“No deal is better than a bad deal,” Donald Trump said in the summer of 2015.
There are multiple, conflicting reports about a possibly imminent “deal” the Trump administration may ink with Iran’s regime. If true — more on that to come — some of the reported details are baffling and alarming.
The US said it launched new strikes on southern Iran on Monday, targeting Iranian missile sites and boats attempting to place mines.
The strikes were in “self-defence” and designed “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces”, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Tuesday it had downed a US drone and fired at a fighter jet and another drone that entered Iranian airspace, state media reported. It did not specify when this happened.
A day after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike, Binyamin Netanyahu stood before a camera against the backdrop of Tel Aviv’s skyline. Israelis had died in Iranian missile strikes and he grieved them, the prime minister said.
With the help of his friend President Trump, he could finally do what he had “yearned for 40 years” to do: to “smite the terror regime” in Iran, he said.
Iran says some progress has been reached in talks with the US, but a deal “is not imminent”.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai’s remarks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an agreement could possibly be reached on Monday.
“It is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion,” Baqai said in Tehran on Monday. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent – no-one can make such a claim.”
WASHINGTON — American negotiators believe that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has signed off on the “broad template” of a peace plan in which his nation would agree “in principle” to dispose of its highly enriched uranium.
The deal, which would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to free passage of ships after three months of war, could still take days for final ratification by Iranian negotiators as both sides wrangle over its wording.
US President Donald Trump says an agreement with Iran has been “largely negotiated” and details will be announced soon.
The deal would include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, he said on Saturday, without giving further details.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei earlier told state television that US and Iranian positions had been converging in the last week, but warned that did not mean agreements would be reached on key issues and accused the Americans of “contradictory statements”.
And shots were fired near the White House … but the situation is said to be under control
BREAKING: About 30 shots fired outside the White House.
Secret Service reportedly rushed the press who were on the north lawn into the press briefing room.
ABC reporter Selina Wang was in the middle of filming when the shots rang out.pic.twitter.com/KvRZgbuXlm
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 23, 2026
The Iranian regime is playing its game again: drag everything out to stay in power until the American public grows tired of high gasoline prices; or until the November midterm elections, when the Democrats might win; or until 2029 when President Donald J. Trump’s term finally ends and he is replaced, with luck, by an invertebrate.
Iran’s regime has been using two tactics. It says: “We need time. We are, because of the strikes, fractured and our leadership divided.” Or, as Vice President J.D. Vance naively noted on its behalf: it says it does not know what it wants. “The Iranians aren’t themselves quite clear in what direction they want to go,” Vance, with a straight face, told reporters at the White House; “they are also just a fractured country.”
As the American public waits for President Donald Trump to decide whether to attack the Iranian regime again or not, the Iranian regime has made its warlike intentions clear.
Trump seemed to be more in favor of striking Iran again as of Saturday morning, since he had canceled all his weekend plans and posted a map showing an American flag over Iran with the comment, “United States of the Middle East?”
After killing Iran’s supreme leader in the opening salvo of the war, the US and Israel sought to fill the power vacuum with an unlikely candidate, according to a report.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hardline anti-Israel and anti-American former president, was the surprising choice to take power in Tehran, anonymous US officials told The New York Times.
President Trump stated publicly at the time that it would be best if “someone from within” the country were to take over.
WTF?
THE Iranian regime is reframing its ‘tolls’ on traffic in the Strait of Hormuz as a ‘maritime insurance policy’.
On Saturday, Fars – a media outlet associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – reported that it has seen a plan by Iran’s Ministry of Economics to force shipping companies to pay ‘verifiable insurance policies’.
Ebrahim Azizi, the chairman of the National Security Committee to Iran’s Parliament, also said that Iran has prepared a ‘professional mechanism’ to permit ‘only commercial vessels and parties co-operating with Iran’.
President Donald Trump said that Iran “better get moving” or else “there won’t be anything left of them.”
Trump posted to Truth Social on Sunday as the U.S. and Iran try to negotiate to end the conflict that started on Feb. 28.
Hmmmm …
Cuba Acquires Over 300 Attack Drones As Tensions With US Rise
A new report indicates that the Caribbean state of Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones after tensions between the country and the United States have continued to escalate over past months, according to Axios.
President Donald Trump revealed on Friday that a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s nuclear program would be sufficient for him on that portion of a possible agreement to end the war.
The president’s acknowledgement on Air Force One following his trip to China appears to suggest a shift in his thinking, given he has repeatedly said they must agree to completely and permanently dismantle its nuclear program.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is probably still alive and hiding in a bunker, Binyamin Netanyahu has said amid speculation over the new Iranian supreme leader’s health.
“I think he is alive. What his condition is, it’s hard to say, you know? He’s holed up in some bunker or in some secret place,” the Israeli prime minister told 60 Minutes. He added, however: “I don’t think he has the same authority that his father [had].”
Donald Trump is expected to confront Xi Jinping about selling weapons to Iran when the pair meet for a pivotal summit in Beijing this week.
The US president will raise the ongoing war with the Chinese president, including Tehran’s attempts to rearm using Chinese hardware once a deal to end the war has been reached.
According to US intelligence, Beijing has considered shipping air defence systems to Iran via other countries to mask its involvement, something Mr Trump has threatened to punish with 50 per cent tariffs.
No matter how hard the Iranians try to pretend they have the upper hand in negotiations to end hostilities with the US, the inescapable reality is that the ayatollahs desperately need to seal a deal – and quickly – if the Islamic Republic is to stand any chance of surviving the conflict.
While Iranian negotiators are doing their level best to string out negotiations with the Trump administration in the hope of securing a better deal, their efforts are nothing more than an attempt to conceal the regime’s catastrophic weakness.
