27 May: What's Next?

 The US have offered Iran that they will accept Iran's complete surrender, in the mind of the US, a very generous offer, since the alternative is to eliminate Iran completely.

Iran keeps playing their Strait, while Trump holds all the Uno cards.

It should be noted that, while this is denied, Iran had some surreptitious help from Russia and the PRC: devices to block Starlink terminals and lead Iranian forces to the holders of Starlink terminals, which had quite an impact in December 2025 and early January 2026. And it is not clear if Iran produced every last part of the missiles that destroyed the US military bases in some of the Arab Gulf countries and struck somewhere in Israel. The world can see the damage to US military bases, since the Arab Gulf countries allowed news agencies to film the damage, but we have no idea how much damage those missiles did to Israel, since no one except the Israeli government is allowed to know the extent of that damage.

It is not altogether clear why the US and Israel stopped bombing Iran, although running low on bombs may have been part of the reason. Iran managed to go up the escalation ladder, doing more and more damage (that we know) to the US military bases and the Gulf Arab states as the US and Israel bombed Iran, until it seemed to the US (and maybe Israel) that a ceasefire was called for.

But the US keep demanding that Iran hand over all weapons and all uranium with unlimited US inspections to verify that all weapons and uranium have been turned over, and also agree to allow free passage through the Strait (of course, if Iran have no weapons of any kind, it would be difficult for them to have any impact on ships passing through the Strait, which is the idea). After which, the US would be able to select the leader of Iran, and would insist on someone like the new leader of Venezuela, who would agree that all Iranian oil and gas belong to BP, the legal owner under US/UK law.

For inexplicable reasons, Iran have not yet accepted that generous offer from the US.

So, at this point, we have no idea what the US and Israel will do. We know Israel plan to annex the southern part of Lebanon, maybe all of Lebanon, destroying all of Beirut, making it unlivable, after which a new, Israeli city will be built, one where only Israelis are allowed to live.

Israel say all they want is what is rightfully theirs, which, as the US Ambassador to Israel agreed when talking to Tucker Carlson, is everything from the Euphrates to the Nile. 

The Iranians say that part of the terms to which they insist Israel and the US agree is that Israel must withdraw from Lebanon and Gaza and stop all military action in both. Since the US and Israeli terms are that Iran must cease to exist, there seems to be rather a large distance between the minimal demands of the parties involved.

And it is not at all clear what, if anything, Russia and the PRC will do to help the three parties come to some kind of peaceful settlement.