Bentalope

Another Voice in the Noise.

[Rebeccah Heinrichs @RLHeinrichs]

The IRGC is a terrorist organization. It has no interest in diplomacy.
Refusing to be gaslit doesn’t make one a “neocon.”

[Jake Wallis Simons @JakeWSimons]

Over the last 48 hours of “ceasefire” Hezbollah has attacked Israel 72 times, including:

• 25 assaults
• 63 rockets
• 1 missile
• 7 UAV strikes
• 2 IED explosions
• 1 infiltration of 5 terrorists

Now Iran cancels peace talks because Israel responded.
See the game here?

[Kareem Rifai 🌐 @KareemRifai]

Democrats should absolutely be loudly opposing our unilateral surrender to one of our main geopolitical adversaries, both for strategic and electoral reasons.

If that means "running to the right" or whatever, then so be it.

[Dennis Ross @AmbDennisRoss]

If Iran is holding up the implementation of the MoU and the opening of the Straits over Lebanon this demonstrates the folly of allowing them to link the issues. We cannot want the MoU more than Iran. This also shows how Iran’s leaders will continue to use their leverage on the Straits unless they see what they have to lose.

[Adam Louis-Klein @adam_louis52328]

I'm pleased to share an essay I wrote for @TheAtlantic.

As a left-wing Jew who supports universal human rights, I argue that opposition to antizionism flows from those values. For more than a century, antizionism has justified the erasure of Jewish life, the expulsion of Jews, and violence and discrimination against those marked as "Zionists."

The Democratic Party—and all people of conscience—should condemn it.

https://t.co/wMYIjJarGT

[Yaron Brook @yaronbrook]

Trump says his Iran deal avoided a “worldwide depression.”

That is not a boast. It is an indictment.

It means the war ended not because Iran was defeated, not because the regime capitulated, not because its nuclear and missile programs were dismantled — but because Iran succeeded in turning the Strait of Hormuz into a hostage.

That was the decisive issue from the beginning.

And it was completely foreseeable.

The Strait is not a symbol. It is one of the central arteries of the world economy. Roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids and a major share of LNG normally move through it. Iran sits on the northern shore with mines, missiles, drones, coastal batteries, and fast boats. Everyone knew this. The Pentagon knew it. The Navy knew it. Tehran knew it.

The United States has spent decades planning, exercising, and operating in precisely this battlespace.

This is not some mysterious, unforeseeable problem. The Navy has escorted tankers through the Persian Gulf before. It has fought Iran’s navy before. It has practiced mine-countermeasures, maritime security, convoy protection, unmanned surveillance, and freedom-of-navigation operations in and around the Strait for years.

The issue was never whether America had the capability to keep the straits open.

It did.

The issue was whether the president would make preventing Iran from closing the Straits of Hormuz a strategic objective of the war.

Trump CHOSE not to.

That decision doomed the war from the start.
Control of the Strait did not mean occupying Iran. It did not mean guaranteeing zero risk. It meant declaring, from the first hour, that the Strait is an international waterway; that no Iranian mine, missile battery, drone site, fast boat, “permit authority,” or IRGC toll booth would be allowed to determine whether world trade moves; and that every asset threatening commercial shipping would be destroyed.

Control meant executing on the Navy’s existing plans.

That should have been the opening strategic objective.
Instead, Trump failed to act and instead treated Hormuz as a bargaining chip.

I identified this on my show a week into the war and said it on my show: if the United States does not break Iran’s control over Hormuz immediately, every later battlefield success will be strategically compromised.

That is exactly what happened.

The U.S. and Israel hit Iran hard. The White House says more than 10,000 sorties were flown and more than 13,000 targets were struck. Iranian air defenses, command nodes, missile sites, naval targets, and parts of the regime’s military infrastructure were devastated.

But tactical destruction is not victory.

Victory requires identifying the enemy’s decisive leverage and breaking it.

Iran’s leverage was Hormuz.

If America controls the Strait, Iran is isolated. Its exports are constrained. Its revenue dries up. Its regime faces the consequences of aggression. The pressure falls on Tehran.

If Iran controls the Strait, the pressure falls on Washington. Oil prices rise. LNG markets tighten. Allies panic. Markets wobble. Governments demand de-escalation. Suddenly the aggressor is negotiating from leverage.

That is exactly what happened.

Iran did not need to defeat the U.S. Navy. It only needed to convince American politicians that reopening the Strait by force was too risky, too costly, too frightening.

And Trump accepted that premise.

Once he did, the war was lost politically, no matter how many targets were destroyed.

The tragedy is that America did not lack the means. It lacked the will and the strategic clarity.

A serious administration would have flooded the theater early, established overwhelming control of the air and sea approaches, protected commercial transit, cleared mines, destroyed minelayers, and made clear that any Iranian attempt to close the Strait would bring immediate military consequences.

Hard? Yes.

Risky? Of course.

But wars are hard and risky. That is why they must be fought only when the objective is clear and the will exists to achieve it.

The unforgivable error was going to war while leaving Iran’s strongest weapon intact.

And now we have a deal that reportedly reopens the Strait temporarily, lifts parts of the blockade, offers sanctions relief, unfreezes billions, contemplates a massive reconstruction fund, and postpones the hardest questions: missiles, proxies, enrichment, and the survival of the regime itself.

This is not how a serious country wins a war.

This is how it buys time from the enemy after failing to neutralize the enemy’s strongest weapon.

The worst part is not this agreement. The worst part is the precedent.

Iran now knows that if it can close Hormuz long enough, America will bargain. China is watching. Every hostile regime sitting near a chokepoint is watching. The lesson they will draw is obvious: do not defeat the U.S. military; threaten the arteries of trade until American politicians fear the economic consequences of victory.

