The News You Need on Thursday, June 19, 2026
Apocalypse Now in the Strait of Hormuz, Elon Musk Takes His Race War to Northern Ireland, an ex-Israeli Defense Minister calls Jewish supremacy Mein Kampf in reverse,
Trump’s Iran Deal Is An Epic Failure
Bloomberg
Morten Mørland, The Times
Scott: Writing about the official use of secrecy in a study of the imperial bureaucracy at the end of World War I, Max Weber observed that it was perhaps most frequently used to obscure mistakes or stupidities from public view. But for a democratic state to function properly, it was necessary for mistakes and stupidities to be fully exposed. As of this morning, the mask has been ripped off Trump’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran, revealing that we’ve seen it before. The text revealed by the Iranians over the weekend and vehemently denied by JD Vance and other administration spokesmen, is in fact the final text, though there may be some divergence between the Farsi and English texts, as is common in diplomacy of this sort. So the reason for keeping it secret has become immediately apparent.
For the US and its allies there is the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and a suspension of hostilities. But for the Iranians, there is much, much more. Trump’s success or failure must be measured against a baseline consisting of the Obama 2015 JCPOA and then the objectives Trump stated in launching the war. Since the MoU merely sets the table for talks on the issue of nonproliferation, it is not yet possible to make any final assessment on that prong. But the talks will now commence against a backdrop in which Iran proclaims its victory, and most objective and independent analysts—including US allies—agree with Iran.
Apart from proliferation, the most important provision of the MoU is an undertaking to pay reparations to Iran. Read most narrowly, the US is undertaking that the Gulf Arabs will pay the reparations, not offering to do so itself. But the fact that the Gulf Arabs are willing to do this—and have already started the process—demonstrates that they accept that Iran has prevailed in the conflict and they must therefore find a modus vivendi with the Iranians. And that is sure to leave US allies around the world thinking carefully about the risk of associating themselves in a conflict with the US, at least under Trump.
What may well be the most important provision of the MoU is article 6, which provides
The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.
This is in fact an undertaking to pay reparations to Iran in an amount of “at least $300 billion.” Notwithstanding Vance’s denial, it is an undertaking of the United States. This is, as far as I can see, unprecedented in US diplomatic history. It is particularly noteworthy that the Emiratis, Qataris, Saudis, Kuwaitis and Bahrainis all also suffered damage from Iranian missile attacks. But there is no comparable right of compensation to them for their losses. The one-sidedness in favor of Iran is striking.
Further, as Bloomberg analysts point out, by repudiating and ridiculing the 2015 JCPOA—rather than using it as a baseline and attempting to negotiate further concessions—Trump has put himself in a highly disadvantaged position in the proliferation talks which will now commence. It seems unlikely at this point that he will reach the concessions of the 2015 agreement, and by repudiating it, he enabled Iran to move far beyond its 2015 position in any event.
That leaves the Trump administration facing a strategic U-turn with serious long-term implications. Just three months ago, the White House was contemplating a special-forces raid to seize Iran’s uranium. Now it’s signaling the US is willing to live with ambiguity over the material’s fate if it means a return of Middle Eastern energy flows and recovery for the world economy.
That change is not proving popular in Congress, including among some of Trump’s Republican allies.
Longtime hawk Senator Lindsey Graham, a consistent defender of Trump, emphasized to Politico that Iran should not be allowed to conduct any uranium enrichment.
“If they can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA,” he said. “If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal,” he said. In a separate conversation, he told the outlet that he was “skeptical that Iran will ever go there” to cease enrichment.
Here’s WSJ’s annotated edition of the MoU.
A neoliberal nightmare’: my ride on the Vegas Loop – Elon Musk’s answer to traffic jams
The Guardian
Scott: Funny how Elon Musk’s vision of a future made better by science and technology often turns out to produce a nightmare for ordinary citizens, even as it enriches Musk. Here’s a look at The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop project. Of course, if Musk’s plan to bore a tunnel under the Bering Sea from Kamchatka to Alaska succeeds, he’ll again be sucking trillions from the public purse. And Putin is absolutely on board, saying US taxpayers should cover the costs.
