President Trump told reporters on Monday that he wants to give Iran “every last chance before decapitation” following his decision Saturday to cancel massive strikes on Iran’s infrastructure for what seems like the 27^th time since the strategic bombing campaign ended April 8 (number exaggerated for effect).

Trump claimed he postponed the strikes at the request of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Iran itself. He claims negotiations are ongoing with Iran; Iran denies it is negotiating at all with the U.S.

The requests by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar make perfect sense. It has long been acknowledged by foreign policy experts that should the U.S. strike Iran’s power plants, desalination plants, and other civilian infrastructure, Iran will respond in kind against Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states, resulting not only in devastation for those states but for the world economy at large.

Thus far, oil flows out of the region have only been interrupted. Should oil production be destroyed, the consequences would be more severe and longer lasting.

Trump’s tactic of threatening massive destruction against an adversary, only to call off the attack at the last minute pending a negotiated settlement, goes back to his first term. He once threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” should they continue threatening the United States following developments in their nuclear weapons program.

Trump eventually met with Kim Jong Un in Singapore (2018) and Hanoi (2019), respectively, and finally for a historic photo op with the North Korean leader in the demilitarized zone later in 2019.

The difference between that confrontation and the current war with Iran is leverage. Whether or not North Korea was serious about its threats to the U.S. or just looking to shake down the administration for more aid, and whether Trump’s bellicosity helped or harmed in obtaining a resolution is debatable. But in dealing with North Korea, it is at least arguable that Trump had some leverage.

With Iran, he has none. The U.S. lost the war with Iran months ago. One can argue about the date Iran won it, but at the point Iran demonstrated that it could close the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. could not force it open, the war was over. Since then, it has just been a matter of the Trump administration acknowledging that reality.

Trump seemed to do so when he signed what this writer called an unconditional surrender, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran on June 22. What else could one call it? The MOU acceded to virtually all of Iran’s maximalist demands and none of the Trump administration’s demands. There would be no reason for Trump to sign such a document unless he had admitted to himself he had no military solution even to get back to the status quo ante.

Almost immediately, however, Trump backed out of the agreement, reimposing the naval blockade, and embarking upon a series of “tit for tat” strikes with Iran, with each side claiming to be responding to provocation by the other. Trump’s oscillation between threats of imminent destruction of Iran and claims of an imminent peace deal have continued since then, reaching an almost comical level with the latest iteration.

It is noteworthy that the latest threat is merely “decapitation,” implying something like another attempt on the lives of regime leadership, rather than total civilizational destruction. But whether Trump intends any distinction between this and previous threats is anyone’s guess.

What is more important than what Trump is saying is what Iran is saying. Its public statements haven’t changed since the beginning of the conflict. When the outcome of the war still seemed in doubt, Iran’s demands were roughly those granted in the June 22 MOU. And since the U.S. signed and then reneged on that agreement, Iran has said it is no longer interested in negotiating.

This is not the talk of a country that fears for its existence. It is the talk of the victor after winning a war.

Meanwhile, Trump seems to be exhibiting the five stages of grief. Whatever one thinks of the original theory advanced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Trump’s behavior seems to fit the theory. Only where Kübler-Ross posited five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), Trump seems to be stuck in a loop between three: denial, anger, and bargaining.

The original theory had some nuance, acknowledging that not everyone necessarily experiences the stages in order or even all five stages at all. But Trump, many of his supporters, and even his neocon detractors who believe he should be dealing with Iran more harshly, are all certainly in denial – denial that Iran has won the war.

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Whenever historians compile a ranked list of U.S. presidents, either from best to worst or vice versa, libertarians tend to advise some version of “read it backwards and it’s more accurate.” While they may not use the term in their academic work, historians dismiss dozens of U.S. presidents as “postage stamp presidents,” indicating there is nothing much to say about them other than that they were elected and served terms of office from thus and so date to thus and so date.

Their portrait with a date range below it sums up their presidencies because they “didn’t do anything” while in office.

Presidents who presided over major wars or who introduced some notable change to the way the federal government exercised power are assumed to be better than the postage stamps because they achieved something during their presidencies.

It never occurs to historians to seek evidence of whether most Americans were better off under the rule of the “best” presidents than under the postage stamps. It is assumed they or future Americans were were better off because of the new powers good presidents acquired. They assume this in the face of much empirical evidence to the contrary.

