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Notes -
Third Gulf War Negotiations Thread
As we approach the end of the 5 day pause(?) before the USA ramps up attacks again, reports are coming in that the Trump team has sent Iran a 15 point plan for peace. I don’t think the full text has been credibly made public at this time, as should be expected, but from what I’ve gathered the points can be reduced from redundant and detail points, Iran gives:
— Iran stops funding proxies abroad, especially Hamas and Hezbollah
— Iran pinky promises to never get a nuclear weapon, surrenders nuclear material, agrees to various future restrictions/inspections
— Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz
In exchange Iran gets:
— Full sanctions relief, including removal of the snapback provisions that removed sanctions would go back on Iran immediately if Iran violated the agreement
— American assistance with their civilian nuclear program.
Iran, after denying that negotiations were happening at all, has come back with the following demands:
— Bombing of Iran ends, assassination of Iranian officials ends, guarantees that it won’t start again
— Reparations
— Recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the strait of Hormuz
— They won’t negotiate with Steve and Jared, only with JD Vance
Trump has delayed bombing Iranian civilian infrastructure for this week, while Iran has let some ships through the strait as a gesture of good faith, or as Trump put it a “very expensive present.”
Now none of this is being reported clearly, and this all might be bullshit, and maybe one or both sides is engaging in distractionism.
But I’m filled with a deep sense of disquiet and defeat. The Iranian regime is rebuilt, reinforced, made more powerful. The Iranian regime is given new credibility, where before my diasporic friends could claim that with a push the rotten structure would collapse, now they know it will not. Iran gets effective, if not formal, sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran gets sanctions relief. Iran gives up more or less nothing, just some fissionable material that is easily enough replaced and a few proxies that have already been degraded. I don’t really credit the promises Iran is making here for much, especially if the snapback provision is removed.
Giving Iran anything after they close the Strait is tantamount to recognizing their sovereignty over it, de facto if not legally. Simply by asking for it, and then making a deal, Iran is going to be perceived as getting sovereignty over the strait. The USA, by accepting Iran's "gift" of letting ships through the strait, is already acknowledging that Iran has control of the strait! And this would be disastrous.
The flip side is that there’s little guarantee that the US would keep its promises in the future, but that doesn’t feel very good to me either. I’m not sure where I see the off-ramp at this point that isn’t a full invasion of Iran.
Another view is that given the conditions, this isn't really the Iran war, it's the Lebanon war and the Iran war is a sideshow and a distraction. The casualties are higher in Lebanon, there are troops on the ground in Lebanon, Israel is considering expanding its territory into Lebanon, occupation will inevitably result in settlements which will not be removed, etc. Perhaps the purpose of the Iran war never had anything to do with Iran herself, which is why the goals against Iran never seemed achievable, but were instead more local to protecting the Israeli homefront against Hezbollah. The USA distracts Iran and forces it to accept Hezbollah's defeat.
I suppose at least we’ll get good pistachios and saffron now? I’d love to see sanctions relief on a personal level, and I think sanctions are a wildly ineffective method of international relations, but on a geopolitical level this seems like the US admitting defeat.
There are still US Marines and parts of the 82nd Airborne headed to the Middle East. So yeah, I'd say distraction.
The peace the US is supposedly offering is basically similar to that which was supposedly offered before the war. The most important part of that, IMO, is that Iran actually surrenders the nuclear material (and likely the centrifuges and such); that's very hard to fake and sets their nuclear program way back. Iran clearly isn't interested in that deal, so I think the US is offering it knowing they won't take it. There certainly exists the danger that Iran could make an offer that the US would feel bound to accept, but "Iran keeps the strait" is obviously unacceptable, so that's not going to happen right away.
There's also the possibility that the US makes a deal, stops bombing, and it turns out there is some Iranian domestic opposition force which takes that as a signal to start a revolution. But I doubt it; the Iranians are too domesticated through 47 years of culling.
Iran allowing some vessels through the strait now doesn't change anything; Iranian oil remains a double-edged sword, both helping the regime and reducing their leverage to stop the US by squeezing energy markets.
These ships were non-Iranian oil.
The windfall to the Iranian from the de-sanctioning of oil on the water last week is an estimated windfall to Iran of in the neighborhood of as much as $14bn.
Allowing the Iranians to meter who gets through and who doesn't would be a disaster for the world.
I've heard of non-Iranian carriers getting through (e.g. with natural gas) but not tankers. Either way, though, that's even better. Allowing Iran to meter who gets through until the Marines arrive is strictly better (for the US) than the strait being entirely closed until the Marines arive.
What do you expect ten thousand Marines, just a fraction of whom are actually fighters, to achieve? The Strait is enormous, just trying to secure the Strait itself would require occupying more territory than Vietnam. You might take an island or two but what will those Marines do on said island other than be sitting ducks for Iranian artillery?
Best case scenario, Iran's ground forces are weaker than expected, you take an island with minimal casualties and now Iran can no longer extort passing ships or export oil. Okay, great, Iran, no longer restrained by the desire to protect their own rackets, chooses to flood the Gulf with sea mines while hitting every refinery and oil field between Baku and Cairo. Perhaps the Iranian regime falls many years down the line as a result of the collapse in oil revenue but the Trump regime falls even sooner and is remembered by future generations as a kind of Jimmy Carter on steroids. You could achieve the same result with airstrikes on Kharg and Qeshm without the need to endanger a bunch of Marines for no clear benefit.
Worst case scenario, Iran did their homework with the Russians and as soon as they land it's a humiliating endless parade of Marines getting obliterated by FPV drones.
No, I expect the US to continue to allow Iran to export oil.
...Okay, so then Iran decides to keep the Strait open, but exploits the apparent unconditional protection for their oil exports by obliterating all of their competition, allowing them to make extreme profits with the apparent sanction of the Marines.
Now what?
Uh, they don't obliterate all their competition. If they try, their exports get seized. If you're assuming a hypercompetent Iran and a US which will do nothing you're in a dream world.
I'm not assuming a "hypercompetent" Iran, I'm assuming that Iran is willing to sacrifice its oil exports in pursuit of delivering unto Trump a biblical midterm asswhooping such that no future American President considers messing with Iran under pain of a fate worse than Jimmy Carter. It isn't even an "assumption" since this is exactly how they've responded to threats to their exports in the past, both against Saddam decades ago and against the Israeli strike on their gas fields a few days ago.
On the contrary, you seem to be operating in a "dream world" in which Iran wouldn't endanger their oil exports even to achieve victory against the most powerful empire in human history. I'm pretty sure the assumption in Tehran was that their tankers would be seized by Day 3 and they'd have to survive on their northern trade routes.
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