Following Tuesday’s revelation of how close the situation came to a phone call between President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Rouhani has come forward to offer additional details on what happened, and why.
Rouhani says the failure of the talks to come together was on Trump, and that Iran has made very clear what the path to dialogue would be. French officials assured him they were aware of that.
The problem, according to Rouhani, is that France was promising the US would deliver sanctions relief for the talks, while Trump made multiple speeches in the 24 hours leading up to the call attacking Iran, vowing more sanctions, and suggesting they wouldn’t entertain sanctions relief.
“I said to our European friends: it’s good but who should we believe? Should we believe what you are saying, that America is ready, or what the US president is saying?” Rouhani noted. Ultimately, the talks never happened.
This appears to be where some of the reports immediately post UN General Assembly came from, like reports that the US was offering sanctions relief, while Trump was denying that. Clearly France was trying to sell this call on the premise of sanctions relief, but it’s not clear whether that was ultimately a real thing.
“I said to our European friends: it’s good but who should we believe? Should we believe what you are saying, that America is ready (to lift sanctions), or what the US president is saying?”
Mr. Rouhani, we have the same problem here in the US. Our Trump supporters also refuse to listen to what comes out of “DJT’s” mouth.
No one knows what trump is saying, not even trump….unintelligible nonsense.
IIRC, the Ayatollah’s choice of description for Trump roughly translates to: Uncouth Little Man.
It’s all a show. He’s putting on whatever act will get his financiers what they want. I think his real problem here is that he’s pretty much shot his wad. There’s not much left other than attacking Iran that they want which he hasn’t given them already. He could maybe give them more gift cards to Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, et al…
It was a trap to lure Rouhani to talk to Trump, but obviously he was smarter than Trump or Macron for that matter…
It is not just Trump, it is far more basic to American diplomacy, as for example for decades with North Korea. America wants a public show of mutual respect, but also total subservience after complete surrender in reality. This is just political cover for hegemonic intent. It predates the “unipolar moment,” as witness the European experience of the Vietnam War, but the collapse of real challenges certainly made it even worse at the same time as it removed the last justifications for it.
They are starved, threatened, bombed and put in through financial ruins, but the Iranian politicking is priceless and has no equals. Trump thought he was going to mongo his way to an Iranian submission. Now he is trying everything he can to undo his own mess.
That’s certainly true. Analyzer. Yes, Iranians are starved, threatened, bombed and put in through financial ruins, but the Iranian politicking’s priceless and has no equals. DJT thought he was going to mongo his way to an Iranian submission .. Now he’s attempting everything he can to clean up his own mess. Good luck with that.
Once again, France is just trying to show it prefers diplomacy over a war, which is in turn merely an effort to avoid blame for failing to seriously address the issue of JCPOA being dead as a door nail. Obviously, nothing they tell Iran can be taken seriously.
As for Trump, nothing he says can be taken seriously, either. That’s assuming one can even understand the rambling, unintelligible babble he uses as “conversation.”
Reality TV show anyone? Macron is just as good at it.