Propaganda narrative crumbles in 'political disaster for Donald Trump': analysis

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U.S. President Donald Trump attends the commencement ceremony at West Point Military Academy in West Point, New York, U.S., May 24, 2025. REUTERS Nathan Howard

Negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war are at an impasse as the conflict enters its third month. The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iranian ports to ramp up the pressure on Tehran.

Iran is saying it will enter into direct talks with the U.S. “when President Trump lifts what Iran considers to be the illegal military naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz,” says Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill. “Iran has maintained that it’s not shut down the strait, but that it’s just shut it down for any vessels that are linked to the U.S. war in any way.”

Scahill says a disorganized Trump administration is pushing a “total propaganda narrative” that it has the upper hand in negotiations, while Iran believes it has the “three M’s” on its side: munitions, markets and the midterms.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war are at an impasse as the conflict reaches its 61st day. President Trump and his national security team are reportedly skeptical of Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for tabling nuclear talks. U.S. officials say President Trump expressed doubts Monday that Iran was acting in good faith. Iran has so far refused Trump’s key demand that it end all nuclear enrichment.

The Wall Street Journalreported late Tuesday that Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iranian ports to ramp up the pressure on Tehran. In his latest post on Truth Social, Trump threatened Iran to, quote, “better get smart soon.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump wrote, quote, “Iran has just informed us that they are in a 'State of Collapse.' [unquote] They want us to 'Open the Hormuz Strait,' as soon as possible, as they try to figure out their leadership situation (Which I believe they will be able to do!),” President Trump said.

This is Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia, a spokesperson for the Iranian army.

BRIG. GEN. MOHAMMAD AKRAMINIA: [translated] Regarding the current situation, we have not considered the war to be over. From the day the fighting stopped and, in effect, a ceasefire or silence took place on the battlefield, since there is no trust in the United States and our enemies, we have continued in the same way as during the war, making serious efforts to update our list of targets.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking at a Pentagon news conference last Friday.

DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely, as we said previously, choose wisely at the negotiating table. All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways, or instead they can watch their regime’s fragile economic state collapse under the unrelenting pressure of American power.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on all of this, we’re joined now by Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill. His new piece is headlined “As Trump’s Narrative on Negotiations Flails, Iran Is Setting Its Own Terms for Ending the War.”

Hi, Jeremy. Can you start off by just explaining the thesis of your piece?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, what I’ve been reporting over the past several weeks is that far from being in disarray, as Trump and his allies in the media have portrayed the Iranian government, it’s the Trump administration that is in a state of total chaos, erratic meltdowns, that culminated with Trump claiming that JD Vance was on an airplane en route to Islamabad to meet the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, then saying that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, well, they’re actually on the airplane. And they were claiming, “Oh, the Iranians are begging us to talk, and we’re going to go and meet them in Islamabad when Foreign Minister Araghchi is there.” The Iranians were telling me, “We have no intention of meeting any Americans,” and that Iran is on its own tour now of Pakistan, Oman and Russia, where Araghchi met with President Vladimir Putin, and “We’re establishing our own terms for ending the war.” And so, what we’ve seen here is the construction of a total propaganda narrative, that is being repeated by almost every Western news organization, that somehow there are these negotiations going on, that the Iranians are putting proposals in front of the Americans. That’s not what’s happening at all.

What Iran has done is it has briefed Pakistan, which is currently the mediating country in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, and they’ve said to them, “Here are our conditions for ending the war.” And what Iran is saying is, “We will enter into direct talks with the United States when President Trump lifts” what Iran considers to be “the illegal military naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. We will have an initial round of discussions about how to facilitate the expansion of commerce and transit through the Strait of Hormuz.” Iran has maintained that it’s not shut down the strait, but that it’s just shut it down for any vessels that are linked to the U.S. war in any way.

And then, after those conditions are met, the Iranians will go back to direct talks having to do with nuclear negotiations. But they’re saying that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are total ignoramuses when it comes to the technical issues in terms of nuclear or other issues, that having Kushner at the table might as well be having Benjamin Netanyahu at the table. That’s part of why they pushed for JD Vance. Iranians told me that they witnessed during the last round of direct talks a division between JD Vance, on the one hand, and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, on the other hand.

Trump has painted himself into a corner. He’s certainly in a quagmire. The administration is desperate to find some form of an off-ramp. And they have been pushing a lie-filled propaganda narrative, that has been picked up by media across the board, that somehow the Iranians are kind of adjusting their position and coming back to Trump, but it’s not good enough yet. The reality is that Trump has no idea how he’s going to end this, because the Iranians know, or they believe, that they have the three M’s on their side: munitions, markets and the midterms.

