Reprinted from John’s Substack:
On 3 May 2026, I was on “Switzerland” with host Tom Switzer and Trita Parsi. Just before we did the podcast, President Trump put out a Truth Social post in which he said that starting the morning of 4 May, the US would begin to help neutral ships stranded in the Persian Gulf exit through the Strait of Hormuz. And if Iran interfered with those efforts, the US would deal with Tehran forcefully. Trita, Tom and I tried to make sense of this vague strategy, which came out of nowhere and does not seem workable. Surely, the Iranians will not like it! We also talked at some length about whether Iran is likely to cave into the enormous punishment the US is inflicting on it. Both Trita and I said no.
