Though Vice President JD Vance has said Iran could have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund, it’s not clear what that will look like, or whether Iran might use its control of the Strait to collect some sort of toll. But by demonstrating its power to withstand American bombing while putting a chokehold on the global economy, it’s achieved a level of deterrence it previously lacked. “Iran is not likely to take seriously that the U.S. would return to war, certainly before the U.S. midterms,” wrote Daniel Shapiro, Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel, on social media. “So that means we will be conducting diplomacy without a credible threat of force.”
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the memorandum of understanding was finalized while Ultimate Fighting Championship cage matches were fought at the White House. In addition to marking the nation’s quarter of a millennium, the U.F.C. extravaganza was meant to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday. Both Iran and some Democrats suspected he wanted to get the Iran deal done in time for the occasion. And Trump might have hoped that the event — which at one point had a Marine Corps honor guard onstage with ring girls in sparkly red hot pants and a human-size Monster Energy Drink can — would help lure back some of the young men disillusioned by both his war and his mishandling of the economy.
Maybe it will work. Joe Rogan, the podcast host who has been increasingly critical of Trump in recent months, agreed to serve as an announcer. The Wall Street Journal reported on one excited fan who drove seven hours in the hope of seeing Trump’s pageant and said, “It’s like the Colosseum in real life.” To America’s founders, the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire was a cautionary tale. To parts of MAGA, it’s apparently aspirational.
But to everyone else, the confluence of America’s failure in Iran and Trump’s Temu colosseum should paint a clear picture of decadence, rot and weakness trying to conceal itself behind macho kitsch. This is an administration capable of immense, epic destruction, but unable to create much besides spectacle.
The conservative writer Marc Thiessen tried to depict Trump’s lurid festival as a sign of his demotic spirit, opening the White House to the sort of people who go to motocross rallies and monster truck shows. “If you’re offended by that, you may be an elitist snob,” he wrote. Put aside, for a moment, the fact that Thiessen once clucked that Barack Obama was failing to maintain “presidential dignity.” By this standard — that U.F.C. brawls, which John McCain once called “human cockfighting,” belong in the White House because lots of Americans like them — there can be no standards. Like Ultimate Fighting, porn is extremely popular, but I somehow doubt Thiessen would defend a Democratic president who invited a bunch of OnlyFans creators to the Oval Office while he was losing a war.
