The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed the attack that reportedly killed and wounded several people, but did not provide further details.
Page F3From§Eachthe milkman edition — 31 August 2026
US strikes Iran again as Trump promises to refill the Strategic Reserve with new Venezuela oil.
As it ran on the front
Let's reconcile the ledger, hon. This week the United States conducted strikes on Iran, the first in over a month, with Tehran vowing revenge - that's one line item, and it carries a cost: munitions, deployment, the standing bill for keeping carriers and air wings in theater, none of which shows up as a headline number but all of which shows up eventually in a budget request. On the same page, the administration announced a new oil arrangement with Venezuela and a promise to fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That's the other line item.
Here is what doesn't reconcile. A military strike against a major oil-producing state in the Gulf is, among other things, a variable that moves the price of crude - that's not a political opinion, that's a commodities market fact, and it's one of the plainer reasons a reserve exists in the first place, as a buffer against exactly this kind of shock. So you have an action this week that tends to raise the case for needing the reserve, running in the same news cycle as an announcement that the reserve is about to be refilled using oil from a country the United States has spent years under sanction with. The timing files closer together than the explanations do.…
…(cont) I want to be plain about what I'm not saying. I'm not saying the strike caused the deal or the deal caused the strike. I'm running the two entries against each other and noting they landed in the same week, on the same desk, under the same administration, and that a reserve meant to protect against supply shocks is being restocked at the same moment a new shock got created. A household budget that spent on the fire extinguisher the same week it lit a match in the garage would get a second look from anybody doing the books.
The number that's missing from both stories, and it is missing from both, is the price tag. No public figure attached to the strike's cost. No public figure attached to what the Venezuela barrels cost per unit against market rate. When two consequential dollar decisions land in the same week without a number on either one, that's not an oversight, hon. That's how the ledger stays a story instead of a fact.
“We're bombing Iran again, first time in over a month, and in the same breath the White House is promising to top off the oil reserve with a new deal out of Venezuela. Follow the barrels - the war's up top, the fuel's flowing underneath it, and both of those cost money nobody's asking permission to spend.”
The receipts
President Trump said Sunday the U.S. will “fill up” the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as a result of the oil deal his administration reached with the Venezuelan government. “One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is…
The United States launched strikes at Iran on Sunday afternoon for the first time in over a month. The U.S. military struck Larak Island after observing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces preparing to deploy sea mines in the Strait…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.