Wondering WTH is going on with Iran?

Join the club. Take a peek at the HTHH team texts on the leaks, the dithering, the rank incompetence

DP: Let’s agree that neither of us has the vaguest clue what’s going on with Iran. We have a cease-fire that has been violated repeatedly, including efforts to directly target US bases. We have a President who has said Iran wants a deal, an Iran that has walked away from the negotiations, a contretemps between Trump and Bibi Netanyahu that may not have happened as described, a cease fire in Lebanon that isn’t… confusion reigns.

EL: Sigh. It’s frustrating. But what really makes me want to vomit is watching the press allow itself to be used to perpetuate the confusion, parroting Trump’s blather about how great the talks are going as if any of it actually means something. I honestly don’t know how he finds time to do any president-y stuff when he seems to spend all day on the phone spinning journalists.

And yes, Iran was stalling. But last week Trump walked away from what appeared to be an imminent deal because he was getting internal pushback over the lousy terms. Though I’m not convinced this deal is going to get any better by continued dithering. It’s only giving space for the cease-fire to fall apart.

DP: So, first on the journalist stuff. There’s a venerable, but nonetheless repulsive tradition of Washington journos being pass throughs for officials eager to shape a narrative. We know who they are, and generally, we know who’s leaking as well. But historically, such leaks are spin, not outright lies intended to propagate a false narrative. That’s now happening regularly, and there’s one particular pass through who is doing little to question whether the tales he’s being told are true. One day there will be a reckoning, I hope.

Then on the ceasefire… it has fallen apart. It’s a ceasefire in name only. Today, someone asked me what it would take for Trump to restart military operations in earnest. I had no serious answer. Now imagine what that says to the Kuwaitis – whose airport was attacked overnight – or any of our other Gulf allies in the line of fire. I get that Trump didn’t like the deal he was offered, but doesn’t want to abandon the ceasefire. But the people he should be offloading are not those providing military options to persuade Iran; he should be offloading Steve Witkoff, whose main job appears to be leaking spurious stories to Axios.

EL: What has he been telling them for the past month since he agreed to the ceasefire while Iran has continued to strike across the Gulf? We’ve discussed this before: Trump agreed to a ceasefire too quickly without securing much of anything in return and clearly has little interest in returning to serious military strikes. I think some of our allies will end up seeking their own accommodations with Iran to avoid further attacks. That doesn’t just weaken our leverage over Iran – but our broader position in the region, and probably the world.

DP: Totally agree. This is why our allies in the Gulf and in Israel are beside themselves; and why Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is making a lot of bad bets on Turkey and Egypt. Because everyone is worried that Washington is completely feckless. Frankly, it’s not clear to me how this ends well at this point. Trump is getting the JCPOA minus. And while he thinks we can continue to sit in the region and let Iran twist in the wind, attacks like the one on Kuwait suggest the Iranians will use the opportunity to shape attitudes.

EL: Let me close the loop on Iran shaping the narrative. Trump is doing the work for them. The other day he said he “didn’t care” if negotiations were over because they were getting “boring.” (BTW, this is exactly what Putin predicted would happen with Ukraine.)

On Netanyahu, Trump sees Lebanon as getting in the way of a deal with Iran, at least for today. And Bibi isn’t doing what he wants, which clearly infuriates him. Both sides have acknowledged it was a tough conversation, but I’m not convinced the call was quite as profanity-laced as advertised. My guess is the WH is channeling their inner Trump to portray him as tough.

DP: No need to guess. Someone on the call labeled the narrative a lie. And this is less about Lebanon and more about screwing Netanyahu in the coming Israeli election. Here’s the bottom line on Iran: Either the President restarts kinetic operations and opens the Gulf, hits Iran’s remaining targets, and chokes a deal out of Tehran, or we end up in limbo with the war looking for all intents and purposes like a crazy idea. That’s apparently what the House of Representatives thinks, and it’s hard to blame them. Fixing this is up to DJT.

EL: I vote for #1 but fear we are headed toward #2. Like many things with him, the original idea isn’t always crazy, but the execution, and the messaging, almost always are. Sigh.

And don’t forget…