Germany's Merz: US is Being 'Humiliated' by Iran, No End in Sight to Conflict

My thoughts as well. This is the harshest I've seen him talking. I thought it wasn't even real...

It's no longer controversial to say that among European conservatism.

American allies are starting to realize that appeasement doesn't work. They thought if you just go along with Trumps deranged insults and attacks and glaze him a bit things will work out and/or at some point his party would reign him in a bit but that clearly isn't going to happen. Just in the last week or so, Italy, Canada, and German leaders aren't really holding their tongues anymore. I expect to see more of this moving forward as everyone tries to distance themself from America as quickly as possible.

It was shockingly direct. Maybe the world leaders now are getting of Trump’s way of speech and want to retaliate 

Trying to goad Trump to end the war so energy prices can fall before we all go broke from high gas and food prices.

World leaders need to be more direct; Trump is an idiot stooge and needs to be treated as such. He deserves no courtesy or respect. Especially since he gives none to them.

Then he goes to the US and Trump humiliates him. That sellout was bashing on Spain at the start of the war and now, after 2 months of everyone thinking the US is f****** up in Iran, he says this. Lmao.

Especially considering Germany usually is being humiliated by Merz

We need more world leaders to come out and say this

My initial thought as well

his mouth is always a bit faster than his mind including when his thoughts are the most stupid possible way to communicate his ideas

Good. Trump and MAGA are bullies and need to be humiliated.

One useful thing about being nice to people is that they have no incentive to kick you when you're down, and may even try to help. On the other hand, if you act like an a****** to everybody from what you believe to be a position of strength, when your fortune reverses, well... Karma is a b****.

>Trump's rude, disrespectful, and even directly antagonistic approach towards NATO and Europe has enabled European leaders to speak hard truths. I wish that were so but this is a rare example with Merz. I just listened to an interview with the UK ambassador to the US and you would have thought we’d been in a disagreement over cricket. It was unbelievable to me that he cast our current t status and a temporary, polite disagreement among friends.

Trump doesn't act alone. He has the full unconditional backing of the majority of government and voters in the US. He is perfectly doing what he was elected to do. Don't let anyone use him as a scapegoat for the rest of them.

Trump's easily manipulated with flattery and bribes, and it doesn't even take much. So if other leaders wanted something out of the US and could swallow their pride they can get Trump to do just about anything. For a short while, before someone else manipulates him. So depending on your strategy their is a downside to insulting him.

\*by electing him and letting him stay in office

Americans humiliate themselves.

The America people are humiliated as well. The entire world sees exactly how stupid and pathetic the majority of our population is. 

Well, the people of the US humiliated themselves by voting for this clown – not once, but twice!

The US humiliated itself by electing them in the first place. Trump and his pals, they're not some kind of alien invasion who swooped in and took over before anybody noticed, they were put into place by Americans and are cheered on every single day by tens of millions of Americans.

But moreover, the people. The people voted for this, nobody is surprised about Trump, literally nobody.

China will probably time the meals perfectly so he shits himself audibly on live television in front of the world.. again.

Trump, the world's greatest negotiator, already ducked out of the Iran negotiations because the stakes got too high for him. I imagine he'll send Vance or some other stooge who he can then blame when they get a bad deal or no deal out of it.

China has the death sentence for paedophiles

China is doing so unbelievably well thru this. They couldn't have asked for a better scenario 

It's just bizarre. He thinks turning sizable parts of Iran into rubble and killing their leadership is "winning", which it unambiguously is in some kind of military/tactical sense, while completely failing to understand that he's lost it on multiple strategic levels. He caused "regime change" in Iran, except even though a bunch of people are dead, the regime is basically the same and is thought to be worse than the guy previously in charge. He doesn't really know if the Iranian leadership he is now negotiating with can deliver on whatever they promise because the leadership is so messed up. He has watched his allies in the Gulf area realize that the US can't *really* defend them all, and they've gotten oil facilities damaged in ways that will take years to repair, affecting supplies for months if not years. He's watched as billions of dollars of aircraft, radar stations, and anti-missile defense systems got trashed on the ground. He's had military personnel killed and injured. Why, despite "winning"? Because no defensive system is 100% successful against massed drones and missiles. And that doesn't count the cost of depleting enormous amounts of ammo at great expense. He's watched Iran practically close the Strait of Hormuz despite "obliterating" their military, especially their navy, because tankers are risk-adverse for obvious and entirely predictable reasons, and the Strait is *right there*. Iran doesn't have to go far or be sophisticated to threaten effectively or actually. He's watched as the global economy goes into a tailspin because of restricting flow of oil, gas, fertilizer, and other commodities from the Persian Gulf, leading to high gas prices at home despite having much-touted "energy security". He doesn't understand that security in supply and security in price are two very different things. You can't maintain prices while restricting 20% of the world's oil. Those costs will trickle down into inflation on almost everything. There was once a deal with Iran that didn't cost any of this, but he tore it up, making Iran loathe to cut another deal with an unreliable partner. He's desperately trying to negotiate his way back to what was basically the status quo, while trying to make it *look* like he's not desperate, with "all the time in the world". Meanwhile, the economy continues to crumble, globally. He's lost the plot so badly that he keeps talking about ballrooms, reflecting pools, and arches in Washington DC as if those are a priority for people. It's like grandpa is at the wheel, heading for a cliff, the whole family is screaming at him to turn the car, and he's telling them to quiet down and answer whether he should use Italian marble for the bathroom at home.

