Iran War

[jimmy olsen]

Ceasefire already breaking down?

https://x.com/clashreport/status/2041826268392374459?s=20

Strikes hit an Iranian oil refinery on Lavan Island today\.

Iran is now retaliating with strikes on targets in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE\.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Looks like Israel just conducted its largest strikes of the war in Lebanon, I suspect they plan to use the ceasefire period to push all their attention into Hezbollah.

[Sheilbh]

Looks like Israel just conducted its largest strikes of the war in Lebanon, I suspect they plan to use the ceasefire period to push all their attention into Hezbollah.

And it looks like UAE continuing to launch strikes against Iran - so also exposing a GCC Saudi-Emirati rift. The Emiratis are targeting oil and petrochemical plants on the Gulf.

FWIW I find them very unsympathetic countries but the GCC are in a very tough spot. There are ideological and structural reasons they're on the opposite side of Iran. But in that context there's an increasingly unreliable and costly security guarantor in the US or going it alone but facing an Iran that's pretty strongly backed by China and Russia in pushing the US out. And China having compelled Iran to accept some form of ceasefire, interesting to see what next as Israel continues its assault and the Emiratis theirs.

The Pakistani PM has, incidentally, backed the Iranian position that the ceasefire agreed by Iran and the US includes Lebanon ("along with their allies"), so interesting to see how that plays out with both Israel and the UAE.

Seems like we're still not getting clear details on what agreement governs the ceasefire--with the unreliable parties, meaning Iran and Trump, both saying pretty conflicting things. I suspect we'll find out more definitively in the next few days.

Yeah - although the one point of overlap is that they are negotiating off Iranian, not American proposals.

The Israeli strategy for many years has been to get short term security in exchange for long term instability.  It works at the local level, mostly, but if you try to scale it up like they are doing now it will only reduce the security window and increase the instability to unpredictably chaotic degrees.

That's my fear on the ratcheting rhetoric against Turkiye from friendly think tanks and the Israeli right. We need to be really clear (from a Euro-perspective) that Ankara is a key partner in our defence (even more important now - closer ties with Ukraine and very important in that conflict, ties to Syrian regime Europe is building relations with and important in relation to Iran too) and a NATO member to block that direction of travel now.

Relatedly I see Yair Lapid calling the ceasefire the greatest "political disaster in all of our history" noting Israel wasn't even at the table and that Netanyahu's policy "failed politically, failed strategically, and didn't meet a single one of the goals that he himself set." Which seems unarguably true.

I'd add on the politics I think this Netanyahu government has done really profound damage with the pro-Israel constituencies within American politics - I think a lot of Democrats etc who are historically very close to Israel are pretty angry. I also think that if the myth on the right becomes that MAGA/Trump was destroyed by a war Netanyahu convinced Trump to join that will spin a chunk of the right off into very dark territory - we already see it with Tucker Carlson. I suspect there probably needs to be a piece of work rebuilding ties and rapport and I'm not sure Netanyahu is capable of doing that.

[crazy canuck]

Once again, you are overthinking this. Trump needed a fast exit from his outrageous threat. The result is a cease-fire with uncertain terms that nobody actually formally agreed to.

Trump just pulled the escape parachute out of his ass and jump, jumped out of the plane.

Please don't over analyze this, as if it was a considered agreement.

[Norgy]

Am I correct in assuming that the cease fire agreement and every damned agreement is being made by that scumbag Jared Kushner?

[Jacob]

I appreciate the analysis.

I agree that any analysis needs to account for Trump's unclear goals and idiotic nature, but there are other actors in the equation and the logic of international relations remains even if some of the parties are erratic.

[The Minsky Moment]

Once again, you are overthinking this. Trump needed a fast exit from his outrageous threat. The result is a cease-fire with uncertain terms that nobody actually formally agreed to.

Trump just pulled the escape parachute out of his ass and jump, jumped out of the plane.

Please don't over analyze this, as if it was a considered agreement.

Looks more like he jumped out of airplane, while shouting "throw me the parachute" on his way down . . .

[The Minsky Moment]

I appreciate the analysis.

I agree that any analysis needs to account for Trump's unclear goals and idiotic nature, but there are other actors in the equation and the logic of international relations remains even if some of the parties are erratic.

In truth, it's the most rational decision Trump made since the war began.  It's humiliating to the United States, but if it holds, it makes the best of an untenable situation and cuts further losses on both sides. Giving some kind of official recognition to Iranian domination of the Straits is embarrassing, but it is only a paper recognition of an already existing reality.

It's a little surprising to see Trump openly stating that the Iran 10 point proposal "is a workable basis on which to negotiate" because to anyone that can read, even a much watered-down version of that proposal would represent capitulation by the US.  But Trump only cares what his domestic base thinks, and he knows most of them don't and won't read, and that will leave him and his Secretary of War Crimes the leeway to portray it as Iran caving in after his thunderous threats of mayhem.  On the substance, I think if Tehran is willing to make the right noises -- knowing that DJT can often be bought of diplomatically by completely bogus pledges that look impressive on paper -- DJT would have no real problem recognizing Iranian "supervision" of the Straits, as long as the spice flows . . .

Also agree 100% with shielbh re Isreal and the domestic impact in the US re Israel. Among other things, this has been an utter disaster for American Jewry, and a completely predictable disaster.  And it says a lot about the completely fucked up headspace of a subset of American Jews now that they cheerleaded this fiasco.

[The Minsky Moment]

Ceasefire already breaking down?

https://x.com/clashreport/status/2041826268392374459?s=20

Strikes hit an Iranian oil refinery on Lavan Island today\.

Iran is now retaliating with strikes on targets in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE\.

One of the reasons 2 weeks is needed is because the new-ish Iranian leadership has to reassert control over the autonomous regional Guard formations.  It wouldn't be surprising to see a few episodic breaches in the first couple days.

[Josephus]

As expected Trump administration is calling this a win. 

This could also be a stalling tactic, allowing the US to ship more munitions and Patriots into the region. 

I guess we will see

[OttoVonBismarck]

Trump has now said in a public statement that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire.

Iran has now said the Israeli strikes in Lebanon violate the ceasefire.

Note that while Trump claims the Iranian 10 points are a "basis for negotiation", he is also still saying Iran will "fully give up" all uranium enrichment--a maximalist claim they have never previously agreed to, and that directly contradicts Iran's 10 point proposal.

I know Trump loves to do what JR said and literally get some "public" diplomatic agreement that ends up not actually meaning anything, or sometimes even meaning the opposite of what Trump says. But the issue here is the missiles may not actually stop flying, which will make it harder than in other situations for Trump to follow this PR strategy.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Iran has now said the Strait's traffic is again closed, due to Israel attacking Lebanon.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Iran has also continued to conduct significant strikes against Gulf countries--notably Kuwait, which suffered damage to both oil infrastructure and desalination facilities today.

[Josephus]

I'm pretty sure Bibi is going to do whatever he can to sabotage the ceasefire with Iran.

[Valmy]

Trump has now said in a public statement that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire.

  This is a ceasefire but we will continue to attack you in one area...if you don't mind.

Pretty sure that is not how ceasefires work.