Why We Predicted Trump’s Iran Ceasefire |
During the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan’s continued refrain about President Jimmy Carter was “There he goes again,” to imply how predictable Carter was.
In the case of Iran, there Trump goes again.
Analysts, financial markets, and allied government officials alike were caught off guard by Trump’s seemingly abrupt reversal in Iran. On Tuesday, he declared a two-week ceasefire, merely hours after threatening to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age and knock out all of Iran’s bridges, infrastructure, and power plants. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire announcement, financial markets reacted drastically, with oil prices immediately down 20% and U.S. stock futures up nearly 3%.
But no one should have been surprised by Trump’s flip-flopping. In our book, Trump’s Ten Commandments, we presciently and repeatedly predicted exactly this outcome, because it fits perfectly with Trump’s long-established patterns of behavior. As we argue in Trump’s Ten Commandments, regardless of whether you like him, loathe him, or want to look away, Trump is the most consequential person alive today, and to anticipate his actions, one must understand how he thinks and why he does what he does.
Here’s why Trump’s flip on Iran was perfectly predictable.
Trump’s second commandment is to........