.1.1

         23 June 2025 at 5:51 pm

         In this case I think we shouldn't do it then either.

         The USA and Israel created this war. They can bloody well clean it up on their own. They have both made an unprovoked attack on state in violation of the UN Charter.

         Bailing those countries out of their own stupidity shouldn't be any other countries agenda.

         In any case, it is almost irrelevant.

         Iran only has to declare the straits to be a war zone (which it would be), and insurers won't look at cargo going through there. The Iranians haven't signed UNCLOS or the Convention. So there are no real legal constraints

         see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz#Ability_of_Iran_to_hinder_shipping

         There are alternative routes, so it isn't likely to be as long as the 1979 or 1980 oil-shocks that diminished supply. Plus the world its almost awash with oil these days as consumption slowly diminishes as supply from the US increases.

         Besides the market reactions have been interesting. This just dropped into my box from an analyst I follow.

         Fascinating calm after the US attack on Iran

         ..
         But many remain optimistic that Iran will avoid a full-blown retaliation and regional chaos, to prevent its own oil facilities from becoming targets and to avoid a widening conflict that could hurt China – its biggest oil customer. So some think – and trade the idea – that the threat of disruption to oil trade will not materialize.

         So, US crude opened the week at $78pb, but didn’t climb beyond $78.60 before sliding toward $76pb. Brent didn’t even reach the $78pb mark, while nat gas is up by less than 1% at the time of writing.

         So far, satellite images reportedly suggest that oil continues to flow through the Strait, which may explain the muted market reaction to the news. Still, two supertankers – each capable of carrying 2 million barrels of oil – made a U-turn to avoid the region, according to Bloomberg. The Persian Gulf has been increasingly jammed since June 13th, tanker fees are soaring, and the US has issued warnings to the broader region, hinting that more action may be coming.

         Reply
         • Psycho Milt 5.3.1.1.1

           23 June 2025 at 7:22 pm

           "They have both made an unprovoked attack on state in violation of the UN Charter."

           Again, the mullahs may think that waging war on Israel via proxies gives them plausible deniability, but it really doesn't.

           "Iran only has to declare the straits to be a war zone (which it would be), and insurers won't look at cargo going through there."

           1988 all over again! Thing is, the US produces its own oil now, so the above would hurt us more than the US. If it were to call us about keeping the strait open, we'd have to take it seriously.

           Reply
           • lprent 5.3.1.1.1.1

             23 June 2025 at 11:10 pm

             Thing is, the US produces its own oil now, so the above would hurt us more than the US. If it were to call us about keeping the strait open, we'd have to take it seriously.

             Right. But you (or whatever you've parroting from) really haven't thought this through..

             Sigh – do at least try to keep up current affairs of this century in this country.

             Marsden point oil refinery has been closed. You probably haven' though through the implications of that.

             That means we are no longer lumbered with the late colonial relic for only processing various grades of middle-eastern oil. Originally almost entirely from Iran because of BP and the Americian oil companies installed there by the CIA-led coup in 1953.

             These days we buy refined petroleum products mostly from Singapore (and have been doing so increasingly for decades) from whatever oil refinery processes something going through the Malacca straits.

             Singapore and Malaysia have a almost compete set of refineries and can process virtually all grades of oil. If they can't then South Korea or Japan can and do (they are the other two alternate suppliers).

             Plus the world is awash with oil for sale, even with various sanctions in place for Russian oil (since 2022) and Iranian oil (since 2018). That is why the price per barrel dropped last month down to just above USD60.

             In part that is because of exactly what you pointed out. The fracking industry in the US is pumping oil. That also means that there is more oil to spread around the rest of the world, including NZ. High production has gotten so bad in the US that the price drops for crude have also causing fracking rigs to go out of production.

             Reply
             • Psycho Milt …

               24 June 2025 at 5:28 am

               All, you're saying here is "Yes, freedom of shipping is very important to New Zealand."

               Reply
   • lprent 5.4

     23 June 2025 at 5:32 pm

     .. but we've been hearing for years … that supporting democracies militarily against dictatorships will start WWIII,

     Interesting, I can't remember him ever expressing it like that. Furthermore I have never heard him say that about Iran. Perhaps you could link to those…

     Plus of course, while it isn't a great democracy, Iran isn't a dictatorship and does in fact operate a electoral system. You can get a reasonable assessment at Freedom House – it is s state that limits the representation. Rather like what New Zealand was like in the late 19th century and the early 20th.

