Donald Trump with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kid Rock, and others on November 16, 2024 (Wikimedia Commmons)
Should the ceasefire in President Donald Trump’s war in Iran hold, America “will have suffered a significant strategic defeat and Iran will have won a significant strategic victory,” says The Bulwark‘s Jonathan V. Last, who predicts what Trump’s Republican supporters will be saying in the coming days.
“You have to be clear-eyed enough to recognize that Trump’s surrender may be a s—— sandwich we can afford to eat — but that Trump is the one who marched the country into the diner in the first place,” he writes.
Last notes that before Trump’s war, Iran was facing significant sanctions, the Strait of Hormuz was a free thoroughfare governed by international law, and Iran had “a fourth-rate navy and a fifth-rate air force.”
After the war, should the terms hold, Iran will face diminished sanctions or a removal of them, Iran will have “permission to enrich uranium” and the ability to control and monetize the Strait of Hormuz, although its navy and air force will “have been (temporarily) neutralized.”
He says that Iran’s power and influence will grow, and America’s influence will wane. “We should expect ties between Iran and China to strengthen as the Iranians become a more consequential partner for the Chinese.”
“Iran will probably get a nuclear weapon eventually,” Last warns.
And he predicts what MAGA will be saying by Saturday:
“Can you believe all the pearl-clutching over ‘war crimes’ and ‘genocide’? Trump didn’t do it, so there’s nothing wrong with threatening it. In fact, that threat probably got the peace deal done. So threatening genocide is good, actually.”
“Look at gas prices — they’re already falling! Oil is down to $93/barrel. Have you even said ‘Thank you?'”
“The economy may not be great, but it’s already recovering! All those people who said the war would wreck the American economy were wrong!”
Last calls this a “pattern.”
“If the absolute, worst-case scenario doesn’t happen, then his supporters argue that the current very-bad scenario is actually pretty great,” he writes.
After Trump rescinded what some critics have called his threat of genocide, social media influencer Matt Van Swol, who has over 490,000 followers on X, wrote on Tuesday evening:
“The most predictable script in American politics: >Trump does something strong >Democrats and the media freak out >Everything Trump did works >Everyone moves on >No one gives him credit.”
“Every. Single. Time.”
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