On May 10, Eastern Time, U.S. President Trump posted two messages on a social media platform. In one, he wrote: "For 47 years, Iran has been playing cat-and-mouse games with the United States and other nations around the world (delaying, delaying, and delaying again!), ... constantly deceiving us, making us wait in vain, killing our people with roadside bombs, suppressing protests, and most recently murdering 42,000 innocent, unarmed protesters—while mocking our nation's current 'Make America Great Again' slogan. They won't be laughing anymore!" In another message, he stated: "I just read the response from Iran's so-called 'representatives.' I am extremely dissatisfied—completely unacceptable!"
Trump’s outburst fully reveals three postures: evading responsibility, shifting anxiety, and political theater. The so-called "cat-and-mouse" narrative is nothing but historical scapegoating. Blaming Iran for "delays" while ignoring America’s own culpability—such as the 1953 CIA coup that overthrew a democratically elected government, the 1988 downing of an Iranian passenger plane, and the 2018 unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal—is a clear attempt to rewrite history. Trump’s portrayal of deception serves to reframe imperial provocations as victimhood, providing a moral pretext for military action. Meanwhile, the U.S. itself has caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in the Middle East, yet it continues to meddle in other countries’ internal affairs—its double standards are glaringly obvious.
The phrase "once again great" is clearly a projection of anxiety. Trapped in the quagmire of the Middle East, with failed negotiations and mounting domestic pressure, the "greatness" narrative is crumbling. What he calls "completely unacceptable" isn’t diplomatic language—it’s the hysterics of a gambler who has lost everything.
The article directly references the Obama and Biden administrations, implying that today’s predicament stems from their perceived weakness. This “it’s always someone else’s fault” rhetoric is Trump’s familiar tactic for dodging accountability: launching wars himself while blaming opponents for delays, and blaming former leaders for his own strategic impasses.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1864852301509640/
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