Trump Takes A Break From Bombing Iran For The Master’s

The ceasefire being trumpeted across the world today looks less like a two-week agreement toward the end of the current U.S.-Israel war on Iran’s regime and more like a break so President Donald Trump can watch Master’s golf undisturbed.

The reported details laid out in Iran’s ten point response to negotiation talks represent, on multiple points, a risky series of steps that are either impossible to maintain or aren’t even being reported the same to both sides – with a depiction in Farsi of agreed allowance for the continued enrichment of uranium.

That should be a non-negotiable point for a president who has derided Barack Obama’s Iran deal ad nauseam, regardless of his reluctance to extend the current conflict into the summer.

Here’s the reality of the proposed deal if accepted on its face:

• Iran still has its nuclear materials, and without immediate extraction, will now sprint to enrich the uranium in its possession and construct a nuclear weapon.
• Iran’s regime has now, despite the loss of dozens of leaders and the utter destruction of missile and other capabilities, survived both internal rebellion and external attack.
• Iran has shown that it can and will control the Strait of Hormuz, and therefore the world economy, at will – without even inspiring Europe to clear the mines, one of the last things its military is good at.
• If not defeat, Iran has shown it can at minimum deter the United States Navy at the strategic level.
• Iran has shown that no wartime coalition will coalesce against it, even when it directly attacks over a dozen neighboring countries, and even when it demonstrates the ability to lob missiles into central Europe.

None of this is good.

The more fundamental problem for the United States, beyond President Trump’s tenure, is that America will have shown an inability to plan and win at the strategic level, and furthermore has shown itself to be without effective wartime allies beyond Israel.

The markets are speaking, and their shaky nature means they’re optimistic about this deal. But it’s a bad one, short- and long-term, for an America First policy perspective. It’s certainly satisfying to swipe the chessboard clear of a bunch of bad guys. It’s another to expend significant resources to create a scenario in which the takeaways all speak to Iran’s ability to stand up to the Great Satan and survive, and to the advantages going forward for China that are impossible to fully estimate at this point.

The Trump approach to foreign policy and national security has, time and again, proven his critics wrong. He has ridden a hot hand repeatedly, to the great benefit of the American people. But he’s often done so by gambling and winning, often facing long odds. Eventually those odds may prove too long. Eventually the table goes cold. Or sometimes, you just need a break to go off tilt.

We’ll see which situation this is for the president in short order.