Dire Straits

 

You and I both know that Iran is going to do everything possible to embarrass President Trump and the United States for the foreseeable future, if not until the sun expires. We cannot play Charlie Brown to Lucy with the football, though that would be endlessly amusing to what's left of the Iranian leadership, much as it was to Lucy.

When Trump announced that the Strait of Hormuz was opened, something I wrote about at this very venue, I turned to my wife and said, “For how long? You know they're going to screw around and go back on their word,” because that's what crazed Iranian rulers, tyrants, and would be dictators do. And they have.

I’m betting that Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister who declared that the strait was open for the remainder of the ceasefire period—and possibly permanently-- has been “disappeared,” or will be shortly, by his comrades in the IRGC. Well, maybe not disappeared, but hanging from a lamppost in downtown Tehran.

What is left of Iran’s heinous “leadership,” or what passes for it now—as fragmented as it is-- believes that, despite everything, they can claim victory if they meet only three conditions: that they are still alive after the war “ends,” that they can continue to occasionally and somewhat plausibly contradict Trump’s grandiose assertions and therefore embarrass the United States, and that true regime change hasn’t occurred by then and that they still control and terrify the populace. That may be a low bar, but, sadly, a realistic one. And an especially sad one for the 90+ million Iranians that have lived under the mullahs jackbooted rule for far too damn long.

Is the strait open for all eternity or closed forever? Is Iran dictating the traffic and demanding tolls or has nary a single ship made it past the American blockade or been filled with oil at an Iranian seaport since the blockade began? Does Iran still possess the ability to attack ships in the strait and levy toll fees on them, or is it an utterly destroyed non-entity at this point? The truth, of course, almost certainly lies somewhere in between those characterizations.

I, for one, would love to see this war wrapped up…as long as our terms are fully met. The problem, as I and others have stated before, is that nothing the Iranians in power say or agree to, whoever they may be at the moment, can ever be trusted. Ever. No ceasefire. No truce. No pact. No promise. No solemn vow. Radical Islamists will always use these peace instruments to their advantage.