The Daily Populous Friday April 17th, 2026 night edition
Authored by inews.co.uk and submitted by theipaper

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NEW YORK – One week into the ceasefire between the US and Iran and Donald Trump has again declared the conflict “close to over”, even though talks between Vice President JD Vance and Iran in Pakistan ended without agreement.

Senior Iranian officials say the countries have continued to exchange messages through Pakistan, and Trump has said a second round of talks could happen in the coming days.

But what kind of deal does Trump need to show the American people that the war he launched was worth the estimated cost of $1bn per day?

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With gas prices elevated, inflation rising, and his base fracturing over a foreign entanglement of the kind he swore he would never launch, Trump is under pressure to deliver before Republicans face voters in November’s crucial midterm elections.

It’s only 28 weeks until polling day – not a lot of time for the man who campaigned on bringing down prices to calm the energy markets.

Crucially, Trump must be able to tell the US that whatever deal he’s agreed is far superior to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under President Barack Obama. Otherwise, what was the point of pulling out of the deal in 2018 and then launching an expensive war against Iran in 2026?

Among the tangled issues US negotiators must resolve is how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Robert Malley, President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Iran, told me: “One of the inadvertent lessons of the war is that Iran has discovered that it has this power over the Strait of Hormuz that may be even greater than it suspected before the war started.”

Another issue is curbing Iran’s support for proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. But the core dispute remains over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the US fears will lead to the Iranian regime developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has implausibly insisted it only wants nuclear fuel so it can generate electricity.

“They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump declared again on Tuesday.

Iran has been badly damaged by US and Israeli air strikes since 28 February 2026 (Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty)

In his first term, Trump described the Obama nuclear deal, in which Iran received sanctions relief in return for capping its uranium enrichment, as “one of the worst deals in history”.

Now, Trump must emerge with something demonstrably more muscular, especially after months of insisting that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been completely obliterated by last summer’s US-Israeli bombing campaign.

Malley, a lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, told me that when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were negotiating with the Iranians in February, before the current conflict began: “Iran was open to the notion of a three, four, five-year suspension, freeze of uranium enrichment.” He said this was not something the earlier agreement achieved.

“If those negotiations had continued, it’s at least conceivable that President Trump could have achieved a deal that was stronger on the nuclear file,” he said.

In return, Malley believes Trump might have had to give the Iranians relief from sanctions, but the outcome in terms of nuclear activity could have been stronger “than what President Obama achieved and what President Biden could have achieved”.

The latest war has thrown those calculations out of the window and Trump seems to be after a much longer timeframe.

During the recent negotiations in Pakistan, it seems the US proposed a 20-year “suspension” of all Iran’s nuclear activity. The Iranians, in response, renewed their proposal of suspending nuclear activity for up to five years.

The fact that the two sides are haggling over time suggests an agreement is possible. Trump could then claim Iran has fully suspended its nuclear activity, which it never did under the Obama deal, justifying his unpopular and expensive war in the name of national security.

Trump needs to be able to claim Iran won’t build a nuclear bomb on his watch. But as Robert Malley says: “The Iranian regime has a level of mistrust of the US, which was always high, and now it’s stratospheric.”

He added: “Twice before they negotiated with the US under President Trump and during those negotiations, they were the victims of a military strike.”

Neither the US nor Iran want to see a resumption of out-and-out war. The White House says reports that Trump plans to extend the truce beyond 22 April, when the two-week ceasefire is due to end, are “not true at this moment”, which doesn’t rule out an extension.

The impact of Trump’s war of choice has spread far, but the President is more focused on US public opinion. If he can credibly claim to have vanquished the Iranian nuclear threat, he could help Republicans in November’s elections, where control of Congress is at stake.

However, trust between Iran and the US is in short supply, and the clock is ticking.

di11deux on April 16th, 2026 at 13:56 UTC »

One of the byproducts of this anti-woke crusade run domestically in the US is the purging of "traditional wisdom", particularly within the State Department. It's a commonly held belief within MAGA that the Georgetown/GW talent pipeline into State is weak and gay, and that an overtly masculine (as defined by MAGA) display of hard power will remind the powers of the world who the boss is.

In practice, this means you have an enormous gulf between the tactical capabilities of the US Military, which have proven to be capable beyond what any other military can demonstrate, and the strategic wisdom of the political leadership, which can generously be described as aimless and myopic.

