THE MANAGER HAS TO APPROVE.

The ritual for buying a car used to involve one of the dealer's floor sales representative doing most of the dickering: we can hope for precisely the make, model, and options you want to be scheduled in a month, or we can put you in something similar right now, and perhaps at a lower price; here's what I think I can get the manager to sign off on your trade-in, and have you considered financing through us?  But whatever the buyer and the floor representative shook hands on still had to be cleared by the manager, who was the dealer's last chance to extract more favorable terms from the buyer.  Once upon a time, my dad and a floor representative had a price sheet worked out and my dad wrote a deposit check, then the representative went to the manager, and came back with the manager's extractions.  My dad asked for the deposit check back.  The dealership caved: evidently making a sale today was better than having the deposit check go out the door.

What happens, though, when there is no manager to sign off?  "Iran’s president offers resignation, citing total takeover by IRGC commanders."  That's something Iran hawks in the United States, Israel, and the Gulf Arab states have long understood.  But might there be something to continuing to exercise strategic patience while the oil money isn't coming in even if the revolutionary guards types posture?

Pezeshkian stressed that the president and the government have effectively been excluded from major and vital decision-making processes in the country, and that the vacuum created by this situation has enabled hardline factions within the IRGC to take control of affairs, the source said.

Pezeshkian added that under such circumstances he is unable to run the government and carry out his legal responsibilities, and for that reason has requested to step down immediately.

It is not yet clear whether Mojtaba Khamenei will accept the president's resignation, but the contents of the letter point to a deep and unprecedented rift at the highest levels of power.

This comes after months of tensions between the government and the Islamic Republic’s military-security institutions. Iran International previously reported that the IRGC had gradually restricted many presidential powers and effectively taken control of key parts of the government.

That is, if the ayatollah is even alive.  That tension between the civilian government and the fanatics might be the best reason for the thing to be pressed.  Onetime presidential aspirant Steve Forbes made that case.

The reason anti-regime elements in the Iranian military, not to to mention a citizenry that overwhelmingly despises its tyrants, don't take direct action is they fear the U.S. will once again pull the rug out from under them and cut a deal that allows the government to stay in power and rebuild itself. This would mean more massive massacres and arrests. But relentlessly hitting Iran—including the personnel and assets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, which keeps the regime in power—will enable opponents to overthrow the regime.

But the thugs running Iran think they have the U.S. on the run. Right now, we're not even discussing the permanent dismantling of Iran's missile and drone manufacturing capabilities or ceasing Iran's support for its proxies, mainly Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and scores of terrorists cells and local militias. The mullahs feel that any enforcement procedures on enriched uranium, not to mention other malignant activities, can eventually be circumvented.

Although there are no formal discussions about Iran turning over its uranium or no longer funding religious gangbangers elsewhere in Asia Minor, the public statements by revolutionary guard commanders of late are not those people who study Persian bargaining generally associate with delay as denial.

For decades, Iranian negotiators have refined a strategy designed not to find compromise, but to manipulate, stall, and extract. These aren’t tactics of goodwill or mutual understanding — they are calculated moves rooted in ideology, misdirection, and an overwhelming desire to weaken the West.

Iran’s version of “Art of the Deal” isn’t about boldness or instinct — it’s about ambiguity, delay, and deception, wrapped in cultural codes and weaponized narratives. This briefing, drawn from first-hand accounts, unpacks the tactics Tehran uses to bend negotiations to its advantage — while giving up as little as possible. Understanding these ten key moves isn’t just useful — it’s essential.

That's not what's coming out of the manager's office.  "Iran supreme leader’s adviser says talks deadlocked over $24 billion and warns of wider war."  The United States's position is there will be no sanctions relief until the fissile material is in United States hands.  Iran's Mohsen Rezaei, military advisor presumably to the ayatollah, wants earnest money first.

He framed the demand as a trust-building measure, saying the Trump administration's potential release of the funds would be "a new horizon for the future" of Iran and America: "If he (Trump) wants to reach an agreement with Iran, this $24 billion is a test of trust that Iran wants to have with Trump – this is a test that America must pass and the path will be opened," he said. "This is our own money, not America's money."

