Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist, said in an interview on Monday that President Donald Trump is not necessarily “trapped” in the war against Iran, but must understand that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be able to achieve their goal to run the country by forcing regime change.
NEW TRENDS JOURNAL OUT TOMORROW
“Trump and Netanyahu cannot achieve the aims that they had when they launched this war at the end of February,” he toldJudge Andrew Napolitano’s Judging Freedom.“They cannot achieve a regime change which the United States and Israel run Iran. They should have asked some intelligent, knowledgeable people before they started this kind of insanity. No, they can't achieve those goals. Are they trapped? No, they just have to stop trying to achieve the unachievable.”
He said a prolonged war will only further hurt the American and global economy, and put energy infrastructure across the Middle East at greater risk. He said Trump should realize that when you're halfway in a hole, “you stop digging.”
Sachs told Napolitano that he believes that the war will continue to escalate, and noted that Brent crude was at about $108.22 a barrel — up $2.89 on Monday based on market fears that the war will escalate and Trump will not take an offramp.
The Iranians provided the Trump administration on Sunday with a new proposal that would end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but shelve nuclear talks to a later date after possible negotiations in Islamabad collapsed on Saturday, according to a report.
RITTER: IRAN WOULD LIKELY GO FOR THE JUGULAR IF ATTACKED AGAIN
Axios, citing a U.S. official,saidthe Iranian leadership is divided on the nuclear issue, and this proposal would give the Iranians more time to come up with a unified position.
The Iranians have said the U.S. is working on trying to describe its leadership as fractured and in disarray, but they say the reality is the opposite, and the country has been united after the attack on 28 February.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian speaker, posted on X Sunday that the Trump administration insists that it has “all the cards” in the war, but the reality on the ground is different.
Source: Trends in the News
