Sam Wollmer🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇺

@marquetteu ‘28 • #ThisIsMyCrew • #GoPackGo • Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 • John 8:32 •

[Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom]

The past few months feel like the first time the Trump reality-distortion field finally stopped working:

"Only ​23% of Americans—including just half of Republicans—think the US is now in a stronger position with Iran compared with its position ​before the war."

"Only 24% of Americans think the war with Iran was worth the costs." https://t.co/ugtY85bsZG

[Rebeccah Heinrichs @RLHeinrichs]

“NATO’s war.” What a gross joke.

[Travis Akers 🇺🇸 @travisakers]

Pete Hegseth’s crusade to replace the best leaders in our Armed Forces with Trump loyalists is weakening our nation’s military and threatens not only our national security, but the credibility and readiness of our military as well.

[Sam Wollmer🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇺 @WollmerSam]

@mikenelson586 Donahue embodies the “warrior culture” and “lethality” that Hegseth emphasizes. Another senior officer done dirty by Hegseth and his goons. Shameful.

[Sam Wollmer🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇺 @WollmerSam]

@CyrtHogg

[Daniel DePetris @DanDePetris]

We can harp on the terms of the U.S.-Iran MOU all we want. I’m certainly doing it.

But the MOU is not a product of bad negotiating. That’s too simplistic. Rather, it’s a product of how the conflict went.

The ultimate error was the war itself. Write that on a chalkboard 100x.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

This war will be taught at War Colleges (assuming they still exist) and strategic studies programs for years to come as *the* case study in how operational successes do not lead to strategic victory.

[Susan Rice @AmbassadorRice]

This is a jaw-dropping, horrific surrender document complete with hundreds of billions in reparations. It is the predictable result of incompetent negotiation and the foolhardy strategic catastrophe of starting and pursuing this disastrous war. The U.S. will not soon recover from this, the biggest national security blunder in decades.

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

the iran deal resolves literally none of trump’s stated war aims. not a single one.

it’s still a good thing trump took this off-ramp.

my reaction on @cnn

[ProfTalmadge @ProfTalmadge]

It is perfectly fine to give Trump credit for stopping a war that was not achieving US strategic goals. Congrats on not doing a Vietnam! But a better course would have been to not start the war in the first place, especially since the bad outcomes were largely foreseeable ex ante.

[Sam Wollmer🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇺 @WollmerSam]

RT @michaeldweiss: The three things Iran would count as victories:
1. Controlling the Strait
2. Restricting Israeli freedom of action in…

[Eric Brewer @BrewerEricM]

These talking points describe an alternate reality.

[Thomas Juneau @thomasjuneau]

you don't typically get a Nobel peace prize for starting and losing a war

[Sam Wollmer🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇺 @WollmerSam]

@AGhiselliChina Fitting that his location is listed as “parallel universe.”

[Sam Wollmer🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇺 @WollmerSam]

@DanielBShapiro @BrunoTertrais If I'm not mistaken, it seems to be already happening.

[Dr. Jeffrey Lewis @ArmsControlWonk]

I say this with no partisan rancor at all: these guys just have no idea what the fuck they are doing.

[Emile Hokayem (@emile-hokayem.bsky.social) @emile_hokayem]

Let the spin begin. Both Iran and the US will claim victory while Israel sulks and waits for the whole thing to unravel (because nothing is really agreed).

A massively disruptive and wholly inconclusive war in which Iran nevertheless emerges relatively better than its foes in the short-term.

At the strategic level, a fiasco for the US and strategic failure for Israel. And more misery and despondency for the Iranian people.

[Dan Shapiro @DanielBShapiro]

Until the text of the US-Iran deal is signed and released, there is going to be a lot of spin on both sides. But here is my initial take.

This war was a mistake, and it needs to end. The President thought that the Iranian regime would collapse quickly, but it did not. In fact, it has been strengthened strategically by its survival against a heavy US-Israeli assault and carrying out some effective counterstrikes. Many countries in the region are now courting Iran and looking to deescalate and rebuild ties. A sign of which way the wind is blowing.