That "test of trust" is a lie and I hope Our President understands that.

Then came posturing that is not at all consistent with delay as denial.

Rezaei warned that Iran will "drag the war" beyond the Persian Gulf if the US resumes the conflict, potentially expanding military operations from the Strait of Hormuz to the Indian Ocean, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. "We will give another dimension to the war by attacking these other American bases that we have been attacking so far," he said, adding that "the possibility of war is low."

I'm not sure why he assessed the probability of war as being low.  Last week he and his colleague Ahmad "Klingon" Vahidi were posturing in the expected way.  "We Will Bring 'Utter Ruin' If Blockade Continues."  They did flip something that went bang at Kuwait City's airport, and Our President should not have dismissed that as no big deal, but the blockade remains in place.

Iran responded in part by firing missiles and drones Tuesday evening at Kuwait, the U.S. Fifth fleet Headquarters at Bahrain, and a U.S. air base in the region. U.S. Central Command reported that it had “successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and conducted self-defense strikes on Qeshm Island in response to attempted attacks by Iran across the Middle East.” It rebutted Iran’s propaganda claims on X, stating that “all Iranian attacks on American forces failed and that U.S. forces remain vigilant and ready to defend against unwarranted Iranian aggression.”

Kuwait’s foreign ministry condemned the attacks, saying that “once again [Iran] targeted vital and civilian infrastructure including Kuwait International Airport, killing one person and injuring another, in addition to causing damage to vital infrastructure including diplomatic missions.”

Iran would later state it launched its attack in response to the U.S. firing a missile into the engine room of an oil tanker that had been trying to breach the U.S. blockade.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the retaliatory strikes “should serve as a lesson” for the U.S. Esmail Kowsari, a hardline member of the Iranian Parliament, called for Iran’s armed forces to confront the U.S. “much more strongly,” saying Americans “understand nothing except the language of force and power.”

Perhaps Our President's downplaying that attack on a civilian facility was intended for the Iranian thugs.  "Force and power. Pfffft."

It might be time, Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth recommend, to finish the job.

After Tuesday evening’s attacks, it should be clear that an emboldened Iran is not going to back down. The White House is going to have to follow through on its threats to resume Operation Epic Fury — only this time, it must finish the job and defeat the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s center of gravity.

Unconditional surrender is now the only acceptable outcome for the White House to obtain the objectives the President laid out on March 2, which will lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Victor "Blade of Perseus" Hanson also recommends a resumption of shock and awe.

The regime has good reason, given the current new Socialist-Islamist Democrat Party, that a future Democrat president would revive Obama’s bankrupt visions of empowering a Shia crescent from Tehran to Yemen to “balance” Israel and the Gulf monarchies.

An alternative course is a riskier one that could involve greater casualties and Iranian missile and drone strikes against Israel and the Gulf states. It would begin with issuing a final one-week deadline for Iran to concede to U.S. demands to denuclearize, hand over all its enriched uranium, dismantle its remaining missile forces, cease subsidizing Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and stop interfering with international traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Otherwise, for a week or so, the U.S. would strike the remaining regime grandees who believe they are still in charge of the government, along with dual-use bridges, subterranean nuclear depots, power plants, island ports and docks, weapons arsenals and factories, and the remnants of the Iranian mosquito navy. It would then open the Strait of Hormuz, leave a guardian force to keep it navigable, declare victory, go home, and pivot to the economy.

The point would be to inflict enough damage on the Iranian theocracy and its appendages to end the current off-and-on war. Either such Iranian concessions or such destruction would humiliate the regime, neuter its military, and halt its nuclear aspirations for decades, leaving it ripe for internal uprising—and reminding the world there is a limit to unpredictable U.S. patience and placidity.

Let's see what the weekend brings.  Will continued strategic patience heighten the contradictions that might already be present in Iran, or might the sudden vaporization of the likes of head thugs Rezaei and Vahidi convince their underlings that continuing to act like Antifa punks in Portland without any Soros money to keep them fed is foolish?