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President Donald Trump has announced that an end to the U.S. war on Iran was around the corner more than three dozen times since he launched the unprovoked war at the end of February, a new analysis finds.
The analysis comes as the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran surpasses 100 days. The war has not been authorized by Congress, and is now more than 10 days beyond the limits meant to be followed by the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
CNN’s Aaron Blake, who conducted the analysis, wrote this week that, “Including the period before the ceasefire,” Trump has claimed that a deal was pending “at least 38 times.”
“That’s the number of times he’s said directly — in social media posts, public appearances and phone calls with the media — that a deal was nigh or claimed Iran was desperate to cut one,” Blake elaborated.
Trump first announced that a deal was pending on March 23, when he claimed that “major points of agreement” — indeed, “almost all points of agreement” — had been reached between all parties involved.
That assertion fell apart days later. Trump has been making similar claims of deals reached or nearly reached since that time, with each instance of him doing so ending with similar outcomes.
On Monday evening, after leaving the NBA Finals game in downtown Manhattan, Trump presented reporters with yet another claim that a deal between the U.S. and Iran could be signed soon.
“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” Trump said, adding that an agreement that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran’s nuclear program could be signed “in two to three days.”
That optimistic view of the negotiation process contradicts reports from Iran’s leaders. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, said on Monday that the U.S. is “neither seeking a ceasefire nor seeking dialogue” with Tehran.
Around the same hour that Trump was making claims to reporters about a purported deal on the way, news reports began to circulate about a U.S. Apache helicopter crashing near the Strait of Hormuz. A rescue mission later commenced to find two missing service members involved in that crash.
The mission was successful, with both individuals found safely. An investigation into how the helicopter crashed later revealed that Iran had shot it down, Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Americans are overwhelmingly skeptical of Trump’s ability to negotiate a deal with Iran to end the war. According to an Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday, only 32 percent of respondents view Trump as effective when it comes to negotiations, while 67 percent of Americans say he’s ineffective.
In that same poll, just 29 percent of respondents said they approve of how the president has handled the war overall, while 62 percent of Americans said they disapprove.
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