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.