Now the latest in the Iran war is that the Pentagon may deploy about 3,000 members of the legendary 82nd Airborne to Kharg Island. Or it might be 2,500 troops from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. Or it might be other Marines who first storm the island that Iran uses to stage its oil exports, followed by one of those units. That seemed to be what Senator Lindsey Graham wanted, who invoked the American victory at Iwo Jima in 1945, appearing to remember the stirring photograph that immortalized that important victory while forgetting perhaps that it cost nearly 7,000 American lives.
All these twists followed, by less than 24 hours, President Trump’s stunning Monday morning claim that, to paraphrase John and Yoko, war was almost over if we wanted it: He announced that he had been secretly working on a deal with Iran that would postpone for five days his planned bombing of civilian energy infrastructure targets in Iran, which was supposed to start Monday night, and not only that, but would involve “a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.”
What’s next? A proposal for Iran as the fifty-first state? Well, the country is conservative and religious. Probably a lot of Republican voters.
This is craziness. Trump is saying, without any thought to his words’ long-term impact on American credibility, whatever pops into his mind at the moment. It quickly became clear that his Monday morning Truth Social post, which went out at 7:23 a.m., was intended solely to rally the financial markets and bring down the price of Brent crude. Iran quickly countered that there were no such negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday morning that there were in fact negotiations involving third parties—but according to the Journal, nothing directly between the United States and Iran, as Trump claimed in his post. And The Atlantic’s Vivian Salama and Jonathan Lemire reported that Pakistan was brokering possible talks between the United States and Iran that could lead to direct negotiations soon in Islamabad.
But Trump can’t resist overcooking things. Read the transcript of this exchange between CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Trump, which took place on an airport tarmac in Memphis just about three hours after Trump’s Truth Social post. You can just smell the odor of Trump wishing all this to be true.
Collins: “You’ve said there’s many points of agreement with Iran right now. Can you give us a few of them?”
Trump: “Many. Like fifteen points. Fifteen points.”
“That Iran has said yes to?”
“Well, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon. That’s number one. That’s number one, two, and three. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
“They’ve said yes to that?”
“They’ve agreed to that.” [snip]
“What about the Strait of Hormuz? Who’s going to be in control of that?”
“That’ll be opened very soon if this works.”
And who would control the strait? “Uhhhhh, [it’ll] be jointly controlled.”
“By who?”
“Maybe me. Maybe me. Me and whoever the ayatollah is, the next ayatollah.”
Trump, of course, is capable of anything. Some normally pliant Fox News host could say something that rubs him the wrong way, call him a coward for refusing to finish the job, and suddenly Lindsey Graham’s demented Kharg Island wet dream might come true.
But on balance, it’s a reasonable guess at the moment that this war is winding down. Trump dangled the possibility that the bombing of civilian energy infrastructure may take place later this week, but that now seems unlikely; he’s apparently been convinced that doing so could invite blowback and result in unpredictable consequences that could play out for months.
And as Trump proved Monday, the one thing that rules his behavior more than anything else is the state of the financial markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for Trump, is some kind of measure of manhood. In which case, by the way, he’s not anywhere near the man Bill Clinton or Barack Obama was. The market performed better under both of their presidencies than it has under Trump (Clinton is number one among modern presidents, and Obama about tied with Ronald Reagan). Trump and Joe Biden are about tied—for now. A tanking Dow is the very last thing in the world Trump wants attached to his name.
The secondary concern is the price of gas, which is still high despite Monday’s dip—around $3.90 a gallon nationally. Even if hostilities cease, oil analysts expect the price of crude oil to stay higher than it was prewar because of damage to oil infrastructure in the Middle East.
So even if the war ends soon, what was it worth? Iran has been downgraded military, and that’s all well and good. But meanwhile: a handful of dead American soldiers, a couple thousand dead Iranians, including around 150 schoolgirls. Higher oil and gas prices. A few neighborhoods in Israel reduced to rubble, with probably still more to come (Tehran launched new strikes at Tel Aviv Tuesday morning); ditto in Lebanon, where it’s a lot more than a few neighborhoods and where Israel is just getting started. About $30 or $40 billion in American treasure spent. Signals sent loud and clear to Moscow and Beijing that the United States under Trump is hopelessly fickle and indecisive—and by the way, for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the added benefit of sanctions lifted on his oil. And more likely than not, a regime in Iran that’s harder-line than the regime the war took out. New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the recently killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is said to be much more intent on having a nuclear weapon than his father was.
Not a great scorecard.
And finally, what about the long-suffering people of Iran? Let’s not forget Trump’s words from the day the bombing started: “Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.… For many years, you have asked for America’s help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want.”
Oh well. Sounded good at the time.
Let’s get back to the Epstein files. They may have been part of the reason for this war anyway.