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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.
Out of curiosity, what soft of things do you think the government of Iran would be saying if things were not going well for them and that they were prepared to make politically painful changes?
Remember that- at least according to various pro-Iranian positions of the last month- part of the travesty/evil of this war is that the US and Israel attacked during negotiations in which good-faith Iran was supposed to be on the cusp of making major concessions. I personally do not believe this claim, but for the sake of argument let's take the pro-Iranian claims at their word, and then take into consideration the Iranian words of the time. What narrative line pushed with the same vigor and effort by the state apparatus would you have looked at at the time and gone 'yeah, in the next few days they're going to make geopolitical concessions they've spent decades refusing'?
Or go back about 3 months ago, at the end of the January protest crackdown. This is hopefully not terribly controversial, but a government that shoots tens of thousands of its own citizens in the streets is facing things that could politely be called 'serious issues.' Hopefully also not terribly controversial, but shooting tens of thousands of your own citizens does not actually fix the issues, but tends to make them worse. Protests are a symptom, not the cause, of protests. But during and immediately after the regime, what high-level state or clerical rhetoric would you as the observer see and think 'they recognize and are going to address the underlying problems?'
Or go back further, to an event of your choice. The Iranian Revolution has had the better part of a half century to make mistakes and back down under pressure, despite the wishes of its ruling elite. At the time before the backdown was indisputably public, what sort of rhetoric were you seeing to indicate cracks within the system?
The point here isn't a claim about the current state of the current conflict, but about the ability to use certain types or sources of information to make meaningful conclusions about the state of the world. Different states lie in different ways, both deliberately and as the natural form of dissembling. For the Americans, the metaphor of kabuki theater exists for the sort of going-through-the-motions that has no real impact on the final result. For the Europeans, there will (almost) never be a diplomatic meeting that does not make positive 'progress' or that is not 'productive.' Examples could continue. There is quite often a public default position, regardless of what goes on behind the scenes.
If you want to take Iranian public rhetoric as presumptively true, and make the possibility that it's just public dissembling false the caveat, I'm not going to stop you. In fact, I will thank you for remembering the caveat. But before you feel disquiet and defeat, it might be worth considering whether Iran might have a default public persona of defiant triumphalism, and consider how that compares or contrasts if the Iranian opponent is an actor with the media objectivity and positivity that surrounds Donald J. Trump, and consider how that might shape your perception... and the information that would be provided to you.
Where does my analysis rely on what Iran is saying? I'm concerned about what my country is saying. I'm not making any claims based on missile stocks or whatever, I'm looking at what Donald Trump is saying live every day. He's saying the war is won, but at first the war was won and the regime was going to collapse, then there was a period where the war was won and the Iranians would "unconditionally surrender." Then the Iranians were going to give up on the strait out of fear of bombing attacks on infrastructure. Now we've arrived at, the Iranians are going to open the strait of hormuz in exchange for all sanctions being dropped.
Next you'll tell me that Trump just says shit and it doesn't matter keep your eye on the prize kid, the marines are on their way and it's all the prelude to the invasion that will go perfectly and end the whole thing! And maybe, but that doesn't really make me feel very good either. Because I don't really like being part of a country where the government just says shit it doesn't mean.
That's your second mistake.
Oh, I hate it. But it's the hand that's been dealt. No good trying to behave as if the cards are different than what they are.
I'll disagree with this part. The implication seems to be that the Trump admin is uniquely bad in this way (are we forgetting Hillary Clinton's public and private positions?)
But I don't even think this is bad. Why in God's name would our politicians tell us what's actually going on in Iran, while it's happening? You know there's a war on right? One of the primary tools of both the military and the state department is deception, or at the very least strategic ambiguity. If Trump came out and told us his actual specific war aims, the biggest beneficiary would be Iran, who could adjust their own strategy to better defeat us. It's obviously in the best interest of our country to dissemble or outright lie about our goals.
I suspect the objection you would make is that 'the American people shouldn't be lied to'. Okay, why? We're a representative democracy, where we elect particular people to positions of power because we think they will be best suited to wield that power. We hold elections on a regular schedule, where we assess the individuals and their records, but during their tenure in that position (short of impeachment) they can act with impunity. This is by design!
So my question to you is: what exactly would you do differently if Trump was clear and open about his war aims? I would wager 99.9% of those complaining online a) have no potential way to influence events and b) are not really affected by these events either way, outside of gas prices. Of those who are actually involved, they almost certainly have a much clearer picture of what's going on and why. For the rest of us, this is just geopolitical theater, and we should not sacrifice strategic advantage so that you feel better about it.
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I think this works well enough as a response from me, so thank you.
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