President Donald Trump famously sees the world in terms of deals. He came up in New York real estate, where dealmaking was the currency of success. And he has extended that logic to foreign policy, dangling rewards before adversaries and allies alike, always alongside a threat.
For Trump, the deal itself is the victory. The fixation has served him well at times: The Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and four Arab nations, have largely held up since Trump’s first term. But it has led him to a dead end in Iran.
The best path forward is an older time-tested approach: containment.
Trump’s war of choice against Iran, launched in February, has been a strategic failure by any measure. A decapitation strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not trigger regime collapse. Iran’s missiles remain a potent threat across the region, and its proxies remain active. Its nuclear program was severely set back by last summer’s strikes and the renewed bombing that began in February, but the fighting since then has strengthened Iran’s ambitions to get the bomb. And its government now asserts control over the Strait of Hormuz.
The core of June’s memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran was a trade: Iran would let ships pass through Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and the crippling blockade Trump had imposed.
But the language papered over one key question: Who runs the strait? Iran believed it could set terms for ships passing through and planned to levy “service fees.” In May, Tehran set up the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to do so. Trump ignored this and signed the memorandum anyway. After Iran fired on ships passing through in July, he went back to war.
The resumption of hostilities didn’t change the facts on the ground. Iran remained undeterred and still fired on ships. And Trump’s skittishness about putting U.S. troops in harm’s way conveyed to the hard-liners that he’s unwilling to escalate further.
A shortage of interceptor missiles is leaving allies’ infrastructure dangerously exposed. Cautioned by Gulf leaders whose cities would absorb the retaliation, Trump has called off further raids.
But the U.S. holds several cards. Playing them would require abandoning the idea that a deal with the mullahs is desirable or even necessary.
The U.S. naval blockade has devastated Iran’s economy and gutted its currency. The regime’s chief negotiator admits that oil exports have plummeted. Sanctions also remain in place, and tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets are still frozen. Tehran confirmed the value of that leverage last weekend when sanctions relief topped its latest list of demands.
Iran’s seizure of Hormuz is best understood as hostage taking, but the hostage has already been shot. Markets have priced in the closure. Oil prices, while elevated, are not catastrophic.
Moreover, suppliers are routing around the problem. The Trump administration claims 5 million to 7 million barrels a day now leave the region through upgraded pipelines and new export terminals. Saudi Arabia is assembling a multinational coalition to defend Red Sea shipping from Iran’s proxies, an effort Washington ought to back with surveillance and command support.
Containment is working. The U.S. should adapt its blockade to be more sustainable, lowering the number of ships conducting direct interdictions while sanctioning anyone who buys Iranian oil that gets through. The regime’s frozen assets should also stay frozen. And Iran’s proxies should be relentlessly suppressed in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza.
Crucially, Trump needs to keep the threat of significant escalation on the table, especially if Iran takes even the smallest step toward reconstituting its nuclear program.
Cutting deals with a murderous regime has never been a good idea. Feeding Iran more money would reward bad behavior and fund the next round of chaos. The savviest dealmaker knows when it’s time to walk away.
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