By Asawin Suebsaeng|Zeteo
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
In early May, we here at ‘First Draft’ ran a story headlined: “Is Iran Trying to ‘Jimmy Carter’ Donald Trump?” The answer was: “Yeah, probably.” Nearly four months later, the answer is starting to look a lot like: “Yes, absolutely.”
It’s been half a year since the president launched his disastrous, woefully unpopular illegal war. There is no end in sight, American voters are beyond fed up with it and its rising gas prices, and the Trump-Vance administration is still flirting with global economic apocalypse simply because the ego-addled president can’t just admit he lost a battle that he laughably claims to have “won.”
In May, we reported that U.S. government officials had “privately discussed classified intelligence assessments suggesting that the government in Tehran isn’t close to breaking, even after… months of war and a sustained economic assault… Administration officials, citing U.S. intel, have also warned that senior Iranian officials are keenly aware that if the war drags on much longer, it could further damage Trump and the Republican Party’s chances at the polls in November. ‘They know they can Carter him,’ a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence and internal deliberations says, referring to how the Iranian hostage crisis helped tank Jimmy Carter’s presidency by the time of the 1980 U.S. election.”
At the time, much of this intel had been briefed to Trump.
Whether he wants to admit it or not, the Iranian government, in the words of one senior U.S. official I spoke to, had “got him by the balls.”
They added: “We want out, and [the Iranians] know we don’t have all the cards.”
Flash-forward to August, and it seems Trump – despite routinely and wildly swinging between his dual desires for supposed “peace” deals and threatening mass slaughter of the Iranian people – sporadically comprehends how re-escalating his war militarily could risk making him “Herbert Hoover,” bringing down his administration and dooming the world economy. Therefore, his administration officials – almost all of whom are itching to get out of an Iran quagmire ASAP, to give the Republican Party a fighting chance in the 2026 midterm elections – keep spinning to the media about how Trump is warming to a soft, kinder, less genocidal form of warfare, maybe.
“We are going to apply measures like have never been seen in the history of economic isolation on a country,” Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax this month, echoing what various senior officials have been trying to convince Trump to do for months: stop weighing your options for dramatically expanding the war, and resume “maximum pressure” on Iran’s economy to try to force nuclear and other concessions.
Trump and co are talking a big game on their new plan to “strangle” Iran’s economy, with the president declaring an “economic D-Day” on Wednesday… but it’s not like the White House hasn’t already been smashing the Wreck-Iran’s-Economy button constantly during their war. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence reports have repeatedly shown that the regime in Tehran isn’t breaking, in spite of Trump’s insistence that his war has “decimated” it, and that it can likely withstand a hellish amount of pressure in this regional conflict.
The American people have already demonstrated that they are most certainly not willing to put up with anything approaching that level of collective pain, not for a war few of us wanted in the first place – and there’s an election in November. And any attempt by Trump to conduct crushing economic warfare while easing up on the other warmongering, in hopes of salvaging his party’s chances in the midterms, is reportedly going to be met by Iran simply saying: No.
Per Reuters this week:
Iran will shift to a “fully offensive” military posture because efforts to negotiate a permanent end to the war with the U.S. have stalled, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, as Washington ruled out extending a temporary ceasefire agreement. Outward progress towards peace talks and a resumption of oil tanker traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt, threatening to extend the conflict… “Iranian entities must be prepared to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region, as Iran will be ready to make decisions and take action on difficult decisions,” the Iranian official said, adding that Tehran would conduct a “timely and precise” military attack to break the U.S. naval blockade if diplomacy failed.
The Americans’ newer plan, which Bessent and others prefer, only works if Iran keeps attacking U.S. assets and partners in the region and then Trump just keeps on… ignoring them? Iran has a say in all of this, and they know how easy it can be to pull Trump back into war. After all, he has pulled himself back into it on multiple occasions.
So, yes… it sure looks like the Iranians are “Cartering” Donald Trump right now. Maybe next time he shouldn’t start an illegal war of choice that was clearly destined for failure and heartbreak from the jump.
Perhaps there’s a grand lesson to be learned here. See you all in November.
