News Vérité

President Trump is predicting that a deal with Iran, in the form of a memorandum of understanding (MOU), will definitely be signed tomorrow, June 14, on his 80th birthday. Iran, however, says it may be signed sometime soon, but not tomorrow. Now, we can chalk up Trump’s never-ending “deal tomorrow” predictions to the intransigence of the Iranian leaders, or we can chalk it up to Trump’s art-of-the-deal reliance on “truthful hyperbole.” In his book, “Art of the Deal,” Sir Donald explains: “People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.” (See my recent post for more details on Trump’s negotiating techniques.) Yes, indeed, we all want to believe that the major portion of this ill-conceived war is coming to an end, and that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen and operate as it was before the war. However, here too, if I read Iran’s statements correctly, the Iranians are now claiming they and they alone have the power to control passage through the strait. Anyway, tomorrow ain’t far off, so I guess we’ll all know by Sunday this time, or earlier. Final thought: It appears that Trump’s hyperbolic

You gotta hand it to them: The Ukrainians have taken the battle to their more powerful invader, the Soviet Union Redux, aka Russia, with the development and deployment of drones. Not only that, but on the ground in Ukraine — in a war that’s dragging on into its fifth year — Ukrainian drones are pushing back Russian troops in the Donbas region. The threat to Russia is so great that its recent celebration of WWII Victory was scaled back to protect its weapons and military personnel from drone attacks from Kyiv. Ditto with Russia’s recent economic summit in St. Petersburg. Russia seems to rely on Iran for its drone arsenal, while Ukraine is developing its own production facilities and technology to keep ahead of Putin and his military push. Remember, when this war started, predictions were that Russia, unleashing a tank onslaught from Belarus, would take over Kyiv and execute its leaders within three days. Instead, as mentioned, this is a multi-year confrontation, with Russian troops stalled in Ukraine’s eastern provinces. Just in the past couple of weeks, Ukraine has targeted the heart of Russia’s economy — its oil terminals and refineries, as well as some of its military training

President Trump said he was all set to go ahead with a third night of bombings on Iran when this morning he suddenly announced — drum roll please — a deal with Iran. Let’s see, I’m not sure who’s counting, but that seems like about the 20th time he’s announced an imminent deal. This time, he told reporters today, the deal could be signed in Europe over the weekend. But since it’s Donald’s birthday Sunday, he will be sending Vice-President JD Vance to ink the deal. If you recall, it was Vance who led the one and only American delegation to negotiate directly with Iran in April, only to leave empty-handed. Pardon me for being skeptical, but we’ve heard this before. Hopefully, this time it’s on the up and up, and not just Trump playing president and spinning yarns, as he’s wont to do. Here’s his post on Truth Social proclaiming the deal: “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.”  An Iranian foreign