President Donald Trump took a page straight from the Iranian diplomatic playbook when he claimed the United States had nothing to do with Israel’s preemptive strike on Tehran and urged the country’s hardline leadership to sit back down at the bargaining table, according to Israeli journalist Amit Segal.
“When President Trump says, we had nothing to do with this operation, dear Iranians, and now we offer you to come back to the negotiating table, he uses the Iranian method, the proxy method, that said for years: ‘We have nothing to do with the Houthis, we have nothing to do with Hamas or Hezbollah, we just want to negotiate,'” Segal explained Monday on the Call Me Back podcast hosted by American author Dan Senor.
Now that Israel has attacked Iran, destroying large swaths of its nuclear program and military infrastructure, “President Trump says, ‘I had nothing to do with it, let’s negotiate,’” Segal said of the president’s strategy.
Iran immediately canceled a sixth round of nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration shortly after Israel launched its multi-pronged attack on Friday. By Monday—after Israel killed at least 20 senior Iranian military commanders and destroyed its operational headquarters—Tehran was reportedly begging to restart diplomacy.
Iran sent frantic diplomatic messages to both Washington, D.C., and Israel asking them to end the conflict and restart nuclear negotiations, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing European and Arab officials.
“Tehran has told Arab officials it would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the U.S. doesn’t join the attack,” the outlet reported.
Hellbound and Down 