"Just Sit Back and Relax"
The Iran crisis deepens.
Iran has suspended negotiations with the United States. Missile exchanges between Iran and American forces continue. The Strait of Hormuz remains in crisis. Energy prices are rising. Global tensions are escalating. Confusion appears to be growing inside both the White House and the Pentagon.
The result is exactly where Donald’s illegal and unconstitutional war of choice with Iran was always likely to lead: a deepening strategic stalemate marked by rising costs, fractured leadership, and no clear path toward de-escalation.
As of this week, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that Iran has stopped all dialogue and exchanges through mediators. The reason given was Israel’s ongoing strikes in Lebanon. Iran has also moved to block the Strait of Hormuz again. Meanwhile, late on the night of May 31, two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting U.S. troops in Kuwait were intercepted by American forces.
This follows a Situation Room meeting last week that lasted more than two hours and produced no announcement, no agreement, and no apparent progress of any kind.
Naturally, Donald responded with one of his trademark social media posts. Early Monday morning, he assured everybody that there was nothing to worry about.
This is what Donald posted:
Iran really wants to make a deal and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us. But don’t the Dumocrats and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans understand that it’s much tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate when political hacks keep negatively chirping at levels never seen before over and over again that I should move faster or move slower or go to war or not go to war or whatever. Just sit back and relax. It will all work out well in the end. It always does.
Says the man who is wrong about almost everything, lies about almost everything, and somehow manages to make nearly every situation worse.
The fact that Iran keeps walking away from negotiations suggests something Donald refuses to acknowledge. Iran is not in a hurry because it understands something he does not: it has the leverage. Donald continues to insist that he holds all the cards. Iran’s actions suggest it believes otherwise.
As for the instruction that we should all “sit back and relax,” an American service member and a British service member were killed on Monday because of Donald’s war.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted online that the ceasefire between Iran and the United States applies across all fronts, including Lebanon, and warned that the United States and Israel would bear responsibility for any violations. At the same time, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as “repeated Iranian attacks” and reserved the right to take whatever measures it deemed necessary to defend itself.
It is worth remembering that while the Iranian regime is indeed an authoritarian regime, the United States attacked Iran. Iran, like any country under attack, has the right to defend itself and its people.
Meanwhile, oil prices continue to climb.
After widespread criticism that he had effectively offered Iran a deal more favorable than Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Donald attempted to toughen his negotiating position. The revised proposal demanded stricter limits on Iran’s nuclear materials before any agreement could move forward.
Iran was unimpressed.
Its Foreign Ministry accused the United States of constantly changing its position and introducing contradictory demands that naturally prolong negotiations. That assessment should sound familiar. The key sticking points, according to CBS News and The New York Times, remain the removal of highly enriched uranium from Iran and Iran’s demand to charge transit fees for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz once it reopens.
The United States says the fees are unacceptable.
Iran says they are non-negotiable.
And on June 1, Iran simply walked away from the table.
That is how little urgency Iran feels. More importantly, it demonstrates how clearly Iranian leaders understand who is actually driving events right now. It is not Donald Trump.
Despite repeated claims by the Trump regime that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was obliterated, international monitors estimate that Iran still possesses more than 970 pounds of near weapons-grade uranium.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, however, appears to believe the real problem lies elsewhere.
Hegseth: The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.
Apparently, the greatest threat facing the United States is not an escalating regional war, rising energy prices, global instability, or deteriorating alliances.
It is criticism of the Trump regime.
That level of incompetence would be funny if the consequences were not so serious.
The administration’s drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has pushed emergency oil stockpiles to their lowest level in more than forty years. Current reserves sit at roughly 365 to 375 million barrels, near early-1980s levels and barely above half of total capacity.
That means the United States has less emergency protection than almost any point in modern history while actively burning through those reserves in an effort to stabilize markets during a war Donald started.
Economists warn that replenishing those reserves will be expensive, slow, and politically difficult. Even if the immediate crisis ends, the long-term vulnerability will remain. That is one more reason not to believe promises that prices will rapidly return to normal once the Strait of Hormuz reopens. They will not.
According to Fortune, energy executives warn that prices could surge within weeks as inventories approach historically low levels. While Brent crude prices have fallen from their recent peaks, they remain more than $25 per barrel higher than they were before the war began.
The Brookings Institution predicts significant price increases the longer the conflict continues. Donald insists that Iran is in a weak position. Experts disagree.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that Iran’s strategy has been to absorb pressure, impose costs, and shift the center of gravity outward. By those measures, Iran is succeeding.
As I have said repeatedly, Iran is now in a stronger position than it occupied before Donald attacked it. The United States has burned through difficult-to-replace munitions. European and Asian allies face growing shortages. Rising gas, fertilizer, and energy costs are damaging economies worldwide and increasing the likelihood of a global recession.
And when that recession comes, the United States will almost certainly bear much of the blame because the United States, and specifically Donald Trump, created this crisis.
The result is increased anti-American sentiment across the globe and a growing reluctance among allies to cooperate with us at precisely the moment when cooperation is most needed.
Yet Donald continues pretending otherwise.
Donald: Iran is in a very bad position. They have no military. All they have is good talk and they have a fake press. The fake news is probably their biggest asset.
At this point, it is fair to wonder whether Donald is describing himself.
The only thing keeping him afloat is a press corps that too often treats obvious falsehoods as legitimate political arguments. He does not have the facts. He does not have the leverage. He is operating from a position of weakness while continuing to put lives at risk.
Perhaps most disturbing of all was a recent interview with NBC in which Donald was asked about the ongoing negotiations.
His response was breathtaking.
Donald: I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less.
He then added that the discussions were becoming “very boring.”
That is the level of seriousness Donald brings to the war he started.
He does not care because he is incapable of caring. He is an incompetent toddler who constantly requires entertainment. Right now, his attention appears divided between his absurd White House ballroom project and his determination to transform America’s 250th birthday celebration into a monument to himself.
Meanwhile, people are dying, global markets are destabilizing, and the world continues paying the price for Donald’s recklessness.
And his advice to the rest of us is simply to sit back and relax.
Thanks, Mary. Another well written summary of our current mess.
Donald always claims to hold all the cards. Problem is that he doesn't know which card game he is playing.