No country ever went into a bargaining session with less leverage yet emerged with greater rewards than Iran has just done. The regime was close to collapse economically, socially, and militarily, but President Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding rescued it and gave it new life.
The first stage of Operation Epic Fury was brilliantly conceived and executed, and its resounding success meant that Trump then held all the cards. There followed two months of dithering during which our advantage gradually diminished as Iran repeatedly violated the ceasefire while we mostly pretended that they didn’t. Now we have a deal that has even Trump’s strongest supporters (and I’m one of them) alarmed.
What went wrong? If I am correct, two major factors produced this mistake.
THE EMPEROR’S NUCLEAR CLOTHES: TRUMP IRAN DEAL AND THE NAKED KING
First, the impact of heavy pressure from all the Gulf States for a deal that maintains the Iranian regime can’t be overstated. They constantly intervened to stop Trump as he was about to initiate military action that might have destroyed it, and he always capitulated to them. They were always eager to mediate between the United States and Iran, and that, too, helped to protect the regime.
The states involved (Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman) are very different places, but there was no daylight between them on one point: they wanted to tame the current Iranian regime, but not break it. Why? That’s not difficult to figure out. If the regime fell, it might well be replaced by a Western-style democracy. Iran has either a land or maritime border with virtually all these states. Their Islam-oriented autocratic rulers surely hate the idea of a large and powerful Western secular democracy on their doorstep, one whose proximity could well cause unrest in their own countries.
Did Trump understand this stark difference between the interests of the Gulf States and those of the U.S., the Iranian people, and Israel? Perhaps not, since he settled for a deal that effectively grants the wishes of the former by short-changing those of the latter.
During the two months of the ceasefire, the incomparable General Jack Keane grew increasingly impatient with Trump’s hesitancy, but consoled himself with the thought shared by almost everyone else that Trump would never make a bad deal. This time, he was wrong, but no one had grasped what turned out to be a weakness inherent in Trump’s normally shrewd deal-making, and that was the second major factor leading to this botched deal.
Trump famously prides himself on his deal-making. That’s what I do, he often tells us — make deals. And when there’s a good deal to be made, there’s no one better. But what happens when there isn’t? First, no deal could ever resolve the conflict between what the Gulf States want — to preserve a tamed version of the Iranian regime — and what we, the Israelis, and the Iranian people need — relief from a sickeningly vicious and brutal regime. And second, no useful deal can be made with people who always treat whatever they have agreed to with utter contempt.
Experience tells us that this Iranian regime will never change its goals, and that it will lie, cheat, and steal to pursue them. That’s also the unmistakable import of its recently stepped-up executions of its own people. The financial relief it receives will, of course, be used primarily for the restoration of all the offensive capabilities we have degraded. Where almost by definition there is no sensible deal to be had, Trump’s addiction to triumphant deal-making becomes a psychological weakness that the other side can exploit, as they are doing.
Just how bad this deal now looks can be judged from the degree of incoherence in the administration’s defense of it. The deal places no limits on Iranian missile production, yet Trump now insists that’s no problem, thus contradicting his entire rationale for starting the war. He is adamant that the Iranians get no money up front, but that’s also contradicted by the fact that the regime can immediately start selling oil. He tells us that Iran is destroyed, has no cards, has surrendered — but contradicts that when he defends the deal as the only way to prevent a global recession, an admission that Iran holds the whip hand after all. He claims that despite the MOU’s language, Iran can’t charge tolls at the end of the 60 days, but why then did he sign off on Iran’s intention to do so? He blames Israel for violating the ceasefire when it was Hezbollah’s violations that caused Israel to act.
To cap it all, we are told to ignore the terms of the MOU because that’s not what the final deal will look like — then why sign off on something that you now claim not to be bound by? This stream of incoherence only makes matters worse.
TRUMP’S IRAN DEAL IS SHAPING UP TO BE WORSE THAN OBAMA’S
This MOU even promises that once the deal is done, the U.S. will never again interfere in Iran’s internal affairs — a gratuitous grant of license to Iran to do as it wishes in the future without any interference (massacre its citizens? unleash its proxies?). The negotiators who produced this document certainly don’t inspire confidence.
The only saving grace in all of this is that Iran is certain to continue to violate the ceasefire, which will give Trump a legitimate reason to abrogate a foolish deal. Let’s hope he decides that when you lose the confidence of large numbers of your most loyal and devoted supporters, it might be wise to think again. He should go back to doing what makes sense for the Iranian people, the Israelis, and his own people — not the autocrats of the Gulf States, however much he wants their support for the Abraham Accords.
John M. Ellis is a distinguished professor emeritus of German literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, chairman of the California Association of Scholars, and author most recently of A Short History of Relations Between Peoples: How the World Began to Move Beyond Tribalism.