President Donald Trump dismissed “false” media claims that the U.S. will be party to a $300 billion fund for Iran, as leaked versions of the initial agreement allege that the regime will receive billions of dollars worth of “cash sweeteners” just to sign a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) on Friday.

“President Donald Trump says the agreed deal with Iran is not final,” BBC reported Wednesday. “Speaking at the G7 summit in France, he adds that the US will “go back to dropping bombs” if he does not like the final agreement.”

The president also rejected the $300 billion fund claim, calling it “false.” “People can invest if they want. I mean, what am I going to do — say nobody’s ever allowed to invest? We’re not investing. We’re not putting up ten cents,” he told reporters.

I’d say it’s about 50/50 that any agreement will be signed at all and released on Friday. Of course, that’s a pretty safe bet; you sort of win either way, because you’ve really predicted nothing except that it will be one or the other.

UPDATE 5:40 PM:

Just a few moments after I wrote and posted the above, I saw that there’s been a briefing from the White House on the deal. It says basically what I wrote yesterday, strangely enough, which was this:

At any rate, it sounds like the agreement is just an agreement to ease pressure on Iran in order to have some future negotiations. Why? Is this mainly a temporary measure about oil prices?

About today’s White House briefing:

“We’re not going to be taking their word for anything,” a senior U.S. official said when asked about “compliance” for Iran’s adherence to the deal, particularly when it comes to nuclear development, adding that the U.S. will “work very closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA].”

Some provisions: a ceasefire (already in effect anyway, I would say), some blather about “mutual respect” (absurd, I would say, but typical diplospeak), more negotiations for 60 days for a “final” deal (which can be extended, so is basically meaningless), opening Hormuz – and the rest of it is mostly just things that might happen in a final agreement. A wish list, as it were.

What will happen more immediately is this:

The United States of America undertakes, but immediately upon the signing of this MOU, and until the termination of sanctions, the U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives and all associated services including banking, transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.

There’s also this, which is somewhat opaque as to when it would happen:

The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use, the frozen, or restricted funds, and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of the MOU, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will usually agree on the procedures related to the relief of these funds during the negotiation. Such funds, whether retained in the original accounts or transferred, government may be fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The opaque part is whether this happens right away or is contingent, like so much of the rest, on further agreement.

It’s about what I expected, and I still find it troubling. It also still seems to me to be a way to get oil prices down in order to help the economy and the midterms. It seems to me to signal weakness, and since it depends on Trump’s now-uncertain readiness to go back to war if things don’t work out, that signal seems like an invitation to Iran to declare it has made the US capitulate. And in this case I think Iran would be correct.

I’ve written a great deal about Iran, both in the past and recently, and I’ve always seen it as an intractable problem. The Iranian government will stop at nothing – literally nothing – to stay in power. Our resolve does not include all-out war or boots on the ground. Modern technology and targeted bombings can only do so much.

ADDENDUM:
Professor Jacobson at LI says it more bluntly than I, but I’m in agreement with him:

It’s an embarrassment and sell out of our national interests. And that’s the nicest thing I can say about it. No reason to sugarcoat it. We went from sweeping military success to capitulating because Iran threatened to destroy the world economy and drive energy prices higher.

What a shame.

One of the many reservations I had about Trump at first, and have retained right along, is Trump’s mercurial nature and his loose-cannon tendencies. This can go either way; he’s unpredictable. Sometimes he’s rock-solid and sometimes he says or does things that make a person cringe. He is never completely reliable. The explanation for what is happening now with this deal – and the cause of my own uneasiness since the negotiations and ceasefire phase began – is not clear. But I agree that it has to do with economics. I would add, however, that Trump’s narcissistic desire to make a deal is probably some part of it. I’ve expressed that fear before: that the idea of himself as dealmaker extraordinaire would cause him to make a bad one. This seems to be that bad one, unless there’s a whole lot that I’m missing.

