Trump says Iran ceasefire on ‘life support’ amid nuclear talks stalemate
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President Donald Trump likes to say he holds all the cards in the Iran war. But right now this is not true.
Iran has a card in its hand that freezes the situation. Killer mullahs are in no rush to make a deal, and they may not even want to.
Trump said he hadn’t even finished reading Tehran’s latest counteroffer, calling it “garbage.” And he instantly uttered his famous words that the ceasefire was on “life support”.
As the war enters its third month, Trump’s optimistic speech has never sounded like that of Iran or its parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Ghalibaf. Its economy is in seriously bad shape. But their view is that they’ll be fine as long as they keep their enriched uranium, some of which is buried.
WHY ARE THE IRAN MEETINGS EMERGING WHILE TRUMP IS WORKING FOR A WAY OUT OF THE WAR HE STARTED?
President Donald Trump’s optimistic speech about Iran was never fully reciprocated by the regime. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump continues to declare victory, but anything less would be seen as a major failure, as the main rationale for the invasion was to prevent the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.
Maybe it’s just the President’s negotiating style that gets everything going. But the result is dueling blockades, with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and the US on Iranian ports, which have led Trump to make dire threats again.
What really angers Trump is that Iran is charging “friendly” ships unconnected to the war a 100 percent fee to pass through a waterway that carries one-fifth of the world’s oil traffic. Others were prevented from entering the strait, where Iran had laid explosive mines.
TRUMP SUPPORTS A STRONG DEAL WITH IRAN AS HORUZ IS CLOSED AGAIN, BUT RIVALS GIVE HIM NO CREDIT FOR PROGRESS
So both sides are eye to eye on who will step back.
Aspect Wall Street Magazine puts this:
“As the conflict settles into a gray zone that is neither war nor peace, the United States and Iran remain locked in a diplomatic stalemate on issues that have vexed both sides for years.
“The ceasefire is entering its second month and, despite occasional incidents of violence, lasted almost as long as the fight This came before that. “There is little to suggest that the United States or Iran are willing to compromise, but neither wants to start fighting again.”
“Our armed forces are ready to give the response it deserves to any attack,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Galibaf said on Monday. he said. (Hamed Malekpour/Islamic consultative assembly news agency/WANA (West Asian News Agency)/Report via Reuters)
Trump told White House reporters that he believed Iran would become tired or bored of the conflict or feel pressure to end the conflict due to rising energy prices.
“But there is no pressure,” Trump said. “We will achieve complete victory.”
Meanwhile, Iran continues to portray itself as the winner of the conflict, its regime intact, its missile and nuclear programs still a threat. Galibaf warned Americans against escalation in tensions in his statement on Monday: “Our armed forces are ready to give the response it deserves to any attack.”
But instead of fighting, both sides doubled down on dueling blockades that were difficult to retake without one side blinking. While the Trump administration tightened the US embargo on Iranian ports and ships, Iran maintained its control in Iran. Strait of Hormuz.
New York Times Last night, it reported that US intelligence officials said privately that Iran had regained operational access to 30 of 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, contradicting the administration’s public stance; this “could threaten American warships and oil tankers passing through the narrow waterway.”
TRUMP’S BREAKING DELAY: WHY HE NEVER DESTROYED IRAN IN THE FIRST PLACE
Trump orchestrated a three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine; This mainly had to do with Vladimir Putin’s lack of shame during his scaled-back parade to commemorate the Soviet victory over Nazism.
As for Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping this week, once postponed because of the Iran war, the atmosphere has certainly cooled.
After several trade wars, “China increasingly sees itself not as a fading civilization trying to catch up with the West, but as a superpower poised to surpass it.”
According to some reports, China, led by Xi Jinping, is trying to surpass the West. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
a report A think tank in Beijing says the United States is sliding toward “polarization, institutional dysfunction, and even “Latin American-style instability.” Such views are now increasingly expressed publicly rather than merely whispered.
The superpower’s propaganda machine, which has revived tragedies like the Minnesota attacks, is acutely aware that the unpopularity of the Iran war hurts Trump’s unpopularity as the midterms approach.
This is one of the reasons why Xi plans to pressure his counterpart on arms sales to Taiwan.
What’s more, China is building a new artificial intelligence model that shows Xi is determined to pave his own technological path, despite still being reliant on chips from American giant NVIDIA.
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Asked yesterday whether China, which opposes the Iran war, could use its leverage, Trump said, “No, I don’t think we need help on Iran.”
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Meanwhile, while Pete Hegseth refused to give details, a senior Pentagon official stated yesterday that the cost of the Iran war had increased to approximately 29 billion dollars.
Trump prefers not to use the term war, but this certainly seems like much more than an attack or conflict. The fog of war even extends to the federal budget.
