Iran Prepares For “Doomsday” War, As Trump Shoots His Mouth Off. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
By Martin Pengelly Photos: Wikimedia Commons On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke to NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ He conducted the interview from New York, where he and other Iranian officials traveled last week for the United Nations and where talks about stopping the eight-month U.S. war with Iran have taken place. If you think it odd that leaders of a power with which the U.S. is at war were granted visas for UN week while Palestinian leaders were not, well, you’re not alone, but that’s U.S.-Israeli policy for you. Donald Trump was happy to have people he’s repeatedly threatened to “annihilate” (and who he says want to annihilate him) in town, but people Benjamin Netanyahu is actively annihilating? Not so much. And so, the Trump show rolled on. On Saturday, with predictable intemperance, he gave his opinion of an Iranian offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz swiftly should a peace deal be agreed. “I rejected their deal,” Trump told reporters before leaving the White House, his treats for the weekend including a college football game in Tennessee and a golf tournament in Illinois. “They want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly. “…You know why? Because they’re dying. You know why they’re dying? Because they have no money coming in because they get their money from the Hormuz Strait. They outsmarted themselves. They said, ‘Let’s close it and cause a problem for the world.’ And I came along, and we put up the greatest blockade ever in military history.” Yadda yadda. But what Araghchi told NBC about those words from Trump was telling. And chilling. The telling part: “We are ready for diplomacy… and now there is a very reasonable plan on the table. If they reject it with no reason, this is their fault. And I have to say that although we heard from President Trump that he’s rejecting this deal… we are still waiting for an official response through the mediators.” In short, the world has long known Trump’s word doesn’t mean anything, as Araghchi indicated when he mentioned how the U.S. twice attacked in the middle of negotiations, last year and this year, then attacked again after reaching a memorandum of understanding this summer. Now, the chilling part. Araghchi said he was “still trying diplomacy because I think we shouldn’t miss any chance for peace. We don’t care about, you know, U.S. midterm elections. We don’t care about any other things. We care about our national interests. We are ready to negotiate as much as we are ready to face any challenge. “We stand firm in the face of any challenge… we stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even if it comes to a doomsday war.” For those at the back, Araghchi repeated the point: “We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed. And I repeat, we stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war.” Doomsday. A sense of doom certainly hovers over the appalling mess Trump has made with his war on Iran. He says the overriding rationale for the campaign is to stop Tehran developing a nuclear weapon. Thanks in part to the Obama-made Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump tore up, Tehran doesn’t have one. Trump has more than one, and he has threatened to use them before. In January 2018, he told the posturing Kim Jong-un of North Korea: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” That was absurd, but then Kim Jong-un does have a button, however much use it may be when it comes to Trump’s absurd idea of diplomacy. Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian and the rest of Iran’s leaders are not so lucky. Absent a U.S. ground invasion, which surely would be a political step too far even for this White House idiot and his shameless Pentagon enabler, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, what Trump might suddenly decide to do to Iran from the skies remains a deeply worrying thought, whether a nuclear strike or something overwhelming and aimed at civilian targets, as he has threatened and, as Swin has reported here at Zeteo, he has repeatedly come close to deciding to do. So what’s next? More talks in New York, was the overriding consensus, whatever Trump might choose to bloviate reporter-wards next. Araghchi said: “We are ready, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose. He wanted unconditional surrender in the previous war in two days. And now it’s eight months that they are fighting with no results. A new aggression would be certainly the same.” Of course, no one should think the Iranians are just honest brokers, only after the best for the world. As if any politician is. On Sunday, Trump’s UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, told NBC Iran made “a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable,” asking for “the release of the blockades, the sanctions, international sanctions, and access to
Black News 
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke to NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ He conducted the interview from New York, where he and other Iranian officials traveled last week for the United Nations and where talks about stopping the eight-month U.S. war with Iran have taken place.
