Middle East

New Republic -   The Iran deal is dead, according to the U.S. president.  Donald Trump bitterly referred to Iran’s leadership as “scum” during a NATO summit presser in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, telling reporters that he believes peace negotiations—and the regional ceasefire—are “over.”

“I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum. Do you know what scum is?” Trump said. “They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. I’ll speak to our negotiators, they’ll want to negotiate, they’re good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they’ll have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them.

“They’re liars. We make a deal—if I make a deal with him, we have a deal, and it goes out and he talks,” Trump said, briefly gesturing to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We make a deal, everyone’s agreed, no nuclear weapons. We make a deal. They go outside, talk to the press, they say we never even talked about it.

NY Times -  Oil prices spiked on Wednesday to the highest level in weeks and stocks dropped after President Trump said that he thought the Iran cease-fire was “over” amid a volatile 24 hours in the Persian Gulf region.