Here's a look at the preliminary agreement between the U.S. and Iran, and the challenges that remain to find lasting peace.

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The shallow, sunny waters of the reflecting pool are an ideal incubator for algae growth in the summertime. Experts say the recent renovation may have helped accelerate it.

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Rep. Nydia Velázquez's retirement has opened up a competitive primary in a New York City Congressional district. The race to replace her is a proxy battle about the future of the Democratic Party.

The United States has gotten used to specific ways of ending wars. Sometimes the U.S. military decisively forces the enemy state to surrender, imposes a new political order, and gets it to stick, as in Germany and Japan in the 1940s or Panama in the 1990s. Other times, rebels wear down U.S. resources and willpower before decisively kicking out U.S. forces, as in Vietnam in 1975 or Afghanistan in 2021.

But the Iran war is ending with something quite unfamiliar to Washington: compromise. The United States and Iran were unable to defeat each other in the first round, and, staring at an unacceptably costly escalation, they came to the table. While a final deal hasn't been agreed to, the ceasefire memorandum commits both sides to giving things up, with the U.S. promising to lift all economic sanctions if Iran negotiates away its nuclear program.

Big parts of Washington are not taking it well, with Republicans and Democrats alike calling the peace a "blunder" or even a "surrender." It's one thing to object to specific terms of the truce. The U.S. may be promising too much and demanding too little at the outset. But some criticisms would apply to any kind of two-sided deal with a former enemy. For hawks, failure to secure the enemy's surrender is itself a form of U.S. "surrender." Simply put, hawks have forgotten how to make peace.

Conservative journalist and presidential confidante Mark Levin claims that the memorandum makes the mistake of "trying to incentivize the behavior of 7th century barbaric Islamists with promises of money" and that "the West is being conquered" by agreeing to stop the war short of Iranian surrender. Others have argued that a deal shouldn't have any benefits for Iran, regardless of what Iran is offering in return. Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) said that a deal shouldn't "give Iran any money," because "they're not great actors."

To borrow a Russian turn of phrase, this mentality is недоговороспособность, or "agreement incapability." An agreement-incapable actor approaches diplomacy as nothing but a weapon "to delay, deceive, and destabilise its opponents." (Levin, for example, suggested using the current negotiations to buy time for restarting the war after the U.S. midterm elections.) The agreement-incapable mind cannot imagine talks leading to "a mutually beneficial settlement."

In fact, this mindset is baked into U.S. law. Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has repeatedly bragged about his role in creating a "sanctions wall" to prevent a deal. He pushed the first Trump administration to impose layers of economic sanctions on Iran under different pretexts, from the nuclear issue to human rights, so that a future administration could not resume trade with Iran without resolving all of those issues.

To be clear, sanctions relief costs American taxpayers nothing, and some of it will benefit American business interests. For example, the U.S. government will immediately license Iran to spend $6 billion in its own oil revenues on American agricultural products, according to the Financial Times.

But hawks are alarmed at giving away U.S. leverage. Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D–N.J.) complained that Iran would get relief from sanctions "on human rights abusers and sponsors of terror, with zero Iranian concessions on those issues." Dubowitz's sanctions wall worked. In order to offer Iran normal economic relations, President Donald Trump will have to pick a domestic political fight over inflammatory issues like human rights and terrorism.

There are serious criticisms to be made about the memorandum. It is vague about the nuclear concessions Iran has to make to unlock full sanctions relief. Vice President J.D. Vance has implied that there are unwritten "gentleman's agreements," which is not exactly reassuring. While the memorandum forces Iran to stop extorting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz in the immediate term, it leaves the "future administration" of the strait up for negotiations.

Any conversation over the costs and benefits of the deal also has to take into account the costs and benefits of the alternatives. In fact, it was trying those alternatives that gave Iran leverage in the first place. Trump started down the road hawks wanted by bombing Iran, calling for regime change, and promising "no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER." The war didn't collapse the Iranian government, but it did give Iran the opportunity to harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, holding the world's oil economy hostage.

Trump searched in vain for a cost-free escalation, only to discover that none existed. A ground raid to take away Iran's sources of leverage, its enriched uranium and its oil export terminal, would expose U.S. troops to serious casualties. Escalating the air war by bombing critical Iranian infrastructure would provoke Iran to do the same to its oil-rich neighbors. Trying to sneak ships through the strait during the ceasefire was provoking near-nightly naval combat.

Even maintaining the status quo was rapidly depleting oil inventories around the world, which would have forced either rapid price hikes or outright shortages by the beginning of July, as oil executives were warning. Trump ultimately concluded that the deal was the least bad option. That conclusion, of course, is up for debate. But much of the hawkish rhetoric is meant to shut out debate with emotional cries about surrendering to evil and losing honor.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan—which, unlike the stalemate with Iran, involved an unambiguous U.S. surrender—is a cautionary tale. After the U.S. military overthrew the Taliban government in 2001, the Bush administration declared that it was "not inclined to negotiate surrenders" and turned down the chance to integrate Taliban supporters into the new government.

Nearly two decades of civil war later, the Taliban underground had gained so much strength that both Trump and Joe Biden decided that Afghanistan was a lost cause. Trump cut a deal for an orderly withdrawal, which Biden upheld, only for it to become violent chaos anyway when the Taliban stormed Kabul while U.S. troops were still there in August 2021.