Another thing that has made me more and more uneasy as time has gone on is that Vance has become more visible as spokesperson compared to Rubio. This did not, and does not, bode well.

At the moment, this appears to rank up there with Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan – or worse. I hope I’m overreacting.

The post Trump on the Iran Deal [scroll down for important UPDATE] appeared first on The New Neo.

But how can this possibly be reassuring? Is it even correct, though? It’s based on Israeli sources, and I imagine Israel knows quite a bit, but who are those sources and what is their agenda?

Anyway, here’s some of the story:

Newly revealed details of the secretive US-Iran MOU lay out that it would extend the cease-fire to Lebanon, allow Iran to manage the Strait of Hormuz, temporarily waive Iranian oil sanctions and establish a pathway toward a comprehensive peace agreement, Israel’s Channel 12 reported Tuesday.

The framework, which would serve as the basis for broader negotiations between Washington and Tehran, outlines commitments on nuclear issues, sanctions relief, maritime security and the eventual withdrawal of American forces from the region.

Channel 12 is called both mainstream and center-left, but the NY Post reporting the story is on the right.

At any rate, it sounds like the agreement is just an agreement to ease pressure on Iran in order to have some future negotiations. Why? Is this mainly a temporary measure about oil prices?

There are 12 points listed at the article, but the points were revealed by Axios. That doesn’t automatically make them wrong. But we’ve had so many articles and supposed revelations of this type that have turned out to be wrong, and so I refuse to believe the report until the official word comes out.

Trusting Iran on anything seems like a fool’s errand to me, however.

I hate reading articles like that. But my Inbox is bombarded with them, with titles like “worst deal ever.” I remind myself that we still don’t know. But all the reports resemble each other, and so I wonder if that’s because they’re based on the real thing.

The post More on the Iran deal – maybe appeared first on The New Neo.

Take your pick, because at the moment we simply don’t know.

As I wrote over the weekend, I have a bad feeling about this deal. But I freely admit I simply don’t have enough reliable information to know if that feeling of foreboding is based on anything other than the present uncertainty and my own tendency to pessimism.

So I’ve decided to re-post something I wrote in June of 2008 – back when Bush was still president – and recently rediscovered. The rest of this post consists of that essay, which you can also find here. It was called: “The problem of pre-emptive strikes against evil empires: how to deal with Iran?” Note the question mark.

Here’s the post:

Michael Ledeen writes in the WSJ about the problem the Allies had in recognizing, taking seriously, and then mobilizing against the danger represented by the Nazis prior to WWII.

He likens this inaction to the current muddled response of the West to Iran, and locates the problem in our presumption that people and regimes are generally the same (like us, that is), are basically good rather than evil, that anti-Semitism still thrives, and that there is a tendency towards inertia and inaction in democracies.

Although I certainly think Ledeen’s points are well taken, I think he’s leaving out some important factors that also militate against the West doing anything against Iran until some unequivocal and terrible step is taken by that country. The problem is that we don’t see many good options against Iran.

The first choice, the encouragement of the peaceful overthrow of the government by its citizens, might seem to be by far the best. Perhaps there are already clandestine ways in which we are helping the people of Iran to defy and to overturn their government, but in a climate of tyranny and repression such as has existed in Iran since 1979, such a movement is highly unlikely to succeed—it’s far more likely to lead to martyrdom on the part of the revolutionaries. This was true of the Soviet system, it was most definitely true in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (this was part of the tragedy of our post-Gulf War encouragement of rebellion against him), and it is true of many repressive dictatorships all over the world. The example of our own American Revolution is hardly the proper comparison to their regimes and cultural environments.

The approach also has the drawback of being slow. Perhaps it would work if given enough time, but if the intent of Iran is to get nuclear weapons and to use them against Israel and/or Iran’s other rivals and/or Western nations, then time may indeed be of the essence.