     Israel when not considering the Palestinians under military occupation only receive moderate score. If they included the Israeli occupied controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza then Israel is more of dictatorship than Iran is.

     The USA isn't exactly notable as a guiding light for democracy, at least compared to us in New Zealand and other states that that actually give a shit about having actual freedom rather than just using it as a meaningless slogan.

     //—

     But I digress

     If you can remember back to 2002/3 and the fiction about the WMD intelligence – which has an uncanny resonance in the current repeated over an over again line…

     “it’d only take months for Saddam to create WMD”

     and now

     'it'd only take a few weeks for Iran to create nuclear weapon'

     It was

     • a complete and almost certainly deliberate fabrication
     • the result of having literally no effective in-country intelligence in Iraq
     • was taken up by G W Bush as an excuse to finish his daddy's work without the restraint of the UN scepticism.
     • both NZ and Aussie were asked. The Aussies saw a good opportunity get in good – no-one I am aware of over there outside of the Murdoch rags seriously believed it including the Aussie head of the inspectors.

     The Israelis and the US Iran hardliners have now been running the same line for most of the the last decade. FFS Netanyahu was running that tired line back in 2018 when the IAEA inspectors were reporting 2.5% enrichment. Then it was months rather than weeks being the only difference.

     History repeats. In this case the big lie inducing fear tactic is pretty damn obviously in play. Reads just like 2002

     I'd ask you to provide the authoritative confirmation that Iran is weeks away from a nuclear weapon that was the pretext that supported the attacks by both the Israelis and US over the past week.

     Because to me, this looks like the Iraq / WMD strategy all over again. And I don't trust that weak-kneed place holder that we currently have as PM would have more backbone than John Howard displayed in 2003. Shipley, maybe – but she tends to be far too opportunistic.

     If it were to close the straits of Hormuz, any of its leaders still breathing a fortnight later would have reason to be surprised about that. I mean, they're religious loons, but they do have a level of self-interest.

     Ummm. You're using the 'gooks don't have the backbone' argument. Like Putin and his collaborators including in the West used about Ukraine in 2022 or even in 2014.

     I could cite a pile of other examples. However I really do need to do some work today. I'm sure that if you turned your mind to it you could think of a few. Just eliminate the 'gook' fallacy and it will come you.

     Have you ever had a good look at what actually happens in places that get unprovoked attacks against them in history.

     The one thing that they tend to have under control after it happens once is that they develop strong political and military chain of command succession. You'll find that this is least in the charisma militias (like the way it affected Hezbollah in the Israeli decapitation strikes) and strongest in the longer established formal military and political systems.

     A good examples of this has been shown the the obvious Israeli frustration in Gaza because they haven't been able to kill the command structures of the Hamas military despite how often they breathlessly announce the success of latest decapitation strike.

     Which is why they now kettling the whole Gaza population into concentration containment and systematically starving them to death. A tactic that they picked up from the Nazis – see Warsaw Ghetto and the 1943 uprising

     Reply
     • Dennis Frank 5.4.1

       23 June 2025 at 7:02 pm

       I suspect you're right but I get where T is coming from: Iran has been persistently acting in bad faith, just like the yanks. So he called their bluff, and we await whatever rabbit the old geezer pulls out of his turban. Abracadabara, take that, you infidel dog, and they fire off a bunch of shit that gets blown out of the sky…

       Thing is them deep bombs individually didn't go deep enough to clean out the Fordow installation according to spec. Could they do so via accumulative effect?

       Reply
       • lprent 5.4.1.1

         24 June 2025 at 10:30 am

         Thing is them deep bombs individually didn’t go deep enough to clean out the Fordow installation according to spec. Could they do so via accumulative effect?

         Unlikely. That would require pinpoint accuracy to go down the same hole. Don’t know if those bunker-buster weapons are equipped with in flight adjustment hardware and software. Otherwise what is most likely to happen for a bunker buster dropped next to the hole of another is to have no nett gain in depth. That is why attacking a compacted and layered dolomite/limestone mountian is so hard.

         Looking at what has been coming out overnight, it looks like the B2s targeted a vertical ventilation shaft which would have given additional depth. It was apparently the single ventilation shaft. That will make it harder to operate in the site for a while (not impossible with adequate suiting) until less targetable ventilation system was created.

         Plus of course the Iranians have said that they moved most or all of the target centrifuges and enriched material out prior to the attack. There haven’t been any reports of radioactivity, which would be the only indicators of target success.

