[Salon] Trump Signals Final Sadistic Punishment as Consolation For Lost War

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trump-signals-final-sadistic-punishment?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=192630894&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=210kv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Trump Signals Final Sadistic Punishment as Consolation For Lost War

"If you must end it emptily, end it loudly."

Simplicius 3/31/26

Events are unfolding precisely as we had predicted last time. Trump has issued a “final ultimatum” to Iran, indicating that the US is ready to pull the plug after a final sadistic sore loser’s lash-out on Iran’s civilian infrastructure:

“…we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)…”

How sick and cynically vengeful can this administration get?

Even the befuddled presstitute corps could not but question Trump’s open plans for committing mass war crimes:

And to think people like Karoline Leavitt made a big show of being “good Christians”, prominently wearing crosses as if to differentiate themselves from the previous “unholy” administration.

Leavitt also happened to note that Iran’s destruction percentage is now down to 70%, somehow finding itself lowered by 10% each week, after earlier announcements of 90% and 82%.

It turns out Trump’s vendetta against Iran truly does go back a long time as footage was again uncovered that seems almost ominous in its precise similitude to Trump’s present posture against Iran—just see for yourself:

And by ‘uncovered’, I mean that Trump posted it himself on his failed ‘Truth Social’ app.

Compare the above 1980s video where Trump repeatedly urges to “take Iran’s oil” to his new Financial Times interview making the rounds, where he states precisely the same thing:

https://www.ft.com/content/3bd9fb6c-2985-4d24-b86b-23b7884031f5

At the same time, Rubio spelled out the supposed “objectives” of the Iran war via the official State Department account—notably missing from the list of “objectives” were the most important ones, like Uranium, nuclear missiles, regime change, opening Hormuz, etc.

Department of State@StateDept

SECRETARY RUBIO: Here are the clear objectives of the operation. You should write them down: 1. The destruction of Iran’s air force 2. The destruction of their navy 3. The severe diminishing of their missile launching capability 4. The destruction of their factories 🎯

8:38 AM · Mar 30, 2026 · 1.69M Views

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It again becomes clear that the administration is making up these objectives on the fly to suit an ever-changing and ever-shrinking narrative: they will shoehorn whatever objectives they can to retroactively fit the shortcomings of the failed war. Lining up with Rubio’s obvious omission of the key Hormuz demand is the latest news that Trump has flip-flopped again, telling aides Hormuz is no longer necessary for the war’s conclusion:

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-war-strait-of-hormuz-ee950ad4

All the while, Iran has continued deconstructing its neighbors’ infrastructure, particularly after Iran’s petrochemical facilities were hit in Tabriz earlier. Iran responded by allegedly hitting Kuwait’s largest desalination plant, at least according to some reports:

NASA satellite detects fire at the West Doha Power Plant, Kuwait — its largest Power Generation & Desalination Plant

It accounts for 38.5% of Kuwait’s total desalination capacity

Israeli petrochemical companies were also hit, as announced by Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Majid Mousavi:

Massive damage was also seen done via new satellite photos to the US Army’s Camp Buehring base in Kuwait, with many of the base’s varying components targeted this time, from power stations to living quarters:

Extensive damage spotted at U.S. Army Base Camp Buehring in Kuwait following Iranian strikes.

Aircraft hangars, barracks, a gym, warehouses, a power station and other facilities on the base were damaged.

Now that Trump has signaled his willingness to end the war without reopening Hormuz, the Gulf states have erupted in a chorus of fear behind the scenes.

https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/iran-could-emerge-stronger-and-more-dangerous-from-this-war-20260331-p5zk3d

There are continued reports that UAE and KSA are secretly pushing Trump to move forward with the “ground operation” because they simply cannot abide a resurgent Iran emboldened and empowered by its victory in the war. Other reports claim that Israel is pushing Trump to hit Iran’s energy infrastructure to finish off the “collapse of the regime”.

Granted, we must admit that our reporting here may appear one-sided given that Iran’s triumphs are extolled and venerated while US-Israeli degradation of Iran’s capabilities is given little coverage. I have already spoken about the fact that I believe this “degradation” is highly exaggerated, and thus at times not worth mentioning. You can see for yourself in the constant walk-backs of damage assessments from official mouthpieces in the Trump administration.

That being said, we must still acknowledge that damage is being done to some extent. Many believe it is catastrophic, and that Iran has truly been “set back” for many years, if not decades. An example was yesterday’s strikes on Iran’s largest steel production facilities—Iran is one of the world’s biggest producers of steel. But the BDA satellite photos were inconclusive: the “damage” appeared localized to a few buildings out of a massive city-sized facility.

Example from one of the inserts:

You can see in the lower part, it looks dark which lower intelligence analysts have assumed means it is burnt out. Nothing of the sort: it is merely the dark smoke plumes of one or two hit buildings which are clouding the whole area, darkening it, but there does not actually appear to be much that was hit.

Now there is an alleged leak of an intercepted call between Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian and IRGC command wherein Pezeshkian begs the IRGC to allow him to negotiate with the US because Iran’s economy will “collapse in three weeks” if nothing is done. The IRGC reprimands him—“proving” that they are currently in command of the entire country—and tells him no such negotiations will be made. Whether the leak is fake or not—and good chance that it is—we can certainly acknowledge that the Iranian economy may be taking damage, but the question always remains: how severe, and how capable are Iranians of ignoring it and weathering the storm?

The latter answer is likely very capable. You’ve seen Ukraine resist far fiercer attacks from Russia for over four years now, yet Iran is somehow expected to crumble under a laughably weak month-long assault by a country that itself is running out of munitions. Time is clearly on Iran’s side from virtually every possible angle. In particular, politically Iran knows Trump is flushing himself down the toilet, and midterms are fast approaching. Economically, oil continues to rise and it’s been reported that Iran itself is now making far more on oil than it was even before the war. Militarily, the US is running out of all key munitions, and it’s taking greater and greater attrition to its most critical and irreplaceable systems.

The biggest wildcard is that we have no idea how much secret support Russia and China—or other allies—may be giving to Iran. There are constant reports of various Russian deliveries via both plane and ship on the Caspian. But what about economic support? China could single-handedly float Iran indefinitely if it really wanted to as the West has done to Ukraine, and will likely do for Taiwan in any future conflict.

It is not ‘cope’, but an actual objective lack of evidence that causes me to conclude that Iran is not experiencing any noticeable hardship commensurate with imminent “collapse” of any kind. It is a massive country with vast resources, and most of the targets being hit appear to be civilian buildings in the quest for rooting out IRGC personnel and the like.

By the way, in the ongoing tit-for-tat Iran immediately responded and burned out Israel’s steel production complexes shortly after Iran’s were hit:

Afshin Rattansi@afshinrattansi

Israel’s Beersheba steel complex is on fire after the latest Iranian missile arrivals Over a month into the war, Iran is still able to announce what it will be targeting, launch missiles, evade air defences, and strike targets in Israel. All the goals of the war have failed:

New Order with Afshin Rattansi @NewOrder_TV

‘IRAN WON’T BE CONQUERED…THE US WILL HAVE TO REMOVE ITS BASES’- Former US🇺🇸 Congressman Dennis Kucinich ‘There is no victory. Iran will not be defeated. Iran will not be conquered. It is folly to even think about it. Those who think about it don’t know anything about the https://t.co/fGrRW9fXZj

9:32 AM · Mar 29, 2026 · 35.5K Views

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