Trump Rejects Iran Ceasefire, Expects Renewed Bombing After Midterms

President Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms, U.S. officials said.

Tehran’s proposal would have reopened the Strait of Hormuz and resumed nuclear talks in return for the U.S. lifting its blockade of Iranian ports, which is causing deep damage to the country’s economy. Trump says openly that Tehran is begging for a deal after the midterms that dismantles its nuclear program.

But privately Trump is skeptical Iran would meet his demands and has told his staff that he sees a renewed bombing campaign as likely, the officials said.

Trump’s current position indicates the conflict’s stage—a liminal space between war and peace—is likely to tilt back toward hostilities. But the president, who has declared victory since the earliest days of the seven-month fight, alternates between pursuing diplomacy, ordering airstrikes and tightening sanctions around Iran. His views today could shift as the war drags over the coming weeks, officials said, and could be affected by the results of the midterms.

The level of strikes Trump is contemplating couldn’t be determined. He is reluctant to resume major combat operations, the officials said, partly because the U.S. wants to reserve dwindling munitions for other contingencies. But Trump has also announced massive attacks to push through diplomatic deadlocks in U.S.-Iran negotiations, sometimes following through but always stepping back from his most audacious threats, including wiping out the entirety of Iranian civilization.

Trump told the United Nations this week politics don’t enter his mind when aiming to pry nuclear fuel from Iran.

“The Republican Party is running, and I’ll be helping them, but I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence...

Trumps resolution to prevail in barring Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, even at the cost of losses in the midterm elections, is commendable.

If he is to be faulted for the conduct of this fight over seven months it should be for the following reasons: 1) failure to anticipate that Iran could and would close the Strait of Hormuz; 2) suspensions of bombing, in favor of negotiations; 3) failure to continue bombing while negotiating; 4) delay in imposing a United States blockade on ships attempting to export or move Iranian oil and goods; 5) discontinuing active coordinated operations with Israel; 6) failure, early and extensively, to secure cooperation by cooperating nations to impose sanctions against Iran; 7) failure to arm dissident Iranians; 8) denying Kurds' ambitions to attack Iran; 9) flip-flopping on stating war aims concisely and precisely; 10) flip-flopping on bombing/negotiating; 11) failure to advise and enlist European allies, especially NATO, to cooperate in the fight; unnecessarily antagonizing potential allies in Europe and elsewhere with off-putting braggadocio and belligerence, especially respecting Iceland.

Against all this, we have the transcendental fact that Donald Trump, alone among presidents, has found the courage to actually interdict by armed force Iran's nuclear potential, and that decision, because existential, is historic.

My family and I will always vote.
The outcome always belongs to God
I'm grateful that President Trump is eliminating the Shiite Iranian threat, regardless of the election
I don't understand why President Trump won't take every island, port and oilfield and destroy every power station, or other critical infrastructure right now, but trust the War Department knows what it's doing
I hope we seize Cuba soon. It's been a loooooong time comin'
Soddom Arabia, the nation most responsible for 9/11, has vast resources to defend itself, but I hope Mecca and Medina fall to the Houthis and that they publicly behead the craven, hand holding, mouth kissing, royal family with their scimitars, like good Muslims.

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