تابع رؤية 2030
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Donald Trump claims to have mastered the Art of the Deal, but he has just given us a master class in negotiating incompetence. I would love to see an Iranian government that no longer represses its people, menaces its neighbors, or can build a nuclear weapon. Trump has set back all of these efforts. His cabinet of sycophants offered little resistance as he naively bombed first and faced reality later. Trump is reviewing and tinkering with a proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) drafted by American and Iranian diplomats with the aid of Pakistan and Qatar. It would continue the current ceasefire for 60 days while a more permanent peace accord is negotiated. The precise contours of this preliminary agreement are not known, but its gist seems clear – and is a profound embarrassment for Trump. His unprovoked war of choice has accomplished all of nothing. A new approach is urgently needed. The best way to assess Trump’s quandary is by comparing it with what a less bellicose approach might have secured. Trump says he wants to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, but Tehran has repeatedly disavowed that goal. Rather, the real issue, given broad distrust of Iran’s clerical leaders, is how to prohibit them from obtaining the means to build a bomb. That’s what Barack Obama’s 2015 deal with the Iranians did. The joint comprehensive plan of action, or JCPOA, curtailed their nuclear program subject to intrusive international inspections. It contained sunset clauses, but they could have been extended by further agreement. Yet Trump withdrew from that accord in 2018, vowing to pressure Iran into a better deal. It didn’t work. The JCPOA had allowed Iran to enrich uranium to only a minimal 3.67% – a far cry from the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran sent 11 tonnes of uranium that had been modestly enriched above the lower level to Russia, leaving it no path to build a bomb. Trump’s repudiation of the JCPOA removed these limits. That enabled Iran to produce nearly half a tonne of highly enriched uranium at a purity of 60%. That is a short hop from the enrichment needed for a bomb. Trump is now back at square one. He is trying to persuade Iran again to limit its enrichment program and to export or dilute its enriched uranium – in other words, to do what it agreed to do with Obama. That was the subject of negotiations in February of this year, but Trump abruptly ended those talks in favor of war. Trump’s hope was to bomb and sanction Iran into submission. On the urging of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, American and Israeli bombers tried to decapitate the regime, hoping for a more pliant successor or even a popular uprising. At one point, Trump had the hubris to demand “unconditional surrender”. But if anything, the killing of Iranian leaders, including former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, enhanced the power of hardliners associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. And it was always wishful thinking that the Iranian dictatorship, which had survived years of sanctions and had slaughtered at least 7,000 anti-government protesters in January, would be more concerned about the welfare of the Iranian people under bombardment than in retaining power. Nor would the Iranian people be eager to take to the streets again to face more bloodshed at a time when their immediate concern was avoiding death from the sky. Trump had no plan B. He claimed to have destroyed Iran’s missile and drone capacity. Instead, he substantially depleted US arms stockpiles while leaving most of Iran’s arsenal intact and its ability to wreak havoc considerable. Trump also turned the strait of Hormuz from a theoretical into an actual weapon, one arguably more powerful than a nuclear bomb because it is more usable. With one fifth of the world’s oil and liquified natural gas supply passing through the strait before the war (as well as fertilizer, sulfur and helium), the economic consequence of closing the strait are far-reaching. Iran has compounded the effect by attacking oil and gas facilities in the Gulf Arab states. The Iranians have Trump over a barrel. He pretends not to care about the November midterm elections, but everyone sees that the mounting cost of gasoline and its inflationary pressure mean that, despite their gerrymandering, the Republicans are likely to face a shellacking. Trump is thus fixated on reopening the strait so that oil and gas deliveries can resume. Meanwhile, he is punting on the key nuclear questions – the ostensible reason for this counterproductive war. In the MOU, Iran reportedly will again disavow its intention to build a nuclear bomb, but the key issue of denying it the means – of limiting enrichment and neutralizing its highly enriched uranium – will be kicked down the road for later