Getting the Strait of Hormuz open is the most important outcome of this MOU. Of course, the Strait was open before the war. Now we are paying to reopen it with sanctions relief. Iran has taken a theoretical point of leverage and turned it into a very real and powerful one, imposing costs across the global economy and rattling President Trump.

As for the nuclear issues, there really is no agreement, other than to negotiate over the HEU stockpile and an enrichment moratorium. Iran knows how to drag out those negotiations, and try to pocket concessions along the way. It is possible that no deal will every be reached, and very likely that if one is reached, it will be worse than what we could have achieved through diplomacy before the war.

Iran is not likely to take seriously that the US would return to war, certainly before the US midterms. So that means we will be conducting diplomacy without a credible threat of force.

If any agreement ultimately reached actually safely puts Iran's nuclear ambitions out of reach, I'll acknowledge it. It's just too early to make that judgment.

Trump is mainly focused on comparing his deal favorably to the JCPOA. But we are a long way from being able to make that comparison, and it may end up no better, or weaker than that deal.

But in some ways, Trump's deal and the JCPOA are already similar. Nothing on ballistic missiles, nothing on proxies, nothing on weakening the regime or helping the Iranian people. And plenty of sanctions relief that will strengthen the regime, and be poured into the missile program and proxy network. Honest critics of the JCPOA will not twist themselves into pretzels to defend Trump's approach.

Israelis are deeply disappointed in this outcome, but they should not be surprised. After some initial overlap of Trump's and Netanyahu's interests, there was a strong divergence. The United States needed this war to end. Netanyahu wanted to continue.

Trump's claim to include Lebanon in the ceasefire and his harsh shutting down Israeli attacks on Hezbollah is also a win for Iran. After the JCPOA was signed, Obama and Netanyahu worked together to strengthen Israel's campaign of strikes in Syria to intercept Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So let's hope we see the removal of Iran's enriched uranium and a long-term suspension of enrichment, with full verification. But to achieve those goals, Trump's team is going to need to engage in far more sophisticated diplomacy, backed by qualified experts, than they have to date. If it is a phase one splash with no follow-up on implementation of later phases, like in Gaza, we will be much worse off after, and because of, this war.

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

the world needs the strait of hormuz reopened. should have happened months ago, but today’s outcome is the best option available.

having said that, iran war has been a disaster. no agreement on nukes, ballistic missiles, support for proxies…and one of the world’s most brutal regimes remains in place…and is getting paid off.

biggest foreign policy failure of trump administration by a long margin.

[Daniel DePetris @DanDePetris]

The optimist in me wants to pat Trump on the back for finally signing a framework deal with Iran, which is far better than returning to war in the [unlikely] hope of getting Tehran to cave.

But the pessimist in me says this entire arrangement is just a return to the pre-Feb 28 status-quo. The U.S. fought a war of choice for six weeks, then paused it for a few months, only to end it (for now) by kicking the hard problems down the road to a later date.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you have to do this. If the framework deal was tied to resolving all the nuts and bolts of the nuclear issue, the two sides wouldn’t have been able to sign anything.

Still, in the end, we haven’t really solved much. All we’re doing is digging ourself out of a hole we created. Re-opening the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic is great, but the chokepoint was already open before the war. Similarly, ending the U.S. blockade is good from the standpoint of de-escalation, but again, there was no blockade before the war. This is a re-winding of the clock.

Meanwhile, the nuclear dispute that has roiled U.S.-Iran relations for more than two decades is still there. And if it’s not resolved in 60 days time—a resolution will require both sides to come to terms on Tehran’s uranium stockpile, centrifuge production/operation, enrichment, international inspection and verification protocols…ie highly technical stuff that took two years for the Obama administration to hash out more than a decade ago—Feb. 28 might make another appearance sometime in July.

So what have we really accomplished here? Is this merely a delay of the war for several months or the beginning of a real conclusion?