How Iran wore down Trump’s preference for diplomacy

However, two longtime, out-of-government advisers to the president say that the events of weeks prior had already set the ball in motion for at least a temporary resumption of American military actions.

One person, a veteran of Trump’s presidential campaigns, told the Washington Examiner that the “damaged” ceasefire talks were “unsustainable,” and that the president, who has repeatedly extended the negotiating window since April, “reached a breaking point.”

“Iran knows [Trump is] on the clock, and he knows that they know,” that person explained, referencing the political pressure on Trump to end the war before the midterm elections. “At some point push comes to shove, and that would be what motivates him to just say, ‘F*** it. They’re not being serious.’ But like no one’s going to decide that except for him.”

A former national security official who worked in Trump’s first White House suggested that Israel’s willingness to “take the bait” and resume fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, against Trump’s wishes, indicated to the president’s current national security team that they could “blow up the entire deal at a moment’s notice.”

“The reality is that Israel has shown the issue with going to war with them as a co-belligerent, because they have different interests than we do,” that person claimed. “Iran considers the front with Lebanon as part of this conflict, and any hostilities with Hezbollah as part of this conflict, so at any moment, Israel can theoretically blow up the entire deal by bombing Beirut.”

“I think President Trump is being genuine when he says he’d prefer to make a deal than continue the fighting, but he also can’t afford to look weak,” the former White House aide continued. “If anything, Tehran should take careful note of the scope of the latest U.S. attacks as a sign that the president isn’t going to go easy on them any longer.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump gave additional insights into what caused him to pause negotiations with Iran. He suggested that he’d only held off on dropping the ceasefire in the past based on the advice of Pakistani Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“I gave them a break at the request of Pakistan. The field marshal and the prime minister of Pakistan are great,” the president explained on Wednesday. “They became friendly to me, very friendly, and they’re close to Iran, and they work — and they still are working on trying to get them to do what’s right, but we want to make a deal that’s meaningful, we want a deal that works.”

Earlier in his remarks, the president also echoed comments about how Iran had slowly worn down his patience.

“It was just tap, tap, tap. I don’t know what they’re doing, so they then shot at our helicopter, very expensive helicopter, by the way, but much more importantly, the two men,” he recounted. “We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers, because you know what, they dealt with some very stupid presidents.”

TRUMP SAYS US HAS MOVED 100 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL THROUGH STRAIT OF HORMUZ

Ultimately, despite Trump’s directive to stay tuned for additional attacks on Iranian targets, he continued to voice his preference to ink a permanent ceasefire deal, as long as it’s not confused with the deal signed by former President Barack Obama.

“We don’t want to just have a Barack Hussein Obama deal, [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], the worst deal. That was a path to a nuclear. This is the exact opposite,” he concluded. “That deal was a path to a nuclear weapon. This is a path against a nuke. You can’t have a nuclear weapon. His was a path to a nuclear weapon.”