If Trump says something, and the other side says something else then its basically common sense to assume Trump is the one who's lying about it.
Conflict between Palestine and Israel escalates
- Thread starter dreng3
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Unfortunately likely. There have already been several instances of him publicly declaring something took place with another party, and then the other party has to 'manage expectations'. It happened with Claudia Sheinbaum. And it seems to have happened with the Indian so-called "trade deal"-- he declared a done deal, but no deal was finalised and now talks are postponed.
The Iranian gov is clearly unreliable. Yet on objective diplomatic questions like this, even they have a far better track record of reliability than the US.
The President of Iran has been talking, he has been on calls with Pakistan, who also spoke with Trump. And the day before the news started reporting Iran denying negotiations, he reportedly had laid out demands for how the war would end. I don't believe he is among the people from Iran who have denied negotiating with the US.
Did you, over the weekend, see the reports about the Iranian government spelling out conditions they want to end the war? If so, do you not see the contradiction in them claiming 24- hours later that they aren't even talking to the US?
This is not true: Iran didn't say it wasn't talking to the US, it said it had not held negotiations with the USA.
To start here, let's note that Trump said that if Iran didn't open the straits of Hormuz, he would blow up the country's power grid. This is both spelling out a condition and even talking to Iran (if indirectly), but I think few people would call it holding negotiations.
Countries communicate with each other even during wartime: this isn't the same as "negotiating". The term could then apply broadly or narrowly: narrowly it might mean formal discussions - thus discounting informal, backchannel and preparatory work to get serious people sitting down in formal tallks. So when Trump says his administration are talking to the Iranians and the Iranians say they are not holding negotiations... they're both right.
Secondly, the problem with decapitating a country's leadership is you don't necessarily know who you need to talk to. Is the USA talking to someone who actually has the authority to represent Iran? Is it some guy acting on his own initiative in the hope he can take it to someone who can make the real decision? Who knows.
Well no, not really. The report is that Iranian senior commanders laid out demands in comments to a Lebanese media outlet. There's nothing there about actual negotiations with the US, and no hint of the supposed progress that has led the US to postpone strikes.
I can see that Pezeshkian and Trump have both talked to Pakistan, and there is a suggestion Pakistan could host upcoming mediation.
I have seen nothing about negotiations between Iran and Trump having happened, through Pakistan or otherwise.
Which isn't very much. Pakistan has acted as an intermediary between the two (as potentially also have Egypt and Turkey and maybe a few others). This suggests that the USA and Iran are putting out feelers and are not yet in direct communication on anything substantial.
Yes, there seems to be some very low rank contact, probably to create a framework for negotiations. But it seems unlikely anything of substance is talked about or anyone is involved who can speak for their country.
That has been their position for decades. But he seems to be desperate for any kind of win now.
Frankly, I suspect the US government would reach for any reason at this juncture, including unilaterally just stopping.
The USA seems to have failed to achieve any major objectives: killing an 86-year-old man doth not a regime change make, and killing 200 schoolgirls doesn't destroy a nuclear programme. For this, oil and gas prices have already soared, and further bombing would mostly result in Iran deciding "fuck the lot of you" and pounding all the key infrastructure in the Middle East that it could, potentially ensuring fuel prices spiked even more and remained high for years.
That's the thing about Iran - as long as we are so dependent on fossil fuels, it never needed nukes to make sure everyone loses. The USA could have done this to Iran pretty much any time in the last 30 years, and I very strongly suggest that Trump just demonstrated to the world the reasons that former, wiser US administrations chose not to.
Everyone has lost. Worldwide, the increase in oil and gas prices are going to heap misery on billions with inflation and reduced affordability, potentially tip some economies into recession. That's a lot of additional suffering on top of the pointless slaugher.
It would be wise, but one imagines they'll want something to save face, though not expecting anything very impressive.
While, yes, one also imagines that any previous administrations wouldn't have botched things quite as badly. The overall result would likely be similar, though, of course.
The #1 stated goal was to degrade Iranian military capabilities which they bombed to smithereens, and they got allegedly 40 members of Iranian leadership in the first strike. Downstream of that, direct action inhibits their ability to prop up groups like Hamas and Hezbollah or even Russia to a limited extent. And all that is before concessions, which Iran is going to have to make to get out of this situation, as much as people might think they have the advantage in a war of attrition, you can't attrition an enemy that can kill any given individual at any time of its choosing, and is only stopping to have someone left to negotiate with.
You live in an alternative reality.
The stated goal was to destroy an active, near-successful nuclear weapons development program. Something there has been no good evidence of existing to begin with (shades of Bush's nonexistant WMDs), and which the US had already claimed had been obliterated months ago.
And yet Russia has already been making bank from the skyrocketing oil costs.
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The second Bush administration was even way more arrogant coming from the high of being the only remaining superpower, having won the Cold war and all the recent engagements, be it the previous Golf war or the Yugoslavia interventions being a success. There is no reason to believe that would not have tried Iran the same way as Iraq or Afghanistan. The current admin is at least somewhat scared of boots-on-the-ground and endless occupation.
OTOH, even the second Bush did not purge the Pentagon from all non-boot-lickers, so maybe it would still have worked better.
Well not everyone. Russia is laughting their way to the bank now they got a much needed cash infusion to fund their bloodlust
So the Iran conflict isn't a humiliating blunder causing economic chaos for the US and wider world alike, but instead a rare species of victory?