Midweek Update #9: One Thing Changes And It Is Not What You Think

Trump Guides And Then Does Not, But Nothing Ever Changed

Hi Everyone,

There was a flurry of activity this week as Trump tried something that seemed active and forceful to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He offered to use American military power to “guide” merchant shipping through the Strait, which caused two days of intense speculation, but then just a few hours ago came up with a patently hysterical excuse to stop the operation. Once again, Trump acted tough but when faced with resistance, he blinked.

It was typical of the general rule of thumb for US policy over the last 5 weeks. Though there are lots of proclamations, market swings, intense proclamations, even actions—in the end nothing ever changes. People are getting hoodwinked time and time again into thinking we are about to see something important happen. The reality is that Trump remains as stuck as he was at the beginning of April. He wants out, does not want to escalate, but cannot yet declare victory and leave. Its like an orange version of Groundhog Day.

The US claimed it went into action in the Strait of Hormuz this week—but did anything actually change?

Before that, however, I wanted to write about an actual important and notable change coming from Trump, and his chorus, about the war involving Ukraine and Russia. After 15 months of telling us that Ukraine was doomed, had no cards, there has been a notable change in the last few days. The reality is that while the Trump administration is stuck in Iran, it is adjusting to what is happening in Ukraine. Moreover, Trump’s tame press supporters are also adjusting, which is also fascinating. Pay attention.

Trump Changes His Tone On Ukraine And Russia

I know this is supposed to be about the US-Iran War, but there was such a notable change from Trump and his acolytes in the last 24 hours about Ukraine and Russia, that I thought it was worth pointing out. The change is important because Trump would not want to be saying this, and his supporters, having pretended for 15 months that his policy of betraying Ukraine was the only rational choice, are now desperately trying to pretend otherwise.

Lets start with Trump. He hates Volodymyr Zelensky with a passion, really loathes the Ukrainian president. He has tried for more than a year to force Zelensky out. Yesterday, however, in a fascinating interview with one of his tame networks, Trump was forced to say some nice things about Zelensky and clearly hated it.

"He's a tricky guy. They are losing territory, but it's at a big cost to Russia and to them. I like Zelensky. I've always sort of gotten along with him, other than the one moment in the White House, which I thought was a little aggressive on his behalf."

The reason for this change of tone became apparent right after, when Trump went on to praise how hard and effectively the Ukrainians were fighting.

They [Ukrainians] fight. Because whether the equipment is great or less than great, they are able to fight. They're better than any of our NATO allies.
They've held it back for a long time. They're better than anybody in Europe in this fight.

You can tell that Trump was hating this, as soon as he could he went on an anti-Europe/anti-NATO diatribe with his usual lies (turns out that the USA has done 100% of the job of defending Europe). However the change in tone about Ukraine was fascinating. He would only say this if he was getting some glimpse of the truth about what is happening on the battlefields, that the Russian army is getting devastated with extremely high losses which it cannot replace. The Ukrainians, btw, released this information yesterday almost concurrently with when Trump spoke.

If this continues, the Russian Army will degrade at an even faster rate. If losses exceed new soldiers month after month, the result is not just arithmetic it can be exponential. Fewer soldiers means even less motivation and training, which leads to larger losses, which leads to fewer recruits, etc etc. The Ukrainians adjusted to this war by keeping their losses down—so far the Russians have not.

Trump seems to be getting this message, maybe through US intelligence.

And he might be passing it on to his tame supporters in the Press. Ross Douhat in the New York Times wrote the most extraordinary justification of Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine. It turns out that it was really not a betrayal, but an act of benevolence to push the Ukrainians and Europeans to do the right thing. Of course, even Douthat knows in his heart of hearts that this argument is laughable, because he starts by acknowledging that people will think it makes little sense. Sorry for the long quote, but the contortions in this piece are so extraordinary that they must be read in detail.

A lot of Ukraine’s champions would recoil from that description. To the contrary, they would say, our Ukraine policy has been a betrayal, with unjust pressure on Kyiv to make a deal and an unfair retraction of American support. It’s just that Ukrainian heroism and European support have filled the breach, proving along the way that Trump and others were wrong to treat the war effort as foredoomed.

The last part has truth to it. Many observers, myself included, assumed that the failure of the Ukrainian offensive in 2023 portended a future in which Russia would slowly but surely grind Ukrainian forces down. The Trump administration’s push for a negotiated peace reflected, in part, an assumption that Ukraine’s time was running out. Instead, bravery, resilience and the drone war revolution have enabled the Ukrainians to keep the Russians stalemated, to such a degree that the Putin regime looks more unstable and paranoid than at any point since the early days of the war.

But the means of Ukrainian survival, where Europe steps up as the United States steps back, is not a sign of American failure. It’s what successful American adaptation looks like in a world where it’s conspicuously no longer the 1990s.

So it was not a pro-Putin, Trump betraying Ukraine, silly Ukrainians, it was a benevolent Trump encouraging you Ukrainians to adapt.

We really have reached the nadir of Trump-love in such a piece. Trump thought Ukraine was going to lose, wanted Ukraine to lose, helped Putin because he wants Russia to do well and Ukraine to lose—and yet Ukraine is not losing. That is the reality. And Ukraine is not losing because the Ukrainians started changing before Trump became president. They have been fighting for their national survival for more than a decade now.

