As this is written, Thursday evening, April 9, a couple of days after the night when the parties in Trump and Netanyahu's self-imposed and increasingly bizarre war against arch-enemy Iran stared into the abyss but at the last moment chose to back down and pretend to reach a ceasefire agreement, the main question is whether the rest of us should dare to believe that there will really be direct talks between the US and Iran this coming Saturday, in Islamabad of all places, and this time with JD Vance as the chief negotiator on the American side. Or whether the "world's most incomprehensible" ceasefire deal will have time to collapse before then, thereby thwarting the direct talks in Pakistan.
The answer to that very question, talks or not on Saturday (or as soon as possible thereafter) in Islamabad, we will get very soon. However, we will not get the answer to how all the exceptional ambiguities and twists and turns around the background, function and possible outcome of this strange and seemingly unnecessary war can (begin to) be handled from the start of the negotiations. There is great uncertainty both about what has actually been agreed, for direct implementation and as a mutually acceptable basis for the negotiations if and when they start, and about what is a condition for what, with the special complication in this case that it is actually about three parties, not two, i.e. the USA, Iran and Israel, Israel which is involved in several wars at the same time (Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, etc.) and whose war goals are not identical to the USA's - even though Donald Trump's and "Bibi" Netanyahu's "ideological" kinship as a driving force in the rampant events is internationally well documented.
The situation that has now arisen, as a result of the Israeli-American attack and Iran's surprising resilience and retaliatory capacity, is extraordinarily complicated, not to say chaotic. It is clear that Trump has placed himself in an almost hopeless dilemma with rather poor remaining options for action, especially since the war has given the Iranian regime the insight and opportunity for a counter-move – the closure of the Strait of Hormuz – which, through its global economic ripple effects, has given American policy a character of self-destructive behavior. Trump was certainly warned of this risk, but chose to ignore it and put greater faith in team Netanyahu's assurances of a short and victorious war and the imminent disintegration and fall of the Iranian regime.
The headline's reference to the metaphor of the tail (Netanyahu) wagging the dog (Trump) refers precisely to this discourse that is important in this context: whether and to what extent it was – despite politically necessary assurances to the contrary – Netanyahu and his domestically determined pursuit of “total victory” against his various and historically uniquely weakened enemies, to the south, north and above all to the east that pushed his friend Trump ahead of him step by step to choose war over continuing ongoing negotiations, now just as during the “12-day war” last year. Heavy evidence for the analytical thesis was published recently in a New Times article (Swan/Haberman “How Trump took the US to war with Iran”); an article that describes “How Bibi took Trump and hence the US to war…” in great detail, without diminishing the image of Trump as the decision-maker.
Of all that is uncertain and chaotic at the time of writing, this is precisely what stands out with the complicated and complicating connection to Israel's Netanyahu-dictated separate war goals, this with the controversies surrounding the Israeli army's (IDF) continued attack northwards, against Hezbollah in Lebanon (like Iran surprisingly resilient and capable of retaliation, despite previous massive IDF combat), and the various offers of the intended negotiating parties as to whether the Lebanon war would/should also be covered by the difficult-to-interpret ceasefire. While Iran, with some support from Pakistani mediation, claimed that the ceasefire did not apply as long as Israel continued and even expanded its war in Lebanon and therefore continued the blockade of Hormuz and the shelling of the Gulf neighboring countries, and by Israel claiming the opposite, with some American support, the ceasefire - as the intended basis for future Islamabad talks - could have cracked right then and there. And the violence of the accelerated Israeli campaign north, with shockingly high death tolls and enormous humanitarian consequences began to arouse international reactions, once again, that clearly and distinctly undermined the American intended negotiating position.
After all, it is time for the “dog” to regain some control over the “tail” and Thursday evening’s news that Netanyahu now welcomed direct negotiations between Israel and the hard-pressed Lebanese government about the Lebanon war and (possibly) its settlement, while the Lebanese government publicly acknowledged Iranian assistance in this context. This could mean a small step has been taken to prevent the breakdown of the ceasefire and enable the Islamabad talks. If that happens, we will know soon. Most things remain unclear. For now.
The other night, hours before Trump's ultimatum was to be issued, the situation seemed catastrophic, for the region and beyond. With continued fundamental uncertainty about the American war goals and "victory criteria", Trump had gone further than any American president before him in threatening the opponent with doomsday threats in various guises, specifically to completely attack vital civilian targets such as bridges and power plants, thus threats of a kind that in themselves constitute war crimes, and then primarily with the aim of forcing the opening of Hormuz - compared to the other targets that have been reported from time to time, such as the missile stockpile, the enriched uranium stockpile or "regime change". Parallel to the unprecedented threats linked to the ultimatum that could hardly be postponed again, there was a picture of an American president who, in recognition of the dangerous consequences of the self-imposed war, was really looking for a so-called "off-ramp", a way out of the alternative of having to carry out what he had threatened.
And in this vulnerable situation comes a Pakistani mediation proposal for a two-week ceasefire, and direct talks leading to the ceasefire, a proposal that an apparently relieved Trump accepts, albeit on terms that no one understood or understands, and which Iran (but not Israel, for now) also accepts, albeit on terms that no one understood or understands. But which the outside world and not least the market received with great relief, despite all the obvious uncertainty ahead. The ceasefire proposal gives the parties a couple of weeks of breathing space to negotiate, in the new situation that has arisen, at least a kind of framework for further negotiations – with a view to a permanent peace agreement – which usually takes years rather than weeks to come up with, in the case of successful negotiations.
With the total uncertainty that thus exists before Islamabad (if it actually happens) about the parties' views on cause and effect, what presupposes what, etc., given the fundamentally opposing and maximalist positions documented in the respective sides' lists of demands, and also given the headline's metaphor of the tail and the dog and the wagging, the greatest and most important interest - for the parties and especially Trump and for the world's energy supply, etc. - seems to relate to whether the ceasefire will really withstand the stresses of the contradictions in substance, partly for the agreed two weeks and partly thereafter, the following weeks, months and perhaps years.
It is about politically and technically difficult negotiations in a pause in the middle of a devastating war whose real effects cannot yet be seen and which has obviously driven the measure of trust down to near zero. And for the Iranian side, it is about the experience of the other party starting a war not once but twice in the middle of ongoing negotiations. And about all the question marks that exist about the domestic political development in the now severely war-torn Iran.
What ultimately and despite all the extraordinary difficulties that are piling up still speaks in favor of the Pakistani mediation being successful (where did Turkey and Egypt go as potential mediators, by the way?) is all that can be analytically stated about Donald Trump's compelling need to be able to end his unnecessary and consequential war in the Middle East. The prolonged course of the crisis has gradually deprived him of the opportunity to quickly but at the same time credibly victoriously end the war, and this to such an extent that his risk has become great that the only available "off-ramp" will be an outcome that is security-related and public policy-related. inferior than the situation before the war, or the wars, In this case, the loss of Hormuz as an open waterway and accessible to 20% of the world's oil and gas flows is particularly significant. An illegal and unnecessary war that severely undermines alliance cohesion and also leads to a net negative result is not a success factor – no matter how hard the regime spinners work – ahead of this autumn's elections, in both the US and Israel.
Especially considering everything that can now be said about the negative consequences of the American-Israeli Iran adventure on European and transatlantic cooperation in support of Ukraine's defense struggle.
So good luck, JD Vance.