Bad Wars Make for Bad Deals
Iran wins.
Hey everyone. Happy Juneteenth. The New York Knicks are the NBA Champs. But aside from that, we have some big things going on.
Guess who just lost a war with Iran? We did.
Even if you are a long time reader of the Jackal, you may not know what it’s officially billed as: A substack about law, religion, and politics. While foreign policy is inherently political, it’s safe to say I cannot write about it without sounding like butt cheeks. So, for this Jackal I’ll mostly be giving you Should-Reads™ and then some commentary. Let’s start off with the overarching, big news: Donald Trump has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran to extend the current ceasefire for 60 days. It will continue if Iran meets certain goals.1
If you want to read the MOU yourself, it’s right here. But the simple version is this:
No more bang bang between the U.S. and Iran for 60 days.
The Strait of Hormuz is OPEN FOR BUSINESS, and Iran cannot charge tolls or taxes for anyone going through it for the next 60 days.
The U.S. ends its naval blockade of Iranian ships.
No more sanctions on Iran.
The ceasefire also extends to Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out military action.
Iran will get $300 billion in reparations.
Iran will not pursue a nuclear program.
Iran gets to sell its oil.
A final deal gets hammered out over the next 60 days, which can be extended if Iran and the U.S. want it to.
If all of this sounds to you like Iran is making out like a bandit, it’s because they are. The MOU - as written - is a huge capitulation by the U.S., because Iran successfully “nuked” the world’s economy after Trump launched his war of choice against them.
The wildest part of this deal isn’t even the lifting of sanctions or the $300 billion Iran is going to get to rebuild; it’s that the Strait of Hormuz is now effectively under Iran’s control. After the 60 days are up, Iran and other states in the region can negotiate a fee for ships passing through.2
In other words, Trump may have just permanently increased the cost of oil coming out of the Middle East. Shart of the deal.
Sounds like this is all stuff Republicans would normally be mad about.
The GOP is furious. Rolling Stone has a good roundup of people across the Party, but here is Ted Cruz:
History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea. I think the president is receiving some very poor advice on this deal.
Bill Cassidy has a new lease on life following his primary loss for the Senate. Now he isn’t holding back; after calling it the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” he said:
Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.
CNN has another round-up, and their citation to Roger Wicker is pretty wild:
“I am concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the President’s goals,” Wicker wrote in the statement. He said Trump’s plan for a $300 billion fund would make the perks for Iran in a prior deal with then-President Barack Obama “look like a pittance by comparison” — referring to the 2015 deal that he once said was so bad that it was reminiscent of the failed 1938 Munich Accords intended to stop Adolf Hitler.
A sitting Republican is actively calling Trump’s deal with Iran weaker than Obama’s deal. Pretty nuts. Here’s the thing: All of these guys (who many of you probably hate), are actually right! Giving Iran $300 billion for “infrastructure” is insane, because while they’ll use some of it to rebuild what was damaged, they will use the majority of it to build up their military and advance their weapons programs.
I can appreciate the tough spot a lot of these Republicans are in, but there really is a pretty simple solution: Your Party controls all three branches of government. You can initiate impeachment proceedings and link up with Democrats to remove Trump from office. You can do the same thing to remove Trump’s weak, cowardly, useless, dauphin of a vice-president and put Speaker Mike Johnson in the White House. Or, if he doesn’t want to do the job, he could pass it on to Senator Chuck Grassley.
Either of them could negotiate a better deal with Iran! Grassley would probably do a better job than lots of Democrats! It’s right there for the taking.
Most people will say that these are extreme options, but Trump’s approval rating is around 33%. J.D. Vance isn’t all that popular either. And once this deal is finalized, the GOP is going to be tied to it forever, not matter how many angry press releases they put out.
I have been saying it since 2016: Trump is bad for the GOP, but they just can’t quit him.
J.V. Last has the bizarro take on this, which is that Trump knows the GOP is eventually going to come around, so he doesn’t care if the deal is bad:
And here—again—I have to hand it to Trump. He is betting that his dominance of the weaklings in his coalition will quickly overwhelm their momentary rebellion.
I suspect he’ll be correct.
A week from now, a month from now, a year from now, all of the Republicans getting chesty about Trump’s surrender will be back on side. They’ll have forgotten about Iran. Or they’ll be working themselves into a lather about how Jon Ossoff, or whoever the Democratic nominee is, is the most dangerous woke socialist in the history of the planet.
Or maybe some trans girl will win fifth place at a middle school track meet in Marin County. At which point they’ll have no choice!
So long as there is a lib, somewhere, saying something they don’t like, these people will come home. You know it, I know it, the American people know it.
And Trump knows it, too. He’s had their number all along. He still has it today. But it was nice for them to discover real-world consequences, if only for a week. I enjoyed that. Have you?
I think Last is right, especially when you consider that we may have a Supreme Court retirement coming this summer that will eat up the news cycle. The GOP will forget about the disastrous war with Iran, and I bet even the portions of MAGA that Trump scared off with it eventually come around too.