This bias certainly isn’t limited to American history. Wherever one looks, from ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome to the emergence of medieval nation states to modern world history, historians seem to operate under a few basic assumptions that evidence not only doesn’t support but upon closer examination often refutes:

1. Centralization of political power is always a good in and of itself for society as a whole.

2. Centralization of economic planning always improves the living standards of those under its rule.

3. Victory in war is de facto proof of the value of the executive, regardless of whether the war could have been avoided.

4. Acquisition of new territory is always beneficial to the citizens of the acquiring state.

It is easy to see why historians would be inevitably captured by these biases. The “great” rulers leave something for them to study: pyramids, temples, extensive court records, archaeological evidence of massive armed conflicts, the ruins of razed cities, etc. What do the postage stamp pharaohs, emperors, or presidents give them? From their perspective, nothing.

But just as Bastiat pointed out “that which is not seen” in terms of the opportunity costs of many state interventions, there is an opposite, equally unseen benefit to the people from the absence of state interventions. There may not be great monuments attesting to it, but it is nevertheless there and can largely be derived a priori from the documented history of the great rulers.

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In a few days, Americans will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There will be fireworks, concerts, speeches, and millions of backyard barbecues.

But what precisely are we celebrating?

Most Americans know that on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, explaining why the colonies were “dissolving the political bands” connecting them to Great Britain. Far fewer know that the actual act of separation took place two days earlier, when Congress approved Richard Henry Lee’s resolution declaring the colonies “free and independent States.”

More importantly, few Americans understand what those words meant.

Today, when we hear the phrase “the United States,” we naturally think of a single nation. But in 1776, the word “state” meant what we would today call a country. The Declaration itself says that the former colonies possessed “full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

In other words, Congress did not create one new nation on July 2. It declared thirteen separate states—Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the others—to be sovereign political communities possessing the same powers as Great Britain, France, or Spain.

Seven years later, Great Britain itself recognized this reality in the Treaty of Paris:

“His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States.”

This is quite different from the story most Americans have in mind when they celebrate Independence Day.

Most Americans believe that a new nation (not thirteen new nations) was created that day. Politicians will likely confuse the matter even further with sophisms like “the birth of our democracy.” Democracy is not mentioned in any of the founding documents.

Now, it would be dishonest not to recognize that the Founders intended more than thirteen separate states. According to Thomas Jefferson’s autobiography, they moved directly on to the Articles of Confederation, defining something more than an alliance but far less than a monolithic nation state. According to the Articles, it was “a confederation.” The Articles describe the relationship as “a firm league of friendship” that agreed to delegate certain powers to a federal government, leaving all others to the individual states.

This is not just an academic point. It was the kind of relationship the colonists argued was their proper one to the British Empire before leaving it. In his A Summary View of the Rights of British America, Jefferson argued that the colonies were subject to the king but not to Parliament. As far as internal matters, including taxation, were concerned, only the local colonial governments had any legitimate authority. The king’s authority was limited to foreign policy and regulating trade.

We still call the government in Washington DC “the federal government,” but have lost the meaning of the word. A federal government governs a federation, not a nation. But the government in Washington DC acts as a national government in all but name.

Again, this is no mere pedantry. We are still arguing today over who makes rules over issues like abortion, gun regulation, and drugs. The Constitution leaves all these issues to the states, but since the early twentieth century progressives, both liberal and conservative, have used the Supreme Court to “discover” those powers in the Constitution, mostly through spurious readings of the Bill of Rights.

But the spirit of ’76 was to leave all such matters to local governance, not decided by supposed elites in a distant capital. And Washington DC is literally as distant to many U.S. states as London was in 1776 and culturally much more so to almost all of them.

Then, there is “our democracy.” The reason you don’t find the word democracy in the Declaration or the Constitution is that the Founders did not envision a government that did any mythical “will of the people” or “will of the majority.” Rather, the purpose of government according to the Declaration was to secure the inalienable rights of the individual.

Modern Americans often speak of “our democracy” as though elections determine what government ought to do. The Founders viewed matters differently. Elections were not intended to determine the purpose of government. That purpose was already fixed. The role of government was to secure the rights of individuals. Elections merely determined who would exercise the limited powers delegated for that end.

