We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇺🇸❌🇹🇷 Author for the Washington D.C. think tank, Middle East Forum (MEF), Michael Rubin:
The United States Needs to Prepare to Kill Turks in Syria
Turkey’s Actions Already Cross the Rubicon and Place American Forces and Interests in Jeopardy
The celebrations that ended the more than half-century of Assad family tyranny in Syria are over. In the short term, Russia and Iran are losers; Turkey is the winner. After all, Turkey was the prime backer of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham rebel group that swept through Syria.
Many defense professionals still embrace Turkey because of Turkey’s role in NATO. It was one of only two NATO countries to border the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and it has the second largest military of any NATO country. Troop numbers, however, are a meaningless metric; what matters more is the potential to utilize them for NATO missions.
While the strategic importance of Incirlik Air Base has declined with the openings of alternatives in Greece and Romania, as well as more advanced amphibious assault vessels capable of transporting F-35s nearly anywhere in the world, the bureaucratic dynamic remains in the Pentagon loath to forfeit any base access. In effect, like Qatar with the al-Udeid Air Base, Turkey leverages the Incirlik as a get-out-of-jail-free card to avoid accountability for any number of malign behaviors. Defense professionals argue that Turkey’s early warning radar station at Malatya is essential to detect any launch of a potential Iranian nuclear weapon.
It may be diplomatically impolitic to say directly, but if Turkish-backed forces encourage terrorism and continue to pose threats to American forces countering the Islamic State in the region, it behooves the United States to begin a conversation about whether it may be necessary to target Turkish terror sponsors in the region. Turkey is a NATO member, but striking at its forces outside Turkey’s boundaries would not trigger NATO self-defense clauses. Nor should there be outrage at such discussion.
If Turkey is willing to kill Americans operating in pursuit of official American policy inside Syria, then the United States should adopt the same policy and be willing to kill Turks outside Turkey’s own borders.
đź“ť: No. The situation calls for a withdrawal of US forces from Syria. Pres. Trump has a golden opportunity to open a new page w/Turkey by negotiating an orderly departure of troops. The US interest is not served by a prolonged troop presence.
đź”— https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/the-united-states-needs-to-prepare-to-kill-turks-in-syria
🇺🇸 #Oklahoma high school principal (Kirk Moore) seen charging at and disarming a school shooter.
The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Victor Hawkins, was a former student who said he wanted to shoot up the school “like the Columbine shooters did.” While taking down the shooter, Moore was shot in the leg. He is expected to recover.
When the Principal woke up that day, he never thought he would be tackling a gunman.
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🇨🇳🛢 How much strategic oil does the world actually have in reserve?
Global strategic crude oil inventories stood at ~2.5 BILLION barrels as of December 2025, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
China holds by far the largest stockpile at 1,397 million barrels, more than 3 times the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 413 million barrels, which itself sits at only 58% of its full storage capacity of 714 million barrels.
China added an average of 1.1 million barrels per day to its strategic inventories throughout 2025, with preliminary data suggesting it continued building stockpiles in early 2026 ahead of the Iran War.
Japan holds the 3rd-largest reserve at 263 million barrels, followed by OECD European countries at 179 million barrels.
Meanwhile, the US is releasing 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to suppress oil prices, part of a broader 400 million barrel coordinated release agreed by 32 IEA member nations in March.
đź”— ...
🛢 JP Morgan Warns Oil Market Out of Balance, Prices Must Rise
🔸The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows, has removed 13.7 million barrels per day from global supply in April alone. A JP Morgan research note warns the market has no good way to replace it.
🔸Normally, spare production capacity in Saudi Arabia and the UAE acts as the market’s shock absorber. But that buffer has effectively been removed, eliminating the system’s first line of defense.
🔸With spare capacity unavailable, markets turned to inventories
➤ Global stockpiles are now being drained at ~7.1 mbd in April, an extraordinary pace, according to the note.
🔸Meanwhile, demand is collapsing because supply simply isn’t reaching users — “forced demand destruction.”The hardest hit sectors include:
▪️ Petrochemical plants across Asia are shutting down or slashing output as LPG, ethane, and naphtha flows from the Gulf collapse
▪️ Airline jet fuel ...
🛢⛽️ Global oil inventories are heading toward RECORD LOWS:
Global visible oil inventories have fallen -255 million barrels since the start of the conflict on February 27, to 7,864 million barrels.
Total estimated oil draws, including non-OECD refined products storage, have accelerated to 10.9 million barrels per day in April, the largest monthly draws on record since 2017.
Cumulative estimated draws since the start of the war now stand at 474 million barrels, with Hormuz flows holding at ~10% of normal, or 2.0 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, even in an optimistic scenario where Strait of Hormuz flows begin recovering by late April, it is unlikely to prevent global visible inventories from reaching all-time lows, according to Goldman Sachs.
As inventories keep falling, physical oil markets are likely to require sharply higher prices for immediate delivery, since buyers cannot wait months for cheaper futures delivery when stocks are running critically low.
Goldman also warns...
