As the war with Iran has eased into something of a hot ceasefire, with the two sides exchanging occasional blows as a peace deal is negotiated, the American Conservative has a dismal assessment of President Donald Trump’s performance: the outcome he’s arriving at appears to be “beyond parody.”
Citing recent reports from Axios on the state of Trump’s peace deal negotiations, the American Conservative contributor Anik Joshi notes that “the deal will have the same core ingredients as the one negotiated by President Barack Obama and signed in 2015 that the U.S. later left — some kind of financial/sanctions relief in exchange for verification of promises not to pursue a weapons program.” These two aspects are vital, but ignore many other considerations that are essential to the war, like the activities of regional proxies. But to bring these other elements into the debate risks sidelining the core nuclear issue, which could tank efforts for a deal altogether.
“This was exactly what helped nearly sink the original JCPOA in Congress,” writes Joshi. “There was significant opposition to all the things the deal didn’t do. There was also much opposition to what it actually did — contempt for sunset clauses, for the fact that the deal would require some level of trust in addition to verification, and for arguments against any kind of financial relief for a regime some saw as illegitimate.”
His conclusion is not optimistic: “Nearly a decade later, with oil prices sky-high, it is beyond parody that we are back to where this all began, except this time with a massive war as a kickoff rather than negotiations.”
Joshi is quick to note that negotiations are still worth pursuing as “the goal remains a quick end to the war before it has a chance to become another quagmire and cause sustained economic damage.” He does warn, however, that “that window closes more with each passing day.” With that in mind, he argues that the administration should focus on the most pressing issues and be willing to leave “nice-to-haves” on the table for a later date while addressing the “must-haves” now.
While Joshi does think that the US is arguing from a position of power — an assessment that many analysts do not share — he does warn that “the country is still not in a position to impose its will on the Iranian government, and any kind of agreement will need to be give-and-take. As a function of that, it will contain the same key ingredients as the JCPOA with differences of degree far more than differences of type. There has been no unconditional surrender, and as such it is effectively impossible to impose unilateral terms, especially when the Iranians have shown what they’re capable of doing to maritime passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
At the moment, Trump is walking a tightrope between Iran hawks who demand maximal concessions and Republicans who just want the war to end. To bring about the latter, says Joshi, the president will likely have to anger the former.
“If the government is serious about a deal,” notes Joshi, “it will require disappointing hawkish supporters, and the administration should steel itself for that sooner rather than later.”