         Personally, I’d guess that the B2s have effectively disabled the site for a short period. But given the Iranians a lesson in how to redesign their facilities. I don’t think that they have knocked out out a nuclear weapons programme, just delayed it.

         Reply
     • SPC 5.4.2

       23 June 2025 at 11:48 pm

       The general consensus today is that Saddam was engaging in a policy of ‘deterrence by doubt.’ Still fearful of the Iranians, he was sending out mixed messages, anxious that his neighbours should harbour the suspicion he’d fooled the UN and retained WMD.

       https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/what-did-happen-saddams-wmd

       The West weaponised because they were seeking to end sanctions with regime change.

       Reply
       • lprent 5.4.2.1

         24 June 2025 at 12:06 am

         Yep that is my understanding as well. Came to bite both sides in the arse.

         They got the regime change. However the process was very protracted, expensive, and ultimately wound up with affected states that were actually worse than the ones that they started with.

         Saddam wound up dead.

         Reply
   • Muttonbird 5.5

     23 June 2025 at 7:42 pm

     These are the wet dreams of Christo-fascists the world over, that resistance to that cause will miraculously disappear with enough ordinance. Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and now Iran are primed to host new waves of jihad because of Christo-fascist military and economic policy.

     We had the DPM and the minister of police decrying Brian Tamaki's protest as un-Christian and un-Kiwi but that is breathtakingly naive. Those protests are totally kiwi because we are a mean, neoliberal state and Tamaki is a product of that function. We had the deputy leader of NZF turn up to select committee in a MAGA adjacent hat. NZF adores Trump and our foreign minister is our chief MAGA operative.

     Fact is, the Christo-fascist right which abandoned diplomacy and chose military action is deeply embedded in our government and depressingly embedded in a few commenters here, a progressive forum.

     Trump is your guy no matter how hard you want to distance yourself from him. Own it.

     Reply
     • Psycho Milt 5.5.1

       23 June 2025 at 8:28 pm

       I can see why you enjoyed writing this, I just can't see how I'm supposed to take anything remotely useful from it.

       Reply
       • Muttonbird 5.5.1.1

         23 June 2025 at 8:34 pm

         Trump is your guy, enacting an agenda you agree with but even David Seymour today was too scared to answer the call to endorse his strikes. That is telling.

         Reply
         • Psycho Milt 5.5.1.1.1

           23 June 2025 at 8:42 pm

           Or, you could try making a case, rather than settling for offering me your remote personality assessments from your armchair.

           Reply
6. Psycho Milt 6

   23 June 2025 at 7:13 pm

   "Interesting, I can't remember him ever expressing it like that. "

   You don't remember him saying "You're gambling with World War Three!" to Zelenskyy because Ukraine continues to fight the Russian Federation? It was a big story.

   "If you can remember back to 2002/3 and the fiction about the WMD intelligence – which has an uncanny resonance in the current repeated over an over again line…"

   I remember it well. My wife flew out of Kuwait the day before 'shock and awe' kicked off and we moved there a few months later. The 'WMD' story smelt fake from day one, so we weren't chuffed about Bush kicking off a war right next to where we were going to be living (the Kuwaitis on the other hand, couldn't have been more chuffed).

   So, yes, there's a similarity. Suspicious! However, where are the other similarities? US popular enthusiasm for kicking "towelhead" arse? Nonexistent. Not even the loony right wants another foreign war. Internal lobbying within the US administration to invade? Nonexistent. See above. Willingness of US allies to participate? A long way below dubious. This time, there's no Tony Blair in Europe eager to impose "moral foreign policy" on the benighted natives of the ME. Difficulties of invading and conquering Iran vs Iraq? Farkin Huge! In short, I'm not seeing a genuine match here, there's just a similarity that understandably makes people suspicious.

   "I'd ask you to provide the authoritative confirmation that Iran is weeks away from a nuclear weapon that was the pretext that supported the attacks by both the Israelis and US over the past week."

   I'm not the US ambassador or something, I have no idea how close Iran was to functional nuclear weapons and no obligation to defend US actions. I'm OK with however far this attack has pushed back the weapons programme, but your post was about how NZ should respond to any request from the US to get involved (and fwiw, I agree – if Trump would like our help with a war against Iran, any PM with a backbone should tell him where to get off. It doesn't bode well that we don't have one of those at the moment. If Ardern were still PM, the US wouldn't even call, now that's class).

