Trump sabotages emerging peace deal with military escalation

President Donald Trump launched strikes on Iran early Saturday morning, claiming that talks over a nuclear agreement had broken down. Speaking after midnight, Trump warned, “The lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties — that often happens in war.”

The Guardian's diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, published an analysis saying that pausing the talks to wage war jeopardizes the chances of Iran taking the American president seriously.

In 2015, the U.S., the U.K., France, China, Russia and Germany agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal that Washington helped craft. Trump, however, withdrew from the agreement after taking office in 2017, and Iran moved quickly to reestablish its nuclear program.

Wintour noted that last summer, Trump’s administration organized a new round of talks, but three days before negotiators were due to meet for a sixth session, Trump ordered a 10-day campaign of strikes on what the U.S. said were Iranian nuclear sites.

CNN reported on air Saturday that the current bombing campaign will continue, with brief pauses to assess whether the strikes have hit their intended targets.

Wintour wrote that halting a second round of negotiations for what Trump called a war “must torpedo the chances of the Iranian regime ever taking a US offer of talks seriously. They have been stung twice.” One Iranian Telegram channel complained, “Once again, the US attacked while Iran was pursuing diplomacy. Once again, diplomacy does not work with the terrorist state of the US.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he had been aware that Trump might abruptly end diplomatic efforts “but felt it was a risk worth taking.”

Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, tried to warn Trump that negotiators were on the brink of a deal, but was only able to reach Vice President J.D. Vance, according to Wintour’s report. Desperate to head off a war, Albusaidi went on CBS to describe how close the parties were to an agreement, saying it would be far better than the one struck under President Barack Obama. Still, Trump told the nation in the early morning hours that the bombing had begun.

“But this was neither an agenda nor a timetable that suited Trump,” Wintour wrote. “Indeed, Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, hinted at what the president wanted when he said Trump was surprised Iran had not yet capitulated.”

Speaking early Saturday, Trump said simply that Iran puts the United States and American forces abroad at risk.

Wintour concluded that “what is extraordinary is that Trump himself, prior to the attacks, made next to no attempt to articulate or justify to the American people, to Congress or to his allies his actions or his objectives.”