On Wednesday, June 17, U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian digitally signed a memo aimed at ending the war against Iran (which Trump launched in late February) and reopening the Strait of Hormuz — a Middle Eastern waterway vital to the flow of oil in that part of the world. Trump has been saying that nothing less than “unconditional surrender” from Iran would be acceptable, but according to Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng, White House insiders are privately saying that the deal puts the Iranian regime at a major advantage and the United States at a major disadvantage.
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Suebsaeng, in a First Draft column for Zeteo (published by progressive ex-MS NOW host Mehdi Hasan), argues, “The U.S. government’s propaganda machine is kicking into overdrive to try to convince you that no, President Trump won it — very strongly, actually. But to disprove it, you don’t need to consult your own lying eyes, to ask Trump’s liberal critics, or even to ask neocons furious with the president for failing to fully deliver the mass murder of Iranians that he once promised. You can just ask members of Trump’s own administration, who broadly are not buying the a–– covering bulls––. That’s what I did.”
Many Never Trump conservatives, from MS NOW host Joe Scarborough to The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol to New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, are vehemently condemning Trump’s Iran deal — which they believe puts Iran in a stronger position than they were in before the war.
But privately, according to Suebsaeng, Trump insiders are highly critical as well — even though they are afraid to say so publicly.
A senior White House official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, believes that Iran is coming out of the Trump ceasefire deal at a major advantage.
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The official told Zeteo, “They’ve got him by the b––. We want out, and (the Iranians) know we don’t have all the cards.”
Vice President JD Vance, Suebsaeng notes, is publicly claiming that the U.S. is the one in the driver’s seat with the Iran ceasefire deal. But the Zeteo journalist stresses that no one in the White House he spoke to “believes the U.S. is negotiating from a position of strength, no matter how many times JD Vance says we are.”
“Trump lost this one, badly,” Suebsaeng warns. “He will soon have more time to focus on his administration’s true top priority: His war on the American people.”
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