changegonnacome

Yep - as someone who spent many years in global economic development space Israel was an exemplar for how you became a regional foreign direct investment hub and then over decades was able to parlay foreign innovation into a indigenous entrepreneurial private sector that punches a way way way above its weight in a whole bunch of sectors. I cant think of comparable small country that is comparable in having both engines (FDI & Domestic) so dialled in.

Get a grip...Iran is controlled by parasitic faction that lives inside its own state....not a foreign power but rather a domestic theocratic faction and now closer to a military junta who have hijacked the levers of power there....the most generous, generous assessment I've seen is that ~15% perhaps max max 20% of the population consider the regime to be representative of their views and legitimate (and that number flatters because millions of Iranian disgusted at the regime have left over decades).....Iran is not controlled by a foreign power sure, its much much worse than that its controlled by a subset of its own population who run it with complete disregard to the majority views of their countrymen.

Let’s do it this way you can keep providing the justification and I’ll provide motivation. I think it’s fair to say that those two things are not always the same but they need to be adjacent of course to be plausible. The cadence of Israel’s Lebanon operations oscillates (as I predicted )with the probability a deal may be in the offing between the US-Iran. In fact one of the first things I do to see if the latest deal rumor has any merit is to see if Israel decided to dial things up in Lebanon. It’s generally how you know real diplomatic progress is being made between the US & Iran.

Predictably at even a hint of a US-Iran deal emerging Israel decides today would be a good day to launch its first missiles into Beirut in several weeks Trump needs to be acutely aware of the Israeli election cycle here IMO….its possible to keep Bibi on a short leash leading up to that election as he needs Trump’s endorsement but afterwards will be another story….Donald needs whatever deal he’s gonna do with Iran to get done before Bibi’s electoral day of reckoning….to ensure that Bibi’s commentary on that deal is as ‘on message’, put on the record and is as Trump aligned as it can be!

As I said the success test is quite simple it goes like this Feb 26th Terms of the Geneva nuclear deal vs. Month xxth Post-Epic Fury nuclear deal What’s the delta on the terms - is it positive or negative, by how much? Right now it appears the nuclear deal on offer has dis-improved. This is not the outcome of a successful military campaign. I acknowledge this can change and things aren’t over. Secondary test is on the SoH….Feb 26th it was uncontested and un-tolled….its future status is currently unclear. We’ll see things can change….but as I said above the clever way out for Trump is the one Iran is offering….SOH re-opens right now and they commit to a moratorium on enrichment and they go back to the negotiating table…the JCPOA took 22 months to put together…no reason why the Trump JCPOA doesn’t exceed the actual time he has left in office i.e. he never signs anything that could be embarrassing and expose Epic Fury’s upside down returns. Right now he’s got his I won incantation no reason for him stop saying that - “their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their drones are gone, their missles factories are gone”

yep but the early reviews are in and they aren't good

100% immense physical, military capability and economic damage has been done to Iran. Thats great - but we all know what the purpose of the war was right....it was to topple the regime and if toppling the regime wasnt possible it was to beat them so badly that they capitulated at the negotiating table delivering a 'deal' superior to what was available on Feb 26th in Geneva. We got no regime change and one can argue we've meaningfully radicalized the regime by ascending the position of the IRGC...... And based on all the reporting - the deal on the virtual table in Pakistan has worse terms than what was in Geneva. If I was Trump's advisor......my advise would be the following.......you need to get out of there and the best nuclear deal is no nuclear deal cause you cant do better than Feb 26th Geneva offer and you can't do meaningfully better than the JCPOA and so to sign anything is to end up with egg on your face, essentially Epic Fury was an Epic Failure. Iran today is cleverly offering that off ramp today........Straits re-opened, moratorium on enrichment and a re-opening of nuclear negotiating......those negotiations never need to reach a conclusion inside Trump's T2 and so he never needs to be embarrassed.

I think you've pretty much nailed it here.........and just described the conundrum Obama/Kerry and many previous adminstrations before that faced........JCPOA was a piece of shit deal, done with a bunch untrustworthy people with alterior motives and where you couldnt get everything you wanted for as long as you wanted and so the deal had a tonne of deficiencies and compromises that made it perfect foil for political attack....... Israel as discussed HATES any deal with Iran - no deal will ever be good enough as Donald Trump is about to find out when the attacks start on his deal or prospective deal......but relative to the alternatives JCPOA was bad deal but a good deal when seen in the context of every other option you could think off......we are currently living inside one of the alternative options the JCPOA negotiators envisaged and ruled out.......must be pleasing for them to see how STUCK Trump is, what damage has been incurred to the global economy to achieve essentially no political outcome above and beyond what was available in Feb....... The JCPOA was painful exercise in extreme pragmatism......Operation Epic Fury was an exercise in extreme wishful thinking & hubris.

