There is a 60-day ceasefire which now SEEMS to be OK, with a "Donald John Trump" signature on the US side Wednesday of an MOU where he clearly TACO-ed, along with the signature of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
On Shitter, and presumably on other social media, Israeli Zionist Jews, American Zionist Jews, American Zionist goys, and general neocons are all excoriating Trump, including Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ affiliated with any of those groups.
MAGAts who aren't necessarily pro-Israel or anti-Israel, but just blind suckers of Trump's micropenis are in an ongoing state of denial. Wednesday night, after posting my Substack version of the actual treaty and Trump's clear TACO-ing, I finally said explicitly: I block you unless you admit T-Rump TACOed. And I did with multiples.
The flip side? Not everybody in Iran is signed off. The opposition is no more powerful, I think, than in 2015, but they've got T-Rump 1.0 and 2.0 facts in evidence to support their case. Here's the nutgrafs:
A major factor pushing even a government heavily influenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to seek detente with the U.S. is the dire economic condition inside Iran after years of sanctions and the destruction of Iranian civilian infrastructure during the recent war. Several million Iranians are believed to have lost their jobs directly or indirectly as a result of the recent fighting, blockade, and internet shutdown. The International Monetary Fund now projects that Iran’s GDP will contract by 6% in 2026, with consumer prices rising nearly 70% during the same period.
The Iranian economy is dominated by a network of semi-governmental institutions with ties to the security establishment. These firms largely control the flow of imports, exports, and energy resources, and are also tasked with navigating the complex web of sanctions the country faces when trading abroad and repatriating funds from the sale of oil and gas.
For conservative skeptics of the MOU, who doubt the deal will bring a durable end to the war, these powerful business conglomerates are seen as the forces pressing the government hardest to move forward. Known in Persian as “khusulati”—a blend of the words for “private” and “government”—these firms stand to regain access to billions of dollars of frozen funds, as well as new business opportunities in Iran’s oligarchical economy.
That said, despite the ultra-hardliners, who may in this case get their heads thumped by Khaminei fils, Mojtaba Khamenei et al, they know they can close Hormuz again.
And, anybody who saw T-Rump's post-signing news conference knows he looked crushed, and fully 80 years old.
(Sidebar to the link above? There ARE female journalists in Iran, contra the lying Islamophobes.)
That said? there’s plenty of stated and unstated asterisks in that statement that are bridges to be crossed between now and June 19.
Bibi has spoken, to say he doesn’t feel bound by the agreement vis-a-vis Lebanon.
Will Trump do more fake yelling at Satanyahu? Will The Dissident, and even more, John Mearsheimer, not fall for that this time?
In Drop Site’s first piece, various Iranian talking heads already noted that attacks on Lebanon would not go unaddressed. Will only Israel be attacked, or will the Great Satan (Greater than Satanyahu?) have Middle East military bases targeted again as well?
Quite possibly yes, according to a new piece from Drop Site. Iran has warned Trump that unless he restrains Bibi in Lebanon as forcefully as needed, it will torpedo the MOU by an unannounced attack on Israel.
That said? As noted in my Substack link, Point 1 has degrees of ambiguity about Lebanon. The Iranians know that, too.
“Regarding Lebanon, we have warned both the mediators and the American side that if the regime fails to comply with the existing agreement, Iran will respond with substantial military measures without prior public notice,” said the Iranian official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Should the United States intervene, conditions particularly those related to the Strait of Hormuz could rapidly revert to a wartime environment.”
On the "not authorized to speak publicly," is this one of the ultra-hardliners mucking around? Maybe not: Those "technical talks," scheduled to start today, have been postponed.
Technical talks that were scheduled to begin Friday in Switzerland were postponed, with Iranian officials citing the continued attacks in Lebanon. Some officials have also denounced the prospect of Iranian leaders being photographed meeting with Trump or other U.S. officials responsible for assassinating the country’s Supreme Leader. U.S. officials have acknowledged the delay, but have not confirmed the reason. Late Thursday, the White House said Vice President JD Vance—who has been put forward as the public face of the U.S. negotiations—would not be traveling to Switzerland as previously announced, saying, “The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable.” A senior Pakistani official claimed the meeting was canceled because of religious observances related to the Islamic month of Muharram, a period of mourning for Shia Muslims.
