The peace deal agreed between Iran and the US is sending a wave of relief through the markets today.
Oil has tumbled 4%,
4%, on something generally as volatile as oil, is not exactly tumbled. But, you know…..
The peace deal agreed between Iran and the US is sending a wave of relief through the markets today.
Oil has tumbled 4%,
4%, on something generally as volatile as oil, is not exactly tumbled. But, you know…..
Bugger.
My front room is filled to the ceiling with barrels.
Lucky I used all those gold bars to prop up the floor.
My grandfather made a fortune supplying the Royal Navy in WWI. He bought gold bars…and hid them under the floorboards.
Isn’t this the opposite of what someone predicted? No crisis? He will be disappointed.
I ♥ Trump.
The Mullahs are snakes. Trump has made a deal with snakes.
I know Trump knows they are snakes. Yet I want to see what’s in the deal that makes Trump think it’s enforceable . . . I find it too hard to believe.
It’s okay, the deal was mediated by Pakistan. What could go wrong?
Deal or no deal, Trump was right to attack Iran. He deserves credit for his courage in trying to neutralise Iran’s threat to the West as a whole. He’s probably not destroyed Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, but he has set it back at least 5-10 years. Thank you, America!
And now everyone knows how easy it is to shut the Straits of Hormuz there will be a lot of effort to reduce that threat to global trade.
It’s okay, Trump has given Iran the power to levy tolls for shipping over an international waterway. They’ll want to keep it open. Winning!
Yes:
Gulf states are fast-tracking multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects to “Iran-proof” their economies and bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Key developments include the United Arab Emirates rapidly expanding its west-east pipelines to double export capacity through Fujairah and Saudi Arabia maximizing its 1,200 km East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea.
The push to reduce reliance on this highly vulnerable maritime chokepoint features several major regional initiatives:UAE Expansion: Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is currently fast-tracking a second pipeline project that will double crude export capacity directly to the Gulf of Oman port of Fujairah, outside the strait.
Saudi East-West Pipeline: Stretching 1,200 km, this system can move up to 7 million barrels daily from the Abqaiq oil fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, completely avoiding the Persian Gulf.
Iraq-Turkey Pipeline: Iraq is fast-tracking plans to accelerate crude exports through the Kurdistan-Turkey network, tripling shipments to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.Multimodal Logistics & Railways:
Alongside pipelines, Saudi Arabia and partner states are developing new hybrid land-sea logistics corridors, deploying cross-peninsula trucks, railways, and highways.IMEC & International Corridors: Washington-backed frameworks like the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) are advancing to connect the Gulf to the Mediterranean via a web of railways, hydrogen pipelines, and communication networks.
Yes. This cannot be stated enough. Trump changed the paradigm and the landscape in the Middle East. The mad mullahs today do not have the lock on the rest of the world they used to have.
So, a Genesis Of The Daleks play?
From FlightGlobal:
“Kazakhstan is an oil-producing country and we have three refineries within the country, for which we are grateful because it gives us stability of supply, which has been and remains a concern for many airlines around the world,” explains Canliel.
“We uplift roughly 70% of our total fuel consumption from Kazakhstan and that gives us another reason to be very ambitious for growth because we are not confronted – at least for 70% of our fuel bill – with the [cost] spikes that other airlines are facing globally. We buy directly from the refinery and we manage the logistics ourselves, so we are eliminating two to three middlemen in the supply chain.”
The result of this, he adds, is that 70% of Air Astana’s fuel bill is unchanged from what it was before the Iran conflict began.
The UK could do this with our own resources from the North Sea but apparently oil and gas prices are global and this, as described by Air Astana’s CEO, is impossible.
Oil prices are basically global, but gas basically regional (because of the difficulty in transporting it compared to oil – though LNG changes this a bit).
Pretty sure aeroplanes burn a form of oil, not gas.
Indeed. It’s nice that the fighting has (perhaps) stopped.
But the Iranian regime is still there. They can still field a great number of the weapons that make them dangerous. They still have and control remote terror armies. They still control the Straits of Hormuz. They still have possession and control of their nuclear material.
Are they going to get pallettes of cash, too?
Yes. It makes me wonder what Trump’s up to because he’s not so dumb or ignorant of human nature as to be unable to foresee this.
