Trump Surrenders; Stephens beclowns himself

The last few days have been unprecedented to say the least. With the "President" of the US threatening civilization eradication of Iran, something you have to take as a credible and literal threat do to his holding the US Nuclear football, the stage was set for the biggest TACO in the universe.

With a hard (self-imposed) deadline of 8:00PM EDT to "wipe out" Iran, it seemed that Trump was going to go through with this.

From Heather Cox Richardson, who in one paragraph summarizes the position Trump has walked himself (and us) into:

Trump has painted himself into a corner in his impulsive war against Iran. His job approval is dismal and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil travels, is sending the cost of oil soaring, squeezing the global economy. Always in his life he has had someone to fix his mistakes—his father, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, the “adults in the room” in his first administration who distracted him from catastrophic errors, and so on—but no one was willing to bail him out of the global disaster of his war on Iran.

Pretty fuckin' bleak. How will this come out?

But, as the Guardian reports:

The US and Iran agreed to a two-week conditional ceasefire on Tuesday evening, which included a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz, after a last-minute diplomatic intervention led by Pakistan, canceling an ultimatum from Donald Trump for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction.

Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire agreement came less than two hours before the US president’s self-imposed 8pm Eastern time deadline to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges in a move that legal scholars, as well as officials from numerous countries and the pope, had warned could constitute war crimes.

This is the mother of all walkdowns. My new favorite newsletter, I Fucking Love Australia listed what Trump called a "workable basis" to end the war:

BREAKING: Iran says it has "forced" the US to accept its "10-point plan" which includes the following terms:
1. Commitment to non-aggression
2. Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz
3. Acceptance of Iran's uranium enrichment
4. Lifting of all primary sanctions
5. Lifting of all secondary sanctions
6. Termination of all UN Security Council resolutions
7. Termination of all Board of Governors resolutions
8. Paying compensation to Iran
9. Withdrawal of US combat forces from the region
10. Cessation of war on all fronts, including in Lebanon
Trump says this plan is "a workable basis."

I am going to further quote from my Aussie friends:

A WORKABLE BASIS.

Mate. MATE.

Let’s go through this slowly because I want every single one of you to feel this.

Iran gets to control the Strait of Hormuz. The most strategically critical shipping chokepoint on the planet. The one that 20% of the world’s oil flows through. Iran. Controls it. Permanently. Under US acceptance. That’s not a negotiation. That’s a ransom note with a bow on it.

Iran keeps enriching uranium. The entire premise of fifteen years of sanctions, four administrations of pressure, two assassination programs, and at least one cyberwar was to stop exactly this. Done. Gone. Iran enriches. Congratulations, you played yourself.

All sanctions lifted. Primary AND secondary. Every single economic lever the West has spent decades building, every piece of financial architecture designed to strangle the Iranian regime’s ability to fund Hezbollah and the Houthis and every other proxy militia from Beirut to Baghdad... gone. Poof. Because Iran “forced” the deal.

Compensation paid TO Iran. Let me repeat that. The United States. Pays. Iran. Money. After bombing them. This is the geopolitical equivalent of glassing someone at a pub and then giving them your wallet on the way out.

US combat forces withdraw from the region. Every adversary from Moscow to Beijing just got up from their desk and started slow clapping.

And the cherry on top? All UN Security Council resolutions terminated. All the international legal architecture. All of it. Iran walks away clean.

This is not a deal. This is a hostage release where the hostage is American credibility and they’re charging you for the rope they tied you up with.

Goddamn, do they have a way with words. What is clear is that instead of annhilation of the inheritors of the Persian civilization, Trump 100% caved, and claimed this embarassing list is a WORKABLE BASIS for a peace plan. This is an out and out pantsing of Trump and America.

And a million neo-cons screamed into the aether, as all their scheming to get regime change in Iran, and their final chance, with the most pliant president who would be both dumb enough, and crazy enough to risk the end of the world by going hard at Iran, and all they get out of it is an even harder-lined regime in Iran, and a delveraging of all our leverage, and potentially the payment of compensation to Iran?

