Trumps advisers are letting Tehran play him for a sucker

“The United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” President Donald Trump announced Tuesday of Iran’s shootdown of a US Apache attack chopper over the Strait of Hormuz.Central Command soon launched “proportional strikes,” which don’t sound like enough: The prez needs to show he’s serious, or Tehran will keep trying to play him for a sucker as it has every president going back to Jimmy Carter.Consider: Trump told the press just hours before that attack, “We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal.”A country that’s “very close” to sealing a deal in good faith doesn’t escalate against its negotiating partner.This leaves us wondering which presidential advisers are leading him down this garden path to likely humiliation.By one count, he’s said “nearly there” 38 times since he announced that “almost all” of the points of contention “have been agreed to” and that a “two-week period” should allow the deal to be “consummated.”We’re now 10 weeks into that “two-week period,” and everything’s going backward.Back then, those final issues were: 1) setting verifiable procedures for the end of Iran’s nuke program, and 2) securing permanent free passage through the Strait of Hormuz — with any benefits to Iran (beyond the end of US-Israeli bombing) to come later.Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.

By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Never miss a story.

Now, suddenly, getting to the deal somehow has Washington telling Jerusalem it can’t respond to Hezbollah’s missile attacks out of Lebanon.Bare minimum, Trump’s public bragging about ordering Israel around sure makes it look like he’s appeasing Iran’s outrageous demands.It’s what the Iranians do: Claim they could give us what we want, stall on actually delivering it (in this case,...