Bill Tallen

Last month’s Memorandum of Understanding, which extended the tattered ceasefire between the United States and Iran, was essentially a dead letter the day it was signed by the U.S. and Iran. History may show that it was never intended to be more.

The good news from the Middle East this week has very little to do directly with that disagreeable agreement, and everything to do with other levels of the interdimensional chess game being played in the background by the man behind the curtain, while internet news junkies grind their teeth over Iranian fast attack boats and Israeli intransigence. Let’s itemize the good news.

Oil futures are now priced lower than they were before this war began on Feb. 28. Prices at the pump will soon follow; and the shooting hasn’t even stopped, due to Iranian indiscipline.  

Iranian influence on the global energy market, based on its decades-long ability to interdict the Strait of Hormuz, is ending. It will end in the near term by the renewed military action coming closer every day,  thanks to Iran’s inability to live up to its MOU commitment to open the strait; and in the longer term by the expansion of Arab pipelines to the Red Sea, Turkey and the Mediterranean, bypassing the strait entirely. This was arguably an unexpressed U.S. war aim, with lasting global impacts, all along.

Iran’s ability to support proxy armies of Islamists on Israel’s borders, and IRGC/Quds Force terrorist threats and actions around the world, is waning rapidly. Hamas is all but destroyed, and Hezbollah is soon to follow. Good riddance. 

The other critical U.S. war goals in this conflict — a decisive end to Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, and the end of its once-vast arsenal of ballistic missiles — far from being abandoned, will be assured by the eventual collapse of the Islamofascist regime. No promises or assurances or demonstrations short of that could be trusted anyway.

China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Russia all benefited from their illicit trade in internationally sanctioned oil through the “shadow fleet.” That is ending. The U.S. (and others, thanks to America’s influence and example) have shown both the ability and the will to enforce sanctions, and to exercise de facto control over Iranian and Venezuelan oil exports. 

The European Union has ratified a trade deal with the U.S. that doomsayers said would never happen, cutting its tariffs to almost zero and committing to buy a trillion dollars’ worth of U.S. energy. European petulance over the war with Iran is fading rapidly.

Lebanon — legally in a state of war with Israel since 1948 — has now signed a peace treaty recognizing Israel’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It has also vowed to eject Hezbollah and its Iranian support network from Lebanese territory. Despite the efforts of Iran’s MOU negotiators, Israel has refused to end its military actions against Hezbollah and is now in a de facto alliance with the government of Lebanon. Despite the Iranian regime’s efforts to justify the violation of the rest of the June MOU over this, all it is accomplishing is to invalidate the ceasefire that has, thanks to American restraint, kept them precariously alive and in power since April. An axiom based on 20th century experience — that airpower alone has never won a war — is set to be tested.

Kurdish separatists in northwestern Iran are advancing against the regime’s forces. Every other ethnic and religious subgroup in Iran, and millions of its citizens, fed up with living in fear and poverty under the Islamist regime, are watching closely. The country they will build on the rubble of that regime will be free and prosperous and take its place in the community of nations.

The Iranian regime’s disunity is displayed daily, as the civil government (if you can call it that) negotiates cynically, signs agreements unfaithfully and is contradicted publicly before a day passes by violent action and disavowals demanded by the uncompromising ayatollahs and their attack dogs in the IRGC.

In short, Iran lost the war, is now losing the peace, and the world will be better for it. If you haven’t noticed, consider your sources.