Analysis by Todd Lassa
The Consumer Price Index spiked 0.9% in March over February on energy prices up 12.5% overall, the Labor Department reported. The annual CPI was up 3.3% (from +2.4% in February). Gas prices rose 18.9% and fuel oil was up 44.2% month over month. [Bureau of Labor Statistics]
In the seven weeks since the US and Israel ignited the war, Iran’s highly enriched uranium remains in Iran, which has not had any sort of regime change. Some 24 hours after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in time to prevent the US Military from fulfilling his threat to annihilate the country’s civilization forever there was “little” evidence Iran had reopened the Strait of Hormuz, according to The New York Times.
The Trump Doctrine on Iran was manifest eight years ago when during his first administration, the president pulled out of the 2016 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear arms program, brokered in President Obama’s second term.
With encouragement and/or pressure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the US and Israel launched an air attack on Iran Saturday, February 28. For weeks Trump was unable to give a single, consistent reason for launching the war, but suggested it would run maybe four to six weeks.
No Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan quagmires from the America First president.
After five weeks of war, Trump Truth Socialed on Easter Sunday that a US Air Force pilot whose F-15E fighter jet was shot down over southwestern Iran on Good Friday had been rescued.
“WE GOT HIM! The U.S. Military sent dozens of aircraft, armed with the most lethal weapons in the World, to retrieve him. He sustained injuries, but he will be just fine,” Trump wrote, according to Time magazine.
That same Easter Sunday Trump Truth Socialed to Iran’s leaders: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
On Monday, in a press conference with the president, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is working hard to earn meta-designation as “war secretary” compared the joint military/CIA operation to rescue the USAF airman with the Easter resurrection of Jesus.
The pilot was shot down on Good Friday, hid “in a cave, in a crevice, all of Saturday” like Jesus’ entombment inside a rock, and was “flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday,” Hegseth said. “A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for. … God is good.”
Trump gave Iran until 8 p.m. US Eastern Time Tuesday to reach a ceasefire deal, give up its enriched uranium and open the Strait of Hormuz, or “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Pakistan diplomats brokered a limited two-week ceasefire just ahead of that deadline. Within 24 hours, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that the US and Israel had violated three points of a 10-point “agreed framework,” NPR’s Morning Edition reports, most notably Israel’s continuation of attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
President Trump has replied that a ceasefire with Lebanon is not part of the agreement.
Iran says that its side of the 10-point agreement calls for war compensation from the US and Israel, lifting of economic sanctions, takes disarmament its missiles off the table while retaining its right to enrich uranium.
Wednesday a White House official said that Vice President JD Vance will lead a US delegation with special envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to Islamabad, Pakistan for a meeting Saturday with Iranian officials, the NYT reports.
By Thursday morning Washington time, according to Morning Edition, Iran had not lifted its blockade of the Strait, US missiles had reportedly hit an Iranian oil refinery, five Gulf Arab states reportedly had been hit by Iranian drones and missiles, Israeli airstrikes had killed more than 250 people in Lebanon according to Lebanese authorities and a main gas complex in Abu Dhabi had reportedly caught fire.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, told Good Morning America Wednesday that Trump told him in a brief interview that the US would consider a “joint venture” with the Iranian regime to manage and secure traffic in the Strait (per Mediaite).
“We’re thinking of doing a joint venture,” Trump told Karl. “It’s a way of securing it – also securing it from lots of other people. It’s a beautiful thing.”
As bombardments on Lebanon continued Thursday, Israeli PM Netanyahu ordered immediate talks with Beirut focusing on disarmament of Hezbollah and the “normalization of peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon,” Haaretz reports. Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, will lead negotiations on behalf of Israel.
With the latest two-week grace period via ceasefire drawing the war out, at least, to eight weeks, Iran may be winning by not losing. Perhaps the Trump presidency will counter by declaring victory via business deal over the Strait of Hormuz?
Lassa is founding editor of The Hustings.