Negotiators from the US, led by JD Vance, and Iran, were to meet in Pakistan on Saturday. As I chirp this, while it is still early Saturday morning, where I am it is late Saturday afternoon in Pakistan. The negotiators are just starting to meet now. Both sides, earlier in the day met with the Pakistani Prime Minister. But it is only now that they are face-to-face, late in the day.
The US is facing an uphill struggle here. Just yesterday, the Pakistani defence minister said the following.
“While peace talks are underway in Islamabad, genocide is being committed in Lebanon. Innocent citizens are being killed by Israel, first Gaza, then Iran and now Lebanon, bloodletting continues unabated. I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinians land to get rid of European jews burn in hell.”
Not a good start. That post has since been deleted.
The question is, who wants this worse? Iran, for all the missiles that have been launched against them still have enough military hardware to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. Iran believes that it can withstand any attack by the US and still maintain the upper hand. Some ships are going through, but they are mainly Chinese, an Iranian ally, in origin. US intelligence is now indicating that China isplanning to send military hardware to Iran, which only ups the stakes even more.
Donald Trump had his ‘destroy the Iranian civilization’ threat on Tuesday. He pulled another TACO and backed down. He claimed victory, but the Strait is still closed. He has backed himself into an almost no win situation.
Not much is going to be achieved in a couple hours that the two sides will meet today. Tomorrow is going to be another bad day for Donald Trump and for the rest of us.
That’s all I have for today.