As for the reason for cancellation? The Iranian claim of Muharram, especially important to Shi'ites? Per Scott Anderson in "King of Kings," 40-day mourning anniversaries and similar litter the Shi'a religious calendar.
The piece then goes on with lies by Bagger Vance and other things. That said, behind the lies is Vance being sent out to publicly attack Netanyahu, and his allies in both Israel and indirectly in the US. Also of note is that the IAEA-overseen process for dealing with Iran's enriched uranium is what it had proposed before the first attack.
That said, why should we assume this is anything much more than a more intense round of performance theater? Yes, the piece is by Jeremy Scahill, and he's pretty smart and pretty connected, but John Mearsheimer, to name a name I've named before in the last month or two, has fallen for the Trump-Netanyahu schtick before and Scahill isn't otherwise perfect. (Biggest example of that is Scahill going along with Glennwald in turning over all the "unused" Snowden files to Pierre Omidyar, as noted here. ) Beyond that, Politico reports that Trump is basically pushing Vance to stick his neck out on all things Iran.
And, with the Switzerland talks on hold? The Lebanon ceasefire is now off again.
As for “Peace Deal”? Yeah, Pakistan’s prime minister called it that, as noted on The Dissident’s piece and elsewhere. And? First, it’s not true; it’s just a ceasefire. Second, he’s got reason to puff it.
Here's links from Tuesday evening, updated in light of my Substack piece up top.
First, the NYT.
• Iran says “no tolls, but fees,” at Hormuz. Per Spock, “a difference that makes no difference is no difference.” Apparently that's going away, though.
• Per Bagger Vance and my link whole thing is only about a page and a half long. That’s about right for an actual ceasefire, actually. That’s why Vladimir Vladimirovich doesn’t sign off on fake ceasefires proffered by NATO.
• Iran’s president said most the major stakeholders are cautiously on board. He's now signed, so he's on board.
• Speaking of Vlad the Impaler? Trump thanked him and Winnie the Pooh, Xi Jinping, for their help. Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, if they haven’t started asking already, being still stuck on kvetching about Trump’s surrender to Iran, will soon start asking how much Trump surrendered to one or both of them. And, what Trump said about Xi is a flat lie, as, with coordination with Iran, Chinese-bound (even if not Chinese-flagged) tankers HAVE sailed through Hormuz after Iran shut it down.
• Trump claims it’s stopped Iranian nukes. It did no such thing, and besides, you started Iran on the path to partial enrichment because you abandoned the Obama deal.
• Lebanon? Trump joins Satanyahu and claims it’s not part of the deal. Really? Then why your most recent play-acting yelling. Pakistan as well as Iran says it is.
So, right there, the prologue to a ceasefire isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Could there be deliberately ambiguous language? Possible. It happens all the time in diplomatic negotiations.
But, it almost never happens when specifics of battle are mentioned. Something is either on the table or off.
That leads us to the bottom line, not only from the NYT, but in general:
Hanging over the next round of U.S.-Iran negotiations will be “a history of broken promises, non-compliance, and even the tearing up of agreements,” Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said in comments reported by state media. “We are planning the negotiation process and the implementation of the agreement on the basis of mistrust, past breaches of commitments, and previous experiences.”
Another NYT piece speculates about what’s not in there that Satanyahu is mad isn’t in there. Nuff ced.
OK, next?
Drop Site reported that Iran used professional psychologists to craft its messages to Trump. Nice idea. May have helped in the short term. Won’t make a degree of difference in the long term.
Now, on to Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, Never Trumper Rethugs and other detritus.
The Bulwark uses poop emojis to call it a “Giant Bag of Dogshit.” That it is, but there’s a neocon or four running around there who would still like Bibi to off Iran.
Francis Fukuyama, mad that he can't lament The End of Iran™, gets a bunch of shit wrong, starting by framing a memorandum of understanding to establish a ceasefire as though it were an actual agreement.
