On Saturday afternoon, exactly 12 weeks after launching the war with Iran, Donald Trump used his social media platform to make a vague announcement about a possible end to the conflict. A “peace” agreement, the president wrote, “has been largely negotiated.” He added that the details of the deal would be “announced shortly,” raising hopes around the world that the end of the deadly and destabilizing war was imminent.
Roughly 48 hours later, U.S. military leaders announced a series of “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran, including on missile launch sites and boats placing mines, prompting Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to issue a statement vowing likely retaliatory strikes against U.S. military sites in the region.
Taken together, we’re left with a ceasefire featuring quite a bit of firing, alongside a burgeoning peace deal that lacks both peace and a deal.
Hours after the U.S. launched fresh strikes on Iranian targets, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that a breakthrough might take “a few more days” — comments that came a day after Rubio also told the press that an agreement could be finalized “today,” in reference to Monday.
There is, in other words, some uncertainty about where things stand and where they’re headed.
That said, over the weekend, some elements of the burgeoning agreement reached the public, and MS NOW reported that the deal would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and unfreeze certain Iranian assets, while establishing some kind of framework for future negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
While the White House is no doubt accustomed to pushback from the left, in this instance the loudest critics of the emerging deal were on the right. MS NOW also reported:
President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. and Iran have a framework of a peace deal was met Sunday with skepticism from key Republicans — and confusing claims from the president himself.
The list was not short. Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that the agreement “would be a disaster.” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina raised related concerns, while Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas also said online that he’s “deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’ being pushed by some voices in the administration.”
Even Mike Pompeo, who served as the secretary of state and CIA director during Trump’s first term, made his dissatisfaction known, prompting a White House spokesperson to respond, “Mike Pompeo has no idea what the f––– he’s talking about. He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals.”
The president’s reactions were far less profane, but he nevertheless chided “Dumocrats, RINOS, and Fools” who have dared to raise concerns, while trying to assure the public that he knows what he’s doing and would deliver a result far superior to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which the Obama administration successfully negotiated in 2015.
To be sure, it’s impossible to fully assess an agreement that doesn’t yet exist, and time will tell what, if anything, emerges from the latest attempts at diplomacy.
That said, there are two broad elements that are quickly coming into focus.
The first is that Trump’s weakness continues to get in the way of his progress. The president effectively told his ostensible allies on the right, “Trust me.” Many of them effectively responded, “No.”
For all of Trump’s strutting and chest-thumping last week after orchestrating several primary defeats for Republicans who defied him, his latest claims to political strength continue to look like a mirage.
The second angle involves appreciating the needle that the American president is struggling to thread. When the Obama administration sat at the negotiating table alongside Iran, Germany and the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the Democratic White House’s goal was to reach an agreement that would work.
The incumbent White House’s focus is qualitatively different: Trump wants a deal that can (a) get Iranian approval; (b) impress his far-right supporters; and (c) offer him a credible opportunity to claim that he struck a better deal than Obama did more than a decade ago.
Is it even possible to reach an agreement that checks all of the boxes simultaneously? I rather doubt it. Watch this space.
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