From Josh Marshall about the mysterious end of war deal that appears to be about to be signed:
The best way to see this is that none of the further negotiation parts of this deal are going to happen. Those provide each side, but especially the U.S. with a figleaf to sell their respective publics. This is really just an agreement to stop. The U.S. will have achieved none of its strategic objectives but will have done significant damage to Iran’s military and economy. Iran meanwhile has suffered a huge amount of economic damage — destroyed factories, destroyed supply chains, etc. But they survived and they’ve demonstrated that they can shut off the Strait of Hormuz at any time they choose. That’s a deterrent far greater than a few nuclear weapons.
Iran won this war. We lost. Iran now knows they don’t even need a nuclear deterrent - they have the Strait of Hormuz, which can be far more damaging to their enemies than even a few nukes.
Donald Trump has warned that the Iran deal - set to be formally signed on Friday in Switzerland - is “not final” 2. He says the US could resume attacks if the agreement doesn’t work out - “If they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”
Israel launches fresh strikes on Lebanon despite Trump criticism
We would never conduct negotiations with Iran while plotting and in fact bombing them. That would be despicable, underhanded, undiplomatic… Wait, didn’t the US just do that a few months ago?
As in you don’t believe Trump? Generally, me neither but rather than this being one of Trump’s “make my own reality” moments, this feels more like something he wasn’t supposed to say out loud which is why he couldn’t resist saying it. In any case, we already know oil reserves aren’t infinite and we already know this ceasefire should have been printed on softer, more absorbent paper considering how well it has held together in the fractions of a Scaramucci since it was signed.
Also, while I hope Trump was wrong in his estimate of how much oil is left in reserve, it’s possible he was wrong in that his “four weeks” figure is what he was told three weeks ago.
But he also said that “millions” of barrels of oil went through the Strait on the day the deal was signed. That had to buy the world a few days, at least.
The oil industry is warning the Trump administration that a Hormuz-sized hole in the world’s petroleum market is steadily draining inventories to levels that are likely to send global energy prices surging in the next several weeks, according to four executives.
Iran made the classic mistake of hitting a ship only 1 day before markets close for the weekend giving the US a window to retaliate and then spend 2 days convincing 4 rich people that firing doesn’t count as the end of a cease fire.