Note I write “may be” rather than “is.” This is because of the extreme difficulty of estimating how long it will take for Iran to develop effective nuclear weaponry. Estimates vary widely, and in the past they have been unreliable.

And that’s not the only problem with prognosticating. Not only is the time frame unknown, but the plans of the mullahs in terms of the specific actions they might take are opaque. As with Hitler, who telegraphed his aggressive intents against both the Jews and the Western world, the Iranian leaders have made their desires crystal clear. But, with both Hitler and the mullahs, that’s a far cry from knowing exactly what they are willing to do and how and where they will actually try to do it.

That makes it extremely tempting to dismiss their talk as bluster, even with the prior example of Hitler before us, who was dismissed in much the same way but who actually meant exactly what he said. But the mullahs are not Hitler, and so there is no simple equation here. And so it remains commonplace to dismiss the leaders of Iran as all talk and no action, and/or as powerless to deliver on their threats, and/or as amenable to rational persuasion. These assumptions are what candidate Obama is banking on, and although there’s no reason to believe he is correct, it is tempting and soothing (although perhaps dangerous) to think so.

That brings us to still another and more active way of opposing the mullahs: some sort of pre-emptive strike on their developing nuclear facilities. This leads us to the murky world of intelligence, bunker busters, and civilian collateral casualties. And it also brings us to the next and even more terrible option: some sort of military attempt to overthrow the government, as in Iraq.

It is when we consider these last two options that the Iraq War—and the reaction to that war of our own people, press, and Congress, as well as the response of Europe and the world—looms very large. One of my concerns during the buildup to the war in Iraq was that, if our prior intelligence turned out to be flawed or if casualties in the war were extremely high (especially of civilians, but also of our own forces) that these events would make it nearly impossible to launch a pre-emptive strike against any nation in the future even if that country’s hostility were clear and even if it had also developed nuclear weapons in defiance of an injunction against it.

Events in Iraq have indeed played out that way, at least in Western perceptions. Intelligence was flawed in the sense that there were no actual nuclear weapons found (and probably none developed); and although the intent and the means were there for Sadaam to have reconstituted his nuclear program as soon as sanctions were lifted (the Duelfer report has made that clear), this finding and its significance was lost in the outrage against the failure to find the WMDs which would have clearly justified the war ex-post-facto.

Likewise, there was anger at the extent of civilian casualties in the war, even though those casualties were mainly perpetrated by the terrorists and the insurgency—in other words, the enemy. The US was seen as motivating these people, and somehow the casualties were added on to those we actually (although unintentionally) caused and were made our responsibility. And although our own military casualties were—and remain—extraordinarily low for a war, the fact that the bulk of them occurred after major operations were over, and the length of time of the occupation in which they have accrued and its seemingly indeterminate nature, have given the public far less tolerance than it might otherwise have had for the magnitude of the sacrifice made by our military.

Despite the success of the surge, there is still heated argument about whether the war should have happened in the first place and whether it was worth the cost, both personal and monetary. Whichever side one agrees with on this question, the existence and force of the argument itself, and the fact that the majority of people continue to feel it was not worth it (see this poll taken in May of 2008 in which 62% of the people felt it was wrong for us to have gone into Iraq), probably will serve to make it far more difficult in the future to launch any such pre-emptive strike.

In summary, Iran is a case in which we see the problem but do not see a good solution. This confusion paralyzes our responses, despite the desire to do something before it’s too late. This leads to the understandable frustration of those such as Ledeen who have been saying “faster, please!” for quite some time now about Iran, and about the need to act to stop the regime.

It appears to be part of human nature—or at least the nature of the Western world at this point in time—to hesitate to act against a threat unless it is truly imminent, due to the difficulty of prediction and the risks inherent in a pre-emptive strike. This reluctance is what Bush was trying to overcome in his 2003 State of the Union message, which has been widely misquoted as saying the threat in Iraq was imminent but in which he actually said:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

This is a good statement of the dilemma. Tyrants announce only their general intentions, not the specifics of an attack. Just as the police are not allowed to convict someone for mere threats and must wait for anger to ripen into an aggressive act, so is it generally true that non-aggressive nations wait for an attack or an invasion before defending themselves.

