No. of Recommendations: 11
I'm as skeptical of the Iran war as the next guy. And I remain skeptical of the Administration's position now.
However....we don't know any of the details of the "deal" yet.
Hegseth and Trump are claiming that Iran has agreed to stop enrichment altogether (not just stay below a threshold) and allow the U.S. to remove all their enriched material. The former would be a shift past where the JPCOA had us (though no mention of monitoring), and the latter would be a really significant achievement.
Iran has confirmed none of that, however. It's not in their 10-point plan, and in their Farsi statements (though not the English ones) they stated that the agreement allows them to keep enriching uranium. The 10-point plan contains such provisions as:
The lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran.
Continued Iranian control over the strait of Hormuz.
US military withdrawal from the Middle East.
An end to attacks on Iran and its allies.
The release of frozen Iranian assets.
A UN security council resolution making any deal binding.
Those all seem....unlikely to be agreed to by the Administration. Which makes it puzzling that Trump would say that the 10-point plan will be the basis of the final agreement.
So I think we're in a position where anything might be going on. We might be heading into a deal that's very favorable to the U.S. We might be heading into a deal that's very favorable for Iran. We might even be in a position where there isn't any deal at all - the parties might just be mistaking each others' positions and think there's been an agreement where there actually hasn't, because they weren't engaged in the sort of actual diplomatic discussions that have clear lines of communication that minimize such misunderstandings. Or the parties might know that there's no deal, but find it mutually beneficial to act as though there is one so that there can be a ceasefire for a bit.
We don't know. I find Trump's adoption of Iran's 10-point plan as the basis for negotiations baffling, since it really has nothing in it that he wants, but I also wouldn't be shocked if he just made a mistake in his social media post (the dangers of conducting diplomacy through that medium). Certainly it's got Lindsay Graham vibrating. I doubt he thinks Trump has given away the store in exchange for setting up a toll on the Straits but letting the U.S. wet its beak with that sweet, sweet oil and gas money....but he might be concerned that Iran isn't agreeing to give up its nuclear program.
Anyway, we'll see in the next two weeks. It's always two weeks....
