After only one day, the Trump-Iran ceasefire is already in trouble.
“U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland planned for Friday were earlier called off as fighting flared in Lebanon,” Reuters declared today, “creating new uncertainty about the timing of negotiations vital to ensure the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping.”
So, depending on the time of day, the way the wind blows or whether Trump has seen his shadow, he may – or may not – honor his agreement to temporarily cease hostilities with Iran.
The tentative deal – with its official signing on Wednesday by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian – has at last been released to the U.S. public. It intends to halt aggressions between U.S. and Iranian forces, but will “attempt to resolve, within 60 days, the interlocking questions of Iran’s nuclear program and American sanctions that have long strangled its economy,” stated Time.
So, the agreement is only an official cease fire – and is not a peace deal, as Trump ridiculously claims.
“We are not and we have never been talking about peace with Iran,” declared Aaron David Miller, currently serving as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and who previously worked as a Middle East adviser for Democratic and Republican secretaries of state.
“No [post-Iranian Revolution U.S.] president has pursued peace, [or] normalized peace relations. This is just another round in a historical conflict of almost half a century,” cautioned Miller, “between Islamic Republic and various Republican and Democratic administrations.”
Nate Swanson, who worked as a top Iran policy advisor for successive U.S. administrations, pointed out why Sunday’s agreement is not a peace deal. In an analysis he penned for the Atlantic Council, Swanson wrote:
“[The Trump-Iran ceasefire agreement] does not appear to resolve the core issues” [that seems to be the basis for hostilities, such as] “the [final] mechanics of the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian nuclear concessions, or Iranian financial incentives and sanctions relief.”
But Swanson may have hit the main issues when he declared:
“To date, the United States hasn’t shown the patience necessary to complete a complicated nuclear deal that requires new monitoring and verification measures [for Iran].”
Then, Swanson added this kicker:
“Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may not want to do anything beyond a small, transactional deal with the United States.” Why? Because of Trump’s “withdrawal from the Obama Administration’s [nuclear] deal in 2018 and the fact that the United States and Israel killed Khamenei’s father, mother, wife, and son.”
In 2015, the Obama Administration penned a deal with Iran in which the country agreed not to produce Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU), if the U.S. and a number of associate nations agreed to ease up sanctions on various items. HEU may be used for such things as medical research – but it also is an essential component of nuclear weapons.
In 2018, Trump suddenly withdrew from the Obama accord, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the chief international body of nuclear weapon inspectors – declared that Iran was faithfully keeping up its end of the deal.
But since that deal was the only one keeping Iran from creating HEU, the country decided to develop HEU for medical purposes and scientific research, according to Iranian officials.
Therefore, Trump is the chief person to blame for Iran’s current store of HEU.
In 2019, a memo written by Sir Kim Darroch – Britain’s then-U.S. ambassador – was uncovered by BBC News. It declared that Trump’s withdrawal from the accord was a move of “diplomatic vandalism,” apparently only done for “personality reasons – it was Obama’s deal.”
“Moreover, they [i.e., Trump Administration officials] can’t articulate any ‘day-after’ strategy,” continued the memo, “and contacts with State Department this morning,” appear to “suggest no sort of plan for reaching out to partners and allies, whether in Europe or the region.”
So the self-proclaimed “deal artist” looks increasingly incapable of maintaining a long-term deal, or even long-term ideas. One suspects that Greenland already knows this. So does Canada. The reason is simple: It’s impossible to strike a lasting deal with someone who can’t decide what what he wants.
His delusional supporters are notorious for seeing only what they wish to see in their “Great Leader,” and flatly reject all facts that reveal his true personality and lack of suitability for the presidency. For instance, they have convinced themselves that Trump’s inability to form a definite list of conditions for an eventual deal is somehow a “strength,” an “art of the deal.”
This delusion probably comes from the 1980s book, The Art of the Deal, a tome in which Trump effectively introduced himself to the world outside of the New York real estate business. The only issue? That book – which seemed to chronicle the business philosophy and magnetic personality of a dynamic, thoughtful man – was actually the creation of ghost-writer Tony Schwartz.
Most sources realize that Schwartz is the true creator of the Trump myth, for good or ill. In 2015, after Trump announced his first candidacy by claiming, “We need a leader who wrote ‘The Art of the Deal,’ ” Schwartz called him out on Twitter, declaring, “Many thanks, Donald Trump for suggesting I run for President, based on the fact that I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ”
Trump – who, as we all know, is quite litigious and has shown the emotional instability of the much-maligned “snowflake” when he is touched by even the lightest criticism – at first screamed bloody murder when Schwartz declared that he had created Trump’s entire dynamic image. Trump even sent a quick cease-and-desist letter to Schwartz, insisting that the ghost writer return his book royalties.
But Schwartz’s publisher backed the ghost writer, pointing out to The New Yorker that “Trump didn’t [even] write a postcard for us!”
Schwartz’s lawyer then trounced Trump’s claim on legal grounds, tellingly proclaiming that Trump’s cease-and-desist had “without any foundation in law or fact.” Schwartz has kept every dime of his earnings, and Trump does not appear to have pursued the case any further after that legal rejoinder.
And when someone shuts up Donald Trump, you know the “deal artist” no longer has a single logical fallacy to use in his defense.
