Football games have been called off with longer notice periods. As millions of Americans returned home on Tuesday night and flicked on the broadcast news or doom-scrolled their socials to find out whether president Donald Trump would deliver on his morning vow, that a “whole civilisation will die tonight”, the US republic appeared to enter a new realm of volatile instability.
Confirmation that Trump had agreed a two-week ceasefire with Iran, through the intermediary of Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, was at once extraordinary and unsurprising. It was released about 90 minutes before Trump’s stated deadline of 8pm. Both countries tailored the arrangement to claim moral victory but the immediate interpretation suggested the United States will cede control of the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway, which will enable Iran to take tolls on each ship passing through with supplies of oil and liquid natural gas vital to the global economy.
On Easter Sunday, Trump had delivered arguably the most infamous Truth Social post of the entire catalogue when he invited the Iranian leadership to “open the f**kin strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”. Just 48 hours later, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, signed his name to a statement calmly acceding to “the brotherly request of PM Sharif in his tweet, and considering the request by the US for negotiations based on its 15 point proposal, as well as announcement by POTUS about acceptance of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal as a basis for negotiations,” Iran would agree to cease its defensive operations, stating that “safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via co-ordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with consideration of technical limitations”.
A Herculean level of immediate heavy lifting was demanded of that “possible” in the Iranian statement. Trump, in his Truth Social post, lit with the usual full caps and the occasionally hokey word intended to note a Jeffersonian formality – “wherein” and “past contention” – concluded with the strange claim that “it is an honour to have this Longterm problem close to resolution”, a phrase more fitting to the president of the local algebra club after the working-out of a particularly tricky equation.
RM Block
A catastrophic military attack had been averted but none of it seemed fully real.
Trump was scheduled to dine with India’s ambassador to the United States on Tuesday and apparently the function went ahead as normal. It was left to other politicians and the people to work out the reason why Trump had backed down at the 11th hour.
The online masses rushed out witticisms based around “Taco Tuesday” and the latest evidence that “Trump always chickens out”. Loyalists pointed to the stand-off as the latest example of the president’s hardline, unblinking mastery of driving a hard deal.
But at this point, it seems just as likely that Trump realised the Augusta Masters starts on Thursday and it would be tough to follow both the play and events in Iran.
Others wondered more loudly about the stability of the president, with Connecticut senator Chris Murphy offering the opinion that “it does seem that Trump has lost touch with reality and we just can’t accept a president who is literally promising to destroy an entire civilisation; to murder hundreds and thousands of innocent human beings. That alone should be grounds for the removal of this president.”
But as the United States drifts deeper into what is becoming a profoundly unhappy, expensive and volatile 250th birthday year, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the entire political class here has become slightly unmoored from reality. Conversations that are everyday now would have been unimaginable three years ago, and certifiable a decade ago.
Easter Monday happened to coincide with the NCAA March Madness championship game between the University of Connecticut and Michigan. It’s an exalted date on the sports calendar. On Monday night, Murphy, a Huskies fan, like most of Connecticut, was on X expressing frustration with the referees. On Tuesday, former president Barack Obama tweeted his congratulations to the victors. Both are basketball fans and entitled to their opinions. But it’s difficult to square those wholesome trivialities with the alarming nature of the messages emanating from the Oval Office over the Easter weekend, and the imminent threat – or promise – to deliver an apocalyptic bombing raid on Iran. It all contributes to the daily sense of walking on unsteady ground.
The suspension of that horrific turn of events was broadly welcomed. But as the Trump administration drifts deeper, the uncanny military expertise and daring of its fighter pilots stand in ever sharper contrast to the fog of contradictions, bluffs and half-explanations offered in the weeks leading up to this uneasy cessation of violence and brinkmanship. Stock markets in the east opened with giddy optimism at confirmation that sanity had prevailed, at least for a fortnight. The old joke – it’s a good job Congress isn’t alive to see this – never seemed more apt.
On Fox News, the evening show host Jesse Waters chirpily reminded viewers hoping for good news written on their local gas signs across the Great Plains and the Bible Belt and the other Trump strongholds that there was more to come.
“But this isn’t over,” he said. “We still have Cuba. Greenland. And Canada. Just kidding!”
He’s a card. But it’s true. Nothing is over. As Tuesday night fell over Washington, the likely disputes over key points of the ceasefire absolutes – free passage through the Strait of Hormuz and the concession of the enriched uranium “nuclear dust” that Trump is adamant the Iranians cannot possess – threatened to cut the ceasefire short. It would be morning again in America soon enough.