Hoo-boy.

And Israel is pissed about this, because they are not done with Iran. Israel has already said that this "cease fire" doesn't apply to their actions in Lebanon.

And one has to wonder what MBS is thinking. Clearly his problem with the Shia Islamic republic hasn't been quelled, and it probably leaves the balance of power in the Gulf in worse shape than before, knocking the lustre off of the UAE states.

Oops.

Clearly Trump not only TACO'd, but he was desparate for an offramp, he was telegraphing to the leadership in Iran that he wanted out, and they were able to twist the knife.

Sure, there's two weeks to work out the rough edges, but this "Workable Basis" is going to be the life-raft that Trump grasps at, and he knows that he needs an out. But this is cementing the fact that the Pax Americana gone, the Petrodollar system is at risk, and every other democracy on the planet now realise that the US is not a reliable ally.

But, how about our favorite Israeli fluffer doing?

Bret(bug) Stephens once again shits the bed

I was doing my daily visit to Bluesky, and one of the people I follow there is Dave Karpf (highly recommend following him), and his post was gold:

Oh fuck me running, it is mid day on the 7th, the countdown to the Armageddon is approaching its end, and multi-TFG winning writer Bret Stephens, the DEI hire of the NY Times drops this" "The Iranian Advantage is an Illusion" (gift link)

He leads off with a supposition that an Iranian intel officer is reading in western media:

For all the damage the United States and Israel have inflicted on Iran’s leadership ranks and war-making capabilities, the regime remains intact, unbowed, functional. There has been no mass uprising, thanks to the brutal crackdown that followed protests in early January. Closing the Strait of Hormuz, which required minimal military effort by Iran, has exercised maximum leverage over the global economy while boosting your oil revenues. The war is even more unpopular in the United States today than it was at the start; it is also causing more Americans to rethink the wisdom of their reflexive support for Israel. President Trump’s expletive-laden social media posts increasingly sound more desperate than they do fierce. And the I.R.G.C. is more powerful than ever.

Ok, so what's your point Mr. Stephens?

Ah, he's trying to "yes, and" this, arguing that while Iran resorts to guerilla tactics, it is a conventional state, and thus it is subject to the rules of traditional warfare:

Though Iranian military doctrine often resorts to guerrilla-like means, Iran itself is a conventional state, with a government that works out of office buildings, oversees infrastructure projects, pays its bureaucrats their salaries, runs an airline and so on. Nor (until the war) did the regime normally embed and hide itself within the general population, as guerrillas do. On the contrary, it lords over them with a ferocity that, in moments of honest self-reflection, shames you.

Wut?

Then he argues that the targeting that (mostly Israel) is taking out leader after leader, as the start of their "mowing the grass" operations.

He also thinks that this war might actually begin a reproachment between Israel and Saudi Arabia, healing a rift that opened after the October 7th attack and the aftermath in Gaza. I guess he's reading the tea-leaves that MBS is all in on obliterating the Iranian state, but how true is that?

Right now, there’s no telling what will happen. But as you survey where Iran stands now compared with where it stood just three years ago, you are overwhelmed with a sense of loss. Your once-powerful proxies in Gaza, Beirut, Damascus: decimated, deposed or dead. The Arab states: increasingly on side with the Americans and Zionists. Your nuclear program: set back for years or decades, if not forever. Your economy: in even deeper crisis than it was before the war, with no turnaround in sight. Your most capable leaders: dead. Your own people: waiting for the war and the state of emergency to end so they can rise against you again.

Well, Mr. Stephens, with the master surrender by Trump last night, how do you think this aged?

Why the fuck does this waste of human skin have a job at the NY Times?

Summary

Is this over? No, not by a long shot, but what seems clear to me (please, if you have thoughts, drop them in the comments) is that Trump not only got out too far over his skis, but he finally realized that this was unwinnable, and that the supposedly degraded Iranian regime really had all the cards.

Israel is pissed, the KSA has to be pissed, and even the spineless Republican jellyfish are seeing the writing on the wall, that this is tainting them.

Has anyone checked on Lindsay Graham on this?