President Trump made a striking admission on Tuesday: the United States is running out of Iranians to negotiate with. "Most of the people we had in mind are dead," Trump told reporters. "Pretty soon we are not going to know anybody."
The remark underscores a deepening problem for Washington, "Hvylya" notes, citing the New York Times. As the U.S.-Israeli assault continues and Israeli strikes methodically eliminate Iran's leadership, the pool of potential interlocutors is shrinking fast.
Trump has made several contradictory statements about his war aims. He initially promoted a scenario of popular uprising, then shifted toward hoping for pragmatic figures to emerge atop the existing political structure. On Tuesday, he said he was looking for a "more moderate" interlocutor - someone senior enough to command authority but not too invested in the regime's revolutionary ideology.
The search for such a figure has a long and frustrating history. "I have been involved in the search for the elusive Iranian moderate for 30 years," former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates joked back in 2008. Critics, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have long argued that the idea of a moderate within Iran's cleric-controlled political system is an illusion.
Many analysts warn that as the government weakens, it could become even harder to find a person with enough influence to compel the country to abide by a deal with the United States. The worst-case scenario, Trump acknowledged, is clear: "We do this, and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person." He added: "We'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people."
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