Iran again. Or not.
I’m not planning to write anything lengthy on the Iran talks until something definitive happens. If it ever does. For example, this sort of back-and-forth dueling narratives has happened over and over, and has happened again:
The U.S.-Iran summit in Switzerland has run into trouble on its third day, with both sides making conflicting claims. A day after Vice President JD Vance hailed a ‘major milestone’ in talks, declaring Iran had agreed to allow United Nations inspectors back into the country, the Iranian negotiators denied the claim.
There’s much more at the link, if you’re interested.
“A day after Vice President JD Vance hailed a ‘major milestone’ in talks declaring Iran had agreed to allow United Nations inspectors back into the country, the Iranian negotiators denied the claim.”
The Iranian’s imitation of Ali’s famous “Rope-a-dope” tactic.
Pretending till the mid-terms that progress is being made is the administration’s strategy. If the mid-term results favor the pubs, then Trump may then have a much freer hand.
So Iran is sabotaging the talks in order to delay them. Trump is pretending the talks are going great in order to extend them past the midterms.
Who’s zooming who?
_____________________________
(You came to catch)
You thought I’d be naive and tame
(You met your match)
But I beat you at your own game, oh
(Who’s zooming who?)
Take another look and tell me, baby
(Who’s zooming who?)
–Aretha Franklin, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (Official Lyric Video)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYmmFf6M40Y
— Huxley
Both?
I said a few weeks ago that I thought both Trump and the Iranian leadership (whoever they currently are) were feeling their way along, making it up as they went along as they tried to reach their goals. Trump is restrained from going all out by practical politics, Iran is limited by the devastation of their armed forces and power structure, both are still in the game.
I still think that. The ‘agreement’ is just the latest manifestation of that.
As Gomer would say:”Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Andrea Widburg calls our attention to Andrew Klavan’s recent podcast (Ep 1283) “Why’s Everyone so Miserable?”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/06/andrew-klavan-has-wise-calming-words-about-the-iran-mou/https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/06/andrew-klavan-has-wise-calming-words-about-the-iran-mou/
In the podcast he argues instead of arguing about the details and ramifications of the Iran MOU we’re missing the larger point that Trump has turned his attention to the more immediate threat: the Democratic Socialists of America. She queues the video to the beginning of that argument at 9:50. At 18:10 he gets to the bottom line “this is a war on a timer” and for US the existential threat is the DSA in the midterms. How we use the time the MOU offers (24:17) will determine our future.
So why socialism, why now, when we know socialism fails to deliver on its promises? Because a century of teaching the young to turn to government to solve everything (25:14) is resulting in the collapse of everything causing louder cries for more government by better people to fix the things more government didn’t fix because…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyXIrM_VxQ
@crasey:instead of arguing about the details and ramifications of the Iran MOU we’re missing the larger point that Trump has turned his attention to the more immediate threat: the Democratic Socialists of America.
We’re not the Left and can’t play these games. A few months ago the immediate threat was “Iran being a few weeks away from a nuclear weapon”. Now it’s the DSA and the midterms? No.
Iran is either a serious threat to the United States or it is not. If it is, the morally right thing to do, as well as the statesman like thing to do, is to deal with it regardless of what might happen with elections. Trump cannot be voted out of office, it is not plausible that he could be removed by impeachment, and he’s Commander-in-Chief, not Congress. He has more than two years left to do whatever needs to be done and he has the powers he needs to do those things.
Of course if the midterms really are more important than the threat to Iran we’ve been lying to ourselves and each other for months. I don’t believe this is true, and I don’t think we should act like it by worrying more about domestic elections than Iran killing people or getting nukes.
If you want to make the case that the threat from Iran has been dealt with and there’s nothing left there more important than worrying about midterms, by all means make that case. Then maybe everyone will stop complaining about the Iran negotiations, if the case is convincing. I suspect it won’t be.
@Niketas Choniates
Sorry neither the article or the video were worth your time.
My wife gets very frustrated when I change priorities and leave projects incomplete to work on other priorities. My answer is “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray”. Project A is behind schedule and must be postponed in favor of Project B which now has become time critical.
@crasey – Your link is dead and most of I’m not going to spend 1:10 to listening to a podcast. But, at the risk of discrediting Niketas Choniates, I agree with him. There’s nothing about the DSA threat that wasn’t known three months ago before Trump started bombing Iran.
I remain amazed at the excuses and narratives that Trump’s supporters create so they don’t have to reckon with what he’s actually doing. If Klavan is really claiming that the DSA only just become a threat such that Trump had to change his focus from Iran, that’s not even good spin.
FWIW, Trump’s biggest error in Iran was starting something that he wasn’t prepared to finish. He didn’t make any preparations for an extended conflict, either by building public support or requesting funds from Congress. Then when four weeks of bombing didn’t topple the regime and failed to prevent Iran from closing Hormuz, he was left holding no leverage. The US blockade was a Hail Mary to flip the leverage, but that was the only play Trump had at that point.
Basically, if Trump wasn’t willing to see the war through to victory, he should have just lobbed an additional dozen or so bunker busters into Iran’s nuclear sites and called it a day.
CC™-R:
If you could not be bothered to listen to Andrew Klavan STFU, no added value.
Don’t worry om, bauxy is just a scroll-by for me now. Except when I can taunt him for being on food stamps cuz Trump nuked his IRA lol.
@Bauxite
You’re right. It’s a broken link. Below is the web address. I don’t know why the hyperlink got scrambled. The time stamps were intended to direct those interested to the applicable points. I doubt there’s anything that Andrea Widburg, Andrew Klavan or anyone else could say that would alter your thinking but I appreciate the feedback.
@Chases Eagles gets it.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/06/andrew-klavan-has-wise-calming-words-about-the-iran-mou/
One of the alarm bells ringing from the MoU is JD Vance’s handling of the negotiations. I’m very disappointed with his public pronouncements.
Having said this, I agree with Vance’s statement- “You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”, but this is something that should be said in private. His seeming tipping the scales toward Hezbollah/Iran’s position in Lebanon did not have universal support in Lebanon.
A majority of Lebanese would like Hezbollah driven from the country as a separate military/political entity apart from the central government.
Everyone Is SHOCKED By Lebanon’s Brutal Iran Deal Reaction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQugOBJ0OQo&t=1261s
If the negotiations are a strategy to string the war past the midterm elections, Vance doesn’t appear to have received the strategy paper. If we gave everything to Iran in the MoU (on paper) to get them to agree to the negotiations, Vance’s enthusiasm on the progress (at least in public) is unsettling.
Iran may or may not be a serious threat to the US in a general sense. However, any of the nutcase islamic groups which has a nuke is a serious threat. Iran happens to be the threat du jour. Somebody else later on.
Keep trying to figure out what’s wrong with Fernandez’ “Three Conjectures”. Other than presuming western leaders in a nation nuked several times by terrorists will not be calling for dialogue, what else is he missing?