I am sure that the great negotiator would be willing to end hostilities if they merely split the money with him. That follows his usual pattern of settling disputes he can't win.
[0] https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1156720/Tehrans-toll-booth-syst...
That said, obviously it's a huge amount of money for Iran.
To put things in Trump's parlance, Iran has the cards and the U.S. doesn't. If Trump is going to declare victory and TACO, he's going to have to accept Iranian control of Hormuz and pay for the passage of ships. This is going to take epic levels of reality distortion to sell as a win, but the alternative is far worse.
Assembled, and also blackmailed UN security council.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_attacks_on_commercial_v...
but backed by nuclear power. Look at the weapons listed in that table, where do you think a cave dwelling terrorist in Yemen gets its hands on a cruise missile, or anti-ship ballistic missile. Its not like they make those in house. It was all Iran.
It says but then of course says later on they started attacking more, I am not sure I can take these unreliable persons on face value on the fact that only ships reaching Israel were being targeted. But if that's true I have no problems, I am not Israeli and if they aren't bothering anyone else that will only serve to cool down Israeli warmongering and indiscriminate violence further.
I absolutely do not like any party in this but Israel seems the most misbehaving of the lot. With parties I hate, the best possible outcome is to keep them at razors edge of each others capabilities and busy with each other. In that light, currently I hope Iran bolsters itself and obtains nukes. I doubt it'd increase their belligerence much, rather the more important outcome is that it makes Israel think a bit more before starting brazen invasions of Iran, and should hopefully quickly lead to the gulf countries developing their own nukes causing a balancing of powers. The gulfs weird subservience to Israel would no longer be as much of a geopolitical necessity for them effectively making warmaking quite tough for Israel and silencing most of the violence in the region.
I don't think he can pull it off this time. I think he's finally gone too far.
Netanyahu and Hegseth may have unwittingly accomplished what Clinton and Harris couldn't.
He'll be fine. It should be pretty clear by now that 40% of the country prefers Trump regardless of policy.
If he follows through on his threat to destroy all of Iran's petroleum infrastructure, fuel prices will rise to unprecedented levels and remain there for a very long time. He will not be able to blame anyone else. People will plaster gas pumps with "I did that!" stickers, only with Trump's picture this time, rather than Biden's.
And it still won't force Iran to open the Strait. He has no good options there. Iran is second only to Russia when it comes to shrugging off staggering losses in wartime. Trump cannot force the Iranians to do much of anything without either invading them or nuking them. If he does the former, the resulting carnage will cost him his remaining support among Republicans at all levels including the MAGA faithful. If he does the latter, he's definitely finished.
Doubt
And even of those who are in love with Trump's image, this may tarnish the image enough for some of them to fall out of love with it.
It won't cost him all of MAGA. But it will cost him some.
Question for regular WSJ readers: do their comments normally read this way, or is this new?
Not an American but. There is no fucking way Trump will acknowledge that.
He didn't directly acknowledge defeat with Mamdani, at least not that I heard. It was more a case of populist game recognizing populist game.