What’s Next in the Iran War?
Kaboom.
The headlines keep coming. Talks. Progress. Frameworks. Envoys shuttling between capitals. Trump, we’re told, is close to a historic deal with Iran.
Don’t make me laugh.
There is no peace deal coming. There is no negotiation in any meaningful sense of the word. What there is: a pause of mutual convenience that both sides are using to buy time — for completely opposite purposes.
I called this in April. In Iran: Ceasefire or Pause of Mutual Convenience?, the argument was simple. Washington gathers intelligence, watches Iran from satellites, and works out the war plans for the next phase. Tehran catches its breath and hopes the American political calendar saves them. Call it diplomacy if it makes you feel better.
Let’s ask the obvious question nobody in the mainstream press bothers to ask: does anyone seriously believe Iran will negotiate away its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles, and its proxy network — and actually abide by the deal?
The only thing that stops Iran is running out of money to continue. I said that at the start of the war. Nothing I’ve seen since changes that conclusion.
So who believes a real deal is coming? The press, apparently. Democratic party leadership, who need Trump to fail badly enough that they’ll root for Iranian diplomacy. That’s the complete list. Every serious analyst, every intelligence professional, every person who has spent five minutes studying Iranian decision-making knows this is theater.
What the US Is Actually Doing
The United States and Israel are finishing the war plan and arming to the teeth. There have been no testy discussions between Trump and Netanyahu. Fake news. They are in lockstep.
There’s no rush. Every week of “negotiations” is another week of Iranian economic deterioration. I laid out the arithmetic in The Three Clocks Running Against Iran.
Washington has every incentive to let that clock run.
Trump is just playing their own games back on them. Iran creates a blockade — he builds one on top of theirs. They stall for time — he stalls on top of their stalling. While they’re congratulating themselves on the delay, their economy is collapsing underneath them.
What Iran Is Actually Doing
Iran’s hardliners may think they’re running the same play they’ve run for twenty years. It’s hard to know what’s going through their heads. String the Americans along. Pocket whatever sanctions relief or additional time to keep enriching uranium they can get. Survive another round.
They’ve done this to every American president. Obama. Bush. The Europeans for decades. They watched the JCPOA get negotiated — no dismantlement required, just delays and caps. They know the choreography.
The mainstream press may have convinced them they are winning — that the midterms will clear the slate and this all goes away. I wrote about how that happens in The Hall of Mirrors.
What the Press Is Actually Doing
The mainstream press is having a wet dream. Trump is negotiating a peace deal — they were crucial in making it happen! The self-congratulations are deafening.
What they don’t have is any idea what’s actually happening.
And by their wonderful investigative reporting and anonymous sources, they believe they have held the president accountable — exposing what he is really doing, or not doing, and the inconsistencies in his explanations about the war.
The mainstream press is so predictably dumb, and so convinced of its own sophistication, that Trump plays them like a fiddle. He knows what story they’ll write before they do. He hands it to them.
The Endgame
How will this end?
I wrote about this in How Will We Know When the Iran War Is Over? The war ends when Iran stops bargaining and starts begging. The real endgame isn’t a treaty. It’s the moment Iran can no longer afford to be Iran.
Here’s a simple test for whether this “peace deal” is real: watch for the arrival of the French. When there is no danger to them and no difficult decisions to be made, they will arrive and insist on having a major seat at the table. Haven’t seen this yet.
Don’t let the headlines fool you. The war plan is almost ready. The press will figure it out when the bombs drop.
Previous pieces in this series: Iran: The Bill Has Come Due | Will the US Seize Iranian Oil and Natural Gas Assets? | The Iran War: A Game of Three Card Monte | Iran: Ceasefire or Pause of Mutual Convenience? | Iran’s Economy: Conservatorship or Destruction | The Three Clocks Running Against Iran | The Hall of Mirrors | The Iran War: Why Now? | Iranian Currency Switches to Scientific Notation | How Will We Know When the Iran War Is Over?