Sy Hersh said Thursday that he heard speculation Trump would pay $25 billion to reopen Hormuz.
Tosh on that actually happening, IF the speculation is true. I saw it May 1 — May Day, or Mayday? — and nothing had happened. That's a lifetime for weathervane Trump. Second, without actual concessions, Trump can't bribe Iran like that.
Weirder yet? The info is from Tel Aviv, not DC:
“He wants out,” the Israeli insider told me, and the Israeli leadership “is very upset because Trump”—in his fear of the political cost to him of a continuing blockade of the strait “has shown a willingness to ignore Israeli interests and desires.” People in the Israeli leadership “say he’s lost it. He doesn’t think of the consequences. You cannot do negotiations with Iran because every step we make he immediately broadcasts it on his social media posts. He is so obtuse.”
Sure. Sure, Sy.
There's then this:
The president is said not to share Israel’s existential concern about the need to destroy or neutralize the large depot of partially enriched uranium that is allegedly stored in at least three deep tunnels in Iran. Iran as a member of the world’s nuclear club may be an existential threat for the Israeli leadership, but not for the president of the United States.
Trump, weathervane and all, would never, ever confess to that, IMO, not even in private if he thought it would be leaked. Plus, already in his first term, he derided Obama's deal and killed it.
Is Sy being played? We know that's happened before.
Is someone in Tel Aviv floating a trial balloon? If so, there's people there stupider than I would have thought.
Maybe Sy discussed that further below his paywall. That's harder to tell in opinion, let alone speculation pieces than it is in straight news.
It also doesn't accord with what we know of Trump's psychology, in my opinion. And, on his psychology, two things from childhood are key, as I said on Mearsheimer's site.
One is his desire to impress his dad with how much tougher he was than his siblings.
The other is their attending Norman Vincent Peale's church and drinking deeply from the proto-New Agey "The Power of Positive Thinking." Trump to this day believes that if he believes something hard enough, it is or will be true. Period. It's also, if you will, an updated version of Schopenhauer and his "The World as Will and Idea." (I still like the old version of the title in English.) This goes back to WWII, where Hitler thought Stalin had reversed the tide of Barbarossa at Moscow, then, unevenly at first, rolled it back — he had a stronger belief, and passed this on to his generals, than German generals did. (Hitler never examined what this said, in his system, about the power of HIS belief!) That said, Stalin engaged in this too, in the late spring of 1941, thinking that if he believed hard enough, Hitler wouldn't invade.
Anyway, because Sy is a raconteur, I doubt he actually delved deeply into analyzing the story he was told and why he was told it.
My guess? Someone at least halfway close to Bibi feared Trump might actually be thinking along these lines and wanted to cut it off at the pass.
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Related? Having been rebuffed once, he's again begging for "allied" help to clear the strait.
Second? He needs billions to repair the damage Iran has done to US military bases in the Middle East. NBC reports that's the estimated cost. CNN concurs, saying Iran has damaged 16 US sites — a majority.
Meanwhile, NBC reports — per Jeff St. Clair, breaking news that CBS used to break, pre-Bari Weiss — Iran is digging out old weapons.
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