Team Trump Blows It With Iran; Israel Strikes Again?

Trump’s team finally got Iran to the table in Pakistan, then blew the talks anyway - but how much of that came from Israel leaning on the US yet again? Right, so JD Vance has walked out of Islamabad after 21 hours of talks with Iran and no deal to show for it, stood in front of the cameras, thanked Pakistan, said Washington had left its “best” and “final” proposal behind, and then tried to talk like the side that had not just failed in public. You guys were desperate for this? You were getting your backsides handed to you, and you leave your best and final offer? Iran must have felt like they were negotiating with children, but then I think its worse than that, because kids generally know what they want, the US turned up at the meeting they were desperate for and then seemed more desperate to get out of it again. Team Trump got the meeting it seemed to want, got the room it needed – Pakistan provided it, and still could not get Iran to say yes, yet arguably ended up with such a hard line its as if they wanted them to say no. Then Vance came out and sold that as bad news for Iran. Pull the other one. If you need a two-week ceasefire, a Pakistani mediation track, a locked-down capital, and a long night of talks just to get the other side in a chair, you do not then get to swagger out sounding like the sheriff unless the room actually bent, and this room did not bend, no deal. Iran had the position of power here, not the US, we all know it, so what changed after you got in that room? The US needed a deal, Trump needs to get out of this and yet now that’s all changed suddenly? I appreciate Trump’s bipolar gymnastics are what they are, but it really does smack of somebody else calling the shots surely? Pakistan has done more than lend a hotel lobby and a row of flags to this circus as well. They brokered the two-week ceasefire of course but also kept them going for as long as they did, stepping up diplomacy precisely because Israeli strikes in Lebanon didn’t stop for the ceasefire talks, despite being on of Iran’s red lines and a term the US had agreed to to get the talks started.