Are We Still at War?
Hahahaha.

At some point, everyone involved with the Iran war debacle, from political figures to Wall Street investors to the news media, will resolve to stop lunging at every Trumpian pronouncement of a “deal” to end the war. Even the best possible reading of the latest announcement cannot credibly be described as a deal at all, but rather, agreements to begin talks to reach a deal. The only specific outcome that would result is the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war began. It would not deal with the status of highly enriched uranium. It would not deal with Iran’s nuclear program. It would not deal with that nation’s missile production or capacity. It’s nothing, even in the best-case scenario, but a reset to the negotiations that were under way before the war began.

But we’re not in the best-case scenario, because that assumes that the non-deal deal is actually happening. Which it is not. Since this past weekend’s announcement by President Trump, we have seen Iran dispute really all of the terms of the deal and the U.S. admit that an actual agreement could take some time—which is what you say when nothing is agreed to. We have seen actual airstrikes on missile launch sites in southern Iran, which were described as “defensive” and which Iran has justifiably characterized as “flagrant” violations of the cease-fire agreement, while vowing to retaliate. (We haven’t seen that transpire yet, though there has been exchange of fire.)

"The core belief of the Trump administration in this and all things is that they can bully their opponent into submission."

When you are in a negotiation, and your negotiating partner violates the terms of the negotiations, you begin to get highly suspicious that any agreement you make will actually be adhered to. That is the position Iran finds itself in, and why we’re going to be in this endless loop of announcing an agreement to begin talks toward an agreement to end the war approximately indefinitely. Welcome to Groundhog Day.

Meanwhile, while everyone talks, correctly, about Iranian hard-liners at odds with their nation’s negotiating posture, Trump has had to attend to his own hard-liners who don’t want peace, here and in Israel, by making a rushed demand for every Arab country to formally recognize Israel, terming that a “complement” to a final deal. And Israel has been working assiduously to sabotage any agreement by bombing and even ordering evacuations in Lebanon, even as Iran is demanding an end to that conflict as one of the terms of the deal.