At the moment it looks to me like Trump has lost, and I am genuinely disappointed, I thought he would do what successive Presidents have failed to do and excise the cancer that is the Iranian regime. Did he put too much faith in the Iranian people to rise up and get rid of the mullahs? I thought that might happen in Iraq but all we saw was they just carried on being moslems and fucking things up didn’t.
So, we are left with the Mullahs still in charge, their nuke program will quietly carry on, they will continue to threaten other Gulf States, keep funding hamas,hisbollah and the houthis, and still appear to have the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz at will.
I do hope there is some 4 dimensional chess going on……..
You can never permanently stop a country from building a nuclear weapon, because the knowledge of how to do so is now out there.
I suppose whether it was all worthwhile depends on how long the bombings have set that development back by. Months, years, decades?
I suppose whether it was all worthwhile depends on how long the bombings have set that development back by. Months, years, decades?
And previously, 12 months ago, Iran felt like it could openly flaunt their uranium enrichment programme, backed up with the implicit menaces of their vast conventional military forces and terrorist networks.
It was the murderer in Dirty Harry boasting to the cops that he’s untouchable.
Now, Iran’s military capabilities have been shown to be dogshit. Their fancy Chinese and Russian radars did nothing. Their initial scud storms quickly depleted to zero strategic effect (except to prove Mossad right – these bastards were building ICBMs). The dynamic previously was predicated on the illusion that Iran is a Serious Power. Hence the desperate tenor of the ludicrous boasting and threats Iran issues over Twitter. Except it’s not us they’re trying to convince, but their own people. Those cousin-fancying toothless inbreds in the provinces need to think the regime is powerful, or they’ll tear it apart.
The war has demonstrated tho that Iran is not a Serious Power, it’s a human whack-a-mole game where the Israelis and Yanks hold all the hammers. The other gulf countries are racing to build new pipe to avoid Hormuz altogether. This was a bonfire of Iranian vanities, and it’s very possible the Islamic regime won’t survive the injuries they’ve been dealt.
Cope.
PJF – Cope
Well, I like to think so. Life is a series of coping mechanisms. But am I wrong? Embrace the wonderful possibilities of many things being true, at the same time.
Wars usually end in jaw-jaw, rather than unconditional surrender tho. Whatchagonnado?
Matters not what I do. The “region” is going to nuclear proliferate. That probably matters.
Yes, but didn’t we know that after last year’s strikes? Regarding which:
Yes, whacking Iran is probably a good thing. But we don’t really want to have to do it every year.
I’m for whacking Iran for the next 47 years. They’ve earned it.
I’d also like to see a DMZ – for Iran – around the Strait. They should have no capability of attacking shipping.
You put it beautifully. And I hope you’re right, but I doubt you are.
Who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows? Only time.
But one thing we can all agree on is numbers?
People hoping to make lasting judgments about a 38 day campaign in a war that’s been simmering since 1979. In a region that’s been simmering since forever BC. Against a country of 90,000,000. They’re gonna be disappointed. But we can still count.
15,000 targets hit by the US and Israel by day 14 of the air campaign. Those are incredible numbers. Comparable to Allied air sorties Normandy. Western media focused on the cost of the munitions (!), that’s a nice thing to worry about.
The cost of the blockade to Iran: their currency is now worth zero dollars. The extra ceasefire time according to the MOU (as anybody in business knows, an MOU is worth about as much as a compliments slip): 60 days minimum from 20th June. Huh. That’s 60 days for the more excitable fanatics in the IRGC (most of them) to fight the realists (the civilian government?) Peace talks hold danger for a regime with lots of hotheads and no clear, visible, *alive* legitimate leadership. If you’ve never been in a business meeting that descended into blows, you haven’t lived.
The summer might be an uncomfortable one for the regime. Their internal divisions may not survive the negotiation process. Anything can happen, but Uncle Sam holds most of the cards and Iran has little room for maneuver here. Plenty of room for bluster and bullshit, but they can’t even put a speedboat to sea without Uncle Sam’s indulgence and their best efforts to weaponise the global oil price failed. The Eye of Sauron is apon them, they can’t cross the road without Mossad knowing about it. Over time, Iran’s position grows weaker, the US-Israel stronger, contrary to what we’re told. Israel of course has not been idle, and Hezbollah has been severely attritted. Survivors will be scared of pagers forever.
The future is now. It won’t be like the past. Watch and see.
Or, we can shid our pants, like the chaps who believe the yellow press do.
At the moment it looks to me like Trump has lost,
Yes, in vibes terms.