That is the catastrophe.

Not merely that Trump blinked. Not merely that Iran survived. But that the United States taught its enemies that control over trade routes can substitute for military power.

Wars are not won by counting targets destroyed. They are won by achieving the political objective.

The objective should have been the defeat of the Iranian regime and the restoration of absolute freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf.

Instead, America settled for a pause — and Iran kept the weapon.

The bill for that failure will not come due all at once.
But it will come due.

[Bentalope @behaviorben]

Vance is making stuff up about an ally to score points in Podcastistan and on here.

It’s shameful. But we’re used to it.

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

I don't think ministers have done this. Did I miss it?

I think a few prominent Netanyahu boosters in the press went off on Trump. But I haven't seen politicians do that.

Not that I would put it past our incompetent coterie of cabinet ministers -- just that I haven't seen anything like what he's describing.

Is Vance making this up to pick a fight with the Israelis, or responding to a real attack by some incomprehensibly stupid Israeli minister?

[Zachary Cohen @ZcohenCNN]

While the Trump officials told some top lawmakers today they are not aware of any “side deals” related to the MOU, they did acknowledge that there are some relevant documents that have not been publicly released, per a source.

Includes a “letter from the Iranian government” inviting head of the IAEA to conduct inspections, begin work on uncovering location of Iran's enriched material & giving the international agency approval to invite US nuclear experts to join the process, source said.

[Bentalope @behaviorben]

The source of Trump’s power isn’t achievement it’s drama.

— @wrmead

[Amjad Taha أمجد طه @amjadt25]

To Trump: In the Middle East, loyalty is currency. If you abandon your closest friend halfway through a fight and cut deals behind their back while leaving them exposed, don't expect anyone to trust your guarantees again. You told the world, "The U.S. and Israel carried out an operation against Iran," then walked away and left your ally standing alone.

In the Middle East, we don't judge friends by speeches; we judge them by who stays when the missiles fly. A person who abandons an ally halfway and cuts deals behind their back is not someone you call in a crisis.
You will say it's about American interests. Fine. But others also have interests, and they have memories. You can call it "America's interests." We call it something else: leaving your friends in the storm.

Before asking, "Why don't they defend themselves?" remember that countries like Israel did and are still doing so alone.

And also remember that the UAE defended itself, struck back forcefully, and banned the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of your countries in the West did neither.

The lesson is simple. If you can leave your closest friend exposed today, why should anyone trust your promises tomorrow? Maybe it's time for the Middle East to start thinking about alternatives.

And yes, when Iran strikes again, don't assume the Middle East will dial Washington. People don't call someone who might leak information to Turkey or cut a deal with Tehran while their friends are still under fire.

[Alex Hearn @hearnimator]

3 months ago, Rooney said something similar during another speech:
“The struggle for Palestine is also and has always been a struggle for human liberation and for our future on this earth”.

It’s a redemptive, quasi-religious movement.

[Ronen Bergman @ronenbergman]

Last weekend, four months of war and 47 years of confrontation between the United States and Iran came to a head in an extraordinary diplomatic rush that repeatedly threatened to spiral into more bloodshed. Negotiators were wrangling over issues with wide significance for the world economy, Mideast geopolitics and U.S. domestic politics.

This account of the final hours of the negotiations for a deal to declare a cease-fire and begin nuclear talks is based on interviews with officials in Washington, Europe and across the Middle East, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secret talks.

W\ @adamrasgon @farnazfassihi @SangerNYT @ElianPeltier and @antontroian via @nytimes

https://t.co/IQsq9RTKie

[Armin Rosen @ArminRosen]

Back in 2019 I wrote a long and I think definitive profile of the geopolitical operative Nir Rosen (no relation). The story was mostly about the Obama administration's use of Rosen as a backchannel to elements of the Assad regime. Rob Malley met with Rosen freuqently during his time as one of Obama's top Middle East advisors and ensured that Rosen's 66-page plan for ending the Syrian civil war on Assad-friendly terms got in front of the National Security Council during a critical phase of the conflict.

The upshot of the story is that while Malley and Rosen might look like lefties or radicals they were in fact Washington establishment figures providing a basis for things that presidents of both parties wanted to do anyway—and that included Trump, who'd been in office for 2 1/2 already when the story published:

[Mark Dubowitz @mdubowitz]

Trita Parsi and Rob Malley both have endorsed the MOU.

[Miad Maleki @miadmaleki]

Para. 11 of the Iran MOU (Iran's access to restricted funds) isn't contradicting itself, but covers two stages.

Sentence 1 gives the legal green light: US governemnt authorizes custodian banks to accept Iran's withdrawal requests.

Sentence 2 is where U.S. leverage lives: each actual transfer still needs US government's practical sign-off.

Banks won't move sovereign funds on a general MOU clause alone. The "mutually agreed procedures" language is Treasury's enforcement handle, it can condition, slow-walk, or deny comfort for specific transfers without technically breaching the headline commitment.

This language is a win for its domestic audience.

[Andrew Desiderio @AndrewDesiderio]

SCOOP: The State Dept told Congress *yesterday* that Iran’s oil exports are a primary revenue source for terrorism financing—just hours after U.S. & Iran signed MOU that includes oil sanctions relief, and as Trump is downplaying Iran’s illicit behavior

https://t.co/vpUmBqKKmK

[Bentalope @behaviorben]

@ElizLanders Nothing says “durable peace” like signing an agreement at Versailles

[Bentalope @behaviorben]

@SethAMandel The lesson is “don’t!” and not in the Biden sense of “don’t” but in the “really, what are you a complete idiot” sense of “don’t”