MORNING GLORY: The US-Iran negotiations in Islamabad became Reykjavík 2.0
From the moment the talks between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran commenced in Islamabad, Pakistan on Saturday, only one of three results could follow: Munich, 1938 with the U.S. appeasing Iran; Reykjavík, 1986 with diplomatic deadlock; or Appomattox, 1865 with the exhausted and broken Iranians surrendering to the reality of hard power.
Turns out it was Reykjavik 2.0 with Vice President J.D. Vance instead of President Reagan exiting the meetings looking stone-faced and irritated as he announced an end to the talks and the departure of the United States delegation.
A blockade of all shipping from all Iranian ports commenced Monday at 10 AM pursuant to President Trump’s order to the U.S. Navy. The Navy has already commenced mine-clearing operations in the international waters in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday — during the talks. Quite a signal, that.
President Trump has indicated that renewed strikes on the teetering Islamic Republic of Iran are possible as well. Israel continues to pummel Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon.
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It was a very bad weekend for terrorists in the Middle East as well as for the mother ship regime that supports them all in Tehran. The ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that prop them up are down to their fifth string "generals," and the impotent "elected officials" of Iran who have never had other than the power the IRGC allocated to them.
The Iranian regime has survived on terror and bluster for 47 years. Now it’s on the edge of collapse because of Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The fact the these two men are orchestrating the strategic defeat of a sinister, lunatic regime that as recently as January 8-9 murdered more than 30,000 of its own people in two days has the left in America and around the world working through cognitive dissonance. It would be amusing were the Iranian people not suffering so under the boot of the Islamist fanatics and the cost in American and Israeli lives in the dozens.
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Our domestic left know they should actually cheer the ongoing collapse of the power of the theocrats in Tehran and the threat they present to the world. But the fact that the cartoon villains living in their collective heads rent-free 24/7/365 — Trump and Netanyahu — are the pair deconstructing the baddies leaves the lefties in legacy media and the Democratic Party stuttering and mumbling.
Many of them are also carrying the (very heavy) sunk costs of the absurd "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" from the halcyon days of peak Obama in 2015. The JCPOA was indeed the worst deal America ever made but the held it up as an achievement for the ages. Trump blew it up. They haven’t recovered.
Like super-seniors pining for their glory days during the Elvis craze, the political equivalent of the 1950s teeny boppers from Team Obama and his supporters in the legacy media are downcast, feeling left behind and increasingly certain that no one will ever fall for their "echo-chamber-leading- from-behind" schtick again.
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Not only has their beloved JCPOA revealed as idiocy, but now Trump and Netanyahu have also revealed the Islamic Republic to have been less than the mighty superpower Team Obama built them up to be or at least put them on the path towards being.
More danger is ahead but clarity is a wonderful thing. Serious people have always had the Iranian regime’s number. Silly podcasters and successive Democratic presidents may not have understood the depth of the evil they faced in Tehran, but the center-right and national security hawks never saw anything but menace. A reminder that it was Senator Tom Cotton who first and loudly blew the whistle on the fraud that was the JCPOA, just as he did on the Wuhan lab leak. Perhaps listen to Cotton next time an international crisis arises and not Beltway sharpies with podcasts?
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Team Obama may not have just been dense. They may simply have been afraid of confronting the killers in Iran.
No matter. Their era of appeasement is over now. The Vice President gave the Iranian regime a third chance to back away from the edge. The Iranians missed their first chance during 60 days of negotiation in 2025 which was followed by Midnight Hammer.
They missed on the second swing as well, just before the start of Epic Fury.
Now they have swung and missed…again. Three strikes and you are out. And blockaded. Not to mention broke and broken.
Bravo to the American military for the swift and nearly complete devastation of the Iranian military. And thanks to our superb ally Israel. Prayers continue for the families of the fallen in this battle, those who have been wounded and those still in harm’s way.
It’s not over, but the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic has arrived.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6 p..m ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.