"False Hopes For A False Peace?"
by Leo Hohmann
"The U.S. and Iran have reportedly agreed to an “immediate and permanent” end to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, theoretically putting an end to three and a half months of on again, off again hostilities. While the details remain sketchy, Iran will reportedly agree not to develop nuclear weapons, will be allowed to retain its large missile arsenal, and will have billions in frozen assets returned to the country, though it’s not clear in what form.
This is making the American neocons and Israel-firsters in furious, as they wanted Trump to keep fighting Iran for as long as it takes to dislodge the regime and install an American-Israeli puppet government in Tehran. Watching them all turn on Trump, who until now was viewed as their messianic savior who could do no wrong, is amusing to say the least. Folks like Mark Levin at Fox News anointed Trump “the first Jewish President” of the United States for his loyalty to Israel.
Trump spent $75 billion and tanked the U.S. economy for Israel, launching a war that drove up energy and food prices, caused shortages of fertilizer that could result in famine, and cost America 13 lives, with upwards of 250 wounded. All for Israel.
As long as he was attacking Israel’s enemy Iran, Trump was seen as a popular war hero and they would defend anything he did, including some pretty nefarious moves in the realm of advancing the U.S. technocracy with 6G and thousands of AI data surveillance centers being built across America. But now that he’s showed he wants to halt the bombing of Iran, they hate him. They have once again proven that the term “Israel first,” is not hyperbole. It’s what they stand for. These people and their leaders in Congress are not pro-American in any sense.
President Trump hailed his “deal” saying the Strait of Hormuz would open immediately and “oil would begin to flow.” The oil markets immediately reacted, with the price per barrel dropping by $4 a gallon Monday to the lowest point since the war began on Feb. 28. The stock market soared.
A “memorandum of understanding” is scheduled to be signed Friday in Switzerland. There’s just one problem. One of the three parties to the war is having none of it. Government leaders in the state of Israel, which partnered with the U.S. to launch an unprovoked war against Iran based on decades-old rumors that it was “weeks away” from developing a nuclear weapon, have said they are not going to sign Trump’s peace deal.
Israeli far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Monday delivered his first public reaction to the peace deal between Washington and Tehran. News Channel 24 in Israel reported that Ben-Gvir denounced the U.S.-Iran agreement to end the war, including in Lebanon: “Trump’s agreement does not bind us… It does not safeguard our security,” he said on his Telegram channel, in what marked the first response from an Israeli official to the agreement. In case anyone was confused, Ben-Gvir addressed the Lebanon issue in his statement, saying, “My position is clear: We are not partners to this agreement that does not ensure our security, and it does not bind us in any way.”
It’s possible that the Israelis are putting forth a hardline for the press in their own country while quietly agreeing to at least tone down the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. But it’s more likely that they are unhappy with Trump for stopping the war in the absence of a regime change in Iran, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly and unapologetically stated was his goal for the war. If it’s the latter case, then this peace deal has no chance of success. Israel will blow it up at a time of its choosing.
Netanyahu also denounced Trump’s deal and rejected a Lebanon-related provision included in it, saying Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon and does not consider itself bound by the clause, according to Israeli media reports. The reports also suggest that Netanyahu has sought an urgent meeting with Trump, as the Israeli leader wants to “clarify and communicate Israel’s positions in the negotiations” during the proposed meeting.
President Trump seems to really want to end to this war, which never went according to the rosy predictions given to him by Netanyahu and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. They told Trump in a Feb. 11 White House meeting that Iran’s Islamic regime was weak, that it was ripe for a fall and could be easily toppled with a few days or weeks of bombing strikes. That turned out to be bad advice and Trump got in over his head. Bombing raids alone cannot topple a firmly entrenched government with a large military like Iran. It would require a full-scale ground invasion, which Trump was apparently never in favor of launching because even that could not guarantee victory.
The truth is that Iran never needed a nuclear weapon to be a power in the Middle East. It has an economic nuclear bomb in the Strait of Hormuz, which it proved it could keep closed for a very long time while absorbing any bombing attacks and economic sanctions the U.S. and Israel heaped upon it.
Yet, Netanyahu is unlikely to give up his dream of regime change in Tehran. He will continue to act like the petulant schoolboy who doesn’t get his way, trying his best to continue stoking tensions and instigating a renewed war effort from his partners in Washington. He talks tough about Israel being able to take its security measures into its own hands if Washington refuses to help, but that’s all bluster. Netanyahu knows he cannot win a war with Iran without U.S. participation. The Washington Times also reported: “Israel signaled Monday it has no intentions of stopping combat operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, despite the U.S.-Iran deal promising a ceasefire on all fronts.”
The question going forward is, will Trump end up bending to the will of Netanyahu and restarting the war, or will Netanyahu be reined in by Trump? Knowing where the Trump-Vance team gets its financial support, I would bet that Trump will blink first, and renew his attacks on Iran before his term in office ends. And any peace deal that gets signed will be temporary at best. Whether it’s a few weeks, a few months, or another year, this war will restart after both sides have regrouped and rearmed.
There is also the question of the Epstein files being reopened if Trump doesn’t capitulate to the Israel lobby. Trump really finds himself backed into a corner, and he has no one to blame but himself because he shouldn’t have agreed in the first place to attack a sovereign country that posed no threat to the United States. On his own admission, he chose to launch the war for the benefit of Israel and the U.S.’s Arab allies in the Gulf region. It’s never a good policy to go to war for another country’s interests.
In order for peace to take hold, you need willing peace partners. Neither Israel nor Iran are going to bury the hatchet of hate they have for each other anytime soon. That makes peace in the Middle East virtually impossible, but U.S. involvement makes the possibility greater for an even more devastating war that if it just stayed out of it and let these two nations solve their own differences.
I do hope Trump is able to wiggle out of this situation, redeam his presidency and regain American sovereignty for American interests, but I can’t say I’m optimistic that will happen. If it did, he could put this war behind him and actually concentrate on fixing America’s many internal problems."
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