   "Ummm. You're using the 'gooks don't have the backbone' argument."

   Oh, charming. We were both adults during the Iraq/Iran war, I know as well as you do just how much the Iranians can deal with and still fight. You're insulting both our intelligences.

   The argument is about facts, not racism. Look at the last 12 months: Israel took out Ismael Haniyeh in Teheran while he was staying in a guest villa run by the IRGC. It took out the entire leadership of Hizballah with the pagers scam and then killed their successors. That's good reason to believe that Israel could do the same to the leadership of the Islamic Republic if it had a mind to.

   "Have you ever had a good look at what actually happens in places that get unprovoked attacks against them in history."

   The mullahs appear to think attacking Israel via proxies gives them plausible deniability, but the fact is the deniability's not plausible and even Iranians will be aware of that. Also, it's hard to get outraged about the fact that your oppressive government fucked around and found out in a way that costs you, the poor sod suffering the consequences of oppressive government, nothing. Don't underestimate the amount of Schadenfreude there'll be within Iran over this.

   Reply
7. Stephen D 7

   23 June 2025 at 8:34 pm

   Talking of empires, we tend to forget Africa.

   Look up, the Kaenem-Bornu Empire, 700-1902.

   Reply
   • lprent 7.1

     24 June 2025 at 12:26 am

     Yeah. Pretty standard warlord model including those semi-routine succession wars. But the trading side is very reminiscent of the Mongols.

     I did know about them but mainly through the trading of slaves to Benin and coastal Europeans in the 17th and 18th century

     Reply
8. roblogic 8

   23 June 2025 at 9:09 pm

   Luxy was his usual flaky self this morning on the radio. Wouldn’t criticise the USA, has the spine of a jellyfish and the brain of an amoeba.

   [Luxon said] the US strikes on Iran were "obviously pretty surgical in targeting those nuclear assets".

   There was a lot of conjecture about how close Iran's programme had been to breaching 60 percent uranium enrichment, a precursor to nuclear arms, Luxon said.

   "But that's all to be revealed in due course. What I'd say for right now is what we can do is we an urge those parties to get into a pattern of dialogue and diplomacy as difficult as that may well be".

   Reply
9. lprent 9

   23 June 2025 at 10:36 pm

   However, where are the other similarities? US popular enthusiasm for kicking "towelhead" arse? Nonexistent.

   I'd agree with that. But it is amateur hour in the US administration at present. The executive branch currently values subservient arse-licking of the Orange posterior more than competence. Even the GOP senators are starting to complain about the taste.

   They'd be hard put to manage a world-wide campaign of disinformation while they're busy getting the democrat opposition enabled and active again.

   However, they doesn't mean that they aren't tryingggg…ggg /sarc

   I'm not the US ambassador or something, I have no idea how close Iran was to functional nuclear weapons and no obligation to defend US actions.

   To Iran?

   Good point – flawed but that there hasn't been a US ambassador to Iran since 1980. That is why they rely upon Israel – who also hasn't had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979. Effectively Israel gets their on-the-ground information from low level paid informants who probably aren't bad at taking pictures of dispersed anti-aircraft defences. Maybe following civilian scientists targeted for assignation. But I suspect that they get most of their information from signals intelligence.

   Talking to military or political policy people to get a sense of intention… yeah right! /sarc

   Generally most of that is done by in-person private conversations on the side. Neither the US, nor the Israelis have much of an idea. What there is of that, probably goes on at the UN, or comes second or third hand from around the Arabian Gulf diplomatic circuits filtered by other agendas.

   I'm OK with however far this attack has pushed back the weapons programme, but your post was about how NZ should respond to any request from the US to get involved..

   Actually it wasn't. It was a post about getting way way WAY further away from any association with the USA. We're starting to not have many goals in common with the USA.

   We don't want a dog-eat-dog world with every country trying to score points off of other countries. screwing ourselves to get deals for favourites while crapping on others for kicks, or generally trying to follow the Act party philosophy of one-up-manship.

   But that is exactly what the US is pushing right now and what it has largely been pushing for the last couple of decades to one degree or another.

   We're a trading nation and that kind of behaviour was directly responsible for two world wars and a massive depression. It is a pointless activity. The history of the world since 1945, baring a cold war, colonial disengagements, and a few relatively minor conflicts (compared to the late 19th and early 20th century) has been about a unusually high level of cooperation between nations in trade, diplomatic activity, innovation, science, and just about everything else.

