President Donald Trump seems to be denying a key reality in the war in Iran, and it's costing him at the negotiating table, according to one columnist.
Bob Kagan, a columnist and neoconservative scholar, discussed the war in Iran on a new episode of "The Bulwark Podcast" with host Tim Miller on Wednesday. Kagan argued that Trump doesn't seem to accept the reality that the U.S. lost the war back in March, and that Iran is basically "shaking Trump down for money" at the negotiating table.
"We basically lost the war back in March, and Trump has been spending all these months trying to delay that reality," Kagan said. "And therefore, as a result, Iran has not made a single concession on any point. The Trump administration keeps saying that they're making concessions. They keep saying that there's a deal. They keep saying that they've agreed to do something with their uranium. The only people who've never said that are the Iranians."
Trump and Iran have been in a stalemate for several months as the two sides negotiate an end to the three-month-old conflict. Last week, Axios reported on a peace deal that Trump was allegedly "close to signing" that included reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global waterway that has been closed since the war began, in exchange for future talks about Iran's nuclear program.
Trump has previously said his primary objective in Iran is to ensure the country never gets a nuclear weapon.
Kagan said the negotiations paint a picture of Iran being "in the driver's seat" against the Trump administration.
"And since they're the ones who are completely in the driver's seat right now, I think their deal is the one that is the one that is going to emerge," he continued. "Mostly right now, what's happening is Iran is just shaking Trump down for money. And by the way, money for nothing."