Iran Refuses Trump's Offer to Negotiate a Deal, Stating That They Will Only Negotiate If Israel Gives Up the War

They want a ceasefire as a condition for talking about a ceasefire. This is the same position that Hamas has taken.

It's the Muslim way of war.

I'm tired of it. I've been a bit sharp with people lately. I am just so sick of this endless cycle of Muslims murdering people in terrorist attacks and then crying to the press that they're the Real Victims Here when anyone fights back.

At some point, they have to be taught that if they want war, they're going to get war.

And not just a quickie bombing. A full, sustained campaign of bombing and assassinations.

They need to feel what it's like to be afraid.

They don't get enough of this. Their preferred method of "war" is to butcher and rape innocent civilians, then cry to the press that they're victims of "genocide." This gets all the European countries to condemn Israel, or the US, and then everyone stops making war back against the war-mongers, and the cycle continues.

Forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. And why should they stop? They get to murder and rape civilians and then cry "genocide" and hide behind the skirts of Mama Media and the feckless dying Europeans and pay no price.

Until this time.

This is an important moment. This is when Iran and its proxy terrorist armies of Hamas and Hezballah finally learn what terror feels like themselves.

And I don't want this to stop until all the terror masters are dead.

So, Iran says they won't negotiate.

I would love Trump to now announce, "The only reason the Ayatollah and his whole family of murderers is still alive is because I told Israel not to kill them, so that I have someone to negotiate with. But if the Ayatollah says he's not going to talk to me, then he has no use to me, and I'm telling Netanyahu to take him out."

At any rate, David Strom links the Washington Post.

As a precondition for negotiation, the Ayatollah wants Israel to surrender, despite Israel having all of the leverage.

Refused. GFY and die burning in a hole.

Trump offers to talk. Iran says "No."

If this were high-stakes poker, you would say that Iran is calling Trump's bluff, believing that he doesn't want to intervene in the war directly, and also believing that Israel is incapable of taking out Iran's key nuclear site buried deeply under a mountain. Khamenei is gambling that his regime can ride out the storm and rebuild its nuclear program once Israel stops the bombing.

Iran rejected calls from Western leaders to return to the negotiating table, asserting it would not continue nuclear talks while under attack by Israel.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that his country has discussed the possibility of reopening nuclear talks with Western leaders, but ultimately rejected offers due to ongoing Israeli attacks.

"The Americans have repeatedly sent messages calling seriously for negotiations," the minister said during televised remarks. "But we have made clear that as long as the aggression does not stop, there will be no place for diplomacy and dialogue."

According to reports, Mr. Araghchi and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff have spoken on the phone several times since the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran last Thursday. During those talks, Mr. Araghchi reportedly told Mr. Witkoff that Iran could be more flexible on the nuclear issue if the U.S. pressured Israel to end the war.

"More flexible," though, does not mean ceasing its enrichment program, at least if multiple reports are to be believed. It is talking about "limiting" enrichment, but has drawn the line--it will not dismantle its enrichment capacity.

Speaking of that: I don't think anyone needs this spelled out, but in case they do...

This is not like Iraq where we had bad intelligence that Iraq was developing nukes. We know for a fact Iran is developing nukes. They openly brag about their uranium enrichment.

Uranium has to be enriched up to a high fraction of highly-radioactive/unstable isotopes to be used in a bomb. Fuel for a simple reactor doesn't have to be highly enriched. If you're trying to create controlled reactions to safely produce heat (and thereby electricity), you don't want the entire pile of uranium all fissioning at once and blowing up your reactor.

But for a bomb, obviously you do want as many atoms as possible to all split within microseconds of each other, releasing huge amounts of energy in less than a second.

Iran openly brags that it's enriching uranium up to the nuclear-bomb standard. There are no reactors that require uranium enriched to weapons grade, and in fact I don't think you even could use uranium enriched to weapons grade in a reactor. I think it would almost immediately explode or go into an uncontrolled meltdown.

So there is no question that Iran is enriching uranium to produce an atomic weapon. They say they're enriching it to weapons-grade for "peaceful energy production purposes," and if you believe that, you're a chump and a half. They haven't disclosed any new nuclear reactor designs that can use weapons-grade uranium.

It's an obvious lie. They are producing weapons-grade uranium for the only use it is fit for, which is in a weapon.

People against taking any action against Iran keep trotting out a Parade of Horribles to justify the opposition. What if Trump suddenly goes crazy and sends 100,000 troops to fight on Iran's soil? What if Trump suddenly reverses the entire premise of his candidacies for president and decides to take in tens of thousands of Iranian refugees?

Those seem unlikely in the extreme to me.

And while talking about these very unlikely scenarios, the Paulites studiously avoid talking about the extremely likely scenario of an apocalyptic Muslim cult which has repeatedly threatened to destroy the Great Satan -- and has threatened to send assassins to kill Trump and his family and his former advisors, even before he was re-elected -- having a nuclear weapon.

And then another nuclear weapon. And then another and another and another and another, forever.

And bear in mind, Iran already has intermediate-range ballistic missiles and they're simultaneously developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Now why would they need to strike another continent if they would just be content to destroy Israel?

