“Sign Or Die!” 🎣🎏

The bill for American action has arrived at the Saudi door. Last night, Donald Trump reportedly demanded that in exchange for finalizing the current ceasefire deal with Iran—the one desperately needed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—the Gulf states would have to pay a massive… pic.twitter.com/iQYzQzQHqw

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) May 25, 2026

The bill for American action has arrived at the Saudi door. Last night, Donald Trump reportedly demanded that in exchange for finalizing the current ceasefire deal with Iran—the one desperately needed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—the Gulf states would have to pay a massive premium: immediate normalization with Israel. According to my sources, the ultimatum was met with literal silence. The Arab leaders were so thoroughly stunned by the audacity of the request that Trump actually had to break the silence with a follow-up: “Are you still there?”

For months, we have watched a narrative form: Israel deceived the United States into a disastrous war that only empowered Iran. This narrative ignores multiple factors, including but not limited to the fact that it was Trump’s choice, Trump did not follow the Israeli plan, and—perhaps most of all—the presence of another major player calling for war: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In late February, The Washington Post reported that the decision to go to war had been reached after encouragement from two key allies: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Throughout the war, they reinforced this support. A few weeks later, when Trump was claiming that the war would be over in a few days, The New York Times reported that both nations heavily encouraged a continuation of the conflict. Prince Mohammed reportedly argued that the United States should consider putting troops in Iran to seize energy infrastructure and force the government out of power.

But things have changed.

The Saudis never expected to put their core energy infrastructure on the line for this conflict, assuming a covert nod to Washington would yield a painless destruction of the Iranian threat. Instead, the smoking ruins of the Ras Tanura refinery, a staggering $33.5 billion first-quarter deficit, and a hull-to-hull backup in the Strait of Hormuz served as a brutal awakening. With the United Arab Emirates stepping aggressively into the vacuum—gladly absorbing the role of America’s primary, hardline Gulf ally—Riyadh is executing a frantic tactical retreat. For the past month and a half, MBS has been beating a different drum: diplomacy. “Okay,” said Trump last night, but constantly shifting positions comes with a cost: normalization.

This is about far more than Trump extracting a quick return on investment. By demanding normalization as the price for a ceasefire, he is forcing the Saudis to grab Israel’s other arm to physically restrain Jerusalem from striking Iran alone.

It underscores a truth that Trump understood and Obama never did: the most effective way to control Israel isn’t to push them away, but to wrap them in a bear hug. By locking Jerusalem into a close alliance, Washington doesn’t just protect them—it places its hand directly over the Israeli trigger finger. Washington needs its hand over that trigger because Israel has little incentive to hold back when the current deal appears to leave Iran in a stronger position than before.

That is the Iranian impression as well. In The Art of the Deal, Trump writes: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” Sensing American eagerness for a diplomatic off-ramp, Tehran has smelled exactly that, aggressively upping its demands before any Memorandum of Understanding can be printed.

Despite draft stipulations requiring a return to free transit, the IRGC is leveraging its tactical position to normalize a permanent, permission-based transit regime in the Strait of Hormuz—boasting that 33 commercial vessels were forced to register and coordinate with the IRGC Navy in a single 24-hour window. Meanwhile, Iran has flatly rejected a Pakistani compromise to defer unresolved issues, flipping the entire sequencing of the talks by refusing any nuclear-related commitments or stockpiling concessions at this stage. Instead, an emboldened Tehran is demanding immediate economic rewards, including the unfreezing of blocked assets, while conditioning the entire agreement on an “all fronts” ceasefire that would effectively force Washington to strip Israel of its freedom of action against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

At the end of the devastating Iran-Iraq War, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously declared that accepting peace was like “drinking a poison chalice.” Today, his successor’s successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, is facing no such bitter brew. Instead, Benjamin Netanyahu is being asked to swallow the fatal mixture this time around. Much to his relief, Donald Trump is trying to mix in a Saudi sweetener to help the medicine go down.

Trump is hardly this clever. He’s not doing anything to Israel, and he never will. He’s shootings for the history books by, he thinks, creating peace in the Middle East. But the only leverage he has, he’s giving away. If he makes a deal with Iran (as he must), the other countries in the region are effectively on their own. If he restarts hostilities, they’re on the battlefield again. His only leverage with them is that threat; and that’s hardly enough to get them to recognize Israel. Indeed, it’s leverage that’s lost the minute it’s used.

If anything, Trump’s threatening to withdraw support, not increase it. Iran attacked those countries because they had American military bases, or supported the war. And now Trump is telling them: “Back me, or fuck you!” He’s already said it to NATO. Why should the Middle East hear him differently? To be blunt: if Trump really wanted this to happen, he wouldn’t announce it in a phone call and in social media.

I posted this because of the report on the response: stunned silence. Again, Trump has no cards, and he has no clue. The game is draw poker, and he’s playing “Go Fish.”