CSotD: Rumors of Peace
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Huck and Bramhall both cite the similarity of Neville Chamberlain’s futile attempt to end World War II before it had gone that far and Donald Trump’s announcement of the purported end of his adventure in Iran.
Huck gets extra credit for connecting it to Orwell, given that Chamberlain felt he was telling the truth while Trump seems likely to be trying to save face and promote an “official version” in proper Newspeak fashion.
Given that the current administration has purged files of the January 6 coup attempt from the public record, and was just ordered by a judge to restore information it had declared doubleplusungood and removed from signage in national parks, there’s little hyperbole in the comparison.
Bramhall also deserves praise for undercutting Dear Leader’s boast with the relevant information that it’s only a memo of understanding, which is basically a treaty to consider a treaty. Once the bullets begin to fly, talk has trouble stopping them.
As noted here Sunday, the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War dragged on for about five years, and it’s important to add that their only real result was the withdrawal of American troops. The actual war ended with the capture of Saigon, and we should also recognize that Israel has declared its refusal to pull out of Lebanon, so this new set of promised talks seem unlikely to produce genuine peace, in our time or anyone’s.
Also, the document was signed electronically, and we know how Dear Leader feels about anything signed with an autopen.
I’ve purged a lot of pre-memo cartoons because of the alleged/apparent change in things, but I like Buss’s piece because he cites the predicament of two quixotic leaders of major countries who bit off more than they could chew.
Anne Applebaum had some up-to-date information about the war in Ukraine on Tim Miller’s podcast last week, and it’s not encouraging for the Russians. Ukrainian drones, she reports, are penetrating into Russia and have knocked out 20% of its oil refining capacity, while in Ukraine, they are wreaking major havoc on its ground troops via precisely targeted remote-control warfare.
Our situation in Iran is nowhere near as dire at Putin’s in Ukraine, but Deering is far from the only observer to point out that we had a much better agreement before Trump tore it up and went to war. He may wish he could put it back together and restore the status quo ante, but Iran has learned it can shut down Hormuz at its pleasure, and that it can stand up to a major power.
You may choose between “unringing the bell” or “putting the toothpaste back in the tube,” but history only moves in one direction, and whatever is in this agreement and however it gets modified before it is transformed into an actual treaty, it’s not a win for the United States nor will it yield a particularly good outcome for the allies we never consulted before launching this cockeyed misadventure.
I did get a chuckle out of Anderson adding “Trust me,” but I have an extremely dark sense of humor.
Kelley reduces the matter to simple day-to-day terms, and the fact that this criticism comes from such a consistently loyal, hard-line conservative is its own statement on the merits of the matter. I don’t see a need for Republicans to break ranks over the memo, since it has no teeth, and they can exploit the prospect of peace — however ephemeral it really is — in the run-up to the midterms.
Still, I doubt we’ll see any tickertape parades.
Brown is specific both in pooh-poohing the deal and in looking to the midterms. I’m not sure I buy the idea of an intentional sell-out, but Trump has been in a bind with sagging approval numbers and no progress in the war. Congressional Republicans are doggedly loyal, but certainly some of them must have been complaining about what the war and its economic results are doing to their prospects in November.
Given that nothing has actually been agreed to, I don’t think you can accuse Trump of selling out, but he may have been eager to come up with something he could wave, even if only in unintentional imitation of Neville Chamberlain.
It’s not a real treaty, so it can’t be a real capitulation. We’ll have to wait and see how things actually turn out before making that sort of evaluation.
And the real results are more dependent on Tehran and on Netanyahu than they are on Trump.
As with Buss’s cartoon, this Heller piece came out earlier, after yet another of Trump’s repeated assurances of victory but before the announcement of the agreement. I don’t, however, think there’s anything in it that isn’t still both operative and relevant.
Iran has taken some serious hits, not so much to its military structure but, for instance, to the civilian water supplies that have been damaged. The bombing of the elementary school was an error, but hitting reservoirs in a desert nation was intentional (and a war crime, if anyone cares about that sort of thing).
But don’t look for a white flag: Tehran hardly yields to public pressure, which means they remain in a stronger position than the US.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Hajjaj (Jordan) takes a far more optimistic view of things than most of the overseas cartoonists at Cartoon Movement, and Christo’s (Bulgaria) inclusion of an angry Netanyahu is more typical.
Netanyahu also faces an upcoming election, and there is speculation that as soon as he is out of office he will be in the docket on corruption charges, but in his case it seems continuing the war is a better election gambit than ending it, particularly since his government relies on a coalition with the far-right party of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Both Ben-Gvir and Defense Minister Israel Katz have declared that Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon, and peace there is an absolute demand of the Iranians.
There’s nothing absolutely sure in this world, dear dove, but I think we can be relatively certain that your job, alas, continues for the foreseeable future.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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