All Hail Great Leader's Concept Of A Framework Of An Iran Peace Deal! (It Is Not A Deal)
Two weeks. This next brief period of time. Greatest deal in history.
Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday Sunday with a kickwrasslin’ match and also with a very important announcement on his bot-filled Twitter knockoff (NBC News link), proclaiming to the world:
The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow! President DONALD J. TRUMP
There were only a few little problems with Trump’s announcement, like the tiny detail that it’s not really a peace deal at all, just a “memorandum of understanding” in which the US and Iran will agree to a 60-day ceasefire during which they’ll try to come up with a “framework” for negotiations over the actual issues, like the Iran’s nuclear program, international sanctions against Iran, and security in the region.
No text of any “agreement” has been released yet, and the memorandum of understanding won’t actually be signed until this Friday, by which time Crom only knows what further military shenanigans may have transpired. But hey, it’s a cease-fire, or at least it will be. If anything is actually ready to sign Friday. Seems like it might be a bit early for any celebrations. Trump says the memorandum will be released Friday after it’s signed, and we’re sure that he’ll come in for the same kind of criticism Nancy Pelosi did when she said people wouldn’t appreciate Obamacare until after it was passed.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also said Sunday a deal had been reached, though his statement hedged a bit, saying that both sides had “declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” but adding that between now and Friday, “pre-implementation discussions” will take place, without any details. Sharif also said Monday that Pakistan will host a signing ceremony Friday in Geneva, Switzerland. If that actually happens, it’s not yet clear whether Trump, currently in Europe for G7 meetings, will show up, or will instead attend a wrestling match in someplace he can’t pronounce.
He said JD Vance has to go, though. If that tells you anything about this thing’s likelihood for success.
Related, Trump insisted today that the Strait of Hormuz is already “partially opened,” while Iranian state media said it remains “closed until further notice,” and that there is “zero passage through the Strait of Hormuz.” Seems like a total victory for Trump, all right!
What about Israel And Lebanon?
Also on Sunday, Israel went and launched an airstrike on Hezbollah in Lebanon, which really rustled Trump’s jimmies. The Great Man, apparently still unaware that the agreement (should there be one) is supposed to be signed Friday, griped in a phone call to Axios that the attack “delayed the signing by a few hours. It was supposed to be now. Now it is scheduled for a few hours from now.” He also grumbled, “It is so bad — I couldn't believe it. An hour before we are supposed to sign the deal,” and then got super mad at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whining, “Why did Bibi have to do a fucking attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgment. I let him know that.”
Why no, Israel hasn’t been a party to the US-Iran negotiations yet, either. Seems like a bit of an oversight.
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Rightwing Israeli officials said after the announcements of a tentative deal that Israeli military forces will not withdraw from territory they’ve seized in southern Lebanon. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir waggled his dick and said in a statement that “Israel is not subordinate to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign state.” Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israeli forces still had a lot more devastation to do, insisting that “The area will be cleared of local residents and all terrorist infrastructure, above and below ground — including the houses in the contact villages that served as terrorist outposts — will be destroyed.” So far, Netanyahu himself hasn’t commented on the tentative agreement on a framework of a deal.
The Lebanese military warned civilians who fled southern Lebanon that it’s still not safe for them to try to return home, even though some local authorities have reopened roads. A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry says that ending Israel’s war in Lebanon, including “respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” is an “inseparable part of the agreement to end the war.” But “senior US officials” say that an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon is not a condition of the agreement.
Israel is apparently not going to be sending any representatives to Geneva; nor has it been included in the subsequent negotiations over everything else. That seems like a loose end, but what do we know?
This is the greatest peace deal in the history of peace deals ever, can’t you tell!
Thank God Trump Won’t Give Iran $1.7 Billion ‘Bribe’ Like Obama Did. He’ll Give Iran $24 Billion, Maybe More.
The “deal” that might get signed Friday leaves negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program for later, but Trump is already certain that his deal, should he actually reach one, will be way better than the one Barack Obama negotiated in 2015, which Trump tore up. On Saturday, Trump lied about the multi-nation JCPOA deal, claiming that it was an “easy, beautiful, smooth road to a Nuclear Weapon, which Iran would have had six years ago, and would have used long before now.” That’s some bullshit, since the JCPOA included strict limits on uranium enrichment and allowed international inspectors into Iranian facilities to make sure they weren’t producing a bomb.
And while Iran already agreed in the JCPOA that it would never seek to build nuclear weapons, purchase them from another country, or even lease one during Toyotathon, Trump insisted his nonexistent deal goes far further, at least in his imagination.
My Agreement with Iran is the exact opposite, A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON! In fact, they no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement. The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.
Trump has no agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, the agreement will not be signed until Friday (if at all) and if the ceasefire holds, it’ll take months for shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to return to normal — if it opens Friday.
Trump also lied, “Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands.” Remember, that was actually Iran’s money that had been held in US banks after its assets were frozen during the 1979 hostage crisis. According to details of the prospective deal leaked by Iran — hardly the most reliable source, but slightly more credible than Trump — Iran “claims that it will not only get some $12 billion up front, but get another $12 billion within 60 days. Down the line, the Iranians are claiming that they will get a $300 billion fund for reconstruction.”
Way better than Obama, because reasons. Besides, Trump is so tough, surrendering to get a deal that might, at best, return us to something a little like the situation before he started his war, but with Iran much richer and more powerful, and confident that it can get away with closing down 20 percent of the world’s oil shipments any time it wants.
Anyway, it’s the greatest peace deal ever that isn’t yet a deal and will be worse than Obama’s and Trump also told The New York Times that he might just attack Iran again if it doesn’t reach a nuclear deal he likes, because he is a peacemaker, the end.
[NBC News / NYT / ABC News / Atlantic (gift link) / CNBC / AP]
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Human tragedy aside, it's kinda hilarious that these right-wingers who've had a hard-on for war with Iran for forty-plus years finally got what they wanted, and couldn't have fucked it up more.
The markets seem to think it’s a deal, just like they did the other 38 times there was a “deal” a-comin’.