It doesn’t seem like a good idea to give an ultimatum to someone who no longer has much to lose. And the Iranian regime, because it does not have, does not even have a clear leader. And you see how much the spare ayatollahs care about their own people. So when Trump this weekend gave Iran a 48-hour ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and otherwise raze their power plants and leave them in the dark, the Iranians upped the ante and threatened to bomb the Gulf.
And what has happened? Well, given the rise in oil and the crash in the stock markets, Trump postponed his own ultimatum. He said he was in productive talks with Iran and they are going so well that he is giving another five days of deadline.
The total confusion came later, when the Iranians, as if disappointed by the end of the ultimatum, by not being able to destroy everything, say no, that these negotiations do not exist, that it is a trick by Trump to buy time and speculate on the price of oil.
And President Trump, about to board his plane in Palm Beach, because he directs the war at times from Florida playing golf, does not even specify what they are negotiating: “many, like 15 points,” he says. Not with whom.
According to Trump, it was not him who called them: “They called.” It would be interesting to know who they are, because a few days ago he boasted that there was no one left in Iran, that they had killed them all. Now he says that he is “someone very important”, but that he is not going to say who “so that they don’t kill him.”
It is not yet clear whether this someone Trump is negotiating with is real or imaginary, or if he is trying to sow internal division among replacement ayatollahs; If he is buying time while more Marines arrive in the Gulf or if he is looking for a quick way out of a war that is not going as expected.
Meanwhile, he has postponed the ultimatum until Friday, when he will return to Florida to continue playing golf. And to war.
Moral?
More than negotiations,
contradictions advance
