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Notes -
Iran Ceasefire Takeaways
These are all based on my reactions as of early this afternoon and are subject to change with new developments.
Per the article posted below, someone on the radio pointed out something interesting that's in it, or, more accurately, isn't in it. While the article includes details down to where everyone in the room was sitting and what kind of car Netanhayu arrived in, there's no mention of the Israelis saying that they were going forward with or without US assistance. This puts a huge implicit dent in the idea that the US had to do this to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
I also heard on the radio this morning that J.D. Vance will be handling the upcoming negotiations. This represents a serious change in approach from Kushner.
The immediate conservative reaction I heard in-person last night and from commentators up to the present seems to be a cautious optimism that since the deal isn't finalized, the terms aren't as bad as they look. I'll admit that while that's true, the fact that the nuclear program doesn't appear to be on the table is already a bad sign, and the fact that some of the stuff, like tolling the strait, is even being talked about is also a bad sign.
That being said, the Fox News comment section isn't even defending this. I know that's not representative of conservatives or even MAGA by a long shot, but I still like to check it out to get a feel for what the most extreme right-wing true believers have to say.
Hesgeth this morning was trying to paint this as a decisive military victory. After Bondi was canned last week, there was some mention that other Cabinet members were on Trump's shit list and would be out soon, but no names were mentioned. I'd have to thing that Pete's going to be shown the door as soon as it is feasible. It seems to me that his failures are worse than those of Bondi and Noem, though I can't explain why other than that war seems worse than even being so aggressive that the administration is forced to back off of enforcement of its signature policy and reducing the DOJ to a shell of its former self. Unlike Noem, I expect he'll be replaced with an experienced general (or admiral) who will get bipartisan support in confirmation hearings. Honestly, of all the Trump cabinet nominations, Hesgeth has to be the worst. Bondi and Noem were bad but one was state AG and the other was governor. Hesgeth was a major in the reserves and a talk show host. The latter is perversely more important because if a president chose a random major as Defense Secretary then everyone would be scratching their heads. True to form, he seems more concerned with how he appears on television than with actually running the military. He comes across like he hired professional television writers to come up with good zingers for him, that he practices delivering in the mirror.
Speaking of Hesgeth, I think the next presidential candidate could make some hay during the campaign of changing the Department of War back to the Department of Defense, with Hesgeth and his "Warrior Ethos" being Exhibit A. Spin it as a reminder that, unlike the previous administration, the goals of the military won't be waging wars that make us less safe but defending the nation, putting the American people first, etc. Honestly, I wouldn't be too surprised if Trump does this himself after Hesgeth is gone, since he's probably going to be the scapegoat for all of this.
Foil hat time: I heard Mark Kelly on the radio last night and while I didn't catch the entirety of his comments, he alluded to the remarks about refusing lawful orders that Trump wanted to prosecute him for. My thought is, what if the reason for the sudden reversal was that the relevant military leadership indicated that they wouldn't follow his orders and invoked the UCMJ? Just look at the timeline here—Trump makes threats Sunday. Iran makes a counteroffer (the 10 point plan) on Monday which Trump publicly rejects. Tuesday morning he threatens to end Iranian civilization. 2 hours before the deadline he agrees to the Iranian plan he rejected the day before. If military leadership got the impression that the promised strikes were less about hitting legitimate military targets and more about inflicting pain on civilians, they may have refused to act, either from their own sense of morality and legality or for fear that they may be dragged in front on an international tribunal once the Democrats regain power, which is looking increasingly inevitable. While the current deal looks bad, it's not nearly as bad as if a bunch of generals refuse orders and resign in the middle of a war. Trump can threaten courts martial, treason charges, whatever, and it won't undo the immense damage that that would cause. I don't think this is particularly likely, since I don't think that what Trump was actually proposing would have necessarily been a war crime, but given how inexplicable this cease fire is, I'm willing to consider the possibility.
