Iran Won the Brinkmanship Battle

The open-ended extension of the truce by Trump clearly indicates that America, despite all of Trump's "bluster" about destroying everything in Iran, from bridges and power stations to electricity and infrastructure, did not make the Iranian leadership tremble, rush, or respond to Trump's threats to go to negotiations with his administration in Islamabad on his terms, i.e., accepting negotiations under threat and the blockade of its ports. This slap that Trump received, with Iran's refusal to negotiate on American terms, put him in a great predicament, as he is not accustomed to any country in the world not responding to his threats and rejecting his terms and demands. However, the militarily, politically, and socially cohesive Iranian leadership rejected his terms and dictates, and insisted on its own terms for negotiation. This Iranian rejection put Trump in a great predicament and major challenges as well. This administration, which Netanyahu entangled in a long war of attrition, convinced him and the White House hawks that it would be a quick and swift war, and that by assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Iranian state would collapse from within, the military and security command, control, and communication system would collapse, and the Iranian masses would take to the streets to welcome the "liberator" of the Iranian people. When the homeland was targeted and is being targeted, the Iranian people, with all their components, came out to public squares to rally around the regime and defend the homeland, not to betray it and rejoice in its occupation and regime change. Consequently, Iran did not only fortify itself militarily, but also socially. The best evidence of this is that when the "blusterer" Trump threatened to return Iran to the Stone Age and destroy a five-thousand-year-old civilization, the Iranian masses came out, with their human chains, to protect bridges, railway stations, power plants, and water desalination plants with their bodies, in a move that carried messages to Trump and all advocates of arrogance and aggression, that the people of Iran will not defend their homeland and the legitimacy of their rights only with their military might, but with the bodies and flesh of their children, and will make Iran a graveyard for invaders in a long war of attrition, the results and repercussions of which America will not be able to bear, not only militarily, but also the major repercussions on energy markets, oil and gas prices, supply chains, global energy markets, and stock markets, and the major repercussions on the entire global economy. Neither the Iranian people nor the countries of the world now believe Trump's "bluster," nor do they take his frequent and contradictory tweets on his "Truth Social" channel seriously. Therefore, Iran, armed with a strong and cohesive will and leadership, and backed by military capabilities and options, is capable of inflicting heavy losses on American forces, as well as on the non-removable American base, "Israel." It refused to go to negotiations with America under threat and blockade, and without abandoning its ten conditions that the American administration accepted as a basis for negotiation, believing that its president's new threats, and pushing things towards a brinkmanship policy, would force Iran to back down, and would not risk going to war, and would accept the American conditions and dictates, which they failed to achieve during a war that lasted forty days and in which they used their maximum military and armament capabilities, and the latest technologies of their air and missile weapons and what American technology produced, which they used not only in carrying out a series of assassinations that affected dozens of Iranian military and security leaders, and even political leaders, and destroyed much of the infrastructure and civilian facilities in Iran, in great pressure on the social and popular base, to push it to rebel against the Iranian leadership, but the results were the opposite. The more their destructive military pressure increased, the more the Iranian masses rallied around their leadership and adhered to it, turning this war into a long war of attrition that America cannot bear its results, neither humanly, militarily, economically, politically, nor on the American domestic level. After forty days, America was forced to accept a halt to this crazy war, and to go to the option of negotiation again in continuous extensions of the ceasefire, two days, then five days, and then ten days, and so on, in order to exert maximum pressure on Iran to respond to its conditions and dictates to stop the war, and thus give Trump and Netanyahu a picture of victory that they had been searching for throughout the forty days. But the reality and the field did not match either Trump's and Netanyahu's statements or propaganda about achieving victory over Iran and achieving the goals of the war. It appeared that there was a large gap between Trump's and Netanyahu's statements and talk about their victories, and what the field said. This field said that their ability to achieve the major goals of the war was not achieved, neither in Iran nor in Lebanon, Lebanon where Hezbollah's impressive military performance overturned all balances and expectations, and changed the equations. In a way that surprised the world, Iran made lifting the blockade a condition for joining the Islamabad negotiations, and the American response came by canceling Vice President JD Vance's trip to Islamabad, which suggested accepting the challenge and raising its level to the point of threatening to return to war as the ceasefire deadline approached in a few hours. Iran maintained its composure and did not back down despite the pressure, contacts, advice, and warnings of the danger that awaited it, but it chose to stand firm. Three hours before the deadline, the American president backed down from his announcement of refusing to extend the ceasefire for five days according to the Pakistani proposal, and announced an indefinite ceasefire extension pending an Iranian proposal for negotiation, claiming that the division among Iranians prevents a unified proposal, but everyone already knew that Iran had won the round, and that Trump had felt the financial markets' reaction to the impasse and the risk of renewed war, as the price of a barrel of oil increased by five dollars within an hour, rising from $95 to $100, with expectations that markets would open today at $120 per barrel and the beginning of catastrophic repercussions on stock markets. While some close to Trump spoke of the hypothesis of a prolonged American coexistence with the ceasefire and the continued blockade of Iranian ports, energy market experts said that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas exports does not allow the fragile truce to hold with the beginning of market disturbances, and puts things between the options of returning to negotiation or going to war, especially with Iranian warnings of imposing a forceful lifting of the blockade, which means threatening a war of attrition against American forces, putting President Trump between the options of war and negotiation in search of a settlement, but the most important thing is that what happened, in the opinion of many observers, said that America is not ready for war, otherwise it would have acted in this suffocating moment instead of giving the impression of helplessness and retreat. In Tehran, some are preparing for an American surprise with war and are preparing for all possibilities, according to Iranian sources following the negotiation scene and the American crowds, who say that they did not come only to pressure but are part of a war plan that Trump wants to fight amid reassuring talk to surprise Iran with war.