From Newsgroup: rec.sport.tennis

President Donald Trump has long presented himself as a genius negotiator
who has mastered the rCLart of the deal.rCY But his latest comments about
what he hopes to achieve in talks with Iran show how the most basic
principles of deal-making elude him.

Fox News anchor Sean Hannity asked the president on Thursday about
whether the U.S. was considering the options of seizing IranrCOs estimated stockpile of 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which can be
enriched slightly further to make nuclear bombs, by force or whether the
U.S. would try to rCLentomb itrCY and make it impossible for Iran to access.

Trump first said that if the U.S. tried to seize the stockpile, it would
take rCLa week and a halfrCY to extract using a ground operation. That is likely an underestimate; nuclear experts say such an operation would
take weeks, and thatrCOs assuming it goes smoothly.

But what Trump said next was a surprise.

rCLI donrCOt think itrCOs necessary [to get the uranium], except from a public relations standpoint,rCY the president said. rCLI think itrCOs important for the fake news that we get it.rCY

He added, rCLIrCOm the one that said werCOre going to get it, and werCOre going
to get it. We have our eye on it.rCY

In just a handful of words rCo rCLI donrCOt think itrCOs necessaryrCY rCo Trump
appeared to abandon a position that has been central to his entire
premise for this disastrous war. And he instantly undermined his
insistence on it as a key term of a peace deal with Iran.

That insistence rCo that Iran cannot secure nuclear weapons rCo was the overarching rationale for his war of aggression. IranrCOs nearly 1,000
pound stockpile is enriched to 60% rCo just shy of the enrichment levels required to make nuclear weapons. Experts estimate that if Iran were to
try to use the stockpile to make weapons, it could create some 10 to 12 nuclear bombs. (And Iran has a lot more uranium enriched at lower levels
that could also potentially be used to make a weapon in the future.)

Notably, U.S. intelligence assessments have estimated that the joint U.S.-Israeli bombardment campaign has failed to set back IranrCOs nuclear capabilities. After Iran took control of the Strait of Hormuz and caused
a global oil shock, Trump was forced to try to dismantle IranrCOs nuclear capabilities at the negotiating table instead. In his negotiations and
in conversations with the press about the negotiations, Trump has
consistently identified the handover of IranrCOs uranium stockpile as a
core demand for a resolution to the war.

But now it appears that isnrCOt a prerequisite to end the war. When Trump
told Hannity that rCLI donrCOt think itrCOs necessaryrCY to get the enriched uranium, he suggested he has a soft commitment to it. And then,
bafflingly, he attempted to pass it off as a rCLpublic relationsrCY maneuver to satisfy the media. The takeaway is that Trump appears to be
repackaging a key plank of his negotiation position as window dressing.

TrumprCOs surprise admission is exactly the kind of statement that Iranian negotiators will take note of.

Of course Trump would never be in this mess if he had never torn up
former President Barack ObamarCOs 2015 nuclear deal in the first place. As
The New York Times noted, when Iran was cooperating with the uranium restrictions in the 2015 deal, rCLIranrCOs weapon designers were left with
too little nuclear fuel to build a single bomb.rCY Only after Trump pulled
out of the deal in 2018 did Iran embark rCLon an enrichment spreerCY that moved them far closer to a bomb than before.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-iran-uranium-necessary-public-relations

If true, this is too mind boggling. Poor Pelle.
--
"And off they went, from here to there,
The bear, the bear, and the maiden fair"
-- Traditional

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