discussion. double quotation mark [Trump] substantially depleted US arms stockpiles while leaving most of Iran’s arsenal intact and its ability to wreak havoc considerable Other issues cited by Trump as reasons for war, such as Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for regional armed groups, are apparently nowhere to be found in the proposed preliminary accord. In other words, the MOU will only return us to the February status quo, before the strait of Hormuz was even in play. The Trump-Netanyahu bombing campaign was for naught. Indeed, US negotiators are now worse off. Knowing that Trump is desperate to get the oil flowing again, Tehran has upped the ante. Reflecting distrust of Trump, the Iranians reportedly want their frozen assets released and at least some sanctions lifted before nuclear negotiations begin. They are also said to be seeking an “investment fund” to help with postwar reconstruction – in amounts far larger than those that Trump had vehemently criticized Obama for allowing. Trump may try to fudge the matter by allowing Qatar to hand over funds instead. The MOU is likely to require that passage through the strait be “unrestricted” while negotiations proceed, and Trump has gone so far as to threaten to bomb Oman, a US ally, should it join Iran to control the strait. Iran thus will probably be forced to eschew the imposition of “tolls” but may toy with surrogates such as an “environmental fee”. None of that was on the table in February before Trump’s war of choice. Tehran is also insisting that a new 60-day ceasefire extend to Israel’s military operations in Lebanon. That demand is understandable, because in the name of fighting Hezbollah, an Iranian ally, Israel has forced 1 million people from their homes in southern Lebanon – one fifth of the country’s population. As the possible MOU became public, Israel intensified its attacks in Lebanon and for the first time in two decades advanced above the Litani River. As in Gaza, Israel has honored even the current ceasefire in the breach, periodically dropping bombs as it reduces villages in southern Lebanon to rubble. Netanyahu has also told Trump he reserves the right to respond to “threats” in Lebanon, a formula that Israeli troops in Gaza have exploited to continue killing Palestinians. As in Gaza, Israel is also likely to insist that a ceasefire not include withdrawal from the vast swathes of Lebanese territory that it now occupies. There are lessons to be learned from this debacle. First, Trump should definitively repudiate Netanyahu’s preference for endless armed conflict. If Israel’s far-right government can be said to have a long-term strategy, it is to eschew negotiation for war, to bomb and bomb and, when the other side recovers, bomb some more. “Mowing the grass” is how this callous approach is described. Trump, who prides himself on being a deal-maker, should prioritize negotiation and drop his saber-rattling, such as his blatantly illegal (and thinly disguised nuclear) threat to destroy Iran’s civilization. While negotiators inevitably deploy carrots and sticks, Trump should make military force a last resort, to be used only in the narrow circumstances permitted by the United Nations charter. That is the right way to proceed as a matter of not only international law but also military practicality now that the Iranian military, equipped only with drones, sea mines and speedboats, has shown itself capable of imposing enormous costs on the world’s most powerful country, not to mention the global economy. Iranian officials are known to be tough negotiators, but Trump has plenty of leverage without resorting to another war of aggression. Between Iran’s frozen assets and the many sanctions imposed on the country, Trump can engage in an incremental give and take that should be capable of achieving an acceptable solution. As for what that solution should be, the focus should be back where it started – on denying Iran the means to secure a nuclear weapon. That requires no longer insisting on the dealbreaker demand that Iran forsake the ability to enrich uranium to modest levels, as all other governments are allowed under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Rather, pairing modest enrichment with intrusive international inspections should suffice to prevent secret bomb development. Trump may also need to accept creative solutions to neutralize Iran’s cache of highly enriched uranium – some combination of dilution, monitoring and export – as he has suggested he might. Most importantly, despite his inclinations, Trump must for once put the nation’s (and world’s) interest above his own. Trump’s ability to deny the facts and spin reality is impressive, but even he will have a hard time selling this debacle as a victory. And Tehran may not give him a face-saving way out. We must insist that he accept a deal anyway, even if it reveals the Master Deal-maker to be a Master Bungler.