They think that they have done unprecedented damage to U.S. defensive capabilities in the Persian Gulf. They caused the evacuation of 13 American military bases. They committed widespread damage against American aircraft, that only now is starting to come to light. They destroyed the early warning, highly expensive radar systems. The Israelis’ interceptors are at dangerous low levels. And the United States is unable to confront Iran’s asymmetric posture in the Strait of Hormuz, no matter what Trump does. The markets are in free fall right now, relatively speaking. It’s not going to get better. If Trump starts bombing Iran again, they say they’re going to hit oil infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, potentially cut undersea internet cables, which would massively disrupt commerce and internet. And the final thing is the midterms coming up.

This is a political disaster for Donald Trump. And the Iranians feel like they’re in a position that Trump is not holding the cards. And so, what they’re saying is, “If you don’t meet our initial demands to lift your illegal naval blockade, we’re not going to have any talks with you anytime soon, because you’ve painted yourself into a corner, and we’re going to sit back and let you continue to have less and less space in that corner.”

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, you note that the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has been on a strategic three-nation tour, where he’s unequivocally laying out Tehran’s position to mediators and key strategic players who may influence future negotiations. You write, quote, “Russia played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal and could emerge as an important guarantor of Tehran’s interests in any agreement reached with the U.S.” I want to ask you about Russia’s role in this, but first let’s go to a clip. This is Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in St. Petersburg Monday.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] I would like to convey my most sincere words of gratitude and confirm that Russia, same as Iran, intends to continue our strategic relations. … We see how courageously and heroically the Iranian people are fighting for their independence and sovereignty. Of course, we very much hope that, based on this courage and will for independence, the Iranian people will, under the leadership of a new leader, make it through this difficult period of trials, and peace will follow. … From our side, we will do everything that is in your interest, in the interests of all nations in the region, so that peace is reached as soon as possible. You know our position very well.

ABBAS ARAGHCHI: [translated] I was asked to confirm during this visit that Russian-Iranian relations is a strategic partnership and will remain that way, moving forward. … It was proven that Iran has friends and allies, such as Russia, who stand by Iran during difficult times and support Iran. We thank you for your firm position in support of Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was the Iranian foreign minister, Araghchi, before that, Russian President Putin. Jeremy, talk about what Putin’s position is now and back in 2015. It may surprise people.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. So, back in 2015, when the U.S., with a delegation led by John Kerry, the secretary of state at the time, spent a year and a half negotiating with the Iranians, and that deal ended with 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium being transferred from Iran to Russia. Now, at that point, the Iranians only had a relatively small quantity of what’s called highly enriched uranium, and it was only enriched to a 20% level. And 98% of that highly enriched uranium was shipped to Russia. It’s astonishing to think back on it and those numbers, given what we’re talking about now, which is roughly 1,000 pounds, the Iranians are believed to have, of highly enriched uranium, potentially to as high as 60%.

And so, the Iranians, because of Trump’s threatening, kind of menacing tone and actions, and certainly because of the six weeks of bombing, have said, “We’re not going to transfer any uranium outside of the country,” that “it’s as sacred to us as our soil,” and that “we would agree to dilute it so that could be used for medical and nonmilitary purposes, but transferring it is out of the equation.”

What’s interesting is that I’ve heard from Iranian sources that if the Iranians felt like they were dealing with normal people on the other end of the table, technical experts, and not real estate buddies and the son-in-law of the vice president — of the president, but if they were dealing with like an actual technical team, as they did back in 2015, that a lot of issues could be on the table. And so, part of what may be happening is that the Iranians, on the one hand, want to strengthen their military and political relationship with the Russians. It goes both ways. The Iranians also provide the Russians with drones that are used in the war in Ukraine. The Russians almost certainly have been providing the Iranians with intelligence during the course of the U.S.-Israeli war. But on the other hand, the Iranians are planning a kind of other scenario, where if there is a sane set of discussions on the nuclear issue, would there be some flexibility? I’ve heard that there are possibilities that they could consider Russia or even China, if they did shift their position, which officially they’ve given no indication they will. But if that becomes a sort of sticking point and Iran feels that it’s getting its own concessions in the form of a widespread lifting of sanctions, a backing off or some kind of nonaggression pact that would certify that the U.S. isn’t going to continue this pattern of launching wars in between pretending to be in negotiations with Iran, then the sense that I get is that a lot would be on the table.

So, I think that the Iranians are also looking at an alternative universe where Donald Trump fabricates some declaration of victory, that he tries to intensify the economic war against Iran in the hopes that they can spark a domestic uprising to bring down the government, and that Trump essentially just panics himself into a state of saying, like, “I’m not going to do this anymore.” That’s one scenario that could happen. Joe Kent, who resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, early on after he resigned weeks ago, he came out and said that Trump should essentially do that, kind of walk away. I was told by a senior Iranian official that they think the most likely long-term scenario is that there isn’t any major agreement reached and that there is kind of a low-intensity tension that continues to boil.

