As the Times editorial board nicely summarizes, the current situation in the war against Iran is a strategic defeat. Simon Rosenberg congregates the news from the past day or so. I'll give my version:
- We start a war of choice without adequately considering what Iran could do in response, once faced with a truly existential threat.
- Trump substituted wishful thinking for actual foresight. When Iran closed the Straits of Hormuz - which everyone with a brain knew they would - he was scrambling to avoid an economic meltdown.
- He tried to bluff his way to victory by threatening genocide - real, actual genocide - that even some supporters found appalling.
- He climbed down off those genocidal threats with this amorphous "ceasefire" that looked very much like an Iranian victory.
- Faced with backlash from Israel and the Arab Gulf states, Trump had to renegotiate the terms of peace with Iran.
- He sent his two useful idiots, Jared Kushner and Howard Lutnick, and JD Vance, who has been leaking his disapproval of the war. Making Vance own the peace talks is a form of Trumpist ritual humiliation.
- While the peace talks were predictably collapsing, Trump and the Secretary of State were at a fucking UFC match in Miami.
- Trump has responded by threatening to "blockade" the Strait, but no one knows what that really means or what he intends to accomplish.
- The project of torching our alliances and insulting our fellow democracies - combined with destroying global economic stability - has nations considering abandoning the dollar as a reserve currency.
It's just an absolute clown show, but a clown show where random members of the audience are killed and tickets are $500,000.
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