In his appearance on the Tuesday edition of “Fox and Friends,” Vice President JD Vance had a complaint: “Iranian propaganda,” he said, is misleading observers regarding the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, signed by the United States and Iran earlier this week.
“Some elements in their society,” Vance said, “are trying to sell this deal as positively as possible to their domestic audience.”
Ironically, Vance’s complaint was an accurate description of the failing sales pitch that he and Trump have made for the deal. The White House agreed to this ceasefire extension that met none of its prewar objectives while providing enormous financial concessions to Tehran. Now, the administration is desperately trying to argue otherwise. Quite simply, Trump got played by the Iranians, and no one is buying his spin job.
Before the conflict began, the Strait of Hormuz was open and free of charge. This agreement simply reaffirms the prewar status quo.
The most telling sign that the ceasefire deal is a dud is the White House waited until Wednesday to share the text of the MOU. (The Iranian government has not confirmed the text is accurate.) It wasn’t sent to Congress; even the Israeli government, which fought alongside the U.S., struggled to get a copy. As Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen noted, if the deal was “so great, wouldn’t the president have printed it on gold leaf paper and sent it out to all of us?”
Before finally sharing the text, the White House released a set of talking points on Tuesday that only highlighted the deal’s failings and the calamitous decision to go to war in the first place.
For example, the first talking point says, “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. President Trump drew that line and enforced it when no other president would.”
This language is purely aspirational, lacking any indication of how the U.S. will ensure that Iran will not have a nuclear weapons. And let’s compare that sentence with a sentence from the first paragraph of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA, signed by the Obama administration and Iran in July 2015: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapon.”
The key difference between that agreement and the MOU is that the JCPOA had a host of verification and enforcement provisions, to which Iran was adhering before Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal in 2018. While the MOU allows for negotiations between the two countries on the nuclear issue, the U.S. now has far less strategic leverage. According to Vance, the MOU deal means Iran will allow nuclear inspectors back into the country. Aside from the fact that nuclear inspections were a crucial element of the JCPOA, there’s nothing in the MOU to support the vice president’s claim. Why would the Iranian government offer such a concession when its leaders can play for time, fully aware that the U.S. has no appetite for another wave of military strikes?
The White House’s second talking point was, “President Trump ended the fighting on every front, including Lebanon.” Given that Trump initiated the war with Iran, this is like an arsonist boasting that he put out the fire that he started. Moreover, one of the White House’s stated rationales for the war was to end Tehran’s support for terrorist proxies like Hezbollah. Yet, in its desperation to reach a deal, the U.S. pressured Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah. In fact, the MOU calls for “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” This is yet another win for Iran.
Unfreezing money for Iran is a reward for the regime, and a direct result of the war that the U.S. initiated.
The third talking point — “The Strait of Hormuz is open again, free of charge” — suffers from a similar problem to the second: Before the conflict began, the Strait of Hormuz was open and free of charge. This agreement simply reaffirms the prewar status quo. If anything, the war has demonstrated to Iran that shutting off maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf is an easy and highly effective way to hold the global economy hostage. That certainly could come in handy if the U.S. or Israel ever decides to attack them again.
The fourth talking point is also bogus: “Iran’s rewards come from its own frozen money, not from taxpayers, and only after it performs.” Unfreezing money for Iran is a reward for the regime, and a direct result of the war that the U.S. initiated. And according to the MOU, the U.S. and “regional partners” are committing to the creation of “a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The final talking point is the easiest to dispense with: “Obama never even got a signed document. President Trump did, from strength, after dismantling Iran’s program.” Iran’s program is not dismantled, and, in fact, Obama did get a “signed document” — the JCPOA.
There is no mention in the White House talking points or the MOU about Iran’s missile program or its support for regional terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and Iraq. When Trump announced the beginning of military strikes on Iran almost four months ago, he cited curtailing Iran’s missile arsenal and ending its support for terrorist groups as two of the key military objectives of the war. But at a press conference on Wednesday, Trump said, “Missiles aren’t the problem. Missiles, they hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet.”
Make no mistake, this is a far better deal for the Iranian government than the one it negotiated during the Obama administration — the same agreement that Trump and his allies spent years deriding. To sum up, after nearly four months, Trump has made a deal that strengthens Iran’s position in the region (including its leverage over the Persian Gulf), seemingly provides the tyrannical regime with billions of dollars in reconstruction aid and unfrozen assets and does nothing to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions or its missile capabilities.
It’s no wonder the White House’s spin is falling on deaf ears.
Michael A. Cohen
Michael Cohen is the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast “That ‘70s Movie Podcast.”