With president Donald Trump's war with Iran quagmired (media lost count weeks ago of the number of times we've won or that a deal is near; he's called off "major" new strikes 7 times in as many weeks by one count), military brass are out of ideas for making progress. — Read the rest

The post U.S. Central Command asks for ideas on beating Iran appeared first on Boing Boing.

President Donald Trump on Saturday abruptly called off the “biggest attacks since World War II” against Iran in favor of negotiations, the latest in a seemingly endless series of whiplashes in the conflict.

The energy markets, which typically favor stability and predictability, responded with little more than a shrug.

Crude prices dipped slightly and gas prices remained steady. Even as the war stretches past the six-month mark and the midterms creep closer, Trump has been able to keep retail prices lower than experts say they should be through the sheer power of promises – which have yet to come through – of a swift end to the conflict. On Monday, he took that a step further, chastising the major oil companies for “making too much money” off global oil shortages as a result of the war.

“They better cut the retail price, the consumer price,” Trump said. “I’ll say it loud and clear. I’m not happy about it.”

But Trump’s ability to jawbone the markets may be diminishing at a critical time, three months before the midterm elections when control of Congress is hanging in the balance and his approval is sinking to new lows amid voter anger over cost of living concerns. It comes as global crude oil supplies are running low, the war threatens more energy flows, refiners are running out of spare capacity and the administration has few tools to keep gas prices low.

“Labor Day is the point where gas prices are baked into the election,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “That last summer trip determines how voters evaluate their cost of living.”

And the higher gas prices come at a time when Trump repeatedly promises to escalate the war and then says it’s almost over a few hours or days later. That is starting to degrade his ability to cause price drops, a former adviser cautioned.

“His credibility has been a little bit shot,” said a former Trump adviser close to the White House, granted anonymity to avoid reprisal.

“The markets aren’t paying attention to him, they’re paying attention to what’s happening and, with respect to oil prices, it is a huge liability for the Republicans,” the adviser said.

Trump on Monday acknowledged that dynamic but expressed no urgency. He told reporters in the Oval Office that he was in no rush to end the conflict, though he acknowledged the need to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of global energy supplies flowed before the war. He hinted at the midterm stakes for his party if the conflict does not end soon.

“I’m under no time constraint,” he said. “I don’t happen to be running, but a lot of very good Republicans are running.”

Trump’s ability to move the markets may be the only tool the administration has left to keep gas prices in check, said Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher and founder of the Commodity Context newsletter.

The Trump administration has drawn down the U.S. Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level since President Ronald Reagan’s first term. Oil majors are warning that the lack of refinery capacity could keep prices high for the foreseeable future.

“The market is so entrenched on this idea that eventually this will resolve by Trump deciding and ceding some ground on some issue, likely kind of even symbolic control of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “So the market’s going to be constantly watching for any sign that he’s shifting there.”

While experts continue to marvel at Trump’s ability to get the markets to bend to his whims, there is little consensus on when that power will dissipate.

Trump has “less credibility” in terms of moving markets, but it has not totally dissipated, Patrick de Haan, head of petroleum analysis at pricing service GasBuddy.

“I don’t think credibility completely goes to zero,” he said. “Hard to know though when it really bends.”

Trump’s push to keep energy prices low has also been buoyed by reduced Chinese oil imports, the successful rerouting of about 7 million barrels per day of Saudi Arabian crude through the Red Sea and releases from strategic petroleum reserves.

The administration released nearly 3 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last week, bringing the reserves down to their lowest level since February 1983, according to Department of Energy data. About half of the 218.5 million barrels the Department of Energy said it would make available to the market have now left the salt caverns along the Gulf Coast.

As the summer driving season winds down, consumers expect gas prices to fall as well.

If the national average price of a gallon of gas is still above $4 by Saturday, de Haan noted, it will set a new record for the latest in the calendar year that prices are so high.

Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: It’s clearer than ever that President Donald Trump has no way out on Iran. 

What’s happening? Over the weekend, Trump posted to social media that he had agreed to “hold off any attack” on Iran because “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” The deal, he said, would include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a nebulous “end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” 

That should all sound fairly familiar, since it’s essentially what the US and Iran agreed to — and subsequently abandoned — in June. As of Monday morning, though, Trump had already pivoted, accusing Iran of being “unbelievably duplicitous” in negotiating.

“This is a last chance for them to sign a good document,” he told reporters in the Oval Office Monday afternoon, threatening “decapitation” — essentially the same warning he issued in April. 

What’s the context? Since the collapse of the June “memorandum of understanding” between the US and Iran, which ended the immediate conflict and set out a path for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the two countries have resumed hostilities, if not full-scale war. In July, three more US servicemembers were killed in Iranian attacks.

The strait also remains largely closed, with only a handful of vessels per day passing through.

Why does this matter? The Logoff has tried to steer clear of blow-by-blow coverage of the Iran war, because this kind of reversal happens a lot: Trump is constantly blustering, promising a deal, threatening massive retaliation, backing down, and doing it all over again. 

This latest episode, more than five months into the war and tidily compressed into just a few days, is little different. We’re writing about it anyway because it’s a good reminder of what has emerged as the essential fact of the war: Trump may have started the conflict, but he doesn’t seem to have any real plan in place to end it — and the longer things drag on, the greater the risk to the US troops fighting it.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Vox’s Unexplainable podcast is tackling the “holy grail of sensory biology” — magnetoreception, which lets birds navigate using Earth’s magnetic field — this week with some help from author and journalist Ed Yong. You can listen here, and I also recommend Yong’s newsletter, which regularly features some spectacular bird photos.

Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!