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I was telling anyone who would listen – yes. I would be tired – that President Donald Trump wouldn’t bomb Iran back in the Stone Ages.
Even after he said he would destroy Iran’s civilization and it would never recover, I knew he wouldn’t go through with it. That was the last thing he wanted to do.
So I was confident that he would find some kind of last minute ramp.
And, of course, he didn’t want to be seen as backing up his increasingly serious threats.
WHY TRUMP’S WAR SPEECH FAILED: DECLARING VICTORY BUT STILL PUSHING IRAN BACK TO ‘STONE CAPS’
It seemed clear that President Donald Trump was not going to follow through on his recent threats to bomb Iran. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
I got the White House email at 6:32 Tuesday night. There was, another delay, after a series of earlier delays. He would give the Iranians two more weeks.
I started posting like crazy, hitting the television for a few minutes, and newspapers in addition. But that’s because my phone was there. If I had gone to the fridge for a while, I would have returned to my laptop to find that the world had changed.
I knew in my gut, having covered Trump for 35 years, that he did not want to go down in history as the man who destroyed an ancient civilization. His heart was not in it. It was bluster as a negotiating tactic.
TRUMP IS FIGHTING HARD BATTLES, AT HOME AND ABROAD: WHY HE’S BEEN SPENDING RESULTS
Still, he had backed himself into a corner. His allies in the conservative media were critical of him. “This is a pre-emptive admission of the killing of Iranians, which could be a war crime. It’s madness,” said Piers Morgan.
Some Republican lawmakers say he has gone too far. Even the US Catholic Bishops say “the threat of destroying an entire civilization and the deliberate targeting of human infrastructure is morally indefensible.”
No American president has ever uttered such words.
Trump earlier issued a stern warning to Tehran, urging them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
So I figured the only card Trump had left to play was delay. And that’s exactly what he did. At the request of Pakistan, which has been a mediator in these so-called talks, the president has agreed to a pause in these talks.
That is, according to the statement I received, “subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to stop the bombing and attacks on Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a CEASEFIRE on both sides! The reason for doing so is that we have all achieved the goal of the Military…”
It’s a strong ceasefire move, with Iran firing missiles at Israel within minutes of the announcement, and Israel saying its attack on Lebanon, after a rocket fire from the Iranian proxy Hezbollah, was not covered.
WHY TRUMP, IRAN SEE LIGHT YEARS FROM DIVING WITH ANY AMOUNT TO END THE WAR
Yesterday, in fact, as the AP confirmed, Iranian state media said they had closed Hormuz again, citing the Israeli attack.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post that the Trump administration “must choose between ending the war or continuing the war with Israel, and it “can’t have both.”
We learned from New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan that Bibi Netanyahu spoke to Trump about the war saying it would be swift and overthrow the regime. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called that “farcical.” Marco Rubio said it was BS. JD Vance was against the war.
And that’s an interesting sidebar. Trump was insulting Haberman, who published his biography in 2022, for no reason. However, he gave an hour-long Oval Office interview about his upcoming book, “Regime Change,” which was quoted in the Times piece.
Regarding the current position of the president, he is not reserved with vague details. He told Sky News that this was a “total victory,” not just militarily but “in every other sense.”
Trump was on the phone with Fox commentator Laura Ingraham shortly before she went on air, and quoted her as “very optimistic,” saying: “It looks like Iran is blinking.”
What, looking through the fog of war, has Trump actually accomplished, other than sending markets up nearly 3 percent?
On yesterday’s episode of “Fox & Friends,” a typically Trump-friendly show, co-host Lawrence Jones said “we haven’t met any of these goals.”
Dismantling nuclear facilities (“that’s not happening yet”), ending uranium enrichment (“they’re still enriching”), transferring uranium stockpiles out of Iran (“that’s not happening yet”), accepting international inspections (“they’re not willing to do it”), and stopping the ballistic missile program (“they’re still firing them”). Jones also criticized Iran for proposals that will never be accepted by the US side.
WHY TRUMP IS FACED WITH AN IMMEDIATE DECISION TO KILL IRAN OIL SUPPLIES IF HE CAN’T GET A DEAL
Fox publisher Harris Faulkner said yesterday, “this is the only small decision to end the firing that I think anyone expected.” Fox’s foreign affairs correspondent, Trey Yingst, said, “The Iranians don’t seem to be very serious about this ceasefire.”
And therein lies the rub. The two countries are always far from each other. This business about strategic planning just writes that with the devil’s eye for detail. Iran will never agree to give up its nuclear program, regardless of the president’s declarations or Accomplished banners.
The Iranian pitch, apparently not seen by Trump, says that the US must leave the region, give Iran sole control of the strait, and respect its right to develop nuclear weapons.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt called Iran’s 10-point plan “senseless, unacceptable and utterly reprehensible.” (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Don’t take my word for it. Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt told reporters yesterday that Iran’s 10-point plan is “absolutely absurd, unacceptable and totally unacceptable.”
Look, if all of this somehow comes to pass, most people will remember that Trump made the dire threats that led to the deal where the Iranian blockade – “Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy b——-s” – was lifted. In other words, his Madman practice worked against the world’s leading terrorist network, which has killed Americans, Arabs and their people for 47 years.
But things can go downhill faster than a speeding plane. It’s in the Middle East.
It doesn’t matter what you think of Trump, his war of choice, his apocalyptic rhetoric or his entire presidency, he’s not crazy. He followed a similar path in his tax campaign, threatening higher taxes before reaching 11th-hour deals. As he says, he is a salesman. That’s what he does.
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Many media accounts portray Trump as inward or backward. That’s a fair comment.
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But what really happened was that Trump found a way to avoid doing what he never did in the first place.
