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Trump Tells Iran 'Clock Is Ticking, Move Fast' After New Peace Proposal As Analysts Predict Likely Return To War

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
Trump Tells Iran 'Clock Is Ticking, Move Fast' After New Peace Proposal As Analysts Predict Likely Return To War

Update(1410ET): President Trump has warned Iran on Sunday that the "clock is ticking" as Pakistani-mediated talks have not only stalled, but show no signs at all of restarting anytime soon. "They better get moving, FAST, or there won't be anything left of them," he wrote on Truth Social. "TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!"

He spoke the same day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with Lindsey Graham has been calling for resumption of robust anti-Tehran action to ensure Iran can never go nuclear. Trump's words have been somewhat of a familiar refrain going back several weeks. 

As we detailed below, Iran says it received a counter proposal of '5 conditions' for peace from the White House. In many ways they are directly opposite the 5 conditions Iran sent to the US last week, which Trump had rejected as "garbage".

But as yet there's been no indicator that the US side has attached a timeline to its latest demands. Trump is perhaps pushing this new "clock is ticking" as a timeline threat of sorts. But again, there was no specific date included in the fresh warning.

Last week Bloomberg Intelligence circulated a report titled, Iran Rejects Trump's Offer - Return to War Likely. It concluded:

The diplomatic dance continues: the US and Iran exchanged offers yet again. But they remain far apart, shooting maximalist demands at each other. A comprehensive peace deal is unlikely to materialize. We think the US and Iran will likely return to strikes. But we expect an intense exchange of fire to be temporary and reduce to lower-levels of fighting – what we call the new normal in this protracted conflict. 

More from the Bloomberg Intelligence analysis: 

Short but Intense... and Costly

Trump doesn’t want long war. His popularity is taking a hit as its economic impact is being felt.

We think Trump will likely revert to a short air and missile strike campaign on Iranian infrastructure, military positions, and energy assets while simultaneously continuing the blockade. Tehran will likely respond with strikes of its own, both on US military assets and America’s regional partners. But we expect this to be a short bombardment, rather than the sustained, high-intensity strike campaign that marked the beginning of the war.

The war has already imposed a heavy economic cost. Oil markets flipped from an expected record surplus to historic supply disruption. Major central banks, facing fresh inflation risks, are turning more hawkish. Consumers now pay more for energy, while their borrowing costs also rise, and the future grows more uncertain.

The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the more it will drain the oil stockpiles cushioning governments, companies, and consumers today. Once inventories run thin, prices need to do the hard work: rising high enough to curb demand back in line with available supply.

Since that report was issued, nothing has changed, and both sides seem to have dug in their heels even more.

*  *  *

According to a Sunday report from Iran's semi-official Fars news agency, the United States has laid down a firm, take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to Tehran. Both sides are still trying to patiently wait out the Hormuz crisis, hoping to inflict more economic pain on the other until they blink.

At the top of the list, the US is demanding a near-total dismantling of Iran's atomic ambitions, "allowing only one Iranian nuclear facility to remain operational." 

Anadolu Agency

The list includes direct rejections in response to Iran's own five conditions from a week ago, which President Trump said were "unacceptable" and "garbage".

For example the US is refusing to pay compensation for damage caused during strikes on Iranian territory - a 'maximalist' sticking point which Tehran had demanded previously.

Washington is also reportedly insists that 400 kilograms of enriched uranium be transferred from Iran to the US, while only one active nuclear facility would remain operational inside the Islamic Republic.

Iran for its part has recently vowed to never transfer its nuclear material out of the Islamic Republic, calling the issue a matter of national sovereignty and energy security which it alone has say over. This after even Russia offered to take it.

The newly reported five conditions by the US side further states that the US does not intend to release more than 25% of frozen Iranian assets. Tehran has demanded the dropping of all US sanctions as a key basis for lasting settlement.

