The statement came from the adviser to Iran's parliament speaker: no agreement with this White House, just wait for the next one.
Days later, WSJ reported Trump has privately told aides he'd walk away without a nuclear deal.
Matthew Hoh, the Marine and former State Department official who resigned over Afghanistan, recognizes the play.
In 1980, a president consumed by the hostage crisis begged Tehran for a resolution.
Iran refused him the win and released the hostages as Reagan raised his hand at the inauguration.
The motive wasn't affection for the new guy, Matthew argues. It was denying the old one.
His decode of Tehran's calculus is chilling.
Their own doctrine said the earlier exchanges weren't the real war, and the real one would be total.
Slow economic pain is survivable.
Time is the weapon.
Then his research on the Soviet Politburo: Moscow entered Afghanistan in 1979 to box America out, then spent a decade asking how to leave.
He suspects the same question echoes through the Pentagon today.
And to anyone advising a rebuild-and-restrike later, his math is brutal: a restart buys three or four weeks before the same shortages return, worse.
His closing advice to markets and war planners alike: "Don't short this war."
@MatthewPHoh @WeTheBrandon