   The proof is in the numbers. In 1946 the world population was about 2.5 billion people. Now it is 8.2 billion people.

   In 1940-1960 widespread famines were common. Like the famine in the USSR and Germany in 1946-1950. The Bengal famine in India 1943-44. The famine in China in the late 1950 and early 1960s. etc. By 2000, despite the increases in hungry mouths, famines have become rarer and less severe.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#Table

   

   Mostly famines now are caused by by decisions of combatants in wars. Like the deliberate decision of Israel to starve Gaza.

   That wasn't done in the dog-eat-dog world of someone like Trump who acts like he came out of some nightmare from the age of exploitative empires in the early 20th century. It was done because nations and individual saw the value in cooperating to prevent famines and the wars that they engender, and who were willing to cooperate on information that prevented such things happening like the crop institutes.

   Oh, charming.

   You left yourself open to that with your description. However you completely missed my point

   The mullahs appear to think attacking Israel via proxies gives them plausible deniability, but the fact is the deniability's not plausible and even Iranians will be aware of that.

   Who gives a flying fuck about that (looks like it comes straight out of your talking points book that other commenters have remarked apon)

   What I said was

   The one thing that they tend to have under control after it happens once is that they develop strong political and military chain of command succession.

   This applies as much to your Nazi wannabe heroes in the IDF and Knesset. In any conflict zone, the key to survival and resilience is to have clear chains of command to fall back on. There will be casualties, so as an organisation you need to plan for those to happen.

   I don't think that Iran cares if the the organisations that they support are viewed as their proxies or not. They don't command them, they are organisations that appear where there is a reason for them to appear.

   In Lebanon, that reason was the massive screw-up of the 1982 invasion of South Lebanon by Israel. Israel provoked a war to try to dislodge the PLO from Lebabon – which they effectively succeeded at. However largely because of their support of of Phalangists including their massacres of Palestinian refugee and Shia Muslim civilians, the Israelis were unable to install a pro-christian Christian government. Instead the IDF created a Shia militia Hezbollah, who happily took support from Shia Iran.

   My point was that Hezbollah remained a militia recruited from the Shia civilian population, and who acted like civilians. They weren't under attack enough to understand the importance of signals discipline and succession in the chain of command. Which is why the Israelis were able to attack and neutralise them relatively easily.

   The Hamas aren't like that. That is because the of the extensive training that the Israelis gave Hamas over the decades with continual attacks. Consequently the IDF has be unable to neutralise them, and are instead having to resort to SS tactics of starving civilians at scale to try to remove resistance.

   Needless to say because the IDF are such a shambolic shambles as individual soldiers that lack virtually any level of discipline, even a near complete isolation of the Gaza enclave is failing to prevent news of their deliberate attacks on civilians from getting out. It makes it hard for anyone to miss that the IDF spokespeople routinely lie about all of their activities. For example the massacre of bright lit ambulances and the execution of anyone who didn't die to cover it up.

   Don't underestimate the amount of Schadenfreude there'll be within Iran over this.

   I'm sure there will be. I'm sure there will be social and political fallout in Iran.

   However I am very sure that it won't cause significiant regime change of the type that Netanyahu and Trump are after, just incremental changes.

   I'm also sure that the nuclear industry at both levels will continue. Because no-one trusts either the US or Israel. Basically it is clear tat you simply haven't look at the available material about Iran and its history (or bothered to read my post beyond a cursory glance)

   The news in Iran is very free when it comes showing current events in Gaza and previous US 'support' in Arab states.

   What news sneaks in off the external internet, mostly via VPN and starlink and gets disbursed by sneaker net (USBs) reinforces the same messages. The main reason why the internet is so restricted in Iran at present is largely because of a Israeli attack with the Stuxnet virus in 2010 targeting industrial equipment including the enrichment centrifuges.

   What you're probably not aware of is that inside Iran, the most effective opposition groups to the regime tend to carry pictures of the Mosaddegh – killed in the 1953 CIA led coup that installed military government, the Shah, and the SAVAK secret police who were far worse then even the current regime.

   If you're Iranian, you'd have to be clinically insane to trust either the US or Israel and any of their promises. It isn't just that they are currently bombing the country, it is because they have effectively been doing that before 1953.

   Reply
   • Psycho Milt 9.1

     24 June 2025 at 5:46 am

     "To Iran?"