Here are the five newly proposed Washington conditions, which some pundits have called 'wishful thinking':

  1. No war compensation from US
  2. Give up 400kg of Highly Enriched Uranium to US 
  3. Iran can only have on nuclear facility to remain active
  4. Not more than 25% of frozen assets to be unfreezed 
  5. Halting war on all fronts depends on negotiations

So this leaves a huge distance between the Washington list and Tehran's list, as the seemingly unbridgeable gulf remains, also as Iran is digging in its heels.

As a reminder, the below is the Islamic Republic's list, which it hasn't backed down from. It has offered the following as the only basis on which to restart talks:

  1. Ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon
  2. Lifting all sanctions
  3. Releasing frozen Iranian assets
  4. Compensation for war damages and losses
  5. Recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights over the Strait of Hormuz

US response to #Iran includes zero compensation, not even 25% of frozen assets released, keeping only one #nuclear facility active, handing over 400kg of highly enriched uranium to the US, and ending the war on all fronts dependent on the negotiations. https://t.co/riS7M4fEeF

— Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) May 17, 2026

While a Pakistani-mediated ceasefire managed to take effect on April 8, subsequent talks in Islamabad completely collapsed, but then President Trump later extended the truce indefinitely, likely to buy time and to figure out "what's next" - while seeking a complete blockade of Iranian oil exports, and of all vessels entering or exiting Iranian ports.

With Washington demanding total disarmament and Iran demanding control over the world's most critical oil transit choke point, the stage is set for a likely coming renewal of direct clashes, given the zero sum demands of each side now on the table.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 05:10
Tyler Durden

So Where Does Wokeism Come From? (Spoiler Alert: The French, Of Course!)

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
So Where Does Wokeism Come From? (Spoiler Alert: The French, Of Course!)

Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.org,

How did wokeism happen?

A French intellectual, who goes by Brivael Le Pogam on X, has written a tightly focused and brief explanation of it worthy of Eric Hoffer, putting his finger on the thinking of French philospher-historian Michel Foucault, French philosopher Jacques Derrida, and French philospher-literary critic Gilles Deleuze, the first of whom claimed there was  no such thing as truth, just power relationships, the second of whom claimed truth was malleable, and the third of whom made the really weird claim that seeds were greater than fully developed trees because becoming was more important than being, poor romantic devil.

Married to guilt-tripping academics of the U.S., he explains how wokery was the result.

His tweet is in French, but Grok translate kicks in on my site, so I will post the translation below the tweet.

Grok translate, (with censorship from me of one cuss word that means merde): (emphasis ours)

I want to offer my apologies, on behalf of the French, for giving birth to French Theory (which in turn gave birth to the worst of all ideological monstrosities: wokism).

We gave the world Descartes, Pascal, Tocqueville. And then, in the intellectual ruins of post-1968, we gave Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Three brilliant men who forged, in the elegance of our language, the ideological weapon that today paralyzes the West.

We must understand what they did.

Foucault taught that truth does not exist, that there are only power relations disguised as knowledge. That science, reason, justice, the medical institution, the school, the prison, sexuality—everything is merely a staging of domination.

Derrida taught that texts have no stable meaning, that every signifier slips away, that every reading is a betrayal, that the author is dead and the reader reigns supreme.

Deleuze taught that we should prefer the rhizome to the tree, the nomad to the sedentary, desire to the law, becoming to being, difference to identity.

Taken individually, these are debatable theses. Combined, exported, and popularized, they form a system. And that system is a poison.

For here’s what happened.

These texts, unreadable in France, crossed the Atlantic. The departments of Yale, Berkeley, and Columbia absorbed them in the 1980s. They found there a soil that did not exist among us: American Puritanism, its racial guilt, its obsession with identity. French Theory married this substratum, and the child of that union is called wokism.

Judith Butler reads Foucault and invents performative gender. Edward Said reads Foucault and invents academic postcolonialism. Kimberlé Crenshaw inherits the framework and invents intersectionality. At every step, the matrix is French: there is no truth, there is only power, so every hierarchy is suspect, every institution is oppressive, every norm is violence, every identity is constructed and thus negotiable, every majority is guilty.

