Iran says Trump ‘negotiating with himself’: what next for war? - The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

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0:45Almost every statement he's made since the beginning of the war has had a contradiction in it. He says the Iranians are begging for a deal. They are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it. The Iranians want full lifting of sanctions. Overall strategy is one of defiance. And they have become very good at this international trolling. Hey, Taram, you are fired. Because it's also about his standing in the world. Iran has rejected Donald Trump's peace plan, despite the president saying they're begging for a deal. Meanwhile, thousands of US military personnel are being sent to the Middle East.

1:22So is Trump's pitch for peace falling flat? From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth.

1:32Joining me is Julian Borgia, The Guardian's Senior International Correspondent. Julian, thanks so much for coming up to the studio. As ever, as we enter, well, we're in the middle of the fourth week of this war. It's a somewhat confusing picture. Donald Trump pressurising Iran overnight to accept a deal to end the war, a 15-point plan that will come on to. Iran has rejected that plan. Meanwhile, Trump is threatening very serious implications should that deal not be accepted. He says this will get serious soon, otherwise it will be too late. There's been reporting of threats of a final blow. How can we make sense of all of this, if we can?

2:14Well, as ever with Trump, it's really difficult because almost every statement he's made since the beginning of the war has had a contradiction in it. And here again, we've got a contradiction. He says the Iranians are begging for a deal and then says you better get serious before it's too late making another threat. I mean, I think what we've seen so far is a pattern. He wants somehow to reassure the market and keep the oil price down under$100, keep the stock market up. But at the same time, he has to threaten Iran so that they will go along with an end of a war on his terms, which up to now they've shown no sign of doing it.

2:57So he keeps on warning them, this is going to get much worse. This is going to get serious as if it wasn't already serious in the hope that they will come on board. In his statement today, he said, oh, they're very strange, the Iranians, obviously getting more and more frustrated that they haven't bowed so far to all the bombing that's gone on up to now. He also said that he'd been offered a sort of prize by the Iranians without much specificity on what that prize is. But that seems somewhat implausible, given that Iran are denying that these talks are taking place. They reject this 15 point plan.

3:36so let's talk about the details about what these counter proposals are because because Trump's administration has put forward a 15-point plan the Iranians have counted that with it with a five-point plan I wonder if you can briefly outline sort of what the key fault lines are between those those two there are new 15 points that the Pakistanis have said that they have forwarded to Iran. We don't know exactly what's in them. We know from reporting that it addresses the nuclear program, but restrictions on that, on missiles, and it must include some kind of agreement for navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

4:16The Iranians are adamant that they will not give up on the principle of enrichment. And this is a big difference between them. the Iranians want full lifting of sanctions, not just nuclear sanctions, but all sanctions. And they resist, they push back against limits on their missile program, which for them is their only deterrence against being attacked again. And you imagine we'll push back against the sense of cooperation in the Strait of Hamus, which has been such a key sort of point of leverage in the last four weeks. I mean, you mentioned how dictated Trump has been by the markets in all of this.

4:56with all of these suggestions that a deal is very close. I mean, that is, as you say, about steadying global markets, which have been thrown into disarray, but also bringing down the price of oil. Why, therefore, is he sending thousands of US troops to the region? Is that again about pressure? There is also some suggestion that military action might take place on the weekends when the markets are closed, which is what happened at the start of the conflict when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on a Saturday. Yeah, again, this is another Trump pattern. It's a build-up, military pressure to use as leverage in talks.

5:34But then the pattern we've also seen previously with Iran and then Venezuela is when you build up so much force, all that hardware, all those expensive machines, bring them together at enormous cost. There is a pressure from doing that and using them. And he has generals at his side and his very gung-ho, Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth, urging the use of all these wonderful machines since they are there. And what we've seen before is every time he has built up significant force, he has used it. So there is this expectation that there could be action. And of course, on the weekend, if they are hoping this would be a short, sharp shock and will be sort of all over by the time the markets open again on Monday, then obviously the weekend will be the time to do it.

6:30And one of the marine expeditionary units that's on the way, 2 ,000 marines and all the boats and planes and helicopters that you need for an amphibious landing, that will be in position at the end of the week. So it is possible that there will be something on the weekend. Yeah, all these sort of shock and awe tactics that Trump seems to love. But as we've seen, the sort of posthumous strategy doesn't seem to have been quite so considered. One thing that's been quite striking this week is the sort of mockery, the trolling that the Iranian regime has been carrying out of Trump. I'm not sure anyone loves to be mocked, but President Trump perhaps least of all.