Iran has also refused to suspend its intercontinental ballistic missile program, too. I'm sure they have a Mostly Peaceful use for them.

The Iranian regime is on the precipice of being defanged and possibly defenestrated. I have no idea why people are so giddy about the prospect of saving this terrorist regime, which has attacked us repeatedly over the past 50 years of its bloody existence, just as it's on the brink of falling.

And if we do save the regime -- well, then we've decided we want the Ayatollah to have the bomb and also intercontinental ballistic missiles.

That is a major downside of the Paulite position, and it's such a huge downside those pushing the Paulite position simply refuse to talk about it. Or they blow it off claiming "Iran is not a direct, credible threat."

Well, they've actually been killing Americans and funding terrorists for 50 years but sure, no "direct, credible threat."

Not even when -- not if -- they have the atomic bomb and ICBMs to go with it.

The idea that Iran will just be peaceful if we leave them alone and stop picking on them -- the sort of Blame American First claptrap we've heard too much of from the left -- is simply false.

They wanted to kill Trump and his advisers before he was re-elected.

Politico, eight months ago:

U.S. officials are coming to a troubling realization about Iran's repeated threats to kill Donald Trump and some of his former top generals and national security strategists: Tehran isn't bluffing -- and it isn't giving up anytime soon.

Iran has been openly threatening Trump and those who oversaw his national security strategy since January 2020, when Trump ordered a drone strike killing Qassem Soleimani, then Iran's most powerful military general. Tehran has put out videos depicting the future deaths of Trump and others who helped orchestrate the Soleimani attack, pushed for their arrest and extradition and issued menacing statements promising revenge.

U.S. intelligence community officials briefed the Trump campaign last month about assassination threats against the former president from Iran, with the Trump campaign saying they were warned the threat has "heightened in the past few months." The briefing followed a pair of assassination efforts on Trump this summer. No evidence has been presented to link those to Tehran.

But Iran's efforts to kill Trump and former senior officials it has blamed for the Soleimani strike are even more extensive and aggressive than previously reported, according to a dozen officials familiar with the Iranian assassination threat.

"This is extraordinarily serious," said Matt Olsen, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for national security. "Iran has made it very clear that they are determined to seek retaliation against former officials in connection with the Soleimani strike."

No direct, credible threat, huh?

POLITICO spoke with 24 people with direct knowledge of the Soleimani strike or the ensuing assassination threat, including current and former U.S. lawmakers, Secret Service agents, congressional aides and senior U.S. officials. Some were granted anonymity due to ongoing threats against them or the sensitivity of their work.

They collectively painted a picture of a pervasive assassination threat that is much more concrete than the graphic videos, brash proclamations and menacing social media posts that have found their way into the public eye. They detailed hacking and digital surveillance efforts against the former officials and their family members, a drumbeat of personal FBI warnings about new threats from Iran, increasingly tense discussions about how to protect individuals amid ongoing plots, and efforts by suspected Iranian operatives to trail a U.S. official during a trip abroad.

Again, this is the liberal Biden-supporting Let Iran Have Nukes Politico talking, not some kind of pro-war MAGA blog.

For his part, Trump is taking Iran's threats to kill him and other American officials seriously. He announced that if Iran kills him, he has left his successor (JD Vance, unless they kill him as well) instructions to "obliterate" the regime.

I know that anyone taking the Paulite position kind of has to blabber a bunch of bullshit about Iran posing no "direct, credible threat," but for crying out loud, this is too fucking much already.

Can you even imagine a world in which terrorists are no longer being funded by millions and millions (maybe billions) of dollars from Iran? And being trained in how to build bombs and IEDs? And being trained in how to do paraglider commando raids into (checks notes) music festivals?

When you game out all of the unlikely downsides of supporting Israel's brilliant counter-attack on Iran, you also have to consider the potential upsides.

Iran has gone from launching hundreds of missiles per night to now only being able to launch single digits of missiles in a 24-hour period:

Israel was never in a position to take on Iran before. If they took on Iran, Iran would activate their terrorist armies of Hamas and Hezballah to attack Israel. And they would have their satrapy in Syrian launch missiles at them.

Thanks to Iran's and Hamas's terrible miscalculation in launching the 10/7 massacre -- don't forget, Iran trained Hamas for that attack, and Hamas practiced paragliding in Iran -- Hamas and Hezballah are all but destroyed. Iran's satrap king in Syria was deposed.

So now, Israel can attack Iran, and they're doing so brilliantly.

No one can save Iran now -- except for Tucker Carlson and the "right."

Why they would want to do that, I can only speculate.

I know many people here oppose any US involvement, even in a supporting role, but say they're not against Israel doing what it has to do.

Fine, but Tucker Carlson and certain MAGA grifters are in fact demanding that the US squash Israel's counter-attack on Iran by threatening to cut them off if they continue. You may not be trying to save the Ayatollah, but Tucker Carlson and the various grifters and opportunists who suddenly appear to make money whenever a political movement gets some heat are trying to save him.

posted by Ace at 01:12 PM

| Access Comments