That is what makes this moment so dangerous.
Trump appears to believe the war can still be ended quickly if he just applies a little more pressure and moves further up the escalation ladder.
Then wait for Iran to surrender, but Robert says Iran is never going to give him that.
For Trump, this is a war he wants to finish on favorable terms; for Iran, it's existential.
That means Washington and Tehran are not operating with the same tolerance for pain, the same timeline, or the same definition of victory.
And Tehran now understands the man across the table better than he understands himself.
Iran has watched Trump repeatedly convince himself that another strike will finally produce the submission the previous strikes failed to achieve.
Then, when the opposite happens, he becomes frustrated and escalates again.
Iran appears to be exploiting that weakness with a disciplined tit-for-tat strategy rather than random escalation or total war.
Each move raises the cost without immediately giving Trump the clean pretext he might want for unlimited escalation.
Robert thinks Iran is studying his psychology and asking one question before every major action: Will this provoke him too early, or will it punish and humiliate him at exactly the right moment?
That distinction is crucial because humiliation may be Trump’s greatest vulnerability.
@barnes_law
