JD Vance points at Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a press briefing on the Iran ceasefire negotiations. (Screengrab from video posted to X.)
By some miracle, Donald “Blockade Everybody” Trump may have achieved a peace deal with Iran. That is, if and only if he decides to snap a leash on the U.S. attack dog in the region, namely Israel, whose nearly universally loathed prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, flatly rejected el jefe’s deal the minute it was announced. As observers far more astute than yours truly would note, this is all for show. Israel will do exactly what the U.S. tells it to do, and Washington can coerce Jerusalem quite easily. Trump must WANT to control Netanyahu. If he doesn’t, all bets for peace are off. Because not only does the U.S. foot Israel’s bills, but it supplies a phenomenal amount of its armament, as vice president J.D. Vance pointed out with astoundingly unforeseen honesty on June 18. Without the U.S., Israel is no regional power in West Asia, indeed it’s no power there at all.
The rosy recent news of a ceasefire looked most unlikely in the days leading up to it. Tehran had rejected Pakistan’s claim of an imminent U.S.-Iran agreement on June 13 and also, for good measure, Trump’s claim of a deal to be signed on June 14. Meanwhile explosions occurred in Iran, Kuwait, UAE…this was some ceasefire. According to Drop Site News on June 13, protests erupted in Iran because of “a proposed framework agreement that some Iranians believe is too favorable to the United States.”
And as military expert Will Schryver posted on X the same day, “another U.S. early warning radar blown to smithereens, this one in Kuwait. The precision of these strikes is extremely impressive. It’s no wonder the U.S. is very reluctant to provoke more Iranian strikes. U.S. bases in the region are indefensible.” Yet the Trump regime insisted on bombing things like the water supply. This did not sound like wisdom, if the goal was to prevent ceasefire collapse. Wisdom would be not to bomb. Wisdom would be to leave the angry Iranians alone. Wisdom would be to make the extra effort to prevent full-fledged war from ever igniting between Washington and Tehran again.
Meanwhile, American Zionists like TV personality Mark Levin dissolved into embarrassingly public puddles of enraged, toddler-esque meltdown. It is truly astonishing how unthinkingly they fell into step with Israeli delusions that it could destroy, balkanize and defang Iran; not that this was ever possible, as they began to discover, to their shock. Iran was simply too well defended. It had been preparing for an American assault for 47 years. It had built up a huge number of troops, an enormous inventory of unstoppable missiles and, to Likud’s shock, not only did the IRGC exhibit phenomenal esprit de corps – so did all of Iranian society.
There was no Iranian move to overthrow the government after the cowardly assassination of Ayatollah Khamani, as Netanyahu had so over-confidently predicted. Even the earlier CIA/Mossad-instigated protests fizzled. It’s been evident from the get-go that Israel and even the U.S. bit off far more than they could chew: an obvious fact now and one that enhances Iran’s status as a regional power and maybe beyond, maybe as a world power. And this without nuclear weapons! Could you imagine where Tehran would be globally if it had nukes? A thought that clearly causes insomnia for the homicidal bigwigs in Jerusalem.
On June 16, CBS reported that Trump “would be open to sharing the details of a new U.S.-Iran deal with Congress.” Sadly, many Republicans are skeptical or downright hostile to what Trump has done, but he appears ready to stick to it. There will of course be an insanely noisy GOP hullabaloo regarding sanctions relief and if the Persians charge a toll for tanker traffic through Hormuz, as is their right. But frankly accepting these things is worth it. The sanctions are illegal under international law anyway and their criminal effects on hapless, innocent civilians look to many people like crimes against humanity, and as for Hormuz, well, as Trump’s hero Don Corleone would say, “it’s just business.”
And business at this juncture would be welcome after the U.S. debacle in Iran: a humiliation and gratuitous bloodletting which nonetheless shed sunlight on the futility of being an American vassal or proxy, as Iran extinguished U.S. military bases, radars and equipment in the Gulf states and beat the living daylights out of Israel, with Hezbollah’s help. It turned out the Iranians were not the pushovers Washington assumed; indeed, that notion was the height of hubris, as Washington rather painfully learned. And learned again June 18, when Tehran summarily scrapped the agreement thanks to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. There’s still a good chance Trump will salvage his deal, but he must control and certainly cannot wink and encourage Israeli fanatics or their American partners in crime – Christian Zionists and neocons.
Trump signed the 14-point draft memorandum between the U.S. and Iran on June 17 at Versailles. Per Reuters, the first point declares “an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon.” The second point states both parties will “refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.” In the third point they concur they’ll “reach a final agreement within 60 days.” The fourth point stipulates the U.S. will lift its naval blockade and withdraw from the surrounding area within 30 days. Point five ensures that “the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman” will be resumed within 30 days to its pre-war volume. In the sixth point, Washington “undertakes…to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development” of Iran, promising funding of at least $300 billion.
As if neocons won’t find this financial donation infuriating enough, what follows is sure to cause apoplexy. Because in the seventh provision – dum, da, dum, dum da! – the U.S. commits to lift sanctions. If Trump actually follows through on this, many of us will eat our hats, but he will also secure a spot as a saner American emperor, who managed to recognize the wickedness and futility of sanctions. In the eighth provision, Iran abjures nuclear weapons forever. The ninth point maintains the status quo on Iran’s nuclear program; the tenth commits the U.S. to “issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation and the like.” In the eleventh point Washington promises to release Iran’s frozen funds and assets. The twelfth point agrees to establish a mechanism “to oversee the successful implementation,” of a final agreement. The thirteenth point is boilerplate. The fourteenth states that the UN Security Council will approve the final agreement via binding resolution.
Trump’s right neocon flank will likely gag on this, while his MAGA base, which has soured on what it views as Israeli-prompted adventures if not outright conspiracies, will be delighted. The Iran escapade may well have been Israeli prompted; Zionists certainly cheered it on and cleared its path, but it was also the culmination of a uniquely American revenge project. Because the Washington elite obdurately never forgets and never forgives. Thus, the 1979 hostage crisis in Tehran continued as a psychotic casus belli in the back of U.S. elite minds ever since. This unhappy ending must be for them a bitter, bitter pill. I’m sure I speak of lots of people, saying, welp, too freaking bad.
The post The U.S. Debacle in Iran appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.