Yes, which is why I think it’s the beginning of the end, not yet the end. Removing the ceasefire itself as a bargaining chip now should afford the IRI a face saving way to negotiate terms on the strait
Trump wants to end this war when no one's looking because the final terms of any deal are bound to be a huge win for the IRI. This indefinite framework for talks is the beginning of the end of the war.
this is better than a resumption of bombing.
but now there's no defined end to this war. the gambit of a US blockade hasn't worked.
the best of the bad options now might be some informal agreement to reopen Hormuz and push other issues to the future, though a deal with Trump may never be possible
I had kind of hoped that this worry of mine had passed by now. Alas, we're still in the danger zone.
Might Iran emerge from the war stronger than before? It’s possible, says Hussein Banai, and 180° opposite of what the Trump administration intended.
Full episode below: historyasithappens.libsyn.com/eyewitness-to-annihilati...
“The bullshitter is neither on the side of the true or the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all.“
— Harry Frankfurt
Trump is stuck between reality and his narrative of that reality, I told The Hill: thehill.com/homenews/adm...
My piece in New Lines Magazine last week got the attention of the opinion editor at The Japan Times, who thought the commentary on Trump's escalatory rhetoric spoke directly to the memory of collective punishment in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2...
💯👇
Trump is running an interesting experiment in how many self-identified Christian Americans have actual religious commitments and how many are just into it because it provides a means for the socially defensible expression of bigotry bsky.app/profile/bria...
Has there been a more singularly embarrassing set of foreign visits by a sitting US Vice President in recent memory than Vance’s itinerary from this past week?
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Always a good use of time to read @hbanai.bsky.social , especially when he’s writing about Iran. Clear, incisive analysis of why the U.S. and Israeli goals in this war of choice are incompatible.
Excellent article by Hussein Banai — a must read. 👇
1/ "A leader who entered a war he did not understand, in pursuit of objectives he had not reconciled, and who now confronts a situation ...
newlinesmag.com/argument/the...
When it comes to Iran, the United States and Israel are pulling in different directions, writes Hussein Banai. And this gap between the two partners’ goals has convinced Tehran “that its enemies’ partnership will not hold, with or without a cease-fire.”
If you’re not following @hbanai.bsky.social for Iran analysis, you should be.
My essay in Foreign Affairs on how diverging views and aims rendered the US-Israel war against Iran incoherent from the start and allowed the regime in Tehran exploit it to prolong its survival.
www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/america...
🙏🏽
"These two theories of the case are not complementary. They pull in opposite directions, and the tension between them has produced a campaign that is operationally coordinated but strategically adrift," writes @hbanai.bsky.social in @foreignaffairs.com. Read: www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/america...
Trump backed down (good), but this is a win for Iran. Legitimates Iran’s control of the strait.
He chose humiliation over escalation. For now. Or until he realizes he chose humiliation.
cc @dandrezner.bsky.social
I don’t care how this came about because my family members in Iran get to live on.
I feel like a crew member aboard USS Alabama in Crimson Tide.
Huuuuuuge sigh of relief at the end of a very long and stressful day.
BREAKING: Trump agrees to suspend 'bombing and attack of Iran' for two weeks reut.rs/3PU6iny
🎞️ Short video based on political scientist @hbanai.bsky.social's diagnosis of the corner Trump has backed himself into w/Iran—and its potentially catastrophic consequences—in his @newlinesmag.bsky.social essay “The Last Temptation of Trump at the End of a Failed War”
www.youtube.com/shorts/KrjQN...
Trump "has made a catastrophic mess of this confrontation and appears to care only about his own self-image. That is, in the end, what makes this moment different from other moments of great-power recklessness..." writes @hbanai.bsky.social . newlinesmag.com/argument/the...
“These are the utterances of a man casting about for an act of sufficient magnitude to substitute for the coherent strategy he never bothered to contemplate,” @hbanai.bsky.social writes in a tour-de-force, must-read @newlinesmag.bsky.social essay.
newlinesmag.com/argument/the...
Excellent by @hbanai.bsky.social
"A leader of steadier temperament, focused on the preservation of American national interests, might find in this accumulation of costs a reason to move toward the negotiating table..." But no. Millions voted for an erratic bully.
newlinesmag.com/argument/the...
MUST-read by @hbanai.bsky.social at @newlinesmag.bsky.social
A leader who entered a war he did not understand, in pursuit of objectives he had not reconciled, and who now confronts a situation in which every available exit diminishes the political narrative he has staked his identity on, is a genuinely dangerous figure to place at the apex of nuclear decision-making. He has made a catastrophic mess of this confrontation and appears to care only about his own self-image. That is, in the end, what makes this moment different from other moments of great-power recklessness: not the structural pressures, which are real enough, but the character of the man they are bearing down upon.
