{"id":5235,"date":"2026-07-08T18:06:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5235"},"modified":"2026-07-08T18:06:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T18:06:38","slug":"how-trump-has-misjudged-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5235","title":{"rendered":"How Trump has misjudged Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n            On June 16, President Donald Trump called Iran\u2019s leaders \u201cvery rational people\u201d who were \u201cnice to deal with.\u201d He even assured they were \u201cnot radicalized.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5233\">Judge orders the release of Trump\u2019s $5 million payment to E. Jean Carroll<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n            On Wednesday, Trump offered a nearly polar-opposite take. He called Iran\u2019s leaders \u201ccuckoo,\u201d \u201cevil\u201d and \u201csick,\u201d \u201cdirty players\u201d and \u201cscum.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cThey violate the agreement every day,\u201d Trump said at a NATO summit in Turkey. \u201cThey lie. They cheat.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The president offered his sharply revised review of Iran\u2019s leaders as the tenuous ceasefire between the US and Tehran looks to be more endangered than ever after Iran targeted three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the US launched strikes in response. Trump on Wednesday even declared the ceasefire to be \u201cover,\u201d though he has at other times suggested he holds out hope for a peace deal.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            One way to look at Trump\u2019s rosy words in mid-June was that he was just flattering people with whom he was engaged in high-stakes negotiations. That\u2019s not unheard of.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But Trump\u2019s track record on the Iran war suggests another explanation entirely: He has badly misjudged his adversary\u2019s intentions and his own leverage, and has repeatedly allowed Tehran to string him along.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            That posture has delayed a resolution for three months (since Trump announced the initial ceasefire on April 7) and brought the situation perilously close to the 2026 midterms for the GOP. And the looming elections make it politically difficult for Trump to crack down on Iran and return to full-scale war.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            That\u2019s not to say that Trump <em>believed<\/em> Iran\u2019s leaders had truly moderated. Asked on Wednesday, for example, what had changed in his assessment of Iran\u2019s leaders, he said, \u201cI got to know them.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But he seems to have repeatedly wagered that Iran was close enough to a deal that he could push their leaders over the finish line with some modest rhetorical concessions and just a little more time \u2014 only to be proven wrong over and over again.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            There are countless signs of Trump\u2019s misjudgment at this point.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Perhaps most strikingly, he repeatedly threatened Iran with doom if it didn\u2019t comply with his demands. But just about every time, those threats were revealed to be a bluff. Trump often claimed he was backing off because a deal was near, but that deal still hasn\u2019t materialized in any lasting form.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            It\u2019s not difficult to see how Iran might have concluded that Trump simply didn\u2019t have the nerve to make good on his threats \u2014 and that it could just wait him out.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Trump has also repeatedly claimed not only that a deal was near \u2014 which could perhaps be dismissed as unfounded optimism \u2014 but also that Iran <em>was desperate<\/em> for a deal. Trump said Tehran was \u201cbegging for a deal\u201d as far back as March 31, more than three months ago.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But if Iran has been desperate for a deal, it sure has a funny way of showing it.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Almost immediately after the initial ceasefire was announced, disputes broke out over what precisely had been agreed to, and Iran seemed to repeatedly violate the terms, as Trump had described them.\n    <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5231\">Court again knocks down Trump\u2019s demand for his name to go back on the Kennedy Center<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n            In announcing the ceasefire in April, Trump said it was \u201csubject to \u2026 the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.\u201d But even though that never happened, Trump pressed forward in trying to keep the truce going.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Iran threw on top of that a series of provocations seemingly intended to test the Trump administration\u2019s resolve. Repeatedly, the administration downplayed the provocations and strained to argue how they didn\u2019t technically violate the ceasefire.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            That included in May when Tehran fired on US ships that were attempting to guide vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, which the Pentagon said didn\u2019t clear the \u201cthreshold\u201d for a ceasefire violation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth even gamely suggested the attacks weren\u2019t part of the war because US actions in the strait were a separate operation.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Fast forward to today, and the provocations have continued even after a more substantial ceasefire was agreed to last month \u2014 this time, with text laid out in a memorandum of understanding.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Perhaps most strikingly, the MOU was already <em>significantly<\/em> slanted toward Iran\u2019s demands \u2014 so much so that many Republicans criticized it and the Trump administration tried to downplay its written terms as not reflective of the full series of agreements. (There have also been disputes about what the language in the MOU actually means.)\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            And yet, Iran seems more interested in controlling the Strait of Hormuz than accepting  what appears to be a pretty favorable temporary agreement.  (The MOU called on the US to begin removing its blockade but long-term control of the critical waterway wasn\u2019t specified.)\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            None of this means the ceasefires over the past three months have been completely for naught, from a US perspective. CNN\u2019s David Goldman noted Tuesday how the sharp decline in oil prices in recent weeks gives Trump some leverage, considering how large that loomed over the domestic political picture. And CNN global affairs analyst Brett M. McGurk, who served in senior national security positions under presidents of both parties<em>, <\/em>argued last week that the US buying time can apply pressure on Iran in a number of ways.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            But at this point, the Trump administration is on the clock, too. The stitched-together ceasefires have brought the conflict three months closer to the November elections, which have looked like a potential Democratic rout of Trump\u2019s party, at least in the House.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            The president has repeatedly made it abundantly clear that he doesn\u2019t want to return to full-scale war, and the administration has even privately acknowledged it just wants the war to be over with. The president last month admitted the country might not have the \u201cappetite\u201d for more major military action.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            And with each day, the prospect of reigniting a full-scale war that has proven remarkably unpopular at home has to look less and less appetizing.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Trump said repeatedly a month ago that he feared Iran was \u201ctapping us along.\u201d And he signaled again Wednesday that might be the case.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            \u201cThey\u2019re saying they want to make a deal, but they don\u2019t \u2014 you know, they ask for a timeout, they wanted to do the funeral of Khamenei, and I said give it to them,\u201d he said at the NATO summit. \u201cAnd they start shooting missiles. I mean, it\u2019s a crazy thing.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n            Or maybe it\u2019s the same thing that\u2019s happened over and over again, and he just didn\u2019t want to see it.\n    <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5230\">New breakthroughs may bring us closer to gene-edited babies. Is that a good thing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump offered a sharply revised review of Iran\u2019s leaders as the tenuous ceasefire between the US and Tehran looks to be more endangered than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Trump has misjudged Iran - Relocation Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=5235\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Trump has misjudged Iran - 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