Agreed . Persistent fly swatting in a swamp is what we are facing . And.. it’s costing the globe a lot - pain across Asia . That’s cruelty induced by stupid strategy . Did they ( administration) not think about Hormuz ?
Then there is Cuba — cruel to not allow energy imports ..
Most cruel : ethnic cleansing in Southern Lebanon and Gaza under the pretext of a security brolly.. Israel is an apartheid state with Nazi like ambitions for territory.
No they did not think about Hormuz any more than they thought about gas prices for Americans, inflation generally, or the health and safety of Congress in January 6th 2020. Trump does not care about other people, neither does anyone around him.
You are right that the ethnic cleansing in Lebanon and Gaza under the cover of security is cruel. But so too is the ethnic cleansing they are carrying out in the US. That is, after all, what the masked thugs of ICE are for.
The Iraq no-fly zone analogy is the one that sat with me longest. Twelve years of “background conflict” that most people stopped actively tracking within eighteen months. That normalization is itself a mechanism. When a war becomes ambient, the political will to end it erodes along with the public attention that might generate that will. Your “persistence punishes those who wait for the unambiguous signal” line is the one worth underlining.
Trying to force participation and ratification of the Abraham Accords on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt makes it look like we don’t want this to end. Israel’s behavior precludes majority Muslim country’s participation, so this is a structural non-starter seemingly designed to keep this going on indefinitely.
"The West loves to negotiate with men in suits, but the men in suits don’t control the water. While foreign ministries sign agreements in Muscat, the entities that actually dictate the flow of global energy—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—answer only to the Supreme Leader and their own massive military-industrial complex. Controlling 74% of Iran’s economy, the IRGC has zero incentive to honor a civilian diplomatic pivot. Trump may have signed a deal, but he forgot to check who actually owns the keys to the chokepoint."
Among my accquaintences I number both supporters of Israel's government and opponents and both groups have routinely insisted to me that the conflict would "end" there when the US took one action or another (i.e. ceasing all support or "giving them what they need to win") that would the stalemate. Per your analysis we have chosen not to end the quagmire but follow Netanyahu into it.
If this holds, and I think you are right, what do you think our version of "mowing the grass" will be? Will we expand our focus on open assassination? Will we periodically bomb some missile silos from afar to be met with kidnappings of Americans on foreign soil?
And as a followup question how long do you think this would hold given the disconnect we have between leadership and warmaking? Israel after all is a much smaller country with far less of a divide between the front lines and the leadership. If we are waiting on someone with the insularity of Trump or Schumer to make a painful decision to end a stalemate we may wait decades for them to even notice there is a problem.
I would love your expert take on my latest article, “America and I-ran: the ‘Marathon’ that Risks Turning into an ‘Ironman’”.
“Same as it ever was”. For half a century, US policy towards Iran has relied on a circular logic: impose 'crushing' sanctions to fuel diplomacy, only to find the regime more defiant, the economy more opaque, and the global fallout more severe. From the 1979 hostage crisis to the 2026 stalemate, Washington has built a legislative machine that never stops, yet never achieves its purpose.
Here are my thoughts - a continuation of the current situation is certainly a possibility, but one that has potentially larger risks than settlement even under less-than optimal terms
The worst-case scenario as I see it is escalation - that gets bad very quickly on a global basis if Iran is able to follow-through on their threats, which I believe they are capable of doing
Agreed . Persistent fly swatting in a swamp is what we are facing . And.. it’s costing the globe a lot - pain across Asia . That’s cruelty induced by stupid strategy . Did they ( administration) not think about Hormuz ?
Then there is Cuba — cruel to not allow energy imports ..
Most cruel : ethnic cleansing in Southern Lebanon and Gaza under the pretext of a security brolly.. Israel is an apartheid state with Nazi like ambitions for territory.
No they did not think about Hormuz any more than they thought about gas prices for Americans, inflation generally, or the health and safety of Congress in January 6th 2020. Trump does not care about other people, neither does anyone around him.
You are right that the ethnic cleansing in Lebanon and Gaza under the cover of security is cruel. But so too is the ethnic cleansing they are carrying out in the US. That is, after all, what the masked thugs of ICE are for.
The Iraq no-fly zone analogy is the one that sat with me longest. Twelve years of “background conflict” that most people stopped actively tracking within eighteen months. That normalization is itself a mechanism. When a war becomes ambient, the political will to end it erodes along with the public attention that might generate that will. Your “persistence punishes those who wait for the unambiguous signal” line is the one worth underlining.
Trying to force participation and ratification of the Abraham Accords on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt makes it look like we don’t want this to end. Israel’s behavior precludes majority Muslim country’s participation, so this is a structural non-starter seemingly designed to keep this going on indefinitely.
"The West loves to negotiate with men in suits, but the men in suits don’t control the water. While foreign ministries sign agreements in Muscat, the entities that actually dictate the flow of global energy—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—answer only to the Supreme Leader and their own massive military-industrial complex. Controlling 74% of Iran’s economy, the IRGC has zero incentive to honor a civilian diplomatic pivot. Trump may have signed a deal, but he forgot to check who actually owns the keys to the chokepoint."
https://triggledger.substack.com/p/the-art-of-the-farce-how-trumps-flawed?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8gc1qf
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Is that the point you are trying so hard to make?
Among my accquaintences I number both supporters of Israel's government and opponents and both groups have routinely insisted to me that the conflict would "end" there when the US took one action or another (i.e. ceasing all support or "giving them what they need to win") that would the stalemate. Per your analysis we have chosen not to end the quagmire but follow Netanyahu into it.
If this holds, and I think you are right, what do you think our version of "mowing the grass" will be? Will we expand our focus on open assassination? Will we periodically bomb some missile silos from afar to be met with kidnappings of Americans on foreign soil?
And as a followup question how long do you think this would hold given the disconnect we have between leadership and warmaking? Israel after all is a much smaller country with far less of a divide between the front lines and the leadership. If we are waiting on someone with the insularity of Trump or Schumer to make a painful decision to end a stalemate we may wait decades for them to even notice there is a problem.
Great stuff.
I would love your expert take on my latest article, “America and I-ran: the ‘Marathon’ that Risks Turning into an ‘Ironman’”.
“Same as it ever was”. For half a century, US policy towards Iran has relied on a circular logic: impose 'crushing' sanctions to fuel diplomacy, only to find the regime more defiant, the economy more opaque, and the global fallout more severe. From the 1979 hostage crisis to the 2026 stalemate, Washington has built a legislative machine that never stops, yet never achieves its purpose.
You need another data point for when this war started. Try 1953.
Here are my thoughts - a continuation of the current situation is certainly a possibility, but one that has potentially larger risks than settlement even under less-than optimal terms
The worst-case scenario as I see it is escalation - that gets bad very quickly on a global basis if Iran is able to follow-through on their threats, which I believe they are capable of doing
https://substack.com/@earlbaum/note/c-267997792