Read the rest at The Libertarian Institute…

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupidand Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

As President Trump continues to attempt to extricate himself from the Iran War, analysts are left to assess what has been gained or lost in fighting it. Certainly, Iran has realized enormous gains. If the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by President Trump on Thursday is representative of the final agreement, Iran will be in a better position on the world stage than it has been at any time since the 1979 revolution.

According to the MOU, the U.S. will lift the economic sanctions it has imposed upon Iran for several decades. It will return $24 billion in Iranian funds frozen by the U.S. government. Iran will keep its conventional missile capability and some sort of peaceful nuclear program, almost certainly to include uranium enrichment, likely capped at a level far below weapons grade. The U.S. has also pledged to “remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.”

That means the U.S. will not send troops back to the military bases encircling Iran which the U.S. evacuated at the beginning of the war and Iran subsequently bombed into various states of damage or destruction.

Regarding the damage done to Iran by 40 days of bombing by the U.S. and Israel, the U.S. has agreed to “develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

As for the United States, it emerges from the war with very little to show for its efforts. Iran agrees not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, but they have promised as much for the past two decades and submitted to and passed inspections to ensure compliance.

That this “no nukes” clause represents no change in Iran’s policy or behavior is reflected in the agreement, which states, “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” The word “reaffirms” was likely insisted upon by Iran so that the MOU would reflect what they claim has been their position since suspending their nuclear weapons program over twenty years ago.

Besides this non-concession, no other U.S. demand is satisfied in the MOU. The document is completely silent on Iran’s conventional missile program, which the U.S. demanded be curtailed or eliminated at the beginning of the war. Iran’s “proxies,” Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis are similarly not mentioned. So, Iran is not agreeing to anything regarding their support of those groups.

In fact, the MOU implicitly takes Hezbollah’s side, requiring, “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” and also “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.” This means Israel must withdraw its troops from Lebanon, where they are currently fighting Hezbollah. Lebanon is named three times in the first paragraph to ensure there is no confusion it is part of the deal, as there was at the beginning of the first ceasefire.

These are the kinds of terms imposed on the losers of a war by the winners.

Clearly, no U.S. interests were served by losing the war with Iran. But what if the U.S. had won it? What if the decapitation strategy pursued by the U.S. in March had succeeded, the neocon dream of mass revolt of the Iranian people had taken place, and the mullahs had been deposed? What U.S. national interest would have been served then?

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As the 100th day approached of a war with Iran President Trump once said the U.S. won “in the first hour” of fighting on February 28, equity markets began to exhibit the kind of fear one would expect with 20% of the world’s oil and fertilizer trapped in the Persian Gulf.

Until today, Trump’s tap dancing between threats of Iran’s catastrophic destruction and last minute postponements due to supposed breakthroughs in negotiations, along with the release of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), had kept the oil price down and equity markets up.

But the president can only dance so long. The reality that there is no good way out of this war without explicitly or tacitly acceding to Iran’s demands may be starting to dawn on investors. That means the Iran War, whether it ends soon via U.S. capitulation or becomes yet another Middle East quagmire that drags on for years, will ultimately yield no benefit to the American people. All they’ll be left with are the costs, which in this case could be considerable and ongoing.

For average Americans, the empire is “all pain no gain.”

Proponents of the empire insist it is vital to “U.S. interests.” They argue that average Americans couldn’t enjoy the prosperity and freedom they do without the global standing army and gargantuan military budget to support it. But when pressed for details, the cause/effect relationships between the constant interventions and whatever freedom and prosperity Americans enjoy always gets vaguer and vaguer the more details one demands.

Regarding the current war, it is argued that Iran is a threat to Israel, a key ally. But when asked, “how does this alliance benefit Americans,” one usually receives replies like, “Israel is the only democracy in the region!” To which one could reasonably ask, “How do Americans benefit from there being a democracy in the region?”

There is usually some reference to oil at this point, which prompts the question, “How does America improve its access to Middle Eastern oil by antagonizing the oil producers?”

The arguments for the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine are similarly vague. And when one tries to pin proponents of the empire down by saying, “Explain, step by step, how Americans would have been adversely affected if this intervention never occurred,” one is met only with platitudes. “American Exceptionalism.” “Indispensable Nation.” “Western values.”

