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We have a deal! Well, actually, we have a memorandum of understanding. And not everyone seems to have gotten the memo about how we should be understanding it. We won’t know what devil is in the details of the peace agreement with Iran until those details are ultimately ironed out over the coming weeks and months. But it sure doesn’t look like unconditional surrender. It’s also not looking better than the deal Obama negotiated with Iran (the nuclear issues are still subject to negotiation). In terms of lives, dollars, and reputation, Trump’s tearing up of the old Iran agreement could go down as the most expensive tantrum in American history. And I’m not using my own scorecard, I’m using Trump’s. “Mr. Trump said the United States intended to ‘annihilate’ Iran’s military capabilities, abolish its nuclear ambitions, topple its theocratic leadership and liberate its people, whom he encouraged to take over their government when the fighting had stopped. Just one week after the strikes started, he said Iran’s only path to a deal was an ‘unconditional surrender.’” NYT (Gift Article): Trump Winds Down the War He Started With Goals Unmet. Meanwhile, the region and the Iranian people (who were promised “help is on the way”) are left to deal with a more emboldened, more extreme, more entrenched, and less sanctioned regime.
+ “The United States has perhaps done worse than gaining nothing. Iran, while temporarily weakened, is now an even more powerful political actor: The regime in Tehran stood up to a massive U.S. onslaught, survived, and then inflicted pain on various states in the Gulf as punishment for going along with Trump’s war. The Israelis, for their part, have been left out in the cold.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Celebrates While America Capitulates.
+ “Initial details suggest that the agreement does nothing to curb Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, or its funding of regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked Israel with their own arsenals. It could help Iran bolster those proxies by easing sanctions, which would allow billions of dollars to flow into its bank accounts. The deal’s terms when it comes to constraining Iran’s nuclear program — of greatest importance to Israel, and the greatest priority of Mr. Netanyahu’s career — remain undisclosed or still to be negotiated ... Worse still for Mr. Netanyahu, who faces re-election in a few months and is behind in the polls, President Trump, the Israeli leader’s most valuable political asset, has publicly rebuked him multiple times in recent weeks.” NYT (Gift Article): Israel Counts the Ways That Netanyahu’s Iran Strategy Failed.
+ “Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz. They are going along the Southern ‘Highway,’ which is totally safe, secure, and pristine. There are other areas of travel, also!!!” So said Trump about the re-opening of the Strait, officially happening on Friday. Historians will note that the Strait was open before the war. Here’s the latest from The Guardian.
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Punch Drunk Gov
While the world celebrated the beautiful game, Americans were left to suffer an ugly spectacle at the White House. Monica Hesse in WaPo (Gift Article): The White House UFC fights showed us the America we needed to see. “MMA is a deeply violent sport, and always has been. We are a deeply violent country, and always have been. But there’s artistry to the MMA fight, and discipline, a body pushing itself to limits that are simultaneously sickening and exhilarating. But the Ultimate Fighting Championship event that happened on Sunday night was not a celebration of a sport, it was a celebration of slop. It was a pseudo-patriotic grift that tried to convince us that fighters wheel-kicking each other for the chance of $1 million in crypto deserved the same level of hero admiration as the boys who launched onto the beach at Normandy; it was an infomercial that paused every seven seconds to advertise Starlink internet or Starry soda or Ram trucks or flavors of Monster energy drink that God forgot.” (The spectacle was made even less impressive when Josh Hokit ended his post-fight speech at the White House UFC event by yelling, “Michelle Obama is a man!” Michelle Obama is not a man, and Josh Hokit proved himself to be a sad excuse for one.)
+ “All of this was pure, distilled Trump. No previous American leader could plausibly have presided over the scene of a tattooed Brazilian fighter in a black cowboy hat and Lycra shorts running out of the White House, saluted by honor guards, with the intent of pulverizing another human being. He had built an Octagon on the lawn in part, surely, to troll his opponents, as he so often does, but what I saw in the fighting itself—in fight after fight after fight, seven in all—was an affirmative expression of Trump’s favorite kind of storyline: dominance and submission. This was not just a political stunt, but the best way he could imagine spending his 80th birthday.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Theory That Explains Trump’s UFC Fight. (The event also makes it look like Trump is leading a populist revolt when he’s really leading a billionaire boom. That will go down as the biggest gut punch of the night.)
+ And coming soon... Trump announces July Fourth ‘TRUMP RALLY’ on National Mall. (Might as well rename it the National Maul at this point.)
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Panel Discussion
“A technology — known as plug-in, balcony or garden solar — is already enormously popular in Germany, in part because you can buy a kit for less than $600 at IKEA. It’s a small solar panel system, often producing up to 1,200 watts of electricity, or a little more than a refrigerator consumes, that you can affix to a wall, hang on a railing or prop up in a garden — and then plug directly into a wall socket. With the help of a small device called a micro inverter, it pumps electricity into your household circuits to offset your power demand. At least 30 states have passed legislation to legalize these plug-in solar kits or are considering similar bills.” Robinson Meyer in the NYT (Gift Article): The Tiny Solar Panel That Could Change America.
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Knick’s Knack
“So this is how it feels. It is giggling, weeping, spinning, convulsing, mosh-pitting, truck-honking, law-skirting, trumpet-playing, cowbell-ringing, off-key-singing, cigar-lighting, all-night-ing — remembering to remember it all, as if Knicks fans would ever forget. It is hugging strangers so hard they go airborne, fist-bumping cabbies as they crawl through concrete delirium, high-fiving kids on shoulders (and adults on shoulders), climbing stoplights and trees and scaffolding to wave the team flag higher, swiping utility cones and wearing them as hats because they are orange.” Knicks Give Their City Something New: Impossible Joy. (During their playoff run, the Knicks went 15 and Trump.)
+ The Knicks’ long-awaited championship was hardly the only big sports story over a jam-packed weekend. The Carolina Hurricanes took home the Stanley Cup, and at least for one night, the USMNT looked like the team fans always hoped it could be. And there was much more. Here’s a good overview of a fun weekend in sporting events, during which no one desecrated the White House or verbally attacked Michelle Obama.
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Extra, Extra
British Evasion: “Starmer told a news conference that he will fight back if technology companies resist the move, and acknowledged some teens would try to find their way around a ban. But he said he is ‘not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.’” Britain will ban under-16s from social media apps, including TikTok and YouTube.
+ California Reaming: “The California governor said in a video statement that federal agents had knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees in recent days as part of an effort to find a crime, demanding records and ‘abusing the grand jury process.’” Gavin Newsom says Trump directed DoJ to investigate him and his wife.
+ DOJ (Pronounced, Doge): “DOJ officials determined the transaction did not pose a threat to competition and declined to challenge it, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The department approved the merger without requiring any divestitures, behavioral remedies or concessions.” In entirely unsurprising news, the