In real terms (the war part of the war), Iran is much diminished, and may now be ruled over by a dead, gay, Ayatollah. But the regime persists, which was their only realistic win condition.
12 – 18 months ago, Iran was flaunting its uranium enrichment, and on paper looked like a serious threat to US and Israeli forces due to their modern Chinese AD, huge missile stockpiles, and the assumption that closing the Strait was an economic doomsday weapon against the West.
Now, the entire region has taken Iran’s measure and found it wanting. Their terrorist proxies lost their balls to Israeli pagers, their air force and navy no longer exist. Most of their leaders from 2025 are dead. Their rockets and drones are an annoyance, not an existential threat. The infidels struck them about 20,000 times, with complete impunity. Threatening the Strait has been an economic disaster – for Iran and its neighbours, not for the infidels.
But in vibes terms, the war is unpopular with Trump’s base and the psycho Left (Democrats, the MSM) openly hate Jews and are cheering on the Islamic Revolution, providing them propaganda aid and comfort. It looks like Trump started a fight he couldn’t finish, which is true because of his own self restraint – Trump was never going to invade with the US Army, obliterate their civilian infrastructure to cause a humanitarian crisis, or simply nuke Tehran. The IRGC knew that, so they knew that if they could hunker down and survive the airstrikes and economic pressure, they could hold on.
On t’other, it’s the Middle East, so expecting satisfying solutions is, well… We’ll just have to wait and see how things work out. But nb that the US Navy can come back and wreck Iran’s shit at any time. The US retains complete escalatory dominance.
You don’t understand the region. If this holds, the entire region will continue to see Iran as the big dangerous horse – simply because they are still there with all the relevant power they had. They’ve even come away with the new power to extract tolls over an international waterway! Astonishing. Plus a wedge between the US and Israel, who Trump is going to increasingly blame for this clusterfuck.
You’re being a muppet, Steve. This is America losing yet another war.
You don’t understand the region. If this holds, the entire region will continue to see Iran as the big dangerous horse – simply because they are still there with all the relevant power they had.
Nah. Bombing other Muslim countries has, strangely, not increased Iran’s popularity or prestige. Their power has proven to be mostly illusory.
But sure, when your win condition is as low as “surviving”, it’s all gravy, baby. Iranian mullahs hoping to tell their granddaughter-wives about how they heroically had their teeth kicked in by Uncle Sam, and almost caught an F-15 pilot.
They’ve even come away with the new power to extract tolls over an international waterway! Astonishing.
Yes, it would be if it was true.
Plus a wedge between the US and Israel, who Trump is going to increasingly blame for this clusterfuck.
Oh please. This is the big boy’s game and Bibi knows what he’s doing. And he should listen to Trump, Israel has become very unpopular and Trump is their best friend in Washington.
You’re being a muppet, Steve. This is America losing yet another war.
But this is classic vibeworld thinking (i.e. emoting)
No, Virginia, the United States has not “lost”. Losing a war usually entails things like:
* Your cities ravaged by enemy bombs
* Disproportionate casualties on your side compared with the enemy
* Your treasury and physical means to prosecute war badly degraded
* Your women raped
* You give away valuable territory and pay £40Bn for the privilege
None of these conditions apply to the US. Many apply to Iran.
What is War? (Don’t hurt me). War is merely politics, with sticks. A physical means of achieving a political end. The US war aims, as publicly stated in the operation which ended nearly 2 months ago, were about defanging the Iranian regime and eliminating its nuclear blackmail.
We have no idea whether those goals will be achieved in negotiations or not yet, but it’s interesting the Comical Alis who assured us Iran would never negotiate with the Infidels now appear to have been negotiating with the Infidels the whole time. Yet you seem to uncritically still believe their ludicrous boasting about what they plan to “discuss” with the Americans as settled writ post bellum.
My dear brother in Christ, President Trump is 80 years young and this is his legacy building tour. He may not see the world through the impatient eyes that you, a much younger man, do. But he is an inveterate deal maker who understands – as every gude merchant does – that if one persuasion tactic isn’t working, you merely try the others. Iran has, by its own reckoning, been at war with the United States since 1979. Patience, young Padawan.
You’re a good salesman, Steve, but despite you seemingly writing more column inches in support of this than the entire US right-wing blogosphere, it still sucks to the point of making absolutely no sense at all. And that’s okay, because I don’t think it’s real. I think it’s some kind of show that Trump wanted for the birthday excitement and his G7 trip. He can’t possibly think this arrangement is in his own political interests, let alone America’s national security interests. He’s offered Iran way more than they could have hoped for, knowing they will still be too stupid to go along with it. Short term show and strategic pause. Then it’s on again.
