Trump Rejects Iran’s Deal; Now The Strike Plans Are Leaking

Trump won’t show you Iran’s offer, but he’ll happily let his list of bombing targets leak and call that diplomacy. Right, so Donald Trump has rejected an Iranian offer that the public has not been allowed to read, and now the war planning is leaking out around the edges. Not the full Iranian text, not the actual Tehran proposal sitting in front of everyone, not the document that would let ordinary people judge whether Washington had a serious reason to throw it away. What has surfaced instead is the outline of the American punishment menu: heavier strikes, possible special forces action around nuclear material, pressure on strategic infrastructure, and Kharg Island again, the oil export hub that the orange idiot was talked out of striking last time. 40 years of looking for an American idiot and Netanyahu got his man. So we have a potential war footing here where the offer made has been hidden, but the strike plan in response is very much being discussed, because of course it is. That is quite the trick if you can get away with it, and of course he is trying to get away with it, because diplomacy that cannot be shown to the public is very useful when the alternative is bombs. Iran’s latest proposal has reportedly gone through Pakistan, Pakistan is still being used as the channel, the intermediary and Tehran’s position has been described in terms of ending the war, lifting the blockade, securing shipping, dealing with sanctions and stopping hostilities across the region, that seems pretty believable based on previous offers as well. The American president has put himself in the position of rejecting another off-ramp to this war, a war he wants a way out of, but still won’t take it because it still doesn’t look enough like a white flag being waved from the Strait of Hormuz. But Trump’s explanation for the rejection is weaker than a brew made from a third hand teabag. He has been reported saying that if he looks at an offer and does not like the first sentence, he just throws it away.