Trump says Iran has stopped fighting on ‘life support’ amid escalating nuclear talks
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President Donald Trump likes to say that he holds all the cards in the Iran war. But currently that is not true.
Iran has one status card. The murderous mullahs are in no rush to make a deal, and they may not want one.
Trump said he hadn’t even finished reading Tehran’s latest proposal, calling it “rubbish.” And he uttered his soon-to-be-famous line about ending the war on “life support.”
As the war enters its third month, Trump’s euphoric rhetoric has not been matched by Iran or its parliament speaker, Mohammad Ghalibaf. Its economy is faltering. But their view is that as long as they keep their enriched uranium, some of which is buried, they will be fine.
WHY IRAN TALKS ARE IN LIMBO AS TRUMP LEADS A WAY OUT OF THE WAR HE STARTED.
President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Iran has never been backed up by the regime. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump keeps declaring victory, but since the main reason for the attack was to keep the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon, anything less will be seen as a colossal failure.
Maybe this is just the president’s negotiating style, he takes everything on the phone. But the result is a double blockade – Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, the US on Iranian ports – which again has Trump issuing dire threats.
Trump’s biggest highlight is that Iran is charging “friendly” ships – those not involved in the war – 100 percent to pass through a route that carries one-fifth of the world’s oil. Others are blocked in the Strait, where Iran has placed explosive mines.
TRUMP PUSHES AGAINST IRAN AS HORMUZ CLOSES AGAIN, BUT OPPONENTS DON’T CREDIT HIM FOR PROGRESS.
So both sides are eyeing who, if anyone, will back down.
As the Wall Street Journal puts it:
“The U.S. and Iran are deadlocked on issues that have hurt both sides for years, as the conflict reaches a point of neither war nor peace.
“The ceasefire is entering its second month and, despite continued violence, it has now dragged on as long as the war that preceded it. There is little sign that the US or Iran are ready to back down, but neither wants to start fighting again.”
“Our army is ready to give a proper response to any violence,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said on Monday. (Hamed Malekpour/Islamic think tank/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters)
Trump told White House reporters that he believes Iran will tire of the conflict, or feel pressured to end it because of rising energy prices.
“But there’s no pressure,” Trump said. “We will have a complete victory.”
Iran continues to present itself as the victor in this conflict, its regime is intact, its missile and nuclear programs are still a threat. Ghalibaf warned Americans about the escalation in Monday’s post: “Our armed forces are ready to deliver an appropriate response to any violence.”
But instead of fighting, the two sides have doubled down on a double blockade that is difficult to reverse without the blink of an eye on one side. The Trump administration has tightened the US blockade of Iranian ports and ships, while Iran is holding on to the Strait of Hormuz.
The New York Times reported last night that US intelligence officials, at odds with the public, said in private that Iran had reactivated 30 of its 33 missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz, “which could threaten US warships and oil tankers passing through the narrow waterway.”
TRUMP’S LAST-MINUTE DELAY: WHY HE NEVER ATTACKED IRAN IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Trump has planned a three-day ceasefire – and a prisoner exchange – between Russia and Ukraine, which was about Vladimir Putin not shying away from his subdued parade marking the Soviet victory over Nazism.
As for Trump’s meeting this week with Xi Jinping, which has already been postponed once because of the Iran war, the atmosphere has definitely cooled.
After several trade wars, “China is increasingly presenting itself as a withering civilization trying to catch up with the West but as a powerful country ready to overtake it.”
According to some reports, China led by Xi Jinping is determined to surpass the West. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
A report from a Beijing-based think tank says the US is “moving toward fragmentation, institutional dysfunction and” Latin American-style instability.
The superpower propaganda machine, which plays on tragedies like the Minnesota shooting, is well aware that the unpopularity of the Iran war is hurting Trump’s unpopularity as the midterms approach.
This is one of the reasons why Xi plans to pressure his counterpart on the sale of arms to Taiwan.
In addition, China is developing a new AI model that, while still relying on chips from the NVIDIA giant, shows that Xi is determined to blaze his own technological trail.
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Asked yesterday if China, which opposes the Iran war, could use its power, Trump said “no, I don’t think we need help with Iran.”
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Meanwhile, since Pete Hegseth refused to provide information, the Pentagon’s top official confirmed yesterday that the cost of the war in Iran has increased to about $ 29 billion.
Trump prefers not to use the word war, but that sounds like more of an invasion or conflict. The fog of war also extends to the state budget.