It’s another blindingly bright day in Las Vegas but I’m 30ft underground and strapped in for a rocket ride to the future. Actually, it’s a Tesla ride to the future, and not a self-driving one. And it’s pretty slow – my driver tells me the speed limit down here is 30mph. It’s also pretty short: the journey is over in a matter of minutes. In fact, the Vegas Loop is a pretty underwhelming experience: a brief trundle down a white-walled tunnel only slightly larger than the vehicle itself, lined by strips of LEDs that change colour every few seconds, in an attempt to inject some Vegas glitz. I’d been hoping to ask other Loop-riders what they made of the experience, but … there aren’t any. I’m the only person here.
This is not the futuristic transport solution Elon Musk originally promised. When he first announced this innovative technology in 2017, it was accompanied by sci-fi visuals showing a car pulling over from the street traffic on to an elevator platform, which then descended into a network of tunnels and whizzed along on an “electric skate” at 200km/h (124mph). “There’s no real limit to how many levels of tunnel you can have … so you can alleviate any arbitrary level of urban congestion,” Musk said. A few months earlier, with characteristic edgelordly nonchalance, Musk had announced on Twitter: “Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging …” Followed shortly after by: “I am actually going to do this.” He did, and he named it the Boring Company…
In the early days, the Boring Company also reflected Musk’s tendency to mix serious intent with juvenile trolling. In 2018, he raised $10m by selling 20,000 Boring-branded flame-throwers, plus another $1m selling Boring baseball caps. Musk fans lapped it up, and so did investors. By 2022 the Boring Company was valued at $5.7bn. It was building test tunnels in Los Angeles and at its Texas headquarters. It was said to be involved in projects in cities across the US and beyond: Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, San Jose, Miami. But one by one, these projects fizzled out. At present, the only city that has taken up the Boring proposal is Las Vegas, although this is about to change.
The first three stations of the Vegas Loop opened in 2021, connecting one end of the vast Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) to the other – a distance of about a mile. Between 2022 and 2025 the network extended to three nearby casino resorts: Resorts World, the Westgate and the Encore. You can’t drive your own car into the tunnels: you have to book one of the Loop’s Teslas (which are standard issue, no electric skates), then access the vehicles at what are essentially taxi ranks, above ground or beneath the resorts. Tickets are $4.25 (£3.15) for a single trip, or $12.50 (£9.30) for a day pass.
The project’s main problem: Trump anti-foreigner policies have devastated the Vegas hospitality industry. There is no congested traffic on the surface that people are eager to escape…
Ex-Israeli Defense Minister:
Jewish Supremacy is Mein Kampf in reverse
Middle East Eye
Charles: Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon compared the tactics of Israeli settlers in the West Bank to Nazism.
In an interview with the Israeli news site Ynet he asked, “What is Jewish supremacy? Eighty years after the Holocaust, it’s Mein Kampf in reverse. The superior race is us.”
“The Israeli government is encouraging Jewish pogromists to dispossess Arabs of their land through abuse, including shooting at them,” he continued, adding that more than 20 Palestinians had been killed in those attacks.
“Not a single person has been arrested.”
Israel’s former defence minister Moshe Ya’alon
Ya’alon’s remarks carry particular power considering their source: he is a lifelong hardliner who was Netanyahu’s defense minister between 2013 to 2016, and a former Army Chief of Staff who once said, “The Palestinian threat harbours cancer-like attributes that have to be severed and fought to the bitter end.”
A career Israeli soldier Ya’alon took part in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the violent suppression of the first and second Palestinian intifadas, and the 2014 war on Gaza.
Now he calls Israel’s actions in the West Bank “a disgrace for generations.”
Without a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, he said, “We will become either an apartheid state or a binational state.” But he added he does not support removing Israeli settlements from the West Bank.
Elon Musk’s Race War Just Took a Darker Turn
The New Republic
Scott: Americans by and large ignored the recent racist riots that burned homes and cards in Belfast, as assumed (like Fox anchors) that it must somehow have something to do with the ‘troubles.’ In fact it has a lot to do with Elon Musk, who used his social media platform to bolster voices calling for violence and mayhem. This is hardly the first time he has done this. TNR has taken a look at Musk’s increasingly dark, white supremacist world and his desire to stoke violence at every opportunity against immigrants who he deems insufficiently white.
