More from the article ...

... With both sides outwardly confident they hold the upper hand and their positions far apart, there is no obvious off-ramp in sight, even as Iran submitted a fresh proposal to restart negotiations. Trump quickly rejected it on Friday.

For the U.S. president and his Republican Party, the implications of a continued impasse are grim.

An unresolved conflict would likely mean the global economic fallout, including high U.S. gasoline prices, will persist, putting further pressure on Trump, whose poll numbers are falling, and darkening Republican candidates' prospects ahead of November's midterm congressional elections.

UNMET GOALS

Those costs highlight a deeper problem: the war has failed to achieve many of Trump's stated goals.
While there is little doubt that waves of U.S. and Israeli strikes heavily degraded Iran's military capabilities, many of Trump's often-shifting war objectives -- from regime change to shutting Iran's path to a nuclear weapon -- remain unfulfilled.

Fears for a more protracted deadlock have grown since Trump called off a trip by his negotiators to Islamabad last weekend and then dismissed an Iranian offer to halt the war, suspended since April 8 under a ceasefire agreement. ...

@#2 ... Trump's Forever War. ...

Pres Trump still seems to be desperately looking for that exit ramp ...