Bill Kristol, on the other hand, has an analysis of what the war has cost us:
The U.S.–Iran Memorandum of Understanding is out, and boy is it as bad as advertised. In exchange for Iran simply agreeing to begin negotiations on its nuclear program and to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz without charging fees for sixty days, America is giving away the farm economically: It will immediately end the blockade, issue waivers to allow Iran to immediately resume selling its oil, and work toward dropping all sanctions on the country—both America’s own and international ones. Not only that: America also agrees to become Iran’s biggest global economic booster, committing to rustle up $300 billion to help Iran rebuild.
Andrew Egger had this to say in the same piece (which has multiple bylines):
You do have to wonder what the Iran hawks—both in Israel and in America—thought was going to happen. In the opening days of the war, these hawks rapturously convinced themselves that Trump had really been one of them all along: willing to get the bit in his teeth and really get after Iran in a way no other president had been willing to do. As it turns out, Trump was more willing to push the big red “Bomb Iran” button on the Resolute Desk not because he was more fearless than past presidents but because he’d given less thought to the obvious costs that would follow. Now that those costs have presented themselves to him, Trump is chickening out—and if you think that means he’s courting geopolitical disaster, he’s adding you to his “fake friends” list.
I have tried to make this point over the past few years: The easiest explanation for why Trump fails so spectacularly is that he is a deeply stupid man. People overcomplicate all of this by trying to do deep analyses, when all you have to do is listen to the guy speak. Here is Trump explaining why he gave this deal to Iran:
So the one thing I didn’t want to see is — I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is, every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. It never went down. They didn’t like it — the people. You know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is.
A caveman thinks like this. Here is his actual reasoning:
I say good thing, stock market go up.
I no want stock market go down.
I keep saying good thing so stock market go up.
Now stock market up so it good thing.
I know I don’t have to explain this to you, but the stock market went up whenever there was talk of a deal because traders wanted a return to what was going on before Trump launched the war.
Being a good president means thinking about things on a deeper level than the stock market, and maybe giving consideration to the long term repercussions your actions will have in the Middle East. Just ask Israel.
Pour one out for Bibi.
No one looks more foolish right now than Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli government, which basically forced Trump into this war. They thought with Trump they’d have someone willing to go the distance with them and topple the Iranian regime, as well as nullify Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In reality, Israel now has a worse relationship with the U.S. and a stronger direct enemy in Iran. Netanyahu looks positively destroyed, and no one deserves it more. He has alligator blood, but this may finally be the end for him in Israeli politics.
Well, at least that’s nice.
That’s really it for the positives. Nate Swanson3 says that even though this deal makes Iran stronger, he thinks there is also a strong likelihood that Iran will overplay its hand, which will bring us back to square one. Here he is in a piece that is paywalled, but it’s free if you sign up for Foreign Affairs:
But whether a final deal is struck or not, Iran has made clear that it intends to impose new restrictions and fees on commercial vessels transiting the strait after the negotiation period ends. Iran’s lead negotiator, Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said outright that “the Strait of Hormuz will never return to its previous condition” and “naturally, we will charge fees in return for the services we provide.”
It is understandable why such an arrangement would tempt Iran. The country suffered immense economic damage during the war, and it is eager to quash any lingering notions that it is weak. But pressing for a status quo that does not fully open the Strait of Hormuz to all maritime traffic without fees or tolls risks undermining Iran’s newfound deterrence and makes a return to conflict more likely. It could upend global shipping permanently and, by accelerating the world’s effort to find alternative routes, lower the costs Iran’s adversaries face in launching a future war. The Strait of Hormuz could thus become the locus of postwar instability. And just as Trump overestimated his strategic advantage when he launched the war, Tehran could be poised to make the same mistake now that the war has ended.
The major problem here remains the Trump Administration. After the 60 days are over, hammering out a sustainable deal is the actual hard part. Does anyone trust them to thread the needle?
Where’s Marco?
One final thought: I am really digging how Marco Rubio has been completely missing from the entirety of the Iran negotiations, and has ceded the floor to J.D. Vance. It is pretty strategic for him, because I think he knows this deal is a disaster and GOP donors will be lining up behind him to contest Vance in 2028.
Vance is probably one of the most cynical people in politics right now, but he is at times super naive; he is out front defending this deal, but his reflex to always back Trump is super misguided here. Maybe he feels he has no choice as the VP, but if you are a Sheldon Adelson or a Fox News talking head, are you looking at Rubio or Vance right now as the frontrunner in 2028?
They’re probably looking at Rubio, but they’ll all be wrong because it’s going to be Eric Trump or Donald Trump, Jr., after they get their father’s blessing. #YOLO
Juneteenth.
Let’s go back to Bill Kristol again, who has a great perspective on Juneteenth. A thing I keep wondering about: Current Republicans constantly remind people that Democrats were the Party who supported slavery in the U.S., but who do you think are more likely to celebrate and support Juneteenth, - a holiday celebrating the end of slavey - Democrats or Republicans?
Birthright citizenship is next week. You know what that means. I’ll see you then.
Of course, news started breaking last night that Iran is not going to abide by the 60-day ceasefire following attacks from Israel in Lebanon. We can wait and see how this all shakes out, but assuming the MOU is honored, this is my #hottake on the deal.
J.D. Vance has repeatedly said claims that Iran gets money immediately as part of the deal are not true. Reality contradicts him.
If Swanson’s name sounds familiar, he is the guy who was working in the Trump Administration and warned that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if we attacked. He was fired after Laura Loomer told Trump to fire him.