Trump: the boy who cried ‘peace’ in the Middle East
5/29/202622 min
On Saturday, Donald Trump said talks with Tehran were going well and an agreement to end the war was ‘largely negotiated’. On Sunday, the US launched strikes on Southern Iran. By Thursday, Donald Trump had circulated a draft peace agreement for the war with Iran among allies. This week, as the US-Iran deal remains in a precarious state, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group about why Trump keeps changing his mind on what to do to end the war
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 1· Soundbite0:00
This is The Guardian.
Donald Trump· Soundbite0:01
We negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:12
Do you wanna go blast the hell out of them and- I'd prefer not.
Jonathan Freedland· Host0:15
Donald Trump keeps changing his mind on how to deal with Iran.
Donald Trump· Soundbite0:20
We can make a good deal right now, but maybe not a great deal, and if it's not a great deal we're not making it.
Jonathan Freedland· Host0:25
So are we any closer to an end to this war?
Ali Vaez· Guest0:29
I do believe that the odds of getting to some sort of a framework are around 70%.
Jonathan Freedland· Host0:35
I'm Jonathan Freedland, columnist at The Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly: America. And I'm delighted to be joined this week by Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. Ali, you spoke to my colleague Rachel Leingang on the podcast, uh, back at the start of March when the war had just, uh, broken out. Uh, a huge amount has happened since then, but the key point is that a ceasefire was eventually agreed in April, and yet the messaging since then has been very confusing. It's gone sort of back and forth of whether we're going to turn the ceasefire into an actual outright agreement or whether we're back in war mode. One minute progress, the next Trump saying he's gonna blow Iran off the face of the earth, or words to that effect. What, what's your account of, of why there is this mixed messaging?
Ali Vaez· Guest1:25
The way I imagine this is that there is an angel sitting on one shoulder of President Trump