Maybe it’s hard to explain concretely because it’s just bunk.

Even the foreign policy realists like John Mearscheimer and Robert Pape, who have been 100 percent correct in their predictions about how this war would go, warn us that America cannot relapse into “isolationism,” lest other powers like China “fill the vacuum.”

It is important to understand isolationism as both the interventionists and the realists define it. Isolationism is refusing to take responsibility for security issues all over the world. While the neocons advocate kinetic military operations and the realists suggest strategies like containment and offshore balancing, they all agree Americans have to pay for the massive military structure necessary for either strategy.

Anything less is “isolationism,” even if the country in question has robust trade relationships with every existing and emerging power on earth and a military more than capable of enforcing its own security interests. That is still a recipe for disaster because it allows for the emergence of new threats like China and reemergence of old ones like Russia. And we all know no nation could prosper and grow while allowing that to happen.

Except China. It seems to be working just fine for China.

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Despite myriad statements by President Trump indicating progress in peace talks with Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says no progress has been made on a deal to date. Trump has taken the American public on a pendulum ride of sorts, first threatening to destroy Iran completely if a deal isn’t reach by his latest deadline, only to postpone the destruction at the last minute, claiming a breakthrough in negotiations that is expected to imminently lead to an agreement.

Then, no agreement comes, and the cycle starts over.

The truth is there have been no significant breakthroughs in negotiations since the war began February 28. The core U.S. demands have not changed; neither have the core Iranian demands.

The U.S. demands Iran cease nuclear enrichment entirely, even though enrichment is named an inalienable right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); Iran refuses to cease enrichment.

The U.S. demands Iran dismantle its missile capabilities; Iran refuses to do so.

The U.S. demands Iran ceases to support its proxies in Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen; Iran refuses, considering them “allies” rather than “proxies.”

The U.S. demands Iran relinquish all control over the Strait of Hormuz; Iran refuses and maintains it will continue to collect tolls in lieu of reparations for damage done by the war if it does not receive direct payment from the U.S. and Israel (i.e., “the U.S.”).

It’s really a stretch to even call what is going on between the two countries “negotiations.” Iran has refused to engage the U.S. directly after Trump imposed a blockade the day after a tenuous ceasefire. Instead, the U.S. sends emails to Pakistan, which is acting as intermediary. Pakistan forwards those emails to Iran.

Iran responds to those it feels it needs to. This is not the behavior of a defeated nation whose leadership is in disarray. It is the behavior of a nation on the verge of winning a war.

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I was born in the mid-1960s and remember the birth of cable television. Home Box Office (HBO) premiered in 1972 and soon after my family had a cable subscription.

By the early 70s I was already a huge Universal classic horror fan. Even before cable, I had seen the 1931 Karloff Frankenstein, the 1931 Lugosi Dracula, and a few of the others on the “Friday Fright Night” late show that ran after the 11:00 news on the local ABC affiliate. But cable television opened up the entire catalog to me.

In those days, cable scheduling was fast and loose. What used to be an empty spot on the dial pre-cable now might host one cable channel for part of the day and another for the rest. Most of the cable stations went off air at midnight, just like the local network affiliates, with a rendition of the national anthem.

One such channel in the Buffalo, N.Y. market (I don’t remember the dial number) carried WPIX Channel 11 from New York City (NYC) on Saturday mornings until 10 AM. There was a god-awful children’s show about a leprechaun named “Harrigan” until 9:30, at which time an episode of the 1960s Spiderman cartoon series would come on. I timed breakfast so that I was finished just in time to hear as little of the Harrigan outro theme song as possible without missing the teaser for Spiderman.

But that was just the warmup act for what followed. At 10 AM, the station would switch from WPIX Channel 11 NYC to WOR TV Channel 9 NYC. And every Saturday morning at that time, a 1930s or 1940s film would be shown. These included the Universal classic horror films – usually the B movie sequels, not the originals. However, they tended to run them in multi-week series. So, if The Mummy’s Hand (1940) were shown one Saturday, then the Mummy’s Tomb (1942) would show the next, The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) the week after, and The Mummy’s Curse (1944) the week after that.

