As US negotiators head back to Pakistan for more peace talks, we have to ask: What’s the point?
It wasn’t even clear as of late Sunday if the Iranians would send a team to talk: At least one Tehran-run news outlet was saying they wouldn’t.
And if negotiators do show, it’s likely that any concessions they make will get vetoed by the real powers back home.
Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced to the world that the Strait of Hormuz was “completely opened” for commercial vessels, news that President Donald Trump joyfully shared with the world.
Then Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker, said Trump had it wrong — and Tehran’s forces on Saturday opened fire on multiple tankers as they proceeded toward the Strait.
All this proves Trump was entirely right to continue the US blockade of Iran’s oil exports, and is right now to look at seizing Iran tankersanywhere in the world.
Internal power struggles in Tehran may make talks in Pakistan nothing but a farce.
The boffins at the Institute for the Study of War now assess that a hard-line faction led by Maj.-Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, is likely now in full charge in Tehran.
The IRGC is also thought to control the country’s nominal top dog, seriously injured Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in whose name new incendiary tough-talk declarations are being issued.
It looks like the hardliners will ensure that any negotiators can’t truly negotiate.
Trump would still rather end the war with no more shots fired, provided Tehran offers hard guarantees that it will turn over its “nuclear dust” and end all nuke-weapons work permanently.
But he won’t be snowed: “It will happen. One way or another. The nice way or the hard way. It’s going to happen,” he told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Sunday; to Fox News’ Trey Yingst, he warned that if Iran doesn’t “sign this deal, the whole country is going to get blown up.”
The United States and Israel have something like two weeks of bombing left as per original plans; unless Tehran produces some verifiable, instantly deliverable concessions by Wednesday, those attacks should resume.
More, the Pentagon should present the prez with his options for taking out anything and everything that Iran is using to close the Strait.
If talks go ahead, it looks like Tehran is simply hoping Washington will make some concessions the Iranians can treat as the starting point for a fresh round of talks — rinse and repeat until they’ve negotiated their way out of total defeat.
Sorry: This is the wrong president to target for that rope-a-dope game.
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