Ceasefire Over?
Multiple news sources have reported on President Trump’s declaration at the NATO summit in Ankara that the ceasefire with Iran is over. Does he really mean it? Or is it all just bluster?
With a return to talks dedicated to the nuclear question set for July 11, the answer is not insignificant. The probable reality is that they are somewhere in between: too bombastic to walk back from, and too timid to for coercion.
A Waste of Time
“It’s just a waste of time dealing with them,” The Economist reports Trump saying in Ankara. As if to poll his own reporters, he continued: perhaps America could just hit Iran “hard” again.
These threatening words came after Iranian forces struck commercial ships in three separate attacks on Monday and Tuesday, which they claimed ventured outside of their designated routes. Indeed, US bombs hit around 80 targets in response– a reprisal four or five times larger than the previous response to Iranian attacks on shipping 10 days ago, according to Axios.
Death to America
Meanwhile, thousands gathered in Tehran to mourn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The funeral had the stitches of confrontation and anti-Americanism. Mourners chanted “Death to America” and burned effigies of Trump. As multiple analysts have written in articles for Small Wars Journal, the regime that has replaced the old is no less hardline– and is buoyed by popular hatred for America after the war, even after the violence it employed in January’s protests.
For perspectives on the regime’s persistence, consider reading:
Siamak Naficy’s “The Banality of Resistance: How We Keep Misreading Iran.”
Joe Funderburke’s “We Bombed the Wrong Target”
