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The failed talks between the U.S. and Iran surprised no one. But what is surprising is how there seems to be no safety catch on Trump’s foreign policy. Except Lebanon.

What did we just witness when the talks between the U.S. and Iran failed? For many, the whole show was as surreal as it was disingenuous. Were the Americans ever serious? Or was it a case that they were simply delusional from the start about their position in the talks? J.D. Vance’s statement to the cameras afterwards had a tone of delusional idiocy, with references to Iran not “accepting our terms”. How is it that the entire world — even America — can see that Iran is the dominant one and the U.S. the weaker party that needed the ceasefire more? Only Trump’s cabal of underqualified so-called negotiators kept the dream alive that the U.S. has the upper hand.

Team Trump were never serious about agreeing to Iran’s ten points. They just used it as a decoy to get a ceasefire so that the markets could calm and Trump could edge himself away from the havoc of at least one failed military mission which lit up the internet. The Black Hawk Down scenario — where a military mission fails but the rescue mission also fails — was enough to convince Trump that his ideas and plans were woefully unrealistic, so he needed an off ramp. Many of his critics actually predicted he would declare a victory and then move out, which is what we are seeing now, but few could have guessed that Iran would have played along with the game, knowing full well that nothing he offers can ever be taken seriously as he breaks his own promises almost as quickly as he makes them. For Iran, there is simply no point agreeing to any of these terms anyway when they control the Straits of Hormuz and the shipping. Regardless of the fake news video clips that presumably Israel produced of U.S. destroyers sailing through untouched, the reality is that two ships attempted to do so but quickly turned back when Iran warned them they were about to be blown out of the water.

For the moment, the price of oil is stable but still a tad too high at around $95 USD. But low enough for the markets to function and remain bullish, although consumers all over the world are already feeling the pinch from the disruption to trade. This is Trump’s signature on all of his failed ventures: higher prices for poor folk, with markets in turmoil while he plays golf and tells reporters that everything’s great.

The ceasefire between the U.S./Israel and Iran is holding, although Lebanon is paying the price for this as Netanyahu continues his bloody campaign there with no respect whatsoever for human life.

For the GCC countries, they are still in a quagmire, and Trump is no longer rushing to their aid or holding press conferences where he produces huge cardboard diagrams of their investment. Qatar has, according to some reports, asked for its gifted $400 million jet to Trump to be returned, while other reports circulate that Doha wants U.S. troops out of the peninsula. Others, like the Saudis, have already stated their intentions to look elsewhere for protection rather than the U.S. What is preventing them from going all out and dumping the U.S. altogether is how Trump keeps the dream alive that there is still hope to take back control of the straits via an international armada made up of 30 countries, but it’s unclear whether this international coalition is actually going to go in and attack Iranian forces with a view to taking control of the straits or simply arrive in the region and carry out a blockade. This more recent idea is the riskiest yet for Trump, as China has indicated that this would be an act of war if its ships were stopped and seized, which leaves Pakistan, India and Japan as the main players who have sought agreements with Iran. And France. Would Trump really be so stupid as to confiscate oil from these allies?

Another reason why the markets aren’t in too bad a shape and oil is at $95 a barrel is that the people they employ to do a deep dive on the crisis believe that the U.S. and Iran will soon go back to the table. The problem, of course, is that the U.S. is actually a pawn here and the weakest of the three main players. Iran and Israel are really the only ones negotiating, and as long as the U.S. is prepared to be the servant of Israel in the region and wants to play hardball, then the talks will only be a sideshow to what really matters: Lebanon.

Lebanon now is the main theatre, and the game that Israel is playing there is incredibly risky for Netanyahu and Trump. One has to ask the question: how long will Iran accept a ceasefire when Lebanon is being pounded by Israel’s forces? For that question to be really unwrapped, it is worth asking how long Israel can sustain its present level of losses, both to its troops and perhaps more importantly to its tanks, which Hezbollah claims to have destroyed around 100. Given that Israel only had about 200 in operation, this is a decisive victory for the Lebanese Shia group, and Iran may well figure to let them continue before Netanyahu has to, like Trump, accept a defeat and withdraw.

But there is only lies and deceit on the U.S. and Israeli side. Nothing we are seeing on social media is true, as Israel in particular has mastered the dark art of professionally mastered fake video clips which are very convincing and fool enough people to generate a momentum of reposts which gathers credibility. Even the talks with Iran in Islamabad were far from honest, not just in the fact that they were staged to get the ceasefire that Trump needed, but also in that there was a very real possibility that the entire Iranian delegation would be hit by America with a bomb. When news of this plan reached the Iranians, they organised a completely different, last-minute change to their trip back on their planes, fearing a U.S. strike. It’s hard to imagine how Iran can take the Trump camp seriously under such an atmosphere, or even for that matter how the rest of the world will tolerate Trump’s sensational stupidity when playing wargames like a child amusing himself in the preposterous belief that America is still running the world. George Conway, whose wife ran Trump’s 2016 campaign, put it aptly.

“I’m just contemplating the fact that one moron, one psychotic moron, one capricious idiot, has completely bollocksed up the global economy not only to the detriment of his own people, but to the detriment of the planet. … It’s like how much more of this can the planet take?”