Ceasefire. Or Not.

We have officially reached f-bomb on the White House lawn stage of diplomacy

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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the relevance of the Strait of Hormuz as it relates to the Israel-Iran conflict, these are my current observations, based on subsequent developments:

Ceasefire

Yesterday evening, President Trump announced that Israel and Iran had entered into a ceasefire agreement. Iran loosely acknowledged a ceasefire a few hours later, with Israel doing so in the wee hours of the morning.

“You what? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

~President Donald Trump this morning, speaking to reporters on the White House lawn

Within the span of a few hours, Israel claimed Iran had violated the ceasefire, and threatened to resume military attacks. Israel behaved in a similar manner in its ceasefire with Hamas. That said, Iran is a much more formidable adversary.

This morning, Trump practically begged Israel not to resume bombing Iran, apparently to no avail.

Netanyahu’s behavior seems to lend further credence to the view of some that he “dog walked” Trump into bombing Iran, and that he, not the president, is the one driving the proverbial train.

One has to wonder if Netanyahu had a hand in Trump’s decision to disregard U.S. intelligence contradicting Israel’s contention that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons development.

Markets

In much the same way as it has reacted to the administration’s tariff negotiations, the positive momentum in the markets seem to be based on more on hope that the conflict between Israel and Iran is over than on anything else.

As it currently stands, we’ve seen little evidence to support the lofty claims of success coming from the White House regarding the status of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, or lack thereof.

Media coverage

With a few exceptions, cable news coverage has been almost unbearable. Almost every program is peppered with at least one hawkish ex-military panelist, offering rave reviews on the success of the U.S. mission, as well as Israel’s military offensive against Iran.

Much less has been said about Iran’s apparent strategy of launching out-of-date missiles followed by sophisticated hypersonic missiles to breach Israel’s Iron Dome surface-to-air missile system. From The Independent (UK):

Dr Marion Messmer, a senior research fellow of security studies at Chatham House, said Israel’s air defences may not be as effective as many believe. Speaking of the Iron Dome in particular, she told The Independent it has “better PR than is actually warranted”.

She added: “At the end of the day, it's an air defence system. It's a very effective air defence system. But no air defence is completely unbreachable.”

Part of the Iranian strategy is essentially to fire a lot, and therefore to hope that the interceptors won't be able to shoot everything down, which is one of the things that we've seen.”

Experts believe that Iran may have also used hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), which can manoeuvre and glide at hypersonic speed, making them a lot harder to intercept.

“If you've got something that can manoeuvre, then obviously you can either pre-program an erratic flight path, or you can change it if you see that interceptors have been launched. That then makes it much easier to avoid any interception,” Dr. Messmer explained.

There has also been little mention of Trump’s apparent bad-faith negotiations with Iran, or our lack of communication with our allies prior to initiating an attack on a sovereign nation.

Also downplayed in most media coverage is the fact that Israel (Netanyahu) initiated the conflict while presenting scant evidence to support its claims of an eminent nuclear threat from Iran.

China

Yesterday, I pointed out that China purchases roughly 90% of Iran oil production, and that the conflict may negatively impact the country’s tariff negotiations with the United States.

Another factor worthy of consideration is the status of TikTok, which is currently in a state of limbo. Trump issued a third extension to a mandatory sale of the social media platform, postponing its sale for the time being.

The Chinese government has the final say on a deal, which could provide its government with leverage vis-à-vis tariffs and Iran, although how much is unclear.

Russia

It bears mentioning that Iran may have surpassed Russia as the world’s leading arms exporter. In 2023, Teheran reached an agreement with Moscow to exchange technology and produce unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Russia's Tatarstan region, allowing Russia to increase its production of drones for use in its war against Ukraine.

Today, Trump heads to the NATO Summit where the Middle East is expected be a key topic of discussion.