Few circumstances are more dangerous to American and world security than an American president — specifically, Donald J. Trump — who lies brazenly to the public in time of war. At a moment when his assault on Iran has jeopardized the global economy in a way not seen for four decades, Trump appears to be prevaricating about his government’s “very good talks” with the regime in Tehran.It is reassuring that Trump postponed his mad threat of military strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure. It is not reassuring that Iranian officials immediately denied that they are engaged in any contacts, let alone negotiations, with the Trump White House. And while it isn’t impossible that he has authorized some kind of contacts with the Iranians, who are also prone to mendacity, there is little reason to believe him until a diplomatic process emerges.Given the history of falsehoods leading up to the first strike on Iran and the fog of contradictory justifications for this war of choice, White House deception would hardly be surprising. After so gravely disrupting the world’s energy supply lines, at a cost of more than a dozen American troops, thousands of innocent Iranian lives, and countless billions of dollars — with no sign of achieving the vague and ever-changing objectives of this mission — Trump suddenly seems desperate for an exit.Whatever bluster he and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, may emit, they have so far failed to eliminate Iran as a military threat to the Middle East, let alone accomplished the “regime change” that has long been sought by Israel, its only ally in this venture. They have failed as well to secure the highly enriched uranium at bombed Iranian sites, and they have likewise failed to protect the critical shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz.All this bloody chaos came to pass because, from the beginning, Trump remained focused on trashing Barack Obama, whose multilateral effort to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions had at least forestalled them for a decade. By appointing the greedy but feckless and utterly inexperienced team of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to seek a new settlement with Iran, he ensured failure. Many observers suspect that was his aim — or at least Kushner’s aim — all along, because that was what the far-right Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu wanted.None of that has transpired as the war criminal Netanyahu and his Washington cronies would have predicted — indeed, as they did predict at the outset of this conflict. Despite the massive military and leadership losses sustained by the Iranians, they appear to have prepared far more carefully for this fight than their counterparts in the Trump White House and therefore are prepared to continue an asymmetric battle that the U.S. president wants to abandon.After the killing of his father, comrades and immediate family, Iran’s supreme leader probably won’t make it easy for Trump to declare victory and move on. What is the basis for ceasefire talks with an adversary who began bombing while engaged in the last round of negotiations, even as observers indicated that agreement was near? Without that bare minimum of honor and trust, it is hard to imagine how that would work.Had Trump not trashed America’s diplomatic relations with its traditional allies, we might have called upon more trusted European or Asian friends to broker an exit deal. They have no reason to trust us anymore or to put their own credibility on the line — except that they too will suffer as long as this fiasco continues and worsens. We will be lucky if their enlightened self-interest can help lift us out of Trump’s latest catastrophe.
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