00:00Are the US and Israel going back to war in Iran?
00:03To me, I think it's over.
00:06Judging by Donald Trump's comments at the NATO summit, it would seem they are.
00:10I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is?
00:13They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people.
00:17And they're vicious, violent people.
00:19Trump's opinion of Iran's leaders may not be far from the truth,
00:22but their character is not the source of his current troubles in the Strait of Hormones.
00:27That's more to do with his own falsehoods.
00:29Trump claims that the war he launched against Iran in February
00:32was a victory that achieved all US aims. It didn't.
00:36He's called the memorandum of understanding that ended the fighting
00:39an unconditional surrender by Iran. It wasn't.
00:43The language of the MOU was instead so ambiguous that it allowed both sides to claim they'd won.
00:48That's why they were able to sign it.
00:50Both sides have used it to continue pursuing their goals just by other means than war.
00:55That produced an inherently unstable situation.
00:58It made accusations of ceasefire breaches inevitable as each side interpreted the MOU in opposite ways.
01:06Especially in the Strait of Hormuz, where the MOU said it was for Iran to organize a return to pre
01:12-war levels of shipping.
01:13It said Iran couldn't charge fees for now, but it didn't say what kind of control Iran could or couldn't
01:19exercise.
01:20Nor did it specify whether Tehran's management of the strait should concern only shipping lanes on its side or also
01:27those on Amman's.
01:28Neither side is really lying, but the inconsistencies have become impossible to hide.
01:33And the circumstances that produced an inconclusive war and the ambiguities of the MOU in the first place have not
01:39changed since.
01:40It's still unlikely that by using air war alone, the US and Israel will be able to achieve regime change
01:46in Iran or to get the existing one to accept their goal.
01:50So with or without a formal ceasefire, the coming months may well look neither like peace nor war.
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