الرياض - مباشر: بلغت القيمة الإجمالية للتداولات في السوق السعودي بنهاية جلسة الاثنين 7.63 مليون ريال، تركزت بشكل مكثف في أسهم قطاعات الطاقة والمصارف والمرافق العامة. وأنهى مؤشر السوق السعودي الرئيسي (تاسي) تعاملات جلسة اليوم الاثنين على تراجع نسبته 0.62% فاقدا 68.39 نقطة من قيمته ليغلق عند مستوى 11,009.52 نقطة. وتصدر سهم أرامكو السعودية قائمة الأسهم الأكثر نشاطاً من حيث قيمة التداول، حيث بلغت التداولات عليه 757.17 مليون ريال، ما يمثل نحو 10% من إجمالي سيولة السوق، وأغلق السهم متراجعاً بنسبة 0.65% عند مستوى 27.36 ريال للسهم الواحد، وجاء هذا النشاط الكثيف على سهم عملاق النفط في ظل تحركات واسعة للمستثمرين المؤسساتيين لتعديل المراكز السعرية مع إغلاق الجلسة. وحل سهم مصرف الراجحي في المرتبة الثانية من حيث السيولة، مسجلاً تداولات بقيمة 626.08 مليون ريال. وانخفض سعر السهم بنسبة 0.82% ليصل إلى 66.7 ريال، كما شهد البنك الأهلي السعودي ضغوطاً مماثلة، حيث بلغت قيمة تداولاته 417.72 مليون ريال، ليغلق متراجعاً بنسبة 0.91% عند مستوى 39.14 ريال. وشهد سهم شركة أكوا باور تراجعاً حاداً بنسبة 2.52%، وهو الانخفاض الأكبر ضمن قائمة الأسهم العشرة الأكثر نشاطاً في جلسة اليوم، ليغلق عند مستوى 186 ريال، وبلغت قيمة التداولات على السهم 369.75 مليون ريال، وسجل سهم شركة معادن تداولات بلغت 175.38 مليون ريال، مع انخفاض طفيف بنسبة 0.32% ليستقر السهم عند مستوى 62.95 ريال. وسجل قطاع الاتصالات حضوراً في قائمة السيولة عبر سهمي اس تي سي واتحاد اتصالات، فقد بلغت قيمة التداولات على سهم اس تي سي 168.48 مليون ريال، وأغلق منخفضاً بنسبة 1.32% عند 43.42 ريال، كما تراجع سهم اتحاد اتصالات (موبايلي) بنسبة 0.56% ليصل إلى 62.65 ريال، وسط سيولة بلغت 144.86 مليون ريال.

After more than three months of fighting and stop-start negotiations, Washington and Tehran are now reportedly on the verge of a deal that would end the conflict. However, according to well-placed sources in Washington, Tehran, and London exclusively spoken to in the past few days by OilPrice.com, the sound and fury of the past few weeks may ultimately amount to a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing. “It’s pretty likely that we’ll [the U.S.] wind up with the same sort of deal we had in the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or colloquially ‘the nuclear deal’], although maybe we might lose a bit while Iran gains something,” a Washington-based figure who works closely with the U.S. Treasury’s legal operations told OilPrice.com over the weekend. So, what is the outlook for the peace deal, and what will happen to energy prices afterwards? From the U.S. perspective, President Donald Trump laid out the four objectives he wanted to achieve with the U.S. war against Iran and its proxies at the beginning of the conflict back in February, and these were fully agreed upon by his cabinet at the time. The first (in the order in which he said them), was to make it impossible for Iran to build a nuclear arsenal. The second was to degrade and destroy its missile stockpiles and production capabilities. The third was regime change. And the fourth was to end Tehran’s financing and arming of its proxies. So, to what degree have these war aims been achieved? First, on the key issue of Iran’s nuclear programme, its Fordow fuel enrichment plant was ‘rendered inoperable’, according to the U.S. Department of War, while the Natanz site’s above-ground fuel enrichment facility was ‘completely destroyed’ and its underground laboratories suffered ‘very significant damage’. The same applies to the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre -- a critical chokepoint for converting uranium into the gas needed for enrichment. However, up to 440 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium that the International Atomic Energy Agency lost track of last year remains unlocated, and the Agency acknowledges that the full extent of Iran's current activities — particularly at secret sites, as exclusively analysed by OilPrice.com — remains unknown. Related: Supermajor Warns Oil Prices Could Hit $160 Within Weeks On the second aim, U.S. intelligence assessments reveal that roughly 70% of Iran’s pre-war ballistic missile stockpile remains intact, but around the same percentage of its missile launchers have been destroyed. In