https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116365796713313030
https://xcancel.com/PressTV/status/2041646648506437903#m
https://xcancel.com/DropSiteNews/status/2041647382090108974#m
🚨 US PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks” – a “double sided CEASEFIRE.”
🔸Trump says he will pause planned strikes on Iran for two weeks after talks with Pakistan’s leadership, conditioning the move on Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
▫️The pause is contingent on the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.”🔸Trump claims the U.S. has “met and exceeded all Military objectives.”
🔸Says a “10 point proposal from Iran” is now a “workable basis” for a broader deal.
🔸Adds the sides are “very far along with a definitive Agreement” on long-term peace.
🔸He described the two-week window as time to “finalize and consummate” a wider agreement to end the war.
:kelly: Taco Tuesday
Iran's initial posturing was correct. Only material forced dearmament can provide security for them against the empire and its entity. Those two don't follow agreements and they don't stop constantly escalating pressure. The entity's path to death is a drawn out conflict. The empire's path to withdrawal is more complex but losing all regional assets is a good start.
This all has to be compared to the base reality of Iran's capabilities, something we can't say much about except that they have been doing very well and seem to have the upper hand regionally.
Looking at the 10 points of Iran's demands, I think it is unlikely they will receive them. So over the next two weeks we will find out more accurately whether this is Iran opting for the prior status quo (albeit with weakened regional encirclement), which is only a good idea if they were at risk of collapse, or whether this is a strategic pause and they plan to resume.
I think this misses the larger point and the fact that Iran’s victory is contingent on a few things.
No single war will bring down an empire, certainly not with one single country. I think you overstate what an extended war would do for Iran if Iran continues to push after the US has tapped out. Right now Iran has the moral, economic, diplomatic, and military upper hand. But if the US backs out and Iran continues to escalate, then — besides undermining Iran’s escalation ladder which has been foundational in the conflict, and only works if you de-escalate when concessions are granted — countries like China will eventually, maybe rapidly, lose sympathy as their own economies suffer. It doesn’t matter if China’s energy is secure when their main country of export has a collapsed economy.
Iran has everything to gain by pausing the conflict where Iran has established deterrence, moral superiority and legitimacy, physical destruction of much of the surrounding military bases (and ideological destruction of their utility to the host countries), etc. Those things only erode if the war evolves into something easily portrayed as an offensive war by Iran, which in its current state it is not.
Moreover, Iran needs nukes for genuine deterrence. It can’t do that during a full-scale war. It is better to take the victory of this battle and immediately begin a nuclear weapons program.
The US still has nukes and still could use them if Iran doesn’t allow them any means of backing out, even when the US is clearly surrendering in part.
Yeah duh.
When? Where? You never say what I overstated.
Who cares about moral upper hand? Diplomatically they do not have the upper hand, that is firmly a soft power question and they are at a massive disadvantage. They are surrounded by comprador regimes and very little has changed diplomatically overall except for the fact that the US itself is embarrassing itself. Militarily, they are doing well given the preparation the US has done and what it has committed to. Whether they simply have the upper hand or not is not something you or I know.
This doesn't address anything I have said. Iran faces an existential threat. Pointing out that there is another disadvantage to escalation (1) doesn't really touch on what I've said and (2) does not mean the existential threat goes away with "deescalation" on Iran's part. I am sure there is calculous going on regarding material support and relationships regarding the oil crisis, that's kind of... obvious?
And a failed state Iran from status quo isolation and disruption would make all of this moot as well. China lets the US destroy countries. It provides support, and valuable support, but it doesn't take a direct confrontational stance. It could let Iran simply die under a variety of realistic circumstances. Trying to simply appease China until death would not exactly be strategic, precisely because they are currently tied to a US export economy. This is a push and pull and there is no indication that Iran has pulled or pushed too far.
Watch Israel bomb them within a week
Literally who cares
Only in the form of their military gains and ability to impose an oil crisis. These are meaningful but they're also what I've already mentioned and the former is what would be held back in a ceasefire.
Yes.
For which people in them? I don't think most common people in Bahrain thought of the US bases as protecting them. These comprador regimes do not rule by popular will. The bases are there as a cost to these countries, everyone knows this. It's something for the benefit of the US. Maybe it makes repairs modestly easier for the jets the Saudis use to bomb water infrastructure and children.
