Midweek Update #5; This Is No TACO: This Is Complete US Strategic Failure
Trump Agrees To Iran's Victory Conditions
Hi All
Will this be the last of these? Maybe not, but there is a real chance. Donald Trump yesterday showed how few cards the USA had to play in his war of choice, when he went from threatening to destroy Iranian people, culture and history, to agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and talks based on an Iranian ten point plan. The details of this plan (see below) amount to a comprehensive US defeat. If this indeed is the end of the war and that Iranian plan is the basis of a deal, it makes this if not the longest war in US history, the most pointless and a complete waste. Iran looks on the verge of emerging stronger, with the ability to generate massive new income, while the US looks, in a word, a busted flush.
This is no run of the mill TACO. This is complete US strategic failure.
Here are the key developments.
The Iranian 10-Point Plan.
Donald Trump’s announcement of a two-week ceasefire referred to the existence of a 10-point plan for peace that Iran has offered. It is notable how positive Trump was about the plan, calling it a basis for negotiations. I have underlined the key sentences in his tweet about it.
Trump mentioned the one semi-concession by Iran in the ten points, but, revealingly, did not discuss the points themselves.
Taken together, they are what one might call, Iranian victory terms.
Here is the Iranian version of the 10-point plan, and it is worth breaking it down. This list was compiled by the Wall Street Journal.
To understand these points, I will break them down as follows:
Iran Security Clauses
Points 1, 9, 10 are what might be called the Iranian security clauses. The war ends, not just for attacks on Iran, but also Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the Houthis in Lebanon. So, the US must use its power to rein Israel in. However that is not all, the Iranians want the US to withdraw from the region (terms to be negotiated) and to guarantee Iranian security going forward. In other words, the Iranian regime gets to keep its power, will not be attacked, and the US defends the theocratic regime’s position.
So much for regime change—this cements the present regime.
Strait of Hormuz/Iran Reparations Clauses
That is not all, the plan provides the economic power for Iran to rebuild and even get stronger. This starts in points 2 and 8. Now there are a range of readings of these, but the consensus seems to the following.
Iran promises to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to traffic.
Iran gets to continue charging a toll to that traffic.
Oman may or may not get part of that toll.
Iran demands this right as its reparations for the war.
So, this means Iran is in a much stronger strategic position than it was on February 27, 2026. It now will have US recognition of its right to charge tolls (which have been described as high as $2million a ship) to go through the Strait. One recent JP Morgan report estimated that Iran keeping tolls on shipping in the Strait could amount to a yearly windfall for the Iranian government of $70-90 billion. That is completely new, fresh cash, in perpetuity. That would make this one of the richest reparations packages in history; could be more one trillion dollars in fewer than 12 years.
Iran End Of Sanctions/Diplomatic Isolation Clauses
These are points 4, 5, and 6. Basically all primary and secondary sanctions which have been on Iran for decades are now ended and US security council resolutions on Iran are rescinded. This puts Iran in a far superior situation to where it was on February 27. It can develop as it wants free of sanctions, which makes the last two points one of the greatest US humiliations in modern diplomatic history.
Iran Keeps and Develops its Nuclear Technology
Much of the fighting between the US and Iran for years has been predicated on one thing—trying to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Well, if you look at points 3 and 7, Iran is telling Trump that is over. The US has to start treating Iran as a normal nuclear energy power, and there will be no more detailed attempts to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Remember, all this started by Trump back in his first term, when he ended the Obama Administration’s JCPOA with Iran because he said it was not tough enough on the nuclear question. That was discussed in detail in midweek update #3.
As that piece guessed, what we are looking at here is Obama-minus. Indeed it makes the Obama agreement look like an excellent deal.
So add it all together, and Iran has basically proposed a detailed plan for its victory and Trump has accepted it as the basis of negotiations. Now we will see how those talks go, but it looks like Iran is in an excellent position to improve its security, secure massive reparations/tolls, end its diplomatic isolation and improve its nuclear technology.
Its hard to think of a more comprehensive US strategic failure.
Trump Threatens Genocide
The day started with Trump getting so desperate that he threatened to commit one of the greatest war crimes in history.
A “whole civilization will die tonight” seems to me that the US President is threatening genocide Now, thankfully, Trump did not follow through, but that actually makes what happens not less sobering. Trump made this claim, and much of the US political discussion normalized it. Some shrugged their shoulders and said: Its only Trump being Trump. Others said that it was not great, but….
There were Republican criticisms of Trump’s threat, but they were surprisingly mild and interestingly did not rebuke the President personally. They were against the US committing genocide (hardly a strong position to take) but used deflection. Here are some:
Ah, just a little good old Trump “bluster”. Remember that Johnson quote for the last piece, btw.
The problem was not Trump, the problem was the reaction. The US did not commit genocide, but it has normalized the US president threatening it. That is a long way down a dark road, and all Americans need to face that.
The Iranian People
The losers in all this are the Iranian people, many of whom have fought for years and many of whom have lost their lives trying to end the Iranian governments harsh, theocratic rule. Trump, as I am sure you remember, has on numerous occasions justified his actions as a move to bring freedom to Iran. It was fascinating to see Senator Johnson trotting that line out even yesterday.
But it was all a mirage. The Iranian government has recently restarted and stepped up the pace in its executions of its enemies—many young protestors. I would have supported the removal of the Iranian regime, had that been achievable and a key part of US policy. But it never was. This was a war to change dictators in Iran (like in Venezuela) it was never to bring freedom to Iran—and now that is clear.
And in the end, the people who will really suffer are those Iranians who want a different, better future. Their government will come down on them now with greater and greater force.
Courtesy of the USA.
So the US has failed strategically and weakened itself. However the real price to be paid is in Iran.
As I have been arguing for years, the US brings little positive to the table in the Middle East. It is time to withdraw.
Stay well everyone.
Iran is left stronger and with more leverage than they had ever had in the last 200 years. This is not just a catastrophic strategic defeat for the US, it is a horrendous own goal of historic proportion. The US had no reason to attack Iran, there was not precipitating event. It was Bibi’s fever dream and Trump feeling he was invincible after Venezuela and needing a distraction from Epstein that went along with it. Trump, his family and all who went along with him will go down in infamy as traitors like Benedict Arnold or John Wilkes Booth.
I think the Trump era, particularly this term, has conditioned us for unbearable but quick policies and operations. We have been trained to see the world in days and weeks only because devastating executive actions come and go in those timeframes. Investors are prepared to sell and buyback in a single week, when they used to hold on for years. Countries are trained to quickly adapt to insane developments and then release all tension when the dear leader chickens out. This culture has infected our military, where generals are even talking about 3 week wars as those are common. Iran may have the ironic advantage of being cut off from this globalist system and its hectic zeitgeist. Iran has paced itself beautifully. The pentagon reports that we haven’t even destroyed half of their missile launchers leads to a total change of the narrative. Maybe Iran isn’t fighting conventional asymmetric warfare, exploiting its position in the Strait to counter America’s annihilation of its military? Maybe Iran is firing missiles such that they will be able to still escalate months even years into this war? If Vietnam wasn’t “blasted into the Stone Age” after receiving more bombs than all the bombs dropped in WW2. If the USSR could overcome the most devastating invasion in history and still move onto become a superpower in a few years, then Iran is in no immediate danger of annihilation; especially if it knows it’s winning.