If you look at the timeline again, I don't know how anyone who isn't literally retarded can buy the official explanation coming out of the White House, i.e. that after Trump made his civilization-destroying threat Iran decided to let discretion be the better part of valor by agreeing to come to the bargaining table. I shouldn't have to explain why this is obviously retarded.
One of the analogies I've had since Trump seriously entered politics is that he's the equivalent of giving the loudmouth on a bar stool actual power. One of the divides between the so-called "elites" in media and politics and everyone else (regardless of political persuasion) is that everyone else says "Why can't we just do x?" and the elites explain that the situation is more complicated than it looks and give them 500 esoteric reasons why it's a bad idea. The biggest of these divides I've found (or at least the most obvious one) from the past 25 years is "Why can't we just bomb Iran?" I've had this exact discussion on actual bar stools dozens of time over the years, and few people making that argument have ever been persuaded by my counterarguments. I've seen that sentiment expressed here countless times as well, since it seems to never die. Well, it might have finally died, as the past month has been an object lesson in why you can't just bomb places, even in conditions as favorable as we had, where the opponent's air defenses are borderline useless and very few of their retaliatory strikes get through. Ditto for why decapitation doesn't work either. Trump seems to have fallen into the same trap where he assumed that there was an obvious solution to the Iran problem and that the only reason previous presidents didn't use it was because they were weak cowards or were too dumb to see what was obvious to everyone else.
Speaking of things that the man on the street (and Trump by extension) saw as obvious but were actually more complicated: The JCPOA. When I criticized Trump for pulling out of the deal, his supporters were quick to point out all the ways in which the deal was inadequate. They weren't necessarily wrong, but criticizing the deal misunderstands a fundamental principle of negotiation. Any time you enter a negotiation you have to keep four deals in mind: The deal you want, the deal you'll ask for, the deal you think you're likely to get, and the minimum acceptable deal. The spread between each of these is proportional to the amount of leverage you have; the deal you want will always be the same, but with a lot of leverage you can push for a settlement closer to that ideal, while without leverage your expectations will cluster towards the lower end. The minimum deal you're willing to make is the point at which you're in a similar position without a deal at all. The lesson here is that sometimes a bad deal is better than no deal at all. Trump's mistake was to assume that the United States had more leverage in negotiations than it did, and that Obama was weak for refusing to use that leverage. The odd thing about this whole situation was that nobody was willing to say out loud what this leverage was. The implicit leverage that Obama wasn't willing to use was military action, but few Republicans other than John Bolton were calling for such; even Trump was unwilling to use this leverage during his first term. In other words, what everyone thought was leverage was no leverage at all.
What Trump did in his first term was to essentially hand back the concessions that Obama had extracted from Iran, meager as they may have been, and got nothing in return. Okay, not exactly nothing, as he got some personal political benefit from dunking on Obama, and Iran was still obligated to hold up its end of the bargain to the other parties to the deal, but the long-term effect was to sow an increasing distrust between Iran and the US regarding our ability to hold up our end of the bargain. What this war proved was that the leverage Trump thought he had turned out to not be much leverage at all. On the other hand, it turns out that Iran actually had more leverage than Trump thought. The perverse effect of this war is that it put the United States in a worse bargaining position than it was before. If Trump can restore the status quo antebellum it would be a win at this point. The JCPOA, as much as Trump hated it, now seems like a pipe dream.
With that said, I'm not criticizing Trump for making a crappy deal, because in some situations a crappy deal is better . I will criticize Trump for creating a situation where he was forced to make a crappy deal. Say what you want about Obama and his deal, his policies did not create the Iran nuclear situation; you can divide the blame for that among previous presidents going back to at least Carter.