That’s how three Parisian philosophers, who probably never imagined their practical consequences, provided the operating software to an entire generation of activists, university bureaucrats, HR managers, journalists, and legislators. That’s how we ended up with a civilization that no longer knows how to say whether a woman is a woman, whether its own history is worth defending, whether merit exists, whether truth can be distinguished from opinion.

It’s sh** for one simple reason, and it must be stated calmly.

A civilization stands on three pillars: the belief that there exists a truth accessible to reason, the belief that there exists a good distinct from evil, the belief that there exists a heritage to be transmitted.

French Theory set out to dynamite all three. Not out of malice. Out of intellectual play, fascination with suspicion, hatred of the bourgeoisie that had nurtured them. But the result is there. An entire generation learned to deconstruct and never learned to build. An entire generation knows how to suspect and no longer knows how to admire. An entire generation sees power everywhere and beauty nowhere.

I apologize because we French bear a particular responsibility. It’s our language, our universities, our publishers, our prestige that gave this nihilism its chic packaging. Without the legitimacy of the Sorbonne and Vincennes, these ideas would never have crossed the ocean. We exported doubt the way others export weapons.

What is being built now, in Silicon Valley, in AI labs, in startups, in workshops, in all the places where people still make things instead of deconstructing them—that is the response. A civilization is rebuilt by builders, not by commentators. By those who believe that truth exists and is worth devoting oneself to. By those who embrace a hierarchy of the beautiful, the true, the good, and are not ashamed to transmit it.

So, forgive us. And back to work.

His viral tweet has been retweeted by Elon Musk, Javier Milei, and 20,000 other people on X, multiplied many more times by Musk and others. 

Eric Hoffer used to write about these guys in the '50s and '60s, the earlier wave of them, French and German intellectuals, plus numerous academics in the states, often noting that they have never having done a day of work in their lives. He linked their relativist and nihilist radicalism to antisemitism, too. Hoffer knew who they were and he  had their number.

So does this guy.

His tweet advances to the recent wave of them, which created an unholy fusion with U.S. academics to produce wokesterism, the reason we see in our culture the inability to define what a woman is, the collective racism charge that never, ever can be ended, and more rubbish that a whole industry has been built around.

Eric Hoffer, who died in 1983, loved those who could express ideas concisely. Since I knew him personally as a high school and college student, I think he would have enjoyed X.

I hope we hear more from this French guy, because knowledge of this kind is power -- that is why this tweet went viral. It's why, when I first discovered Eric Hoffer's True Believer book as a 12-year-old kid, I hid the book under my bed, because to a kid like me, it felt like it contained all the secrets of the universe. Hoffer has never been out of print, because what he tells is the truth. Truth like this French tweet is the same kind of truth, and the gives me the same kind of feeling: Exposes the liars is the strongest way to stamp the wokeism out. It's a reminder that Western Civilization must win this war on ideas.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 05:00
Tyler Durden

Net Zero Fearmongering In Tatters After Climate Report 'Implausibility' Ruling

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
Net Zero Fearmongering In Tatters After Climate Report 'Implausibility' Ruling

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

The fallout from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ruling that computer model high emissions pathway RCP8.5 is “implausible” is only just beginning. Most mainstream media fearmongering stories over the last 15 years need to be moved into the junk file, as do the increasingly shrill sandwich-board pronouncements of King Charles and Sir David Attenborough.

But the rot goes much deeper than ill-informed public comment, although that alone has been enormously influential in promoting the Net Zero fantasy. Activist-ridden science bodies such as the UK Met Office have brazenly used RCP8.5 to flam up weather predictions which in turn has led to onerous requirements being placed on British industry and finance. Politicians have been convinced by patently ridiculous claims and Net Zero rules and regulations have cascaded through the economy and society.

All the politicised predictions need to be junked and all the resulting regulations reconsidered with a view to abolition. They are all based on assumptions that many at the time said were ridiculous and have now been officially marked as not wanted on voyage. Those inclined to be uncharitable might suggest it was all a hoax from start to finish.

