What does this mean? Perhaps Donald Trump's latest statement is meant to paraphrase a line from the most worthwhile Star Wars film: You have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.
Sometime in the next few hours, talks will begin in Islamabad between the US and Iran in an attempt to end the war. Trump agreed to a two-week cease-fire that stopped a massive American attack on energy and transportation infrastructure in exchange for a full re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iranian missile and drone attacks. Not only has Iran not delivered on those points, but its negotiators keep adding conditions and demands:
... These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.”
Needless to say, there is precisely zero chance that the US will release Iran's financial assets, nor will the United Arab Emirates, which apparently froze them when Iran started showering them with missiles and drones. The Iranians did not come to Islamabad because they were winning the conflict. They came to avoid massive destruction, and only avoided it by about 90 minutes through Pakistan's urgent intervention.
Perhaps the regime remnants believe they can work the refs with Trump, or are trying his own Art of the Deal playbook by posturing with extreme demands to push a better deal. The problem with that approach is that the Iranian regime has little left to offer other than terrorism, and even that hasn't deterred the US or Israel. It may, however, have convinced Trump to alter the deal at hand, and especially its window.
Trump told the New York Post that he'll know much sooner than two weeks whether the regime remnants are serious about survival. If not, as he teased on Truth Social at about the same time, he's readying a massive "reset".
“We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon,” Trump said in a phone interview when asked if he thought the talks would be successful.
“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made — even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” he said.
“But we’re loading up the ships. We’re loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a higher level than we use to do a complete decimation.
“And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”
Trump then followed up with a more direct response to the regime's attempts to reframe the context of the talks:
The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Translation: If Iran tries to stall or renegotiate the cease-fire, it will be a very short round of negotiations. The B-52s could be back in the air by this time tomorrow, along with other sorties, perhaps more engaged in the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's ability to export oil. The US staged demonstration strikes on Kharg Island just before the cease-fire went into effect, and that apparently pushed the regime toward negotiations.
Abbas Araghchi should understand the message. He tried blustering his way with Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the talks that took place on February 28, when Araghchi told Witkoff that there was nothing we could do about Iran's nuclear-weapons program. That ended badly for Ali Khamenei and most of the regime's top IRGC leadership.
In fact, perhaps the IRGC thinks Araghchi learned too much from that last round of talks with the US. The Jerusalem Post reports that current IRGC chief and Nepo Babytollah sock-puppeteer Ahmad Vahidi wants to shuffle the deck in Islamabad to include more hardliners in the Iranian contingent:
The sources shared that IRGC Commander-in-Chief Ahmad Vahidi is attempting to curb the authority of Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran International wrote.
Vahidi has called for the inclusion of Mohammad Bagheer Zolghadr on the negotiating team, whom Iran International previously reported had been appointed Secretary of the National Security Council as a direct result of IRGC pressure on Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The negotiating team has been pushing back against the demand, as they consider Zolghadr too inexperienced for strategic negotiations.
Vahidi wants to limit the scope of the talks as well:
The IRGC commander-in-chief and the IRGC Aerospace Commander have also insisted that the delegation refuse to negotiate on Iran’s missile program, according to Iran International.
If Vahidi wants to learn the same lesson Araghchi did in February, he's welcome to try. The Gulf states will not stand for a deal that doesn't impose severe limits on Iran's missile and drone capacities after experiencing the threat they represent first-hand in this war. Neither will Israel, not even if Trump is inclined to push that issue off – and there is no indication he is so inclined at all.
Essentially, this is the very same situation in which Iran found itself six weeks ago. Did they learn anything from that lesson? As Trump suggests, we should know pretty soon, and the consequences will likely follow as quickly as on February 28, if not more so. If nothing else, we'll see who plays Darth Vader and who plays Lando Calrissian in this round.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/04/10/trump-i-give-it-24-hours-before-the-reset-n3813764
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