I joined Stephanie Ruhle and my colleagues Peter Baker and Michael Crowley of The New York Times last night to discuss where things stand in the U.S.-Iran war and the fragile situation in the Strait of Hormuz. Here are the three points I made.
The situation is dangerously confused — especially in Washington. The pace of developments is dizzying: one hour a deal is done, the next both sides are shooting at each other. Peter called this a “ceasefire with lots of firing.” What worries me most is that Washington appears far more disoriented than Tehran. That asymmetry — one side confused, the other not — is precisely the condition under which escalation becomes most likely.
Trump wants out, but the off-ramp isn’t there. The president clearly doesn’t want to escalate. He didn’t even respond when Iran struck energy facilities in the UAE. But Iran is not going to hand over its uranium or end enrichment for nothing. The one-page framework being discussed is remarkably thin — it leaves all the hard questions for later. We are in a standoff, and at some point one side is going to have to blink.
My money is on Trump blinking first. Given everything we know about the president’s desire to declare victory and move on, and Iran’s demonstrated willingness to absorb punishment and hold firm, I argue that the United States is the more likely side to make the first significant concession.