The Bush administration similarly turned down a deal with Iran itself, which offered up a "grand bargain" including everything from its nuclear program to its support for Hamas and Hezbollah in 2002. In return, Iranian leaders wanted an end to U.S. sanctions and a guarantee of noninterference in U.S. politics. A quarter-century and two wars later, the Trump administration is getting less than Iran was offering in 2002 for the same price. Unlike in Afghanistan, the administration is at least getting something from Iran.

Again, the rhetoric about surrender and humiliation is not about weighing the relative merits of that deal or whether a better one is possible. It is about ensuring that there will be no deal at all. And, ironically, that strategy has already led to an actual U.S. surrender at least once.

The post Compromise With Iran Isn't 'Surrender' appeared first on Reason.com.

The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 211 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls "narcoterrorists" in early September.

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The U.S. is allowing ships to enter and exit Iranian ports and coastal areas as the countries move to a new phase of negotiations over the next 60 days.

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When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) teased his new AI bill in The New York Times, he undersold the socialist vision he had for the tech industry. Now that the bill text has been released, we know just how much government ownership of AI he wants.

On Thursday, Sanders unveiled the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would impose a 50 percent tax, paid through stock, on any AI company with annual "gross receipts" of at least $200 million. Taxing gross receipts rather than revenue is a savvy move by Sanders, since most businesses traditionally considered AI companies aren't yet profitable, and gross receipts allow him to include total money earned from all sources, widening the pool of companies subject to the tax.

Under the bill, the Treasury Department would also get a 50 percent stake in all applicable AI companies through newly issued shares, and the federal government would be allowed to tax any shares issued after the initial seizure, so the government's half stays at half over time.

Each fiscal year, every "man, woman and child" in the U.S. will receive direct payments from the fund, paid for by a 5 percent draw of the average value of the total stock held by the government. According to Sanders, that could mean as much as "$1,000 to everyone in America." 

Sanders claims that the fund could raise $7 trillion based on "current valuations" of the companies he hopes to tax. But a company's gross receipts are tied to its economic worth, which this bill would likely depress.

While the bill's name might make one think that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI would be subject to the tax, Sanders doesn't spare any sector of the tech industry. Instead, his bill would apply to any "corporation or partnership" engaged in a "trade or business" tangentially related to data centers, computing infrastructure, AI services, or the research, production, or manufacturing of advanced robotics. Companies like Tesla, Waymo, Nvidia, and Dell would all be subject to the 50 percent tax, even though their business models predate those of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, the types of AI companies Sanders has railed against.

Adam Thierer, resident senior fellow of technology and innovation at R Street Institute, says Sanders' bill is "the most hideous form of crony capitalism." He tells Reason the bill contains a "lot of counterintuitive reasoning." 

Indeed, the bill makes no distinction between private and public ownership and overrides any corporate charter limits, forcing companies to create and surrender stock to meet the 50 percent mark, regardless of their shareholders' wishes. 

It also requires AI companies to spin off their AI businesses as stand-alone entities. It bars them from conducting non-AI business, entering into joint ventures with non-AI companies, or sharing personnel or financing with non-AI companies.

As if seizing property weren't enough, the bill also creates an entirely new regulatory regime for the AI industry and the tech sector in general. It establishes an Independent Commission for Democratic AI within the Treasury, consisting of seven presidentially appointed commissioners nominated by congressional leadership for a term of five years. Five of the commissioners must have specific expertise, including an expert in "labor interests," the AI industry, national security, privacy, and management of a comparable fund. 

No more than four commissioners can be from the same political party, and they can "exercise all voting and governance rights" inherent in the government's ownership stake through appointed representatives on each company's board of directors. The number of representatives must be commensurate with the government's stake in the company, and representatives may cast their votes only in ways that advance the interests of "worker welfare, public safety, fair competition among applicable AI companies, environmental sustainability, and financial solvency." 

In a warped recasting of fiduciary duty, the bill requires commissioners and their representatives to vote for these interests even when doing so "conflicts with the financial interests of the company or its other equity holders." Here, Sanders contradicts the very purpose of his bill. A business acting against its financial interests can hardly expect to remain profitable, which would ensure that its wealth fund would fail. 

Sanders isn't the only one pushing the idea of a sovereign wealth fund. The leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, as well as President Donald Trump, have all naively called for a system of formalized direct payments funded by the AI industry. 

The president has also made a habit of taking "golden shares" in companies he deems vital to the country's economic or security interests. Now, Sanders has taken the next logical step in the socialist ladder, from voluntary disbursement to outright seizure of property.

The post Bernie Sanders Proposes AI Tax To Give Everyone $1,000 a Month. His Bill Would Do a Lot More Than That. appeared first on Reason.com.

"Italy and I do not beg," Meloni said in a video rebuke posted on social media Friday. Italy's top diplomat, meanwhile, said he was cancelling a visit to the U.S because of the alleged remarks.

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The luxury Boeing 747, initially valued at $400 million, arrived ahead of schedule on Friday. The jet caused controversy as one of the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the U.S. government.

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