In 2022, the Met Office published its latest ‘UK Climate Projections Report‘ (UKCP18) and claimed it provided users “with the most recent scientific evidence on projected climate change with which to plan”. Many words come to mind to describe the output of computer models, none of which include ‘evidence’. In fact, the Met Office made a feature of its deliberate use of RCP8.5, highlighting its findings in bold type and describing them as “plausible”. These plausible projections, a more accurate description might be laughable, suggested summers and winters in the UK by 2070 could be up to 5.1°C and 3.8°C warmer respectively. More bold claims suggested summer rainfall could decrease by up to 45%, with winter precipitation increasing by 39%. Severe droughts and floods would inevitably follow.

The Met Office concludes: “Governments will make use of UKCP18 to inform its adaption and mitigation planning and decision-making.” Unfortunately, they probably did.

The science writer Roger Pielke Jr. was the first to spot the IPCC’s rejection of RCP8.5, calling it “the most significant development in climate research in decades”. He said that the scenario described “impossible futures”, although the results have dominated climate research, headlines and policy for the best part of two decades. Helped also by the reporting in the Daily Sceptic which went viral across social media, the IPCC finding is firmly established in the public domain. But, notes Pielke, remarkably there has not been a peep from major US or international English language mainstream media outlets.

The New York Times is said to be perhaps the most prominent home for promoting news stories based on studies that rely on RCP8.5. It has said nothing, likewise the BBC and the Guardian. Green Blob-funded Climate Brief has covered RCP8.5 more than perhaps any other English language publication, but again silence reigns. Pielke is led to observe: “The outlets most invested in their longstanding promotion of RCP8.5 have the most to lose from a clear-eyed accounting of what its retirement means for science, policy and their own coverage.”

Nevertheless, there have been some rare sightings of mainstream coverage. The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published a front page story headed ‘UN Climate Panel Drops Doomsday Scenario’. The writer of the story Maarten Keulemans later posted on X:

Also in Europe, the Berliner Zeitung ran an article suggesting that “extreme climate scenarios played too large a role in public debate for too long”. Another German publication Die Welt also picked up the story, observing: “A lobby made RCP8.5 famous: the most sensationalist of all climate scenarios has determined scientific studies, media and politics – yet it is unrealistic. Now it is actually being phased out”.

Two members of that ‘lobby’ are the main science publications Nature and Science. In recent years it has sometimes been suggested that climate scientists have moved on from RCP8.5 but the evidence suggests the popular climate crackpipe is difficult to put down. Pielke notes that so far in 2026, more than 2,600 studies have been published using the high emission scenarios, and tens of thousands before that. Both Nature and Science have thrived on publishing RCP8.5 drivel – it will be interesting to see how they spin the passing of an attention-seeking, grant-manufacturing old friend.

The implications of RCP8.5’s demise are vast. Science and journalism careers will be affected, trust in another branch of politicised science will be diminished, rules and regulations imposing unnecessary financial climate costs will need to be re-written (don’t hold your breath), while the promoters of Net Zero will lose a vital fearmongering weapon propping up their Great Reset fantasy. Watch this space.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 03:30
Tyler Durden

Japanese Company Simplifies Ketchup Packaging Amid Ink Shortage Tied To Middle East Conflict

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
Japanese Company Simplifies Ketchup Packaging Amid Ink Shortage Tied To Middle East Conflict

Kagome is revamping the packaging of several ketchup products after supply disruptions made white printing ink harder to source, according to Japan Today. The shortage stems from raw material constraints tied to the conflict in the Middle East.

Under the redesign, bottles of Kagome Tomato Ketchup will no longer feature the brand’s usual full white-and-red label. Instead, part of the bottle will be left clear, creating a more minimal look. Kagome said switching to a different ink is not a practical option because of technical printing limitations.

Japan Today writes that the updated packaging will be introduced gradually later this month for 500-gram, 300-gram, and 180-gram bottles.

