President Trump has announced that the United States and Iran have reached an agreement to end their war. “Congratulations to all!” He said in to publish on his Social Truth site this evening. He then headed off to preside over a public reception he planned for his birthday on the South Lawn of the White House. The United States, however, has nothing to celebrate: Trump and his team, in record time, lost the war to a military opponent – but very dangerous – enemy.
The details of the agreement have not yet been confirmed, but the president, of course, is eager to turn the result into a victory. (Trump was in a hurry to sign the deal on his birthday; the Iranians, who now seem to be in charge of this whole business, instead said they would send someone to a meeting in Switzerland on Friday.) But even before we get the details, it’s clear that Trump has failed to achieve every single one of the goals he set for this election war, and now he’s determined to sign, seal, and deliver the US capitulation as soon as possible.
Like failure seems a strong word, think about what we do it to know how this war will end. Iran has suffered heavy losses due to the military actions of the United States and Israel. But like me and others he warned in the beginning killing people and blowing things up does not give victory alone. The truth is that the war will be closed while the administration of Tehran is still in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; The Strait of Hormuz will remain under the threat of Iranian attacks; Iran will continue to possess a large stockpile of drones and missiles; the government will maintain the ability to be a state sponsor of terrorism; and many sanctions will be lifted and billions of dollars of unfrozen assets will flow into Iran. In other words, the Iranians have achieved their most important strategic goal – the survival of the regime above all – while the Americans have achieved none of theirs.
Indeed, the United States has probably done more harm than good. Iran, although temporarily weakened, is now a more powerful political actor: The Tehran regime stood up to a major US attack, survived, and then inflicted pain on the various Gulf states as punishment for going along with Trump’s war.
The Israelis, on the other hand, have been left out in the cold. It is difficult to shed tears for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is unwise encouraged Trump attacked Iran, but he, too, feels the pain of humiliation. The Iranians linked Netanyahu’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon to Trump’s war in the Gulf, and Trump is now angry at Netanyahu for making it difficult for the US to withdraw from the conflict. (When Netanyahu planned a major strike in Beirut in early June, Trump he called herswore to him, and said, “You would be in prison if it weren’t for me.”)
The upcoming deal reportedly requires a cessation of hostilities in the region, including in Lebanon—and Trump is negotiating as if he can meet those demands while leaving Jerusalem out of it. Today, the Israelis said that Hezbollah launched weapons into Israel. Instead of asking the Iranians to block their agent, Trump took to social media to tell the Israelis to calm down, noting that the attack “was very small and insignificant, no one was hurt, injured, or killed, and it should not disrupt this important process.”
The Trump administration will claim that it won because it got Iran without nuclear weapons. But this claim is silly and redundant. Tehran had already pledged 10 years ago in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action not to seek nuclear weapons. No one should trust the Iranians, but before Trump unilaterally canceled the deal in his first term, the JCPOA seemed to be working. Furthermore, when Trump chose to go to war, Iran was nowhere near a bomb, and certainly not within weeks of a weapon, as Trump claimed. Efforts to claim that this war has defeated Iran’s nuclear ambitions are just efforts to distract from the regime’s failure to achieve regime change, which has always been its primary goal.
(Trump’s praise for averting the Iran bomb is like the old joke about the London camp throwing “lion powder” out the window to keep the lions away. When told that London doesn’t have lions, the camp said: “And a good thing to shed blood too, because that powder doesn’t work.”)
The accord – if signed on Friday – would then trigger two months of further negotiations, and Trump could say he will gain more in the process. But how?
Trump has for weeks talked about getting rid of Iran’s “Nuclear Dust” — its extraordinary amount of uranium that is now buried under debris from U.S. explosions — with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. he demanded this morning that the United States has many plans to remove this material. Iranians, however, are busy plant booby traps around the uranium to make sure it stays where it is, and despite Hegseth’s disruption, America will not go into Iran and mine it without Tehran’s permission. In any case, the Iranians now have every incentive to resort to the bomb, and they can do so with far less transparency than they had to endure under the JCPOA.
Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz will “open,” but it was already open, at least to those Iranians allowed through. In his celebratory message, Trump said: “I fully endorse the free opening of the Strait of Hormuz.” That is bad, but such a statement has the same effect as me or my wife or my cat declaring the Door open; only Iran he can make that decision. Trump also announced that the US Navy blockade of Iranian ports has ended, which is certainly within his power, but that means the US will withdraw while Iran remains.
At the same time—and again, these are the conditions that have so far been leakage to the media, especially from the Iranians—Iran claims that not only will it get $12 billion up front, but it will get another $12 billion within 60 days. Down the line, the Iranians claim that they will get a $300 billion fund for reconstruction. (U.S. officials have stressed to reporters that any disbursement will be contingent on performance, an ambiguity that raises more questions and could invite Iranians to dig and cheat if the Americans are reluctant to provide the money.) The war leaves Iran battered, but stronger and with more money, while it leaves America weaker, with vital weapons stockpiles dwindling, and at the pump of gas prices.
Trump today too he demanded that he is fully prepared to restart hostilities if the Iranians do not cooperate. Tehran, however, could be forgiven for cringing at the idea that Trump would shut down US forces and then spark a second conflict just weeks from the midterm elections, precisely because the American people — and, perhaps more importantly from Trump’s perspective, global markets — have balked at the conflict.
Trump began this war by promising the Iranian people that they could wrest their government from the theocratic tyrants who oppress them, and has repeatedly said he will not settle for anything less than “unconditional surrender.” If Trump were to topple the regime in Tehran, he would have gratitude from much of the world—and praise from his most dedicated critics. Instead, America has failed, and this evening found Trump on the grass waiting for the rain to start his party.
