Welcome back to Loaded Dogma, an Australian political blog. I have not posted for ten years. I will try not to leave ten years until the next entry.
I have been moved to blog again because I wanted to get out in full my theory as to why the Iran war is not going to end any time soon. In the spirit of Hemingway, I will try to use brief and spare language.
Donald Trump believes in bilateralism. This is at the heart of his Art Of The Deal manifesto, albeit mostly ghostwritten and not made explicit in the text. This is why his people continue to fail at the Middle East peace process in general, and ending this war in particular.
The Iran war is a three-cornered contest: Israel, Iran and America. Trump's preferred negotiating technique is not to get all three parties in a room. It is not even two combatants in a room. His people talk to Pakistan, the Iranians talk to Pakistan, and they come to separate agreements with different text, with Israel not part of the process.
That is great for creating instant headlines and generating short-term media hits, as Trump is enjoying right now. A deal has been agreed upon, shout the headlines and newscasters. Except... there is no "deal".
There is a list of demands and concessions that the US agreed to. There is a similar but different list Iran agreed to. There is no "deal" that merges the two. Newspapers and TV are lying on Trump's behalf. They are mugs.
Baudrillard (pictured) would recognise this terrain. The peace deal is a simulacrum, existing in media coverage but not actually on paper anywhere, let alone agreed to by warring parties. Trump wants it to be hyperreal in the Baudrillardian sense, but over time the glimmer fades and we realise its ephemerality.
We as witnesses are not searching for truth here; we yearn for solidity. None presents itself.
