How Iran Is beating Trump at his own game

It was supposed to be Trump's crowning achievement — a memorandum of understanding that would end Iran's nuclear program and bring peace to the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years. Instead, weeks later, the president is downplaying his own deal as a "test" Iran failed and which "didn't mean much” in the first place.

The administration rushed into an MOU with imprecise language, missing what seasoned diplomats immediately saw coming. Iran seized on the vagueness to claim control over the Strait of Hormuz — the very waterway Trump now threatens to toll. In a masterstroke of sarcastic diplomacy, Iran's foreign minister offered a "fairer" price than the "Art of the Deal" president, tweeting: "20% is of course too much. We will be fair."

For all Trump’s military threats, Tehran is still dictating the dynamics of the conflict, using geography and a shrewd understanding of its limited abilities to outmaneuver a superpower.

So why hasn't this exploded into all-out war? For now, both sides are keeping ceilings on escalation. Trump has avoided striking civilian infrastructure, and Iran has calibrated its reprisals. But with daily back-and-forth attacks, the risk of violence spiraling out of control is real.

Five months into a conflict he said he'd already won, Trump still can't answer the only question that matters: How does he get out?

#Trump #Iran #theStraitofHormuz #negotiations

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