Our president won’t tell you this, but the United States is being played by the Iranians in the US-Iran war. We are being hoodwinked. We are being suckered. We are being made the fool.
One of President Trump’s favorite negotiating tactics is to exclude the people on behalf of whom he is negotiating and to talk one-on-one only with their enemy. The president did that in Afghanistan in 2018 when he locked out our ally, President Ashraf Ghani, the head of the Afghan government, negotiated one-on-one with Taliban leaders, and ultimately came out with an American and Afghan surrender—an agreement to give the Taliban everything it wanted, including all of Afghanistan.
President Trump varied this tactic in 2018 when he went into negotiations directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and left the South Koreans and the Japanese out of the room. That negotiation became a bromance. But it failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear program. North Korea now has roughly 60 nuclear bombs.
President Trump did it again in 2025 when he negotiated the Ukraine War directly with Russia and left Ukraine and Europe out of the opening talks.
And he did it again in 2025 when he sent his hostage negotiator Adam Boehler to negotiate with Hamas and left out Israel.
But now the Iranians are turning the tables. They are using the Trump technique on us. They have spent four weeks negotiating with Oman over setting up two lanes of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. But they have excluded the United States.
In fact, they’ve done something sneakier. They have turned the Oman talks on Hormuz into the peace deal the world has been waiting for. How? They have built their Oman-Hormuz arrangement to go into effect and allow ships through only once “security” has been established. And what does security mean?
Says Iran’s Press-TV, an Iranian government-owned media outlet I’ve appeared on twenty times, “the main sources of insecurity remain US naval deployments, its illegal maritime blockade of Iranian ports, and other hostile measures against Iran.”
In other words, Iran wants us to pull our troops out of the Middle East, to withdraw our naval vessels, and to stop “hostile measures against Iran.” Those unspecified hostile measures may include financial sanctions and all the other tools we’ve used to box Iran in.
Iran wants us to take our military toys and go home. It wants us to shut down our military bases in the middle east. And it wants the $40 billion in Iranian funds frozen in banks around the world shifted into its own bank accounts. Iran wants to complete our defeat.
But instead of negotiating what we will do and what we won’t do directly with us, Iran is carrying out peace talks, but locking us out of the room. It is freezing us out of the negotiation. Just like we froze the president of Afghanistan out of the negotiations on his nation’s fate. The Oman negotiation is committing us to a peace deal we never got to see.
No wonder two days ago Iran’s Press TV carried a story headlined, “Iran has emerged victorious against US, Israeli regimes.” That story quoted Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem, who said about Iran on Friday, July 31:
“The country that was predicted to be defeated within four or five days managed to endure and proved itself as a vital, influential, and deeply rooted nation.”
In other words, Iran is aiming to come out of this war on a higher rung of the ladder than when it began. As for the ultimate American goal of this war, making sure Iran never has nuclear weapons, Iran’s Trumpian strategy slyly leaves that out of the diplomatic discussion.
______
About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Not to mention in scientific journals like Biosystems, New Ideas in Psychology, and PhysicaPlus. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute
______
References:
### Middle East Sources
Islamic Republic News Agency, RNA. “Iran Has Emerged Victorious against US, Israeli Regimes.” August 4, 2026.
https://en.irna.ir/news/86227849/Iran-has-emerged-victorious-against-US-Israeli-regimes-Hezbollah
Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA. “Iran Has Emerged Victorious against US, Israeli Regimes: Hezbollah Chief.” August 4, 2026. [https://irna.com/en/news/86227849/](https://irna.com/en/news/86227849/).
Press TV. “Iran, Oman Close to Finalizing Deal on Hormuz Shipping Corridor: Esmaeil Baghaei.” August 5, 2026. [https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/05/773788/Iran-Oman-close-finalizing-deal-Hormuz-shipping-corridor–Esmaeil-Baghaei](https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/05/773788/Iran-Oman-close-finalizing-deal-Hormuz-shipping-corridor–Esmaeil-Baghaei).
Press TV. “Iran FM Says US Strangling Hormuz through Illegal Blockade, Strait Open to Cooperative Vessels.” May 14, 2026. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/05/14/768595/Iran-FM-says-US-strangling-Hormuz-through-illegal-blockade%2C-Strait-open-to-cooperative-vessels-
Al Jazeera. “Iran Says Hormuz Talks with Oman in ‘Final’ Stages as Route Approved.” August 5, 2026. [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/5/iran-says-hormuz-talks-with-oman-in-final-stages-as-route-approved](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/5/iran-says-hormuz-talks-with-oman-in-final-stages-as-route-approved).
