Trump’s Flattery of Khamenei Gives the Game AwayThe President only praises foreign leaders when bullying, his preferred mode of foreign policy, has failed.
In March, Donald Trump was dismissive about the man about to inherit Iran’s supreme leadership. Mojtaba Khamenei, the President told Axios, was “a lightweight.” When Mojtaba was elevated regardless, Trump declared the new leader was unlikely to last long. A few weeks on, when American spy agencies concluded that Mojtaba was probably gay — a judgment White House aides found “hilarious” and hurried to leak — the President played along: “I think a lot of people are saying that, which puts him off to a bad start in that particular country.” That was then. Today, on the New York Post’s “Pod Force One“ podcast, Trump offered a very different assessment of Iran’s leader: Mojtaba is “involved, absolutely,” in the negotiations with Washington; the Iranians “have a lot of respect for him.” Noting that he had not yet had “the privilege of meeting” the Supreme Leader, the President suggested such an encounter might take place if a peace deal were signed by their countries. And such a deal was possible, Trump said, because Tehran had promised not to pursue a nuclear weapon. Mojtaba Khamenei has not softened in the intervening 12 weeks; he is the same hardline cleric the Revolutionary Guard installed in place of his slain father in March. The change is entirely on Trump’s side. But first, let’s deal with that nuclear pledge. There’s not much there there. Trump told the Post Iran has “already agreed they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” but then added that “they can change their mind.” An agreement that can be unmade at whim is no agreement at all. In any case, Tehran has offered this reassurance many times before, starting as far back as 2005, when the then Supreme Leader — and Mojtaba’s father — Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against weaponization of nuclear technology. As I’ve written before, there has always been less to this promise than meets the eye: the Islamic Republic has no reason to have a nuclear program other than to menace its neighbors. The possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon is sufficient, and that is now closer than ever before. Now the dissimulation runs both ways. Trump needs the fiction of a deal to call his war a triumph; the Iranians need it to shield what survives of their program. Bloomberg reported this week, citing Western officials and fresh IAEA data, that the risk of Iran covertly pursuing a weapon is higher now than before the first strikes. Rafael Grossi, who runs the agency, has warned from the beginning that no airstrike can destroy the expertise or dig out the buried, unaccounted-for uranium. As for that 2005 fatwa, the cleric who issued it is dead, killed by American and Israeli bombs, and Revolutionary Guard commanders are now demanding it be scrapped. Back to the “lightweight,” with whom Trump would now like the “privilege” of meeting. We know that the President praises a foreign strongman only when bullying, his preferred mode of foreign policy, has failed. After his threats of “fire and fury” did nothing to disarm North Korea, Trump fell in love — his words —with Kim Jong Un, gushed over the dictator’s “beautiful letters,” and granted him two summits that yielded reams of photographs and not one dismantled warhead. The romance bloomed only after maximum pressure had run out of road. And that is where Trump now finds himself in his dealings with Iran: with no more road. The war he started has not achieved any of the many aims he has claimed in its justification, and negotiations to end it are stalemated. The President has been trying to sell Americans on the idea that he has secured a historic victory, but seems even unable to persuade himself. “Iran’s a big success,” he told the Post— and then immediately, “We’ll see what happens. ... If it doesn’t happen, that’s OK too. We’ll do it the other way.” For me, the real giveaway in that interview is in a single word. Trump called the prospect of meeting Mojtaba a privilege — that is the language of a supplicant, not a victor. But the solicitation won’t get Trump anywhere. Mojtaba Khamenei is no Kim Jong Un — no showman who craves the legitimacy conferred by a photo op with an American President. He is a creature of the shadows, a gatekeeper who never ran for office, never preached a public sermon, and built his power inside the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij, most notoriously by helping to crush the Green Movement in 2009. The Guard chose him for that hardness, wanting a leader who would not trade away what they had bled for. His standing at home depends on spurning the very hand Trump is now timorously, tentatively extending. Iran, meanwhile, has been hurling missiles and drones at Kuwait’s international airport and at Bahrain. The lightweight is landing some jabs. © 2026 Bobby Ghosh |