Trump says new talks are Iran’s ‘last chance’ to make a deal 🙄
9:53 am:
One of the tropes that Trump uses that he at least considers a winning line is to claim that some other has contacted him or his regime to plead for some counterintuitive something. "The soldiers who I got killed in Iran said, all of them, Iran must not have a nuclear weapon." Or "The people of Iran are saying 'Bomb us more, please sir!'" Living in the fantastical space between his ears again.
There's also a rule of construction there. Take his "We have just been asked by Iran...to hold off any attack." My construction is that the truth is closer to the opposite in Trump's tropes, and it's closer to the opposite in that Saturday night post. That is, it is Trump, not the Iranians, who are making the overture; it is Trump, not the Iranians, who are begging for an end to the war, which has already gone on four times longer than Trump predicted.
The Islamic Republic has always been a despicable, pariah, and dangerous, regime. Its size, its educated populace and its nuclear ambitions are the components of its danger. Its danger is the reason it must be handled with such care. Today, Iran is no less despicable and dangerous but it is not nearly as isolated.
It was sneak-attacked by an ignorant regime and its vassal state, both headed by criminals. The world recoiled. America's allies disappeared. The isolators became the isolated. Statements made by Iran became more credible than statements made by the Trump or Netanyahoo regimes. It's a zero-sum game and Iran is winning. They know by now that they can push Trump's buttons, that when they do A or B, Trump will do X or Y. Iran does not want the accretion to its credibility dissipated and does not want the dissipated credibility of its enemies replenished. Iran has leverage to end this war on its terms. They have no interest in ending the war prematurely.
