Bowen: For all his bluster, Trump has no better option than talks with Iran

Donald Trump’s latest pronouncements on Iran and the chances of a negotiated agreement have to be taken seriously, as he is after all the president of the United States.

This is what he said at the Nato summit in Turkey.

“I don’t want to deal with them anymore, they’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people. And they’re vicious, violent people.

“And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

But are they his last words on the subject? Certainly not. He has kept up a running commentary on the war and the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that is being negotiated. His words have swerved through claims of victory to threats of annihilating Iranian civilisation to support for negotiations.

Later he doubled down on his latest threats, saying the US “will probably hit them harder again tonight”, adding “I gave them a little warning. We’re going to hit them hard again tonight”.

America’s capacity to hit Iran, doing great damage, is not in doubt. But what it has not been able to do is to break the will of the regime to drop any of its fundamental demands, starting with control of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

Buried in his latest verbal onslaught was an acceptance that the talks will continue. They have been on hold while Iran goes through days of funeral obsequies for its former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by Israel and the US on the first day of the war on 28 February.

Trump was asked if the exchange of strikes between the US and Iran – and by extension some of America’s Arab allies in the Gulf – meant the talks between them were over.

Referring to his chief negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, he said “I don’t care, they can talk. But I think they’re wasting their time.”

Then, on the Iranian regime: “They’re a bunch of lying guys.”

That can be read as another admission that the president of the US, for all his bluster, does not have a better option than negotiations. With Israel, the US tried and failed to destroy the Iranian regime.

But the negotiating process is fragile. A source among the mediators trying to make them work described what has happened as “a setback for sure”. The atmosphere is said to be “very tense”.

That is a diplomatic way of saying that events of the last few days are a terrible backdrop for talks between two powers that have zero trust that the other will keep its word if a deal is made.