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In lieu of another “beautiful” letter, North Korea’s state media today released photos of what appears to be a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Submarine, which it says is nearly ready for deployment. Commentators on Twitter noted that the photos had been cropped to leave out the top of the sub, where relevant missile launching hardware would be placed, and that the steel plating sheathing the sub seems a but pieced together, unlike the smooth hulled U.S. SSBMs. One called it the “Spruce Goose” of missile submarines. Nevertheless, this is a significant development. CNN “Analysts said the Kim regime has sought to build a viable nuclear-armed submarine to enhance its deterrence capabilities, as the vessels are hard for adversaries to track and destroy. The regime successfully test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) in 2016… …Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said the images suggested that the sub under construction is much larger than the one used in 2016. “If this submarine is built for carrying and launching SLBMs it is more than likely that they would test it, to ensure that it works the way they would need it to,” Schmerler said.” It is possible that the “beautiful” photos were released to tweak Trump, whom the DPRK says is reneging on promises not to go ahead with joint military drills with the south. “North Korea said Trump committed to suspending joint military exercises during his first meeting with Kim in Singapore, and hinted that it could renege on its decision to stop testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles should the drills go ahead…. …”Our discontinuation of the nuclear and ICBM tests and the US suspension of joint military exercises are, to all its intents and purposes, commitments made to improve bilateral relations. They are not a legal document inscribed on a paper,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.” Still, they are “beautiful, beautiful” pictures Lil Kim. Perhaps you could enclose some copies in a big ass envelope and mail them to your paramour with a big S.W.A.K. emblazoned on the back? I’m sure he would love them. Please follow me on Twitter @durrati

With the United Kingdom and Iran in the midst of a tense and dangerous standoff after the tit-for-tat seizure of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, international observers are warning that the British...

Again the US becomes the tool of forces poised to make money and foment sectarian strife. This time the Brits have been manipulated with the seizure of a UK-flagged tanker by the Iranians. It was perhaps...

Iran on Friday said President Donald Trump's claim that the American Navy shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz is "delusional" and suggested the U.S. may have accidentally destroyed its own...

  (Above – Brian Hook) So, I’m listening to NPR on my car radio this morning and I’m surprised to learn that Iran “blew up” a Japanese Oil Tanker last month when Japanese Prime Minister Abe visited Tehran last month. The purveyor of this whopper was Brian Hook the U.S. Special Representative for Iran in Trump and Pompeo’s State Department. He was speaking to NPR’s Steve Inskeep, who did not push back on Hook’s lie one bit. NPR “July 16, 20195:06 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition INSKEEP: Does the United States want to talk with Iran? HOOK: President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have made clear over the last year or two that we are very open to diplomatically resolving our differences with Iran. But Iran has rejected diplomacy too many times, even as recently as Japanese Prime Minister Abe went to Tehran – the first Japanese prime minister to visit the Islamic Republic – they rejected his diplomacy. He was there on behalf of the president. INSKEEP: Tried to be a mediator, in a sense. HOOK: Tried to be a mediator, and the Iranian supreme leader rejected it. And while Abe was in the country, they blew up a Japanese oil tanker. And so we have made it clear that we have an ear open to what is possible. The – Secretary Pompeo has said in the past he would sit down and talk without preconditions. But Iran has got to start changing its behavior; they’ve got to choose a better path. INSKEEP: Do you think that the economic sanctions that the U.S. has tightened and tightened and tightened are having the desired effect on Iran? HOOK: We know they are. During the life of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s military spending reached record highs – they had spent $14 billion. The first month we were in office, Iran’s military spending went down 10%, and then this year it’s gone down 28%. We also have Iran’s proxies – Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen are weaker today financially than when – two years ago, when we took office. And so this economic pressure is a necessary component if you want to get Iran back to the negotiating table….” You are welcome to read the NPR article but you will not find any more evidence on Inskeep challenging Hook on this absurd lie than Hook has for the assertion that Iran perpetrated the attack on the Japanese Tanker Kokuka Courageous. And even if you accepted the manufactured “evidence” that Iran placed a small mine on the tanker, which it’s owner does not, the goddamned  ship was not “blown up” by any fevered stretch of a bloodthirsty NeoCon’s imagination: This is not blown up. This is blown up. Hook worked for John Bolton in the Bush administration of course) and last March was under investigation by the State Dept’s Inspector General for the improper firing of career State Department officials. ( I looked but could not find out if that has been resolved yet). And that same Daily Beast article linked above explains that he is not only Pompeo’s guy for Iran, he’s one of  Kushner’s guys in Saudi Arabia.  “And while staffers typically have short shelf lives in the Trump administration, Hook has managed to become a lasting and growing presence. He’s the rare member of former Secretary of […]

(Above: Sir Kim Darroch, reaching the right conclusions.) Kim Darroch, the former Ambassador from Great Britain to the United States, who was forced to resign his post last week after memos leaked that recounted him calling the Mango Misogynist  “inept and insecure”, which only burnished his credentials in many eyes, has struck back at drumpf from his political grave, as new memos surface in which he gives his opinion of the Tangerine Turd-bucket’s mangling of what is commonly called “the Iran Deal”. BBC “Donald Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal to spite Barack Obama, according to a leaked memo written by the UK’s former ambassador in the US. Sir Kim Darroch described the move as an act of “diplomatic vandalism”, according to the Mail on Sunday. The paper says the memo was written after the then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appealed to the US in 2018 to stick with the nuclear deal. The latest leak came despite the Met Police warning against publication.” Yes, Scotland Yard is jolly well concerned about the leaks, which facilitate British functionaries being outed for reaching the perfectly sane and correct appraisal that drumpf is an idiot. The Daily Mail, which published the Memo, other newspapers and various MPs have clapped back at the police, contending it is in the public interest for the proles to know what an idiot their leaders think the Over-baked Ogre is: “A spokesman said: “What could be more in the public interest than a better understanding of how this position was reached, which may have serious consequences for world peace?”   Not to mention, it is highly entertaining. Please follow me on Twitter @durrati

The House of Representatives on Friday overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan amendment barring President Donald Trump from launching an unauthorized war with Iran, a move progressives applauded as a necessary step toward pulling the U.S....

As tensions in the Persian Gulf continue to escalate after British forces seized an Iranian oil tanker last week, Iran on Friday called on the U.K. to release the vessel and demanded that Western...

There are not many things at which Donald Trump can claim real expertise, but when it comes to the subject of lying, he is a genuine master. As CNN points out, in just one...

In another awkward moment for international diplomacy, leaked diplomatic cables from the United Kingdom's ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, to senior officials back home show that the U.K. official relayed less-than-flattering assessments...