Has the dustup between Washington and Tehran come to an end? ‘They’ve agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that’s way underground because of the attack we made with the B-2 bombers,’ Donald Trump proclaimed on Thursday evening. ‘So we have a lot of agreement with Iran, and I think something’s going to happen, very positive, very important.’ Trump indicated that he himself might fly to Pakistan this weekend to participate in negotiations with Iran.
If Iran were to hand over its enriched uranium stockpile, it would represent a startling development indeed. No previous American president, whether George W. Bush or Barack Obama, came close to accomplishing that goal. Coupled with the ten-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel that Trump also announced, it would allow him to pivot back to the home front.
Trump could use a victory. Gas is over $4 (£2.96) a gallon. Inflation is up and jobs are down. The stock market has returned to its previous highs but remains jittery about a resumption of hostilities. Speaking yesterday in Las Vegas, Trump depicted inflation reports from his own Labor Department as bogus: ‘Don’t forget, we’re having some fake inflation because of the fuel, the energy prices.’ When asked about gas prices, he replied, ‘Well, they’re not very high.’ The best that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could offer in response to a query about why Americans consumers were feeling so gloomy was the consoling insight that ‘in their heart of hearts they feel good’. How does he know?
Trump could use a victory
At the same time, Trump has encountered much stiffer resistance abroad to the war than he anticipated. The refusal of America’s Nato allies mindlessly to salute him has enraged Trump. The President’s repeated allusions to Nato as a ‘paper tiger’ and Vice President J.D. Vance’s jejune remark that ending aid to Ukraine was ‘one of the things I’m proudest that we’ve done in this administration’ have hardly gone unnoticed by the Kremlin.
Melinda Haring, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Centre, has a valuable suggestion. It’s that Vance ‘jump on an airplane and travel to Kyiv where he would discover that Ukraine is on top in the battle against Russia’. For all the Trump administration’s asseverations that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t hold the cards, Russia gained no territory this past March and suffered some 35,000 casualties. In short, the math (a 1 to 5 Ukrainian to Russian kill ratio), territory (Russia gained a total of 1 per cent of Ukrainian territory last year) and technology (drone warfare) are all currently weighted in Kyiv’s favour.
The worry is that the defeatist language of Trump and Vance may well embolden Russian president Vladimir Putin. Speculation is mounting in Washington that Putin may have a go at invading the Baltic states that he has long coveted. The Carnegie Endowment’s Eugene Rumer warns in a new study that:
Having invaded Ukraine under the false pretext of needing to secure its western flank, Russia is poised to emerge from the war less secure, more resentful, and more threatening to Europe than before the war. Its threat perceptions will cast a long shadow over Europe.
As always, Trump’s response to the spate of bad news he’s encountered has consisted of a mixture of bravado and defiance. Not only has he bashed Nato but also a widening array of domestic foes, real and imagined. As his criminal probe of the Federal Reserve goes nowhere, Trump has lashed out once more against its chairman Jerome Powell, claiming that he would fire him should he fail to step down in May.
For good measure, Trump also issued a tweet on Thursday denouncing Joe Kent, the National Counterterrorism Director who resigned to protest the impending Iran war. Kent committed the sin of telling the truth, which was to state that Iran ‘posed no imminent threat’ to America. ‘Who’s dumber, Joe Kent or Tucker Carlson?’ Trump asked on Truth Social. After insinuating that Kent remarried too quickly after his wife was killed in action, Trump denounced him tout court: ‘He was really a SLEAZEBAG, and some would say, on top of it all, A LEAKER!’ Some would also say, on top of it all, that Trump should focus on righting his capsizing presidency rather than issuing an emotionally satisfying stream of invective against his former Maga champions.
Damian Thompson and Freddy Gray discuss Trump vs the Pope on this special Holy Smoke – Americano podcast collaboration:
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