The change reflects broader supply strain across Japan’s food industry. Earlier this week, Calbee Inc. said it would temporarily sell 14 potato chip varieties in monochrome packaging as shortages of naphtha — a petroleum-based material used in production — continue to disrupt operations.

Calbee’s affected products include popular flavors such as Lightly Salted, Consomme Punch, and Seaweed Salt. The company also said it will raise prices on 25 snack items starting Sept. 1, including potato chips and Jagarico. Chip prices are set to increase by 5% to 10%, while Jagarico products will rise by 3% to 10%.

The back-to-back announcements highlight how geopolitical tensions are rippling into everyday consumer goods, affecting everything from packaging materials to retail prices. For shoppers, the most visible impact may be simpler packaging now — and higher grocery bills later.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 02:45
Tyler Durden

Poland Is Now The Last Country Standing In The Way Of A Federalized Europe

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
Poland Is Now The Last Country Standing In The Way Of A Federalized Europe

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Its conservative president is totally against this project and can veto related legislation tabled by the liberal prime minister since the latter’s ruling coalition doesn’t have the two-thirds majority to overrule him, thus enabling Poland to play the role that Hungary did prior to Orban’s downfall.

Politico earlier reported that “European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen waited less than a day after Hungary voted Viktor Orbán out of office to call for the EU to get more power over national governments to force through foreign policy decisions.” In particular, she wants qualified majority voting on foreign policy matters whereby at least 55% of member states vote in favor and they represent at least 65% of the EU’s population, which hasn’t yet happened in order to safeguard state sovereignty.

Spanish journalist and analyst Javier Villamor published a piece at The European Conservative that same day about how “Hungary’s Fall Clears Path for a More Centralized EU”.

In brief, “The removal of Brussels’ most persistent opponent is set to accelerate plans to curb national vetoes, expand EU borrowing, and tighten control over member states.” The combined effect would amount to furthering the plan to federalize Europe in alignment with what the EU elites have wanted for some time already.

Von der Leyen’s plan in summer 2024 to “build a veritable union of defense” as well as Germany’s “two-speed Europe” proposal earlier this year and the proposal to fast-track Ukraine’s EU membership are all complementary means to this end that’ll now be easier to implement after Orban’s downfall. If progress is made on any of what was mentioned thus far, then states will lose even more sovereignty than they already have, and this could have disastrous implications for their national identity and social cohesion.

Many of the EU elites pushing this agenda are German, which is why Polish opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said before the election that Orban’s win would help prevent the EU from becoming a tool for “German neo-imperialism”. He also accused Germany in late 2021 of building a “Fourth Reich” through the EU. Polish President Karol Nawrocki, who’s an independent in alliance with Kaczynski’s conservatives, alluded last December to this significant non-military threat that the German-led EU poses to Poland.

One month prior, he shared his “vision of the direction in which the European Union should go”, which advocates reforming the bloc in order to restore states’ sovereignty, while last month he presented Poland and implicitly himself personally at CPAC as Europe’s conservative champions. With all this in mind, Poland is now the last country standing in the way of a federalized Europe since Nawrocki can veto related legislation and the ruling liberals don’t have the two-thirds majority to overrule him.

The next parliamentary elections aren’t till fall 2027, and given how close they’re expected to be, liberal Prime Minister Tusk isn’t expected to risk the public’s wrath by tabling doomed-to-fail federalization-related legislation. Accordingly, von der Leyen and her ilk’s plot won’t prospectively make any progress despite Orban’s downfall due to these Polish domestic political reasons, and the conservatives’ potential retaking of parliament could then doom it for another four years after that.

In Christian eschatology, the katechon is the one who prevents the arrival of the anti-Christ, so a political comparison among critics of the EU would be the one who prevents the bloc’s federalization. That was Orban up until last year, but then this role was shared with Nawrocki and is now exclusively held by him, with their Czech and Slovak counterparts being considered too susceptible to EU pressure. This is a huge responsibility, an historic one in fact, and his legacy will be determined by whether he stands strong.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 02:00
Tyler Durden

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