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Six Months In, Iran’s Regime Stands

As noted in a prior post, the Felon is desperate to keep the news media from reporting on his lost war with Iran - something which alone makes it worth writing about - and is busy creating chaos with his new trade war with Canada (which seems to have been planned as poorly as his Iran adventure if Canada can turn off electricity and block Great Lakes marine traffic if it wants to do so) and, of course bloviating about "election fraud."  The reality is that the Felon has made a huge mess with his war of choice which has left the USA looking diminished, short on critical munitions, some allies trying to make accommodation with Iran, viewed as more untrustworthy, with Iran in control of the Straight of Hormuz, and Americans suffering economically at home. Much of what we are witnessing was predicted, but the Felon in his typical narcissistic and hubris filled nature ignored all such advice. The end result is that there is no end in sight to the conflict, Iran is left able to attack shipping at will - thus putting the conflict back on the front page - and a weakened USA is reduced to imposing more economic sanctions in the likely false hope that it will force Iran to surrender. The whole debacle is a masterclass in what not to do.  A piece in the New York Times reviews the current stalemate:

It was supposed to be quick. Still, six months after the U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, the conflict drags on. The Trump administration has replaced its military war with an economic one, but the result is likely to be no different, analysts said, with a lack of American clarity about goals, a decline in American credibility and a strategic defeat.

One thing remains constant, however. The ordinary people of Iran are bearing the brunt of the war, victims of both the United States and their own leaders.

The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military men, sees its own survival as the nation’s, and it considers the sacrifices of ordinary Iranians as a necessary act of patriotism and even martyrdom. It has been ever more ruthless in stamping out the slightest signs of dissent.

It is hard to dress up what has clearly been an American failure to bend Iran to its will, despite the might of the combined American and Israeli militaries. Not only has the Islamic Republic survived, but it effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz. It has strengthened its influence in the region, with even the countries it was bombing a few months ago trying to reinvigorate ties with Iran.

“The war has failed to deliver U.S. objectives,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and head of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, judged the war a failure. “We did a lot of damage to Iran, but they have come out stronger than before,” she said. Iran’s neighbors have decided they must find a modus operandi with an Islamic Republic that is not going away.

American credibility among allies has suffered along with Mr. Trump’s own reputation for avoiding costly, interminable wars in the Middle East and promoting “affordability” at home. And it has made his promise to liberate ordinary Iranians look hollow.

“This war has really overtaken the Trump presidency,” Ms. Maloney said.  “Operation Epic Fury” began with a joint American-Israeli surprise attack on Iran, which killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many of his officials, while badly wounding his son and now successor, Mojtaba.

Weeks of intense bombing destroyed much of Iran’s air force and navy and badly damaged its missile program. But the population did not rise up and the leadership did not fracture.

Iran’s military restored many of its missile launchers and attacked key American allies in the region as well as American bases, which were inadequately defended. It effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz and caused global economic disruption.

The original “Operation Epic Fury” has been replaced with what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced as “Operation Economic Outcast,” designed to isolate Iran further and crash its badly damaged economy. . . . . Despite rhetorical flourishes about D-Day and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mr. Bessent did not indicate how long this economic war will last, what instruments it will use or what it aims to achieve.

“There is no clear articulation of America’s goals,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a research organization based in London. “But if you don’t define behavior change, sanctions as coercion fail.”

Iran, already the target of many thousands of sanctions, is considered unlikely to surrender because of a few more. More likely, analysts said, is that the country will respond in time by escalating its attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf and on American allies, which could produce another round of American bombing.

With American objectives unclear, the confusion is real in Tehran, too, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. They will wonder, he said: “Does the U.S. want to achieve collapse, capitulation or compromise?”

Given that Iran’s leaders see the effort to strangle them as another form of warfare, Mr. Vaez said, the new American strategy has two risks. If it fails, the only option left is to return to military escalation. And if it works, it may lead Iran to escalate to break the U.S. naval blockade.

Iran’s public-facing leadership, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker, has been blunt about the economic imperatives to ending the war. They have warned of the consequences of hungry people and economic collapse.

They nonetheless take a consistent line on negotiating with Washington, insisting on a return at minimum to the June Memorandum of Understanding, which Mr. Trump signed but now says is “over.” They also continue to negotiate with Oman about managing the strait in a way Washington is unlikely to accept.

But the stalemate is also risky, said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is an increasing view in the White House that you can’t deal with this Islamic Republic,” she said. “It’s a dangerous moment, with both Tehran and D.C. concluding that no deal is possible with the other.”

Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, remains puzzled why Mr. Trump has not taken any of the available offramps to ending an enormously unpopular war at home. By pushing even more economic sanctions, he said, Trump officials “are pretending they’re still fighting instead of pretending that they’ve won” — or admitting that they’ve lost.

