Trump Snatches Defeat From Jaws of Victory
Administration faces growing political crisis.
President Donald Trump drew his second administration further into political crisis in accepting a flawed Iran deal crafted by Vice President JD Vance.
In the weeks after Trump authorized the Iran war, with Tehran’s nuclear weapons program in tatters, he could have declared victory, militarily secured the Strait of Hormuz for oil and gas exports, and moved on.
He could have said that it does not matter if Iran has “uranium dust” because the means of enriching that uranium—highly complex and delicate centrifuge cascades—was wrecked. To borrow a quote from Henry Kissinger, such a statement “would have had the added advantage of being true.”
Instead, his administration ceased to speak the one language the Iranian regime understands—military force—and pursued diplomacy overseen by Vance and facilitated by Pakistan and Qatar.
That would be the same Pakistan that harbored Osama bin Laden and the same Qatar that hosts Hamas and runs a 24/7 anti-American cable network that colluded with and incited insurgents to kill Americans.
Excellence in diplomacy did not ensue.
According to sources who have visibility on the still-unpublished framework, the deal will provide Iran with “upfront relief” (i.e., payola), a nod to tacit Iranian dominance of the Strait of Hormuz, a lifeline for Hezbollah that limits Israel’s ability to fight its foes, and whopping additional payola in the form of “international investment” of more than a quarter of a trillion dollars.
How did such a bad agreement emerge?
Back on May 23, Vance presented Trump a framework agreement with Iran that he had worked out with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Despite public accounts that it was down to “fine-tuning,” it left out key details about Iran committing to end its nuclear program and excavate and hand over existing uranium stock, the condition of which is inexplicably unknown to America’s $100 billion-per-year intelligence bureaucracy.
The extraction would require the sustained presence of U.S. or U.N. instrumentalities in Iran, an unlikely concession for a government that has yet even to engage in face-to-face talks with the United States. Also kept vague was prospective payola to the Iranian regime for agreeing to end hostilities.
Trump declined to endorse the deal and continued military action against Iran.
Iran’s most dangerous proxy army, Hezbollah, waged war on Israel. Steps by Israel to defend itself at times brought support from Trump and other times brought harsh, expletive-laden condemnation, especially of late.
Thus did Trump stall and likely upend one of the brightest features of the war: the possible destruction of Hezbollah who through its predecessor, Islamic Jihad, first became famous in America when it killed 241 U.S. servicemembers in Beirut.
Separate from Vance’s diplomacy via Doha and Islamabad, Secretary of State Marco Rubio engaged the governments of Israel and Lebanon and moved toward an agreement that could push Hezbollah (and therefore Iran) out of Lebanon’s government for the first time in memory. That historic effort now languishes with Trump having made clear to Israel that he effectively wants Hezbollah left in place since Tehran has made that a condition of a deal.
The United States continued to strike Iran until April 8, when the White House announced Operation Epic Fury had met all of its goals after 38 days of combat.
In the ensuing ten weeks, Iran managed to keep the Strait of Hormuz highly constrained if not fully closed. Oil prices topped $100 per barrel and gasoline and diesel prices came close to their all-time highs seen during peak Biden-era inflation in 2022.
Now a deal is set to be signed on Friday in Geneva. Neither side has released the text, which calls into question if there is really a meeting of the minds for what officials describe as merely a framework.
Based on leaks and what has been briefed to members of Congress, that framework differs only from the flawed product Vance placed before Trump two months ago in that it makes more concessions to Iran and would place more restrictions on Israel.
The White House is eager not to be seen paying Iran directly just for making vague promises. In 2016, candidate Trump called a decision by then-President Barack Obama to send $1.7 billion in physical cash to Tehran “a disgrace.” This week Trump again distanced himself from the idea of payments for promises:
Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had. Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands.
Unfortunately, money will “exchange hands” due to the Vance deal, and it may dwarf Obama’s sweetener. It just won’t come directly from the United States. Iranian negotiators have made it clear they expect $12 billion held in Qatar to be released as part of the initial agreement. That is just the beginning. Iran also expects a $300 billion “investment package” for all of the exciting investment opportunities in the theocratic tyranny.
The White House is preemptively retorting that “Iran’s rewards come from its own unfrozen money, not from American taxpayers, and only after it performs.” For the terrorists and theocrats on the receiving end of these funds, that is a distinction without a difference.
