White House Reclassifies Iran Stalemate As Premium Victory
The White House marked six months of its Iran policy Friday by reclassifying the costly stalemate as “strategic suspense,” a premium form of victory in which nothing concludes, no objective can be identified and taxpayers remain financially and emotionally subscribed. President Donald Trump initially promoted the undertaking as a “little excursion” lasting several weeks. It has since cost more than $37.5 billion, restricted commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and produced no diplomatic settlement, a combination officials described as the administration’s most complete demonstration of sustained momentum.
Trump praised the policy’s refusal to achieve a recognizable endpoint. “Nobody has ever had a stalemate this successful, this long and frankly this expensive, because the more it costs, the more valuable it becomes,” Trump said. “If it ended quickly, people would say it was cheap, maybe even easy. We are giving Americans a tremendous six-month experience, and they should be grateful it keeps going.” Aides added that the president is no longer in a hurry because urgency is merely panic wearing a wristwatch, while deadlines are an unfair accounting trick used by people who expect plans to work.
Treasury officials are preparing additional sanctions after determining that the previous sanctions succeeded so thoroughly that they must be repeated indefinitely. Reduced shipping through the Strait has also encouraged Americans to appreciate gasoline as an artisanal luxury, complete with regional scarcity, fluctuating tasting notes and a price selected personally each morning by global anxiety. Administration economists said higher fuel costs should not be viewed as inflation but as a mandatory patriotism surcharge collected at the pump.
Critics asking what the United States has achieved were dismissed as adherents of the obsolete “results-based” school of foreign policy. Under the administration’s new Victory Through Continuation doctrine, success will instead be calculated by duration, expense and the number of times Trump announces that negotiations are imminent without burdening them with arrival. Officials cautioned that a settlement could recklessly deprive the country of its signature accomplishment: another six months of winning too strategically for anyone to detect.
* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.