Ditto with the Frankenstein films. If Son of Frankenstein (1939) played the first week, it likely would be followed in successive weeks by Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945).

I was like a prospector who had hit the mother lode.

Of course, it wasn’t just the Universal classic horror films that played in the 10 AM slot. When they weren’t running those, they would run other films from the same period, which I came to enjoy almost as much. It was on WOR Channel 9 that I first encountered The Saint.

In keeping with the pattern, I don’t believe I saw the first of the RKO Saint series starring Louis Hayward in the title role. My entire exposure to the Saint was the following five films starring George Sanders. As far as I was concerned, George Sanders was The Saint. I had no knowledge of the Leslie Charteris novels and short stories wherein the character had been created. Neither did The Saint’s ideological significance occur to me at that age.

After finally reading several of the Charteris novels (Meet the Tiger, Enter the Saint, The Last Hero aka The Saint Closes the Case, The Avenging Saint) and rewatching the five Sanders films (conveniently sold in one DVD collection), it is obvious Simon Templar inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond, even if Fleming never publicly acknowledged it.

Templar is essentially Bond’s prototype: a suave Englishman with expensive tastes, a predilection for fast cars, a way with beautiful women, and a habit of delivering sharp one-liners while facing deadly threats and taking on sophisticated criminals. But one thing makes Simon Templar far better than James Bond:

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Donald Trump ran three presidential campaigns under the banner Make America Great Again (MAGA). He also promised to put “America First,” a reference to the 20^th century interwar movement that opposed further involvement in foreign wars. Instead, its adherents then and a large portion of Trump’s supporters now believe the wars America has fought have not served the interests of Americans and that the federal government should address those instead of “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”

But therein lies the rub. Whether or not MAGA and America First are compatible largely depends upon how one defines “great.” And based upon the president’s actions thus far during his second term, his definition does not jibe with that of his America First supporters nor their 20^th century predecessors.

Trump’s supporters are sometimes criticized for romanticizing the 1950s, a period of relative peace and domestic prosperity. From the early 50s through the mid-1960s, life most approached what they consider the American ideal. Jobs were plentiful, including high paying manufacturing jobs, and most American households could live comfortably on one income.

They believe economic “globalization” ruined this idyllic lifestyle. Specifically, “free” trade agreements like NAFTA and allowing China to enter the WTO resulted in U.S. manufacturing being outsourced to cheaper labor markets abroad. This, they contend, has resulted in a dearth of high-paying jobs and the necessity for at least two people in the average household to work just to scrape by.

Thus, Trump’s first inaugural promised to reverse this “American carnage,” bring high paying manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and restore the idyllic lifestyle Americans once enjoyed as their birthright.

It’s a compelling story and has certainly created a vast political movement. It’s also demonstrably false on every point.

First, American manufacturing has not been “hollowed out.” Manufacturing output is currently at an all-time high and any honest analysis of its virtually uninterrupted ascent over the past 100 years would conclude that the only interruptions to this success story have been the two financial crises – and accompanying monetary inflation – in 2008 and 2020. More on that later.

It is true that manufacturing jobs have declined precipitously, but that just means that the U.S. manufacturing sector is becoming more efficient, able to produce more output with fewer workers. The same thing has happened in farming over the past 100 years. In any case, the trend has nothing to do with NAFTA or China entering the WTO, as this chart clearly demonstrates:

If one were to take away the years at the bottom of that chart, no one claiming NAFTA or China entering the WTO were the driving factors in the decline of manufacturing jobs would be able to find those trade agreements on the chart. In fact, if one were to pull the timeframe out to include pre-WWII periods, it would show that WWII and the years immediately afterward were the highwater mark in terms of manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all jobs.

In other words, for most of American history, including most of the 1950s, 70% or more of American workers had non-manufacturing jobs. And somehow they were able to live middle class lifestyles.

It isn’t even true that increasing the number of manufacturing jobs would make the average American wealthier today. The median annual wage or salary for all full-time jobs in the U.S. economy is about $62,400. The median for full-time manufacturing jobs is about $45,960. Americans leaving the average job for a manufacturing job would not live a higher lifestyle. Quite the contrary.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be an “affordability” problem for average Americans. And the U.S. has been running large net trade deficits for decades, with no foreseeable end in sight. If Trump’s story doesn’t explain these problems, what does?