     To NZ. You asked me to provide evidence for the US case for intervention and I've no interest in doing so. I'm not a representative of the US.

     "…they are organisations that appear where there is a reason for them to appear."

     That's just embarrassing. They're organisations that are barely existent unless there's an Iranian regime interest in their activities and a suitable channel for money and weapons. You imagining the powers of rhetoric can make them creations of the US and Israel doesn't change that.

     "What you're probably not aware of is that…"

     I see your continual assumption that anyone who fails to share your opinions is ignorant and malicious continues unabated.

     Reply
     • lprent 9.1.1

       24 June 2025 at 9:10 am

       They're organisations that are barely existent unless there's an Iranian regime interest in their activities and a suitable channel for money and weapons.

       So? Describe any rebellious group from the seperatist Americian British colonists to Sinn Fein. Or the Haganagh or Irgun in British Mandate for Palestine. Of the Viet Cong.

       All of them got weapons and resources from other sources for various reasons. The French supported the Americian rebellion, the German empire and later the Nazis supported Sinn Fein, as did the emigre Americian-Irish. The Haganah got support bigoted Americians in the 1940s and parts of the second Polish republic in the 1930s. The Chinese communists supported the Viet Cong, then wound up seeing those weapons turned against them in 1979..

       It didn't meant that any of these groups swallowed their sponsors objectives wholesale. The Haganah in particular were dealing with the devil, the Poles were interested in providing a place to export their Jews for extremely bigoted reasons.

       All are covered by your exact description. All got resources from outside sources. Are you trying to say their grievances and causes were all irrelevant because they were willing to take and use resources provided by others.

       Yet that is exactly what you are saying

       • About Shias who got attacked and massacred by Israel and their proxy militias in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
       • The Houthi tribes who have had issues with the coastal Yemenis since it was a British Imperial coaling port and have been fighting a guerrilla war against them since independence.
       • The Hamas who grew up stuck in a dusty enclave as a result of a deliberate and documented ethnic cleansing campaign by the nascent IDF in 1947/8, lived under Egyptian and then nastier Israeli military occupation.

       I'd be happy to provide links to each of these, but I have no confidence that you'd exert yourself enough to read them

       So, lets examine your argument just on what you have said. Are you saying that none of these grievances are of any value because while resource poor, they took help from others with grievances against the same arseholes they were fighting against?

       It is easy to use simple propaganda to demonise resistance and rebel movements because they will take support from where they can get it. That has been the Israeli argument about Palestinians since the 1930s with a continual pile of crap associating local grievances with the calls of remote Mullahs.

       But it really does take a lazy mind to swallow such bullshit wholesale and without thinking – which is what I think that you're doing. And I am betting that you will avoid dealing with that point.

       I see your continual assumption that anyone who fails to share your opinions is ignorant and malicious continues unabated.

       Nope. I just concentrate on poking deep holes in arguments. That it makes you uncomfortable is pretty much your problem.

       Reply
       • Psycho Milt 9.1.1.1

         24 June 2025 at 12:52 pm

         "But it really does take a lazy mind to swallow such bullshit wholesale and without thinking – which is what I think that you're doing. And I am betting that you will avoid dealing with that point."

         What takes a lazy mind is imagining you can turn an Iranian proxy like Hizballah into an independent group that merely receives some external assistance entirely via rhetoric.

         People in NZ can afford to be as unserious about this as they like, but people in the immediate neighbourhood aren't so fortunate.

         Reply
10. Psycho Milt 10

    24 June 2025 at 8:11 am

    "Actually it wasn't. It was a post about getting way way WAY further away from any association with the USA. We're starting to not have many goals in common with the USA."

    This bit I agree with. Trump's appointment of officials on the basis of loyalty to him means the US is now being run on the Führerprinzip and his fans seem OK with that. It may not look exactly like German, Spanish or Italian fascism, but the underlying principle is the same and we should avoid contact with it to the extent possible. If we do get a call from the US, our response should be "Only if the call comes from the UN or Europe, thanks." I doubt Luxon would have the bollocks for it, but that's a different issue.

    Reply
    • lprent 10.1

      24 June 2025 at 9:14 am

      Not just Trump. That trend has been accelerating in the US administration since the 1970s.

      It was also a feature of the many of the 19th century administrations. We had it here as well up until well into the early 20th century if you ever have a close look at the appointments to government and advisory offices.

