During my most recent appearance on Judge Napolitano's Judging Freedom on Wednesday I expressed the view that the ongoing ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was a scam designed to support Israeli interests in the region and to give both Tel Aviv and the White House breathing room to prepare for the next major assault on Iran. I based my judgment on several aspects of the story being circulated by the White House and the tame media. First of all, it is being suggested that the US acceptance of the proposal for a ceasefire put forward by Iran through mediators in Pakistan was arrived at without discussions with Israel. In other words, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no preview of it nor hand in it.

This defies all the history of the relationship between the US and Jewish state preceding the agreement, if that is truly what it was. Up until now, Donald Trump, like his predecessor Joe Biden, has been the "most loyal accomplice" of Israel up to and including that country's war crimes, never using the considerable leverage the US has to ever contest or block anything Israel does no matter even if it is doing serious collateral damage to the United States or US interests. In that context, one might cite how there have been ceasefires in Lebanon, Syria and with Gaza, all of which had the US as an implementer or guarantor, which Israel immediately violated, just as it is doing right now in all those locations as well as with Iran. When Israel defies what has been agreed upon, Trump says nothing, which suggests that this latest ceasefire was all a clever contrivance by Israel and the US behind the scenes to create a pause in a war that is going badly to permit renewal of fighting possibly as soon as the "two weeks" term of the ceasefire expires without anything more substantive to replace it. To my surprise the agreement did not last even twenty-four hours before Israel chose to stage a devastating attack on Lebanon which killed as many as three hundred civilians and destroyed residential neighborhoods. There should be no doubt but that the Israelis staged the attack to disrupt any movement towards a cease fire or peace arrangement with the Persians.

If anything were needed to confirm that the ceasefire is a fraud beyond that sad story of Israel's immediate resumption of its bombing of civilians in Lebanon it would come with Thursday's revelation that Trump was sending Vice President JD Vance as his head negotiator to Pakistan to continue what is being touted as part of the process for ending the war. Vance, who reportedly opposed the war in the first place, could prove to be a good choice but the consensus thinking is that he will do only what Trump wants and no more than that. Vance is joined by Donald Trump's two personal negotiators Mike Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom were spectacularly unsuccessful at negotiations both regarding Russia/Ukraine and most particularly with Iran, where they served as distractions to lull the Iranians into complacency while Trump and Netanyahu were preparing their surprise attacks. Both Witkoff and Kushner are ardent Zionists who are closely tied to Israel, and best known as real estate developers. Kushner is likely most interested in developing a resort named after Trump on the Mediterranean Gaza coast along the lines of the French Riviera which he will personally greatly profit from. That it would be built on the rubble covering tens of thousands of dead Gazans does not seem to faze him in the least. Trump's handing the two men this assignment in spite of their demonstrated incompetence is an indication that the new negotiation is intended to fail.

Even if Donald Trump is sincere in his peacemaking, which I doubt, and willing to hold Netanyahu at arm's length to avoid queering the pitch, it is hard to believe that the US president will persevere if he finds himself between a rock and a hard place given his widely observed short memory span and inability to reconcile opposing points of view effectively. He has become so desperate in defending the indefensible, meaning himself, the Israel Lobby and his presidency, that he is now lashing out at the very people who might have been able to make an honest case for his unfortunately misguided war against Iran.

On his Thursday Truth Social Trump ranted how he understood what was creating resistance to his Iran policy. He wrote "I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon. Because they have one thing in common, Low IQs. They're stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too! Look at their past, look at their record. They don't have what it takes, and they never did!" He described how Carlson and Kelly, two former Fox News hosts, have "all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren't even invited on TV because nobody cares about them." They are "NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS," who "will say anything necessary" for some "free" and cheap publicity."