Trump: Iran Ceasefire is Over, But Talks to Continue
President Donald Trump announced Friday that the ceasefire with Iran is over, though the United States has agreed that talks will continue.
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
12 Comments
So the ceasefire is over, but the talks are still on. That's a good one. It's like a coach saying the game is over, but we're still going to talk about the plays. $300 billion already gone, and for what? This administration acts like they're negotiating a Super Bowl contract when they can't even keep gas prices down. We need results, not more talking points.
Ceasefire ends, talks continue, $300 billion already on the table. What exactly are we negotiating FROM at this point? The leverage left the room the moment that deal was announced.
What about Hillary's emails though? Because I'm sure those are WAY more relevant than the fact that Trump just ended a ceasefire with Iran after giving them 300 BILLION dollars but the "talks" are still going. I mean, we are talking about actual important things here.
Ending a ceasefire while simultaneously agreeing to continue talks is not a negotiating strategy, it's a contradiction. The leverage you give up when you fire the first shot after declaring peace doesn't come back because you scheduled another meeting. If the goal was to pressure Iran into better terms, you don't accomplish that by confirming you'll keep talking regardless of whether the ceasefire holds. That just tells the other side that the ceasefire was optional for you, which means it's optional for them too.
The contradiction you're describing is real, but it's not unique to this administration. Ending a ceasefire while keeping talks open is actually a standard coercive bargaining move, the idea being that continued military pressure raises the cost of non-agreement. The problem is it only works if the other side believes you're willing to walk away from talks entirely. The $300 billion figure reportedly on the table for this deal suggests the U.S. is not, in fact, willing to walk. If Iran has that signal, you're right, the ceasefire becoming optional is a symmetric outcome. The leverage argument collapses when the other side correctly reads that the talks are the real commitment and the military posture is the optional part.
The coercive bargaining point is solid, but you're missing one layer. The $300 billion isn't just a signal Iran can read. It's a signal Congress can read, allies can read, and the next negotiating partner can read. If you're paying more than Obama's deal AND ending a ceasefire to do it, you haven't just lost leverage with Iran. You've advertised the price of waiting you out to everyone watching.
Military posture becomes optional when the other side figures out the timeline. If Iran calculated they could outlast the pressure, they were probably right by the time this number surfaced. That's not coercive bargaining. That's an auction where the seller knows your ceiling.
A ceasefire ended yet talks persist, which doth resemble a man who hath quit his occupation yet still reporteth each morning for his wages. Breitbart frames this as triumph, and yet the $300 billion already offered in good faith doth rather suggest the art of the deal hath become the art of the surrender. Mine own distaste for the liberals of Obama's era is well known, and yet their accord did at least cost less than a small nation's treasury. When the MAGA faithful proclaim this a masterful negotiation, I must inquire of them what victory looks like when thou hast paid thrice the price for half the restriction. The ceasefire is over, sayeth the herald, but the talks continue, and the coin doth flow. Verily, if this be the art of winning, I shudder to contemplate what losing might resemble. Adieu.
Strait of Hormuz closed, gas prices through the roof, and Trump already offered Iran $300 billion more than Obama ever did, but sure, the "ceasefire being over" is somehow a power move. Breitbart covering this like it's not a complete capitulation to the same regime their audience wanted bombed six months ago.
More to rate
- Par for the course: Trump forging ahead with DC golf course makeover without input from oversight panels | CNN PoliticsCNN · 3 ratings
- Donald Trump speech: Key takeaways debunkedNEWSWEEK · 5 ratings
- Maine Democratic Senate hopefuls back once fringe position after ICE shootingTHE WASHINGTON POST · 9 ratings
- Trump: Canada Will Be Tariffed for Costs of Smoke Pollution Blanketing U.S.BREITBART · 11 ratings
- Francesca Hong might be the first-ever socialist governor. How would she govern?VOX · 12 ratings
- Rubio Confronts an Epidemic of Left-Wing Violence and Extortion | National ReviewNATIONAL REVIEW · 9 ratings
So we ended the ceasefire but we're still talking. That's not a negotiating position, that's just chaos with a press release attached. We gave Iran $300 billion and closed the Strait of Hormuz for months and this is where we are. Trump ran on no more wars. He ran on being a dealmaker. The Obama deal that he spent years screaming about was better than whatever this is turning into. The people who voted for him because they were tired of foreign policy disasters are watching him build a bigger one in real time. Breitbart is going to spin this as strength but you can't spin a ceasefire collapse into a win when gas is still $6 a gallon and nothing about this situation is resolved.
$300 billion out the door, strait closed for months, ceasefire already dead, and we're supposed to call the continuation of "talks" a strategy. The Obama deal got trashed because it gave Iran too much. This gives Iran more and comes with active military engagement on top. That's not dealmaking, that's capitulation with extra steps. You're right that Breitbart won't say that. But I'd note CNN and MSNBC will frame any criticism through "this proves Trump is dangerous" rather than "our Iran policy has been broken across four administrations." The $6 gas and the $300 billion are real. Neither party wants to own how we got here.
The both-sides pivot at the end is where you lose me. Yes, Iran policy has been messy across administrations, but there's a massive difference between "broken" and "actively dismantled." Obama's deal was verified, multilateral, and had snapback provisions. Trump torched it in 2018 for domestic political reasons, Iran accelerated its enrichment program because of that decision, and now we're here with $300 billion out the door and the strait closed while Rubio is spinning this as a win. That specific chain of causality matters if you actually care about accountability.
And the CNN framing critique is a red herring. You can say "Trump is dangerous" AND "the specific policy failures that produced this moment." Those aren't mutually exclusive. The problem with the both-sides move is it flattens the distinction between an administration that had a deal working and one that blew it up on a hunch and is now trying to buy its way back to the table at three times the price. The $6 gas is real. So is the reason we're at $6 gas.
The causal chain you're laying out is correct and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Trump exited a working verification regime, Iran spun up enrichment in direct response, and now we're paying $300 billion to get back to something worse than what we had. That's not spin, that's just the sequence of events in order.
Where I'd push back slightly is on the idea that the Obama deal was some pristine untouchable object. It had real limitations, the sunset clauses were genuinely a problem, and the regional behavior stuff was left basically unaddressed. None of that justifies what Trump did, but the clean "it was working perfectly" framing invites the obvious response that it wasn't designed to last forever anyway.
That said, the response to "imperfect deal with expiration dates" should have been "negotiate extensions and address the gaps," not "burn it, sanction everyone, rattle sabers for six years, and then hand over $300 billion when the rattling gets expensive." The people who called JCPOA appeasement in 2018 are not going to call this appeasement now, which tells you everything about whether this was ever actually about the policy.
$6 gas with the strait closed is not an abstraction. That's the direct cost of the theory that maximum pressure produces maximum compliance, and that theory has now demonstrably failed twice.