Accepting Reality
The American president acknowledges he has no cards.
If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.”
~ Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Regarding the US-Iran MOU, I spoke with Azi Yazdi on the Mario Nawfal Show on Friday evening and explained that, regardless of all else that is being said, by all the sides, the proposed MOU is nothing more than an extension of the ceasefire and an acceptance of the de facto reality of Iran’s control of the Straits of Hormuz. There is nothing else that can be done to ensure commerce restarts out of the Gulf before oil inventories reach critically low levels in July and inflationary pressures from the shortage of other commodities coming out of the Gulf (helium, fertilizer, copper, sulfur, aluminum, etc.) start to hit consumers - a double header of energy crisis plus agricultural, tech, industrial and manufacturing supply chain deficits.
Whether or not an MOU is signed, and Israel, as we have already seen, will do its best to prevent it, Iran’s control of the Straits of Hormuz will be accepted by the US. There may be military action carried out by the US to performatively express outrage over the failure of the MOU process, but the Americans know they have no military leverage and that time is running out to avoid potentially catastrophic economic consequences of a continued shutdown into and out of the Persian Gulf. This is largely the modus vivendi I have suggested over the last couple of months, which will come to pass between the US and Iran. What Israel will do, what will happen in Lebanon, and how both the Democrats and Republicans will deal with it are all good questions. I don’t see any choice for the Americans but to either formally or informally accept reality. After the US congressional mid-term elections, maybe it will be different…
I still don’t see an actual formal negotiated settlement, a la the 2015 JCPOA, let alone an end to this “hot ceasefire”, as being a possibility for the next several months. After the Israeli elections, maybe it will be different…
Here is the full interview with Azi:
Here is an interview with Ed DeMarche of Trends Journal from Thursday, where we further get into the above:
Go Canes!
An MOU with Washington is a paper shield. Trump is mentally deranged and a pathological liar, so every promise melts on contact. America’s record of broken deals speaks loudly. And now the silence, contradictions, and rushed signatures feel deeply suspicious. Iran should treat this not as diplomacy but as a warning flare: agreements can turn into traps the moment they’re signed.
It remains breathtaking. What the Iranians accomplished. A sweeping and massive strategic defeat, even if the Americans do plan some kind of treachery in the near term, the power differential between the two Nations has completely flipped. It’s still difficult to fathom.