The Empire Backs Down, For Now
Trump has announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after previously threatening to exterminate their “entire civilization”, citing “a 10 point proposal from Iran” as the reason for the climb-down.
Trump and his cronies are spinning this as a colossal victory for the United States and framing Tehran’s 10-point plan as a major capitulation to the president’s threats. But some reporters are noting that Iran has had the same terms on the table for weeks — which would mean that it is in fact the White House who is backing down.
Hours before the president’s announcement, Drop Site’s Ryan Grim posted a TikTok video arguing that Trump could save face while walking back from his apocalyptic threats by simply accepting Iran’s 10-point peace plan and acting like it’s a new proposal the Iranians had only just put forward. Grim argued that Trump could get away with this because the western media have been completely ignoring Iran’s stated terms for a ceasefire this entire time.
Interestingly, this appears to have been precisely what Trump wound up doing. After previously rejecting Iran’s proposals as “not good enough”, the president turned around and framed the Iranian offer as a brand new response to the pressures his administration was able to impose upon them.
All the way back on March 28, Drop Site News reported the following:
“Among Iran’s terms for permanently ending the war are a longterm guarantee that the U.S. and Israel will not attack Iran again and that any ceasefire also apply to Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine; reparations for the damages done to Iran during the war; sanctions relief; and that Iran retain control over the Strait of Hormuz.”
These are the same terms Iran is claiming it pressured the US to accept today. Iranian state media outlet Press TV cited Iran’s supreme national security council as saying “Iran achieved historic victory by forcing criminal US to accept its 10-point plan. US has accepted Iran’s control over Strait of Hormuz, enrichment right, removal of all sanctions.”
The New York Times reports the following:
“Two senior Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the proposal included a guarantee that Iran would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the lifting of all sanctions.
“In return, Iran would lift its de facto blockade of the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would also impose a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman, which sits across the strait. Iran would use its share of the proceeds to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by American and Israeli attacks, rather than demand direct compensation, according to the plan.”
So as things stand right now this certainly looks like a humiliating defeat for the empire. Iran gets a lot of things it didn’t have before the war, including tolling the Strait of Hormuz and relief from the US sanctions that have been crushing its economy for years, while the empire gets to resume its shipping for a hefty fee and pretend it just rescued the world from a nuclear Iran.
Quite the turnaround from a White House that just last month was saying “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, who always has great insights regarding western warmongering toward Iran, writes the following:
“I cannot emphasize this enough. A new dynamic will be at play when the US and Iran meet in Islamabad to negotiate a final deal based on Iran’s 10-point plan: Trump’s failed war has eliminated the potency of American military threats in US-Iran diplomacy. The US can still issue threats, but everyone will know that they no longer carry much weight. Essentially, war with Iran was tried and failed. As a result, negotiations will have to be based on genuine compromises from both sides, rather than coercion from either side.”
There are of course many, many reasons to be pessimistic. The US and Israel have demonstrated time and time again that they will attack Iran during negotiations, and even if the US holds up its end of the bargain we can always see Israel sabotage the deal with its own aggressions. By now Iran has to know that the only way to protect itself from Israel is to impose costs for Israeli aggression on the entire western world; Tehran will have us all heating our homes with trash fires and growing carrots in our backyards if the west can’t find a way to rein in Israel.
For what it’s worth, Zionist Twitter is in absolute meltdown right now, with notorious Israel apologists like Laura Loomer, Eve Barlow and Eli David rending their garments in outrage that the killing has ended with Iran positioned as it is. I’m as skeptical about this ceasefire as anyone, but the fact that the world’s worst people are in meltdown about it right now does provide a faint glimmer of hope.
We shall see.
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Iran has stated that this is NOT a ceasefire but that as long as the US and Israel don't fire at them, they will not fire at the duo either. However if either of the demonic twins fires at Iran, they will in turn retaliate harder than what they received. It's a negotiation phase and fire or not is dependent on the good behaviour of dumb and Dumber...
They are just pushing out the inevitable. Israel and the US have a track record of ignoring agreements and violating ceasefires and it is almost 100% certain they will do so now too. Remember, technically there is a Gaza ceasefire yet Israel continues to murder dozens each day.
There is no way the US will agree to pay millions in tolls and billions in reparations and allow them to enrich Uranium and remove sanctions. That's fantasy. This is a tactical pause so the US and Israel can regroup and rearm while avoiding an economic meltdown. My guess is Israel will, in a surprise attack, drop a nuke even if just tactical ones, on Iran. Either in 2 weeks or a year but they will do it. Given that they now seem to agree to the ceasefire, I am almost certain a sneak attack in the dark of night is the plan.
Domestically, no one is gonna impeach Trump and even on the off chance that it happens, there’s no scenario where 2/3rds of Congress votes to convict. That’s simply not how this system operates.
Trump is what happens when assholes like Pelosi and Obama refuse to hold war criminals accountable and normalize impunity - waving off war crimes as something to “move past”.
Trump didn’t break that system; he walked straight through it. That very impunity that let Bush and Co off the hook, and even rehabilitated them, with everyone's darling Michelle Obama sharing a gum with him like he was her BFF, has emboldened Trump; just as the impunity towards him now will embolden his successor.