      Reply
11. Mike Smith 11

    24 June 2025 at 10:56 am

    Great post lprent – or should I say group/cascade of posts.

    I absolutely agree with your proposition that we should stay way away from the United States leadership.

    I would be interested in your comments on this post by ex-diplomat Alastair Crooke on the role played by the way Palantir software platform Mosaic was used by the IAEA, and by Israel to justify its attack on Iran.

    Reply
    • Dennis Frank 11.1

      24 June 2025 at 12:14 pm

      I'll leave the tech implications to him, but Palantir was (co-)founded by Thiel, who named the start-up after the "seeing stone" in Tolkien's legendarium.

      Magical thinking is just as influential in the real world as it ever was, it's just that contemporary culture keeps trying to maintain denial of that…

      Reply
    • Nic the NZer 11.2

      24 June 2025 at 1:09 pm

      Past time we start understanding how AI algorithms function in governance and decision making practice. In practice they are put in place to expediate decisions while removing all the usual safeguards. Inside online businesses (e.g Uber) this can be a major cost cutting, at the expense of workers (e.g Uber drivers are frequently expensively to them kicked off when the driver ID fails to identify them). Obviously these are not fit systems to use inside intelligence and/or military applications where the point of how decisions are made is fundamentally about those safeguards being considered and leadership take responsibility for the decision being made.

      Reply
      • mpledger 11.2.1

        25 June 2025 at 9:59 am

        We should not pretend that there was any great thinking behind Trump's decision to bomb Iran. Netanyahu forced Trump's hand as Israel didn't have the equipment to bomb all the sites. So, it was only going to be a half-arsed job unless the American's bombed as well.

        Trump bombed based on his fee-fees. It made him feel good because it was an action where he could only win. He didn't think beyond first-hand consequences.

        Reply
12. Puckish Rogue 12

    24 June 2025 at 12:42 pm

    The biggest flaw in the so-called liberal international order isn’t that it’s too ambitious, it’s that it keeps mistaking symbolic agreements for real progress. For decades now, global institutions have churned out treaties, frameworks, and “historic” accords that do very little beyond making career diplomats feel useful. Trump didn’t break that system, he just stopped pretending it worked.

    Let’s start with the Paris Climate Accord. It was held up as a shining example of global cooperation. In reality, it was little more than a paper promise. Countries like China and India pledged to maybe reduce emissions by 2030 or 2060, while ramping up coal production in the meantime. The U.S., meanwhile, tied its economy in knots with no guarantee anyone else would follow through. Trump saw the obvious: the deal was unfair and unenforceable. So he walked away. Not because he doesn’t care about the climate, but because he understood that symbolic gestures don’t cool the planet and they definitely don’t justify handing over economic control to international bureaucrats.

    The same applies to the Iran nuclear deal. Washington spent years crafting a complex agreement that temporarily slowed down Iran’s enrichment program in exchange for lifting sanctions and handing Tehran billions. Trump pulled out because it didn’t actually stop Iran from eventually building a bomb, it just delayed the timeline. Worse, it did nothing to rein in Iran’s funding of proxy militias across the region. His critics called it reckless. But it was the first time Iran faced real pressure. They didn’t race for a bomb after the U.S. reimposed sanctions—they treaded carefully, proving that economic leverage can be more effective than diplomatic wishful thinking.

    And if you want a counterexample to the failure of conventional diplomacy, look at the Abraham Accords. For decades, the foreign policy elite insisted there could be no peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors until the Palestinian issue was solved. Trump ignored that script—and in doing so, helped broker normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. No wars. No invasions. Just mutual interests, brought to the table by someone who treated foreign policy like deal-making, not moral theater. It was a rare moment of actual peace in a region that had seen nothing but stalemate for decades.

    People love to say Trump “damaged alliances” and “undermined trust.” But ask yourself: what kind of alliances fall apart the moment the U.S. expects others to pay their fair share or act in their own defense? NATO countries had been ignoring their defense spending promises for years. Trump called them out. The WTO? A playground for China’s economic manipulation. The UN? Mostly a forum for authoritarian regimes to scold the West. Trump didn’t destroy these institutions, he just exposed how hollow they’d become.

    His “America First” policy wasn’t about isolationism. It was about finally asking: What’s in it for us? Why should the U.S. be the only country expected to sacrifice jobs, money, and lives to keep a broken system afloat? Sometimes, saying no is the most powerful diplomatic move you can make.

