Trump Renews Strikes on Iran After Iran Attacks Three Tankers in the Strait; Announces the Ceasefire Is Over, and He's Not Interested in Talking Any Further to Iranian "Scum"

Of course I understand why Trump wants a "deal" -- the midterms are approaching and the never-ending pseudowar with Iran hurts the economy and his chances.

Also, the war with Iran can be postponed and rescheduled for a more convenient time. The midterms can't be.

But here's the trouble, as I've said over and over: Iran knows Trump is desperate for a "deal" -- pathetically desperate, I'd say -- and so they believe he will ignore any and all the violations of the "deal" they never really agreed to. And barely even pretended to agree to.

In other words, they are counting on Trump to just let them go back to war with the world, as long as he can pretend to the public he's got a "deal."

Well, Trump was downplaying Iran's serious, serial violations of the fake "deal."

But then they want too far, and attacked ships again, and Trump could no longer cover up for them. He could not longer pretend he had a "deal."

Iran flouted the MOU -- the memorandum of understanding that the ceasefire is predicated upon-- from the beginning. They were to keep the strait open, and stop extorting "tolls" from ships passing through. (Which they immediately used to buy weapons.)

Trump and the allies attempted to softly tiptoe around Iran's clear violation of the terms of the ceasefire by creating a safe route through the strait without paying the illegal "tolls."

Iran shot up three ships using this route, determined to force them into paying "tolls," and absolutely violating the most basic provisions of the MOU.

Amit Segal @AmitSegal

It seems we'll have to slip a page and a half into Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's coffin on its funeral procession, after Trump declared in a press conference this morning that, in his opinion, "the memorandum of understanding...is dead." RIP. It was only 21 days old.

The causes of death of the two are the same: Iranian hubris. The supreme leader believed the Israeli and American threats were empty and was buried, and his successor believed the U.S. was so desperate that the MoU could survive Iran's numerous violations. Until they pushed too far.

The fatal sequence began on Monday, when Iranian missiles struck two tankers--one carrying Qatari gas off the Omani coast, the other a Saudi-flagged oil carrier inside the Strait of Hormuz itself. On Tuesday, a drone went after a third. The vessels' offense: transiting the strait without Tehran's blessing. The U.S. answered last night, first revoking the waiver that allowed Iranian oil to be sold around the world, then striking more than 70 military targets around the strait. By this morning, Iran's armed forces claimed to have hit 85 U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Despite the dramatic declaration, don't expect the status quo to change significantly. The midterms have not been rescheduled, the global economy has not outgrown the strait, and Trump does not believe returning to war will net him the results he wants in the time he wants it.

The statement was less a policy shift than a confirmation that the contemporary Middle East is defined by a single word: uncertainty. It joins a long list of such confirmations--the sudden end of the war, the sudden announcement of the MoU, the sudden outbreak of the war in the first place. Even as I write this, a miraculous resurrection of the agreement is only one Truth Social post away. One can hardly stay aloof while watching the fate of a region swing this violently, but at this point, "surprise" is no longer the accurate word.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a return to April's status quo: no peace and no war. For Israel, that is the second-favorite position on the board--the favorite, a war actively grinding the regime down, is over for now. But a pause is not a rewind. With the oil waiver revoked and the sanctions back on, Tehran is frozen in its beaten position, with no hope of unfrozen assets bridging its fatal liquidity gap. Jerusalem can wait, hoping the regime buckles under its own internal pressures. And while it waits, it can keep dismembering the proxies, whose patron is in no condition to come to their aid.

As for the strait, during the war, Iran set up a toll booth. In response, the Gulf states and the Americans quietly paved a bypass, routing traffic along the Omani side of the waterway and slipping millions of barrels of oil past the barrier. If the diplomacy is dead, expect the U.S. to double down on the Omani lane--and Iran to do everything it can to force traffic back through the booth.

This week, Iranian media reported that the UAE had proposed a plan to the International Maritime Organization to manage the strait--a plan backed by eight unnamed Emirati "allies" and promptly rejected by Tehran, which claimed it lacked "legal basis" and exceeded the IMO Council's technical mandate. No details of the plan have surfaced, and no regional or Western outlet has confirmed it exists. But the same regime-affiliated outlets followed up with a statement from an "informed" source: all transit through the strait must be in accordance with Iranian arrangements. Tehran has likewise objected to a recent Omani proposal under which shipping companies would voluntarily pay fees to use the strait.

Now that Iran no longer has to pretend to abide by the MoU, expect no more empty overtures toward joint management. Expect declarations to the effect that sailing the strait will be like driving through Tehran: on Iranian roads, under Iranian rules.

The U.S. will respond to this morning's attacks, but Iran priced that in the moment it launched. This isn't brinkmanship built on a bet that Washington won't shoot back. It's Tehran's strategy from the war: pit America's economic tolerance against Iran's pain tolerance, and wait for Washington to conclude that paying the toll is cheaper than the drama of collecting it. To Tehran's credit, that bet has paid off before, but this time they may have overplayed their hand.

Mark Halperin
@MarkHalperin

Donald Trump in Turkey about the Iranians: "They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people, and they're vicious, violent people. Far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars ... there's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo. As far as I'm concerned, it's over."

Raylan Givens
@JewishWarrior13

2h

⭕ I can't overstate the strategic damage the Iran MOU caused the US. The sentiment in Israel and the region is very low trust in the US; they believe Trump will change his mind again, and they will not run to stand with the US after paying a high price during the war. Saudi Arabia will still get closer to Iran, and others will look for deals with Iran too. They no longer perceive the US as the strong partner that they can rely on. This flip-flopping needs to end; otherwise, it will get worse from here.

I imagine Trump will announce a new "deal" within 24 hours.

He's making himself look absolutely ridiculous.

If that sounds absurd-- well, he just reconciled with... Michael Cohen.

Ed Morrissey:

Trump also threatened to capture Kharg Island, and said that Iran wouldn't be able to prevent it. That would effectively seize their entire oil-export system, and Trump has been talking about that strategy for nearly 40 years. That would require boots on the ground, of course, and that would create even more complications here at home for Trump. Is this a pose for leverage, or has Trump decided that talks with "cuckoo" terrorists are truly a waste of time? I'm not sure which way to bet.

As I've said from the beginning: You just can't win a war without a ground component. Airpower theorists have been promising a Victory from the Skies since World War Two and they still cannot deliver.

Trump -- and most Republicans -- are confused on their foreign policy imperatives. Do you want peace at almost any price, and do you want a guarantee of "no boots on the ground, ever"?

Okay, that's possible.

But do you also want to use American might to punish and knock out hostile foreign terror-states?

That's also possible.

But you can't have both of these things at the same time. You can't have minimum investment in an armed conflict and also maximal results. What we are willing to do must be brought into some kind of close alignment with what we want to accomplish -- or, vice versa, what we want to accomplish has to be reduced to better align with what we're willing to do.

We want to accomplish major things, but with a minor commitment. Won't work. Never has.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:09 PM

| Access Comments