7:19There's been various memes about the US military strategy. There's been another meme related to his former position, pre-president, as host of The Apprentice, with an Iranian official saying, you're fired. Hey, Taram, you are fired. You are familiar with this sentence. Thank you for your attention to this matter. What does Iran stand to gain from that sort of strategy? I mean, presumably it eyes Trump in a way that they find satisfying. I think the overall strategy is one of defiance. And they have become very good at this international trolling because it's also about his standing in the world and his credibility.

8:02And so they're attacking that. One of my favourites was when he suggested, when he was asked who was going to control the Strait of Hormuz, he said, well, maybe me and maybe me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is. What could go wrong? What could possibly go wrong? And so it was an Iranian embassy who put out a meme showing the inside of a car with a steering wheel and next door to that steering wheel, one of those toy plastic steering wheels, you know, that used for children who want to pretend they're steering. Right. Well, I imagine that's not going down very well in the Oval Office.

8:40But I just wonder where Israel fits into all of this, because they have overnight killed a very senior member of the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and a naval officer, so clearly very involved in the military operations in the Strait of Hamuz. So they continue this aggressive military campaign. Yeah, from what we're seeing, all this talk from Trump about the possibility of a deal has given the Israelis impetus to speed things up. They want to inflict as much damage on Iran's nuclear, missile and other armament programs as they can before this whole thing is wrapped up. Because presumably if there are talks, the US, Iran would want the US to end all hostilities, including those of Israel.

9:36So what we've seen from the Israelis is a stepping up of their attacks, including the killing of this IRGC admiral, Ali Reyes Tangsiri. Yeah, just finally, Julian. I mean, we've talked about the Israeli strikes, these overnight strikes that have taken out this very senior naval officer in the IRGC. But there are terrible strikes still on Lebanon. Medics that have been tragically killed in southern Lebanon. In Iran, there are blackouts. The WHO is warning of a health crisis unfolding in real time. You know, we are already feeling the ramifications on the global economy. I mean, while we have this kind of farcical war of words between this triptych of governments, it's a very worrying and sad state of affairs.

10:27Yeah, you're right. It's an absolute mismatch between the kind of vocabulary that Trump has been using, an excursion, we do some bombing just for fun. We're going to bomb our little hearts out. And the scale of this disaster that he has unleashed. I mean, it's a global economic disaster. It's obviously an environmental disaster. Look at those plumes of black smoke hanging over Tehran, over the other Iranian cities. As you said, it's a health crisis and also potentially a very serious nuclear crisis because Iran has this highly enriched uranium. It's not far from bomb grade. It's enough for a dozen bombs.

11:11Now you have a situation of a wounded, vengeful Iran and a new, younger Ayatollah who has lost his father, his son, his wife, who has not so far repeated the fatwa of his father, the religious edict against using nuclear weapons. So arguably, it is possible that the threat of Iran racing to try and make a nuclear weapon when the ceasefire happens, or even before that, has gone up. Well, Julian, worrying times, but thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks again to Julian Borger, The Guardian's senior international correspondent. Do keep up with his reporting and breaking coverage of this story over at TheGuardian.com.

11:57and do have a listen to our sister podcast, Politics Weekly, which today has an interview with Health Secretary Wes Streeting. I really recommend listening if you haven't already. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

12:35Chicago, 2011. A cop is murdered. Police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man. He swears he didn't do it. How far will each side go to prove they're right? Like it's just one bombshell after another. You know, you're like, what? The story of a PlayStation, a brain-eating amoeba, and the relentless pursuit of justice. Off duty, out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is The Guardian.

13:15You got questions about Chicago? Me too. I'm Erin Allen, host of the Curious City podcast, where each week I answer your questions about the region. From mysteries like, is this building haunted? To questions like, what happens to birds that get stuck inside O 'Hare Airport? We get into the answers every Wednesday. Then on Thursdays, come back for a deeper dive where we pull a thread from Wednesday's questions to uncover even more surprising and hidden layers. Listen to Curious City wherever you get your podcasts.