Who Does Donald Trump Think He’s Fooling?

By Jeffrey Blehar

Saturday, June 13, 2026

 

On Thursday, Donald Trump announced the cancellation of a threatened round of airstrikes against IRGC positions in Iran, due to be launched in retaliation for a series of attacks on our regional allies. Once again, talks were about to be reopened, a marvelous “deal” was about to be signed and the war ended. “Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”

 

And pretty much everyone rolled their eyes and ignored it. “More mush from the wimp,” was my reaction, recalling a famous Carter-era Boston Globe headline. This circus — threatened strikes, strikes called off for talks, Iranian forces still shooting missiles at us and our allies — has been going on for months now, and here we go again.

 

But apparently it was for real, and few at this point doubt Trump’s desperate eagerness for a “deal” of any sort to extract him from a self-inflicted geopolitical blunder of lasting consequence. And Iranian media leaked the Iranian side’s claims about the “terms” of the deal: a series of claims so scandalous — nationalization of the Strait of Hormuz, release of billions in restricted cash flows, and yielding to Iran’s claims in Lebanon under the flag of Hezbollah — that as our own Noah Rothman wrote, agreeing to them would be tantamount to admitting defeat. The Iranians were obviously playing their own propaganda game in leaking these nonsensical terms, but they’re setting absurdly high demands — in a war Donald Trump keeps insisting they lost — because they know they hold the winning hand: They can play out the string for years if they want to, and they’ve done it before.

 

Yesterday, Trump was back at it again — on Truth Social, of course, spinning for the American public:

 

The terms that Iran leaked out to the Fake News have NOTHING to do with the terms that were agreed to, in writing. What they said, including their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth. Very dishonorable people to deal with. With them, there is no such thing as dealing in good faith. AMAZING!

 

Also, their totally rebuffed Drone attack last night against Indian Ships leaving the Hormuz Strait is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. They better get their act together, and FAST!

 

It’s almost beyond commentary at this point, isn’t it? Instead, comic images come to mind: You almost imagine Trump shaking his fist in the air as he bellows: “You better shape up, Jack, or else!” Impotent threats aren’t going to bring the Iranian regime to heel, which — as Trump himself points out — is not dealing in good faith with the United States and never once has done so throughout their 47-year-long history. (They have even less reason to now.)

 

By Iran’s own understanding, it has been publicly at war with the United States since the founding of the Islamic Republic — the regime’s slogan is quite literally “Death to America!” and people have convinced themselves that it’s mere performative rhetoric, perhaps because to admit otherwise would be to admit that we lack persuasive options and face implacable religious realities in the Middle East.

 

Anyway, you cannot deal with these people — they are ideologically inimical to everything America and American foreign policy stand for, far beyond Israel. (Remember, in the political cosmology of the Iranian regime, America is the Great Satan; Israel is the Little Satan, a mere catspaw of the True Evil.) As Donald Trump himself, with almost perverse historic irony, once noted during a different administration, “The Iranians never won a war, but they never lost a negotiation.”

 

Which is precisely why I said from the start that the Iran war was going to be a titanic error: Nobody wanted or was prepared for a “regime change” war and what that would have entailed in terms of American military commitment abroad, but that’s the only way you solve this problem. The regime has thoroughly murdered and imprisoned many domestic dissidents — recall, it was IRGC massacres in the streets of Tehran that first drove Donald Trump to publicly promise the Iranian people that “help was on the way.” It has survived the assassination of nearly its entire original leadership cadre, and yet maintained political and ideological continuity. Only revolution or civil war is going to remove the regime now, and they will be hankering for revenge against us.

 

We might as well just speak the hard truth: An ill-considered war of choice looks likely to leave America — as well as the global economy — in a worse position than it was when it began. I’m tired of withholding my judgment. That’s one reason both Trump and the Iranians prefer extended negotiations; so they can delay the verdict, and claim “the jury is still out.” It’s an incredibly bitter pill to swallow, and I won’t force it down anyone else’s throat. But however long this circus of talks and “terms” continues, the inescapable fact is that America is negotiating the particulars of our resignation in a war Donald Trump started without a plan to finish it.

 

So permit me to express my disgust about the entire situation. Far too many are enjoying watching Trump squirm right now. I’m not. I feel shame. I resent this as an American.

 

When Trump gets led around on a leash by the Iranians like a yapping puppy, I resent it intensely, because the shame doesn’t just fall upon him. It affects us all. I am deeply cynical about Donald Trump, about all politics really. I am deeply sincere about America, its greatness, and its role in preserving an international order that far too many seem happy to broom away in the dustbin of history. (You will not enjoy what comes next.) I resent the fact that Trump has put the United States in this position. It will have consequences in China, in the Middle East, and in Western Europe as well. America’s position as a superpower is material-interest, root-stakes stuff, not the vanities or vagaries of domestic politics.

 

And I resent the fact that Trump lies about it so effortlessly, with such carny-barker zeal. Donald Trump’s relentless gaslighting of the American public with respect to the state of the Iran war exists in its own special category of shamelessness, given the gravity of the situation. He probably thinks of the statements he makes as “salesmanship,” all part of the “art of the deal.” But who is Trump really dealing with in this situation? Is he trying to soft-soap the Iranians into accepting a tough deal? It feels a lot more like he’s working a different audience: The people he’s trying to swindle are you and me.

 

Are you buying it? Is this what victory in Iran looks like? Who does Donald Trump think he’s fooling anymore?