It may never be known whether Trump assumed that conventional bombing of Iran would produce a Venezuela-like outcome, with the regime collapsing and agreeing to do Trump’s bidding, or not. But what has become overwhelmingly clear, long before Trump’s surrender to Iran, was that there was no consideration of what Iran would do with the Strait of Hormuz or Plan B strategy if the regime survived.
Perhaps it would have gone smoother had Trump focused on a goal in advance of an unlawful war rather than throw things against the wall and see what would stick, thereby being able to sell the war to Americans as worth the cost, in terms of lives and money. It surely would have gone better had Trump not blathered about how we won, we decimated Iran (as opposed to obliterated their nuclear program a few months earlier), how Iran was nice to him and agreed to everything he wanted. And oh yeah, how he was in control of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical international waterway that was open to all before he started the war and was now closed, whether by Iran, the United States or both.
Then came the surrender, the Memorandum of Understanding crafted by the brilliant international diplomat, Steve Witcoff, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who has no official role in government but is busy soliciting money for his hedge fund, and the Vice President, J.D. Vance, who did everything in his power to dissociate himself from responsibility because “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies.” It was doomed, lasting for a few hours before the bombs began and the ships stopped. No one expected otherwise.
When confronted with this scenario, there are a few options on the table.
- Do nothing.
- Make it better.
- Make it worse.
Trump declared the ceasefire is over and recommenced bombing, lack of congressional approval notwithstanding, stockpiles of armaments heading toward depletion and costs mounting. And Trump, being Trump, kept digging. After calling the Iranians “scum” and “sick,” something that always helps when seeking a diplomatic way out of a debacle, Trump dug even further.
How this will be explained in light of Little Marco Rubio’s earlier, and correct, statement that it is contrary to international law to charge tolls remains something of a mystery.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the Strait of Hormuz: “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway.” pic.twitter.com/BOBBfiDN43
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 23, 2026
Will Trump re-evaluate his impetuous claim to 20% of the value of good traveling through the Strait of Hormuz after being informed that it’s neither lawful nor something he has the authority to do? Has he ever admitted error before? Sure, he’s smarter than all the generals, not to mention everyone else, if he does say so himself, but even a stable genius can make a mistake. But it takes a bigger person than Trump to admit it.
Now that he’s made this wild if unlawful and ultra vires claim, atop his many other adventures in warfighting, has he dug himself into a hole too deep to get out? Is there any strategy that will enable the United States to end this war? Will more bombing produce a different result than bombing did before? Can the Strait of Hormuz ever return to its former status as a free and open international waterway now that Iran knows it can close it at will, and force the world to either fight it or drop to its knees?
Has Trump foreclosed any possibility of a diplomatic end, whether surrender with or without honor, because of his mercurial moods and unrestrained impulse to play the tough guy? How does this disastrous war end? How does Trump back down from his wild if ridiculous claims of victory and mastery, having left himself no room to pretend he has not lost his war of choice? Or will he just pretend that none of this ever happened, confident that the MAGA faithful will shut their eyes very tightly and believe him despite every fact to the contrary?
Where do we go from here?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
We will soon learn the answer to all these questions. Our leader will be addressing the nation Thursday. Possibly to declare complete and total victory for a second time, and possibly to magnanimously reduce the 20 percent toll to 10 percent (now they will have to give him the Nobel Peace Price!) stay tuned.
Technically, the stable genius is charging an escort fee, not a toll. I am at the point of wondering whether his real “war aim” all along has been simply to manipulate commodity markets, conferring vast fortunes on those with the inside information to time their trades.
The administration seems to think that might makes right. They’ve not learned the lesson that might is not always enough as illustrated by the American Revolution, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, and, more recently, Gaza and Ukraine.
1. Cease all US combat operations. Announce a pause even though you expect the pause to be permanent. Reconnaissance can continue.
2. Consistent with the following, move all US assets out the reach of Iranian forces. Though diplomatic channels, assure Iran that any attack on American assets will be met with an outsize reprisal.
3. Inform Iran that, in return for the American pause, we expect Iran to immediately permit free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Also, we expect that, within a reasonable time, Iran will facilitate open passage for all shipping in international waters in the Strait and elsewhere consistent with international law. This includes clearing all mines.
4. Remind Iran that the USA has long been a champion of Freedom Of The Seas using naval power when necessary.
We offered them essentially that plus $300 billion, and they said no.
