Trump says talks with Iran are off …
… and that the Iranian leaders are “scum.”
But note the qualifiers such as “I think”:
There may be somewhat of a distinction between the people they’ve been talking to and the people in charge of decisions to attack, although Trump doesn’t say that in those remarks. But many of us have speculated that those two groups are not quite the same.
Trump also leaves some wiggle room for negotiations to continue. In other words, we still don’t know where this will go. Trump is highly motivated to keep oil prices down before the midterms, and the Iranians know it. That’s a huge factor in all of this. Note, also, that he’s not threatening to bomb them into the Stone Age (or even the Bronze Age).
Iran will not stop attacks until they can’t
Trump wants to negotiate – the Mullahs want to win, and to humiliate the West (the “strong Horse” doctrine).
Trump did read them the riot act and is backing it up.
I don’t believe the Iranians will change their spots, though I do believe they will try to restart talks with some sort of appeasement.
The question then will be how much damage Trump will do before letting up or if he will.
We were told there were still two weeks of targets left to hit at the start of the ceasefire. Perhaps Trump will insist on finishing that list before even responding to Iran’s stalling maneuvers.
Hope so. Best get that out of the way now rather than let it drag on and become more of a problem for the midterms.
The Iranians are politically sophisticated. It seems likely that the Iranians in control of military forces intend an on-again, off-again strategy all the way through Oct. The goal; to effect the mid-terms in the left’s favor, in hopes of a new Congress forcing upon Trump an unsatisfactory ‘settlement’. It’s really all they have left with which to ‘negotiate’.
I don’t think there has ever been any possibility of a good solution to this. By “good” I mean short of a major war. Trump deserves a perverse sort of credit for exposing this fact. I am not advocating a major war, just observing. Obama & Co thought they could buy off the regime. Wrong. Trump thought he could knock them around some and they would give up. Also wrong. I don’t know what Netanyahu thought.
I believe Bibi has made it plain the ruling regime in Teheran must go, be ousted, dissappear, be overthrown, die in detail, be eliminated — that kind of thing — and further, I believe he works everyday to seek that end, though the manner of it precisely, I’ve no idea. He’s a patient guy, Netanyahu, and devoted to his calling.
[Note from neo: I usually remove trolls’ comments but I’m leaving this one up for several reasons. The first is to illustrate the decline that occurs when a person decides to become a troll. The second is that, if I get rid of it, people’s responses to it wouldn’t make sense.]
Good job sdferr. About time someone quoted the real president of the USA.
Netanyahu will fight to the last American to stay out of prison on corruption charges.
Ach, imposter, ya just can’t quit us, eh?
[Note from neo: once again, this is from Zaphod the sock-puppeting troll; I’m leaving it up so that the responses to it from other commenters can be understood.]
To paraphrase the Reichsmarschall, “I will decide who is a commenter!”.
@MacFuckface, fake GeoffreyBrittain (I saw that.)
Actually Trump has upstaged Bibi more than one time including on this. They have a good relationship but Bibi does not control Trump, as even a cursory look at Qatar or the Iran negotiations show.
The problem with this retardation is manifold. Firstly that the Israeli opposition championing the almost certainly bogus corruption charges has repeatedly tried to butch up by claiming Netanyahu’s war conduct would be theirs in office. So unless you can explain that you are full of BS. Oh wait you will be anyway, but still.
Secondly: Netanyahu has far more existential concerns. He saw October 7th. He saw explicit attempts to exterminate his country and people. So he has far more pressing reasons to fight than corruption charges.
Zaphod I would suggest you go follow your leader but I suspect that shooting yourself in the head would not yield any result.
Oh also if Goering ever said that he was just remixing Karl Lueger’s talk about deciding who was and was not a Jew.
zaphod always has his globohomo conspirators to comfort him.
Neo has clarified it, but just for emphasis: I am the “Mac” who made the “I don’t think…” comment above, timestamped 6:47pm on my screen, and this one. No others.