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The Felon Is Desperate to Get The Iran War Out Of The News

The Felon rushed to go to war against Iran based on the assurances of Benjamin Netanyahu and Pete Hegseth and over the warnings of the intelligence services of how Iran could seize control of the Strait of Hormuz. Even Tulsi Gabbard (of whom I am NOT a fan) foretold the situation America now finds itself trapped.  With the Felon's poll numbers in the toilet and Republicans worried that they may lose control of both houses of Congress, the Felon is desperate to get coverage of the war out of daily news feeds.  Hence, perhaps the insane trade war with Canada which has spooked many in Michigan, New York and elsewhere with the prospect of electricity shortages and still further reduced trade with Canada. This desire to shift news coverage likely even extends to increase claims of election fraud from the Felon and his sycophants. The irony is is that Iran is well aware of the Felon's self-created debacle and may take its own measures to make sure the war and high gasoline prices remain constantly in the news cycles.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the desperation of both the Felon and the larger GOP.  Here are highlights:

For months, [the Felon] President Trump has been unable to bring the conflict with Iran to a close. A massive bombing campaign lost its effectiveness, and U.S. munitions supplies ran low. Diplomacy lagged, as leaders in Tehran remained content to deliberately prolong the process and harden their control over the Strait of Hormuz. Even the current pseudo-cease-fire—as deeply uneasy as it is—has done little to meaningfully lower the cost of energy around the globe.

With few options remaining, the Trump administration has settled into a potentially lengthy campaign of economic pressure, pledging to squeeze Iran until its leaders have no choice but to seriously return to negotiations. But that tack could prove toothless if the U.S. doesn’t also punish the nations that still do business with Iran and keep its economy afloat—and Trump has historically shown little willingness to stand up to the likes of China and Russia, or even North Korea, which has a strategic alliance with Tehran.

If nothing else, the new approach allows the White House to say it’s trying something and then—importantly—to stop talking about the war. Part of the plan, Trump advisers and allies tell us, is to try to push Iran to the background, while hoping that gas prices come down even a little and that Republicans can shift the nation’s focus to more politically palatable topics ahead of the midterms.

That won’t change the reality on the ground in the Middle East: Alliances have been strained, the U.S. military has been overtaxed, and Iran wields far more power in the region than it did at the beginning of the war, about six months ago. But it could allow Trump, a master of distraction, to turn to other priorities—a trade war with Canada! Claims of election fraud! . . . . . “We’re just trying to hang on until the midterms,” one Trump adviser told us.

At this moment, strategists in both parties believe that the Democrats are favored to capture the House. And despite a GOP-friendly Senate map, the upper chamber is viewed as a toss-up. Trends were already working against Republicans: Traditionally, the party out of power tends to do well in the midterms, and over the past decade, Trump supporters have seemed less inclined to vote when his name isn’t on the ballot. The president hasn’t done much to help, and his poll numbers have plunged, even on the economy and immigration, his usual strengths. Republicans, fearing hostility, have largely opted to forgo town halls this summer, skipping what tends to be an effective way to reach constituents.

Republicans have been urging the White House to wrap up the conflict and reduce its drag on the nation’s economy—and their reelection chances. But a solution has proved elusive. Trump’s goals for the conflict were never well enunciated and have shifted many times. Gone are lofty promises about regime change or preventing Iran from having a nuclear program. Instead, the president has privately told his political allies that once the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, he is inclined to simply declare victory and move on . . . . But even that has proved vexing: Iran has continued to menace ships traveling through the strait and has insisted upon charging a fee or toll. Other countries in the region have declared that unacceptable—the strait was, after all, open and free before the war—though Trump has waffled on whether or not he could live with it.

Republicans have signaled to the White House their approval of its new economic pressure campaign, which was announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier this week. . . . Some in the administration believe that emerging divides in Tehran’s leadership could prompt talks. And if the new sanctions did bring Iran to the table before November, then maybe a renewed stab at diplomacy could juice the markets—and provide an 11th-hour boost for Republicans.

Trump has been bored of the war for a while. Aides have been pushing him to focus on the economy to help Republican candidates, but he has continued to downplay the nation’s affordability challenges, much to his aides’ chagrin. And while Trump remains furious at Iran’s unwillingness to bend, aides have persuaded him to give the new plan a chance. . . . The regime seems willing to endure significant hardship, and its own citizens’ struggles, to maintain its grip on power. And the new approach carries its own political risks. If Iran proves resilient again, the pressure campaign may have to stretch beyond the midterms, leaving prices high in the interim.

The U.S. military has not struck Iran in weeks. This month’s relative reprieve follows a long pattern of using force to try to extract concessions from Iran and failing. After a 13-day strike campaign in July, the U.S. military privately assessed that extending the campaign would lead to diminishing returns—and worsen the nation’s extraordinary munitions shortage.

A July 27 assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that the war has significantly depleted U.S. air-defense stocks—particularly of Patriot and THAAD interceptors—and that replenishing those munitions to prewar levels would take years. Last week, Raytheon announced it had been awarded a $22.9 billion contract that would “dramatically accelerate the production of Tomahawk cruise missiles.” Still, the administration insists its stockpile is robust.

