Fantasy Diplomacy:

The only negotiations with Iran are happening in Trump's head.

International relations scholars have spent decades categorizing different styles of diplomacy. There is realist diplomacy, the hard-edged power bargaining practiced during the Cold War. There is coercive diplomacy, where threats are backed by credible force. There is transactional diplomacy, built around negotiated concessions and deals. There is alliance diplomacy, where countries coordinate strategy with partners to pursue shared goals.

And then there is something else entirely: Donald Trump and what can only be described as fantasy diplomacy.

Fantasy diplomacy is a system in which negotiations are announced that don’t exist and concessions are claimed even when the other side insists nothing of the sort has happened. It is diplomacy by fantasy-an attempt to will reality into existence simply by playing pretend.

The problem with fantasy diplomacy is that adversaries do not live inside the fantasy.

One month into Donald Trump’s war with Iran, that gap between the president’s narrative and reality has become impossible to ignore and has Americans in a weird position of wondering to believe their own government or IRAN!!!

Phase One: “Everything Was Destroyed”

In the first days after the February strikes on Iran, Trump described the operation in sweeping terms. Iranian military infrastructure, he said, had been “obliterated.” This is the first time he claimed Iran’s military had been completely destroyed, but it would not be the last. Instead, it would become a weekly theme for the next month only to find out that just 1/3 of Iran’s arsenal is verifiably destroyed after a month of action.

Phase Two: “The War Is Almost Over”

Through the middle weeks of the conflict, the White House repeatedly insisted the war was nearly finished. The operation was ahead of schedule. Victory was at hand!!

Meanwhile the evidence pointed in another direction.

Iran continued striking regional targets. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained stopped and a global energy crisis begun.

But according to Trump, the war was already won.

Phase Three: “Peace Talks Are Happening”

By late March, the story changed again, seemingly to head off a massive stock collapse.

Trump began telling reporters that negotiations with Iran were underway. He suggested diplomatic contacts had been established and even hinted that tanker movements through the Strait of Hormuz were signs of goodwill.

Iran publicly denied these claims. According to Tehran, no such negotiations were taking place.

In fact, Iran has been mocking him mercilessly on social media, the most recent is right here:

The result was one of the strangest spectacles of the conflict: Washington describing peace talks that the other party insisted did not exist.

Fantasy diplomacy has reached its logical endpoint — negotiations that only exist in Trump’s head.

Welcome to Phase Four: Blaming the Allies

On Tuesday morning, Trump’s wrath turned once again on our allies (how much longer will we be able to call them that?!)

European governments have made their position clear. They were not consulted before the strikes and if they had been, they would never have agreed to do it given they have no problem grasping the bad effects it would have that Trump couldn’t wrap his yellow head around.

Because the U.S. moved unliterally and with no actual imminent threat, NATO does not consider the war a NATO mission. European countries will not be sending their kids to die for Trump’s obvious mistake.

Fantasy diplomacy has its limits, and one of them is that other countries are not required to participate in it.

Iran Has Trump by the Balls

As I pointed out the day after the initial attack, Iran does not need to defeat the United States militarily to gain leverage in this conflict.

By disrupting the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which roughly twenty percent of the world’s oil trade passes — Tehran has found a pressure point that extends far beyond the battlefield.

Every tanker delayed, every insurance premium spiking, every surge in energy prices ripples outward through the global economy and what is coming is likely going to look like the 1970’s oil crisis. In fact, in Asia and India, oil crisis have already begun. That is what Trump was talking about when he bragged that his mistake hurt other countries and not the U.S.

Such a nice guy. This is what that looks like for Indians.

Trump has no way out of Iran with a W and Trump is in pure panic mode. Now we wait with baited breadth to see if the nearly 5,000 marines Trump has already mobilized for the Middle East will be sent into Iran in what would likely be a modern Iwo Jima.

Trump has no good options in Iran. He will either have to admit failure and leave without reopening the Strait or send America’s best and brightest into a shredder.

I think we all know which one he will choose.