I don’t think anybody believes this except you. Which is charming.
You’re a good salesman, Steve,
Thanks. You’re my best customer. x
but despite you seemingly writing more column inches in support of this than the entire US right-wing blogosphere,
I was surprised at how low their morale is. Bush burnt up the average American conservative’s appetite for war. Large sections of the base radicalised by Qanon / Epstein psyops. You can see what President Trump has to work with: a base that sees Iran as an unwelcome distraction at best, betrayal most foul at worst, some of his Republican senators grandstanding against Israel, party insider neocons being unhappy with any outcome that isn’t ziggurats of human skulls. In the midst of this shit show, Israel’s popularity has gone negative (!) with most demographics in the United States who aren’t Old White Guys like us, meaning Trump can’t – as Obama, Dubya, and Clinton did – bask in Israeli popularity with Americans. He’s taking major heat for supporting Israel instead, because we live in Crazy world now. Being openly antisemitic is the cool new thing on Tik Tok, ffs.
Kennedy didn’t have to put up with all this bullshit during the Cuban missile crisis.
It’s why Trump spent most of his time and energy fiddling the markets in America’s favour. The man is a master of economic warfare, histories will be written about it. No other US president could have done what Trump did on that front, the battlefield he knows best. Surprised the only people who noticed how skillfully Team Trump were playing the markets were his haters. Gordon Gekko would worship this man. Vanderbilts and Whitneys would ask him to be godfather to their new scions. No wonder he’s sleepy.
You want a salesman’s opinion? Trump knew the economic risks instinctively, and set up a crack team of big shots in a boiler room type play. We’ve never seen the like in previous US military interventions, but look at how masterfully they calmed markets at strategically timed points. And read the angry, tearful complaints of the Iranians that the dastardly Americans were rigging the markets against them.
You know, for a prize idiot, Trump sure does do a lot of smart things. The Forrest Gump president.
it still sucks to the point of making absolutely no sense at all. And that’s okay, because I don’t think it’s real. I think it’s some kind of show that Trump wanted for the birthday excitement and his G7 trip. He can’t possibly think this arrangement is in his own political interests, let alone America’s national security interests. He’s offered Iran way more than they could have hoped for, knowing they will still be too stupid to go along with it. Short term show and strategic pause. Then it’s on again.
Sure, maybe. But here’s what a salesman knows, which you may have overlooked: does Iran have a receipt for any carrots that may, or may not, have been dangled their way, through the fog of Pakistani mediation (a miasma of sweat, Polo mints and Hai Karate)? No? Iran has bupkis? Ok.
The MOU is merely an invitation to further talks? The US Navy is going to stick around, “just in case”, for the foreseeable?
As you say, Trump may have short term political objectives which can be served with a pause in fighting which does in no way preclude him from coming back with another massive attack at any point he chooses to give the order to a Star Destroyer.
I see. How concerning.
My brother in Christ, how many times have you seen Trump do something Everyone Agrees is stupid and crazy, only to come out a winner with that big cheesy grin of his at the end? Even I eventually figured out the baddies in Scooby Doo were on a hiding to nothing.
I don’t think anybody believes this except you. Which is charming.
Story of my life, mate. I’ve always been the weirdo who overthinks things. But sometimes that can come in handy, maybe? It worked for Michael Burry.
Sorry to repeat, but…Deal or no deal, Trump was right to attack Iran. He deserves credit for his courage in trying to neutralise Iran’s threat to the West as a whole. He’s probably not destroyed Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, but he has set it back at least 5-10 years. Thank you, America!
If their nuclear programme has indeed been set back 5-1o years, then it sounds worth doing.
But there’s a lot of debate about this, with three schools of thought; ‘yes it has’; ‘no it hasn’t significantly, only by a few months’; and ‘they set it back so far in last year’s bombing that this new round hasn’t added much’.
I’ve no idea which is correct.
But it’s critical the they have no nuke weapon capability. Even if it takes ground invasion.
They have made it clear that, if they get a nuke, they will use it. No MAD standoff, they will use it.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely support Trump for doing what he has done, but what did winning look like at the beginning of this war?
No IRGC mining and attacking merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz?
