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Donald Trump did much blathering on his "This platform has gone 1,493 days without a Nobel Peace Prize" social media site this weekend. That included this threat, sent out Saturday afternoon:
If Iran doesn't FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Readers will undoubtedly be stunned to learn that: (1) the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and (2) the U.S. has not attacked any power plants, as yet.
There are two obvious reasons that this threat was half-cocked. The first is that the thing that has Trump freaked out is that energy prices are going up, up, up. Destroying any infrastructure related to energy production is certainly not going to help on that front. The second is that if Trump had followed through on his threat, Iran was most certainly going to strike power plants in other Middle Eastern nations. That also would not be helpful when it comes to increased energy prices.
And so, Trump did his TACO act, and backed down on Monday morning. Here is the ALL CAPS message he sent out:
I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
The immediate effect of this announcement was to goose the stock market a bit, with the Dow increasing by over 600 points. This may have been part of the plan, as the volume in stock and oil futures shot way up (approximately $800 million in investments) 15 minutes before Trump's announcement. It's almost like some investors knew what was coming. Undoubtedly, the Trump-appointed SEC Commissioner, Paul S. Atkins, will make it a priority to look into whether some insider trading took place. If he thinks this is small potatoes and doesn't bother, it is at least possible that NY AG Letitia James might take a look at trades on the NY-based NYMEX and IL AG Kwame Raoul might take a look at trades on the Chicago-based CME, which is where futures contracts are traded. Paul Krugman doesn't think this trading is corruption. He explains why it is treason.
There was one small problem with Trump's announcement, however, at least for a few hours: The Iranian government claimed it was not speaking with Trump, that there were no negotiations, and that he simply chickened out. The White House responded to this, in so many words, by saying, "Nuh, uh!" This caused Gerard Baker, editor-at-large for that noted left-wing publication The Wall Street Journal, to observe:
The unsettling reality is that with this president, Americans in wartime are in the unprecedented position of having to suspect that the enemy's version of events is more likely to be true than our own.
We have become Baghdad Bob.
Baker has a point. Is there any government in the world right now that is less trustworthy than the Trump administration? Maybe North Korea? Maybe?
Eventually, the White House resolved the apparent disagreement by claiming that it's negotiating, but that the people it is talking to are not the current government of Iran. The administration was somewhat fuzzy on exactly what that means; Trump said only: "We're dealing with a man who I believe is the most respected and the leader." That must mean that the new Ayatollah, Mojtaba Khamenei, is not at the bargaining table. Probably not any representatives of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), either. There was much speculation that Trump's negotiators (Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner) are talking to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, but Ghalibaf said he's not talking to anyone.
Could the Trump administration really be this colossally stupid? (Don't answer that; it's a rhetorical question.) In Afghanistan, the U.S. tried very hard to prop up a group of non-theocratic officials as the "government" of that nation. And as soon as the U.S. left, after 20 years of propping, the theocrats and their armed thugs retook power within the week. It's not like the Afghanistan War was 100 years ago; it ended in this decade. If the White House really tries the ol' "we'll pick your government for you" routine, it's either setting itself up for a humiliating defeat the moment the U.S. leaves the region, or it's committing itself to another "forever war." Is there really any other plausible outcome? Oh, and by the way, installing a U.S.-backed regime isn't going to re-open the Strait of Hormuz or stabilize petroleum. The Ayatollah and the IRGC still control the weapons that are keeping the Strait unnavigable.
The total non-viability of the road the White House claims it is taking is why the reporting from Axios, based on inside information the site's reporters laid hands on, is very believable. Reportedly, several non-Trump people in the administration are coming around to the idea that a peace deal will look like this:
If there is a final deal, and it looks like this, then what you would have is the status quo ante bellum, except... considerably worse. Getting the Strait open would serve only to return oil prices to where they were before the bombing began, and even that might take months or more. Meanwhile, you'd have a younger, angrier Ayatollah in power, backed by a bunch of money received from the U.S., and determined to develop a viable nuclear weapon.
Meanwhile, such a deal would also leave the United States' allies in the region, many of whom have taken a beating, high and dry, and within reach of a soon-to-be-nuclear neighbor. You'd also have 13 American soldiers dead and another 232 wounded... for nothing. And yet, this might now be the best outcome available—militarily, economically and politically. Do you think Trump rues the day he gave the go-ahead to begin bombing? (Z)