The same pattern keeps repeating over and over again. U.S. military assets are moved into the Middle East and President Trump threatens to attack Iran harder than ever before. At the end of last week, I told my core supporters that everything was ready for a very large wave of airstrikes. But then as we have seen so many times before, Trump decided not to pull the trigger at the last moment and he claimed that Iran had asked to make a deal. And as we have seen so many times before, the Iranians denied asking for any sort of a deal and insisted that they have not agreed to make any of the concessions that Trump is seeking. Since Iran is not willing to give Trump what he wants, it is just a matter of time before this pause in the fighting collapses just like all of the others have.
How many times are we going to play this game?
And how many times are people going to keep falling for it?
On Friday, the entire world was stunned when Trump posted the following message on his Truth Social account…
Israeli forces had been put on high alert because they were expecting all-out war to erupt in the region.
But then they learned about Trump’s decision the way that the rest of us did…
So now we wait.
Apparently the deal that has been drafted would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, cause all fighting in the Middle East to cease, and end the U.S. naval blockade of Iran…
A regional official says the proposal announced by President Trump over the weekend calls for the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations and continue working out many of the issues that have stymied prior progress on the deal.
The official, who is involved in the mediation efforts, said the proposal calls for reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and halting attacks across the region, including by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on the Arab Gulf countries and Jordan.
The U.S., in exchange, will end its naval blockade on Iran and allow Tehran to export its oil as stated in the tentative ceasefire deal, he said.
It sounds like a pretty good deal.
There is just one huge problem.
The Iranians did not ask to make a deal, and they have not agreed to anything…
Iranian semi-official news agencies on Sunday denied US President Donald Trump’s claim hours earlier that Tehran had asked the US to hold off on any attack, and also negated reports that it had agreed to a deal that would divide control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Mehr news agency on Sunday denied the claim by Trump — made as he announced that he had called off strikes since “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to” — that the Islamic Republic asked the United States to refrain from conducting new strikes.
How many times have we seen this?
This Iranians are referring to the claims that Trump made in his social media post as a “complete lie” and a “desperate attempt to manipulate the market”…
Despite these denials by Iran, it is quite likely that stock prices will jump higher on Monday.
But that doesn’t make any sense at all.
The Iranians have once again just reaffirmed the fact that they will never allow traffic to flow freely through the Strait of Hormuz like it did before the war…
Speaking in a televised interview on Sunday night, August 2, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that discussions between Tehran and Muscat over the future of the Strait of Hormuz had been underway for some time, with the aim of reaching a specific framework to ensure safe maritime navigation in the area.
“Under no circumstances will the Strait of Hormuz return to the situation before the war (February 28),” Baghaei said.
He explained that Iran and Oman, as the two coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz, have a shared responsibility to cooperate on maritime security and safe navigation. According to him, talks between the two countries began immediately after the ceasefire on April 8, with several rounds of exchanges taking place.
All of this is just so bizarre.
So if Iran did not ask Trump to hold off on attacking Iran, who was it?
Well, it turns out that it was actually Saudi Arabia and Qatar…
US President Donald Trump pulled back from a planned large-scale attack on Iran one day before it was due after pressure from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Israel’s Channel 12 reported, citing senior US officials.
CENTCOM had prepared strikes on Iranian energy and infrastructure targets, with Israel expected to participate, a senior US official said. Another said Israel had told Washington the attack was not worthwhile unless it severely damaged Iran’s economic and regime targets.
Qatar asked Trump for another 24 hours for negotiations, while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warned of regional escalation and damage to oil facilities in Persian Gulf states, the report said.
They are the ones that were begging for a deal.
Of course Iran will never agree to permanently open the Strait of Hormuz and Iran will never agree to the nuclear concessions that Trump is seeking.
So it is just a matter of time before there is more fighting.
In fact, one Israeli news source is telling us that there have just been reports of “military clashes in the Strait of Hormuz”…
That certainly got my attention.
It appears that Iran is in no mood to stand down.
Even as Trump talked up the possibility of a peace deal, Iran was launching cruise missiles at a commercial vessel…
Obviously Trump and the Iranians are not on the same page.
It is possible that Trump may be able to get the Iranians to sit down and talk again, but any pause in the action will just be temporary.
And personally I think that it is a really bad idea for the USS Abraham Lincoln to be sailing so close to the Iranian coast…
Our aircraft carriers are big, juicy targets.
If I was running things, there is no way that I would give the Iranians that good of a shot.
But for the moment, the world is talking about “peace in the Middle East”, and President Trump is feeling really good about things.
In fact, he is feeling so good about things that he spent the past couple of days posting memes about himself on his Truth Social account. The following is just one example…
I think that Trump would really love to make a deal to end this war, but the Iranians will never give him what he wants.
And once the Iranians and the Israelis start directly fighting one another again, things are going to get very heated.
Once we get to that stage, there will be little that anyone can do to stop events from spiraling out of control.
So let’s enjoy this period of relative peace and quiet for the short time that it lasts, because the clock is ticking.
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