Iran Ceasefire at Death’s Door

The ceasefire agreed to only days ago between Iran and the US is unraveling.  Just after the agreement was announced, Israel launched massive attacks on Lebanon. It was fiercely opposed by Bibi Netanyahu who–after the IAF attacked 100 targets throughout the country in ten minutes (as the Israelis boasted) and killed nearly 400–denied that the deal included a Lebanon ceasefire.  In fact, it seems certain that the Israeli strike was a deliberate provocation meant to destroy the deal–precisely what it has done.  As the buildings in Beirut collapsed around their residents’ heads, so has the Iran ceasefire.

Both the Pakistani mediators and Iran contradicted Netanyahu, declaring the ceasefire applied to Lebanon.  The Iranians threatened to withdraw entirely if Israel did not cease hostilities. Then they did. Trump, on the other hand, joined Netanyahu in rejecting inclusion of Lebanon in the deal.

For Trump, opening the Strait of Hormuz was the crown jewel among all the points in the agreement.  He urgently needs it to reopen in order to resume the flow of oil to the world. The Iranian blockade threatens to bring multiple national economies to their knees by denying them fuel for heating, cooking, transportation, agriculture and industrial production.  Despite threats of erasing Iranian “civilization,” the truth is that Trump needs the Strait opened more than Iran needs peace.  While the blows struck are immensely painful, it has more capacity to absorb them than Trump has, to absorb Iran’s economic blows.

Israel’s Lebanon attack spoiled Trump’s plans

Iran’s renewed closure of the Strait has made Trump sit up and take notice.  He’s since ordered Netanyahu to restrict attacks on Lebanon and approve personally every strike there.  He did this in his own inimitable way: “I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump said.  That is, kill them softly, not hard.  This may be the first time in human history that anyone has told someone to stop killing people with the words “could you please low-key it?”

He’s also summoned both the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors Washington DC talks.  But in typical fashion, neither side has agreed to the agenda and each side has a different interpretation.  For the Lebanese government, a ceasefire is paramount. For Israel, to be seen as engaged in talks rather than engaging in substance, is paramount.  It will only say it will discuss good relations with the state of Lebanon. In that term, it does not include Hezbollah, whom it says it will continue to attack.  How can you have a negotiation when one party says to the other: I want peace, but I will continue attacking you.  This is a situation that makes a mockery of serious diplomacy. All the parties are going through the motions, and none (except Lebanon) have serious intentions or willingness to compromise on their interests in order to achieve agreement.

If this sounds contradictory and confusing, it is:

There were apparently heated discussions last night in the Israeli cabinet because the US had requested a lull in the fighting in Lebanon during the coming two weeks to allow the negotiations with Iran to make a breakthrough.

…The Israeli prime minister’s announcement is a response of sorts to the repeated signals from the Lebanese government that they were willing to break that longstanding taboo in Lebanon and enter direct negotiations with Israel, provided there is a ceasefire first.

We have heard from the Israeli defence minister that there will be no ceasefire, Israel will continue fighting and continue bombing. Other officials have been speaking to Israeli media anonymously, saying there will be some de-escalation but not a stop.

This is Netanyahu’s time-worn method of dealing with the US, when it wants him to do something he has no intention of doing: promise what the US wants, then do whatever he wanted to do all along.  Then, despite defying the US wishes, tell it that he’s doing precisely what he promised.  Wait a while till the whole matter falls out of the news cycle. Then the US agenda can be dispensed with entirely.

These talks seem to be a diversion meant as a holding pattern in order to permit the Islamabad talks between the US and Iran can proceed.  In other words, don’t expect anything substantive to come of it.  There is room for skepticism that anything substantive will come from the Pakistan talks as well.  Even if there is a renewed agreement, can anyone guarantee that it will stick?

Trump’s notion–in the Truth Social post screenshot above–that the US can or will destroy Iranian civilization is not only obscene, but preposterous. Its civilization is 10,000 years old.  How old are we here in the US?  250 years?  Don’t brag about it.  The US will be glad if it lasts another 250, at this rate.

Iran has taught Trump and the world that wars aren’t only fought on the battlefield.  They can be won economically, through chokepoints.  Targets aren’t always military assets or even infrastructure. They can be waterways or any geographical feature.  Apparently, all of the brilliant military minds at the Pentagon either didn’t know this; or if they did, they didn’t try hard enough to explain it to Trump.  It’s also quite possible he wouldn’t have cared if they did.  He was hell-bent on war; and war he got. Just not the war he expected.

One of the many ironies in this catastrophe is that Trump is responsible for the US over-reliance on fossil fuel.  He has single-handedly devastated the US renewable energy industry, while giving away the store to the oil companies.  He has also given countries like China, which has embraced renewables with a vengeance, a huge head-start in developing this industry.  Once again, Trump does his best to sabotage US leadership/competitiveness in global technology innovation.

Trump posted to his Truth Social account that, in his eyes, there are only two provisions of the agreement. The only ones he wants: opening the Strait and no Iranian nuclear weapons.  He makes no mention of any provisions the Iranians want because…well because that’s who he is.  If that’s not cool, he warns that US forces remain in the Gulf to resume the war. If Iran doesn’t honor his interpretation of the agreement, he’ll “start shootin'” like it’s a Hollywood western.

Trump’s method of negotiation is not that of conventional diplomacy.  It’s one part bluff, one part bluster.  Whatever is discussed during talks is not formally agreed upon or formulated in a final document.  Instead, it’s a slapdash method that leaves ample room for disagreement, as we’ve seen here.  Trump has the attention span of a gnat. How will he have the discipline to negotiate and implement such a formal agreement?  It can’t be done, as we’ve seen.

There’s a reason why Presidents Bush and Obama each rejected Israeli entreaties to attack Iran over the past two decades.  Unlike the blundering Trump, they understood that Iran was an issue that demanded diplomacy rather than military force.  They understood that a war against it was at best a dicey proposition, and at worst a disaster waiting to happen. Diplomacy, as Obama proved with the 2015 signing of the nuclear agreement, was the only viable path.  They were right.  While the impetuous Trump wandered–or was dragged-into a war he cannot win. One that may destroy his presidency.

Politicians are supposed to be the consummate pragmatists.  They’re supposed to tack whichever way the wind is blowing.  For the past decade, Trump has given voice to the zeitgeist–or at least a portion of it.  He hasn’t tacked with the wind. He drove the wind.  But now it appears he’s gone too far, taking for granted his MAGA followers would follow him. As the movement’s facade cracks, Trump appears to be doubling down, rather than adapting. His stubborn pursuit of his radical agenda, which was once his greatest political asset, has become his greatest liability.