addition, attacks of Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics infrastructure destroyed 15 key weapons production sites tied to advanced ballistic missile development. And Iran’s manufacturing capabilities were further degraded by U.S. and Israeli attacks on three major steel factories in Mobarakeh, Khuzestan, and Sefid Dasht. However, earlier this month, U.S. intelligence officials warned that Iran's defence industrial base is recovering much faster than expected with the help of components supplied via covert networks from China. Meanwhile, the third objective -- regime change -- can be argued by Trump to have changed, with the removal of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of top Iranian religious, political, and military figures through strikes coordinated with Israel. That said, the country’s hardline Islamic regime is still in place, supported by the die-hard guardians of the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Cops (IRGC). Less equivocal for the time being, at least, is the U.S. and Israel’s achievement of Trump’s fourth aim, with Operation Epic Fury completely fracturing the command structure between Tehran and its network of terrorist proxies. The deaths of key leaders have left proxy groups acting as isolated regional actors rather than a coordinated, cohesive front, with Iran's ability to project heavy proxy forces having been fundamentally broken, according to CENTCOM. “There’s enough here to allow the President to claim a victory of sorts to his supporters, and to make a deal, which is becoming more of a priority as the [November] mid-terms [elections] come into view,” said the Washington source. Although Trump is legally barred from seeking another term as president, he may yet try to find some way of doing so, and this will require the backing of the Republican Party. In any event, he may view future Trump generations as a political dynasty in the making, for which again he will require the backing of the Republicans. Consequently, he has reason to care how the party performs in November and will be only too aware of the direct links between energy prices, the U.S. economy, and the country’s election results. With gasoline still priced above US$4 a gallon in the U.S., historical data highlights that every US$10 per barrel (pb) or so change in the price of crude oil results in around a 25-30 cent change in the price of a gallon of gasoline. And for every 1 cent that the average price per gallon of gasoline rises, more than US$1 billion or so per year in consumer spending is lost, so damaging the economy. The political importance of this is that since 1896, the sitting U.S. president has won re-election 11 times out of 11 if the economy was not in recession within two years of an upcoming election. However, sitting U.S. presidents who went into a re-election campaign with the economy in recession won only once out of seven occasions, as fully detailed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The same pattern pertains to mid-term elections too. The problem for Washington’s deal team is that although Tehran thinks it will never win this war against the U.S., it also thinks it will not lose it either. Moreover, its leadership and long-suffering population are used to economic and political adversity from more than four decades of international sanctions, so more of the same is irrelevant to them. Conversely, the prospects for a deal that is likely to make everyday life considerably better for Iranians will make waiting that much easier. “Remember, that this time around, Iran has some serious leverage in the control it still has over the Strait of Hormuz, so they’re eyeing a better deal than the last Obama one [finalised and agreed to on 14 July 2015],” the Washington source underlined. And that deal was much softer than the original version that had preceded it, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The softening was prompted by France and Germany, with France being one of the five Permanent Members of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) and Germany being