Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
There have been three big developments on the Iran front in the last 48 hours or so. If you are someone who is hoping for an end to hostilities with Iran—and we assume that describes nearly all Americans—then you're not going to like this item.
To start, each of the leaders who is playing a key role in the current mess in the Middle East visited New York City last week to speak before the United Nations. First up was Donald Trump, then Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, then Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. They spoke on 3 consecutive days—September 22, 23 and 24—and all three got a less than enthusiastic reception from the U.N. General Assembly. Actually, technically, Netanyahu didn't really get any reception at all, since most of the delegates boycotted his address.
Anyhow, for our current purposes, the speeches are not what is important. What is important is that because all the big movers and shakers were in town, accompanied by their "teams," there was an opportunity to conduct some diplomacy. And someone who is paying close attention might note that since the U.N. is in the U.S., the Americans had home-field advantage. They could bring their very best people to the discussions, and could maybe even press the advantage while the foreign diplomats were feeling a bit like fish out of water. Certainly, that's better than the wonder twins, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, jetting off to the Middle East and squeezing 10-minute diplomatic confabs in between business meetings with Arab emirs who want to "invest" their money with Kushner's firm.
However, as you might guess, the talks did not produce any results. Maybe, because tensions are high, or because the Iranian regime is actually pretty happy with the current state of affairs, or because there's currently no middle ground to be had, the talks would not have been successful even if the U.S. had deployed John Quincy Adams, George Marshall and Ralph Bunche. Or maybe the problem is that the people currently running the State Department are incompetent, and couldn't even negotiate extra pickles for their McDonald's hamburger. Hard to know, since we were not in the room.
What we do know is that on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the Iranian mission to the U.N.—which included his counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi—to leave the U.S. immediately. They were all-but-certain to leave soon anyhow, since the U.N. General Assembly is in recess, and since there was no progress being made in the negotiations. However, Rubio just had to layer on the extra humiliation of casting the Iranians out, like vermin. This is generally not helpful in any diplomatic context, but it's arguably even worse when you are dealing with folks from an honor-shame culture, where saving face is very important. In any case, don't count on there being any more negotiations, much less successful negotiations, anytime soon.
The second development, meanwhile, is "small" in the moment, but is "big" if you take into account Trump's past history. The President was performing one of his rallies last night, and he uncorked a wild claim. He told the crowd that keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power was not the only reason that he ordered an attack on that nation:
We did it in one night with those beautiful B-2 bombers. They left Missouri. They flew both ways, 37 hours. They were refueling. We have the greatest tankers. We have the greatest military in the world. They went from Missouri and then at one o'clock in the morning, with no moon, dark as can be, these unbelievable machines led by the most incredible pilots in the world, they unloaded every single bomb, went right down air chutes into this, uh, drug factories, really. That's what they were doing. They were nuclear and drugs. They were doing drugs, but they were doing the nuclear. These drug factories/nuclear factories were hit so hard.
Because, as everyone knows, the best place to make illegal fentanyl is the same facility where you're also making your nuclear ordnance.
Trump, of course, had never bothered to mention this cause of action prior to last night. There is also no evidence whatsoever that Iran is producing fentanyl, much less exporting it to the United States (or anywhere else in the Western hemisphere). However, one need only recall that "drugs" is Trump's all-purpose excuse for violent action. It's the justification for his border crackdowns, it's the justification for his invasion of Venezuela, it's even (sometimes) been the justification for his Canada tariffs. So, the fact that he's brought this new bit of information to the table is a pretty big "tell" that he's thinking about getting violent with Iran. Again.
And that brings us to the third big development, and the "revelation" we allude to in the headline. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has ordered another aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to head to the Middle East, along with its support ships. He also deployed an additional 10,000 troops to the region. The Journal adds, "the ships, jet fighters, Marines and sailors will arrive in the region by the end of November."
It doesn't take much to connect the dots here. Trump is going to try to maintain the (abysmal) status quo through the elections, and then once the ballot dust has settled, he's going to resume his war against Iran. There are really only two questions that remain to be answered. The first is whether the Iranians will beat him to the punch this month, either to gain a tactical advantage or to try to hurt the Republicans in the midterms. The second is whether Trump's new round of violence will be another bombing campaign (which is what he has suggested to aides), or if the larger number of troops in the region coupled with a shrinking supply of bombs will result in a ground invasion. Whatever the answers to these questions are, the bottom line is that the Iran War is most certainly going to stretch into 2027, with all of the deleterious consequences that entails. (Z)