The reporting on the Trump negotiating team’s talks with Iran makes very little sense, and it’s not the media’s fault. The administration, rather, seems to be conducting negotiations when there is very clearly no serious deal to be had and with all the leverage in the universe on the American side.
And so I laughed when I read this piece of reporting in the New York Times: “Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who is mediating the talks, said on social media that significant progress had taken place on Thursday without offering further detail. He added that technical teams will be part of the upcoming round of negotiations scheduled in Vienna.”
Again, the laughter wasn’t because the Times had it wrong. The laughter was because the Times had it right. The talks were deemed productive and technical teams are indeed planning to join the show next week.
But Iran’s comments have made clear there is no mutually agreeable deal, and the recent U.S. military buildup in the Mideast is not indicative of any confidence in such a deal. In sum, neither side is acting as if the talks are meaningful—yet on they go. What’s going on here?
To review: In the past month, the president has deployed two U.S. aircraft carriers, six missile destroyers and 10,000 service members to the region. The Navy’s presence there now totals 16 ships. The Associated Press also reports, “More than 100 fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s, F-15s and F-16s, left bases in the U.S. and Europe and were spotted heading toward the Middle East” and analysts tracked “more than 100 fuel tankers and over 200 cargo planes heading into the region and bases in Europe in mid-February.”
Then there’s the exclamation point: Twelve U.S. F-22 fighter jets were sent to a base in Israel.
Plus, AP counted more than 50 aircraft at a base in Jordan “nearly all likely part of the American buildup. There could be more in hangars.” Earlier, F-15s and cargo planes had made their way to the area. Don’t forget to factor in support aircraft.
That is either the greatest bluff in the history of bluffs, or something’s getting lit up.
Furthermore, Trump’s rhetoric has gone from vague threats to publicly making the case for military intervention to the American people, and having his Cabinet do the same.
Yesterday, Vice President JD Vance, often thought of as the anchor of the “restrainer” faction within the administration, said this of Iran: “The principle is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If they try to rebuild a nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us. In fact, we’ve seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump singled out for praise during his State of the Union address Tuesday in which the president also mentioned the Iranian threat, had this to say about the Islamic Republic yesterday: “You can see them always trying to rebuild elements of [the nuclear program]. They’re not enriching [uranium] right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.”
To be clear, nuclear proliferation is only part of the reason for Trump’s hawkishness toward Iran of late. In fact, it’s probably third on the list. There is also Iran’s ballistic-missile program, which Israel considers an existential threat and with which Iran would like to be able to reliably threaten Europe. The main reason, however, is the Iranian regime’s monstrous massacring of thousands of peaceful protesters in defiance of Trump’s warnings that such behavior would itself be provocation enough for some kind of military action.
So what we have is a list of reasons to strike Iran—all of them legitimate—and the Iranian refusal to agree to Trump’s terms relating to each of those issues. We have a Mideast military buildup not seen in many decades. And earlier today, the IDF struck more Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
So what’s the game here? Iran’s strategy, according to the Times, is as follows: “Iran was expected to offer a proposal designed to maintain some level of enrichment while also allowing Mr. Trump to declare victory.”
In every meaningful respect, those are essentially mutually exclusive. Trump can have victory or he can have Iranian nuclear enrichment. Additionally, Trump’s military buildup can only be defended as part of an all-or-nothing negotiating strategy. But all this for an off-ramp? Either these talks are all for show or the president is going to undertake one of the steepest climb-downs we’ve ever seen.
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