When Britain tried (and failed) to re-take control of the Suez Canal in 1956, it marked the moment when a formerly Great Power was forced to accept that the jig was up, the goose was cooked, and that no one was ever again going to take Britain’s imperial delusions seriously.
The US is now having its Suez moment. We still await crucial details on what exactly Iran and the US have negotiated, with the help of Pakistan and Qatar. Even without the full details, this “memo of understanding” is mainly just an interim agreement on a framework for further talks. It is a truce, and little more. The “toll free” re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of the American blockade are only two of the truce’s temporary, conditional aspects.
Basically, Iran and the US have agreed to extend their current two month ceasefire for another 60 days. Over the next two months, the main excuse that the Americans have offered for this war – Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, supposedly “obliterated” by US bombers a year ago – will be further discussed. So will the terms under which the Strait will remain open beyond the timeframe of the truce.
During that time, it will soon become clear whether the US has the will – or the ability – to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu and get Israel (a) to stop attacking Lebanon and (b) withdraw not only from the circa 570 square kilometre buffer zone that has been created within Lebanon adjacent to the border with Israel, but also (c) from the additional 2,000 square kilometres that the IDF has turned into displacement zones during its current invasion.
In effect, the IDF has turned one fifth of Lebanon into a free fire region, while bombing its villages and residential suburbs with a criminal disregard for human life. Yet as Iran keeps on saying, if Lebanon’s sovereignty isn’t restored via an Israeli cessation of bombing and a troop withdrawal, this will count as a deal-breaker.
Fat chance of that ever happening though, given the current state of Israeli domestic politics. If Netanyahu gave any sign of complying with a withdrawal from Lebanon, he would certainly lose the Israeli election that’s due by October at the latest. If anything, the main Israeli opposition bloc is even more militant on Lebanon.
Best is still bad
Typically, Donald Trump is trying to spin a Great Victory out of a national humiliation. So far, he has talked only about Iran’s concessions, and nothing about what the US has given up to to achieve this truce. Ultimately, the deal seems to resolve only the problems that his own foolhardy actions had created.
At a wider level…there will be no regime change in Teheran. If anything the country is even more under the control of the Revolutionary Guards than it was before. Reportedly, Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its support for its regional allies (Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen) will not be part of the deal. Iran may – or may not – see $24 billion of its frozen assets released under the deal, although that seems more likely to be a long and complex process, rife with conditions.
A toll-free Strait of Hormuz? Big deal. Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz had been freely open to global commercial shipping. There is no clarity yet on how and when this crucial sea lane will re-open for business, and whether it has been mined, or not. Nor is there any clarity on how long it would stay open if the US breaks its promises. Thanks to the US and Israeli aggression, Iran has come to realise that it now has a potent weapon that can shut off the lifeblood of global commerce.
It has also been an annus horribilis for America’s regional allies. Formerly the US had seemed to be the all-powerful guarantor of the security of the Gulf states. In the wake of the Iran war, the Gulf states have lost the illusion of stability on which much of their prosperity has been based. More formidable enemies of the US will also have noted the inability of the US to defeat a third-rate military power, and to convert its vast military superiority into any significant strategic gains on the ground.
Beyond undermining the regional perceptions of US omnipotence and reliability, there is the material cost.. The war has cost the US hundreds of billions, has exposed dire shortages in some key munitions within America’s arsenal, has inflicted ruinous physical damage on Iran and Lebanon, and has cost the lives of thousands of people: including the 128 school children killed in their classrooms in Minab by a US bombing raid. Nothing positive has been achieved by the US /Israeli military actions: only destruction, and lasting grief.
Diplomacy is said to be war by other means. With respect to Iran though, diplomacy has a proven track record of being far more effective than military action. Over ten years ago and in the wake of 18 months of talks, Iran agreed to forego the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. It also agreed to submit itself to regular UN inspections of its sites, and those rigorous UN inspections found Iran to be in full compliance. In return, the West had promised to lift its extensive trade sanctions, thereby enabling Iran to become peacefully integrated within the global economy.
