This card has already been played, in five months of war. And not just once. Donald Trump stirs up the imminent escalation, the exemplary punishment, the “end of the world weapon” against Iran, only to then make a U-turn and try to return to the negotiating table.
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In the end, it always works the same way: it starts with a grim warning to Tehran, according to which the US president would be about to order US forces to “destroy” its power plants or seize key parts of its oil industry if its leaders did not quickly accept American conditions to end the war. It ends with him backing down with a last-minute statement, sometimes at the request of this or that Gulf ally, in which he says he will give diplomacy more time.
The iron fist strategy – which “The Donald” has honed over the years from real estate developer in New York, at the court of Roy Cohn, the most unscrupulous lawyer in the Big Apple – aims to move negotiations through pressure and chaos. There is a lot of bluff. Risks included, because in the end the problem with bluff is always that someone comes to see through it. A bit like what the Iranian theocracy has learned to do.
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The latest episode began on Friday, when Trump, surrounded by his cabinet, declared with a grim air that he was “losing confidence” in negotiations with Iran and warned that the US military would “hit them very hard.”
A few hours later, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt fueled speculation in Washington – and worldwide – with a threatening statement saying that “Iran will continue to pay until it sits at the negotiating table in a way, according to President Trump, that is meaningful.”
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