Which makes Trump's desire to reach for some kind of gold plated forever deal with Iran on a nuclear deal so illogical if you really think about it . Its functionally meaningless to get Iran to sign a deal with no enrichment forever clause. I know the conditioning around the JCPOA's sunsetting clause was one of the great sticks used to beat up that deal.....but I've always viewed the JCPOA as a bad deal just way better than any of the other options I could think off. Critics loved beating up the sunsetting clause....but as we've just discussed.... there is no forever with this stuff. its just not how the world works. Which confirms something that I think @73 Reds and I have agreed on before.......Israel & Bibi's strategic assessment is correct here re:Iran and I completely understand it from their point of view and I would want the same if I lived in Israel - which is to say if you want to guarantee a no nuclear Iran over the medium-long term you need to destroy the current Iranian regime in entirety (plain and simple) and replace it totally with a Western aligned one AND if that option isn't available to you go for Door 2 which is the Syria option and you effectively attempt to dismantle Iran as a functioning nation state.....the most obvious way to do that given there is no coherent opposition movement there is to tip it into Civil War. Given the US seemingly won't comply with boots on the ground required to topple and replace the regime, I suspect strategist in Tel Aviv are already working on ways to potentially send Iran into a chaotic civil war. Donald Trump is about is about to discover the hard way, as Obama did - there is no plausible US-Iran nuclear deal good enough to satisfy Bibi/Israel. That is simply the reality. Because Bibi gets what we just agreed. Enforceability variability across US Presidential administrations just cant be trusted. You have to destroy this Iranian regime. There is no other answer for Bibi/Israel. The chances of boots, in great numbers, landing on the ground in Iran is very low. So not like those two. What will potentially mark this out as failure that exceeds those two boondoggles......is (a) how voluntary it was in nature but (b) just the level of direct and indirect US and Global economic costs and damage that we're incurred with so little to show for it.....as I said the success/failure equation for this war is quite simple when you get down to it: Feb 26 nuclear terms available in Geneva VERSUS Final deal terms....against.........the total costs incurred and status quo in the region when those final deal terms are signed (for example will Iran have SOH Toll booth!). All the evidence today is pointing to final deal terms that are inferior to Geneva......and Trump's threat to bail on the SOH points to a post-war Status Quo is meaningfully worse. You go to war to meaningfully improve a political outcome......if that outcome is worse than what was available pre-war....well I wont use words like won or lost as they trigger people....but I think its fair to say that things didn't play out as one would have hoped before you hit go on Epic Fury, you certainly didn't go into it to end up back where you started or worse?!?!

Trump has 2.5yrs left in office. Your acting like he's there forever to enforce. Is Trump going to do enforcement from his retirement wheelchair in Mar-e-Lago in 2032? There is no guaranteed enforcement durability across US Presidencies. End of story. Trump has turned out I would argue to be depressingly similar to other President's who decided to go on adventures in the Middle East - once stuck in the mud there they become short term minded, catering to a domestic political and party audience, hemmed in strategically by 24 month election cycles and the US public's low tolerance for pain. Trump looks alot like his predecessors to me.

Well he is agent of change we both agree on that.............and is ramming a colossal amount of change down the US's and Global Systems throat in a very short period of time (ironic given he's nominally supposed to be a conservative, the central tenet of which is that change has unpredictable and not always good outcomes). So I think we should be both humble enough to realize that the final verdict on Trump's radical T2 Presidency is yet to come in - he has 2.5yrs left and has already set in motion a number of events that are deeply unpredictable in how they turn out in the medium to long term. He is a consequential President that's for sure.......consequential good or bad is the question.....the answer or verdict on his Presidency is post dated in envelope somewhere a few years out. My view is that verdict is tracking poorly chiefly because of the Iran war - he had substantive wins on immigration, deregulation and the OBBB before this and my gut (but its too early to say for sure) is he has overshadowed those achievements with his decision not sign what was on offer in Geneva and instead pivot to outright war with Iran.

