With President Donald Trump rejecting Iran’s latest proposal to end the war on Saturday, multiple experts suspect the president is risking significant “danger” due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the United States’ negotiating position, one that could have deadly consequences within the next 30 days.
Trump told Axios on Sunday that the deal Iran proposed to end the war was “not the deal I want to make,” adding that he may have agreed to the terms “maybe a year ago,” but that Iran had since “overplayed their hand.” Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera for its Sunday report that in actuality, it may be Trump who overplayed his hand.
Krieg suspected that Trump was under the belief that “time is improving the U.S. bargaining position,” Al Jazeera wrote, but the problem for the White House, Krieg said, was that “the gamble cuts both ways.”
“[Trump] wants Tehran to reopen Hormuz without Washington paying the full economic and political price Iran is currently demanding,” Krieg said. “The danger is that he is confusing Iranian pain with Iranian willingness to capitulate. Those are not the same thing.”
Trump’s alleged miscalculation, Krieg warned, could not only fail to bolster the United States’ negotiating position, but could end up backfiring.
“So this can backfire,” Krieg told Al Jazeera. “Trump thinks Iran’s clock is running faster than America’s. Tehran thinks the opposite: that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, global energy markets and ultimately Trump himself have a lower tolerance for prolonged disruption than Iran has for economic punishment.”
Beyond backfiring on the United States economically, another expert warned that Trump’s hesitance to reach a deal could pose risks to American service members stationed in the Middle East.
“All signs point to a major escalation between the US, Iran and Israel. And it may very well be initiated by Tehran itself a week or two before the midterm elections,” warned foreign policy expert Trita Parsi earlier this month.