In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sept. 27, Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, trashed the Iranian offer for a seven-day ceasefire, at the end of which the Strait of Hormuz would be opened in return for the lifting of the US naval blockade and the unfreezing of overseas Iranian assets. He called it “a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable.”

Waltz also claimed that President Trump is open tuo any kind of a deal with Iran provided the Iranians follow all the rules. “Heck, our negotiators even offered to sell them uranium” for Iran’s civil nuclear program, he claimed. “And again the United Arab Emirates have a peaceful program right there in their neighborhood. And they abide by international law and inspection regimes. The Iranians refuse to as stated by the UN just a week ago.”

Not mentioned by either Waltz nor host Kristen Welker is that Iran had signed just such a deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, which by all accounts at the time, Iran was in full compliance with, but Trump tore it up in 2018 and has pursued a strategy of coercion through sanctions and war ever since. It was left to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to remind the world of that crucial fact, and the fact that the U.S. bombed Iran twice during negotiations, destroying whatever trust was left between Washington and Tehran. Nonetheless, Ararghchi said “ I’m still trying diplomacy because I think we shouldn’t miss any chance for peace.”