"A Complete Strategic Failure"

Trump cannot un-ring the bell.

We have peace in our time. For now. So, this is good news.

But, as Phillips O’Brien notes, Trump’s climb-down from Armageddon was not a TACO — it was a complete strategic defeat. Despite the predictable bluster and claims of “complete and total victory,” Trump abandoned his war objectives and left Iran in a stronger strategic position than before the war began.

The mood today is understandably one of relief, and the markets will rally. But we do not know whether this shaky arrangement will hold, or how much damage has already been done.

Because some things once said cannot be unsaid. A bell cannot be un-rung.

Yesterday, the man who controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal bleated out a threat of genocide, war crime, and civilizational erasure.

This is the way the monsters of history speak. And that is how we were seen.

In the distant mists of time, conservatives used to understand that character was destiny, that ideas have consequences, and that words matter. At one time, they recognized that America was “exceptional”, not because we have the biggest biceps, or bristling arsenals of missiles, but because of what we represented. Frequently falling short of our ideals, the United States was nevertheless an aspirational symbol.

If it was not always “a shining city on the hill,” it nevertheless remained a symbol of hope, freedom, and decency.

What are we of symbol of now?

In a different more rational world, the United States could have had the Free World on our side. We could have had the Iranian people see us as a force for liberation and dignity. Instead, the man who wields the cudgel of American power openly threatened that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

If those words had been spoken by Vladimir Putin, we would have recoiled in horror. But they came from the President of the United States.

It was not simply the ugliest face of the Ugly American, it felt like a tectonic shift in the way America speaks and the way it will inevitably be viewed by the rest of the world.

“An American president threatening the death of an ancient civilization,” wrote author and former diplomat Richard Stengel, “is in some ways the end of the 250-year moral experiment of a constitutional republic that the framers saw as a model for all mankind.”

For hours yesterday, a stunned world was held hostage by American whim.

The moral shock was so great that it caused the Pope to take the extraordinary step of pleading with the American people to call their congressional representatives to push back against the madness.

Pope Leo again described the conflict as unjust.

He said the war “is continuing to escalate” and “is not resolving anything,” tying the fighting to a wider portrait of global disorder — a worldwide economic crisis, an energy crisis, and instability across the Middle East that he said is “only provoking more hatred throughout the world.”

Leo then suggested Trump is committing war crimes by reminding the world that attacks on civilian infrastructure violate international law and called such attacks a sign of “the hatred, the division, the destruction that the human being is capable of.” The innocent, he said — children, the elderly, the sick — would continue to be counted among the victims of this war.

Because we suffer from a collective national amnesia, our temptation will be to quickly memory-hole Trump’s threat along with the rest of the president’s verbal incontinence and move on.

But the world is unlikely to forget how dangerous the United States has become.

So now let’s talk about Trump’s surrender….

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“Iran is in a much stronger strategic position than it was on February 27, 2026”

In his first interviews after backing down from his threat to erase a 7000 year old civilization, Trump hailed his deal as a “Complete Victory”.

It will not surprise you to learn that this is complete bullshit. Writes Phillips O’Brien this morning:

If this indeed is the end of the war and that Iranian plan is the basis of a deal, it makes this if not the longest war in US history, the most pointless and a complete waste. Iran looks on the verge of emerging stronger, with the ability to generate massive new income, while the US looks, in a word, a busted flush.

This is no run of the mill TACO. This is complete US strategic failure.

We can start with the 10-point plan, which is so gobsmacking that analysts spent hours trying to figure out if it could possibly be real, because it seems to codify an extraordinary Iranian victory. The Wall Street Journal breaks down the details.

1. The U.S. must fundamentally commit to guaranteeing non-aggression.

2. Continuation of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.

3. Acceptance that Iran can enrich uranium for its nuclear program.

4. Removal of all primary sanctions on Iran.

5. Removal of all secondary sanctions against foreign entities that do business with Iranian institutions.

6. End of all United Security Council resolutions targeting Iran.

7. End of all International Atomic Energy Agency resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program.

8. Compensation payment to Iran for war damage.

9. Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region.

10. Cease-fire on all fronts, including Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The appropriate response to this is: WTAF? No regime change. No denuclearization. A green light for Iran to enrich uranium. (!!?) Iran keeps control of the Hormuz Strait. a US withdrawal. Compensation to Iran for war damage. The lifting of all sanctions against Iran.

That’s not all, notes, O’Brien. “The plan provides the economic power for Iran to rebuild and even get stronger. This starts in points 2 and 8. Now there are a range of readings of these, but the consensus seems to the following.

