By Cecil Hoge

Many children from my generation were taught the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. That fable was first told by Aesop, a Greek storyteller, about 2,600 years ago, so it may be that members of Gen X to Gen Alpha are not so familiar with this ancient fable. That may also explain why so many people are presently surprised about the recent on and off Iran War.

The Story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is pretty simple. A young sheperd boy gets bored watching over a flock of sheep and decides to create some excitement in his village, so he cries, “Wolf, Wolf!” The whole village gets excited and goes charging around trying to find The Wolf. After a while, the village people come back and find the shepherd boy laughing at his great joke. The shepherd boy is truly amused and happy to see the excitement he has caused. The villagers not so much.

Well, a few days later the shepherd boy gets bored again and he goes down to the village and cries “Wolf, Wolf”. And all the village people go rushing about again only to find that they have been duped again. The village people came back hopping mad and give the shepherd boy a stern lecture to never lie again.

Not too long afterward, the shepherd boy is again tending his flock and actually sees a real wolf. Once again he goes into the village and cries, “Wolf, Wolf”. But this time the villagers do not listen. They just go about their daily activities thinking this is just another lie. 

And what happens? The Wolf comes and eats most of the flock and maybe, according to some versions of the story, The Wolf also eats a few villagers and even the boy himself. 

The Moral of the Story according to Aesop is:

“Even when a liar speaks the truth, no one will believe him.”

So what does that fable have to do with Donald Trump and The War in Iran?

I would suggest there are some weird similarities to the present state of the Iran War and Aesop’s fable.

In the first few days after Donald Trump began his war in Iran, he declared victory and said that The United States had won The Iran War. There were, admittedly, some pretty good reasons why this seemed true. After all, in the first few hours of the war, the Ayatollah and many high ranking members of his regime and his family were eliminated and, at the same time, many military and intelligence infrastructures were obliterated with bombs and missiles. Militarily speaking, it was obvious that that the U.S. was victorious over Iran.

Unfortunately, Iran was insistent, despite its battering, that the U.S. had not won the war.

From Donald Trump’s point of view, his victory claim was true…we had won militarily. But Donald Trump did not stop there. He continued to say multiple times that the United States had already won the Iran War. After that, he said other things. He said, if Iran did not to agree to all of the U.S. terms, he would obliterate every bridge, every energy site and every desalinization plant in 4 hours. Thereafter, when a 2 Week Ceasefire was agreed to, he said that Iran War was again won and that Iran had agreed to everything that U.S. wants. 

It should be noted that each time Donald Trump said The Iran War was won by the U.S. and that Iran had agreed to all of the U.S. terms, Iran said NO the war was not won and NO Iran had NOT agreed to all or any of the U.S. terms.

Now, whether those things were lies could be contested, but certainly many people thought that Donald Trump has often said things that were not true.

That still does not make the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” comparable to the story of Donald’s Trump’s dealings with Iran.

Ìn a way, you could say his actions were quite different from the boy because Donald Trump was not crying out that a wolf would eat his sheep. No, indeed. Donald Trump was crying that the war had been won, that peace was at hand, that he had ended 10 wars, that he had improved the economy, that the cost of electricity would be reduced by 50%, that inflation was going down, that most illegal immigrants were murderers and rapists, that he had beaten Joe Biden in the last election.

The above claims by the President has given some people the idea that Donald Trump is not very truthful. Again, it could be argued that none of the above claims were lies.

Most recently, about a week into the Cease Fire, Donald Trump and Iran announced that the Gulf of Hormuz would be opened. Shortly, thereafter, Donald Trump said that the Naval Blockade that the United States would stay in place until the full peace agreement had been signed. Within a hour or so, Iran said that continuing the U.S. Blockade was a violation of the agreement to open the Gulf of Hormuz. The opening of the Straight of Hormuz lasted almost a day. By the next day, Iran again shut the Straight of Hormuz saying that the Straight would stay closed until the U.S. removed its blockade of the Gulf of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman.

In spite of this new twist in events, President Trump said negotiations with Iran were going quite well and he would send a U.S. negotiation team to Pakistan to finalize an end to the Iran War. A few hours later, Iran said no one had spoken to them about a meeting in Pakistan and given the many lies and contradictions they were told by the Trump Administration, Iran intended to not to attend.

Shortly thereafter, Donald Trump posted the following:

The next week, when the Ceasefire was extended, Donald Trump said he was sending his two top negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Pakistan again to again negotiate. The President said that he had heard from reliable people that Iran would be sending negotiators to present their outline of an agreement to end the war.

Iran announced that they were not planning to anttend any negotiations and they were not going to present a plan to end the war.

However, Iran did send their top Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, to Pakistan. That raised hopes in the U.S. that there actually would be serious negotiations with Iranian officials. But that did not happen. Instead, Araghchi met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, chatted with him for while and then flew off to Oman for some other diplomatic conversations.

When it became evident that Abbas Aragchi had left Pakistan, President Trump announced that he had ordered Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to cancel their trip to Pakistan.

The President said that there has been “Too much time wasted on traveling.”

”Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion…Nobody knows who is in charge.”

And so goes The War in Iran.