Trump recently floated the idea of paying Iran to come back into compliance with the Obama-era nuclear peace deal that he unilaterally withdrew from, but Iran's supreme leader has seemingly ruled that out.
We have no way of knowing if Iranian officials were even considering the proposal, but if they were considering it they likely stopped the moment the Trump regime blamed Iran for an attack on Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery.
Iran's supreme leader says they will "never" talk to American officials.
Trump said on Monday that it looked like Iran was behind the strike at the heart of the Saudi oil industry, which cut 5% of global production, but stressed he did not want to go to war. Iran denied it was to blame.
“Iranian officials, at any level, will never talk to American officials ... this is part of their policy to put pressure on Iran,” Iranian state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying.
He said talks could only take place if the United States returned to a nuclear accord between Iran and the West that Trump abandoned last year.
There does appear to be a trend line along which Iran is blamed for virtually everything that goes wrong in the Middle East including recent attacks on oil tankers and Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery. And you know what? Maybe they did have some small hand in those attacks even if they didn't carry them out directly. Maybe they supplied those who did. I don't know.
I don't know where all of this is leading, but Trump is definitely not the person who's going to lead us out of it.
Trump spoke to reporters yesterday evening and implied that we may attack Saudi Arabia's regional rival for them if they pay us like mercenaries.
Asked by @jonkarl if he thinks Saudis are responsible for defending themselves, Pres. Trump says, "The Saudis are going to have a lot of involvement in this if we decide to do something...and that includes payment and they understand that fully." https://t.co/AlSnPeupqh pic.twitter.com/EwM1Dv5MRl
— ABC News (@ABC) September 16, 2019
When Trump claimed that his former national security adviser John Bolton was 'holding him back,' I think this what he meant. It's not that Trump is a dove who was egged on by his bloodthirsty adviser; it's that Trump's most imbecilic and treacherous ideas were suppressed.
Bolton was an organized warmonger while Trump is a flailing one.