Even back in the days before nuclear weapons, this defensive posture often made the ensuing fight difficult and risky enough. But there was a limit to how much damage an offensive attack on the part of an aggressor against a nation with an effective and prepared military could do, though it could be bad (Pearl Harbor, for example). But now, with nuclear weapons available not only to major powers but also to more minor ones—and even to non-national players such as terrorists—the potential damage of such an attack is far greater, and in the case of an attack on Israel it could effectively wipe out that country.

An attack on Israel might also inflict terrible damage on Iran itself because of Israel’s nuclear retaliation. If the mullahs and their mouthpiece Ahmadinejad were sensible and rational actors, they would take this into their calculations and it would act as a deterrent. But there is no evidence that this is the case, and there’s plenty of rhetorical evidence that it is not.

One other possibility is that Israel will finesse the whole thing by acting against Iran pre-emptively to attack its nuclear facilities. This was done back in 1981 against Iraq’s Osirik, an act which earned Israel universal condemnation at the time but which has since been grudgingly praised. Unfortunately, even if the mullahs are crazy they are certainly not dumb, and they learned from that incident to decentralize and hide their nuclear program, thus making any future such attack on facilities far more difficult, far more controversial, and far more deadly to civilians.

Is it any wonder that we fail to act? Our rhetoric sounds tough—even Hillary said during her campaign that if Iran attacked Israel, the US would retaliate and could “obliterate” Iran. That sort of language ought to give the mullahs pause—unless they consider, from the evidence of our debate during the post-Iraq war years, that the US is a paper tiger and such words are just bluster.

The post Iran now, Iran then appeared first on The New Neo.

It’s a nice wishlist, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

And then what? If a Democrat gets elected president, will everything go out the window? Isn’t that what the Iranian regime – which plays the long game – is counting on? How would the Trump administration be able to guarantee a deal would last long enough to matter? I don’t think they’re unaware of the problem. But I hope they’re very creative about the solution.

Then again, the deal may fall through again, and the war resume.

Today Trump says it will happen tomorrow:

pic.twitter.com/dhYnqzxxlK

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 13, 2026

Is Trump a chump or a wily fox? Lucy, football? Obama-deal lite? Something that will last and actually mean something?

I have a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about this. I don’t think the current leaders of Iran can be trusted, and it feels as though this gives them a reprieve and that Trump has been played. Then again, I don’t know. I really, really, really don’t know, and people who say they do are wrong – unless they are on the inside, and maybe not even then.

I think it will be a while before this plays out and we can even being to tell what it means, but I am filled with trepidation at the moment.

The post Today’s Iran news appeared first on The New Neo.

But here goes:

We reported earlier how President Donald Trump lit up the Iranian state media for leaks that they were claiming about the deal that is about to be finalized.

As we noted, the regime’s foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed the deal was close to being finalized.

Now, in what has to be a first, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, scolded the Iranian media for what they had reported about the deal, indicating they were getting things wrong. Then, Trump quoted Araghchi, probably another first.

Get it?

This is the rumored deal:

1. Nuclear material will be destroyed and removed

2. Nuclear program will be dismantled

3. None of their money released until they perform

4. Strait of Hormuz will be open

5. No Iran funding of terrorist groups

I’d like to add, “stop killing your own people.” Or even better, “step down” and have free and fair elections. I know, that’s not happening. But will those five points happen? How will all of it be enforced? It’s a nice wishlist, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

And then what? If a Democrat gets elected president, will everything go out the window? Isn’t that what the Iranian regime – which plays the long game – is counting on? How would the Trump administration be able to guarantee a deal would last long enough to matter? I don’t think they’re unaware of the problem. But I hope they’re very creative about the solution.