That brings us back to the definition of “greatness.”

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Eight days after threatening on Easter Sunday to end Iran’s civilization should it not open the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump on Monday began blockading the strait himself. He also threatened to “seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”

This latter threat, which if carried out would amount to acts of war against the country of origin of the vessel(s), would include Russian and Chinese ships.

It is one thing to demand the strait be opened and, when Iran refused, to “close it harder” yourself. It is quite another to declare your intention to commit acts of war against the two most powerful countries in the world besides the United States, both with significant nuclear arsenals.

Fortunately, April 14 turned out to be another “TACO Tuesday” as previously sanctioned ship Rich Starry, bound for China and carrying a Chinese crew, successfully exited the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials explained its inaction based upon the ship having loaded its cargo in a United Arab Emirates port, rather than an Iranian port, and having not paid a toll to Iran. The ship therefore did not meet U.S. criteria for stoppage.

Whatever. That the U.S. did not commit any acts of war against a Chinese-crewed ship bound for China is a good thing. Iran has been allowing the ships of its allies to navigate the strait since the beginning of the war. It remains to be seen what will happen if a Russian or Chinese ship which does meet the U.S. criteria attempts to leave the gulf. The Murlikishan, another Chinese-crewed ship under a foreign flag and eventually bound for China, is currently in the gulf.

The blockade is the latest in a series of erratic attempts by President Trump to find an exit ramp from a war even he clearly realizes was a major blunder. The problem is that no matter which direction Trump goes in, the Iranian’s have the upper hand.

His threat to “end Iran’s civilization” by bombing their energy plants, desalination plants, and other civilian infrastructure was countered by Iran’s threat to do likewise to the GCC states. While this wouldn’t save Iran from devastation, it would effectively take the entire world down with it as about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply would no longer merely be interrupted by a temporary blockade but destroyed. The U.S. can’t afford a global depression. Iran’s capability to take down the global economy effectively gives them a trump card (intended) on military escalation.

Neither will Trump’s blockade be effective. Trump was willing to go to the extremes he did on Easter Sunday precisely because Iran’s own closure of the Strait of Hormuz was already damaging the world economy and that damage would increase exponentially the longer the closure went on. That fact hasn’t changed. Trump is saying that if Iran won’t let its enemies ships pass through the strait, then the U.S. won’t let its friends pass, either.

That not only doesn’t solve the economic problems caused by Iran’s closure; it makes them worse. It just means that even less oil, gas, and fertilizer is leaving the Persian Gulf than under Iran’s blockade alone. If Iran’s friends can no longer obtain those commodities from the Persian Gulf, they are going to compete with the U.S. and its allies for them in other markets, driving up the price for everyone. Iran wins again.

The madness of King Donald is driven by desperation. He cannot admit to himself he made a mistake starting the war in the first place nor face the reality that his tried-and-true bag of tricks – including making extreme demands and then pivoting to a more reasonable but advantageous position – is not going to get him out of this. Iran simply responds with the Art of the No Deal and leaves Trump flailing.

Iran has all the cards in this hand precisely because the administration has given them nothing to lose. It is true that the U.S. and Israel have destroyed a huge percentage of Iran’s above ground capabilities. But Iran anticipated that eventuality for decades. They’ve been preparing to survive this war since before Trump started hosting The Apprentice.

Given that all Iran must do to win is survive, maintain its capabilities to control the Strait, and retain its ability to respond to external attacks, it had a huge advantage before the first shot was fired. On the other hand, for the U.S. to win, it must either change the entire structure of Iranian government or truly eliminate Iran’s missile and nuclear enrichment capabilities, both of which may be far enough underground that even nuclear weapons cannot reach them.

Thus, the U.S. stumbles from one strategy to the next, trying to find one that has any leverage. It has lately moved several thousand ground troops to the region either for appearances or as a contingency. But again, what will the winning strategy be on the ground? Conquering Iran would take hundreds of thousands of troops if it were possible for the U.S. at all. Anything short of that would be short lived and indecisive. Indecisive means Iran wins again.

