Wednesday Reads: Trump’s War in Iran and Other News

Good Day!!

I’ve been scanning the headlines for awhile now, trying to make sense of what’s happening in Trump’s war with Iran. I’m still confused.

Trump keeps saying that he’s already won the war, but he’s sending thousands of troops to the region. He apparently sent a peace plan to Iran that they have already rejected, offering an alternative proposal.

CNN has a summary of the latest moves in the war: What to know on Day 26 of the Iran war: Tehran taunts Trump, US troop deployment.

Iran’s military has mocked the Trump administration’s efforts to strike a deal to end the war, saying the United States is only “negotiating with yourselves.”

Despite President Donald Trump’s optimism that a deal with Tehran is in sight, sources have told CNN that around 1,000 US soldiers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are expected to deploy to the Middle East in the coming days, suggesting the president is keeping his options open.

Ebrahim Zolfaghari

The latest on the talks:

• Iran taunts Trump: Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for Iran’s military, taunted the US leadership in a message broadcast Wednesday on state television. “Has the level of your internal conflicts reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?” he asked. Zolfaghari said the US’ “strategic power” had turned into a “strategic defeat.”
• Trump touts talks: That mocking message came after Trump expressed optimism over a deal to end the war, saying that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others were leading negotiations.
• 15-point plan: The US has shared a 15-point list of expectations with Iran via Pakistan, with talks between the warring countries floated in Islamabad later this week, two regional sources told CNN. Those points include limits on Tehran’s defense capabilities, a cessation of support for proxies and an acknowledgement of Israel’s right to exist, the sources said.
• Iran shuns Witkoff: Iranian representatives have let the Trump administration know that Tehran does not want to reenter negotiations with the US president’s favored diplomatic duo of Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, according to two regional sources, who said Tehran would rather deal with Vance.

• Iran willing to listen: An Iranian source told CNN on Tuesday that Washington had initiated “outreach” in recent days, “but nothing that has reached the level of full-on negotiations.” The source stressed that Iran “is not asking for a meeting or direct talks with the United States but is willing to listen if a plan for a sustainable deal comes within reach” that would preserve the regime’s interests. Initially, Tehran had denied any contact with Washington, saying that Trump’s claim of talks was a ruse to lower energy prices and buy time.

There’s much more on what’s happening at the CNN link.

More details from BBC News: Pakistan officials say Iran receives 15-point US plan – AP.

The Associated Press news agency reports that Iran has received a 15-point plan from the US for reaching a ceasefire in the US-Israel war with Iran, citing two Pakistani officials.

The Pakistani officials reportedly said the proposal broadly covers the following:

• Sanctions relief
• Civilian nuclear co-operation
• A rollback of Iran’s nuclear programme
• Monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency
• Missile limits, and access for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said earlier that the country was “ready” to host talks for a settlement of the conflict.

Israel’s Channel 12 has also reported on the plan. You can read a full breakdown of the reports in our earlier post.

There’s been no confirmation of the details from the White House. Iranian military has denied it’s negotiating with the US.

The Strait of Hormuz

Iran has rejected the U.S. plan and offered an alternative. AP: Iran rejects US ceasefire plan, issues its own demands as strikes land across the Mideast.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Wednesday dismissed an American plan to pause the war in the Middle East and launched more attacks on Israel and Gulf Arab countries, including an assault that sparked a huge fire at Kuwait International Airport.

Iran’s defiance came as Israel launched airstrikes on Tehran and as the United States deployed paratroopers and more Marines to the region.

Iranian state television’s English-language broadcaster quoted an anonymous official as saying Iran rejected America’s ceasefire proposal and has its own demands for an end to the fighting. “Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” the hardliner-controlled Press TV quoted the official as saying.

Earlier, two officials from Pakistan, which transmitted the U.S. plan to Iran, described the 15-point proposal broadly, saying it addressed sanctions relief, a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, limits on missiles and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped.

An Egyptian official involved in the mediation efforts said the proposal also includes restrictions on Iran’s support for armed groups. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet released.