Then again, the deal may fall through again, and the war resume.

The post Iran. Deal. Again. appeared first on The New Neo.

Today is the eighty-second anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy landings in WWII that led to Western Europe’s liberation.

I wonder how many people under forty, either here or in Europe, now know or care what happened there. The dog barks and the caravan moves on.

The world we now live in seems so vastly different, including the relationship between the US and western Europe. But make no mistake about it; if threatened in a way that finally gets their attention, Europeans would be counting on us again. And although until a while ago I still thought that we would probably be up to the task, I now have my doubts. It would depend on the administration in charge. And we pretty much know our press would fail us.

About forty-eight years ago I visited Omaha Beach, site of the worst of the carnage. A quieter place than that beach and those huge cemeteries, with their lines of crosses set down as though with a ruler, you never did see.

But the scene was quite different back in 1944. The D-day invasion marked the beginning of the end for the Germans.

The weather was a huge factor, and the Allied commanders had to make the decision knowing that the forecast for the day was iffy and the window of opportunity small. For reasons of visibility and navigation (maximum amount of moonlight and deepest water), the invasion needed to occur during a time of full moon and spring tides, and all the invasion forces had already been assembled and were at the ready. To postpone would have been hugely expensive and frustrating, but to go ahead in bad weather would have been suicidal.

This is how bad the weather looked, how difficult the decision was, and how much we owe to the meteorologists, who:

…were challenged to accurately predict a highly unstable and severe weather pattern. As [Eisenhower] indicated in the message to Marshall, “The weather yesterday which was [the] original date selected was impossible all along the target coast.” Eisenhower therefore was forced to make his decision to proceed with a June 6 invasion in the predawn blackness of June 5, while horizontal sheets of rain and gale force winds shuddered through the tent camp.

The initially bad weather ended up being an advantage in other ways, because the Germans were not expecting the invasion to occur yet for that reason:

Some [German] troops stood down, and many senior officers were away for the weekend. General Erwin Rommel, for example, took a few days’ leave to celebrate his wife’s birthday, while dozens of division, regimental, and battalion commanders were away from their posts at war games.

In addition, there was Hitler’s personality and his reluctance to give autonomy to his military commanders:

Hitler reserved to himself the authority to move the divisions in OKW Reserve, or commit them to action. On 6 June, many Panzer division commanders were unable to move because Hitler had not given the necessary authorization, and his staff refused to wake him upon news of the invasion.

.

This didn’t mean that the beaches were not heavily fortified and manned, especially Omaha:

[The Germans] had large bunkers, sometimes intricate concrete ones containing machine guns and high caliber weapons. Their defense also integrated the cliffs and hills overlooking the beach. The defenses were all built and honed over a four year period.

The number of Allied casualties was enormous. Reading about it today makes one appreciate anew what these men faced, and how courageously they pressed on despite enormous difficulties. This is just a small sampler of what occurred on Omaha Beach at the outset; there was much more to come:

Despite these preparations, very little went according to plan. Ten landing craft were lost before they even reached the beach, swamped by the rough seas. Several other craft stayed afloat only because their passengers quickly bailed water with their helmets. Seasickness was also prevalent among the troops waiting offshore. On the 16th RCT front, the landing boats found themselves passing struggling men in life preservers, and on rafts, survivors of the DD tanks which had sunk. Navigation of the assault craft was made more difficult by the smoke and mist obscuring the landmarks they were to use in guiding themselves in, while a heavy current pushed them continually eastward.

As the boats approached within a few hundred yards of the shore, they came under increasingly heavy fire from automatic weapons and artillery. The force discovered only then the ineffectiveness of the pre-landing bombardment. Delayed by the weather, and attempting to avoid the landing craft as they ran in, the bombers had laid their ordnance too far inland, having no real effect on the coastal defenses.

