It’s another morning of the familiar sight of bombed-out buildings and smoke. My prediction is there will be no productive negotiations between Iran, Israel, and the US. The way these conflicts have typically resolved is Iran spontaneously relenting, typically for 9-12 months, until resuming. Iran initially attacked Israel in April 2024, paused until August, and resumed in June 2025. (I’m guessing according to Iran’s LinkedIn, “nuclear scientists wanted” or “generals wanted” positions are becoming harder to fill.)
As I mentioned last week, expecting Iran to fully disarm or abandon its nuclear program is unrealistic without regime change—something on the scale of the Iraq invasion. Since Iran remains committed to its nuclear ambitions, the only alternative to full-scale war is occasional targeted airstrikes on its weapons facilities and nuclear labs. Trump’s ultimatum last week demanding Iran’s surrender was, unsurprisingly, ignored. That’s always been the issue with diplomacy: nationalism and pride cause both sides to dig in, unwilling to show weakness—yet meaningful negotiations require some degree of compromise.
Trump in 2017-2018 entering into tentative negotiations with North Korea is a possible exception, but this apparent success was not so much attributable to diplomatic prowess on Trump’s part, but because the DKWP leadership pivoted to safer and more lucrative ransomware attacks on U.S. firms and the theft of crypto to the tune of billions of dollars, as the price of Bitcoin surged. Speaking of which, shorting Bitcoin as a hedge in the event of increasing unrest is a better hedge than betting on Polymarket. This is what I am doing now.
On a related note, the liberal media is pushing this narrative that there is division within the ranks of Trump supporters over Iran. What Trump, Israel, or Iran does is irrelevant provided there is in-fighting, which is what really matters. The media casts a huge net to find anyone who is tangentially associated with Trump who disagrees, and then uses this as evidence of mass-defection, when it’s mostly isolated to a handful of individuals and over a specific issue, not a repudiation of Trump overall.
Steve Bannon is commonly cited as a dissenting voice. Although he’s popular online, his appeal is otherwise limited despite the considerable media coverage he still gets. The likes of Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham, although a proverbial punching bag online, more closely represent the majority of Republican voters offline, not this vocal anti-war minority whose impact is mostly felt on Twitter. Whether or not Bannon is correct on the Iran issue is irrelevant to the fact that the media is heavily promoting him as a credible dissenter to spilt the party and demoralize the ‘MAGA movement’.
The media’s end-goal is to discourage turnout. But Trump is a lame duck. And unless Trump manages to create a situation in Iran even worse than the Iraq War—a conflict that, even by 2007, still had majority support among Republican voters—it’s wishful thinking for the media to expect voters to turn against him over this issue alone. Moreover, lukewarm support for military action before it begins isn’t the same as support after it starts. As with the Iraq War, it’s likely that public backing will increase once strikes are underway, especially as peer pressure becomes a factor. War is as much about propaganda as it is about fighting. All it will take are notable MAGA-influencer accounts (e.g. Matt Walsh) to pivot, and the others will fall in line.