Some of those points were nonstarters in negotiations before the war: Iran has insisted it won’t discuss its ballistic missile program or its support of regional militias, which it views as key to its security. And its ability to control passage through the Strait of Hormuz represents one of its biggest strategic advantages….

Press TV cited an Iranian five-point plan for a ceasefire coming from the official who rejected the US proposal. That plan included a halt to killings of its officials, means to make sure no other war is waged against it, reparations for the war, the end of hostilities and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”

Those measures, particularly reparations and its continued chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, likely will be unacceptable to the White House.

According to the above AP article, Trump is still claiming that Iran is negotiating with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, but according the BBC article above, Iran has said it won’t talk to them but would talk to J.D. Vance.

Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo at Axios: Iran suspects Trump’s peace talk push is another trick.

Iranian officials have told the countries trying to mediate peace talks with the U.S. that they have now been tricked twice by President Trump and “we don’t want to be fooled again,” according to a source with direct knowledge of those discussions.

The big picture: The U.S. is pushing for in-person peace talks as soon as Thursday in Islamabad, Pakistan. But during the two previous rounds of U.S.-Iran talks, Trump green lit crippling surprise attacks while still claiming to be seeking a deal.

Flashback: Israel attacked Iran with Trump’s backing last June, days before a planned round of nuclear talks.

• Then three weeks ago, the U.S. and Iran reached a tentative agreement in Geneva to continue talks the following week — two days before the U.S. and Israel attacked.

Behind the scenes: Iranian officials have told the mediators — Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey — that U.S. military movements and Trump’s decision to deploy major troop reinforcements have increased their suspicion that his proposal for peace talks is just a ruse.

• To the Trump administration, the massing of forces is a sign he’s serious about negotiating from gunboats, not that he’s negotiating in bad faith. “Trump has a hand open for a deal and the other is a fist, waiting to punch you in the f***ing face,” said a Trump adviser.
• The White House has sent messages to the Iranians that Trump is serious about the negotiations, and floated Vice President JD Vance’s possible involvement in the talks as proof.
• Two sources said Witkoff recommended Vance because of the stature of his office and because the Iranians don’t see him as a hawk.

Read more at Axios.

Trump is ordering troop movements. The Washington Post (gift link): Army paratroopers ordered to Middle East as U.S. weighs next move in Iran conflict.

Use the gift link to read more.

U.S. allies are confused about what Trump is doing. Victor Jack, Chris Lunday and Esther Webber at Politico: Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump’s messaging on what he wants from American allies in his war against Iran is so confusing that any effort to help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains deadlocked, according to four European government officials.

Washington has not made any formal requests for equipment, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive talks, while allies are also reluctant to send military assets to the region over fears they would be attacked by Iran.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier

More than 30 nations, including a majority of NATO countries, have pledged “appropriate efforts” to restart shipping through the critical trade chokepoint after the U.S. president slammed allies as “COWARDS” for failing to volunteer their assistance.

But so far, discussions remain in their very early stages, according to government officials from seven European countries.

“One would wish for more predictability, more clarity and more strategic foresight — not only in this case,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told POLITICO on Tuesday, adding: “Let’s wait and see.”

The slow-moving talks reflect Trump’s conflicting messaging more than three weeks into his war against Iran — where he has threatened allies for failing to back his campaign, then said they weren’t needed, all while providing scant detail on how they could support the U.S.

The lack of enthusiasm about getting involved also underscores Europe’s growing self-confidence in dealing with Washington, as the continent increasingly shifts its approach from placating Trump to confronting him over a war allies were not consulted on.

“This war violates international law,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday. “There is little doubt that, in any case, the justification of an imminent attack on the U.S. does not hold water.”

Let’s face it: despite journalists’ efforts to make sense of what Trump is up to, it’s highly unlikely that he himself has any clue about what he is doing.

Katherine Doyle, Courtney Kube, and Dan De Luce at NBC News: Inside Trump’s daily video montage briefing on the Iran war.

Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said.

The daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer, the officials said. One described each daily video as a series of clips of “stuff blowing up.”

The highlight reel of U.S. Central Command bombing Iranian equipment and military sites isn’t the only briefing Trump gets about the war. He’s also updated through conversations with top military and intelligence advisers, foreign leaders and news reports, the officials said.

But the video briefing is fueling concerns among some of Trump’s allies that he may not be receiving — or absorbing — the complete picture of the war, now in its fourth week, two of the current officials and the former official said.

They said the videos are also driving Trump’s increasing frustration with news coverage of the war. Trump has pointed to the success depicted in the daily videos to privately question why his administration can’t better influence the public narrative, asking aides why the news media doesn’t emphasize what he’s seeing, one of the current U.S. officials and the former U.S. official said.

That sounds about right for Trump’s childish comprehension level.

In non-war news, Trump’s theft of government documents after his first term is back in the headlines.

Carol Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany at MSNOW: Trump appeared to have business motive for keeping classified documents, Jack Smith finds.

Special counsel Jack Smith gathered evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump took many top secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests, and investigators considered this a likely motive for Trump concealing them at his Florida club after he left the White House, according to newly released case records.

The special prosecutor also had evidence indicating that after leaving office Trump had shown a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including his future chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and took at least one document that was so secret that only six people had authority to review it, according to a memo reviewed by MS NOW and cited by the House Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

Trump’s stash of documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom

Trump’s reason for taking hundreds of pages of classified documents when he left office in January 2021 — and then concealing them when the Justice Department subpoenaed him for their return in May 2022 — has been one of the larger mysteries of the case. FBI agents conducting an unannounced search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 discovered hundreds more pages of top secret records that Trump and his lawyers had failed to return to the government after claiming they had fully returned all classified materials.

In a January 2023 “progress memo” reviewed by MS NOW, Smith’s office discussed the possible motive after the FBI discovered that Trump held on to many documents related to his businesses.

“Trump possessed classified documents pertinent to his business interests — establishing a motive for retaining them,” according to the memo, which tracked progress in the documents and election-interference investigations. “We must have those documents.”

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday, Raskin insisted that Trump’s Justice Department has sought to cover up the details of Trump’s “hoarding” of classified government secrets and storing them in his Mar-a-Lago club’s showers and closets — which put national security at risk — as well as the clues to Trump’s motives for doing so.

“These new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them, that the documents President Trump stole pertained to his business interests,” Raskin wrote to Bondi.

“This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the coverup reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself.”

More from Jeremy Roebuck and Maegan Vazquez at The Washington Post: Trump showed classified map to passengers on his plane in 2022, memo says.

The Justice Department shared those findings, detailed in a January 2023 briefing document written by then-special counsel Jack Smith’s team, with lawmakers as they conduct a review of Smith’s now-abandoned efforts to prosecute Trump.

Has Trump shared these documents with Putin and his other world leader pals? I’d be surprised if he hasn’t. Remember, those documents were returned to Trump after the charges were dropped.

One more story before I wrap this up. Paul Krugman says that whoever is cashing in on Trump’s war announcements is committing treason.

From Heather Cox Richardson today: Letters from an American.

This morning, economist Paul Krugman came right out and said it: “People close to Trump are trading based on national secrets.” Another word for that, he said, is “treason.” The evidence for such a claim is the sudden and isolated jump in trading volume in S&P 500 and oil futures about 15 minutes before Trump suddenly announced that the U.S. and Iran were in negotiations to end the war—an announcement that turned out to be false.

The oil futures trade alone was worth about $580 million, the Financial Times estimated. As Krugman notes, exploiting confidential information for financial gain, otherwise known as “insider trading,” is illegal. But exploiting confidential information about national security for private financial gain is something else again. It puts profit-making above Americans’ safety.

“I’d very much like to know exactly who was making those trades yesterday morning,” Krugman wrote. “Were they people directly in the know, or billionaires/traders who paid people in the know for tips?”

That’s all I have for you today. What’s on your mind?