Matt Frei

I mean, the hardliners around Venezuela are still running Venezuela, and no one seems to care very much.

I think the key thing for Obama always is,

Is what he is doing any better than what Obama did?

He's obsessed with Barack Obama.

And so if he can say that what he has negotiated after billions of dollars spent on bombs, after thousands of people sacrificed, is better than the Obama-JCPOA deal from 2015, which of course he shredded,

then he can take that to the bank at the pearly gates and say, look, what I've done is better.

And one way that would be better is if he could get the Iranians to commit to a moratorium on enrichment that isn't just five years, but maybe 10 or 15 years.

But my God, for a tiny little clause like that,

without having achieved any of the things that he said he might want to achieve at the beginning of this war, it's pretty pathetic.

And at the cost-benefit ratio, I would say the costs far outweigh the benefits.

Well, it insulates him against any damage with people who own stocks in AI companies and people who own oil companies.

And these people are very important to Donald Trump, the oil magnates of Texas.

and other places who went to see him before the election in 2024, promised to give him as much money as he wanted for his own campaign in return for deregulation of the oil industry and drill, baby, drill, and all that kind of stuff.

Now, they're obviously cock-a-loo because they're making more money than they ever dreamt of making because of this war.

But the trouble is that there's only so many votes in oil tycoons.

There's a lot more votes in people who actually have to fill their cars with the stuff that the tycoons create.

Now, they will be upset.

And although the MAGA base still seems to be holding quite well, you need more than the MAGA base in order to win in the midterm elections.

Ultimately, he may not care if he loses the House of Representatives to the Democrats, which is almost inevitable because he's been ruling the country.

America, that is, as a supreme leader, so to speak, without the use of Congress for the last year and a half.