Wall Street Journal, yesterday, “Iran Has Strong Cards Going Into U.S. Talks but Risks Overplaying Its Hand”:
The question now is whether Iranian leaders will overplay this critical lever at the planned meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan, with Vice President JD Vance by insisting on maximalist demands despite losing much of Iran’s military and industrial base during the war. This is something that President Trump, despite all his apparent eagerness to wind down the conflict, will likely find impossible to accept.
“From Tehran’s point of view, they think that they have Trump over a barrel. They think they have weaponized the world economy, have taken everything that America can throw at them, and came out standing,” said William Wechsler, director of Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council and a former senior Pentagon official. “Trump blinked first. Now, the Iranians won’t take a deal unless it is a deal in which Trump and Vance completely abandon U.S. national security interests in the Middle East.”
The playing field is clearly stacked in Iran’s favor after more than a month of warfare that involved a dozen nations in the region. This is largely because the crucial component of any negotiation—the time factor—now works for Tehran.
What could possibly make us look weaker and more pathetic than this? Maybe if the negotiations were held in the house in Pakistan where Osama bin-Laden resided and which at least some people in Pakistan had to know about?
I can’t figure out why we wouldn’t just keep disabling or destroying more assets of the Islamic Republic regime, e.g., oil production and electricity generation until either (1) they surrendered, or (2) they had so little industrial capability left that they couldn’t maintain significant military power. If we didn’t like high domestic oil prices we could simply reduce the U.S. oil market’s exposure to the world oil market, e.g., by limiting exports to whatever they were in January 2026. If the Europeans and Asians were unhappy about not being able to get oil through the Strait of Hormuz they would have been free to do something about that, e.g., send their own warships.
Until they started to decline, Rome never surrendered even after grievous battlefield losses, e.g., to Hannibal, and Rome wouldn’t negotiate with another power as a peer. They sent some low-level guys to Carthage to dictate terms for Carthage’s ultimate surrender, for example, not the equivalent of a vice president. And they didn’t call it a “negotiation”. Carthage was not their peer, nor their partner in peace, etc. Speaking of Rome… on the very day that J.D. Vance headed to Pakistan to surrender to the Islamic Republic of Iran, plans for a triumphal arch in D.C. are unveiled:
Maybe we need a more muscular president? The NYT says that Kamala Harris remains available:
Loosely related…
What explains Trump’s decision to engage in this last round of strikes on Iran? He had already, with the Israelis, knocked out the readily bombable parts of the Iranian nuclear program. The regime faced mass protests. The killing of their supreme leader could have been left to the Israelis, the ones who actually tracked him down and did it anyway.
This is a president who specifically ran on a platform of not getting entangled in any more quagmires in the Middle East. But that’s exactly what he has stumbled into. Did he not have any advisers who could explain to him basic geography, and that the Iranians have been threatening the straits of Hormuz for decades?
He may have been a better choice than a senile man, or someone with zero political acumen. But is there any rational argument whatsoever for this last round of apparently impulsive and poorly planned attacks against Iran, a nation of ~90m who there is no political will here to actually fight, and who can now humiliate Trump and the US?
Hi Phil, I don’t understand either. I was all set to rejoice in the fall of a despotic regime and I’m still paying the gas prices in the hopes it will happen.
https://greyenlightenment.com/2026/04/10/trump-diplomacy-by-delay/
This gentleman has an interesting take on why Trump might be doing what he’s doing
As a matter of convenience, I’d do the negotiation remotely over Zoom calls. Why fly 16 hours and 12 times zones half way around the world, then stay in a dangerous area surrounded by fanatics who would martyr themselves? And eat food prepared by people who use their hand instead of toilet paper?