As an argument this is risible, but as a sign of the state of the war, it is fascinating. What Douthat is doing (and we should assume other toadies such Marc Thiessen will soon do) is adjusting because he is now hearing Ukraine is doing much better than he had been told by Trump and others. So the information leading to this change could very well be coming from the White House. If so, expect lots of attempts to justify Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine over the previous 15 months.

However, never forget it was a betrayal.

The other thing that might be happening is that the pro-Trump press is getting reports that Putin really is in trouble. These reports are making it to the mainstream media in large numbers these days. Putin is clearly paranoid for his own security and is reportedly hiding from public view and spending most of his time deep in bunkers for his own protection.

The reason for his extreme worry is actually not paranoia at all—in some ways it is very logical. There are two elements for his terror. First, Putin is terrified at the growing effectiveness of Ukrainian long range strike and worried that if the Ukrainians can locate him that they might kill him. Remember, he has tried to assassinate Zelensky numerous times with ranged weapons, in March 2024 almost succeeding with an attack while Zelensky was visiting Odesa in the presence of the Greek Prime Minister (whom the Russians were willing to kill as collateral damage).

But Putin is not just worried about Ukraine finding and hitting him, he seems increasingly worried about getting “removed” by someone or group inside Russia. More and more there are reports of growing dissatisfaction with the war, with talks perhaps even planning about an effort to get rid of Putin. One unnamed intelligence report from a European state was surprisingly open about this.

And btw, Putin can not retire. He has too much money, someone will want it. So he either rules or…….

Look, I am and make no claim to be a Russia expert. But there seems to be some real rationality behind Putin’s paranoia. I was struck by this series of arguments made a few days ago by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a major Russian opposition figure.

So, more and more the reality of Ukrainian success and Russian failure seems to be penetrating even to Washington. After 15 months of betrayal, this change is important.

Trump Does Not Change On US-Iran

Ok, returning to the US-Iran War, which is supposed to be the subject of these Midweek Updates, the important story is that nothing has really changed. This lack of change is not just one week long, it has been the reality since the start of April (actually arguably since early March). Here is how I summarized Trump’s dilemma on April 1, when he was scheduled to give an important update on what was happening in his war. He needed to declare victory, but could not do so without the Strait open.

Midweek Update #4: Trump Would Love To Leave: Iran Might Not Let Him

Since then, not a single thing has changed materially for Trump. He wants out, is desperate to end this ridiculous war that he started, but he is terrified that if he ends it without opening the Strait, that the totality of his failure will be impossible to hide. Thus, we are left with constant words, with signs of action, but with nothing materially changing.

The last three days saw maybe the greatest example of this. On the evening of Sunday May 2, Trump announced that the US would start to “guide” merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement and analysis of that is in the free part of this piece I sent out Monday.

Taking The "Initiative" In War Might Not Be What You Have Been Told

His announcement of this action was really weird, as he seemed to be intimating/hoping that the Iranians would simply let him do this. He claimed that the move was being done amongst the “very positive discussions” that were ongoing with Iran. Except that was completely wrong.

Once the US “guiding” mission started and US forces showed up near the Strait, the shooting restarted. The Iranians started attacking not just shipping, but also US allies in the Gulf such as the UAE. The US, in return, claimed to have sunk at least six small Iranian naval vessels and to have shot down a large number of Iranian missiles/drones.

If Trump was looking for an excuse to escalate, he had been handed one on a plate. The Iranians were attacking what he said he was going to protect. However, in response, he did the opposite, and pretended that the Iranians were really not being so bad and not violating any ceasefire. It is worth watching his verbal gymnastics on this.

What seems to have happened is that when faced with Iranian resistance Trump, once again, blinked. It was a repeat of his basic dilemma. Either he escalates dramatically and inserts massive force, or the Iranians can threaten shipping enough to paralyze most traffic. The reality of his dilemma came out just a few hours when Trump decided to call a halt to the “guiding” policy. Using the laughable excuse that he was doing this because the Pakistani government asked him to, Trump suspended the action.

I think we can assume that Iran made no major concession to get this climb down.

In other words, what we have seen the last few days is exactly what we have seen for weeks. Trump tried a new way to reopen the Strait, however was hoping the Iranians would just let him however the Iranians called Trump’s bluff and he has backed down (see below).

So even if some ships made it through the strait under US support, what was shown is that Iran could still threaten both ships and the wider region. It will take a massive amount of US military force to change this.

Btw, the reporting was that while some ships passed through Monday, that very few if any made it through the Strait on Tuesday. I have heard from some source that more ships made it through on Tuesday than are being reported—I obviously do not know.

And so here we are. All we see is posturing, acting, bluffs and climb downs. Trump remains as stuck as he was on April 1. And he just wants out. He has been saying to the Iranians increasingly, just give me something on nuclear weapons and this will be over and you can even keep your position in the Strait. But so far, the Iranians do not seem to be inclined to reach that deal.

As such, what Trump really seems to be doing is playing for time and trying to inject enough hope into the narrative that oil price rises are not astronomical. Maybe, he is hoping, his blockade will work, or something internally will occur in Iran to speed up negotiations. But it is a sign of his powerlessness that this is where he and the USA finds himself/itself. Trump has no way out unless the Iranians give him one, and right now they do not seem so inclined.

With that in mind, I have a question. Are you finding these midweek updates to be valuable? I am happy to keep writing them, I just do not know if readers still want them if much of what we are seeing is the same process repeating itself in loops. So, here is a poll.

Stay well everyone.