You bet if your in Europe/Asia right now your US ‘partner’ in the last 18 months has started a trade war with you, tariffed you and then started a war of choice in the Middle East that has led exploding energy costs and outright fuel shortages in your region. What did Kissinger say….”the only thing worse than being the United States enemy is being its allies.” If you were a strategist sitting in Beijing in the mid-2010’s wondering how in the hell China was ever going to put a dent in the ‘Great Wall of America’ that spanned the globe with all its deep strategic economic and military alliances and Nostradamus whispered in your ear that Trump was going to be elected not once but twice and do what he’s done……well you would have wet your pants with joy. That’s the big picture for those who care to zoom out and think about such things.

The US’s ‘allies’ in Europe and Asia in particular would likely say the exact same thing!

Said nothing about the market. My point is simple....and the test basic....Trump's decision to go to war with Iran will be judged a success/failure as measured by the INCREMENTALLY of any concessions achieved in a future US-Iran nuclear deal (if any) relative to the status quo available on Feb 26th all measured against the costs incurred to achieve that incrementality. Right now......there is ZERO incrementally in any US-Iran nuclear deal I've seen muted and clearly significant economic costs have been incurred by the US, the region and the global economy to say nothing about the US service members lives lost. Trump's inability to TACO right now is because the terms of exit and the Iran-US nuclear deal on offer today are materially worse than what was available in Geneva in Feb all while huge costs have been incurred Trump is one of the greatest salesmen on earth but even he cant sell this turd (as is)....and his ability to escalate from here to change the facts on the ground are hampered by a simple reality.....whatever he does from here is very unlikely to get Tehran to capitulate to his liking to get him a sellable turd or lets call it an improved deal and all those same escalation options like Project Freedom (paused after 24 short hours due to UAE attacks) come at significant cost to the region's infrastructure and Global Economy. Trump is stuck here precisely because the status quo in the Middle East with an Iranian regime that is even more hardline, that is blockading the SOH and an Iran-US nuclear deal on table today which is materially WORSE than what was on offer in Geneva a few weeks is kind of the definition of stuck - i dont think this is a controversial position except for those that exclusively get their information from General Jack Keane, Jesse Water and Mark Levin. I could link out to a bunch of experts who dont have a partisan dog in this fight....Michael Clarke on Sky News, Former MI6 chief its endless, because Trump's dilemma and LACK of a true strategic victory here or even as I said true incrementality relative to Feb 26th status quo and deal on the table is so obvious.

Promises? You do realize that Donald is asking Iran to "promise" not to enrich uranium, promise not to get a bomb. I love the way that when a Democratic regime asks a country to promise to do something enshrined in a deal they are jokers.....but when Donald asks that same regime to make a promise in a deal its genius. The bar is so high for the DNC and the bar so low for the GOP and vice versa. Which I guess is the definition of bipartinship You do realize that there are going to be a bunch of promises and implicit trust inherent in any deal Donald signs. Indeed isnt signing a deal with Iran fundamentally an exercise in trust?

As I said above the real test here on this Iran boondoggle.........is does Trump emerge from this conflict with a deal and a status quo in Middle East that is superior to the deal and status quo on offer in Geneva and before he decided to go to war. Right? thats the test @cubsfan, the real test. hope we can agree on that at least? Right now, objectivably, across most metrics things are worse than what was available to be signed on Feb 26th in Geneva at $0. - Tehran regime has been changed alright to be more hardline than it was before - Iran has demonstrated irrefutably that it can toggle on and off shipping in the SOH at will - 13 American air bases in the region are destroyed or inoperable - Iran has demonstrated and confirmed its ability to destroy neighbouring energy and water infrastructure in the gulf And most damningly, right now, the Iranian nuclear deal being discussed openly right now and offered in negotiations has disimproved relative to Geneva. The 'wins' right now are short term tactical military ones....not long term strategic one....sure the Iran navy/airforce is gone....but who was worried about the Iranian navy and airforce in early Feb exactly

Stuck....because the reality is Trump in his infinite wisdom started a war of choice with Iran because he was frustrated that they wouldn't give him a nuclear deal in Geneva that was superior to the JCPOA. His ego and hubris also clearly heard the history books calling him if he could topple the regime. And here we are weeks later after the catastrophic decision, the regime in Tehran changed but changed for the worse (IRGC totally in control), American lives lost, many billions spent and precious weaponry consumed , many more billions of damage done to US consumers through inflation, Asia and then likely the global economy heading for an economic downturn, America's thirteen military bases in the region destroyed or at a minimum completely inoperable, our allies energy infrastructure damaged for years....... and what have we got for all that? As best I can figure out Donald would cry with happiness if Iran put on the table what they we're offering Tweedledum (Witcoff) and Tweedledee (Kushner) in Geneva a couple of months ago. Thats the real test here on this Iran boondoggle.........does Trump emerge from this conflict with a deal and a status quo that is superior to the deal and status quo on offer in Geneva.....right now, objectivably, across all metrics things are worse than what was available on Feb 26th.