the ‘+1’ in the ‘P5+1’ group of world powers that negotiated the JCPOA. The other four were the remaining Permanent Members of the UNSC -- the U.S., Great Britain, China, and Russia. It was from this softer version of the nuclear deal that Trump unilaterally removed the U.S. in May 2018. Given Iran’s ongoing hold over the Strait of Hormuz, its demands of the U.S. are indeed likely to be much bigger than in 2015, a senior source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. “The talk now is of many tens of billions of dollars in reparations [for Iran] for [war] damage done by the U.S., but this is likely to be called something else in the U.S. -- an ‘investment fund’ perhaps,” he said. “On the other hand, Iran is going to take its time delivering on its commitments, as the Guards [IRGC] think that any peace deal [with Trump specifically] might be part of a plan to keep the peace through to the [mid-term] elections and then to restart the war after that,” he added. If a peace deal is signed that appears likely to hold, then two?to?four weeks looks like a sensible starting point for clearing the Gulf backlog and restoring shipping patterns, with flows possibly ramping back towards full levels after another two-to-four weeks, according to Houston-based Vikas Dwivedi, global energy strategist at Macquarie Group. In this base-case scenario, in which the market believes a deal is real and has staying power, the sell-off would be immediate and large, approximately US$20 in one week. This would be followed by a two-week consolidation period, and then a period in which logistical and financial issues are repriced. “After this, we expect the market to end up with far too much oil again as mitigation sources of supply continue as Hormuz flow ramps up, creating a physically driven overshoot to the downside,” underlines Dwivedi. “Finally, prices trend toward a normalisation of crude supply and demand and a return to what we believe is the fair value range of US$65 to US$70 per barrel,” he concludes. By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

الرياض - مباشر: سجلت قيم التداولات الإجمالية في السوق السعودي بنهاية جلسة الأحد نحو 4 مليارات ريال وتركزت السيولة بعدة قطاعات قيادية شملت البنوك والطاقة إلى جانب أسهم البتروكيماويات. وأنهى مؤشر (تاسي) تعاملات جلسة اليوم الأحد على ارتفاع بنسبة 0.46%، ليغلق عند مستوى 11,077.91 نقطة، رابحا نحو 50.7 نقطة مقارنة بإغلاق الجلسة السابقة. وتصدر سهم أرامكو السعودية قائمة الأسهم الأكثر نشاطا من حيث قيمة التداول في جلسة اليوم، حيث بلغت قيمة الصفقات المنفذة عليه 371.77 مليون ريال، وأغلق السهم على تراجع بنسبة 1.29% ليصل إلى سعر 27.54 ريال. وجاء سهم مصرف الراجحي في المرتبة الثانية من حيث السيولة بقيمة تداولات بلغت 273.9 مليون ريال، مسجلا ارتفاعا بنسبة 0.98% ليغلق عند مستوى 67.25 ريال، مما ساهم في دعم مكاسب المؤشر العام خلال الجلسة. وفي قطاع الخدمات المالية، حل سهم دي بي اس في المرتبة الثالثة من حيث النشاط، مسجلا تداولات بقيمة 234 مليون ريال. وأنهى السهم الجلسة على انخفاض بنسبة 2.10% ليغلق عند مستوى 12.6 ريال. كما شهد سهم الشركة السعودية للصناعات الأساسية (سابك) تداولات نشطة بلغت قيمتها 167.87 مليون ريال، وأغلق السهم متراجعا بنسبة 1.57% عند سعر 56.3 ريال. وسجل سهم البنك الأهلي السعودي (الأهلي) تداولات بقيمة 140.64 مليون ريال، وأغلق على ارتفاع طفيف بنسبة 0.25% ليصل إلى سعر 39.5 ريال. وفي قطاع المرافق العامة، برز سهم أكوا باور كأحد أبرز الرابحين في قائمة الأسهم الأكثر نشاطا من حيث القيمة، حيث قفز بنسبة 3.30% ليغلق عند مستوى 190.8 ريال، وسط سيولة بلغت 126.73 مليون ريال. وشهد سهم بترو رابغ تراجعا حادا بنسبة 5.45%، وهو الانخفاض الأكبر ضمن قائمة الأسهم العشرة الأكثر سيولة في جلسة الأحد، ليغلق عند سعر 15.1 ريال، مع بلوغ قيمة التداولات عليه 108.49 مليون ريال، كما تراجع سهم سابك للمغذيات الزراعية بنسبة 0.50% ليغلق عند مستوى 138 ريال، محققا تداولات بقيمة 104.91 مليون ريال، في ظل أداء متباين لشركات الأسمدة والمواد الكيميائية. وفي قطاع الاتصالات، سجل سهم اس تي سي تداولات بلغت قيمتها 99.44 مليون ريال، وأغلق السهم على استقرار شبه سعري بتراجع طفيف قدره 0.09% عند مستوى 44 ريال، وجاء سهم (معادن) ضمن قائمة العشرة الأكثر نشاطا من حيث القيمة، حيث بلغت قيمة التداول عليه 92.92 مليون ريال، وسجل السهم ارتفاعا بنسبة 1.61% ليغلق عند مستوى 63.15 ريال.