• Iran promises to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to traffic.

• Iran gets to continue charging a toll to that traffic.

• Oman may or may not get part of that toll.

• Iran demands this right as its reparations for the war.

You can read other analyses of the 10 points here:

• Trump Backs Down, but Questions Remain Over Iran and the Strait of Hormuz - The New York Times

• Cease-Fire Leaves Questions Over Fate of Iran’s Uranium

• DAN HODGES: Iran has won and Donald Trump has lost. His war has only emboldened the regime and a new generation of radicals, terrorists and sympathisers. And that only scratches the surface of what's to come... | Daily Mail Online

• Tehran’s ‘toll booth’ system is now controlling Hormuz traffic :: Lloyd's List

• Trump’s Iran war leaves the US looking weakened to adversaries

But I think O’Brien’s analysis is the most direct.

So, this means Iran is in a much stronger strategic position than it was on February 27, 2026….

Add it all together, and Iran has basically proposed a detailed plan for its victory and Trump has accepted it as the basis of negotiations. Now we will see how those talks go, but it looks like Iran is in an excellent position to improve its security, secure massive reparations/tolls, end its diplomatic isolation and improve its nuclear technology.

It’s hard to think of a more comprehensive US strategic failure.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin

I’ve been covering Wisconsin politics for several decades now, and have (at times) been deeply involved in the state’s Supreme Court races. For much of that time, conservatives dominated those races and built a formidable majority on the state’s High Court.

So, believe me when I tell you that this is a BFD. “Liberal Chris Taylor cruises to Wisconsin Supreme Court win.”

Not only have progressives flipped the script on the court races, they have also piled up huge margins in a state that is usually on the razor’s edge. Taylor won more than 60% of the vote in a state that Trump won in 2024. Liberals now have a 5-2 majority on the court. Taylor’s win means liberals will control the state Supreme Court until at least 2030.

Digging down a bit, the demographic shifts carry ominous signs for Republicans. Nate Cohn writes: “Liberal candidates have fared well in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections in recent years, but Chris Taylor’s victory tonight was even bigger. She swept many reliably Republican working class areas — and might even crack the traditionally conservative suburban counties around Milwaukee.” Democrats are also noting that 12 counties that went red in 2025’s election swung blue last night.

As we’ve seen elsewhere, the Latino vote seems to have shifted to the left, while the liberal candidate won former GOP strongholds like Ozaukee County (where I live).

And then there is crucial Waukesha County:

Perhaps most worrisome for Republicans was the erosion of their votes in Waukesha County, for generations the party’s largest source of votes and a place where, as recently as 2012, Mitt Romney won 67 percent of the vote.

Judge Lazar was on track for just 54 percent — four points less even than the conservative Supreme Court candidate took a year ago when he was trounced statewide. The math in Wisconsin is simple: Given Democratic strength in Milwaukee and Madison, a Republican candidate must deliver a big margin in Waukesha and other vote-rich conservative suburbs to have any shot at winning statewide.

Check out these shifts:

Exit take: What a difference a year makes. Last year’s Supreme Court election was the most expensive judicial election in history — including more than $20 million from Elon Musk. This year’s race was much lower key, as conservatives seem to have basically given up. (Which, in itself, is an extraordinary turn in the state’s political dynamics.)

And in Michigan…

[Redacted] assures us this is the way to reach out to the youngs and win elections: “Michigan Senate candidate El-Sayed declines to disavow Hasan Piker’s past comments” - POLITICO

In an interview with POLITICO while standing next to Piker, El-Sayed said he believes it’s “critical” that Democrats embrace Piker, who has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans over his comments about Israel and U.S. foreign policy — including from El-Sayed’s two most formidable opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

In 2019, Piker said on his livestream that “America deserved 9/11,” though he later apologized for the remark. In the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Piker strongly condemned the Israeli response in Gaza and has disparaged the government in terms some Jews and supporters of Israel have labeled antisemitic.

Asked if he would disavow any of Piker’s views, El-Sayed said attempts to pin Piker’s past comments to him amounted to a “gotcha game.”

“I’m not here to disavow people’s views,” El-Sayed said. “This whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture — I thought we were over it.”

Exit take: the GOP ads write themselves. But, hey, he gets to go on lots of cool podcasts now. So there’s that.

Wednesday dogs (and other creatures)

Elie and Auggie engage in a little fraternal tussling.

Squirrel butt in bird feeder. I was actually worried that he/she got stuck, but when I yelled, ‘Hey, fat squirrel,” he/she shot out of the feeder and headed for the nearest tree.