> just a step away from North Korean propaganda I'd argue they have been there for a while, especially when it comes to the fox "news" folks. Dont even need good propaganda when the republicans have crippled basic american education for decades to create generations of below average thinkers.

> Trump just has 0 clue what he's doing Enriching himself and his cronies by causing chaos.

> "stop hitting yourself" you forgot the letter S there

Iran: you'll never be stupid enough to make us block the strait of hormuz... Trunp: I'LL SHOW YOU HOW STUPID I AM!! BLOCK THE STRAIT OF IRAN!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!! 

There was no strategy. Trump has no insight into geopolitics. He can't even treat our own allies with respect.

There was a strategy. Kill the Ayatollah and a couple other leaders and the IRGC will collapse within days. That was it. That was the whole strategy. Nevermind that Iran has been planning specifically for an armed conflict with America for decades and losing most or all of their conventional military was factored into the strategy and they focused on an asymmetrical approach. But hey, who needs intelligence gathering and data when you have the biggest military in the world, right?

And yet, it you follow the press conferences hegseth gives, you're told to believe that the emperor is, in fact, wearing clothes. And here Merz is telling us he isn't. Who should I believe? And what does that say about the people I shouldn't believe?

the Republican senate had two chances to convict his impeachment and failed to do so. Don't let them forget that in November edit: for spelling

US is being humiliated by ***their decision to re-elect*** Trump. ftfy

As an American, I admit I am humiliated.

Bro, they voted for it, that’s what the American people wanted

\*by electing him and letting him stay in office

Don't shift the blame to a single person. The whole country is at fault!

… twice

For the 2nd time.

It's a good year for defenders (Ukraine/Iran). I hope China is watching this and concluding that attacking Taiwan isn't worth it.

Well a total regime change in Iran is a different level compared to what they’ve been doing before. Militarily Iran has indeed been seriously damaged, much more than US or Israel. But when it comes to regime change, Netanyahu got information from Mossad that was confident that the Islamic Republic would be easily overthrown in a couple weeks and now it’s apparent that it was a significant underestimation.

Ironically if the US and Israel didn’t initiate this current war, Iran would still remain in its weak position prior. While Iran has suffered severe losses to its high command, this war demonstrated to them that they can successfully blockade the Strait of Hormuz with relative ease and there’s nothing the world’s strongest superpower can do to stop them short of a full scale invasion. For Iran, pandora’s box has been opened on what they can do with the strait and its going to be almost impossible to return to the way it was pre-war. Even if the war ends, Iran will likely blockade the strait whenever their demands are not met.

How is it a failure for Bibi? Seems to me he is getting what he wants out of this so far.

They could've hit them *during* the mass protests.  But no, the pedo in charge had to recall the carrier group(s) that were supposed to be nearby because he had to hunt Venezuelan boats with the most expensive equipment available to him and posture around Greenland. So they only attacked well after that protest was squashed. 

Right, remember how after Orban lost he kind of just shrugged and was like "whatever, I'm rich?" I don't think Trump actually cares about any of this as much as we thing he does. Sure, not being broadly loved eats at him, and being mocked by the media makes him angry, and he still gets dopamine from his aggrievement politics, but I think these things are just less and less interesting to him by the day. He's old, tired, half senile, and it's pretty clear that he's checked out and just wants to take a nap. And this isn't some attempt to sane wash an old man, but it's an observation about how wealthy people can always just choose to retreat back into their lifestyle, and why they make such shit leaders. Because there is this underlying air of nihilism which informs everything they do. If at any point something doesn't go their way, or stops being fun, they can just go do something else, and not be impacted by their own bullshit. That's where Trump is. Being President isn't fun anymore. He's basically just given all the grifters around him free reign to bleed the rest of the country dry, because he doesn't really want to be in charge anymore.

And Bibi stays out of jail one more day. 

If we bomb civilian infrastructure, the leadership which was already shooting protestors en mass in the street will do what? Surrender in fear from having to shoot even more protestors? Run out if bullets from shooting civilians?

When Elon and techonazis fixed the election results and called in bomb threats to polling places in 2024. With the razor-thin percentages by both candidates to win, that was enough to tip it to Trump.