U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Monday.Vadim Ghirda/The Associated Press
The reviews have not been kind. “A disaster.” A “catastrophe.” The “worst strategic blunder the U.S. has made post-World War II.” Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and trenchant geopolitical observer, perhaps said it best: “Trump said he demanded unconditional surrender, we just didn’t know he meant America’s.”
What they are describing, of course, is the Trump-Iran “deal,” or memorandum of understanding. It’s difficult to know precisely what to make of it, given that the actual text has yet to be released, and given that so much of what has been revealed consists in agreements to have further talks, and talks about talks.
But what can be gleaned from it at this point fully merits the most scathing descriptions. Indeed, it is difficult to see how it could be considered as anything but a catastrophic defeat: for the United States, for Israel, for the long-suffering Iranian people, for the peace of the region.
Of course, to measure the outcomes against the Trump administration’s war aims presumes that it had any, beyond looking tough and distracting attention. Even so, to judge by their fitful and conflicting statements, both before the war and during, it would appear to have delivered none of them.
Far from regime change, the mullahs look more entrenched than ever. Having survived the worst that America and Israel could throw at them, they are tougher, more radicalized, more convinced of their divine mission.
Most of all, they are, as it were, freed. Before the war, Iran might have hesitated to take this or that action – for example, seizing the Strait of Hormuz – for fear of the military response that would surely follow. But the military response having come and gone, what now is there to deter them?
Mid-war, the Trump administration was forced into the embarrassing position of announcing the reopening of the Strait as a war aim – that is, of restoring the status quo before they launched their war of choice. More embarrassing still, they do not appear to have achieved even that.
Iran will, it appears, not only continue to control the Strait, but will charge a “fee” – not a toll, if anyone’s scoring, as if that made the slightest bit of difference – to cross it. And if America, or Israel, or anyone else should do something to annoy it, for example, by attempting to enforce the terms of the deal? Then the fee will presumably go up, at a minimum.
What about Iran’s nuclear program, the dismantling of which was sometimes said to be the main war aim? Well, we are told the deal contains a solemn promise on Iran’s part never to seek nuclear weapons – the same solemn promise contained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with Barack Obama.
Only with even less teeth. To buy his way out of the cul de sac into which he had blundered, Donald Trump agreed to only the vaguest language on Iran’s nuclear material, with much left to further negotiations. On top of which, they agreed to a partial lifting of sanctions, unfreezing US$25-billion in Iranian assets.
And on top of that, there is this business, at first denied then conceded, of the US$300-billion investment fund that is supposedly being arranged for Iran.
David Shribman: Iran-U.S. deal may have the two countries back to where they started
What else is in the deal? Nothing, so far as anyone can tell, on Iran’s ballistic missile program. Nothing on reining in its proxy groups, Hezbollah and Hamas. Oh, and the U.S. agrees to lift its own blockade on the Strait, allowing Iran to earn more export revenues, while the talks and talks about talks drag on.
If you are looking for the silver lining, the “yes, but,” you can stop looking. This is Mr. Trump, after all. He is a simpleton, surrounded by fools and lunatics. They had no idea of what they were getting into with this war, no plan to prosecute it, and no clue as to what would come after. A few days’ bombing, a decapitated leadership, and they’d leave everyone else to clean up the mess.
That was evident enough to anyone with eyes to see. Yet some folks who ought to have known better – including, it is excruciating to recall, the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition – still signed onto the war at the start. Whether this was out of an understandable desire to be rid of the Iranian regime, or a less creditable desire to get onside with Mr. Trump, it was the height of folly.
Perhaps the most accurate way to put it is this: even ending the war this way – in strategic defeat, and national humiliation – is better than actually carrying on with it.