“Have you said ‘thank you’ once?” to quote America’s humble, Appalachia-raised, blue-collar vice president, who happens to also be a Yale lawyer and a VC millionaire, two things his fellow “hillbillies” generally aren’t.
Donald Trump’s framing a tentative de-escalation in the Mideast as a favor to, among other countries, China which, as he put it in a schizophrenic social media post, “heavily use[s] the Hormuz Strait.”
Following a series of market-moving remarks to CBS late Monday, Trump held an ad hoc press conference during which he characterized his own military operation as an “excursion.” While not inherently pejorative, “excursion” tends to be derogatory in the armed conflict context. Trump was oblivious.
The war, he said, pushed up oil prices “artificially.” “We’re looking to keep the oil prices down,” he added. The figure below shows you Monday’s intraday range in front-month WTI. The high was $119.48, the low $81.19.
It’s hard to know what to say about that chart other than Vladimir Putin’s got nothin’ on Trump in the oil vol arena even if, as variously alleged, but never proven, the Kremlin has plenty on him in the kompromat department.
Speaking of Putin, Trump spoke to him on Monday, which might go some way towards explaining the about-face on Iran. He still listens to Putin. Unfortunately. The war’s a blight on Russia in one respect (they lost another client state), but it’s also a gift: The Trump administration’s been criticized in recent days for waiving some sanctions on Russian crude amid the oil squeeze. Additional sanctions relief is possible, Trump suggested.
By the Pentagon’s reckoning, Iran’s missile program has been degraded by 90%, and although Trump said he’s determined the regime will ultimately be defeated “totally and decisively,” he also reiterated his contention from the CBS phone interview that major US combat operations are “pretty well complete.”
On Tuesday, Pete Hegseth engaged in a belabored attempt to reconcile the myriad contradictions in Trump’s Monday messaging and otherwise square all the circles he drew. “On one hand,” today’s attacks inside Iran are the “most intense” of the entire conflict — “the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes” — Hegseth, said. “On the other hand,” he went on, Iran fired the “lowest number of missiles yet over the last 24 hours.
The implication: If this is winding down, it’s only because Iran’s exhibiting signs of exhaustion, even as the regime traded fire with Israel on Tuesday and damaged a refinery in the UAE with drones, halting operations.
Masoud Pezeshkian indicated Iran’s keen to stop targeting neighboring countries, but only if they cease allowing the US to utilize their “airspace, territory and waters” to launch strikes, a demand those countries have no way to realistically meet. (They can ask Trump to stop, but that’s about it.)
A quote from Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian assembly, garnered a lot (too much) attention Tuesday. “We are definitely not seeking a ceasefire,” he declared, on social media. “We believe the aggressor must be hit in the mouth to learn a lesson.”
Pro tip: If you don’t know who these people are, don’t pretend to as a journalist and don’t trade on their remarks as an investor.
Ghalibaf’s a long-time Soleimani friend. If it’s conciliatory rhetoric you’re after, he’s not your guy. You’re only going to get propaganda from Ghalibaf. Anyone who takes a quote from him seriously (where “seriously” means without considering the source) doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Ironically in that context, Ghalibaf arguably would’ve been a decent choice for leader of a hypothetical restructured Iranian government. He’s a notorious windbag, yes, but in being a quasi-elected, military-aligned, non-clergy hardliner, he could likely keep the train on the tracks (i.e., forestall a descent into chaos) in a post-theocracy scenario.
But the point here is that as long as Iran’s sticking with the Supreme Leader model, Ghalibaf’s just a talking toy that’ll spout belligerent quotables when you pull the string on his back. Citing him as proof that the conflict’s not entering a de-escalation phase is about like asking Bezalel Smotrich to weigh in on West Bank policy. You know what you’re going to get.
Anyway, Trump’s barbed olive branch came with the usual threats of Biblical destruction in the event Iran blocks the Strait. “We will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again,” Trump said, a veiled reference to critical infrastructure. “Fire and Fury will reign [sic] upon them,” he added.
“And this, young lady, is why you must never give up the nukes,” said the father to Dear Daughter in Pyongyang.
Oil and LNG are not moving through the Strait, so from a global economic standpoint, nothing is winding down and Iran still has all the cards it originally had.
Trump has finally achieved one of his primary directives in making what’s good for the US also good for Russia. So let’s now stoke Russia’s war machine to deprive Iran’s war machine and keep a lid on our vital gasoline prices. Too bad they don’t fund the cost of these miltary oil “excursions” via explicit surcharges on our precious gasoline. We use about 140 billion gallons of gasoline every year in this country. Imagine if the cost of these wars showed up as a $1 surcharge per gallon over a year. People would positively freak out. Good thing the cost is “hidden” in our tax payments, along with the national debt and debt service.
Excellent idea. While we are at it, how about itemizing the cost of purchasing and maintaining friendly foreign and domestic politicians and regulators? Just how much does Exxon’s ‘freedom of $peech’ cost me per gallon?