Kent says Netanyahu's softened language this week, dropping "regime change" for "just make sure they don't get a nuclear weapon," is rather a moving target than a shift in position.
Enriched uranium can always be found at a new site: Natanz yesterday, Pickaxe Mountain today. As long as the file stays open, the U.S. stays committed to chasing it, with no real endpoint in sight.
Kent argues Trump is boxed into 2 bad options: another round of strikes that can't finish the job with depleted interceptors, or an economic blockade Iran has already signaled it will treat as an act of war.
Either path pulls the U.S. deeper in, not out, and time isn't on Washington's side. Trump himself set a 4-week clock to economic strain before the ceasefire framework collapsed. That clock didn't reset.
The real deadlock, per Kent, is the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran wants full control of inbound shipping and shared control of outbound. The U.S. has reportedly rejected even a modest optional fee modeled on the Strait of Malacca. Neither side will move first.
Iran because it believes it won the war and is owed compensation, the U.S. because conceding the strait is seen as a direct hit to the security guarantee underwriting the petrodollar system itself.
Kent's closing argument is blunt: America was still standing after Vietnam, after Afghanistan. It would survive walking away from this too.
The harder problem is whether the people currently advising Trump will ever let him hear that.
@joekent16jan19
