Tea at Trianon: Trump Changed the Math

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Trump Changed the Math

From Direct Line News:

We have an Iranian Peace framework deal that doesn’t sell out our allies, to judge every Iran agreement against the same standard: did it stop the bomb? That is the wrong question. The right question is simpler and far more revealing. Did it change Iran? By that measure, the 2015 Obama nuclear agreement was a polished failure wrapped in diplomatic ribbon. And by that same measure, the Trump framework now taking shape is something categorically different.
Critics of the emerging Trump deal have been quick to note surface similarities to the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Both involve inspections. Both involve enrichment caps. Both involve sanctions relief. But this comparison confuses the instrument with the goal. The JCPOA was a transaction. The Trump approach is a transformation. Or at least it must become one, because anything less will leave America managing a threat it should have ended years ago.
Let us be honest about what the JCPOA was and was not. It was a nuclear agreement. Nothing more. Iran’s enrichment capacity was capped, its stockpiles were reduced, and international inspectors were invited to monitor compliance. Supporters argued, with some justification, that it extended Iran’s theoretical nuclear breakout time from months to roughly a year. That is not nothing.
But here is what the deal did not touch. Iran kept thousands of centrifuges spinning. It retained its enrichment infrastructure intact. The agreement included sunset clauses that would eventually expire, at which point Iran would be legally entitled to expand its nuclear activities far beyond pre-deal levels. Most critically, the JCPOA said precisely nothing about Iran’s ballistic missile program, and not a word about Hezbollah, Hamas, or the network of regional proxy forces that Iran used to destabilize Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. (Read more)