- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/47584733
Trita Parsi May 18, 2026
We should first recognize that restarting the war amounts to an admission that Trump’s previous escalatory gambit — the blockade of the blockade — has failed. That, in turn, was itself an admission that the war had failed. Which was an admission that the threats of war in January had failed. As I have argued before on my Substack, this relentless search for an escalatory silver bullet capable of bringing Iran to its knees is not unique to Trump; it has become a defining pathology of American Iran policy for decades.
Although negotiators have made meaningful progress on several fronts, talks have thus far failed to produce an agreement, largely because of irreconcilable differences over Tehran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile. And as Washington has come to realize that the blockade is backfiring, a new and dangerous dynamic has emerged: both sides now believe another round of fighting will strengthen their hand in the negotiations that follow.
I’m so incredibly angry that the fucking economy is the only thing they care about. This is killing people, but nobody gives a shit.
It was the same way with the Vietnam war. It didn’t stop because people were upset about the humanitarian crisis it was causing, it stopped because of how fiscally ridiculous was, especially near the end.
This is how it’s always been.
“I got the bag so fuck you” is like THE ideological cornerstone of Western civ. To call it how it is and be disgusted by it is radical and anti-West, unironically.