Robert Hubbell is a well-informed and insightful blogger with a large following.

In this post, he sorts through the claims and counterclaims of the past 24 hours.

He writes:

In a famous thought experiment posed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger, the life-or-death fate of a cat in a box is determined by the random radioactive decay of a particle. Schrödinger argued that the rules of quantum mechanics implied that as the cat awaited its fate, it was simultaneously alive and dead (i.e., in superposition) until the moment the random radioactive decay occurred, at which time the cat’s fate became fixed—it was either alive or dead, but not both.

Friday, Trump and Iran operationalized the “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment using the Strait of Hormuz instead of a cat in a box. Early Friday, Trump said that the Strait of Hormuz was open but that the US blockade against Iran would continue, while Iran said the Strait is open but will remain closed so long as the Trump blockade remains in effect. To further complicate matters, Iran said that when the Strait opens, permission to pass through the Strait must be granted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

If the above paragraph makes your head hurt, then you understand the situation perfectly—because it makes no sense. Indeed, that was the point of Schrödinger’s thought experiment; he was mocking the seemingly nonsensical idea of a cat being simultaneously dead and alive. That is exactly where we are with the Strait of Hormuz: It is both open and closed, blockaded by the US for now, with future transit subject to the whim of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

We are in this state of quantum indeterminacy because Trump is making announcements that do not appear to be connected to reality. In other words, Trump is lying. He has every incentive to pretend that the conflict with Iran is over. Nearly every announcement Trump made on Friday was quickly contradicted or denied by Iran. See, e.g., Jerusalem Post, Iran denies claim that US will retrieve enriched uranium.

As reported in the Jerusalem Post, the Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf posted a statement on Twitter accusing Trump of making multiple false claims:

“The President of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false,” Ghalibaf wrote. “They did not win the war with these lies, and they will certainly not get anywhere in negotiations either.”

Ghalibaf urged all to “read the real and accurate news of the negotiations in the recent interview of the Foreign Ministry spokesman,” in which a Foreign Ministry spokesman claimed that Iran will not transfer its enriched uranium anywhere, contrary to earlier Trump claims that Iran had agreed to do so.

Iran and the US appear to be negotiating a three-page term sheet that includes the release of $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets. Axios has published a detailed outline of the term sheet, although both Iran and Trump have denied reporting on the purported terms. See Axios, U.S. considers $20 billion Iran cash-for-uranium deal. 

The Axios article provides a good summary of the state of play in a rapidly evolving situation. My recommendation is to wait until the US and Iran make a joint announcement before trying to parse the terms. Until then, much of the reporting is market manipulation disguised as leaks from “administration officials.” See Reuters, Traders place $760 million bet on falling oil ahead of Hormuz announcement.

Per Reuters,

Investors placed a bet worth about $760 million on a falling oil price around 20 minutes before Iran’s foreign minister announced on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz was open, another sizeable wager on the world’s most traded commodity ahead of major announcements in the course of the Middle East war.

But whatever the outcome, it does not appear that Trump will be able to replicate the advantageous terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by President Obama. And Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will regulate traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—an unimaginable situation before Trump’s ill-advised and unconstitutional decision to start a war against Iran without consulting Congress or the American people.

We should hope that peace negotiations succeed quickly. But we should not forget that the war was a debacle that cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, alienated US allies, increased prices in the US, and shifted the balance of power in the Middle East toward Iran, which will retain its stockpile of enriched uranium. 

Trump is in the process of surrendering, and no amount of lying can change reality. We must not let Trump and his apologists distort or bury the truth of what happened over the last six weeks. It was an unmitigated disaster, full stop. Trump and all Republicans must be held to account in November…

Hubbell has two other stories in this post that you should know about.

The first is explosive investigative reporting about Kash Patel by Sally Kirkpatrick in The Atlantic. She reports that she interviewed many FBI employees and learned that Patel is a heavy drinker. He is, she writes, a security risk. Patel and his law firm announced on Twitter that he was suing her and the magazine.

Another item describes the Trump administration’s efforts to send former CIA Director John Brennan to prison. One prosecutor, unwilling to go along, resigned. Brennan had the bad luck to land in the courtroom of Judge Aileen Cannon in South Florida. Hubbell feels sure that Brennan will be cleared of whatever charges they cobble together against him.