No mad mullahs using Basij militia to kill their civilians?
No nuclear programme, and weapons inspectors allowed in to confirm it?
No support for terrorist groups in other countries?
No promise to ‘wipe Israel off the map’?
No more ‘Death to America’?
It’s obvious America has won ‘the war’, but like Vietnam, what does the peace look like?
Iran is tribal, like Saudi is tribal. It’s a completely different mindset to an industrial one.
People look at these countries doing horrible things to citizens and assume the rest of the country care. And they don’t. If you were in Iraq and Sunni, you wouldn’t care too much that Saddam gassed the Kurds. They were working with Iran. If you didn’t stop them, Iran would invade, probably kill you and your family to take the land.
Same as the Inquisition. It wasn’t really about religion, it was about traitors.
And you’ll not change the region by force. You kick Saddam out, is Iraq now a fluffy liberal country? This is Star Wars thinking. Darth Vader kills the emperor and the place is now free. What would actually happen is that a bunch of admirals would take over.
All you can really do is containment, suppression and making it clear to keep their shit in the region. Iran seems to be building a nuke, blow some shit up. Don’t think you can change the nature, but let them know the incentives.
It reminds me of what can happen with drug gangs. One staps out of line, so the other shoots a few capos. They shoot a few guys back. But at a certain point, the cooler heads at the top say “boss, we aren’t making any money” and they figure out a peace deal. But both gangs are still wary afterwards. There’s no permanent fix for Iran.
So, I don’t know. I’m not the biggest fan of Donald Trump, but I think it was a bit of necessary wing-clipping. At some point, someone will try it on again in Iran and we’ll have to do it again.
It looks like he expected a quick victory, didn’t get it, so has got something that he can declare to be a victory.
Which is better than letting a war drag on for years, but not as good as actually achieving a quick victory.
Businessman Trump may have seen it – whenever the Pentagon offered him this operation – as a punt. High risk, high reward.
When punts don’t work out like you hoped, nbd, but you need to move on to profitable opportunities asap.
The normie mind sees this as Shameful Defeat! Or whatever is getting people excited that day. The pragmatic mind knows life is not zero-sum, and that disappointing – but measured – bet you made previously can always be revisited when conditions might be more favourable. It’s why losers fear losing and winners accept it as a price of success.
Next stop, Havana!
As long as it doesn’t turn into Gulf War One, or even worse Versailles. This needs to be, dunno, Britain vs Denmark 1807.
War is a continuation of politics by other means, and so politics and diplomacy are war continued by other means. This particular conflict has been going on since the Crusades. The military form of conflict is only one tool in the toolbox, that only does a subset of the things that need doing. War is to nation building what ploughing is to farming. You can use it to clear the ground, cut down the weeds, and make a space for your civilised seeds to grow. But it is not and never has been sufficient to grow a healthy crop on its own.
The true achievement of Trump’s war is the Abraham accords. It was their success in moving the other Arab nations towards making peace with Israel and the West that provoked October 7th as a last desperate attempt to sabotage it and force the other Arab nations to resume the hot war against the Greater and Little Satans. The true measure of whether Trump ‘won’ was the fact that it didn’t work. The other Arab nations quietly joined in stomping on Iran. I’m sure they still don’t *like* Israel, but they can all see which way the wind is blowing.
By any rational measure of performance in war, Iran certainly lost this war. Their military got obliterated, their nuclear programme got buried, their leadership got decimated, and their economy got trashed. I know there are people that count merely surviving to be a victory of sorts, but to impartial eyes this looks like bravado verging on denial. Whether the US and Trump ‘won’ is a different matter, but if Trump ‘lost’, it wasn’t the Iranians who defeated him. It was his political enemies in the West. Politics is a continuation of war by other means, and so if Trump loses politically to people whose standard of victory is a set of moving goalposts determined by the Trump-deranged, the lefty media, the pacifist cat-lady middle classes, and the Jew-hating Socialist supporters of Palestinian Nationalism on one side and the short-attention-span isolationist Walk-By-On-The-Other-side-of-The-Road Priests and Levites of the American right, who won’t support any war lasting more than a month, then he was doomed before he started. There is no way for Trump to ‘win’ if ‘winning’ requires getting the support of his political enemies in the West.
