Trump’s Iran MOU bamboozle
For all his boasting about winning and a deal with Iran, all Trump has is a memorandum of understanding. It apparently includes a 60-day period when Iran won’t collect tolls in the strait, a cessation of attacks by the US and some inchoate future discussion on buried uranium. And the CIA director has cast public doubt on Iran’s willingness to make concessions on nuclear programs. Josh Marshall thinks Administration hawks are undermining Trump’s exit plan.
“If you go to war to achieve a specific end you don’t end the war before negotiating over that specific end. (The US has many declared ends in its war with Iran – proxies, missiles, etc. – but the nuclear program was always the most central.) You come to an agreement when [your] hand is strongest. The whole point of pushing the negotiation over nuclear weapons to after the conflict but making it seem like an agreement is somehow contained within the ceasefire isn’t a matter of really poor negotiating skills. It’s a ruse that both sides – Iran and the Trump White House – are tacitly cooperating on to give Trump an out to walk away from the war without achieving any of his war aims. In other words, this isn’t Iran outwitting him. (Or they’re not outwitting his negotiators at least.) It’s Trump and Iran agreeing to bamboozle the American people (or at least Trump’s supporters) so he can avoid reckoning with the psychic reality of his defeat and the electoral repercussions of taking the country to war with close to no public support and then screwing it up royally on top of that.
“For what it’s worth, there’s still a non-trivial chance this will fall apart. But Trump’s hawks know what they’re doing pushing his failure to the foreground. It may create too much psychic strain, at which point he’ll sabotage the deal.”
At least the bombing in Iran and the gulf has apparently stopped. If a phony MOU is the price for that, it seems a good thing.
Is the Trump-Iran MOU a ruse?
“If you go to war to achieve a specific end you don’t end the war before negotiating over that specific end. (The US has many declared ends in its war with Iran – proxies, missiles, etc. – but the nuclear program was always the most central.) You come to an agreement when [your] hand is strongest. The whole point of pushing the negotiation over nuclear weapons to after the conflict but making it seem like an agreement is somehow contained within the ceasefire isn’t a matter of really poor negotiating skills. It’s a ruse that both sides – Iran and the Trump White House – are tacitly cooperating on to give Trump an out to walk away from the war without achieving any of his war aims. In other words, this isn’t Iran outwitting him. (Or they’re not outwitting his negotiators at least.) It’s Trump and Iran agreeing to bamboozle the American people (or at least Trump’s supporters) so he can avoid reckoning with the psychic reality of his defeat and the electoral repercussions of taking the country to war with close to no public support and then screwing it up royally on top of that.
“For what it’s worth, there’s still a non-trivial chance this will fall apart. But Trump’s hawks know what they’re doing pushing his failure to the foreground. It may create too much psychic strain, at which point he’ll sabotage the deal.”
At least the bombing in Iran and the gulf has apparently stopped. If a phony MOU is the price for that, it seems a good thing.
Is the Trump-Iran MOU a ruse?
Get a deal done and send it to the Senate by mid-August. Give those men and women something important to work on before they leave to campaign for the election.
@Eric,
LOL! There won’t be a deal in 60 days or in 160 days. There won’t be anything for the Senate to vote on re:Iran. The MOU is just a smokescreen to disguise the fact that Trump picked a fight and lost, leaving the nation and the world worse off. He’s just hoping the smoke lingers through November.
Joel:
He blew it. There is a history of such happening before, Iranians will delay coming to the table forever.