Arab News. “Hezbollah Chief Hails Iran’s ‘Great Victory’ after Deal with US.” June 17, 2026. [https://www.arabnews.com/node/2647598/middle-east](https://www.arabnews.com/node/2647598/middle-east).
Gulf News. “Iran Says Close to Hormuz Plan with Oman, but Reopening Depends on US.” August 5, 2026. [https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/iran-says-close-to-hormuz-plan-with-oman-but-reopening-depends-on-us-1.500631776](https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/iran-says-close-to-hormuz-plan-with-oman-but-reopening-depends-on-us-1.500631776).
The Jerusalem Post. “Has Adam Boehler Been Removed from Hamas Negotiations?” [https://jpost.com/israel-news/article-845965](https://jpost.com/israel-news/article-845965).
MEMRI. “Iranian Officials Celebrate US-Iran MOU: We Are Victorious, America Has Been Defeated.” June 29, 2026. [https://www.memri.org/reports/iranian-officials-celebrate-us-iran-mou-we-are-victorious-america-has-been-defeated](https://www.memri.org/reports/iranian-officials-celebrate-us-iran-mou-we-are-victorious-america-has-been-defeated).
The Times of Israel. “Iran, Oman Said Nearing Deal That Will Restore US Truce, Give Tehran Some Control over Hormuz.” August 5, 2026. [https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-oman-said-nearing-deal-that-will-restore-us-truce-give-tehran-some-control-over-hormuz/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-oman-said-nearing-deal-that-will-restore-us-truce-give-tehran-some-control-over-hormuz/).
### Other Sources
Associated Press. “US and Iran Reach Preliminary Deal on Strait of Hormuz Shipping.” August 2026.
Axios. “U.S. Held Secret Talks with Hamas.” March 5, 2025. [https://www.axios.com/2025/03/05/us-hamas-talks-gaza-war-israel](https://www.axios.com/2025/03/05/us-hamas-talks-gaza-war-israel).
Council on Foreign Relations. “What to Know About the Afghan Peace Negotiations.” February 2020. [https://www.cfr.org/articles/what-know-about-afghan-peace-negotiations-2](https://www.cfr.org/articles/what-know-about-afghan-peace-negotiations-2).
Euronews. “Iran and Oman Agree Route for Ships in Strait of Hormuz, Tehran Says.” August 5, 2026. [https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/05/iran-and-oman-agree-route-for-ships-in-strait-of-hormuz-tehran-says](https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/05/iran-and-oman-agree-route-for-ships-in-strait-of-hormuz-tehran-says).
Kyiv Post. “US Cut Europe Out of Ukraine Peace Talks to Avoid ‘Too Many Cooks.’” November 27, 2025. [https://www.kyivpost.com/post/65135](https://www.kyivpost.com/post/65135).
Legal Clarity. “The Doha Agreement: U.S.-Taliban Peace Deal Explained.” [https://legalclarity.org/the-doha-agreement-us-taliban-peace-deal-explained/](https://legalclarity.org/the-doha-agreement-us-taliban-peace-deal-explained/).
Mashal, Mujib. “Afghan Leader Blindsided by U.S. Meeting With Taliban, Officials Say.” *The New York Times*, October 18, 2018. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/world/asia/afghanistan-us-taliban-ashraf-ghani.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/world/asia/afghanistan-us-taliban-ashraf-ghani.html).
The New York Times. “Iran Says It Is Nearing Final Agreement With Oman on Strait of Hormuz.” August 5, 2026. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/world/middleeast/iran-oman-strait-of-hormuz.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/world/middleeast/iran-oman-strait-of-hormuz.html).
Reuters. “Deal to Reopen Hormuz?” August 5, 2026.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/deal-reopen-hormuz-2026-08-05/
Reuters. “Iran Threatens to Hit Gulf States if U.S. Launches New Strikes.” August 5, 2026.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-threatens-hit-gulf-states-if-us-launches-new-strikes-2026-08-05/
Reuters. “U.S. Lifts Sanctions on Fly Baghdad, Previously Linked to Iran’s IRGC.” August 5, 2026.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-removes-sanctions-three-irgc-linked-entities-treasury-website-shows-2026-08-05/
Reuters. “Proposed Hormuz Deal Would Give Iran Control of Inbound Traffic, Sources Say.” August 5, 2026.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-iran-having-very-good-discussions-trump-says-2026-08-05/
The Wall Street Journal. “Negotiators Close In on Deal with Iran to Open Hormuz.” August 6, 2026.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/negotiators-close-in-on-deal-with-iran-to-open-hormuz-50c0f335
The Washington Post. “Trump Administration’s Direct Talks with Hamas Break an Old Taboo.” March 6, 2025.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/06/hamas-talks-trump-gaza-netanyahu/