The US economy, markets and budget deficit need the global economy to not go off a cliff. This US isn't affected by whats happening in Gulf firstly forgets the global nature of oil markets - last I checked we're headed for $5 gas now. If Global growth goes into a wall, so to does the US that's just the nature of a globalized economy and well one need only look at the US fiscal position to see the US needs a global downturn like a hole in the head. I know its a narrative violation relative to what Jesse Water is telling you - but the GCC nations have a more ambivalent feeling on this whole situation. They view Trump's decision to attack Iran as reckless as everything that has happened - horizontal escalation with their infrastructure on the line, SOH blockade with zero regime change) were so predictably. The issue for the GCC and UAE found this out yesterday is as Trump fumbles around for a way out of this mess every little escalation and strategy pivot is him fundamentally pushing the GCC allies energy infrastructure into the middle of the roulette table. @cubsfan sorry to break it you but Trump is stuck here in a profound way..... Operation Epic Fury is now completed we we're told by Rubio yesterday. Project Freedom got paused after 24 short hours cause well as I said the Iranian's escalated to take out UAE infrastructre The Reverse Naval Blockade which the WSJ told the President nd everyone else was silver bullet hasn't worked and is unlikely to work. Weren't they supposed to wave the white flag two weeks ago on that one? And now I see the same WSJ saying that actually we probably need to resume the bombing campaign as the blockade isnt creating enough leverage.

You’re right on the numbers thing. It matters now more than ever. My philosophy on immigration has shifted from the "always good" camp to something much closer to your view. Why? Because its not the 1800s or 1900s. Back then, lacking modern welfare states and strict building codes, society could easily absorb massive immigrant waves by rapidly constructing high-density housing cheaply and quickly. Today, housing supply is deeply inelastic. NIMBYism, over-regulation, and tradespeople shortages severely limit our ability to build, especially in major metros where immigrants typically flock. Politicians like Mandani blame landlords for sky-high rents in places like NYC, but the true driver is a "lollapalooza effect" of conflicting liberal-elite policies: lax federal immigration colliding with crippling local housing regulations. The answer is fixing supply (the whole abundance agenda) but its also about recognizing that many metros in particular are structurally short infrastructure (housing, medical). Very good argument for Trump's hardline immigration policy is simply that the country needs to catch up and digest the Biden-era immigration spike with deregulation led housing supply and then the most obvious of all during that time design an immigration system that solves for silicon valley Einstein level talent AND dishwashers/busboys in Manhattan.

I think the battle is won but the war to stop Iran getting a bomb over the medium-long term is now lost. Epic Fury’s failure to change the regime has essentially proved every nuclear hardliner inside the Iranian regime correct….while at the same time the US has turned its cards over and showed it lacks the backbone to do what would be needed to be done to actually stop an Iranian regime racing for a bomb and that’s a boots on the ground invasion. The Iranian’s will sign or agree to whatever - but armed with those two new ‘insights’ above (nuclear deterrents are the singular deterrent answer AND the US hasn’t the backbone for a real war)….they will take a nuclear program deep deep underground.

The only thing that ever made Epic Fury worthwhile, when you really really think about it for a second, was if it resulted in regime change. That's it. It failed on the only objective that really matters here. Everything since that failure (reverse blockades, civilization annihilation threat tweets) has been an exercise in political theatre......a 'show' which is costing the global economy hundreds of billions and the US tens of billions.

No drama Obama .....Captain Chaos on the other hand, well what do you expect the US hired a reality television star to be POTUS..........manufacturing drama for TV consumption is kinda his speciality. Not gonna lie though this Iran episode has been the most entertaining but fundamentally dumb & dangerous episode of the 'Trump Show' yet. The ratings have been amazing! So there is that to consider. Wonder what drama he's dreaming up for the world next?