In a 1965 speech justifying the war in Vietnam, Lyndon B Johnson argued that the goal was to ensure “every country can shape its own destiny” since only in such a world could the US secure its own freedom. However, he also admitted “such were infirmities of man that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace”. It was the kind of elegant justification of the country’s moral mission to which successive US presidential speechwriters have turned at times of war. View image in fullscreen Lyndon B Johnson gives a televised speech about the war in Vietnam on 13 May 1965 in the White House. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Assured by limitless military superiority and filled with such noble intent, US presidents have repeatedly been lured into launching wars only to find themselves confounded, ensnared and then broken by their inability to overpower an inferior opponent they wholly misjudged. It seemed safe to assume that this was a fate that would never befall Donald Trump. He was implacably opposed to endless wars that seemed disconnected to the everyday lives of his supporters. He would never equate military power with military victory. Yet Trump’s “little excursion to Iran”, judging by the drafts of the potential peace agreements that are circulating, is being universally perceived as a defeat. Almost regardless of the outcome – most likely a return to the old status quo – the war looks ill-conceived, a monument to confused objectives, bad planning and misplaced assumptions. View image in fullscreen Ironically for Donald Trump personally, the shadow of Vietnam has loomed large during his time in the White House. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images In scale, of course, the current conflict does not match the Vietnam war, which went on for years, led to the deaths of 58,220 US soldiers, and is often perceived as the totemic and unmatchable example of US hubris. By comparison with the Vietnam odyssey, Iran feels more like a day trip. But in terms of consequence, it is still possible that the “excursion” will prove to be the bigger geopolitical turning point for the unrivalled superpower, the moment when the US will have to concede it mishandled a war not just because it had no convincing battle plan, but also no grand strategy to match how the contemporary world works. In an interconnected world, Trump believes progress is achieved through conflict, not cooperation. Ironically for Trump, the shadow of Vietnam has always loomed large, and not just because he repeatedly dodged the draft. In many ways his political appeal is born of Vietnam. The Pulitzer prize-winning author Fredrik Logevall, professor of history at Harvard University, recently argued that “many of the troubles that plague America today – alienation, resentment, cynicism, the mistrust of government, the breakdown of civil discourse and of civic institutions, and the lack of accountability in powerful institutions – have their roots in the Vietnam war era”. “You could argue that Americans went from naivety at the outset of the Vietnam era to cynicism – and cynicism that alienates us from the government, threatens democracy because it destroys the power of the people to believe in change, and to work for change,” he said. It is in this polarised political ecosystem that Trump was to blossom. View image in fullscreen While Vietnam had a greater domestic impact on the US, the international strategic fallout may prove more long lasting. Photograph: Tim Page/Corbis/Getty Images Clearly the domestic US consequences of Iran will never match Vietnam. True, the war was unpopular from the start, but society has not been torn apart by it. Only 13 body bags, each a personal tragedy, have been sent home. At the most, inflation caused by the energy shock will ensure an already unpopular president is punished in the midterms, something he professes not to concern him. But it is arguable that the international consequences of the Iran war could yet prove more long lasting. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 did not have the widely forecast global fallout. The predicted “domino effect” of communism sweeping south-east Asia, as Henry Kissinger and Johnson feared, did not materialise, save in Cambodia and Laos. View image in fullscreen US Marines preparing the evacuation of civilians in south Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Photograph: Dirck Halstead/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A helicopter evacuation flight out of Saigon in April 1975. Photograph: Dirck Halstead/Getty Images By contrast, Trump’s war of choice looks to be a signal of defeat that will have an effect in several fields. It marks the collapse of Israel’s 20-year Iran strategy to produce regime change and will accelerate the already rapid decline in the influence of this Israeli government in Washington. Danny Citrinowicz, the former head of an Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence, describes the war as an operational success but a strategic fiasco for Israel. The war is also prompting Gulf monarchies to profoundly reappraise their geopolitical relationships, including the question of whether the existence of US bases brings the security required for their economies to diversify. Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Iranian supreme leader, may be indulging in wishful thinking in saying the clock can never be turned back to support for US bases. But equally, claims by Trump that countries such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar would now normalise relations with Israel, or join the Abraham accords, sound absurd – in the words of the former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro: as “delusional as a moon made of green cheese”. The Gulf states would prefer an imperfect peace because they see no other way out, Barbara Leaf, a former US undersecretary for the Middle East, told a seminar last week. View image in fullscreen The status of cheap drones as the great leveller in modern conflict has been confirmed by the conflict. Photograph: US Central Command/X For students of war, the status of cheap drones as the great leveller in modern conflict has been confirmed – a lesson Iran learned from the Ukraine conflict better than the Pentagon. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, promised “death and destruction from the sky”, hitting 13,000 targets in the first month alone, but it did not bring victory, only the alarming depletion of US missile stores and of the treasury. The fallout is likely to hit Europe hard. As a squeeze on living standards seeps through the global economic system over the next year, centrist incumbents in France, Germany and the UK may face an electoral beating that tears at the architecture of the EU. The task of the incumbents will be made harder if Trump acts on his threat to withdraw US troops from Nato states in retribution for their “cowardly” refusal to come to his aid. View image in fullscreen The Tehran regime survived the chaos of the wave of assassinations of its leadership at the start of the war, including the loss of its supreme leader. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images For the US foreign policy establishment, exemplified by the Council on Foreign Relations, the missteps in Iran are the final confirmation that Trump’s highly personalised, instinctive system of predatory diplomacy creates only more disorder. Last week, the CFR launched a fundamental review of US strategy post-Trump. Its convener, Rebecca Lissner, has already warned the war “has delivered a potentially fatal blow to a US-led international order that was already on life support”. Allies are hedging, middle powers are forming their own coalitions, and regions once firmly in Washington’s orbit are shifting toward new power centres, she said. The former state department official Mira Rapp-Hooper was more brutal at Chatham House, describing it as superpower suicide. In the short term, two questions from the Iran war have been thrust upon the Democrats, and in effect have already been answered. Has the US interest been furthered by being so close to Israel and its leadership? Would the US not be more powerful if it returned to alliances built on values, and the law, as well as self-interest? View image in fullscreen In the strait of Hormuz, Iran has realised how geography and globalisation have given it an immeasurable asset. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images For Iran, weakened, impoverished and yet emboldened, the path is unclear. Tehran may yet have to make concessions in the talks on its nuclear programme, including many it was on the verge of offering in Geneva in February. Iran’s internal politics is unpredictable, but this is a more military government, and at the same time the hardest hardliners in parliament have been marginalised. Ali Vaez from the International Crisis Group says the war has given Iran three presents: ideological revitalisation, the discrediting inside Iran of foreign military intervention, and the repair of its deterrence strategy. The US deployed its ultimate deterrent on Iran – war – and it did not work. In the strait of Hormuz, Iran has realised how geography and globalisation have given it an immeasurable asset, one that it will take years of new pipeline construction to devalue. Not surprisingly, so universally damning are the global verdicts on Trump’s war that he agonises and balks at signing a document that will in essence get him back to where he started, at a cost of $50bn. His predicament is reminiscent to the one Johnson described to his wife, Lady Bird, in 1965: “I have the choice to go in with great casualty lists or to get out with disgrace. It’s like being in an airplane and I have to choose between crashing the plane or jumping out. I do not have a parachute.” View image in fullscreen Trump’s fallback message that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon had multiple drawbacks. Photograph: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images Indeed, Trump seems in a few short few months to have raced through the v