Bouvard on Trump's Iran Grievance and Dollar Politics

For Trump, Iran may be unfinished business from the 80s, maybe even from the Embassy takeover. Why shouldn't Trump hold a much more valid and widely shared grudge as tenaciously as those who complain about the USS Liberty, given that these perpetrators continued on the same path?

@patrickberzai Yes, but China, too, I would think--and for that matter, to some extent I think it's also about Iran.

@patrickberzai Well, we're not exactly after Iran yet. How does the war help sell Treasuries?

@patrickberzai OK, I'll be taking this in as I track events.

@patrickberzai I’m interested in the mediations. The ways politicians speak about things are part of the things. Trump is doing what no one else has and there might be other ways of strengthening the dollar against the Europeans.

@patrickberzai But much depends on whether the US and Israel win the war, which I think must mean replacing the Islamic Republic.

@patrickberzai Weakening them to the point where their hold on power is tenuous certainly increases the possibility of their being replaced. And I'm not sure what a solved problem would be here--new problems emerge in the wake of solved ones, anyway. Maybe the sword needs to reassert itself?

@patrickberzai Even a new regime would be unstable for awhile. But the point of the Abraham Accords was not necessarily to produce instability.

@patrickberzai Right—so, an attempt to create stability.

@patrickberzai What will Europe exchange its Eurobonds ambitions for?

@patrickberzai There would need to be a system in which debt is not rolled into sovereignty.