If you think it odd that leaders of a power with which the U.S. is at war were granted visas for UN week while Palestinian leaders were not, well, you’re not alone, but that’s U.S.-Israeli policy for you. Donald Trump was happy to have people he’s repeatedly threatened to “annihilate” (and who he says want to annihilate him) in town, but people Benjamin Netanyahu is actively annihilating? Not so much.
And so, the Trump show rolled on. On Saturday, with predictable intemperance, he gave his opinion of an Iranian offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz swiftly should a peace deal be agreed.
“I rejected their deal,” Trump told reporters before leaving the White House, his treats for the weekend including a college football game in Tennessee and a golf tournament in Illinois. “They want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly.
“…You know why? Because they’re dying. You know why they’re dying? Because they have no money coming in because they get their money from the Hormuz Strait. They outsmarted themselves. They said, ‘Let’s close it and cause a problem for the world.’ And I came along, and we put up the greatest blockade ever in military history.”
Yadda yadda. But what Araghchi told NBC about those words from Trump was telling. And chilling.
The telling part: “We are ready for diplomacy… and now there is a very reasonable plan on the table. If they reject it with no reason, this is their fault. And I have to say that although we heard from President Trump that he’s rejecting this deal… we are still waiting for an official response through the mediators.”
In short, the world has long known Trump’s word doesn’t mean anything, as Araghchi indicated when he mentioned how the U.S. twice attacked in the middle of negotiations, last year and this year, then attacked again after reaching a memorandum of understanding this summer.
Now, the chilling part. Araghchi said he was “still trying diplomacy because I think we shouldn’t miss any chance for peace. We don’t care about, you know, U.S. midterm elections. We don’t care about any other things. We care about our national interests. We are ready to negotiate as much as we are ready to face any challenge.
“We stand firm in the face of any challenge… we stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even if it comes to a doomsday war.”
For those at the back, Araghchi repeated the point: “We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed. And I repeat, we stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war.”
Doomsday. A sense of doom certainly hovers over the appalling mess Trump has made with his war on Iran. He says the overriding rationale for the campaign is to stop Tehran developing a nuclear weapon. Thanks in part to the Obama-made Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump tore up, Tehran doesn’t have one. Trump has more than one, and he has threatened to use them before. In January 2018, he told the posturing Kim Jong-un of North Korea: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
That was absurd, but then Kim Jong-un does have a button, however much use it may be when it comes to Trump’s absurd idea of diplomacy. Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian and the rest of Iran’s leaders are not so lucky. Absent a U.S. ground invasion, which surely would be a political step too far even for this White House idiot and his shameless Pentagon enabler, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, what Trump might suddenly decide to do to Iran from the skies remains a deeply worrying thought, whether a nuclear strike or something overwhelming and aimed at civilian targets, as he has threatened and, as Swin has reported here at Zeteo, he has repeatedly come close to deciding to do.
So what’s next? More talks in New York, was the overriding consensus, whatever Trump might choose to bloviate reporter-wards next.
Araghchi said: “We are ready, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose. He wanted unconditional surrender in the previous war in two days. And now it’s eight months that they are fighting with no results. A new aggression would be certainly the same.”
Of course, no one should think the Iranians are just honest brokers, only after the best for the world. As if any politician is. On Sunday, Trump’s UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, told NBC Iran made “a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable,” asking for “the release of the blockades, the sanctions, international sanctions, and access to billions in assets.” Tehran’s bid might indeed have been optimistic. It might also have been pretty much what was in that memorandum of understanding, the one Trump agreed to and then tore up.
It’s not impossible that the New York talks will produce a deal. Pressing demands are pressing demands. If Trump can’t see the clear need to get the war over and the Strait open, what with those midterms looming and gas prices high and diesel prices higher, the rising cost of living causing rising squealing from GOP candidates with increasingly squeezed electorates to try somehow to please, then the Republican Party surely can.
And so, this week, New York talks, it seems, it is. All the while Trump will lurk a couple hundred miles south – or further, as he rallies in [checks notes] Alabama – his short fingers hovering ever near his beloved buttons, threatening willful destruction, whether symbolic or all too real.