I don't understand how anyone, regardless of his position on the war, can defend Trump right now. Myself, pretty much all of the left, and a decent chunk of the right think that this was a bad idea to begin with, be it from and ideological or practical perspective. If you're an Iran hawk then this only proves he's too weak to fully commit, which would require a ground invasion, removal of nuclear material and full destruction of the program, and regime change. Saying that you're in favor of continued action as long as there aren't any boots on the ground isn't a position you can take any more, because even Trump admits that this isn't feasible.
I was in a hot tub the other weekend arguing with a French man about politics while his wife was hopped up on fertility pills and flirting with every available man at the party, she was really into one of my best friends whose chest she kept asking to feel. The man argued with me that Trump's North Korea policy was disastrous, and I remember what North Korea was like before when they were launching missile tests every few months and nobody could solve that perpetual crisis. It seems obviously better to me now, trivially obviously better, but I guess I can lead a horse to water but I can't make it think. Anyways he ended our conversation by proclaiming that Obama was the greatest president America ever had and my friend ultimately decided not to fuck his wife.
So when I read this:
I don't know, what do you want me to say? I think you're wrong about everything. I think this entire forum is wrong about everything, frankly, scrolling idly the contents of discussion about the war today. Iran won? America lost? What planet are we living on? I guess 8 years on nobody can agree whether it was good or bad for Trump to open normal diplomatic relationships with North Korea, and last week on this forum I argued against the position that nothing changed in Venezuela. I guess I can lead a boar's two trotters but I can't make them sync. What else am I supposed to say?
For the sake of argument let's try this anyways: In a span of weeks America: eliminated Iran's entire leadership class, replaced with new leaders who know we could kill them too at any time; destroyed a significant portion of Iran's missile industrial base; destroyed a significant portion of Iran's nuclear program; achieved total air supremacy; had one plane hit by missiles and land safely; had another plane hit in which an American soldier fell into Iran so that we had to airdrop dozens of men into the country and build a secret military base from behind enemy lines including an airship, and Iran couldn't stop any of this; decimated Iran's navy; destroyed Iran's ability to project force in the Middle East.
Yeah yeah details of all this stuff is ultimately classified so I guess you can squint and argue that we didn't actually destroy anything significant. I can take a Norse to water but I can't make him sink. I can't really stop you from interpreting events however you see fit. But let me state clearly that literally everybody I know in the military with any knowledge of how war works and how this war has worked is not of this opinion. There are a lot of opinions about strategic success but the idea that Iran Giles Corey is jerking off in the corner going "More weight Daddy! More weight! I can take it! I can take it all!" is something I only see on social media, and basically only from people ideologically precommitted to point sourcing some water and not taking a drink.
I guess the other argument is that the American military achieved tactical success, but not strategic success, because Iran played its hidden trap card to summon a monster in attack mode. I think this is silly. But there's a lot of misinformation floating around so let me emphasize one point: Iran did not ever control the strait of Hormuz. This goes so counter to what everyone is taking for granted that I want to repeat myself to affirm that I know what I am saying and I know how crazy this will sound to you and I'm saying it anyways: Iran did not control the strait of Hormuz. Ships have been passing through Hormuz this entire time, albeit at an obviously reduced rate. Distinction without a difference? Not at all. Iran could not actually exert control over the strait. It was able to increase risk substantially such that most ships refused to run the strait, and many did pay a bribe for extra safety. But some ships also ran the supposed blockade and Iran couldn't stop them. It's been happening in the background all along. And I would like to insist again that there is a big difference between "Iran controls Hormuz" and "Iran lashes out". Because the latter implies a lack of ability to really control the situation or escalate in any other way, which matters if say President Trump were to escalate by say bombing say all of Iran's electrical infrastructure. -- ?
Because that's what happens next. Trump threatens to wipe Iran back to the Stone Age, and weirdly Iran at this point wants to negotiate peace. Weren't they winning? Well, I guess the next layer is to argue that the Peace Deal is going to give Iran everything they want, and this is all a face-saving exercise for Trump, except that we all know that really he lost egg on his plate bacon on his face etc. etc. But this is also what happened with North Korea. Trump tweets that his nuclear button is bigger and it works, twitter hyperventilates that nuclear war is on the horizon, then Trump and Kim are shaking hands. And there are still people arguing that Trump lost. I can take a horse to slaughter but I can't take a twink.