And so, you know, the Iranians feel, though, that time is on their side and that it’s Donald Trump who has the clock and that he’s watching it with sweat increasingly pouring down his face, because Iran has no intention of capitulating. So, there’s dual tracks that the Iranians are operating on. And I just want to emphasize again that when you read these reports about the Iranians have put a new proposal forward, etc., much of what the Iranians have been doing is reiterating their position. They feel that the United States did not understand the significance of what they put on the table back in February, that it would have gone beyond the 2015 nuclear agreement.

And I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Israel has thoroughly contaminated what the U.S. believes is intelligence on Iran, and it seems quite clear that throughout this war, and actually before it, the Israelis were presenting completely cooked intelligence that it was going to be easy, that it’s going to be a cake walk, that you just assassinate the leadership, and the people are going to rise up. It’s not just that Israel has political influence. It’s clear that Israel has contaminated the intelligence gathering and presentation to the president of the United States by constantly injecting politicized, fake intel to try to keep this war going or to start it in the first place.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had become disillusioned with the U.S. and Israel over the war in Iran, and said the Trump administration is being outwitted and “humiliated.” This is Merz.

CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ: [translated] The Americans clearly have no strategy. And the problem with conflicts like this is always that you don’t just have to go in, you also have to get out again. We saw that all too painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq. … An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian state leadership.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, your response?

JEREMY SCAHILL: I mean, on just a factual level, what Chancellor Merz is saying is 100% true. But in real political terms, Merz was a supporter of Donald Trump’s actions. Germany, perhaps second only to the United States, has passionately supported and defended the Israeli genocidal operations in Palestine, specifically in Gaza, and these broader wars. And Merz kissed the ring of Donald Trump from the very beginning. He bowed to him and allowed himself to be walked around the block by the Trump world like a poodle. So Merz has no credibility whatsoever.

But the fact that even the poodles of the United States, like Friedrich Merz of Germany, the fact that they are saying this openly and saying that the U.S. is being humiliated is a strong indicator of how the sort of game is up. The world realizes that Trump has been lying to manipulate markets, to try to resurrect the oil market situation, to try to pretend as though he’s winning, because he keeps thinking he’s going to bomb the Iranians into submission with his tough boy act on Truth Social. It’s not working. And in fact, markets this week, even for the first time in this attempt at manipulation, they didn’t even react to the bald-faced lie that Trump told yesterday, where he said the Iranians are saying that they’re on the verge of collapse and they want Trump to open up the Strait of Hormuz. That didn’t happen, and the markets did not react in the way that they typically have to Trump’s manipulation every Monday morning. So I think the world is realizing what Merz, who often is a poodle of the United States, particularly Trump — Merz is saying the quiet part out loud, because it’s so obvious that to deny it would make you look like an absolute idiot.

AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said it submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court documenting U.S.-Israeli war crimes. The IRCS estimates more than 132,000 civilian structures were bombed across Iran, including hospitals, apartment buildings, universities, research facilities and bridges. How is Iran dealing with its own reconstruction and economic crisis?

JEREMY SCAHILL: It’s very difficult. I mean, I think we don’t fully understand the extent of the damage and destruction that has been wrought inside of Iran. And, you know, the Iranians, of course, do have a difficult time in importing goods.

But I will note something quite significant. After Abbas Araghchi left Pakistan last weekend, when Trump claimed that they were going to be meeting with the Americans, and then it didn’t happen, just as the Iranians said it wouldn’t, Pakistan announced that it was going to, effective immediately, implement a directive that would facilitate the dramatic expansion of transit across Pakistan for third-country goods delivering to Iran. What that is part of is the bilateral relationship between Iran and Pakistan, and it’s a direct answer to Trump saying that he’s strangling Iran. So, this meeting with the Russians, this trade deal that now has been put into force with the Pakistanis to give free passage to third-nation goods coming into Iran, the deepening relationship between Iran and China, which has largely unfolded in secret, away from cameras, and then Iran’s now outreach in the Persian Gulf is very clearly Iran imagining a world where this doesn’t get resolved right away, and that Iran certainly survives intact with its state, its government, its power structure very much in control of Iran, and they’re looking for an alternative to a full solution or resolution with the United States. That’s going to be a key thing to watch.

Iran is not just operating on some desperate track to try to make a deal with the United States. You know, this is a real nation-state. This isn’t just some, you know, paper tiger that the U.S. can assassinate some people and do heavy bombing, and then they collapse. This is a country of institutions. Whatever anyone thinks about Iran, they’ve spent 47 years building institutions that have parallel infrastructure. I don’t think there is a historical precedent for having, basically, the entire upper echelons of political, military and religious leadership assassinated, and then turn around and do six to seven weeks of retaliatory strikes that fought the world superpower to a standstill. There isn’t a historical precedent for what we’re seeing. And I think now the United States and Trump’s advisers understand they have to take this seriously. And Iran is operating on a totally different path that presumes that they aren’t going to have a political resolution to this crisis or conflict with the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, thanks so much for joining us. We’ll link to your new piece, “As Trump’s Narrative on Negotiations Flails, Iran Is Setting Its Own Terms for Ending the War,” at democracynow.org.

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