The American Add Vance

Negotiations over the next days and weeks will determine what we have or haven’t achieved through the Iran “excursion.” But some parts of the scoreboard are already coming into focus. Fareed Zakaria talked to Ezra Klein about what Iran has gained: “What it has gained is a far more usable weapon than nuclear weapons. It has realized — and shown the world — that it can destroy the global economy, that it can block the Strait of Hormuz — and that it would have a cataclysmic follow-on effect.” And what America has lost: “That whole idea that the United States saw itself as different, saw itself not as one more in the train of great imperial powers — which, when it was their turn, decided to act rapaciously, to extract tribute, to enforce a brutal vision of dominance — all that was, in a sense, thrown away. I realize it was just one tweet, but it was the culmination of something Trump has been doing for a long time.”

+ For some, the war losses have been far more tangible. Iran’s Schools and Hospitals in Ruins, Times Analysis Shows.

+ None of the discussions of recent mistakes made by the administration should be seen as excusing a deadly Iranian regime that has been terrible for its own people, the region, and the world. Nadav Eyal in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Forgotten War That Iran Already Won. “The most important war that Iran has fought was largely undeclared and is almost entirely forgotten. It was a war against regional peace and the agreements that might have secured it.”

+ In the latest round of negotiations, the team of Witkoff and Kushner will be led by a new participant. Vice President JD Vance is leading negotiations this weekend toward an end to a war that he had opposed starting. Here’s the latest from NBC, The Guardian, and BBC.