There's a significant skill gap between the Iranian negotiators and the team the US is putting forward. For Iran, understanding American policy is a matter of life and death. For the Trump Administration, the Iranians are seen as a simple people no different from a mob, and the talent America brings to the negotiating table can be best described as hobbyists.

And so Trump will not get a favorable deal because the individuals he's deputized to represent the United States lack a fundamental understanding of Iran's position. And that won't change, because none of the people in the Trump Administration have the intellectual curiosity or the humility necessary to understand their adversary's position. The dynamic feels more akin to an adult arguing with a teenager, except the teenager has a gun.

Scarlet_Bard on April 16th, 2026 at 13:50 UTC »

A silver lining of all this could be that the Trump mystique is gone. Any sense that he’s too strong to confront has vanished as foreign leaders are clearly benefiting politically by standing up to him, and as MAGA influencers in America turn on him.

The downside for America and her allies is that it’s highly likely that the USA will never recover from the wholesale destruction Trump is inflicting on the country.

theipaper on April 16th, 2026 at 12:25 UTC »

One week into the ceasefire between the US and Iran and Donald Trump has again declared the conflict “close to over”, even though talks between Vice-president JD Vance and Iran in Pakistan ended without agreement.

Senior Iranian officials say the countries have continued to exchange messages through Pakistan, and Trump has said a second round of talks could happen in the coming days.

But what kind of deal does Trump need to show the American people that the war he launched was worth the estimated cost of $1bn per day?

With gas prices elevated, inflation rising, base fracturing over a foreign entanglement of the kind he swore he would never launch, Trump is under pressure to deliver before Republicans face voters in November’s crucial midterm elections.

It’s only 28 weeks until polling day – not a lot of time for the man who campaigned on bringing down prices to calm the energy markets.

Crucially, Trump must be able to tell the US that whatever deal he’s agreed is far superior to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under President Barack Obama. Otherwise, what was the point of pulling out of the deal in 2018 and then launching an expensive war against Iran in 2026?

Among the tangled issues US negotiators must resolve is how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Robert Malley, President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Iran, told me: “One of the inadvertent lessons of the war is that Iran has discovered that it has this power over the Strait of Hormuz that may be even greater than it suspected before the war started.”

Another issue is curbing Iran’s support for proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. But the core dispute remains over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the US fears will lead to the Iranian regime developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has implausibly insisted it only wants nuclear fuel so it can generate electricity.

“They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump declared again on Tuesday.

In his first term, Trump described the Obama nuclear deal, in which Iran received sanctions relief in return for capping its uranium enrichment, as “one of the worst deals in history”.

Now, Trump must emerge with something demonstrably more muscular, especially after months of insisting that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been completely obliterated by last summer’s US-Israeli bombing campaign.

Malley, a lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, told me that when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were negotiating with the Iranians in February, before the current conflict began: “Iran was open to the notion of a three, four, five-year suspension, freeze of uranium enrichment.” He said this was not something the earlier agreement achieved.

“If those negotiations had continued, it’s at least conceivable that President Trump could have achieved a deal that was stronger on the nuclear file,” he said.

In return, Malley believes Trump might have had to give the Iranians relief from sanctions, but the outcome in terms of nuclear activity could have been stronger “than what President Obama achieved and what President Biden could have achieved”.

The latest war has thrown those calculations out of the window and Trump seems to be after a much longer timeframe.

During the recent negotiations in Pakistan, it seems the US proposed a 20-year “suspension” of all Iran’s nuclear activity. The Iranians, in response, renewed their proposal of suspending nuclear activity for up to five years.

The fact that the two sides are haggling over time suggests an agreement is possible. Trump could then claim Iran has fully suspended its nuclear activity, which it never did under the Obama deal, justifying his unpopular and expensive war in the name of national security.

Trump needs to be able to claim Iran won’t build a nuclear bomb on his watch. But as Robert Malley says: “The Iranian regime has a level of mistrust of the US, which was always high, and now it’s stratospheric.”

He added: “Twice before they negotiated with the US under President Trump and during those negotiations, they were the victims of a military strike.”

Neither the US nor Iran want to see a resumption of out-and-out war. The White House says reports that Trump plans to extend the truce beyond 22 April, when the two-week ceasefire is due to end, are “not true at this moment”, which doesn’t rule out an extension.

The impact of Trump’s war of choice has spread far, but the President is more focused on US public opinion. If he can credibly claim to have vanquished the Iranian nuclear threat, he could help Republicans in November’s elections, where control of Congress is at stake.

However, trust between Iran and the US is in short supply, and the clock is ticking.