The naivete of a sophomore isolationist vice president in JD Vance has at the least proven that the United States has no chance to reach a satisfactory agreement of peace with Iran. Is seeking Iran’s de facto surrender our only successful strategy? It appears so.
After five weeks of amazingly successful bombing, the following 13 weeks — of troubled negotiation of a highly aspirational “agreement to agree” — should have seared on our collective cerebrum that a deal, even a bad one, with the allegedly representative Iranian regime is, at bottom, impossible.
If the $6 billion conned from our credulous negotiators is taken as a lesson, it will be well worth it to the security of the Western world, as we seek a more realistic approach to a jihadi regime.
It would appear, on the one hand, that President Donald Trump’s correct, albeit impolitic, accusation that the leaders of Iran are “scum” shows that he has impressed on his mind the lessons of his negotiators’ credulity.
The kinetic action now pursued promises eventually to open the Strait of Hormuz, even if it will not immediately force the regime to cry uncle. So, the present military action bodes well for those warning Trump not to succumb to the sirens’ song of quick and easy settlement.
But, not so fast. Trump continues to talk of a “settlement,” and, more directly, JD Vance recently told podcaster Joe Rogan that the purpose of the instant bombing is “forcing Iran back to the negotiating table.” Have we learned nothing from the $6 billion paid to Iran in tuition? What should be the key takeaways for Trump from this expensive debacle?
The first lesson is that, even if Iran comes to the table, no favorable deal can be reached. The breached memorandum of understanding, heavily favoring the defeated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, gives America, with Iran’s cooperation, only a temporarily open Strait of Hormuz, with extortionate tolls (termed “fees”) in the cards thereafter. Secondly, it promised that Iran would only “downblend” enriched uranium on site, portending future nukes. For this modest gain, we promise billions to Iran, allowing it to ensure that we cannot disable the country again while it develops extortionate nukes. Yet, stunningly, this terrible deal is the one that Vance would like to reaffirm. To be sure, this unfavorable deal is all we would ever get from negotiation.
A second lesson from recent events is that a deal with Iran is unnecessary. Once we complete the forestalled, original bombing scheme, the odds are that Iran would no longer be able to bedevil the strait. Certainly, the devastating prior blockade can be combined with bombing to render a once-again seriously weakened Iran, once it spends its $6 billion gift from the U.S., soon unable to impose serious risks on traversing tankers.
If the U.S. can open the strait now, wouldn’t that result be superior to a world in which, thanks to Vance, we agree that Iran would be charging tolls? And wouldn’t it be far superior nuclear “enforcement” simply to bomb any nuclear development sites in Iran, in preference to relying on toothless U.N. inspectors (part of the deal) to outwit the duplicitous Guard on slow-walked downblending? Haven’t the feckless former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State John Kerry already alerted us?
The further beauty of a “no deal” strategy would be that no negotiations, such as they are, would be used to extract billions in unfrozen assets and sanction-free oil, while forcing the U.S. to restrain Israel in its self-defense in Lebanon against Iranian proxies.
In short, any negotiation itself is a losing proposition in this case, thanks to the absurdly defeatist framework of the MOU approved earlier.
All the above analysis assumes a fact not in evidence, to wit, that there is even an “Iran” counterparty to any ostensibly “binding” contract. If there is no representative who has the authority to bind Iran to a deal and assure compliance, there can be no rational belief that a deal’s clearly modest benefits can be enforced.
The Iranian negotiators claim to represent “Iran.” Is that true? The murderous Guard has never been under the control of the negotiators claiming to represent Iran. Assuming, for argument’s sake, that the Guard, not yet in the negotiations, now were to claim such authority, it is well known that, by design, the Guard has been divided into numerous stand-alone entities, each with discretion and the ability to employ its share of the distributed firepower.
Former national security adviser John Bolton, always prickly but rarely, if ever, uninformed, has strongly argued that there is no Iranian representative who can truly bind the country. Yet the always-credulous Vance wants to get negotiators back to the table, resulting in a deal that binds America but not Iran. Oh, yes, the now-abandoned MOU would have required a U.N. Security Council resolution, meaning that nice America is bound, but not really Iran.
It is hoped that Trump will realize the vacuity of his VP, trust his own commonsense instincts, and bomb Iran, but not merely to get “scum” back to the table.
ROME JUST ASKED THE IRAN QUESTION TRUMP CAN NO LONGER IGNORE
One historical note for Trump to consider: Wars for thousands of years have ended most often with the loser agreeing to or being forced to “surrender.” Just maybe, seeking surrender, if only de facto, is the only strategy that the president is well-advised to pursue.
No “settlement,” in short, would be worth its paper. We must destroy the world’s worst terrorist regime.
John D. O’Connor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the books Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism and The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened. O’Connor and Mark Felt also collaborated on the 2006 book, A G-Man’s Life.