President Donald Trump’s administration created an illusion of peace and dealmaking for just a few weeks in his war with Iran before everything came tumbling back down to reality, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in an analysis published on Wednesday.
This comes after Trump proclaimed Iranian leaders were “very rational people” and started rolling back Iranian oil sanctions — moves the board said were foolish from the start. It also comes as some figures on the far right slam Trump for failing to achieve peace.
“Vice President JD Vance, the lead U.S. negotiator, insisted that even the thugs atop the Revolutionary Guard Corps want to ‘turn over a new leaf’ with the U.S.,” wrote the board. “This Age of Innocence lasted all of three weeks” — and Trump bluntly told reporters he changed his mind on all of this because “I got to know them.”
Ultimately, wrote the board, the ceasefire memorandum didn’t change anything about the conflict and left Trump with the same options he had in the first place: “He can surrender the Strait or reopen it by force. He can reimpose and enforce maximum-pressure sanctions and the blockade on Iranian ports. He can target Iran’s oil infrastructure or enriched-uranium stockpile.”
Now Trump is all in on the war again, the board wrote, it’s his job to thwart Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, while securing U.S. control over the waters around Iranian ports.
“In both cases the goal is to free the U.S. and the region from dependence on the cooperation of Iran’s regime,” concluded the board, saying that regardless of how Trump feels about the situation, “Better to reopen the Strait or destroy the nuclear program ourselves and let Iran’s regime struggle under pressure while it’s at its weakest.”
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