There have been other costs to the American military: Eighteen service members have been killed, and bases in the region have been damaged. The USS Abraham Lincoln’s 5,000 sailors and Marines spent more than 270 consecutive days at sea without a port visit; the carrier’s extended deployment was marked by reports of food and supply shortages, plumbing problems, and declining morale.

Trump has never been one to show much discipline, and could lose patience with the waiting game. But Iran also gets a say in determining what happens between now and November. More punitive American sanctions are likely to provoke a response from Iran, particularly because its leaders want the U.S. to feel the costs of the war. Iran is also watching the midterm elections closely; some officials fear that Trump could become more aggressive in the weeks after ballots are cast. That could prompt Iran to escalate first—and once more put the war back into voters’ minds. 

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The Felon Has Lost Touch With the Public

Having launched a trade war with Canada that will likely harm both businesses and consumers in Midwest states the GOP needs to carry in the upcoming mid-term elections, issued threats to tear down the Kennedy Center  if he isn't allowed to renovate it and add his name to the building, threatening to rename Lake Ontario, and allowing the Iran war (a war the Felon chose to start against the advice of the intelligence services) to continue to harm American consumers, the Felon seems more and more detached from both objective reality and the views of the American public.  When faced with horrible poll numbers, the Felon simply says they are "fake" - his fragile, narcissist ego cannot accept the reality he is no longer popular even with a considerable portion of his base - and remains focused on anything and everything other than what matters to voters. Even the timing of the trade war launched against Canada gives the impression of being in part a distraction from continued negative news about the Iran war which he has lost while strengthening Iran in the long run. Simply put, Americans do not want data centers in their backyards or his ballroom, victory arch, and ever more gaudy renovations to historic buildings and venues. They want lower prices and economic stability, things the Felon is ignoring and/not delivering. A piece at The Atlantic looks at this disconnect:

One of the few issues that unites voters and politicians of both parties right now is data centers. Three-quarters of Americans would oppose a data center being built near where they live, according to a new poll released last week by Heatmap Pro and Embold Research. The two leading lights of the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, have sponsored a bill in Congress to create a temporary moratorium on new centers. They have an unlikely ally in archconservative Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who said yesterday on ABC’s This Week that data-center companies “basically dug their own grave” and “got the backlash they deserve.”

Standing against this consensus is [the Felon] Donald Trump. The president remains a big booster of data centers. “Communities that don’t take a data center—they’re making a mistake,” he said Thursday during an interview with his on-again, off-again lackey Michael Cohen. “Data centers throw off tremendous amounts of jobs and money.”

This was no one-off. Trump had made several similar comments recently. “If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it, because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous,”

This puts Trump, the most successful demagogue in American political history, in the unusual position of misreading, and opposing, a populist groundswell. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump took many stands that were unpopular among establishment politicians. . . . . On these matters (as well as on his willingness to encourage and participate in gutter racism), Trump demonstrated that a big constituency existed for views that other politicians had deemed electoral liabilities.

Data centers’ political arc has been different. Initially, many officials seemed to back the centers, following exactly Trump’s logic: They offered jobs and tax benefits. But as public opinion turned—driven by a mix of backlash to AI in general, environmental concerns, worries about energy prices, and old-fashioned NIMBYism—politicians changed their view as well.

Why has [the Felon] Trump missed the shift? Presumably one reason is that he is surrounded by advisers and tech executives such as David Sacks and Larry Ellison, who are major boosters of and players in the industry. Tech companies invested heavily in Trump at the start of his second administration, lavishing him with gifts, including a gold-plated bauble and donations to projects such as his inauguration and his ballroom, and Trump has reciprocated by taking policy stances that benefit them.

Trump has always tended to adopt the latest thing he’s heard, no matter what it is. He has been willing to alienate corporate interests in the past—when he saw some political upside. But he is not hearing from voters who might alert him to how unpopular data centers are. . . . as his energy sinks, his travel schedule gets lighter, and security makes events more challenging, Trump is getting out less.

Though his stump speeches dragged on for hours, Trump was carefully attuned to audience attention and what did and didn’t work.

The president has always been susceptible to fake news and bad at filtering information, but rallies provided a gut check about his base, if not about the broader national reality. Now Trump isn’t even receiving that kind of information. One of his major conduits for information is Natalie Harp, a sycophantic aide who isn’t interested in exposing Trump to criticism. He could read public-opinion data, but as his own approval sinks, he has taken to saying (and may well believe) that polls are fake.

As his world shrinks, Trump’s populist touch has faded. Despite being elected twice on an antiwar platform, he’s launched attacks on Venezuela and Iran. As the Iran war has gotten bogged down, he’s been incapable of reading the public mood. He has dismissed voter frustration over rising fuel costs, saying “I don’t even think about” gas; he previously called affordability a “hoax.” In response to reports that American sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln were struggling with a long deployment, Trump said they hadn’t been deployed “nearly long enough.” And the collapse of trade talks with Canada on Friday threatens Republican prospects in border states including Michigan and Ohio.

Each of these cases represents a growing gap between Trump and his base, but none is as ironic as Trump’s stance on data centers. The AI facilities store terabytes of data, but the president can’t get access to the information about them that he needs.

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