However, I see any such loss as relative. It depends whose standard of what counts as ‘victory’ you go by. I have no respect for people who apply different standards to the two sides. By any standard under which Iran ‘won’ so did Trump. He’s still there. He’s still in power. He’s still able to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. He’s still nuclear armed. By any standard by which Trump ‘lost’ so did Iran. The Mullah’s are extremely unpopular, facing fierce internal opposition and resistance, politically in a precarious position, and they didn’t get everything they wanted. They’ve not defeated the Great Satan. They’ve not eliminated their military. They’ve not got the backing of their neighbouring countries in the region. (OK, the quisling West, maybe. But they have no power either.)
I have no respect for the standards applied by those who consider Trump to have ‘lost the war’, but the Western opposition to Trump is fierce and very stubborn and that political fight isn’t over. He might indeed lose. But I repeat – it wouldn’t be Iran that had beaten him, but people like Starmer and Macron, the Democrats in the US, the Woke Legions of the Damned marching for Palestine in London, and the Guardian and the BBC. And also people who think that the cultural and civilisational struggle between Islam and the West can be settled in a month of shooting, who want this to be the end of the war so they can all go back to sleep. It’s not over yet.
If you have to go on about how war is something other than war, and then move the goalposts into the past to show that an outcome that was actually a result of something other than war is somehow an achievement of a later war, it’s probably the case that you haven’t won that war.
Well, okay, if that works for you. But nobody ever expected Iran to defeat America militarily. By your “rational measure” of war performance, North Vietnam certainly lost bad – and yet . . .
I’m not saying it’s good that these desert fuckwads think surviving against the Great Satan is victory, I’m just saying they do. And they will act accordingly. Add to that the fact they’re going to have to be paying Iran a toll every time they send a boat through the Straits, and JD Vance is saying Iran can expect $300billion in Gulf State “investment”, these guys will conclude that the US couldn’t defeat Iran and had to buy them off with their money. The Saudis will be looking elsewhere and for other means to defend themselves against the Shi’ite Persians.
Agreed.
Yes. It’s exactly the same thing. Militarily, the USA won the Vietnam war. Politically, they lost, but it wasn’t the Viet Kong that defeated them, but the Americans themselves.
You can *say* the USA lost the war with Iran. And if enough of you say it, it becomes true. But in so doing it’s *you* that defeated them, not the Iranians.
Clausewitz said that you win the war by defeating the enemy’s will to fight. If the West has no will to fight, all their expensive military is a pointless waste of money and it will lose every war. I’m not claiming that this isn’t so. I’m just pointing out that the *responsibility* for it lies with all the Westerners who won’t fight to defend their own culture, and will read every military victory as a moral defeat. It’s cultural suicide. And there’s not a thing that Trump could have done to stop that.
Where do you get that from? The Americans say they won’t.
Again, it depends what you mean by “defeat”. They can defeat the ballistic missiles and the blockade of the straits, which was what a lot of people were worried about. They discovered that they can’t trigger an immediate regime change by decapitating the current leadership because all the layers below are just as bad. They’ll need a different tool from the toolbox to do that.
The obvious candidate being the Israelis. I found it interesting that the Israelis deployed Iron Dome outside the country for the first time defending UAE.
When it comes to military hardware, the USA and Israel are still going to be the go-to source. The other big military powers like Russia and China are on Iran’s side, and in any case the Americans just demonstrated how ineffective their air defence hardware is.
But to topple the regime, you’re going to need economic and cultural methods.
It’s odd to be disagreeing over something using the very same illustrative example. Losing a war is losing a war, whether it’s by military conquest or failure of will.
In this case it’s the latter; Trump has decided to accomodate Iran rather than persue his military actions. He can’t afford to go in to the midterms with a rumbling war (with potential new losses) and high prices. Iran knows this; and that their already shit economy can outlast Trump’s deadline. So they get a fantastic deal which gives them immediate benefits (sell oil in normal markets with normal banking) for doing nothing for 60 days. Mid August is even more problematic for Trump, so then they can just start the regular stalling.
They’re both saying there won’t be tolls. The Iranians are calling it transit fees (a payment for service) and JD is saying it’s the sort of thing that can be negotiated in the magic 60 days. I’m calling it tolls because that’s what it is. There’s no way Trump is throwing his peace away over tolls. They’re in the bag.
No they can’t, and that’s the crux of the issue. All America’s air and naval superiority couldn’t stop the missiles or unblock the straits. Those powers are still Iran’s. Only by going all in and taking big losses – which they are obviously unwilling to do – could the US achieve those things.
