Iran watch: does the administration understand what they’re dealing with? [scroll down for UPDATE]
Commenter “Oldflyer” wrote a little while ago about Iran:
We have very smart people running this show. I worry that smart people can be dangerous if they do not understand the fight they are in. Robert McNamara and his Whiz Kids were smart. Too damn smart to listen to people in uniform apparently. Likewise, Colin Powell and Richard Armitage were presumably smart, as was Gen Petraeus. They all underestimated the enemy’s resilience and the complexity of the environment.
It makes sense to be concerned. What’s going on in terms of tactics and strategy? Is Trump feinting, is he bluffing, is he confused, is he flailing? What you see isn’t necessarily what you get. But maybe it is. One of the drawbacks of his desire to not telegraph his plans to the Iranians is that he doesn’t telegraph them to the American people, either.
There are certain constants in the message, however. One is that Iran can’t be allowed to have a nuclear bomb and must surrender its highly-enriched uranium. Another is that traffic must flow through the Strait of Hormuz without game-playing and toll-taking. Yet for this entire time, the administration has not said the Iranian government must fall, although they’ve made it clear they would like for that to happen.
I pay a lot of attention to what Marco Rubio says, even more than what Trump says. It’s not that Rubio is in control – he’s not. But his messages are more clear. For example, here’s what Rubio is saying today:
Talking about whether an imminent strike on Iran is possible in an exclusive conversation with NDTV’s Vishnu Som, Rubio said he would not “characterise it in terms of a timeframe.”
“I would say that what’s happening now cannot become the status quo and it cannot go on forever. At some point, there has to be a resolution to this problem,” he told NDTV.
The top US official reiterated that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”. …
Speaking on the issue [of the enriched uranium], he claimed that it can be removed easily from a technical point of view but Iran has “refused to even discuss it”. …
This problem needs to be solved one way or the other. We would prefer it be through diplomacy, but it will be solved one way or the other,” the US Secretary of State said.
We all yearn for regime change, but the administration isn’t focusing on that and never has. My guess, for what it’s worth – and I’ve said this quite consistently – is that Trump and company don’t think regime change will happen as a result of the war unless it was some sort of totally destructive war that would wreck the possibility of the people of Iran having any sort of foreseeable viable future, and the US doesn’t want to go that far. The idea seems to be to let Israel try to work on that after the pressing problems of the uranium and the Strait are solved, if in fact they can be solved. If not, there will be an escalation of the war. And still another idea is that regime change, if it does happen, will not happen soon even if these things do happen.
I’ve seen people also question whether this administration is aware of the apocalyptic vision of the Iranian leaders, their fanaticism, and their desire to cause chaos and conflagration in order to bring about the Mahdi’s return. My answer is “yes.” At least, it’s “yes” regarding Rubio, and I think we can safely say he has communicated this perception to the rest of the people in charge, if in fact they didn’t know it already.
Rubio referred to this even before the war began. Remember back in February, when people were getting frustrated that nothing seemed to be happening, and peace talks were occurring? Here’s Rubio back on February 16, 2026:
“Doing a deal with Iran is not easy. I said it yesterday, I’ll repeat it again today,” he said. “We have to understand that Iran ultimately is governed, and its decisions are governed, by Shia clerics, radical Shia clerics. There people make policy decisions on the basis of pure theology.
He added that while Washington long acknowledged the difficulty of negotiations with Tehran, the United States would continue to try.
What’s more, Rubio has been very aware of the situation since as far back as 2015, when he made the following speech. I’ve cued up a very short but telling excerpt:
That’s pretty unequivocal. Rubio gets it, and he got it over ten years ago.
UPDATE 5:40 PM:
Legal Insurrection has posted this message entitled “BREAKING: Trump Says Iran Deal Near, Hormuz to Reopen.” As I read it, there are two points. The first is that nothing has been settled, and it may indeed be that, like so many other supposed agreements, this one won’t be finalized. The second is that it seems to involve opening the Strait of Hormuz but nothing else has been specifically mentioned. The supposed agreement could include more, but that’s not at all clear. Trump lists a bunch of countries involved in the negotiations.
This makes me very very nervous. I am trying to be patient and ignore rumors – rumors of a type we’ve heard before, which include the idea that Trump is giving the Iranians all sorts of concessions. But we just don’t know, and we don’t even know if this deal is really going to go through or not. It’s very nerve-wracking.
It’s a fool’s bet to assume Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing or who the Iranian leaders are or what their strategy is.
However it is a complicated situation with a lot of moving parts. I would argue the next phase is trickier, now that we will be moving into dual-use targets, not just military, which can do considerable damage to Iranian resources for post-war life in Iran. It’s not WW II. For instance, we would much prefer not to destroy Iran’s oil production.
Plus there are now other countries getting involved, for better and worse, such as the Gulf states, whom we don’t wish to alienate too much. Now they are concerned about Iranian missile attacks on their oil production.
That said, I will be disappointed if we don’t see some resolution this week — mostly likely the resuming of military operations.
On the one hand — as objects of understanding for our leaders — we have the long regnant Shia supremicism coupled to their “revolutionary” political zeal, theologically driven once, yes, where perhaps now outweighed by motions of internal power politics. These, I believe, can be reasonably well characterized (and are, for the most part).
On the other hand — again as potential objects of understanding — we have the very dark machinations of the aforementioned power politics itself, with uncertainties pertaining to who is active (i.e., not incapacitated, injured, or dead); what governing functions such actors hold; what decisions they can make or not make; what do they control (for now); how these remaining political actors vie or contest with one another to retain or to seize these powers, and etc. Such things, such relationships, may be extremely difficult to pinpoint on our goverments’ part where these self-same relations may be unknown even to those IRI political actors themselves as their situations shift beneath their own feet. So this arena, I believe, may not be so well understood by our leaders, and no wonder at that.
Still, I’m not in much doubt that every effort feasible is undertaken to reach a clearer understanding of these uncertainties about the Iranians on the part of or on behalf of our own decision-making officials.
This report was posted 20 minutes ago.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/05/breaking-trump-says-iran-deal-near-hormuz-to-reopen/
I think the answer to the IRGC is to maintain the blockage. Yes, Iranians will (continue to) suffer, but so it goes.
I just saw that also, Kate. Since there’s no mention of the U235, just the Strait, I take it as Iran got exactly what they wanted, and this whole adventure has been a complete waste. Well played, IRGC. They made fools of the US again, and will live on to build or buy a nuke later. Can kicked down the road.
I hope a line on the ege of
the Iranian shore was made because they will not abide by any agreement for long is my guess.
If a deal on Hormuz is reached, I want to see the terms, particularly what Iran gets.
Would a separate deal on Hormuz be such a bad thing?
I don’t believe Trump will bend on the Iranian nuclear program and the enriched uranium.
I don’t see how you can say it’s a complete waste without even seeing the details, physicsguy. For those who wanted the action to result in regime change, this will be a big disappointment. As I understand it, the U235 is buried under rubble and efforts to get it and use it are going to be very visible to surveillance. At least 70% of Iran’s military might has been destroyed. Its ability to finance terror proxies is severely degraded. We now see a re-ordered Middle East.
We should at least wait until we see what this “deal” contains before despairing.
I do sympathize with the feeling that we should have just blasted Iran back to the stone age, as Trump once said. I don’t know if that was the best option, all things considered. And, we don’t know what ongoing efforts, possibly undercover, Israel will make to bring down the remaining regime.