I was going to send out a post about Trump really, really wanting to touch the hot stove of bombing Iranian power infrastructure, and having them retaliate by blowing up oil fields, but looks like someone took away Grandpa’s car keys:
The US president, Donald Trump, has said he has instructed the defence department to postpone all airstrikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period. This is subject to the “success” of ongoing “meetings and discussions”, he said in a Truth Social post.
Trump said that, over the last two days, Washington and Tehran had “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East”.
Trump said on Saturday that he was giving Iran 48 hours – until shortly before midnight GMT on Monday – to open the strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway effectively being blocked by Iran which carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
Tehran said it would “irreversibly destroy” essential infrastructure across the Middle East, including vital water systems, if the US followed through on Trump’s threat.
Iran also said it would hit power plants in all areas that supply electricity to American bases, “as well as the economic, industrial and energy infrastructures in which Americans have shares.”
Iranians deny talks. I believe them. What happened here is obvious: Trump, as usual, overplayed his hand, the Iranians showed their strength in the Gulf, and now Trump is frantically searching for an exit. This might all change in a few days when the Iranians keep showing their strength, but for now, Trump has avoided doing something that would destroy the world economy for years.
Last night, I watched the latest What’s Going on With Shipping video from Sal Mercogliano, and Sal’s rough estimate was that if the war ended immediately, it would take at least 20 weeks for trade to return to normal.
As much as trump bullies and yells, the oil markets probably aren’t going to bounce back the instant the war is over. There’s too much disruption already. So we’re going into a summer with $4/gallon gas and $6/gallon diesel, which also means that everything that’s transported by diesel-powered transport (which is, basically, everything) is going to get more expensive.
Speaking of expensive, in case you missed it, Greg Sargent interviewed Rep Adam Smith on his podcast last Friday, and Smith had the right response about the $200 billion request to fund the war.
Might there be a couple of Democrats who support it? One of the arguments is, well, even if you don’t support the war, we’ve gone to war, we’ve done it—don’t we have to pay for it? You know, forgive me, but fuck that. OK. If you want to pay for it, I’m going to raise taxes. You want to raise taxes? I can have that conversation. The idea that we’re going to dig into the rest of the budget—we’re cutting Medicaid, food stamps, we’re cutting all of these programs—and then we’re going to pull $200 billion aside on top of a $1.5 trillion defense budget? Hell no. No Democrat should vote for this. And I hope the Republicans who care about fiscal responsibility will stand up and say no. But it’s a tough call. And then you get into the whole 60 votes in the Senate—did they get rid of the filibuster? I think it’s going to be really difficult to pull through this amount of money.
Sargent: Now just to be clear, Congressman—you’re a “hell no” on any new funding for the war, right? Isn’t that a position Democrats should be for at this point?
Smith: Yes. Yes. And once he stops this war, if you want to have a conversation about things that we need to pay for, fine. But then if you’re going to have that conversation, I’m not taking it out of the hide of all of these programs that are so important to my constituents. Put the goddamn taxes back on the table. You want war, you want a military this size, then fucking pay for it.
It is just so—as you can tell, it makes me angry thinking about all these Republicans running around saying, We’ve got to have a tough defense, we’ve got to have a strong defense. $4 trillion tax cut? I mean, there are stories out now about the billionaires—there was a story about Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and how many billionaires are showing up there—because all of these tax cuts have minted hundreds of new billionaires since 2017, so that we can all go into debt by $40 trillion and cut Medicaid? Bullshit. We should have a different approach to this.
Smith is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, so this is someone with a powerful position, not a back bencher.