These obstacles and unforeseen circumstances were extraordinarily costly in terms of the human sacrifice that occurred that day. Note that I use the word “obstacles and unforeseen circumstances” rather than “mistakes.” Today, if the same things had occurred (at least, while under the aegis of a Republican administration), they would be labeled unforgivable errors rather than the inevitable difficulties inherent in waging war, in which no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Another historical footnote is the following passage from Eisenhower’s message to the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. It’s another sign of how times have changed; the word “crusade” has become verboten.

In his pocket, Eisenhower also kept another statement, one to activate in case the invasion failed. It read:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

The note was written in pencil on a simple piece of paper, and is housed in a special vault at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library & Museum in Abilene, Kansas, a bit of thought-provoking fodder for an alternate history that never occurred.

[NOTE: I’ve read that there’s a new movie out about Eisenhower and D-Day, entitled Pressure. Has anyone seen it?]

The post D-Day: 82 years after appeared first on The New Neo.

Of course, that doesn’t stop me from thinking about what’s going on there and even having opinions. But my opinions probably aren’t worth all that much, either. But here are a few anyway.

For example, I saw the reports to which commenter “Richard Aubrey” refers here:

Saw a report a day or so ago with what remains of the, more or less, civilian government saying they have no more say; the IRGC is in complete control.

Presuming this is the case, with whom do we negotiate? How much more killing does it take to convince the IRGC? Bering at least superficially military in structure, they no doubt have lines of succession well known and probably generally accepted.

As I said, I saw those reports, too. They usually include the idea that the people in control now are real “hardliners,” compared to the civilian government. The thing about that, though, is that for decades I’ve read and believed that the civilian government of Iran was mere window-dressing with little to no power, and that the hardliners (mullahs, IRGC) were really in charge anyway. So I conclude that if the pretend civilian leaders are gone now and the hardliners in control, that only changes the superficial appearance of things.

Then there’s the other problem Richard Aubrey mentions, “with whom do we negotiate? How much more killing does it take to convince the IRGC?” But that’s been the problem from the start of the negotiation phase. That’s been the problem even before the war began; you may recall that the war was preceded by fruitless and frustrating negotiations as well.

You may also recall that, at the start of the present negotiations, Trump kept saying we’re not sure if the people with whom we’re negotiating have any power over much of anything. At some point, they “proved” they did by letting some ships through the Strait or something of that sort, but that hardly proves much of anything in terms of the big picture. We know – and Trump knows, and Rubio surely knows because he’s talked about it at length – that the IRGC are fanatics who are uninclined to give up. And so we are left with the same question we’ve had from the start: what’s the point of these negotiations?

Your answer depends on your opinion of Trump, and if you think he’s a clueless idiot then that covers it. I don’t think he’s a clueless idiot – and I certainly hope I’m right about that – and I wrote recently about the possible tactical reasons for the negotiations, so I’ll just repeat here what I said then:

I strongly suspect (without actually knowing) that the reasons for the negotiations are as follows: (1) to reset the clock on the war for purposes of the need for Congress’ approval (2) intelligence gathering and planning (3) turning up the economic screws and letting the Iranian leadership fester in the problems that result (4) giving the Gulf States a needed rest; and (5) waiting to get what we want – the open Straits and the nuclear material – and then following up with more regime-weakening moves.

The IRGC could not care less about the Iranian people and their wishes. Then again, the regime never has. They have killed many many thousands for merely opposing them, and they’ve been doing that for decades. When the regime first came to power, they marked it by mass executions of their opponents and their rivals (including the leftists who had helped them). Periodically, there were incidents like this one in 1988:

Between late July and September 1988, the Iranian authorities forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed thousands of prisoners for their political opinions and dumped their bodies in unmarked individual and mass graves. Minimum estimates put the death toll at around 5,000.

