The betting favorite is that he did. When a party truly wants a deal, it doesn’t issue 60-day ultimatums. From Andrew Korybko at korybko.substack.com:
Another way of looking at it is that Trump truly wanted a deal, which is why he was against Israel attacking Iran before his 60-day deadline was up, but he wasn’t going to stop them afterwards.
Israel’s unprecedented strikes against Iran early Friday morning were shortly followed by Israeli officials boasting that Trump deceived Iran with duplicitous diplomacy in order to catch it by surprise. This perspective was lent credence in some’s minds by Trump’s posts here and here where he reminded everyone that he threatened Iran with “something much worse than anything they know” if another nuclear deal wasn’t reached and then pointed out that Friday was day 61 of his 60-day ultimatum.
His exuberant support for Israel’s strikes after having earlier warned against them, all while his administration still claimed that the US wasn’t involved in those attacks, convinced many that the abovementioned Israeli officials were telling the truth. It therefore seemed that Trump’s rift with Bibi was indeed part of the ruse. This compelling interpretation of events would have drastic ramifications if true since Russia might then be spooked into pulling out of the Ukrainian peace process if Putin believed it.
Pingback: Did Trump Really Deceive Iran With Duplicitous Diplomacy? By Andrew Korybko — Der Friedensstifter