Those things only erode if the war evolves into something easily portrayed as an offensive war by Iran, which in its current state it is not.
So then they'd have been golden to continue. Accepting this offer means they would be portrayed as "restarting" the fight even when inevitably it is the US or Israel that do so - or when they refuse Iran's terms.
Though really I don't think trying to figure out angles by which to be portrayed really matter in this propaganda environment. Iran is already vilified in bourgeois media where the repeated imperial war crimes are either ignored or supported implicitly. Their critical angle is solely about the US not winning and the material costs.
It couldn't do that for decades and decades of not being in full scale war because it played exactly this sort of diplomacy game. But destabilizing the entity would assist that effort, and so would decreasing their capacity to bomb Iranian facilities and assassinate Iranian scientists.
This assumes they enjoy a substantial period of peace and sufficient infrastructure after signing any still-hypothetical agreements. This war started with the US attacking Iran literally during diplomatic negotiations. There can be no certainty that it actually stops, it depends entirely on the material state of all parties, something very difficult to assess, except that we can see the entity on the back foot defensively.
The US has had nukes the entire time it has watched its military bases get bombed and evacuated. The US had nukes to use against every country it has targeted for the last 80 years, the vast majority of them not having nukes of their own, including with US faction losses, as in Cuba or Vietnam. This has always been a risk and it does not mean that this is a good time to "deescalate".
In short, I stand by what I said.
Then why insist on now-or-never? The thing you overstate is the iron law that any agreement at all is incompatible with disarmament of the empire.
Even if you are correct that the US will regroup and continue, it will be years at least before it is able. Years that will only strengthen Iran’s position and weaken that of the US. Iran is already on a winning path. I admit that I believe that things have fundamentally changed and that Iran will continue to build up its defenses, develop nuclear weapons, increase diplomatic efforts with regional and major powers, etc. All things that make future US aggression less and less fruitful than it was before March.
These things matter unless you dismiss ideology, propaganda generally as immaterial. It matters whether other the US or its allies can rhetorically justify the things that they want to do; though obviously this is not rigidly deterministic.
When did I do that?
Something I never stated at all, actually.
It honestly feels like you're having a disagreement with someone else, not me. Please quote me in the future if you're going to say what my position is.
The entity has plenty of jets and bombs, they can continue today with minimal logistical overhead. The US can continue by doing exactly what it already has been doing: long distance bombing runs, particularly at high altitudes.
There is certainly no guarantee of that.
Iran is quite poor and relatively destabilized, just not as poor and destabilized as the imperialists' usual targets. Iran are well-educated and well-organized. They are still encircled by comprador regimes and the US' main projection of power is economic and social. Whether Iran is on a "winning path" is entirely uncertain and comes down to navigating exactly issues like these, weighing their strength and timing versus their enemies', something that is uncertain for anyone on this website. Given the unreliability of their enemies to stick to agreements, their only guarantee is that they have sufficiently beaten them back and made continuation too costly for a long enough period that it's better to stop now and regroup than to continue their current successful trajectory.
I think those would be good things to happen. I think it is also relying on them to change course, which could also easily not happen. Their major neighbors that aren't already diplomatically friendly remain comprador regimes tied closely to imperialist interests. The most likely outcome is that their ruling classes continue to know who butters their bread.
Generally speaking, moral wins mean nothing at all and even listing it in this discussion is unserious. The morally superior frequently lose, the innocent die, the children starve, and the propaganda normalizes and erases all of it. The immoral are bolstered, taught that they are correct and moral, etc etc. It is like discussing whether yellow or green colored propaganda posters are better. Thank goodness Iran can use the green color! Imagine if they used yellow!
Neither have much problem with this, particularly when it comes to mass murdering brown people. People in the imperial core do not care about Iran or Iranians. The media complaints they see and resonate with are about Trump doing a bad job of destroying them and going mask off with his rhetoric. They don't like the increased cost of gas. They want the Kabuki and personal feelings of security and superiority, it's what would make it acceptable.
You're underestimating the depths of imperial core psychology and the importance of focusing on the material, both in base and in military gains.
I dont enjoy exponentially expanding quote-replies. I’m not gonna ndividually quote every line of your comments, that’s too much work frankly.
You said in the first thing I replied to,
I understood this as an absolutist point of view that overstated the wrongness of agreements.
I’m not engaging with the rest of your comment. No anger I just don’t have energy for this kind of back and forth.