What next revisited
By 
Three weeks ago, after the MOU with Iran was signed, I suggested some possible outcomes in the near future for this lovely little war:
(1) Launch another war in a desperate attempt to put this calamity in the rearview mirror. This would most likely mean attacking Cuba, which would please Marco Rubio immensely of course (Rubio is the one person in the administration who seems to have done the most adept job of steering as far clear as possible of the Iran fiasco, despite his job title).
(2) Relaunch the war with Iran after the 60-day negotiation period inevitably fails.
(3) Engage in occasional episodic bombings and the like of Iranian targets, without any kind of full re-engagement, as a kind of symbolic flex.
(4) Just lump it, and count on the goldfish like attention span of the American public to largely forget about this fiasco between now and November, while talking a lot about how this tremendous victory has lowered gas prices to the lowest level ever, and eliminated Iran’s nuclear ambitions permanently, thus requiring the Nobel committee to finally recognize him as the greatest peacemaker in history.
#4 would be the smartest option by far, so I think it can pretty safely be eliminated.
#2 seems very unlikely at the moment, but as always we must fear Trump’s Razor (the stupidest explanation/course of action, is the best predictor of future developments).
#1 seems all too likely at the moment, with the Conquest of Greenland being the dark horse contender here.
#3 seems like the second-most likely course of action, and I can see this starting well before the end of the formal 60-day negotiation period, especially since the Netanyahu government will be doing everything possible to keep dragging the US back into its war with Iran.
#3 seems to be the way this is playing out at the moment:
The U.S. military struck Iran in a new round of attacks on Wednesday night, military officials said, hours after President Trump said he thought a three-week-old cease-fire between the two countries was “over.” Iranian state media reported that explosions had been heard in at least three port cities along the country’s southeastern coast.
The latest strikes, the U.S. Central Command said, were intended to undercut Iran’s ability to threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global energy supplies that has become a key issue in the conflict. The U.S. military called the attacks retaliation for “recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews.”
Given the wild unpopularity of the war, ramping up to pre-MOU levels of kinetic giving Pete Hegseth a stiffy seems too stupid of an option even for Trump (I realize this sentence is a sore temptation to the fates, gods, universal atman or whatever).
What we’re most likely to get it seems is intermittent outbursts of violence for months and years on end, with Trump rambling incoherently about how strong and powerful our attacks are, and how Iran has now been utterly defeated for the 17th time, and he’s now ended 23 or 32 wars, even he loses count, even though a lot of people are saying he’s the smartest person ever to hold public office in the United States, let alone the presidency, even smarter than his uncle the MIT professor (has anybody ever checked out that story?). And of course at some point another war may get thrown in there, maybe something easy and certain to succeed, like invading Cuba or annexing Greenland.
Komm, Trümpentod.