U.S. President Donald Trump has been claiming that the war with Iran is winding down — only to threaten, CNN reported on Tuesday, that Iran will "pay the price" for taking "too long to negotiate a deal." Trump also said, on Fox News, that Americans may not have "the appetite for" an escalating U.S. military offensive against Iran, but CNN's Aaron Blake believes that it is Trump who "lacks the stomach" for the conflict."President Donald Trump is nothing if not studied at crafting elaborate alternate realities," Blake, a former Washington Post reporter, writes on CNN. "But for the last two and a half months or so, he conjured one that seemed primarily aimed at deceiving himself. He painted Iran as desperate to cut a deal, which always seemed to be right around the corner. And he repeatedly gave Tehran the benefit of the doubt, relaxed his own deadlines, walked back his threats and downplayed Iran's provocations and apparent ceasefire violations."Blake continues, "The problem with that approach was it made it pretty clear that Trump lacked the will to go back to war — that he preferred to just be done with it all, even as Iran played on his reluctance. And it increasingly appears as though Trump, hoping against hope, just delayed an inevitable return to the kind of hostilities that have resumed this week."The journalist points out that "even as hostilities" between the U.S. and Iran "intensified" after "Iran downing a U.S. Army Apache helicopter," Trump "has been almost begrudging about being dragged back in."Trump, Blake notes, is erratic with his Iran messaging, telling the Wall Street Journal that the attack "wasn't a big deal" but writing, on his Truth Social platform, that the U.S. must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”"Trump has also mixed in some very tough talk about how hard he would hit Iran — even saying on social media on Thursday that the US military would soon 'be taking Kharg Island,' an operation that would likely require ground troops and could risk significant casualties," Blake observes. "But just minutes later, there he was on Fox News downplaying that possibility by repeatedly citing Americans' lack of 'appetite' for such military action. 'I'm not sure the country has the appetite for it,' Trump said. 'I'm not sure the country has the appetite for it,' he soon repeated. 'And that's OK, I understand that."Blake stresses that Trump's "reluctance to go back to war hasn’t been subtle." "That doesn't mean Trump won't ultimately go big in restarting the war, as he's threatening to do now," Blake writes. "But it begs the question why the administration didn't respond more strongly, for instance, when it became clear Iran wasn’t satisfying Trump's demand that the ceasefire include reopening the Strait (of Hormuz)."