    Trump didn’t start new wars. He didn’t send in troops for regime change. He took out threats like Soleimani and al-Baghdadi without launching massive campaigns. His foreign policy wasn’t perfect, but it was clear-eyed. No more endless wars. No more pretending that the U.S. has to carry the world on its back while being lectured by countries that do far less.

    In the end, Trump’s presidency forced a long-overdue question: What if the old way of doing things doesn’t work anymore? What if globalism without accountability isn’t diplomacy, it’s dysfunction? For all his faults, Trump saw that. And instead of going along with the usual charade, he called time on it.

    USA, USA, USA!

    Reply
    • Dennis Frank 12.1

      24 June 2025 at 1:19 pm

      USA, USA, USA!

      Location, location, location. The Trump empire was built on real estate, so the trad triad works real good. Not the best way to end such a well-reasoned dissertation though – aesthetic readers will shudder. I particularly liked your first paragraph, but the others followed through effectively too. 9/10 (had to mark it down due to the end-frill).

      Reply
    • SPC 12.2

      24 June 2025 at 3:41 pm

      No.

      It is about isolationism, it is about determining policy on America First.

      Look at the 1940's party and then the one founded by Buchanan's supporters to see where it comes from. It is a take over of the GOP.

      Trump places America first at the core, it is not about making the international order work better, it is no longer caring as much about it.

      Criticism of the international regime is just the excuse.

      Sure there is a Cold War Republican Party hawk remnant. It can only connect to the pro Zionist faction in the GOP, or their military as part of America's past glory, now. And the threat of another, they can pose as different (China and Iran) to their values. Thus maintain the Pentagon budget as GW looms (they discount it on the Hill, but not the Pentagon – water wars or worse, AMOC goes down).

      Reply
    • mpledger 12.3

      25 June 2025 at 10:19 am

      NATO has a right to be pissed off at America. They followed America into stupid wars because America triggered NATO articles to make them. The NATO countries are pissed off at having to buy American equipment that can lock them out and at insane prices. They are pissed off that the anti-nuclear proliferation treaty, that meant they gave away huge power to the USA in exchange for bi-lateral protection, is hanging by a thread. NATO put a lot of trust in a rational and honorable America and instead have found a grifter who operates on his fee-fees, mostly driven by who buttered him up last.

      Trump bombed against American laws and against international laws.

      Reply
      • Puckish Rogue 12.3.1

        25 June 2025 at 10:55 am

        It’s understandable that some NATO countries have had frustrations with certain U.S. decisions—particularly after long, costly wars or concerns about defense procurement. But it’s important to remember that NATO operates by consensus; no country is forced into a mission. When Article 5 was invoked after 9/11, it was a shared act of solidarity, not something imposed by the U.S. And while American-made military gear is common across the alliance, that’s largely due to NATO’s interoperability needs and the reliability of U.S. systems. Trump, to his credit, used blunt diplomacy to push allies to take more responsibility for their own defense, which led to a meaningful increase in European military spending and renewed investment in domestic defense industries.

        On nuclear agreements and broader security issues, the challenges facing arms control are global and long-standing—they can’t fairly be pinned on one country. And while Trump’s foreign policy style was unorthodox, it achieved tangible outcomes: stronger financial commitments from NATO allies, continued U.S. leadership in key alliance roles, and direct engagement with European leaders. His approach may have disrupted old norms, but it also forced important conversations that some argue were long overdue. Regardless of administration, America’s commitment to NATO remains strong, and the alliance continues to reflect a shared interest in stability, cooperation, and mutual defense.

        Trump’s style and decisions were often confrontational and disruptive, and they sometimes strained international norms. But there’s no clear legal finding—American or international—that his NATO-related or foreign policy actions broke the law. Much of the criticism is political or ethical, not judicial.

        Reply
        • Drowsy M. Kram 12.3.1.1

          25 June 2025 at 11:41 am

          Trump, a convicted felon, is admired by many in the Land of the Free – and abroad.

          Highlights From Trump’s Sentencing in His N.Y. Criminal Case
          [10 Jan 2025]
          The president-elect received an unconditional discharge of his sentence, which spares him jail time but formalizes his status as a felon. He will be the first to carry that distinction into the White House.

          Georgia election racketeering prosecution
          The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al. is a pending criminal case against Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, and 18 co-defendants. The prosecution alleges that Trump led a "criminal racketeering enterprise", in which he and all other defendants "knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome" of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Georgia.

          Reply

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