It’s also about diversifying away from the US security umbrella….the Fox News narrative is the GCC despise Iran now and love America even more than they used to….the reality is more nuanced….GCC got in bed with the US for security and stability and what did they get?….they view this pre-emptive attack on Iran like most rational people do, correctly, as a war of choice that has unnecessarily destabilized the region and cost it dearly. Indeed as Trump plays with escalatory options from here - it’s not the US’s water and energy infrastructure which he is considering pushing into the center of the poker table to double down with. It’s the GCC’s…..with ‘friends’ like this, who needs enemies! I expect to see the Gulf States do more and more deals like the one Saudis and Pakistan did. The world, as we know, is questioning the predictability and rationality of the US as a "partner". Greenland, Ukraine, Tariffs, fights with Canada, the Iran war of choice plus all the rhetoric coming out of DC from MAGA on International rules not mattering......I'm not sure anyone, now with even a passing understanding of the internal workings of the the US twineed with this last decades evidence of wild policy swings (DNC to MAGA to DNC to MAGA), could consider the US a reliable, predictable, rational global partner anymore.....its becoming more like your older brother with schizophrenia....for a while he's back to his old self boringly predictable self (Biden/Obama) but every few years now you get MAGA...... Jekyll (MAGA) and Hyde foreign policy.....not the foundation on which any country can build their own security architecture.

@ourkid8 first things first - no country is monolith….Iran didn’t have an active Manhattan project, sure the evidence demonstrates that , but shifting factions within Iran exist that actively advocate for having one. So not having a Manhattan project today is not the same as never having one. When you twin that with a civilian nuclear program and advancing ballistic missile program. Well you see the issue - all the jigsaw pieces are there. Bibi is in the business of imminent threat inflation but you are the in the business of threat deflation. The answer is somewhere in between. Iran thought they could play this game of being half in and half out of the nuclear weapons game….I’ve heard the theory that, caught in a sanctions trap, the reason they enriched to such high levels was a trading chip they could negotiate away for sanctions relief (the evidence bears this out every version of the Geneva deals had them diluting this 60% enriched uranium down). However this game of will they, won’t they has turned out to be an exceptionally dumb strategy. It gave Bibi & US hawks their best evidence that this is not a civilian program. Make me President of Iran 20yrs ago and I would have raced for a bomb - it’s beyond dumb that the resource constrained North Korean’s developed one while the comparatively advanced Iranian’s didn’t….that is a huge blunder on their part. To the theory that somehow Iran would 100% use said bomb to destroy Israel and NYC the very next day (the crazy jihadist death cult theory)…..well….its a war hawk fantasy…we used to say the same thing about crazy guy in N.Korea before they got nukes…..Seoul last I checked is still there…..nuclear weapons are fundamentally a deterrent, doubly so when the MAD dynamic exists bilaterally which it does with Iran’s real adversaries the US and Israel. I don’t believe the US/Israel “had to do something now” re:Iran….this was a war of choice underpinned by an opportunistic assessment of regime fragility but it’s not be confused with there being no proliferation threat at all coming from Iran….Iran should want a bomb because if you walk a mile their shoes- it makes so much god damn sense for them to have one, it’s the ultimate deterrent. Dont take it from me the former Israeli Prime Minister said so….and he was honest enough to say that Iran wants a bomb not to destroy Israel but rather because if you lived in that neighborhood with the neighbors you have - you’d be foolish not to want one too! Crazy jihadist mullahs is a threat inflation caricature…. highly rational mullahs is more accurate (as it pertains to potentially wanting a slam dunk deterrent like nukes)…. Charlie Rose Show, November 2011 Charlie Rose: "If you were Iran, wouldn't you want a nuclear weapon?" Ehud Barak: > "Probably, probably. I don't delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel. They have their history of 4,000 years. They look around and they see the Indians are nuclear. The Chinese are nuclear, Pakistan is nuclear as well as North Korea, not to mention the Russians."

The mullahs aren't that crazy if you measure it by the seriousness by which the chief protagonists are trying to get a deal done here @cubsfan Pre-War: Iran was talking not face-to-face with the United States about a deal.....nope Iran was shuttling messages via intermediaries in Geneva to a NYC property developer who happens to play golf with the President and Ivanka's husband. Post-War: The Iranian negotiating delegation met with the Vice President of the United States - JD Vance for 21 hours for face-to-face talks. Tune out the noise and ask yourself just based on the personnel & format of negotiations pre and post hostitlites starting......which sides desire to get a deal done has increased here relative to the past? The strategy Iran has taken - is not crazy at all, they took a bad hand and played it as well as it could be played IMO. I'm not saying they have all the cards here for a second but its strategically inaccurate to call what they've done crazy, its been effective relative to their capabilities and the results are in what we just saw at the weekend. Their crazy mullah escalatory strategy has resulted in them going from the shuttle diplomacy of passing notes back and forward with Tweedle Dum (Witcoff) and Tweedle Dee (Kushner) in Geneva to speaking directly face to face with the Vice President of the United States of America for 21 hours.