This source says it was more than 30,000 in 1988, but who knows? The link was written in 2019, and it included the following:

Iran is among those governments that execute their opponents. 120,000 people have been executed in Iran since 1981 for their opposition to the government, at-least one-third of whom have been women. According to the international laws, pregnant women must not be executed, whereas in Iran, at least 50 pregnant women have been executed in the 1980s. …

Iran holds the world record in number of executions per capita. According to Amnesty International: “more than half (51%) of all recorded executions in 2017 were carried out in Iran.”

And those are the official executions.

So, the hardliners are in control now? They’ve been in control since 1979.

The post The news about Iran is worthless at this point appeared first on The New Neo.

Take your pick.of metaphors – either way, how the person sees it at the moment is more a reflection of that person’s attitude towards Trump, war, and Iran itself than any reality. Do you think Trump’s a bumbling fool? Then you probably think it’s a foolish and perhaps even evil war. Do you think Trump’s a wily old bastard with many tricks up his sleeve? Then you probably think the war has achieved a great deal towards defanging an active terrorist state bent on the destruction of the West, and you are willing to trust that Trump has no intention of undermining those gains and every intention of extending them, as well as the ability to do so.

If you’re a pacifist or isolationist and thought Trump was one too, you’re probably angry and feel betrayed. And of course, if you think Iran’s a great place and the leaders are heroes who had no evil intent and need nuclear weapons, you’re on their side.

But sooner or later, the inkblot turns into a recognizable picture. Sooner or later, the box is opened and you either observe a live cat or a dead cat. The basic question is: at what point will that happen? Some think it should have happened already. Others are willing to wait.

One of those willing to wait is Roger Kimball, who writes:

Trump held Iran’s head underwater for six weeks. He pulled it up and let it sputter while he offered the mullahs an off-ramp. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio, responding to the press, is right. “The idea that somehow this President, given everything he’s already proven he’s willing to do, is going to somehow agree to a deal that ultimately winds up putting Iran in a stronger position when it comes to nuclear ambitions is absurd!”

Indeed. Trump is waiting impatiently while the Iranians prance and posture. The IRGC tried laying some mines in the Strait of Hormuz and: pow! The US took out the boats involved and destroyed a surface-to-air missile battery in Bandar Abbas that was targeting US warplanes. “These were defensive strikes,” a US spokesman said. “They do not indicate the ceasefire is over.”

What they do indicate is that Trump is serious about his terms.

Kimball also believes that the Iranian regime “may shatter” once “a few cracks appear.” I think “may” is doing a lot of work there. Of course it “may” shatter, but IMHO that will take more than “a few cracks.” A lot more.

Trump isn’t making a deal contingent on the regime shattering; he’s making it contingent on their cooperating on his key points. But is that even possible, and would capitulation be meaningful if they can’t be trusted? I think the answer is “no.” I think this particular regime will never yield on those points and even if they do is not to be trusted. And I think Trump, Rubio, and the rest of the American negotiators know that. That’s why the endgame is a conundrum.

NOTE: Here’s a piece about the Rorschach test. And here’s one about Schrödinger’s cat.

The post The war in Iran is a Rorschach test appeared first on The New Neo.

Platner claims that Susan Collins voted to send him to Iraq; he says that explicitly in the video at the link. He also says the US “destroyed” Iraq, but when I last checked, Iraq was still a functioning country and doing at least somewhat better than it was before the war. As for Afghanistan – which he also says the US “destroyed,” it’s about the same as it was before the war, with the Taliban in charge.

But about Collins:

Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins made a mistake when she voted to “send him to Iraq.”

“We destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan, and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement — we, the United States, did that. And that I’m ashamed of.”

“The anger that I feel is for the people that sent me,” he said.

Sounds a bit John Kerry-esque, doesn’t he?

Collins replies:

“The fact is, that was Platner’s decision to serve,” Collins told The Maine Wire on Thursday, adding, “He was not drafted.”