You are making assumptions. You don’t know what his actual goals were. You don’t know why he stopped here. You don’t know what he’s planning next.
Under international law, countries of the United Nations are required to deal with threats to international peace and security, by either blockade or force if a blockade won’t work. Trump’s stated goals were something like no nuclear weapons, and an end to funding terrorists fighting proxy wars in neighbouring countries, lobbing missiles at them, and attacking international shipping. Those are all things that the international community can legitimately use force to achieve.
He got all that. He battered their military to a shattered remnant, then blockaded them and fought an economic war to crush their economy. And while they tried to drag it out as long as they could, Iran gave in on all points.
Regime change isn’t an allowable justification for armed conflict in international law. And history has shown that it’s a very difficult thing to achieve anyway without boots on the ground. So it may be the reason he hasn’t kept shooting until the regime fell is that it wasn’t ever actually a goal or victory condition. It would have been good if it had, but America’s goal of eliminating a threat to international peace and security (at least on the scale of a decade or two, which is all you can ever really hope for in history) has been achieved.
So it may be that he stopped there as a result of back room negotiations with other nations, agreeing to follow the spirit of the UN Charter. (The rest of the world was noticeably a lot quieter about Iran that they were about Bush in Iraq. It may well have helped keep the Arabs on side.) It may be he stopped there because he had achieved or could see that he was going to achieve his actual aims. It may be he stopped because he saw that the economic tactic would be more effective. It may be that he still plans to overthrow the regime, but by other means than trying to bomb them from the air. Or maybe he regarded it as a nice-to-have but figured he could live without it. We don’t know.
But Trump appears to have got everything he asked for. And while he might well not want it to go to the mid-terms (and I’d not bet on that), it wouldn’t have been a problem to keep bombing well into the summer. He could have carried on bombing. His allies in the Middle East all wanted him to carry on bombing. He stopped for his own reasons, and those reasons transparently weren’t to let the oil through either.
The Iranians are trying to spin it as a great victory, or at least as not a total ignominious loss, and Vance is probably willing to let them save a little face so long as that means they’ll not back out of the deal and the US gets what they want. If they offer an actual service (pilotage, for example) then sure, they can charge for it. If they try to enforce it on everyone, well there’s plenty the US and the neighbouring countries can do to discourage that short of opening hostilities again. We’ll see.
And yet here we are, missiles stopped and the straits unblocked.
Yes, they’ve shown they can make a nuisance of themselves for a few weeks, and could do again. But when it’s costing the rest of the world billions, we can find the will to do something about it. We blocked most of the missiles. There are people queuing up now to buy Iron Dome and Patriot and similar. There’s nothing like an actual war for prodding military technology development in the butt. It won’t be nearly so easy for them next time.
Yes, by buying them off. Not by military action.
PJF – Add to that the fact they’re going to have to be paying Iran a toll every time they send a boat through the Straits,
No. What makes you think that?
The Iranians are *boasting* that they plan to “discuss” tolls with the Americans. The Americans plan to tell them to fuck off, again.
Why do you believe Iranian propaganda my dude?
and JD Vance is saying Iran can expect $300billion in Gulf State “investment”,
Yes, up to and including nothing. It’s actually a very cunning plan. Iran sells energy rights to a consortium of Gulf States for the next 15 years. The Gulf states monitor Iran’s compliance with denuclearization and other naughty behaviours, and only pays Iran its stipend if they’re good boys.
So, it gives neighbouring Muslim countries skin in the game (it’s their money being invested), provides cash and skills injections to transform Iran’s decrepit oil and gas sector, flooding the world with lovely cheap Iranian fuels, and provides an ongoing non-HE incentive plan for the Iranian state to try acting like a normal country for a change.
I don’t have massively high hopes it’ll work, but it might work, and it’s worth a try. It depends on whether the IRGC can win the peace. Wartime allowed them to boss the civilian government around, the latter might be able to reassert itself in “peace”. (Who knows? We know not all Iranians aspire to national poverty and martyrdom. Gotta be regime figures hoping to take their kids to Disneyland some day.)
Dress it up how you like, this is Iran getting paid off to not batter them.
Are you writing Trump’s war victory speech?
Good luck with that.
Reagan threatened to carpet bomb Tehran . . . back in the good old days.
My nephew’s in-laws are Iranian, and (like 90+% of the ex-pat community) would like the US to bomb more and harder, cheering each death of the ruling junta.