I can’t say I understand the new 10-day cease fire and how it came about. Trump seems to want to take credit, but I doubt it had anything to do with him or his crack[ed] “negotiating” team of Vance, Kushner, and Witkoff. Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is open for shipping, but Trump says his blockade of Iran is still in force. Whatever. Josh Marshall is calling it a massive strategic win for Iran.
There are also reports that the sailors and troops stationed near Iran are not getting enough to eat.
One image shows a single dreary tortilla alongside a lump of what looks to be pulled pork or chicken. The other shows two horrid-looking slabs of meat alongside a pile of sliced carrots.
And the food is starting to run low. Dan F., a former Marine whose daughter is serving aboard the USS Tripoli, toldUSA Today that his daughter reported no fresh produce, low stock of hygiene products, and rationing of all non-perishable food.
For the normally hyper-competent U.S. military to fail at basic logistics is pretty shocking. I blame Pentagon Pete. He may have fired too many key people because they happened to be Black or women.
Speaking of incompetence, do read What I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center by Josef Palermo at The Atlantic. Palermo spend ten months working in the Kennedy Center for the Arts after Trump took it over. Palermo was hired to organize art exhibits in the Center. But most of the people Trump brought in to run the Center, including the head guy Richard Grenell, apparently have no interest or background in the arts and got their jobs because they were politically connected. Grenell wasn’t even there much of the time, although he must have been drawing a fat salary. The incompetence Palermo describes is staggering.
See also Donald Trump’s Incompetence Is Costing Him the Country by Matt Bai at Rolling Stone. I hope it’s not behind a paywall; I think RS gives you a few freebies. It does seem to me that people in the U.S. are catching on to what a total vacuum Trump really is. The rest of the world had it figured out awhile back. And of course it isn’t just Trump; his cabinet is incompetent also. Trump doesn’t understand what competence is, I don’t think.
Paul Krugman notes that “The long-running University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment just hit its lowest point ever recorded.” Ever recorded, mind you. And Krugman questions why that would be true, as the economy has been worse. After considering what some other economists have said, Krugman says “I believe that the current extremely negative sentiment is a result of Americans’ correct sense that they have been lied to.”
Trump is still telling people that the economy is booming and they should be grateful to him for it. I take it there is growing skepticism.
The economy is booming if what you do for a living is: instead of going to work you do your recreational things and when you get the insider dope from your "guy" who knows, you call your broker and tell them to sell or buy (whichever one the tipster told you). Easy peazy. One 5-10 minute phone call you make 20,000 to 50,000 bucks. Do that two or three times a month, and you're all set. (Yeah, it’s a little more complicated because, it actually also involves options trading, which is kind of like gambling, but y’all get the snarky point).
So what's the problem??
I do not know for sure what's going on with Iran, but there is movement.
Iran and the US say the Sraight is open. There's not a flood of traffic. Iran seems to reseve the right to shut it down if Israel breaks the ceasefire with Lebanon. It looks like Trump is leaning on Bibi NOT to upset peace talks.
Trump wants out of Iran very badly – Israel wants Trump in. The midterms are just over six months out, and every week we are stuck in Iran is one more nail in the casket of the GOP. IF the price of passage thru the Homuz is based on Israel's behavior, Iraq has leverage that will resonate in the Muslim world. If that's how it plays, then Iran is trying to claim the high moral ground in the Muslim world with the regular Muslim worshiper. If they can be perceived as the champion of the oppressed in the Muslim world, it changes how Sunni majority countries may defer to Iran (Shia) if they protect Palestinians (majority Sunni)
I am no fan of a fundamentalist theocracy – Christian, Muslim, or whatever. I have no love for the "royal" families of Middle Eastern countries. By temperament, none of them seem suited to democracy, so it's a mess. I am no fan of nukes, especially in that region. Pakistan with nukes can give you insomnia. But I digress. I don't trust Iran much more than I trust Trump.
