mine the strait, please
market vibes
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu says the winner is often not the provocateur. It is he who exhausts every possible avenue of peace first.
In that spirit, despite the intensity of warfare, casualties have been relatively bloodless in this Iranian conflict. And notwithstanding the cost in treasure and damage to infrastructure the balance of power is little changed. The IRGC is publicly dismissive after each round of negotiations and President Trump says, “they have no cards.”
I disagree
Iran holds two cards. One is the power to inflict a humanitarian crisis (at will) of historic proportions for which there is no credible defense. Desalination facilities in Israel and the GCC and critical power to operate them are ultra-soft targets. The reason Trump has not bombed Iran while multiple TACO deadlines came and went is a very real probability Iran will go all in if he ends the ceasefire and resumes the war.
It is ironic the IRGC would pay such a high price for nuclear weapons when they already have its equal in terms of mutually assured destruction. That power has been fully in force for some time. Doomberg wrote extensively about it last year. It is even more puzzling that President Trump would go to such lengths to deny them a nuclear weapon for the same obviously moot reasons.
Even so, after 47 years of terrorism, theocratic zealotry, etcetera… and 2 wars in 12 months, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continues to hold the world hostage. Two thousand vessels and over a trillion dollars in assets are trapped in service to that end. Millions of barrels of production have been curtailed. Higher prices threaten the security and economic well being of 8 billion people. The Iranian people are starving in darkness, poverty and chaos. More details on that in a minute.
If Joseph Stalin willingly condemned 27 million Russians to starvation, disease, death in battle and exposure to the elements to defeat the Germans in WW2, the IRGC is surely willing to do the same. In a nutshell the Iran conflict has devolved to a deadlock in which neither side can surrender, retreat, or win without risking mutual destruction. However, Trump has one card left to play and that is the subject of this essay unfolding tonight.
