Former President Barack Obama has predicted that Trump’s deal with Iran would not be “significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place.”
I can think of more than 13,000 differences: That’s the number of U.S. military strikes that Trump launched during Operations Epic Fury and Midnight Hammer. Unlike Obama, Trump buried Iran’s nuclear material so deep that, senior officials tell me, Iran has indicated the United States will have to dig it up because it can’t reach it to hand over. He also took out over 85 percent of Iran’s defense industrial base; sank its navy; grounded its air force; damaged its centrifuges; and decimated its ballistic missile capabilities, conventional military forces and infrastructure of repression. An Iranian journalist relayed to me that her mother was taken into a police station for questioning because of the journalist’s reporting on the war. Days later, she said, the station lay in rubble.
Before the war, Trump warned he would kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if he did not bend to U.S. demands. Trump delivered on that promise. The U.S.-Israeli combined force not only eliminated Iran’s supreme leader, it also took out dozens of other senior Iranian officials. That is in addition to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s terrorist mastermind, whom Trump killed in his first term. Today, thanks to Trump, Iran’s top leadership has been annihilated, the regime can no longer project power in the Middle East and it possesses only a “nuisance” capability, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command. No president in 47 years has done more damage to the Iranian regime than Trump has. He deserves enormous credit for this.
Because of these strikes, Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran — which sets in motion negotiations over how to fulfill Iran’s pledge to end its nuclear ambitions — is backed by the credible threat of U.S. military force. As Trump put it this week, “if [a final deal] doesn’t get done … we go back to bombing.” Obama, by contrast, failed to act after Syria repeatedly violated his red line against using chemical weapons on its people, responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by giving Ukraine blankets and meals ready to eat, and pioneered the concept of “leading from behind” during the U.S. war with Libya.
So, no, this is not the Obama nuclear deal redux. As former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice recently explained, “Iran is far weaker today than it was in February. No amount of Iranian propaganda can mask this reality.”
Here’s the problem: We need to keep Iran in that weakened state. The deal Trump signed this week does the opposite; it helps Iran get up off the mat. After weeks of bombing, Iran is debilitated, but it is not chastened. The regime is determined to rebuild what Trump destroyed. It knows that Trump is only president for another two and a half years, so it simply needs to survive long enough for Americans to elect another weak president like Obama or Joe Biden.
This MOU not only allows the regime to survive, it gives it the means to recover and rebuild — without having to do virtually anything in return.
In paragraph four, the U.S. agrees to “fully end the naval blockade within 30 days” while in paragraph 10 it agrees to “immediately … issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, transportation.” In other words, the damage done by the blockade will be immediately erased, as the regime will gain access to tens of billions in oil revenue just for signing the MOU.
Moreover, in paragraph 11 the U.S. promises to immediately “make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU.” Full implementation isn’t defined, but count on the Iranians to interpret it to mean they’re entitled to immediate access to all frozen assets — a $24 billion windfall – and are justified in closing the Strait of Hormuz again if they don’t receive it.
Finally, paragraph five implicitly authorizes Iran to impose tolls on ships transiting the strait by obliging Tehran to allow toll-free passage “for 60 days only.”
None of the money that Iran will receive can ever be reclaimed. The damage will be permanent and irreparable. Moreover, by giving Iran this immediate cash infusion and relief from the U.S. sanctions that have been in place for decades, Trump virtually guarantees that he will be unable to win meaningful concessions in the follow-on negotiations. By giving away his economic leverage now, he will have nothing left to offer Iran as he negotiates the dismantling of its nuclear program.
The longer-term damage is even worse. The MOU pledges that, as part of a final agreement, “the United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran” and that the U.S. will facilitate the delivery of this reconstruction assistance by granting “all required licenses, waivers and permissions used for the relevant financial transactions.” This is like launching the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany while the Nazis were still in power — except the Marshall Plan was worth only about $130 billion in today’s dollars.
Trump insists that, unlike with the Marshall Plan, the U.S. is not obligated to contribute a dime. It doesn’t matter. The money is part of an agreement signed by the president of the United States and possesses his imprimatur. Yes, Iran gets nothing if it does not reach a final deal with the U.S. But there is no concession Iran could make — even if it allowed the U.S. to come in and take all of its enriched uranium and centrifuges and fly them to Oak Ridge, Tennessee — that is worth giving $300 billion to the unrepentant Islamic terrorists who rule Iran. Moreover, Trump never delivered on his threats to destroy Iran’s energy and civilian infrastructure, focusing instead on military targets. So, what exactly does Iran need $300 billion to reconstruct?
Further, in paragraph seven, the U.S. agrees that as part of a final deal it will “terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, i.e., IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, primary and secondary.” This includes sanctions related not just to Iran’s nuclear program but also its support for terror, ballistic missiles and human rights violations — none of which Iran will have agreed to give up. Trump will not be able to do most of this unilaterally. U.N. sanctions can only be lifted by action of the U.N. Security Council, and many U.S. sanctions — especially primary sanctions that limit trade with and investment in Iran by Americans — can only be removed by Congress.
The U.S. pledges in paragraph two to “refrain from interfering in [Iran’s] internal affairs,” which effectively gives Iran carte blanche to commit whatever heinous acts it wants against protesters. Trump promised the Iranian people that “help is on its way.” Instead, this deal puts a U.S. seal of approval on their continued repression.
Trump says if Iran does not agree to a final deal, he will bomb again. This threat is itself a violation of paragraph one, which obligates him “not to initiate any war or any military operation … and to refrain from the threat or use of force” against Iran.
That is the bad news. Here is the good news: I don’t believe that Trump will let Iran get away with stonewalling him in the final negotiations. Vice President JD Vance said in a recent interview that “if they don’t comply with the deal, the straits are still open, we’ve still done incredible damage to their nuclear program, and we can get on with our lives as a country.” High-level sources in the White House have assured me that this is not Trump’s position. His position is: They’ll comply or they will get blown up. Trump will insist that Iran either hand over or permit the supervised destruction of all its fissile materials — not just its highly enriched uranium — or he will resume military operations. Iran believes that the U.S. midterm elections give it leverage. But once the midterms are over, that leverage disappears. Trump will be free to resume military action.
I have been clear about my view from the start: Trump would be better off ending the war without a deal, with a final 10- to 14-day bombing campaign that completes the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities — and then declaring victory, ending combat operations and launching a covert effort to arm the Iranian people and help them overthrow the regime in time. Because so long as the regime remains in power, the incredible military gains he has made will be temporary and reversible.
Right now, the deal Trump signed not only allows the regime to survive, it helps Iran get back on its feet. He had a historic opportunity to reshape the Middle East for a generation. This deal risks squandering all the gains he made on the battlefield. It’s a mistake. But fortunately it’s not the end of the story.
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