To go back to the developing 'deal', the US is considering releasing 20 billion of Iran's frozen assets. And Iran is considering releasing all their nuclear 'dust' to the US. No word on how we'd have anything but 'assurances' that what they release is all they have. Especially since the inspectors were chased out in Trump's first term and anything we 'know' is almost eight years out of date. And Trump really wants out. So he'll be glad to swear he knows he disarmed them to slings and arrows if he can get his ass out of that mess.
Final result: the US pulls the fleet out with threats and bluster. Iran keeps a bunch of their weapons-grade U-238 in secret. The US releases 20 billion which allows Iran to rebuild. Sanctions on trade are lifted, so Iran has cash flow – more important than just cash. Iran has the US on a leash, as the US has Israel on a leash. War crimes against Muslims by Israel will cause Iran to shut the Staight of Hormuz. Do I think Iran cares that much about Gaza? No. I do think they care about their power and influence in the Muslim world. Gaza matters a lot to regular Muslims.
This could get interesting.
Israel has broken the ceasefire with Lebanon.
Not surprising.
The value of art lies in the concept not in the materials. O.K. Does the value of a war lie in its concept or in the number of your enemy's war toys you destroy? If you can destroy so many of them with ease, then how much a threat to you were they? To do so without any concept of potential value to be gained is folly. To do so without consent and approval of not only the people of the nation, your allies, or even a coherent voicing of the concept without even a discussion of other options is it seems a war crime. More so a war crime when you unilaterally backed out of a working agreement that gave you exactly what you now claim as the concept.
How then do you justify this country as moral enough to have such weapons? Beyond that how can our citizens justify participating in weapons development programs with a government that fails to voice a concept regarding their use.
Unless of course you count the use of pulp fiction in the cloak of Christian values as a concept. That is not justification for even the possession, much less than the use of, a slingshot.
Best we wave the white flag in the new Holy War before we totally embarrass our country with our incompetence. That looks like the first and most necessary step. To do so we need to cancel the Catch 22 like principle to blame for much of our error.
If it makes sense, we just cannot do it that way. Drop it. Yes, we can act with reason and sensibility. Our apparent guiding principle or catch 67 in modern lingo is to blame.
A rather unusual aspect of this war is that the countries most endangered are all far from the actual fighting.
I figure that there are roughly 2 Billion (!) people in South and Southeast Asia who face starvation (or at least severe increase in malnourishment) this year because of the disruption of bulk exports from the Gulf. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc, depend on Gulf oil/gas for cooking, and presumably also on fertilizer for feeding a portion of their population. I'm pretty sure they are all net food importers, so higher oil/gas costs will mean less foreign exchange available for food, too…
So, continued blockage of Gulf exports threatens almost one quarter of the human population of Earth. Even WWII didn't come close to that apocalyptic level of destruction!
I'd bet that China has explained this to Iran, and is using both carrots and sticks to force them to negotiate. China would be using different carrots and sticks to try to get Trump & Bibi to the table, but with less success.
I think Trump knows that this damn war has been bad for him – he's losing his fawning Mob – so he'll be glad to negotiate, as long as he gets to pretend that he "wins".
But Bibi is a harder sell, and I'm not sure what leverage China has there. I assume that Israel will get another chunk of Lebanon (South of the Litani), plus another bite out of Syria. That might placate them for a while, and practically, it would take them a decade to really absorb such new territories. But Bibi's high on hubris; he really wants to be the Jew Who Beat Persia, and he's getting too old to be patient about it.
Even if I'm wrong about Bibi's ambitions, it's probably how Iran views him (after two attacks in the last year). Who can assure Iran that Israel won't attack them yet again?
Notes on the Holy War: The NYT had to retract a bit, as remarks made about a speech the Pope made in Africa were written weeks before they got linked to the recent mismatch between Pope's mind vis-a-vis the delusional workings of our troubled leader.
Well, the NYT and the rest of the country share a bit of narcissistic tendencies that make us all So Vain We Always Think They're Talking About Us.
Taylor Swift & Carly Simon – You're So Vain (Live on the Red Tour)
For Trump it's never about competence, he has a grade school understanding of the word. It's totally about loyalty and demonstrating power.