As Iran walks away from the negotiating table, Trump contradicts himself (again)
Those looking for coherence and consistency from Donald Trump on the war in Iran have been left wanting. The president has insisted, for example, that any agreement to end the conflict must include Iran turning over its highly enriched uranium. He has also recently said the opposite, arguing that Iran’s uranium stockpiles are really just a “public relations” issue and the goal isn’t altogether “necessary.”
The Republican has similarly told the public that U.S. forces have destroyed the Iranian military and left the Iranian military alone. What’s more, his contradictory statements about reopening the Strait of Hormuz have at times been head-spinning to officials here and across the world.
But perhaps Trump’s most important contradiction has been over the existence of the negotiations themselves.
For months, the White House’s ostensible goal was to get Iran to the negotiating table. When officials from Tehran agreed, Trump stopped the talks and started a war. In the ensuing days, weeks and months, the American president’s position was that Iran had no choice but to accept a deal. Exactly one month ago, he took the opposite position and said the U.S. might be better off “not making a deal” with Iran “at all.”
One day later, Trump denied having said what everyone had already heard him say on camera and went back to pushing Iran to work toward a deal.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Republican boasted that a “peace” agreement had been “largely negotiated,” and the world could expect to learn more about the breakthrough deal “shortly.”
On Monday, amid renewed violence, the talks showed new signs of breaking down. MS NOW reported:
Two Iranian sources inside Tehran linked with negotiation talks between the U.S. and Iran confirmed to MS NOW that “no dialogue will take place” with the U.S. until fighting in Lebanon ends.
The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the Israeli actions in Lebanon amount to a violation of the ceasefire.
As Iran backed away from the negotiating table, Trump told NBC News, “I think we’ve been talking too much, if you want to know the truth. I think going silent would be very good, and that could be that could be for a long time.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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