Iran Is Prepared for a Return to War and Wary of US Talks
Neither the US nor its allies are ready to deal with the consequences of an escalation of their war with Iran. Yet Donald Trump has painted himself into a corner, and it’s unclear whether he has a face-saving way out.
Iran has signaled that it is willing to make concessions around its nuclear program in exchange for a guarantee of long-lasting peace. Donald Trump seems too delusionally committed to an unwinnable war he started to accept this proposal. (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Iran is bracing itself for a second round of US and Israeli hostilities following a swirl of bellicose social media posts from Donald Trump. On May 17, the president posted an AI image of himself with his hand on a large red button and made another post warning Iran that “the clock is ticking,” before claiming on May 18 to have called off a planned attack due to lobbying by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait.
These Gulf nations had, Trump said, requested “two or three days, a short period of time” for negotiations taking place via Pakistan between Washington and Tehran to bear fruit. While nothing Trump says can now be taken at face value, the wild rhetorical maneuvering implies either an imminent breakthrough in the negotiations now taking place through Pakistan or, more likely, a deadlock.
Disclosures from Tehran and Washington give the impression that both sides remain far apart. The United States has suffered a strategic defeat in Iran, which has gained economic leverage over the United States by asserting control within its maritime waters in the Strait of Hormuz, creating a bottleneck it controls that has affected 20 percent of the world’s oil trade.
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