Iran War

[Sheilbh]

Sign of were we are but in terms of who do I think is more accurately describing the course of events and what was discussed and agreed as a matter of fact...I am inclined to think the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Ayatollah are closer to the truth than the White House.

[The Minsky Moment]

Again, all of this is familiar from the commercial real estate world.  Undertakings are made over the phone, term sheets are sent around with variations, the parties disagree over which term sheets are operative and what deal points are decided, both sides posture and toss around threats, draft legal complaints are aired, injunctive suits are filed and withdrawn, followed by more oral discussions with disputed contents and more exchanges of competing "memorialization" of disputed term sheet deal points.  The Iranians seem to be getting the hang of this procedure.  Only problem is that while this way of doing things "works" in its very particular context, it is a nonsensical way to conduct public diplomacy.

[PJL]

The current US govt is a rogue state. Not my words, but the words of a Republican who worked in George W Bush's administration. That's how far we have come. At this point, Donald Trump is about as believable as Kim Jong Un.

[Sophie Scholl]

If Trump keeps up his current direction and bails on NATO, the UN, and abandons the Gulf States, I wonder if China sees an opportunity to pivot away from Russia or of pressuring them into peace in Ukraine and filling that void. Especially if they're able to make this ceasefire they seemed to have pushed for turn into a peace deal. Keep Iran in their orbit, bring in the EU, Gulf States fed up with the US, and continue their funding and support in South America and Africa? That power vacuum would be filled while the US and Israel would be pretty much fully isolated. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

SCMP reported just this week that in response to reports Iran would like China to be a peace guarantor in the region, that the institutional response in the CCP is basically "not so fast." Unlike the Trumpian US, China is less likely to bull into something casually, and they well understand being a "guarantor of peace" in a region as volatile as the Middle East may very well not be worth the resource cost of being that guarantor, regardless of any benefits accrued.

[Sheilbh]

It slightly depends what we mean. I think the US and China are the only global powers capable of "making" an order or, possibly, of imposing order on a region - and the long history of the US in the Middle East after the European empires withdraw in its own way shows the limits of imposing order from the outside.

My own read is that China does not really have any aspirations (or see any need) to create a "world order" or, broadly, to try and impose order on any specific regions. I think they are able to acieve most of their goals without doing that (and incurring those costs), within the existing world as maintained by the US. I don't think China intends to create beach-heads of allies - as the US has in Europe or Asia for example - based on any form of reciprocity. I think the current position of China in Latin America or Europe for example kind of suits China in a way that closer engagement and possible commitments might not. I don't think China wants to build an order in the Middle East and I don't necessarily think it needs to in order to meet its own goals (which includes rapidly moving away from energy dependencies on the Middle East and chokepoints like Hormuz). I think Africa's a slightly different case, in my view because Africa was comparatively always least fully integrated into the American world order  - so there's actually a job to do in order to penetrate and build the markets there which China is doing.

Having said all that I think the suggestion of Iran withdrawing from the NPT and moving to a proliferation monitoring regime through the SCO and BRICS institutions is very, very interesting if China's open to it. And China's recent pressure on Iran to agree to a ceasefire is similarly a shift - so I could very well be absolutely wrong. Often the case

To be slightly more cynical I'm not fully sure what China would get from pivoting to the EU that it doesn't already get or can't get from backing Russia - but Russia also has fossil fuels and has built some new pipelines.

And I think as long as America has a thirty trillion plus dollar economy, an innovative tech sector, significant financial institutions, raw materials, continental scope it will only be as isolated as it wants to be - even if it's ability to world build diminishes. There won't be punishment and norms won't suddenly enforce themselves. States, companies, individuals will react to the more capricious, unstable (however you want to frame it) political possibilities - and the underlying economic and material realities, power and opportunities (honestly not a million miles from how Western capitalist companies perhaps didn't spread Western "values" in China - why would you with a market that big?). Incidentally I know lots of people talk about "neo-feudalism" and "technofeudalism" with the US - I can't help but think of Britain in the 18th century more in a commercial society, with oligarchic politics comfortable with using their very lethal, very technologically advanced military power even if not necessarily great for the actual occupants of the country. For example there just felt like something very contemporary in the astonishing stat in Rana Dasgupta's fantastic After Nations about the British state impressing 250,000 people, generally domestically, into the navy when that navy was in part being used to advance the interests of the slave trading Royal African Company which had 200 shareholders.

[Darth Wagtaros]

So nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Nobody knows what the victory conditions are. Nobody knows what the other side is doing.

[Valmy]

Yeah I sure the fuck don't.

This is the most opaque war I remember the US being involved in.

[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.

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

Yes, I stand corrected.

[crazy canuck]

The United States secretary of war has just said that the cease-fire is due to God's glory and that all of the bombing took place under God's providence.

Remind me again, who are the religious fanatics in this war?

[Valmy]

The United States secretary of war has just said that the cease-fire is due to God's glory and that all of the bombing took place under God's providence.

Remind me again, who are the religious fanatics in this war?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Remind me again, who are the religious fanatics in this war?

Yes.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Iran's President says halt to fighting was a "key part" of their agreement for the ceasefire. J.D. Vance says "Iran would be stupid to break the ceasefire over Lebanon."

This is the administration's "most serious" negotiator on Iran fwiw.

[mongers]

Also (not sure how trustworthy Lebanese sources are?):

At least 112 killed in Israeli strikes over Lebanon, says health ministry
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB
The latest count for Wednesday includes widespread strikes across central Beirut that came without warning, also wounding at least 837, one of the deadliest days in this latest war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. It is not the final count.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Lebanon during the past month, and over 1 million others have been displaced.

Yes, I too am sceptical of that figure, seems too low for the murderous all out assault:

Israeli attack on Lebanon today 'nothing short of horrific': UN rights chief

The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today, where at least 254 people have been killed by Israeli attacks, is "nothing short of horrific", according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

"Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure on a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians," Turk said. "International humanitarian law spells out clearly that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected.

What a Beirut resident saw when Israel hit her neighbours' building

Fatima, a witness to one of the strikes, has described the devastating scenes after an attack struck the building across the road from her house in Salim Salam, Beirut.

"It was apocalyptic, bodies on the ground, blood everywhere," she told Amnesty International. "I saw countless wounded adults and children. I walked further, but it was the same scene in the other neighbourhoods too. I did not know where to go.

"I just walked aimlessly, trying to get as far as possible. It was a nightmare."

[OttoVonBismarck]

Let's not quote pro-Islamic terror organizations like the UN when we're talking about Israeli conflicts.

Hezbollah has long controlled one of the districts of Beirut, Hezbollah is making war and that means Israel gets to make war back onto it.  End of story.