Trump's Erratic Swings with regard to Iran

Today is another day of asking what has become an eternal question: What the hell is going on with cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump? On Friday, Trump posted a barrage of "truths" on Truth Social proclaiming a series of concessions by Iran. He first announced that Iran had opened the Strait of Hormuz and that it was "READY FOR FULL PASSAGE." He then "truthed" that:

THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE, BUT THE NAVAL BLOCKADE WILL REMAIN IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT AS IT PERTAINS TO IRAN, ONLY, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE.

Finally, he "truthed" that "The U.S.A. will get all Nuclear ‘Dust,’ created by our great B2 Bombers - No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form."

Contrary to the fact that posts on Truth Social are called "truths", none of the things Trump wrote turned out to be true. Almost immediately, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly, posted on X that "The President of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false." According to Ghalibaf, because of the U.S. blockade that Trump said would continue, the strait would not remain open. Moreover, according to Ghalibaf, "Passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be conducted based on the ‘designated route’ and with ‘Iranian authorization.’" In other words, the status of the strait would remain exactly as it has been throughout the war: closed to all traffic not authorized by Iran.

Fereshteh Sadeghi, an Iranian journalist who posts on X, tweeted that:

An Iranian official denies claims by Trump that Iran would hand over its highly enriched uranium to the U.S. as “baseless”, saying “Washington’s demands in talks are still illogical and irrational. And those excessive demands make the prospect of talks even more unclear”

Similarly, the Iranian news agency Tasnim News quoted an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson as saying, "Enriched uranium is as sacred to us as Iran's soil and will by no means be transferred anywhere."

On Saturday, Iranian forces opened fire on two ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz, emphasizing its closure.

Trump appears to have even been wrong about the enforcement of the U.S. blockade on shipping connected to Iran. According to Bloomberg News:

A total of 12 commercial ships completed successful outbound transits on Saturday morning London time, before it became clear that Iran was halting transits again. At least half of those that did get out had links to Iran.

The disconnect between Trump and Iran continued into Sunday. Trump said that he would be sending negotiators led by Vice President and reply guy JD Vance to Pakistan to continue talks with Iran. During the day, Trump reversed his decision to send Vance, but then reversed it again. As far as I can tell, Vance is still planning to go. However, it is not clear that there will be any Iranians in Pakistan with whom the Americans can talk. Tasnim News reported that Iran would not send its negotiating team until the U.S. blockade was lifted and that there would be no negotiations.

The question, however, is why did Trump announce a bunch of false information? There are several possibilities:

1. He simply hallucinated facts that did not exist in reality;
2. He was misinformed;
3. He was correct but the Iranians don't want their concessions made public; or
4. He was trying to manipulate the oil and financial markets.

If Trump's goal was the last of these, attempting to influence the markets, he was successful. Oil prices dropped steeply while financial markets rose. As has frequently been the case, there were indications of someone making trades just before the news broke and likely making a killing. Someone close to Trump may be making millions of dollars on insider trading.

Otherwise, the most likely possibility is that Trump just made up his claims about Iran. He has frequently displayed a tendency to describe things that he hopes are true rather than what is actually true. It becomes more obvious every day that Trump really wants this war to be over and he really wants to be able to say that he won it. The fact that neither of these things is true must be terribly frustrating for him. Trump clearly wants to simply declare victory and withdraw, but the Iranians won't let him.

At any rate, with the Iranians clearly putting the kibosh on Trump's claims about progress towards resolving the conflict, Trump returned to his now common bullying and blustering. Taking to Truth Social, Trump wrote that if the Iranians did not agree to a deal:

the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years.

Similarly, Trump told Fox News that if the Iranians didn't accept the agreement, "their whole country is going to get blown up."

Later on Sunday, Trump announced that U.S. Navy ships had fired on an Iranian-flagged container ship that had refused to honor the U.S. blockade. Subsequently, the U.S. had taken the ship into custody. This will certainly raise tensions in the area.

For the Iranians’ part, they have twice been attacked while they were in the midst of negotiations with the Trump administration. As such, they have very little trust for Trump. Al-Jazeera reported that Iranian sources had said that:

In light of Trump's statements about holding negotiations and inconsistency with what is actually happening between Iran and the U.S., we believe we’re facing a deception by the enemy and we’re on the verge of a new round of escalation.

Moreover, a senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that "if Trump starts bombing again, Iran will cut off all diplomatic channels and focus on fighting." Iran is preparing for a prolonged war.

One thing that has become apparent is that while Trump desperately wants a deal, he is not actually seeking an agreement in the formal sense. What Trump really wants is a framework consisting of a series of bullet points on which both sides agree, but the details of which will be worked out in the future. The Iranians, on the other hand, are seeking a comprehensive agreement now. In the Iranian view, anything not agreed upon now probably never will be, and there will just be future wars fought over those issues.

The only thing clear is that in addition to a possible resumption of the military conflict, both sides remain in a game of economic chicken. With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, the last of the pre-closure oil shipments have reached their destinations, and no more is on the way. The petroleum shortage is going to become real to more regions very shortly, as it already has in Asia. Both the U.S. and Iran are hoping that their populations can absorb more economic punishment than the other. For Trump, who was elected on a promise to lower prices, this is a dangerous gamble.

For the past several months, Trump has engaged in harsh rhetoric toward Iran on weekends while the financial markets are closed, but softened his words when the markets reopened. This weekend seemed to follow that pattern. On Friday, with the markets getting set for the weekend, Trump "truthed" about alleged Iranian concessions, causing financial markets to rise. Then, once the markets were closed, Trump began threatening to blow up the entire country. This morning, with markets open again, Trump has only truthed about the war once, claiming that Israel did not talk him into it and saying that "the results in Iran will be amazing". So we are back to soft Trump. While Trump's erratic swings from peacemaker to warmonger with regard to Iran may be great for insider traders, they are causing much of the world, not least the Iranians, to question his sanity. It is truly a sad state of affairs when the Iranian government is likely to be more truthful than the U.S. government.