Bogsnorkler said:

talks in Islamabad failed, JD Vance was still signaling that negotiations could continue. Pakistani mediators were still working the phones, and U.S. officials were still discussing another round. Then Trump responded by announcing a blockade, an act of economic warfare with a maritime costume on. Trump’s knee-jerk blockade undercut whatever diplomatic credibility Vance had left. One lane said keep talking; the other lane said we are escalating right now. That is before we even get to the spectacle of Trump telling reporters the Iranians are supposedly begging for a deal while tankers test his blockade in broad daylight.

Jeffrey Sachs, never exactly a man who pads the corners, put it bluntly: “This no longer looks like rational statecraft.” It looks like the foreign policy of an individualized, chaotic presidency, one in which Trump seems to believe he can bluff, bomb, and bully his way to total capitulation, even as every contradiction in the war suggests the opposite. The result is delusion operationalized: a blockade after failed talks, a ceasefire no one can define, allies drifting away, rivals exploiting the vacuum, and the global economy paying

um

this is war

why would they play a predictable line and tell the enemies what their plan is