Iran has sent a peace proposal via Pakistan. Donald Trump rejected it. And added, with his usual delivery: „Are we going to go there and bomb them to hell, or are we going to make a deal?" That isn't a rhetorical question - it is a signal. When Trump talks loudly about a military solution, it means the White House is close to a choice.

Context: After two months of war and the ceasefire of 8 April, there had been one round of direct negotiations between Iran and the US. It failed. Now Tehran has offered a new proposal - mediated by Islamabad. Trump said Iran is asking for „things he cannot agree to". Those „things" - according to the Iranian source, come down to: lifting sanctions, opening Hormuz, and a guarantee of non-intervention.

In other words, Iran is asking for what any state asks for after a war - security, economic normality, the right to its own choice. Trump calls those three points „too much". That means the administration isn't after peace, but capitulation. And capitulation doesn't come to the table via Pakistan - it comes with another military operation.

A telling element in this tangled narrative is something Trump himself said: „Iran has made progress in the negotiations, but there are significant divisions in the leadership." That is diplomatic for: „I know that in Tehran there is a split between the pragmatists who want a deal and the hardliners who block it." If such a split really exists - and Trump exploits it through war - then this isn't a defeat for Iran, it is a calculated choice for an internal political victory at the price of a new war.

For the Balkans, which is now watching its third cycle of „deal or war" in the last three years (Ukraine 2022, Gaza 2023, Iran 2026), the strategy is the same: Trump proposes with a knife on the table, and when the other side won't agree, he strikes. And he always asks for a „deal" on terms the other side cannot accept - and then frames that as „a refusal of peace". The rhetoric is standard. The results - predictable. The bill - doesn't go to Brussels or Washington. It comes to us.