It isn’t only the emperor who has lost touch with reality but the empire itself. The 20^th century was the American century. The U.S. built its global empire fighting and defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War. While there were plenty of blunders to point to and at least one defeat in Vietnam, the empire in general achieved its strategic goals. Whether the average American would have been better off without the empire is an argument for another day. But on its own terms, the empire set reasonable goals and achieved them.

This century tells a different story.

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Flavius Claudius Julianus, known to modern students of history as “Julian,” was an unlikely emperor. A nephew of Constantine the Great through Constantine’s half brother Julius Constantius, there were long odds he would survive at all during the family purge that occurred following Constantine’s death.

After previously ordering the execution of his own son by his first wife, whom he may also have had executed, Constantine bequeathed the Roman empire to three sons by his second wife, Constantine II, Constans I, and Constantius II. After Constantine II died while waging war against Constans, Constans himself was killed in a revolt by the usurper Magnentius. This left Constantius II as the sole emperor of Rome, once the defeated Magnentius took his own life at the end of a three-year civil war.

Having survived this Corleone-style bloodbath, Constantius was understandably concerned about the threat his two cousins posed. After all, he was responsible not only for the death of their father but much of their extended family. However, as Julian and his half brother Gallus were only children at the time, their lives were spared. They lived more or less under house arrest during their childhood but were provided a Christian education.

Ironically, talent was often a liability among Roman men of public renown. Specifically, a demonstrated ability to lead men in battle and defeat Rome’s enemies made one popular with the troops and the Roman citizenry but suspected as a rival by the emperor. Such was the fate of Julian’s brother Gallus, whom Constantius had killed after previously making Gallus a Caesar, allowing him to marry his sister, and tasking him with avenging Constans in the civil war against Magnentius.

Gallus performed far too well as a military leader and was summoned to Constantius’ court at Milan. During his journey thereto, he suddenly found the military garrisons in his path absent and was arrested and eventually executed.

Julian, on the other hand, did not immediately demonstrate any ability that could pose a threat to his cousin. After Gallus’ death, Julian was summoned to Milan where he was interrogated and detained for several months. However, partially due to the intervention of Constantius’ wife Eusebia, Julian was allowed to travel to Athens.

Julian had long wished to make this trip and immerse himself in the city’s philosophical culture. Once there, he attended lectures, developed relationships with prominent Christian and pagan teachers and students, and was eventually initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. There he hope to spend his life in academic and philosophical study.

Unfortunately for Julian, his genuine love of philosophical life persuaded Constantius that he was not a rival for his throne after all, prompting Constantius to make him Caesar! Under the system established by Diocletian, Caesars were subordinate to the emperor (or emperors) who bore the title “Augustus.”

Julian had no desire to leave his contemplative life in Athens and had good reason to suspect his trip to meet Constantius would end similarly to Gallus’. But Constantius was sincere and the young academic was made Caesar of the West and packed off to Gaul to represent the emperor.

Julian at first took up his duties reluctantly, lamenting while performing military exercises, “Oh, Plato, what a task for a philosopher!” according to Gibbon. But in time, he became a capable administrator and military leader, defeating the barbarians who had breached the Rhine, and establishing peace once more in the province.

Of course, Julian’s demonstrated ability as a leader now provoked the same suspicion in Constantius as had Gallus’. However, with civil war once again looming, Constantius died of a fever in 361 CE, having allegedly recognized Julian as his successor before his death.

Julian was a divisive leader due to his religious and civil policies. Known as “Julian the Apostate” to the Catholic Church, Julian attempted to reestablish the empire’s traditional pagan religion and persecuted Christians. Devoted to the aesthetic life himself, he viewed the opulent court apparatus as wasteful and inefficient. He fired thousands of servants and officials and had scheming eunuchs within the court system (the “Deep State” of the day) tried and executed.

Julian was adored by his supporters, especially in the military, and hated by his detractors, especially in the Church. Equally divisive were his economic policies. Accusing wealthy merchants of price gouging, he fixed the price of grain, imported additional stores from Egypt, and forced reluctant landowners to sell at the artificially low prices.

By 363 CE, although only in his early thirties, Julian had gone from exile to absolute ruler of the Roman empire. His reign was lauded as wildly successful by his supporters, and even his political adversaries would have had to concede that the rise of this non-politician to the most powerful office in the world was extraordinary.

Then came the Persian campaign.

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