We don't have a real peace deal yet and the ceasefire could fall through and anything can etc. etc. etc. But I don't see how you argue that Trump is coping and Iran is preening without also believing absurd tall tales about Iran's military prowess. We killed them all and we can kill them again and there's still a lot of bombing left to do!
So I think I can confidently make quite a few predictions that will be vindicated, because these are American non-negotiables and because America won (America is winning):
In exchange we might lift sanctions on Iran and start to negotiate with it as a normal country again. And many will complain that this is exactly what the Obama Deal did (which is not true) and that Trump capitulated (which will not be true). But, ultimately, this is how the Middle East is going to go. Trump and Kushner negotiated the Abraham Accords, the Middle East is going to transform from an endless sink of blood and treasure to an oasis of peace and prosperity and bad taste. Iran is the only regional power not integrated into the framework of the Abraham Accords. It will be made to, implicitly or explicitly. Once that happens most of the rest doesn't matter. They can continue to be a theocracy, or whatever. Britain is still a monarchy. Canada too. Does it matter?
But I have no hesitations in declaring that America won and Trump is right about everything. Can I say that? Because probably we'll continue to have all these same arguments forever because our basic ability to deny reality is a constant. I can't make anybody remember what news out of North Korea was like 10 years ago. I can't actually convince you that the Obama deal was much worse. I can't actually show you rockets and moon bases and satellites and make you a believer. I can coat your pores in flour but I can't make them stink. Trump can bake a course in Qatar but he can't rake a sink.
Can I take this as a concrete prediction that, henceforth, we will never hear an American or Israeli leader accusing Iran of doing any of those things?
No of course not? Why would my argument that something will happen have any relation to the infinite variety of things people could say about it?
What, concretely, does Iran not being allowed to do those things look like?
Or are you merely predicting that Iran will publicly pinky promise not to do those things?
The Americans specifically want to be allowed to send in soldiers to dig up the uranium and take it. Trump claims we know exactly where it is. This is an extremely believable claim if you are anywhere familiar with the network of sensors America maintains to collect intelligence. If Iran allows this to happen, trivially, my claim is correct.
Of course there are other avenues too. If Iran refuses to allow America to take the uranium and continues to try building nukes, then America could resume the campaign of bombing. This is also an example of not allowing Iran to acquire nukes.
If Iran were allowed to acquire nukes, I would obviously be wrong. Likewise if America gave Iran nukes or refused to stop Iran from acquiring nukes. This seems incredibly unlikely? (?) Yet it seems as though people here are arguing that this is exactly what will come to pass? Or else that Iran will not be allowed to acquire nukes, but this is somehow part of Iran's victory condition. To me it seems more consistent if you want to argue that Iran won the war therefore they will get nukes. But that's so ridiculous maybe nobody wants to put 2 and 2 together and make 5.
So, suppose Iran does agree to let US soldiers do exactly that. However, they renege shortly after: various observers accuse them of not honoring that commitment and of continuing clandestine pursuit of nuclear weapons. And, critically, the US does not respond with massive bombing but only strongly worded letters.
Would your prediction be falsified? And would that be enough to make you score this war as a loss?
Do you know how hard enriching uranium is?
So, the key outcome of the war is that the laws of physics will continue to apply to Iran?
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Where in this scenario does Iran get nuclear weapons?
I remind you of your prediction:
If we agree that Iran will continue to have a nuclear weapons program, except you think that's a massive, total victory that obliterated Iran and made it into a complete cucked loser, and I think it's a loss, we don't disagree on anything concrete, just different perspectives on what victory and loss mean.
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