Also, how are we going to use naval power to protect freedom of the seas if we are removing all assets from the area?
This proposed solution falls into the clear, simple, and wrong category.
Sure, but how does this make Trump money?
There may be one way out, but Donnie won’t wanna go out that door.
Twofer Tuesday.
We concede and pay the Iranians off rather than throw good money after bad, securing the openness of the Strait which everyone now knows for certain Iran controls well enough. This action requires humility and the rejection of the sunk cost fallacy. What we expended to this point matters not. What we expend today and tomorrow does.
Alternatively we mobilize about 1-2 million soldiers and all the people and material required to support them for a long campaign. The people who predicted our current pickle also predict the immense investment in blood and stuff it would require to conquer the populous and mountainous country. Alternatively we could deploy part of the nuclear arsenal and really accelerate the world to doomsday. Even should we conquer the country conventionally, the guerilla war in the mountains would never end.
The very second we begin to move that much shit over there everyone will know about it. Iran will dig in and relish killing our young people. We’ll have a new graveyard of empires maybe.
I’d like to think my fellow citizens wouldn’t suffer such open barbarism, but I don’t pretend to know which way the winds blow anymore. The only solace is Trump isn’t beating the drum like history teaches is necessary to whip a population up into a frenzy for war.
The unthinkable is probably much more thinkable—much too thinkable to my way of thinking—than previously thought.
An immature kid who has played a lousy game of Risk might well flip the board over and send the pieces flying. What might that kid do as President?
It’s sad–and I say that genuinely, not just for dramatic effect–that given Trump et al’s behavior, my immediate impulse when reading the US resumed attacking Iran, was not to think about what the murderous anti-semitic terrorist-supporting neighbor-attacking civilian-killing nuclear-developing Iranian regime had done to violate the ceasefire, but to assume that they were more in the right than America, and Trump got bored and attacked them for no particular reason.
As the people who have seen combat warned…
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder.
“No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main force”.
Religious fanatics don’t care if you kill them, their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, and everyone out to third cousins.
You will have to kick in doors and kill every male in the house, including infants.
And they will still fight you.
There is no longer a central government to surrender and they wouldn’t do it anyway. The country is broken into tribes now and each tribe has a piece of military equipment and will use it as they see fit.
The solution? I say keep beating the nuke sites as they develop and do what is necessary to keep anything from going into or out of the country. Totally destroy their infrastructure. Will innocents die? Of course, it’s a war.
How long can we maintain it? I don’t know.
And I’m still very worried about them using a dirty bomb. At that point all bets are off. Israel’s unspoken nuke policy is to use them only if the very existence of their country is threatened. Would a dirty bomb launched into Tel Aviv do it? I don’t know and don’t want to find out.
I suspect my grandchildren will still be dealing with the situation.
I really want to like you despite what horrendous things you think. I mean quoting von Moltke automatically endears you to me. What you’re failing to realize here is that the Iranians have gone to ground. Our bunker busters can only do so much against physics.
On destroying infrastructure we should go after their water supply first. Many innocents will die from thirst but no doubt the regime will prefer to give what water there is not to their supporters first but fairly to everyone. What will such merciless conduct birth if not even more fanatical warriors bent on killing your grandchildren? They don’t have enough water though. If you take morality off the table, I say hit that hard. If you take morality off the table, I say nuke them and be done with it. I’m leaving morality on the table.
If anyone launches a nuke or uses a dirty bomb, everything changes and the world as we knew it is over. We must avoid this at all costs. I can’t emphasize this enough. That door won’t shut again. I’m worried too.
Your disparagement of Marco Rubio is disheartening because I have held your blog in high esteem for the last 16 years. He is the best man on the Right. You are a good man on the Left. I shall leave it at that.
Best man on the New Right is a terribly low bar to clear. Not sure Scott really qualifies as “left,” either.
Pretty sure it was Trump who coined the name “Little Marco,” not Scott. Scott commonly uses such names to note how this was another person who Trump ridiculed, and not as a commentary on Rubio. Put the blame where it belongs.
Don’t leave it at that. Be brave and bold and stand up for your man on the “Right.” Also explain why Scott is on the “Left.” I’m legitimately curious at what your reasoning might be. The best man on the right still isn’t the groom. What of the leading man?