A ceasefire — is it fact or fiction?
Opinion
Israel, Iran, the United States. Ceasefire, no ceasefire. Confused?
We don't blame you.
This isn't the fog of war. This is an epic constellation of deliberate confusion.
U.S. President Donald Trump
And it's hard to keep up.
Israel attacked Iran on June 13, saying its pre-emptive strike was needed to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons. Iran retaliated. Missiles flew — people died.
The Americans then supported Israel in its attack on Iran by attacking Iranian uranium enrichment sites, using B2 bombers that had flown for hours and dropped huge bunker-buster bombs. But there has apparently been no release of radioactive materials, U.S. President Donald Trump's social media claims that the enrichment sites were completely destroyed has been called into question, and there are reports that the Iranian government had moved its stock of enriched uranium to a new location before the attacks even occurred.
There were even suggestions that back-channel American communications had warned the Iranians the attack was coming, giving them time to prepare.
The Iranian government then launched a relatively feeble and ultimately unsuccessful missile attack on an American base in Qatar, while there were reports that back-channel communications from Iran had given the Americans their own warning about when and where the attack would land. (Trump, once again on social media, said he 'wanted to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured.')
Confused yet? Just wait.
Monday night, Donald Trump announced a 'complete and total ceasefire', which was at first denied, then partially confirmed, and then promptly ignored by both Iran and Israel launching attacks on each other, while Trump launched all-caps screeds on his Truth Social app like 'ISRAEL DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PLANES HOME, NOW. DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.'
Meanwhile, the White House X account retweeted Trump as saying 'CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT'S TIME FOR PEACE'.
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The next morning, Trump's analysis of the failure of the 'cease' part of the ceasefire? 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f—k they're doing. Do you understand that?' The Associated Press was reporting that 'ceasefire status is unclear', Israel was warning its citizens about an incoming Iranian missile attack, and the timeline before the 'complete and total ceasefire' was broken was reported to have been a mere 31 minutes.
It may well be that there is no way whatsoever to establish what is happening in the Middle East. President Trump has demonstrated that he's willing to tell baldfaced lies about something as simple as the actual price of eggs and gasoline. The Iranian government makes up whatever narrative it wants to, and force-feeds that information to its population through thoroughly-controlled state media. And there's no accounting for Israel: it will keep its own counsel and act in its own interests, and its statements about its actions will be no more complete and truthful than anyone else's.
So what should Canada and Canadians be doing in all this mess? Maybe what Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to be trying to do. Keep a low profile, and stay out of the Trumpian spotlights by neither rushing in to be a fawning supporter nor putting up principled opposition. Keep making new deals with countries other than the United States, broaden our global economic footprint, and let history be the one to sort out what's happening now.
This will almost certainly all be outdated by the time you read it.
But the critical thesis won't be: keep your head down, your antennae up, and your skepticism front-and-centre.
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Global News
26 minutes ago
- Global News
Israel, Iran ceasefire holds as Tehran vows nuclear efforts continue
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