All Those Balls In The Air

Some of you may be old enough to remember the memes that appeared during the early months of Obama’s presidency of former president George W. Bush.

Despite 43’s low popularity at the end of his term, the rank amateurism of Team Obama made even anti-Bush Republicans post his photo with the phrase, “Do you miss me yet?”

Have any Democrats been posting similar memes about Joe Biden? Maybe I just don’t frequent the left TikTok pages, but I haven’t seen much nostalgia for Sleepy Joe.

Can you imagine Biden playing three-dimensional chess with China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran and the European Union, all on separate chessboards, and all at the same time?

Okay, neither can I. But that’s what President Trump has been doing.

The Iran negotiations got off to a bad start, with know-nothing Trump crony Steve Witkoff blithely telling the Iranians they could continue to enrich uranium, just as long as they did’t step on the gas past 3.67%, civilian grade.

He got read the riot act by the Trump national security team, and has now walked that back.

Sec/State Marco Rubio put out the correct phrasing this week, saying that Iran could certainly have a civilian nuclear power program in the future if they imported the enriched uranium from, say, Russia. But they can’t enrich themselves. Period.

Complicating things, of course, is Iran’s growing strategic and military relationship with Russia.

Putin and Iranian president Massod Peseshkian this week inked the final version of a 20-year strategic and military agreement the two have been discussing for well over a year.

This makes Iran and Russia allies in a very formal sense, not just rent-a-friends.

Will Putin intervene to stop a US-Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons sites, a possibility Trump has very carefully not taken off the table, even though he has said repeatedly how much he wants to come to a deal with Iran?

The answer, of course, is we don’t know. It’s one more ball in the air being juggled by President Trump.

And how about the Ukraine war? Everyone can see how frustrated the President has been at the failure of his envoy Witkoff to exact any concessions from either Putin or Zelenskyy.

Just four hours before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant arrived in Kyiv last month to negotiate the rare earth minerals deal — which Zelenskyy rejected — Putin launched a massive rocket and drone attack on Kyiv.

Bessant hasn’t shied from telling interviewers that the attack was specifically aimed at him — not to kill him — but to remind the United States that Putin is the one who will eventually determine the fate of Ukraine.

Iran sent Russia the drones used in that attack, and presumably under the new strategic and military alliance will send Russia more. So any negotiation with Russia and Ukraine also has an Iran component.

And now, enter China. Department of State Spokesperson Tammy Bruce revealed on April 17 that a Chinese state-affiliated company, the Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co, Ltd (CGSTL), was “directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on U.S. interests.”

Specifically, she said, the company has been providing targeting data and probably raw satellite imagery to the Houthis for their attacks on US Navy ships and commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

These are normally the type of allegations that states make privately to one another, through the intelligence services. Making them in public is serious business — unless, of course, you are Joe Biden, and you tell Putin or the Chinese to “just cut it out,’ which of course they ignore.

So with China, Trump now has a tariff negotiation, a trade negotiation, and multiple national security negotiations.

With Russia, he’s got an Ukraine war negotiation, an Iran negotiation, and eventually a trade and energy negotiation.

With Iran, he’s got a nuclear negotiation with Israeli, Russian, Chinese, and even European components, as well as contingent Russia and China negotiations.

And throw into that mix what happens to world oil supplies if the U.S. maintains the embargo on Iranian oil, or imposes new oil sanctions on Russia.

This president has got so many balls in the air it is almost dizzying to watch. And he’s got his eyes on every one.

I discuss these issues and more on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. You can listen later to the podcast here.

Yours in freedom.

©2025 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. 

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.