When I went to bed last night, the stories of the announced ceasefire with Iran were already starting to fray. By this morning, it was clear that Israel had not been consulted on the deal and was continuing to bomb Lebanon. US and Iranian media acknowledged conflicting understandings of the terms, with Trump claiming that the Strait of Hormuz had been opened and Iran saying that it wasn't, yet. Trump thought that Iran would give up its missiles, Iran didn't agree. And so on. It was reported that JD Vance was going to participate in negotiations, but at one point the White House said he wasn't, for security reasons. As with the war, disentangling the confusion and lies was an uphill struggle.
Today on NPR's Morning Edition, their White House Correspondent Franco Ordoñez told their resident Hoosier Steve Inskeep:
It's, of course, never a bad thing to kind of avoid the dire scenario that Trump was describing. But by backing down, Trump also, you know, risked damaging his own credibility. I mean, he's likely to face some criticism, even more so now that, you know, he has a reputation of backing down from some of his most flattening rhetoric.
Donald Trump has no credibility to begin with. Anyone who believes what he says (and NPR still gives him credence most of the time) discredits himself immediately.
Unfortunately, though, Ordoñez was correct that Trump is facing criticism. Jon Schwarz wrote on Twitter that "There's a very real chance the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee will attack Trump for the Iran war — from the right, because he didn't 'finish the job'". He linked to a Democratic Senator from New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen, who'd complained "Iran still has 50% of their missile capacity. They still have enriched uranium. And they still control the Strait of Hormuz. The President had no credible strategy going into this war, and it's clear he still doesn't have one to accomplish the goals he set out."
Senator Chris Murphy, D-CT, also was upset:
It appears Trump just agreed to give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, a history-changing win for Iran. The level of incompetence is both stunning and heartbreaking. What on earth is happening?
Iran already had control of the Strait of Hormuz. The US has no claim on it. But Murphy, like some other Democrats, supports Trump's illegal war; he only wants it to be run "competently." The most pressing need is not to prolong the war, but to end it. The US and Israel are the aggressors, and they have already done enormous harm to human lives, not to mention the world economy.
I have a special contempt for Murphy, since he posted in 2020 that Trump had interfered with his plan to overthrow the government of Venezuela and install a crooked US collaborator:
Then, it got real embarrassing. In April 2019, we tried to organize a kind of coup, but it became a debacle. Everyone who told us they’d rally to Guaido got cold feet and the plan failed publicly and spectacularly, making America look foolish and weak.
Notice the words I put in boldface: "a kind of coup." Murphy bragged in public that he'd conspired to stage a coup in another nation, which has to be some kind of violation of international and other law. He suffered no consequences for this, of course. Now he wants to prolong a war that should, in a halfway sane world, put its perpetrators in the Hague for crimes against humanity. The US isn't entitled to demand concessions from its victims. Yes, Trump is incompetent and stupid, but refraining from destroying another country, however clumsily he's doing it, should be supported rather than undermined. Yes, the Iranian regime is evil, but so is Chris Murphy, and so are the other pols and pundits who like Trump's war but think they should be in charge of it.
