Iran War

[The Minsky Moment]

Under the MoU as written, nothing prevents the Iranians from waiting 60 days and then imposing a punitive "fee" regime on traffic with exceptions for "preferred" carriers. The text cuts the US out from discussions concerning the fate of the waterway and the assertion of sovereign rights by adjacent nations.  (The US also is not an UNCLOS  signatory so has no clear avenue to lodge protests under intl law principles either).

The sanctions regime is gone according to the text, so that leverage point is gone.  The US could monkey around with the 300B fund (which I expect not to materialize) but can't stop the flow of frozen funds without breaching the MoU terms.

The assumption of the "better than nothing" crowd is that the agreement will stick and that traffic will flow unimpeded.  That is a possible outcome, but it seems more likely that Iranians will push further on monetizing their control over the Gulf, accusations will be flung about treaty breaches, and at some point the Idiot-in-Chief and WAR Sec Frat Bro Himmler will succumb to the temptation to start throwing around munitions again.

[Sheilbh]

Here's the thing though with a Trump administration - Is the end inevitable?  Is it a war you can't win?

On the one hand it's still a very unpopular regime both in and out of Iran, it was bombarded for what was it 60 days?  The US still has the world's most potent military.

But I think this is basically the point that war is politics by other means. What's the political goal and what's the level of force required to achieve that? If you're not willing to use the force necessary then I think the end probbaly is necessary.

In this case from everything I've read the goal was regime change - starting by killing the Supreme Leader (also arguably the person who had the credibility/legitimacy to "deal") - and I don't think that's ever been possible via bombing alone. So if force you can/are willing to use is just bombing then I think you need to adjust your political objective.

The assumption of the "better than nothing" crowd is that the agreement will stick and that traffic will flow unimpeded.  That is a possible outcome, but it seems more likely that Iranians will push further on monetizing their control over the Gulf, accusations will be flung about treaty breaches, and at some point the Idiot-in-Chief and WAR Sec Frat Bro Himmler will succumb to the temptation to start throwing around munitions again.

Ish - from my pov the people I've been reading who are experts on Iran have been emphasising that Iran expects a new order on the straits as the new normal. They've repeatedly said that getting acceptance of Iranian control over the straits was one of the main red lines for Iran.

So my "better than nothing" starts from that position. Basically the second Iran closed Hormuz it was never going back to unimpeded and unimpeded pre-war point and that, instead, Iran would control and extract fees from it (in cooperation with Oman). Basically having acquired leverage by breaking the taboo against it, they're never going to surrender that and it will be the new normal that has to be negotiated/managed with Iran and Oman.

[The Minsky Moment]

I have a different view.  The structure of the agreement suggests that the Iranian side controlled the wording. There is a superficial appearance of bilateral commitments, but the substance is that the commitments on the US are phrased to be binding, whereas none of the Iranian commitments are binding in any material respect.

The US negotiation team consisted of two NY real estate guys and Vance.  In commercial real estate, an MoU can be an "agreement to agree" - a kind of marker where the parties indicate generally what the key terms are and commit to working through them in good faith but the real deal comes later. Experienced diplomats would understand that an MoU in the diplomatic context is very different because once agreed, it creates immediate realities on the ground.  I suspect Witkoff and Kushner were rolled and didn't really understand the significance of what they were doing.  I think the Iranians knew that and took advantage of it, along with the knowledge of the US electoral cycle, and Trump's political and personal weaknesses.  A more serious negotiation team backed by a disciplined executive could have pushed back and gotten some better language.  I believe no serious effort was made, at least not by anyone on the US side with a clue.

Vance may or may not be sharp enough to understand what was happening, but he may not care.  He is ideologically opposed to US involvement in the Middle East and so having the US eat a crushing diplomatic defeat may be WAD for him.  Despite his personal involvement in the negotiations, he likely thinks he can distance himself by having his proxies talk up his opposition to the war and make tactical leaks of insider communications. He can (or thinks he can) insulate himself from the downside of American humiliation by distancing himself from the decision to go to war in the first place, whereas the diplomatic embarrassment will harm the reputation of his main rival, Marco Rubio, who implicated himself in the decision to fight, and who is theoretically responsible for US foreign relations.

I agree that asserting sovereign control over international waters is a key Iranian goal.  But a redline is a redline until it isn't.  I.e. it has also been a redline of US policy for 200 years to ensure free passage through international waters. For that reason, I don't think the deal will hold and if I'm wrong and the US just allows the Iranians to abuse the situation, other sovereigns will be tempted to assert similar rights.   The US should never have gotten into this idiotic war to begin with, but it doesn't thereby follow that having done so, the optimal move is to get out on any terms and at any costs.

[Valmy]

Devil's advocate here:  if you know you blundered into a war you can't win, would you rather tuck your tail and concede early, or should you throw good money after bad for many years on when the end is inevitable?  It doesn't mean you should blunder into wars you can't win, but that ship has sailed (and is currently stuck in the Strait of Hormuz).

Here's the thing though with a Trump administration - Is the end inevitable?  Is it a war you can't win?

On the one hand it's still a very unpopular regime both in and out of Iran, it was bombarded for what was it 60 days?  The US still has the world's most potent military.

The problem is any escalation would be hard and would cost American lives.  We know Trump's instinct is to jus TACO, and the US public (and MAGA base in particular) have a reluctance to get involved in foreign wars - but that doesn't mean it's the wrong response here.

Our military has lost and lost and lost again. It has very expensive toys that seem to do the job no better than everybody else's cheap stuff. I don't know if it is a matter of it being a paper tiger or if this is a lions led by donkeys situation. Either way I do not have the same confidence in our military I used to.

I have no actual insight to our ability to forcefully open the straits and end this war but I will wager it would be a long slog and require leadership and commitment from our leadership which we do not have.

Besides, we already had a perfectly acceptable agreement that we ripped up for no reason in defiance of the fact we had zero evidence they had not abided by it. We have assassinated their leaders and launched attacks in the middle of negotiations. Just monstrous behavior. No matter how horrid their regime is, it is hard for me to see us in the right here.

And no matter how unpopular their regime is, I have a feeling it would be more popular than our guys if we decided to invade.

[HVC]

You have cool toys but don't have the political will to lose soldiers. You're not gonna really win a war without casualties.

[Jacob]

You have cool toys but don't have the political will to lose soldiers. You're not gonna really win a war without casualties.

Though as Russia shows, being able to stomach casualties doesn't necessarily result in victory either.

[HVC]

Very true. But I think with their toys and a tolerance for loss they'd be much more effective.

Though im curious now, china has toys, are they still willing to do human waves? I mean its a millenniums old tradition. I guess it's also up to debate how much their toys are effective versus paint and cardboard.