Skip to main content

Trump’s threats imperil Islamabad MOU negotiations

Paragraph 1 of the Islamabad MOU, signed by President Donald Trump at Versailles a few days ago, includes: 
        1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran … undertake … to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other… 

    The start of negotiations in Switzerland today seemed to be going well, with Vice President Vance telling reporters President Trump had: 
            "asked us to turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran". 
    But then, on Sunday, June 21, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: 
            "Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in ‌Lebanon ⁠from causing trouble. If they don’t, ⁠we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just ⁠like we did last ⁠week, only harder!!!" 
    Further, Trump told Iranian officials, according to Fox News: 
            "You close [the Strait of Hormuz] and you won't have a country. You won't even make it back to your fu*king country. We may take over the Strait, if we have to." 
    
    It should come as no surprise, after Trump so blatantly violated the commitment he made under MOU paragraph 1, that the first session of the talks between Iran and the United States halted following roughly 80 minutes of indirect discussions. 
    Press TV reported that Iran's delegation has lodged a protest with the US after Trump's threats and is weighing its next steps, “Whether the negotiations will continue remains unclear.” 

    Look again at MOU paragraph 1. What else can one say about the Iranian response to Trump’s threats but ‘Bravo”!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘New war with Israel at any moment’, ‘still digging through rubble’

The news about Iran has taken an ominous tone in the last couple days. Here is some reporting and commentary.  Newsweek on August 18, 2025, reported that Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said ‘ We are not in a ceasefire; we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the U.S. or Israel. A new war with Israel could break out at any moment .’  Yonah Jeremy Bob commented in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2025, that ‘ Khamenei can either “drink from the poisoned chalice” of diplomatic concessions … or face more airstrikes, possibly next time some targeting him directly ’.   Bob also noted that ‘ right now Iran is still digging through rubbl e’. The U.S. attacked Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan on June 22. Two months of digging. No surprise that there has been no public news about that.
Post a Comment
Read more

Assessing possible outcomes of the snapback mechanism

The initiation by the E3 of the 30-day snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council makes everything more difficult and there is great uncertainty about the outcome. Will it be peaceful with a new nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by the U.S., endorsed by the UNSC and verified by IAEA, or will Iran withdraw from NPT with further military action by Israel and the U.S.?                 To perhaps shed a little light on what the outcome will be, here is my analysis of how the players - Iran, U.S. and E3 - may be assessing the acceptability of the range of outcomes. Four levels of acceptability were used: 1 Fully acceptable; 2 Less acceptable; 3 Just acceptable; and 4 Not acceptable. Four near term 30-day outcomes are listed, and two optimistic outcomes with an interim U.S.-Iran agreement reached within a 6-month extension.                 For the 30-day near term, the best outcome would b...
Post a Comment
Read more

U.S. Sanctions, Middle East views

Trump’s special envoy Witkoff has hit the capitals again; in Tel Aviv Netanyahu probably told him to tell Trump that he will take over all of Gaza; in Moscow Putin probably told him to tell Trump that Ukraine will be destroyed and forget the sanctions. Witkoff didn’t get to number 3 on his list, Iran. But Trump played another ‘ getting to a deal ’ with Iran card, adding sanctions he can later get credit for removing. And the Middle East commentators are worriedly reacting to the Iran situation. Here are some highlights.  From Newsweek:       The U.S. announced on July 30 the largest Iran-related sanctions since 2018 , targeting entities and vessels linked to the country's petroleum sector: 20 oil firms, 5 vessel management companies, 1 wholesaler, and over 115 individuals in 17 countries and regions, including the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, India, the UAE and Hong Kong.       U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said: "Today's Depar...
Post a Comment
Read more