Iran

Trump Wants a New Iran Deal But They Aren’t Getting One

Written by SK Ashby

It's difficult to put the Trump regime's arrogance into proper perspective, but this is an exceptional example.

Trump regime officials and Trump himself have said they want to negotiate a new deal with Iran following Trump's decision to abandon the deal negotiated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, but what would that actually look like?

Apparently it would look like the original deal Trump abandoned but with more weapons programs added to it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is seeking to negotiate a treaty with Iran that will cover both its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, the U.S. special envoy for Iran said on Wednesday ahead of U.N. meetings in New York next week.

“The new deal that we hope to be able to sign with Iran, and it will not be a personal agreement between two governments like the last one, we seek a treaty,” envoy Brian Hook told an audience at the Hudson Institute think tank.

But Hook said Iranian leaders have not been interested in talking despite statements by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this year that the administration was willing to meet.

The Iran nuclear deal was not a "personal agreement between two governments." It was an agreement signed by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (including Russia and China), the European Union, and Iran. Representatives from each government spent many months drafting the specifics of the deal and, at the end of the day, Republicans in the United States Senate were the only party that refused to co-sign it.

It's unlikely that Iran would be willing to sign a new deal with Trump even if it only covered their nuclear program. You'd have to be completely, utterly delusional to think they would sign a new deal with Trump that also encompasses other programs.

I can't even type that with a straight face.

Playing ball with Trump now would be domestic political suicide if not literal suicide for Iranian leaders.