3 min readI am not wise in the ways of international diplomacy, so I admit I am baffled by the strategy of celebrating a peace agreement by bombing the hell out of the other country. From Politico:
Trump said in a social media post earlier Monday that Iran’s enriched uranium “will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed” or “destroyed in place” in Iran or at another acceptable location, underlining an outstanding sticking point in negotiations with Iran. Trump added that the Atomic Energy Commission “or its equivalent” should play a role in overseeing the process.
The strikes come more than a month after Trump announced the U.S. had agreed to a temporary ceasefire with Iran, averting a worst-case scenario attack in which he had threatened to destroy a “whole civilization,” and hours after Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to ramp up his country’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a conflict adjacent to the war in Iran that has strained peace negotiations in recent weeks. The prospect of an imminent peace deal has been floated throughout the holiday weekend, particularly after Trump skipped his eldest son’s wedding to remain in Washington for “circumstances pertaining to government.” On Saturday, Trump had signaled that a deal with Iran was imminent, writing in a post to Truth Social that “final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly.”
Did you ever get the feeling that, as the late William Goldman once said about Hollywood, nobody knows anything? In this case, even the people who are supposed to know everything apparently do not know everything. There's a peace deal. No, negotiations are ongoing, but promising. Negotiations are ongoing. Negotiations are at a standstill. Bombs away!
Now, let's talk ballroom. And arches. And turning the White House lawn into the parking lot at Caesars Palace.
Anyway, more from Politico:
And in a lengthy post Monday morning, the president indicated there were still details being ironed out: “It will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that!” In his post, he called on leaders across the Arab world to sign on to the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel, saying he is “mandatorily requesting” they sign on as part of the peace process in the Middle East. The accords — which Trump kicked off at the end of his first term, and he views as a key part of his legacy — could be a sticking point among some countries in the region still wary of Israel.
In an attempt to help the president pitch the Abraham Accords to "some countries in the region," Benjamin Netanyahu resumed bombing the hell out of Lebanon. The art of the deal!
I no longer wonder about the salience of the president's ramblings on his desiccated personal website. None of his bafflegab is aimed at explaining the situation, let alone solving anything. Every post is a straight up flex of his largely imaginary world leadership, which amid the stalactites of his mind, places him somewhere between Richard the Lionheart and Charlemagne when his actual leadership puts him one thin rung below Charles the Simple. The hell of it, I don't trust the angry theocrats running Iran any more than I do this administration.
But the untrustworthy angry theocrats still have their "nuclear dust," and their heretofore decimated Iranian military seems to be very active, and the rest of the world holds its head and waits for all this to pass.
It's the rest of us who need a bunker.
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