And what of those terrorists and theocrats? Trump began the war by intoning to the Iranian people: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take… The hour of your freedom is at hand… Now is the time to seize control of your destiny…”
This outcome was always a tall order with a regime that reportedly killed tens of thousands of its own people in the last year to sustain its tyranny. And Trump deserves some credit for being the first president to at least call for the overthrow of the regime. But doing more than nothing to help Iranians achieve this would have been nice.
There were moronic plans to have the CIA arm Kurdish Iranian dissidents in Iraq to invade Iran. Six days into the war Trump said, “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.” Two days later, Trump said, “We are not looking to the Kurds going in. I’ve ruled that out.”
Better ideas, such as sending Starlink terminals into Iran so dissidents and average Iranians can get factual news and communicate—the basics of any dissent movement—never seem to have been explored. The Air Force’s EC-130J “Commando Solo” planes, which bristled with communications equipment to overcome enemy jamming and could pump information into a contested area, were retired from service in 2024. Apparently the country brought to life by political warfare, propaganda, and agitation—think the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine’s pamphleteering, and Samuel Adams’s agitprop—is clueless and helpless in applying these tools to our enemies.
In lieu of actually doing things, the administration’s most undaunted surrogates have resorted to fantasy. Some have suggested Iran’s terrorism-exporting IRGC will be magically pushed aside and that Iran may now see fit to join the Abraham Accords, which would involve recognizing Israel’s government and establishing diplomatic relations.
In fact, the deal will strengthen the IRGC. As for a new affinity for Israel, an Iranian government-aligned broadcaster said last week: “If the US cannot leash its rabid dog in the region, Iran will exceptionally assist it in this matter! And that will be through force.”
This would be an atypical preface to a diplomatic entente cordiale.
So off to Geneva to sign the agreement goes Vance, at least according to the current plan. One would think an ambitious young vice president would want to avoid such close association with a dubious framework negotiated and countersigned by governments that hate our guts.
But therein lies another odd wrinkle of this whole matter: according to speculation on Capitol Hill, Vance actually sees this as part of his ticket to the presidency. While Trump has distanced himself and his movement from strident anti-Israel voices like those of Tucker Carlson (a.k.a. “Tucker Qatarlson”), Vance has not. Sources see this as quite intentional, and believe Vance does not want to deprecate or minimize anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment in some quarters of the right, but in fact wants to harness them.
In that world, apparently this deal makes a lot of sense.
For Trump, the deal, if it holds, will provide relief in the form of lower gasoline and diesel prices. But it comes at the cost of overexposure and puffery that drifted into outright mendacity that has reduced his credibility. The satire site Babylon Bee joked in a headline: “Trump Sets New World Record By Winning War With Iran 27 Times In One Year.”
The setback comes on the heels of a lackluster summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing, at which Trump appeared to make a concession on Taiwan in exchange for little. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth then made a speech about security in Singapore that was too confusing to be offensive. Trump heads into summer facing certain loss at the Supreme Court over the issue of birthright citizenship—possibly by a unanimous vote although a 2-7 loss is more likely.
Recently, Trump has upset his base by defending warrantless spying on the communications of U.S. citizens. As with birthright citizenship, the administration would not have gone astray had it done what conservatives have argued forever: reading the Constitution.
Trump’s other recent forays into naming the Kennedy Center for himself and having it de-named by a court, and the irrelevant condition of the reflecting pool in Washington convey a distracted, rudderless administration.
A wise man once told me that every administration leaves town as a parody of itself. Is Trump advancing this condition to the sixth year of his presidency? No one has ever seen anything like it.
I usually agree with you but you couldn’t be more wrong. First, get some perspective. Reagan took out half of Iran’s navy and we barely heard from them for 20 years. Second, I don’t live in a perfect world. I think Trump looked at the various trade offs and said we crushed them militarily, proved the ineffective their Chinese and Russian defense capabilities were, and demonstrated that we can return anytime and bomb them at will. I think regime change is really up to the Iranian people. We lost 13 members of the military, the same as in Afghanistan in the shambolic Biden withdrawal. How many of our soldiers would have died in even a minimal incursion.
Also, for most of the country $4 dollar and some change was the maximum gas price which is similar to many of the Obama years when $4 was real money.
Basically, we are giving them access to our their own money. Plus the bullshit about costing 26 billion dollars in nonsense. Those soldiers and ships are fixed assets. They are going to be somewhere. The biggest incremental expense is combat pay and ammo.
Please, get a grip.
Somewhere in early April, Trump lost the signal. What's transpired since is just as Christian commented. Snatching defeat from the Jaws of victory. I have a bad feeling about Friday.