Iran déjà vu: Trump once again threatens massive escalation against Tehran only to walk back

https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-war-gulf-allies-fb81a68f999f4a7b0498ae71cbffe8e5

Donald Trump has played this hand before during the 5-month-old Iran war.

It starts with a grim warning to Tehran that he’s on the cusp of ordering U.S. forces to “obliterate” its power plants or seize key parts of its oil industry if its leaders don’t quickly agree to U.S. terms to end the war. It ends with him edging away with a last-minute declaration, sometimes at the behest of Gulf allies, that he’s going to give diplomacy more time.

The hardball strategy — one that Trump honed during his years competing in New York’s real estate scene and has employed in politics — aims to create movement in negotiation through pressure and chaos. But the tactic is facing a challenge with an Iranian theocracy that believes it holds a higher threshold for strategic pain than Washington.

182 points · 18 comments · view on lemmy.world

18 Comments

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 51 pts · 12h (2 replies)

It's not TACO or anything like that. It's just plain and brazen market manipulation.

redlemace@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 12h (1 reply)

It’s just plain and brazen market manipulation.

All of his decisions are. He's not even hiding it anymore

quill7513@anarchist.nexus · 18 pts · 11h

and just in case anyone doesn't know, this is what he's done all through his real estate career. he was well known for playing games of chicken with potential business partners by coming to a quasi sense of agreement and then reneg. the only thing that kept him afloat there for a while were his ties to organized crime

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 26 pts · 10h

What is this, 40 times? Something like that. 40 times he's threatened to "End Their Civilization," sending the Dow plummeting, only to change his mind at the last minute, sending the Dow skyrocketing.

All while the Iranians swear they don't know what he's talking about.

It's nothing but market manipulation. These are the kinds of announcements he wants to sell early access to. He wants to monetize his insider trading.

ms_lane@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 12h (1 reply)

Donald Trump has played this hand before during the 5-month-old Iran war.

He plays it EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

errer@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 10h

“Read em and weep!”

ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 9h

And it's not even TACO Tuesday! Tsk tsk!

NatakuNox@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 8h

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 10h (2 replies)

Iran knows his threats are all bullshit. There is NO support in America for a ground invasion, and they know it. They'll just wait it out until Trump switches his attention to Greenland or some other dumb adventure, and his interest wanes.

Meanwhile, they now fully control the Strait. Who needs a nuke?

HubertManne@piefed.social · 3 pts · 9h (1 reply)

The thing is trump got some stuff because the countries he pulled bulltrump on before were all heavily intertwined with the dollar economy. Heavily sanctioned places like iran don't have that leverage. I bet europe and china are jelly with their ability to tell him to go hang.

Flower@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 7h

Europa is just ignoring his shouting at the moment. No statements, no retaliation, just back to their usual slow bureaucratic movement and untangling of those interdependencies.

tirateimas@lemmy.pt · 7 pts · 10h (1 reply)

Nobody cares about what he says anymore. He's a puppet.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 10h

The Iranians have assigned an entire team to asses his psychology. They know that ANY of his statements regarding negotiations, any leaks of peace plans, etc. are all imaginary, enabled by the complicit media, who prints it as the truth, knowing that it is all absolutely imaginary. Then we read it and believe it.

Our entire nation is self-delusional, and the whole world is watching, and knows it. America has never been weaker in the world than we are right now.

Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 12h

It's fascinating watching him go up against someone who has both the skill and the nerve to handle him.

Xi Jinping was an absolute masterclass at this.

Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 7h

This is why they stopped negotiating

Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1h

8D Uno. This guy is a genius.

SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 1 pts · 7h

Did he get played by that evil master mind Trump again? He's really his equal!

finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9h

According to that picture, he's starting to nod off on plane stairs now.