Whatever inspired President Donald Trump to not unleash an even more severe bombing campaign against Iran on Tuesday night — and possibly commit scores of war crimes by obliterating civilian infrastructure in the process — a two-week ceasefire is a positive, if short-term, development. But this should not be celebrated as some kind of victory for America or for the Iranian people, who remain under the yoke of a sadistic theocracy.
Over and over in recent days, Trump has pledged to bomb Iranian power plants and infrastructure as part of a mighty American military campaign. In his zeal to project the U.S.’ “strength,” however, Trump’s actions on Tuesday have signaled something else entirely: a weak and unstable leader who has done irreparable damage to America’s reputation and the global order. Among the most befuddling developments: Why did Trump declare Iran’s “10 point proposal” (brokered through Pakistani mediators) “not good enough” on Monday, but suddenly a “workable basis on which to negotiate” on Tuesday? And how can Trump claim to have fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz when Iran still controls it?
This should not be celebrated as some kind of victory for America or for the Iranian people, who remain under the yoke of a sadistic theocracy.
Trump’s evolution on Tuesday was a global spectacle, starting with a social media post warning that a “whole civilization will die tonight” to another post, hours before his self-imposed deadline, about a “double-sided CEASEFIRE” if Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared on X later on Tuesday, “This is a victory for the United States that President Trump and our incredible military made happen.”
But it’s Iran’s rulers and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — among the world’s most prolific sponsors of terrorism — who can lay a plausible claim to victory, simply by living to stare down the global superpower for another day.
By essentially shutting down the Strait of Hormuz at the relatively low cost of blowing up a few oil tankers, Trump’s likely illegal war has arguably gifted the Iranian regime unprecedented clout as a regional power. Iranian leaders seem to understand this, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that the regime’s Supreme National Security Council’s peace plan includes “the regulated passage through the Strait of Hormuz under the coordination of the Armed Forces of Iran, thereby conferring upon Iran a unique economic and geopolitical standing.”
When MS NOW asked the White House on Tuesday for more details on the 10-point plan, an official replied, “We do not negotiate in the press. As President Trump said, the 10 point document is a workable starting point.”
But some of the plan’s details have been reported. According to The New York Times, one of Iran’s proposals is lifting the blockade of Hormuz while imposing “a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman, which sits across the strait.” Before the war began in late February, roughly 150 ships passed through the strait daily.
If this “workable basis on which to negotiate,” as Trump put it, is implemented, it could amount to a windfall of nearly $55 billion per year for Iran’s terror-sponsoring, dissident-murdering dictatorship.
For those counting at home, $55 billion is a lot more than the $1.7 billion Iran got from agreeing to a nuclear deal with the Obama administration. Trump has complained for years about that cash transfer, which settled an arbitration dispute between the U.S. and Iran that predated the Islamic Republic’s existence. This enraged critics of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was summarily scuttled by the Trump administration in 2018. (Trump even mentioned the $1.7 billion figure in his address to the nation last week about his war of choice against Iran.)
So while there is some good news, Americans can breathe a sigh of relief that unspeakable war crimes aren’t being committed against Iranian citizens in our name, we should not lose sight of the big picture: Our commander-in-chief has given us another reason to doubt his leadership, his mental acuity and his basic decency. Trump’s war has killed many civilians, upended the post-World War II international order and potentially made the Iranian regime a lot richer. I’m not feeling any safer. Are you?
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.