Instead, Trump tore up that deal and imposed harsher sanctions. Not surprisingly, Iran then began enriching uranium in earnest. It had come to realise the hard way that – just like North Korea – having a nuclear weapon was its only way of deterring military aggression from the US and Israel.
For all the martial strutting by Trump and Pete Hegseth, the US is currently struggling to re-gain what Obama and the mullahs had achieved by patient diplomacy over a decade ago. As mentioned, much remains unresolved. Over the next 60 days, will Iran cease nuclear enrichment entirely? Or will it reserve its absolute right as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to pursue the low level 3.6% nuclear enrichment earmarked to meet the country’s civilian energy needs? The fate – and the whereabouts – of Iran’s stash of 60% enriched fuel is unknown.
Saving the world from Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon is the reason Trump continues to cite as being the main rationale – and victory! – of his war. Yet back in 2016, Iran had made that concession, only for Trump to trash it, and deride it as “the worst deal ever.” A year ago, he also claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon, even if it had wanted to.
Then in late February, he tried and failed to subdue Iran by military force, to stop it from acquiring a weapon it had formerly renounced, and that he had previously claimed to have destroyed. Now, its back to the future at the bargaining table, to try and recreate the same old “no nuclear weapon” deal. No wonder people feel exhausted by having to deal with the US, in its current state of senile decline.
Footnote One: Israel has just launched fresh attacks on Lebanon, and to Iran has vowed to respond. In criticising Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon, Trump made this interesting comment yesterday:
‘Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they are not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.’
What exactly, does Trump think Israel has been doing to residential apartment buildings in Gaza for the past two and a half years? Not all the 70,000 + people killed by the IDF in Gaza were Hamas, either. Tens of thousands of them were women and children. And what about the US bombers? Who does Trump think killed those schoolchildren in Minab?
All of that aside, it is striking that Trump has finally said what New Zealand has been too afraid to say about Israel’s bombing of residential areas in Lebanon, and in Gaza.
Footnote Two: In the same breath yesterday, Trump came up with another truly terrible idea. He has suggested that the new government of Syria might do a better job than the IDF of eliminating Hezbollah in Lebanon. That’s a horrendous prospect. Since taking power, the new Syrian government has brutally attacked its minorities ( the Alawites, the Druze) and is increasingly threatening Syria’s Christian communities.
Only a decade ago the same group that now governs Syria (it was then called the Al-Nusra Front) was on the UN list of terrorist organisations, alongside Islamic State. Letting them loose in Lebanon would be a humanitarian disaster. In all likelihood, it would set Lebanon ablaze, and quite possibly re-start the civil war in Syria. God save us all from Donald Trump’s bright ideas.
Julia Jacklin’s music for grown-ups
For the best part of a decade, the Melbourne-based musician Julia Jacklin has been one of the most intelligent, melodically interesting voices in the singer/songwriter genre. Her lyrics grapple with the complex push/pull dynamics of relationships, and this new single “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)” is no exception. Intimacy may be desirable – inevitable even – but it can also be tiring to contemplate, one more time. So give yourself time to be as ready as you ever can be:
That single comes from her new album Gem, due in September. Among Jacklin’s older tracks, “Don’t Know to Keep Loving You” (from the Crushing album) deals with the perils of love and familiarity. BTW, be wary of the AI -generated lyrics on the video, which contain some weird glitches. Here’s what she’s singing:
I wanna watch you, I wanna stay here like this
I wanna feel it all every time that we kiss
I want your mother to stay friends with mine
I want this feeling to pass in time
But you know my body now and I know yours
We put so many things between these walls
And every gift you buy me, I know what’s inside
What do I do now?
There’s nothing left to find
Don’t know how to keep loving you
Now that I know you so well….