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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.
I was told repeatedly by the US government, Israeli government, and many users on this board that Hezbollah was destroyed. I wonder who is destroying the dozens of Merkava tanks every night which I can watch on telegram.
The Iranian military is destroyed or nearly destroyed with no leadership and yet I can watch between a couple to dozens of Iranian missiles fall on Israel on telegram every night Israel claims they've intercepted nearly all of them with attached pictures of booster stages. And I can watch much more falling on American bases and more in Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE, and elsewhere every single night telegram.
/edit: The fog of war is thick and it makes it very difficult to carry on a dialogue about this topic because my beliefs about reality on the ground in this conflict and the beliefs of most on this board do not overlap much which makes most dialogues turn into bickering about facts on the ground which I have little interest in engaging in. However, I do have some comments and predictions: /edit
At this point, the only goal of the Trump administration after starting this preposterously stupid war for Israel being conducted in a slapstick, idiotic, and dishonorable way (not to mention the political suicide of Trump's winning coalition), appears to be to extricate the US without looking stupid and weak in an obvious loss.
But I think that ship has sailed. The only way the US doesn't suffer a strategic defeat is a vast escalation which we are incapable of (I hope) so the real question is whether it's going to be a strategic or catastrophic defeat. If the US successfully militarily reopens the Straight of Hormuz (which will not happen), then Iran can simply demonstrably destroy all oil infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and it won't matter the Straight is open because there is no oil to ship and they will do it because we've made this existential for them.
My prediction is the US will abandon most if not all American military bases in the Persian Gulf, Iran will have de facto sovereignty over the Straight of Hormuz and charge passage fees, and Iran will emerge stronger than ever.
Which wouldn't be much of a difference because that is fiat accompli right now. We have basically abandoned all 16+ bases and for almost a month soldiers and other staff are hiding in hotels amongst civilians in at least Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. CENTCOM has to beg Iraqi militias for a ceasefire so they can abandon the greenzone in Baghdad, which we then promptly violated because that's how we apparently roll. and the CENTCOM Navy HQ has been obliterated and is uninhabitable. Not a single American warship is in the Persian Gulf or within 500mi of Iranian territory. We're now taking off from bases over a thousand miles away (some of which are all the way in the UK or even the US) with webs of lillypad tanker circuits refueling aircraft because we cannot protect aircraft on the ground within 1000mi of Iran. Based on talks I've had with friends who joined and fought in GWOT and are still in, the morale in the US military, at least over there, is bad.
There is no credible reason to think negotiations are happening and describing Iran publicly stating their War demands is not properly described as "negotiations." Additionally, the Iranian's public demands also include the US leaving its military bases in the Persian Gulf as well as covering Lebanon and some more I forget at the moment. The Iranians have already rebuked Russia, Pakistan, and will soon (if I had to guess) rebuke Egypt offers of trying to come up with a starting point for negotiations. The 15 point peace plan is detached from reality and DOA. At this point, the US Government appears to be agreement incapable after having shredded its diplomatic credibility so now we have to rely on hard power.
Great job everyone! Apparently what Trump didn't like about the Iraq War was the years of planning and preparation.
Sure, all Americans will soon be getting slammed by large increases in the cost of living as oil spiking filters through the world economy (producer inflation is already near 2% in a single month), but at least some connected insiders are getting filthy rich frontloading huge futures buys 10 minutes before each big Trump administration announcement.
Meanwhile, one million of Shiite inhabitants of South Lebanon fled their homes. They will be never let back (and will have nowhere to return).
They were the "sea" in which Hezbollah was swimming, they were source of Hezbollah recruits and reinforcements. This is over, this is now Israeli land, ancient land of Asher and Naphtali tribes restored.
Hezbollah can for some time hide in the ruins, until they are bombed out and hunted down. That's all.
Israel has invaded south lebanon many times, why will they stay this time?
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