Peter Harling

𝖥𝗈𝗎𝗇𝖽𝖾𝗋 𝗈𝖿 work blends:
⧁ research on social problems
⧁ training young talent
⧁ tech applied to the above

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

Yet Macron, unlike Trump, doesn't have the means to chase his memes. Trump is prone, by contrast, to be carried away by his own incantations.

So Iran is up against the opposite of what the US pursued in the 80s: Now, it's all about unrealpolitik.

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

Trump's vision for securing Hormuz by escorting ships through the straits is typical of current geopolitics: It is more meme than plan.

The "armed convoy" trope is in fact just an echo of the "tanker war" of the 80s, rather than a realistic option for today. 🧵

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

Trump is not the only leader to memefy international affairs. Macron, for example, responded to 7 October with his own hallucination of a "global coalition to fight Hamas", borrowing at random from the anti-ISIS repertoire.

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

@james_acton32 Yes absolutely, amazing as it sounds, it is Iran that is most likely to decide when the war ends, with assurances that the US or Israel will not treat a ceasefire like they have in Gaza and Lebanon.

Iran has a relatively clear definition of victory here. The US hasn't.

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

The parallel with Minneapolis lies in this narrowing support for an administration carried away by its own rhetoric. Trump's tariff wars followed a similar sequence too: improvised moves, chaotic outcomes, shoddy climbdown. The Iran war is that same mix of bluster and blunder.

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

Trump is reaching another "Minnesota moment", this time in international affairs. Just as his domestic repression drive backfired for lack of planning, achievable goals, and internal discipline, this war is showing the limits of blusterous violence in lieu of strategy. 🧵

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

The US is slighting its traditional NATO and European partners in a similar way: bullying them into containing the fallout of a war that supplanted any old alliances with a fusional relation with Israel only. Trump's war on a pariah state is leaving him bizarrely isolated.

[Peter Harling @PeterHarling]

Lebanon is in a real catch-22.

Hizbollah is too weak to deter Israel, protect its community, force a negotiated settlement, or rethink its own tactics...

Yet strong enough to deter the Lebanese army from taking over, while egging on Israel and inviting ever more escalation.