First Draft: 🇮🇷 🇺🇸 Did Iran Just Win This War?
Instead of trying to wipe out Iran’s ‘civilization,’ Trump will negotiate an end to the war using Iran’s 10-point framework in a pretty huge humiliation for both the US and its ally Israel.
On this day in 2018, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán won the general election by a landslide, securing his third consecutive term in office. The far-right authoritarian is up for reelection once again, and despite receiving support from Donald Trump and JD Vance, who traveled to Budapest this week, Orbán’s chances aren’t looking as promising this time around.
Good morning! Andrew, Swin, and Prem here, with some decent news. Donald Trump opted not to try to slaughter Iran’s “whole civilization” Tuesday evening, as he had threatened. In Trump’s disturbing second term, we must take wins where we can. Who knows how long the “ceasefire” will last, but we, of course, welcome it: No more civilians should have to die just because our president is a raging idiot, sociopath, and pawn of Benjamin Netanyahu.
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ the ceasefire framework appears to be “a strategic win” for Iran, and a major loss for Trump and Netanyahu; liberals expand their majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court; and Janet Mills goes dark on the air with two months left in Maine’s Senate primary.
Don Backs Down
Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” unless its leaders agreed to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
By Tuesday evening – instead of trying to kill the 90 million people living in Iran, or bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges as he had promised – Trump announced “a double sided CEASEFIRE!” for two weeks. In doing so, Trump all but admitted the reality that his illegal war is going terribly – and Iran is winning.
“We received a 10-point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate,” the president announced on Truth Social – apparently referring to the 10-point plan that Iran had presented to the US before he threatened to murder its entire population.
Using this 10-point plan as a framework for a deal, rather than the previous American 15-point plan, is obviously a major win for Iran – which is, indeed, declaring victory. Experts and commentators see it that way, too.
“If Iran did in fact secure guarantees based on the ‘10 principles’ Trump referenced, that is not a marginal outcome, it is a strategic win for Tehran, reinforcing its narrative and positioning,” wrote Danny Citrinowicz, a former top Israeli intelligence officer who focused on Iran. As former US State Department official and veteran Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller put it, “Iran has won another round.”
Political scientist Robert A. Pape writes: “Huge strategic defeat for the US, biggest loss since Vietnam.”
The 10-point plan would allow Iran to continue its control over the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway that Iran has closed since the start of the war, stopping the flow of oil and throttling the global economy.
Just a day earlier, Trump was fantasizing about the US “charging tolls” for ships to transit the strait. Now, it looks much more likely that Iran will keep doing this instead, and that it will get to charge “a $2M fee per ship.” In another win for Iran, the plan would involve lifting “all US sanctions on Iran.”
Under Iran’s proposed framework, the US would allow Iran to continue its uranium enrichment program – which would mean folding on the entire supposed basis for Trump’s illegal war. This point was included in the Farsi version of the plan, but reportedly omitted from English versions shared by Iranian diplomats.
Some liberals will invariably revel in “TACO Trump” memes about how Trump always chickens out. But, as we reported at Zeteo on Tuesday, none of this is over. The ceasefire, as of now, is only temporary. As Trump advisers and others in the upper tiers of Trumplandia warned us, there’s still a decent chance that he escalates the war again soon.
Here’s why.