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News broke yesterday that the United States and Iran have reached some sort of agreement that may or may not end President Trump’s disastrous war.
Details remained scant as this newsletter was finalized Sunday evening, but significantly, Trump wasted no time moving the goalposts on when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
Trump, of course, has claimed to be on the verge of a peace deal dozens of times before, only to back away when he realizes that ending the war inevitably means admitting the US lost.
It’s notable that the administration has been very leery of revealing the actual details of the agreement to the public. But it appears to involve the United Arab Emirates unlocking billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, which is especially humiliating since Republicans have raged for more than a decade about the Obama administration releasing a measly $1.7 billion in Iranian assets to secure a nuclear agreement.
To add insult to injury, it’s unclear that Iran will commit to ending its nuclear program; it has agreed to continue to talk about it over the next 60 days, but nothing more. All Trump seems to really be getting is a pinky swear that the Strait of Hormuz will open at some point in the future — which was open before the war started, and which Iran can now close again whenever it’s threatened or wants concessions.
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Iran’s victory has been a disaster for the US. The shuttering of the strait has pushed gas and fertilizer prices into the stratosphere and inflation hit a three-year high this month. US credibility globally has been shredded.
But the worst effects of Trump’s viciously erratic foreign policy have been born by those subjected to it overseas. Americans are, like everyone, mostly focused on their own worries — worries which now include a seemingly endless fascist assault on our liberty and lives. But the bloodiest and most painful costs of fascism are inflicted on the fascist’s neighbors, and when you’re talking about a global power like the US, “neighbors” here means “everyone on earth.”
Authoritarians disregard the voices and needs of their own people, but they are even less constrained when they deal with people that are not their own. If you want to see what Trump would like to do at home, you have only to look to the misery he has unleashed in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Africa. It’s a bleak and terrifying picture.