Now, like others, he uses this as an occasion to excoriate Trump. Natch. But, Trump deserves excoriation from an anti-Zionist angle, from an anti-imperialist angle, not from Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™
Now, like others, he uses this as an occasion to excoriate Trump. Natch. But, Trump deserves excoriation from an anti-Zionist angle, from an anti-imperialist angle, not from Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™
He gives the game up here:
The MOU that Trump celebrated is a worse agreement than Obama’s 2015 deal, which Trump endlessly castigated in the past.
Shock me.
Just before that, after listing everything NOT in the MOU, Fukuyama said:
The reported “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) kicks all of the contentious issues down the road into negotiations that are to take place during the 60-day ceasefire. Trump treated all of these issues as having been conceded already, but if that were the case, why weren’t they in the MOU? It is very unlikely that Iran will budge over the next two months, since it is precisely these issues that speak to the regime’s core identity.
He does get one thing right. Trump’s bullshit is on the rise:
Trump stated that if Iran didn’t agree to these outstanding terms, he would re-commence the war and possibly make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues. It is hard to know whether such an initiative is more ludicrous from the standpoint of countries in the Middle East, including U.S. friends like Saudi Arabia or the UAE who would now be paying explicitly for U.S. protection, or from domestic opinion in the United States, where everyone would like to be done with the region as soon as possible.
As for what I said about him above? The Persuasion Substack, in addition to him, has Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ junior member Yascha Mounk as founder, Glenn Greenwald wannabe and walking odiousness Thomas Chatterton Williams, wingnut David French, etc.
Speaking of Trump bullshit? A Tuesday evening AP story has the roundup. Lies about Obama sending cash to Iran in 2015 of course top the list. Claims that oil is already flowing and other bullshit. In reality, oil won’t get back to normal for months, even if there is a formal signing on Friday. That 60-day clock will be ticking, especially with Iran talking about “fees” for Hormuz and Bibi still running off at half-cock.
Finally, let’s turn to Mondoweiss, as always a voice of reason.
Dissident, Mearsheimer and others could stand to read it for this gimlet-eyed take on the T-Rump/Satanyahu relationship alone:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that “We will remain in the security zones for as long as required to defend our country.” Security zones, in Netanyahu-speak, mean occupied territories.
He went on to say, in Trumpian fashion, “Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon. If we had not acted at the time we did and with the power we did…Iran would already have atomic bombs.”
That is, of course, a complete lie, one contradicted by every intelligence assessment in Israel, the U.S., Europe, and everywhere else that has assessed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
It’s a mark of Netanyahu’s desperation that he feels the need to say it. It is also a mark of his need to pacify Trump by affirming the false narrative of an American victory.
Bingo.
Actually, not quite yet bingo.
Add this follow-up:
Tehran is surely as unimpressed as so many of us are with Trump’s public, epithet-laced scolding of Netanyahu. As I’ve noted, Netanyahu is also unimpressed with it. Words, no matter how harsh or vulgar, carry no weight here. Only the threat of real consequences will force Netanyahu to back off in Lebanon, and no one, including the Iranians, knows whether Trump will impose them on his ally.
NOW “Bingo.” What’s so hard about understanding that?
So, why did Iran sign off if the Lebanon issue isn’t decided, among other things?
Mondoweiss is good there, too.
It starts by referring to the January protests. It notes that, even if Israel played a fair role in them as instigator, the net result was that Iran killed thousands of its own people and remains an authoritarian, repressive government highly unpopular with some swaths of the populace, and at least moderately unpopular with huge segments. The Revolutionary Guards are still massive grifters, to boot.
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Finally, Israhell and that "Samson option," especially nuclear versions.
Much of what you have heard is true.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding has the basics.
Israel has nuclear-missile submarines as part of its weaponry. The Germans sold them the subs as "conventional" ones knowing they could be upgraded.
Israel is believed to have stolen both bomb-grade uranium and technical know-how from the US, possibly as much as 100 kilograms on the uranium, per Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Or possibly 250 kilos, per Wiki's page. Weirdly, Sy Hersh, in his book "The Sampson Option," claims Israel did NOT steal any HEU.
See also the Guardian.
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That said, no, Israel did NOT whack Jack. Stop it.
