Originally Posted by
Round Luggage
mental gymnastics.
The POTUS Simultaneously said it was open and blockaded. Of course they then closed it.
Some of the posts here read like they are from cable news.
It's not mental gymnastics in the slightest.
Did the Foreign minister and Speaker of the Parliament, the official representatives of Iran,
declare the straight "completely open" or not? The president is simply stating that the blockade of Iranian ports will only be lifted when the handshake deal is formalized in ink. It's called a backstop. It happens all the time in negotiations, big and small.
You can try to claim this is part of some game on the part of the Iranians if you want, but you
can't accuse the president of "lying" when the official representatives of the other side are formally validating the critical parts of what he is saying in public. That' s just bias coming screaming through.
Again, IMO it is
far more likely that there are two competing factions within the Iranian government, and the IRGC is (in their minds) putting a capital "G" in IRGC. Almost a "over my dead body" kind of thing (maybe literally...)
This is
far from over, from either perspective. Claims of 'this is over' are just as ridiculous as those who claim the sky is (inevitably) falling. There is a
lot of baseball left to play...