The Fail in Two Cities
D, D, and T go badly wrong
In DC, Donald Trump is taking victory laps for a deal with Iran but it is really the walk of shame. He is also taking it in the head from the bloodthirsty loons who for weeks have been screaming for an invasion and see this deal as a failure, but that is another story.
The agreement with Iran gives Trump literally nothing the Americans wanted before fighting broke out. It gives Iran more than it could dream of. As Friday wore on, the White House spin machine revved and that noise drowned out the wails as attention turned from the shitshow inside the White House to the shitshow Don set up on the lawn to celebrate Himself.
No American has yet hit on the obvious - except maybe Bill Kristol - that the giant thunderdome or whatever it is on the White House lawn is not merely a symbol of America the Wasteland it is under Donald Trump and Markwayne Mullin and Mike Johnson but the embodiment of it. Not metaphor. Is. This is UGC, the ultimate grifting collective, gathering to further the con with UFC as a prop to distract and dazzle and confuse the marks, from the media to the MAGA masses. All the symbols of America, from Lincoln to the reflecting pool to the White House itself, reduced to set dressing for Trump’s reality TV show spectacle, The Real Grifters of DC.
The Iran deal also embodies the Trump-era America, one that will not disappear when he does. Weakened. Badly weakened. Born of incompetence shot through the top-most tiers of government, the military, industry, and society. Makes Keir Starmer look competent, such is the depth of Starmer’s irrelevance, inadequacy, and ineptness. As a legion of defence grifters shout for blood and scream that no sovereign state, for them Iran, has a right to do anything it wants - do you see the absurdity of such a thought? - American forces will leave the countries around Iran and the waters offshore, lift the blockade, unfreeze Iranian assets, and pay reparations of at least $300 billion to rebuild Iran.
The United States is in full retreat in the Middle East, in full retreat from Europe, in full retreat in Canada, cowering in the face of China and Russia. Whatever happens to the piles of dust and fluff the Iranians could turn into a nuclear weapon, the fact the regime is alive, has lots of cash, and is regionally much stronger than it was before Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump attacked means any effort to control its nuclear ambitions comes with a nod and a wink. Ce n’est pas «apres moi, le deluge.» C’est «a cause de moi».
What broke Donald Trump’s back was oil. Once the initial attacks stopped and the Iranians closed the Hormuz strait, the Americans spent all their energy and their oil reserves keeping global prices down. They pretended they had power. Some 37 or 38 claims of an imminent peace deal timed for the markets. The “blockade” was a sieve. In the end, the Yanks simply ran out of options as reserves globally hit levels not seen since the turn of the century. The attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure at the end - including the destruction of two water plants - are not only war crimes, they show the American frustration and impotence as much as they were a distraction. A flurry of explosions so Trump could claim victory, look strong, even as he conceded defeat. Only the UGC grifters and their marks were fooled.
Trump may pretend to wag the dog for American television but everyone else can see Don is just Tehran’s bitch.
