An Agreement To Come To An Agreement

Monday, June 15, 2026

As has become far too typical in the president’s dealing with Iran, it has been announced that something has happened, but we don’t have a clue as to what has actually happened.  On X, the host quotes John Ellis quoting Bloomberg proclaiming it a deal in which they have 60 days to come to a deal.  And so we can pretty much count on this deal going off the rails at some point because, well, it’s Iran.

In point of fact any part of the old regime in Iran cannot be trusted.  God only knows how the nation has splintered, who is in what faction, who the president is talking to and if they have any actual power.  What we do know is that the old regime, mullahs, IRGC, and the rest are liars to their core.  No deal with them is worth the paper it is printed on.  So why are we dealing?

I wrote back around Memorial Day that we are engaged, for reasons of military necessity, in the besiegement of Iran, and that siege warfare required, more than anything else, great will and patience.  These are traits the American people have grown quite short of in recent decades – especially when it comes to military operations.  Therefore, the president has to manage the expectations of American people and particularly the extremely hostile American press.

We live in a time when we expect war to take days, not months or years.  Bush 43 tried to level with us as he declared the War on Terror.  He told us it was going to take a very long time and that we should just go about our business.  It was a war on many fronts – so many that they became political fodder and so Obama pulled out of Iraq, Biden disastrously withdrew from Afghanistan and it has been left for Trump to deal with the ultimate source of all of it – Iran.  And terrorism has continued.

Trump has to make it look like we are constantly on the verge of ending this conflict so the besiegement can continue for as long as it takes.  Thus much fuss is made of agreements to agree that we can count on being broken.  The fuss keeps the press from protesting how long the war is actually taking.  If I am right about this, Trump will have to go down as one of the most brilliant politicians in history, something – given his electoral comeback – to which he already has a strong claim.

There is growing impatience in the conservative press, calling on the president to “just end it.”  I am increasingly convinced that he would if he could.    The IRGC is too deeply imbedded in the populace to bomb them out of existence without literally destroying the entire country and everyone in it.  An invasion would require years, as our land forces would have to be dramatically increased in size and capability to execute it because of the natural barriers getting into Iran.

The conservative commentariat needs to find its patience here – play the president’s game – buy him the time he needs.