The word “ceasefire” is doing a lot of work here. The BBC reports that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to stop shooting, while also reporting that Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed dozens of people in the hours leading into the announcement. The IDF’s own framing was basically: we are in a ceasefire, and we are ready to keep fighting.
So what exactly did we win? The Strait of Hormuz was the supposed strategic choke point, but even before this deal, Bloomberg reported that “millions of barrels per day” had already been moving through Hormuz with signals turned off. So, the Strait was open, we did some war, they closed the Strait, and now, if we promise to stop doing war, they’ll reopen the Strait? What a smashing victory…
Then there is the nuclear question. The administration claimed, definitively, that Operation Midnight Hammer solved Iran’s nuclear problem last Summer. But then we apparently had to do war because nuclear? Make it make sense. Besides, can you blame them for wanting nuclear capabilities? We can’t seem to let the Middle East go 12 months without doing more war.
Meanwhile, the “victory” bill is ugly. NPR reports the war has cost U.S. consumers and taxpayers roughly $132 billion so far, with a $300 billion Iran reconstruction plan sitting inside the broader agreement. At least 13 U.S. service members are dead. If the result is a temporary ceasefire, an uncertain nuclear delay, a partially reopened shipping lane, and hundreds of billions in costs, that sounds like a shitty deal to me.