Additionally, the GOP senator cited Platner’s decision to work for the security company Blackwater, which was investigated by the U.S. government over allegations that it violated international law.

He signed up after the war began, and he re-upped. It was entirely voluntary.

His reply? She made me do it anyway:

Now all these years later, instead of acknowledging that she was wrong, she’s decided that she’s going to blame all of us who — in our late teens and early twenties — signed up to serve our country,” he continued. “That somehow it’s our fault that she and establishment politicians like her, wanted to abuse our willingness to serve, to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars.”

Some facts on Platner’s service – and recall that the Iraq War began in March of 2003:

Platner enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 2003. He attended the Marine Corps School of Infantry, then deployed to Iraq in 2005. He served a total of eight years in the military, including three combat tours in Iraq, in areas including Ramadi and Fallujah. Asked why he served in the Iraq War after protesting it, Platner said, “I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier. I might have read too much Hemingway.”

After four years in the military, Platner enrolled at George Washington University, funded by the G.I. Bill. Shortly after starting school, he enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard and served an additional tour of duty in the war in Afghanistan. He returned to Washington in 2011, resuming classes at GWU and working as a bartender at the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill. From 2011 to 2016 he alternated between living in DC and military deployments, before withdrawing from GWU and returning to Maine in 2016 for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and other military-related injuries.

In 2018, Platner returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, for about six months as a State Department security contractor with Constellis, where he provided diplomatic security to the US Ambassador to Afghanistan.

By 2016 Platner would have been 31-32 years old.

NOTE: Here’s one of my previous posts about Platner.

See also this post by Ace about Platner.

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Trump had better know what he is doing. Maybe he’s got it worked out that Iran collapses economically real soon. Still, it seems he is cutting it pretty close. He may say he doesn’t care about the midterms, but a lot of Americans care more about the economy than Iran.

Indeed they do, although a lot of people care about both. But gas prices are certainly more up close and personal.

What did Trump actually say, in context? This:

President Donald Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he isn’t concerned about making a deal soon with Iran, adding that he doesn’t “care about the midterms” in what he said he thinks is the regime’s calculation that he has to negotiate a deal before what are expected to be highly-competitive elections in November.

“They thought they were going to out-wait me, you know. ‘We’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms. Look what happened last night, that was a prelude to the midterms. People understand it,” Trump said, likely referencing his endorsed candidate, Ken Paxton, winning the Senate Republican runoff in Texas. …

“Mr. President, you’ve said that you’re in no rush to make a deal, but with gas prices that are still high across the country, people are paying more for travel. Does that give you more urgency to make a deal? Why doesn’t it?” ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump during the Cabinet meeting.

“Well, I’ll tell you, the primary urgency, I’ve said this, it wasn’t covered properly, but the primary urgency is that we can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump responded.

It’s very clearly a message to Iran that they shouldn’t believe he’s under pressure to cave because of concerns about the midterms. The press and the Trump opposition are eager to convey the message as one that says “he doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care that you have to pay more for gas, he simply doesn’t care.” But clearly he cares; he just prioritizing the message to the Iranian leadership that they shouldn’t believe he will cave because of the midterms. Note the eagerness of questioner Rachel Scott of ABC (although she’s harely alone) to indicate that he must cave.

Trump also said this:

…[W]e’re not talking about any easing of sanctions or giving money. No sanctions, no money, no nothing,” Trump said. “We have control of money that they claim is theirs. We’ll keep control of that money. And when they behave properly and when they do what’s right, we’ll let them have their money. But right now, we’re not doing that … One thing is not contingent on the other.” …

On the status of negotiations, Trump said on Wednesday he’s “not satisfied” and that Iran is “negotiating on fumes.”

“We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be. We will be. Either that or we’ll have to just finish the job,” Trump said.

The question I would like to see answered is: so why continue to negotiate? Haven’t you given this enough time? I don’t know the true answer, but I listed my guesses in this recent post.

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